Frankenstein's Monster (20 page)

Less than half of the journal has been filled. None of the entries are dated. I can read only a few at a time; Walton’s anger fills me with too much of my own:

    
Margaret does not
, can
not understand. Would I have her see me as I now am? She would not recognize me. She claims to be in despair, yet has roused herself enough to act and take solace in another, too readily I think. She says it is for the girl’s sake she goes north. I had thought she would always keep the light in my old bedroom lit. But now in the north, there is no light lit for my return
.

The monster has been spotted! This time I will not fail
.

Some days I am the Hand of God, carrying out His will. Other days I am the creature’s shadow, following it in doomed mimicry
.

Once I was a reasonable man. I have found there is an end of reason
.

My face is setting itself into a mask of insanity, for it is far easier to present that mask to the world than what lies beneath. I am a wretch, unnatural and forsaken by God. I cannot destroy the unnatural in me and so I turn it outward. That is why I pursue this thing, and pursue it mindlessly lest I take a second to think. It is as much a wretch as I am, and perhaps in more-innocent ways. I should have pity for it, but pity would weaken me
.

Detouring southwest to go to the Orkneys grates on me, but yesterday I found my decision justified. It was sunset, and we were about to leave the thickly wooded area where we had spent the day. Hearing whistling, I crept to the road and saw a man walking in my direction. Before I could attack him and take his purse, several men on horseback overtook him and demanded to know: Had he seen a young woman in a white lace gown? Had he seen a huge, terrifying freak?

The man answered no, though his curiosity was stirred.

“He cannot still be ahead of us,” said one rider to the others.

“Perhaps he intends to try for London,” said another.

“From this far west? I think he’s taken one of the smaller roads.”

“No. He waits for us to give up and will try to cross the Tweed.”

Two riders decided to continue south and later separate to search the smaller roads. Whipping their horses, the others returned north to post extra guards along the Tweed.

I crept back to the carriage.

“We will remain here for the night,” I told Lily. “There are riders both north and south of us on this road. They are still searching for you.”

“No. They are bent on catching
you
, not rescuing me. They presume I am dead, and rightly so, given that you are such a beast.”

“You must be tired of provoking me. Here is your opportunity to leave. Take it. Go.”

“I was going to do that very thing,” she said. “But since you bid me leave with so much enthusiasm, I will not.”

Containing my aggravation, which would only guarantee that she would never quit me, I led the horse through the trees. About half an hour later, Lily pointed.

“Through there, Victor!” she commanded.

We had come to a village. I refused to bring the carriage farther.

“We cannot stop in the woods,” she complained. “I am hungry. You have only given me dug-up roots and water from a spring.”

“You could not have been so hungry, for you did not eat even that.”

“I am not a savage like you,” she retorted. “I need a sweet pudding or perhaps cake with citron and currants.”

“You only want those things. What you need would have been well provided by the turnips I’d found.”

“Then you have forced me to beg.”

She stepped from the carriage, took my hand, and tried to walk toward the lights. I held back.

“Come with me,” she sweetly coaxed. “Protect me.”

Her lightheartedness was both vexing and confusing. Did she wish to entrap me or did she really not understand the danger?

“Together we will attract more attention,” I said.

“Then I will go alone!”

She smacked the horse on its flank. While I restrained it from bolting, she ran from me toward the village. A lone man was walking down a path and she hailed him.

It is over now, I thought. He will have heard of us. He will know at once who she is. My muscles tensed in anticipation of flight.

I could not hear what Lily asked. In answer, the man pointed toward one of the thatched houses. She hurried to the front of it and knocked. Apparently ignorant of who she was, the man continued on his way down the path.

After tying the reins, I crept closer. I was unable to hear what pitiful tale Lily told; I only saw great gesticulations on her part and a baffled expression on the face of her audience, an older woman with white hair, arms floury to her elbows. The woman shut the door. Lily stamped her foot and knocked at a second cottage. Again she was refused.

“They are a selfish lot,” Lily said, seeing me. “What is a slice of cake to them?”

“Come, before they make a public complaint.”

She knocked at a third house before I could leave. The door opened so quickly I could scarcely step to the side. For the first time I heard her story.

“I am so sorry to trouble you,” she said, anxious and apologetic. “My friend and I are part of a group traveling to London. We became separated in a terrible storm. Until we catch up with them, we have nothing. Might you spare us cake?”

While her story was one of woe, her voice and face conveyed near hilarity. I no longer wondered why doors had closed on her. What was this strange mood?

“What sort of group was it?” asked a young voice.

“Oh!” Lily waved dramatically. “A theatrical group! Actors and acrobats, magicians, sword swallowers, singers,
dwarves—and a giant! Please? My friend and I are very hungry.”

“Your friend? I see no one else.”

“He’s very shy.” Lily waved to me. “Victor, come here,” she urged. I peered round the corner of the house. Peering back was a young woman; a girl, really. She had a broad blotchy face and tangled brown hair, and she carried a child on her hip. From within the cottage came the whimper of an infant.

Even from the shadows, my cloaked figure made the girl’s eyes pop, so that she resembled a strange bug.

“The giant?” she asked.

“Him? Oh no,” Lily said scornfully. “He’s just one of the actors. A very bad one. He seldom gets a role.”

“But he’s so tall!”

“He’s nothing compared to our giant.”

“Why is his face covered?”

“He’s so handsome he attracts too much attention. It’s wonderful on the stage—no one notices his acting then—but it’s quite a nuisance the rest of the time.”

I stood mute with incredulity.

The girl stared at me openmouthed. Then she sighed and her eyes grew distant. “I always fancied myself on the stage,” she said, her face turning deep pink. “I sing.”

“Do you?” Lily asked pleasantly.

“Oh yes, but …” She lifted the child up as explanation.

“Well, we would enjoy listening to you,” Lily said. “Perhaps over tea and cake?”

The girl shifted the child from one hip to the other. Her face was a transparent working of opposite emotions. Clearly we were strangers of questionable status, not to be trusted, perhaps not even to be talked to … and yet … she understood, she thought, our ragtag actors’ life. Decision settled over her features.

“There’s a cottage in back,” she said, the words tumbling out. “Just the one room. I’ve been meaning to bring Mum up from Spennymoor to stay with us, though Harry says we’d be better off letting it out, profitable, you see, and quieter too, for Mum likes to talk, but I guess it would do no harm if you wanted to stop the night there—if you’re very quiet—and get a bit of food too and—and—”

“Hear you sing?” Lily asked.

The girl smiled a gap-toothed grin.

“And Harry—will he cause me trouble?”

“Harry will—” The girl’s mouth closed, her cheeks darkened, and her eyes slid to the side. “There’ll be no trouble, only you must be quiet,” she whispered. “Harry’s not the sociable sort. I can sing for you now because he’s not home, and besides I’m always singing to myself, like. But he’s not fond of company. I won’t even mention you’re here when he comes back, and then he won’t know, will he? Because you’ll be quiet?”

The girl was so clearly without guile, I did not fear a trap, only that she might speak a loose word. But each time she referred to Harry, there was something in her bearing that assured me she would mention us to neither him nor even her neighbors. Slowly I understood how much she was risking to have her song heard.

The cottage was little more than a hut with a dirt floor with a smell that indicated animals had been kept in it. But it did have a fireplace and was warm and dry.

While Lily used the privy, the girl returned with bowls of steaming stew and chunks of bread; I pocketed the latter for tomorrow. Setting down the tray, she stammered, “I’m Cassie Cooper. I mean, Cassie Burke, Mrs. Burke.” Misery was plain on her face. She was as young as I had supposed, perhaps sixteen, but her waist was thick, her skin was rough, and deep
creases showed on either side of her mouth: life had already set its mark on her.

“I am Victor … Victor Hartmann.” I was no more familiar with my name than she was with hers.

She nodded that quick bobbing nod.

“Sir, you are really the giant, aren’t you? Why does your friend tease you?”

“I don’t know why she says such things.”

Cassie nodded again, with as much feeling as one might put into a nod, as if she, too, did not understand what caused people to act.

“And”—her glance up at me was furtive—“you don’t wear that hood because you’re too handsome, do you?”

I shook my head.

The words burst from her: “Once, Harry said he’d put an oat bag on my head before he’d let me in bed. That was my fault, you see, because I cried so hard at a sad story I once heard and had just remembered after years and years, and it made me all red and puffy.”

Twisting her apron, she stopped speaking as suddenly as she had started.

“Even a queen cannot cry without reddening her eyes,” I said.

“The queen?” Cassie at once forgot her distress. “Have you seen her? I don’t mean, have you seen her cry, for she never does, she mustn’t! But have you seen the queen at all? Oh!”

Lily had appeared at the door. Perhaps recognizing the arrogance in her posture, the girl half-curtsied.

“What tales are you telling, Victor?” Lily asked. “Of your many audiences with the queen?” Her voice was now sullen and mean-spirited.

“I brought you something to eat, miss,” Cassie said.

Lily settled on the floor. She prodded at the bowl’s lumpy
contents, pursing her lips with distaste. She pushed the bowl aside.

“I asked for cake. I cannot even give this a name.”

“It is food from her children’s mouths,” I said tightly. “Thank you, Mrs. Burke.”

“Oh, your dress is so beautiful, miss,” Cassie said, rushing into the silence. “Why, it puts me in mind of a wedding. You must have been playing at being a bride when the storm came, and that’s why the dress is dirty and torn. You’ll need a new costume when you meet up with your group again, while this one is being repaired.”