European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman

by Theodora Goss

  Should she go around by Marylebone Road? But her feet were already taking her the accustomed way: through Regent’s Park, where Mrs. Poole had taken her to play as a child, and later she had walked with her governess, Miss Murray, reciting the dates of the English kings. The park had been a constant part of her life. Even on days when her mother had been particularly ill, when Nurse Adams had grumbled and Enid the parlormaid had sniffled, and she had not dared leave the house in case her mother had one of her fits, she had been able to see the green tops of its trees over the houses across Park Terrace, waving in the wind. Now she walked along the paths beneath those trees, remembering the day, three months ago, when she had walked from 11 Park Terrace to 221B Baker Street for the first time.

  Then, as now, she had been carrying important documents. Three months ago, they had been the documents she had received after her mother’s death—her father’s laboratory notebook, his letters and receipts, and an account book detailing payments for “the care and keeping of Hyde.” She had been convinced those payments would lead her to the notorious Mr. Hyde, her father’s former laboratory assistant, who was wanted for the murder of Sir Danvers Carew, a member of Parliament and prominent supporter of Irish Home Rule. But no, they had led her to Diana, Hyde’s child, who had been raised in the Society of St. Mary Magdalen, a home for magdalenes—fallen women who were trying to reform amid the corruption and vice of London. Such women deserve much better than the opprobrium they are met with in society, and in the halls of power! No, Mary, I’m not turning this into a political tract. But you know perfectly well how women like Diana’s mother are treated. And remember those poor dead women whose murders we solved, but whose lives we could not save. Remember Molly Keane, lying on the pavement with blood pooling around her head . . . The image still haunted Mary at night.

  BEATRICE: Did it really?

  MARY: Yes. Even now, it still gives me nightmares.

  Her father’s papers had revealed that the respectable Dr. Jekyll was Hyde, and that his chemical experiments had a deeper, darker purpose. He had been a member of the Société des Alchimistes, a secret society whose adherents continued the research of the medieval alchemists into the transmutation of matter. However, in the nineteenth century they were attempting to transmute, not base metal into gold, but living flesh into—what? Her inquiries had led her to Beatrice, exhibited at the Royal College of Surgeons as a scientific marvel, the Poisonous Girl. Beatrice had told her and Diana about the Alchemical Society and the experiments on young women conducted by certain of its members—Dr. Rappaccini and Dr. Moreau. Then she had led them to Catherine and Justine, who had been working in the sideshow of Lorenzo’s Circus of Marvels and Delights in Battersea Park.

  Here Mary stopped to touch a rose, still blooming although it was late August. She bent down to smell it—but it was one of the new hybrids, lacking the old rose scent. No wonder it was blooming out of season. She drew her head back quickly—at its center was a black beetle that had already eaten through some of the petals, leaving the heart of the flower ragged. How could life be so beautiful and yet contain such evil in it? She did not know. Regent’s Park basked peacefully under the sun, yet out there, in London itself, were horrors enough for any number of penny dreadfuls.

  She was grateful that Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson had helped them, as the members of the Athena Club had helped the famous detective solve the Whitechapel Murders. A series of fallen women had been murdered in the vicinity of Whitechapel, each missing a part of her body: legs, arms, head. Following the clues to their logical conclusion, they had learned that Hyde was still alive and involved in the murders, acting at the behest of that monster—Adam. Mary shuddered to think of Victor Frankenstein’s original creation, who had loved Justine with such a cruel, sick love that he had attempted to recreate her with parts of other women—and then attempted to replace her brain with one that might love him in return. How thankful she was that he had met a fiery death!

  But Hyde—she could not acknowledge him as her father—had escaped from Newgate Prison itself, and Mrs. Raymond, the corrupt director of the Magdalen Society, remained beyond the reach of the law. These adventures, and more, are detailed in The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter, the first of these adventures of the Athena Club, only two shillings at all the best booksellers.

  MARY: That’s rather clever of you, inserting an advertisement. But you haven’t mentioned Mr. Prendick, who was also working for Adam, creating Beast Men.

  CATHERINE: I don’t want to think about him.

  And now she had arrived once again at Baker Street, with the cries of the costermongers in her ears—Onions! Lovely onions!—Apples! Ha’penny a lot, apples!—Old shoes, patched as good as new!—Once again, she wanted Mr. Holmes’s advice.

  She crossed Baker Street and rang the bell at 221B. The door was opened almost immediately by Mrs. Hudson.

  “Oh, Miss Jekyll, good morning! Do come in. They’ve been uncommon quiet up there, which means they’re working on something, although goodness knows what.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Hudson,” said Mary. “Mrs. Poole sends her best regards and a recipe for quince jam that I’m told is a sort of state secret.” She pulled it out of her purse—no, that was the letter. Behind the letter . . . there it was, a folded slip of paper with Mrs. Poole’s handwriting on it. She handed the recipe to Mrs. Hudson. “Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .” She rather liked exchanging pleasantries with Mrs. Hudson, but this morning she was in a hurry.

  “And how is Alice? I knitted a pair of stockings for her, if you wouldn’t mind taking them over, miss—”

  “Not at all, Mrs. Hudson. I’ll get them from you later!” Mary hurried up the stairs to the second floor.

  She knocked on the door of the flat, then entered. It was always left unlocked for her on weekday mornings, whether Holmes and Watson were there or not. Usually they were, just finishing their breakfast, but occasionally they would be away on one of Mr. Holmes’s cases. She had participated in a few of them herself—not as many as she would have liked, and Watson had not mentioned her in any of his accounts except occasionally as “a lady” who had done one thing or another. A lady whose chance remark had reminded Holmes of a clue (no mention that at the time, she had been pointing a revolver at the baronet who committed the murder), or who had collided with the absconding clerk at an opportune moment (although the collision was of course deliberate). She did not mind . . . much. What would Mrs. Poole think if she were featured in a Sherlock Holmes case in The Strand?

  MRS. POOLE: What indeed! Your poor mother would be spinning in her grave. Not that Miss Moreau writing these books is any better. Gallivanting around Europe is one thing, but writing about it . . . It’s not ladylike, is all I say.

  BEATRICE: Neither is agitating for the vote, Mrs. Poole, yet you accompanied me to that suffrage rally and almost got yourself arrested!

  MRS. POOLE: Well, men have been running this country for the last thousand years, and where has it gotten us? It’s time women had a say in what goes on.

  The parlor looked as it always did—an organized shambles, more organized since she had taken over keeping the records of Mr. Holmes’s cases, the notes for his monographs, his files on famous crimes . . . The shelves were filled with books that overflowed onto the floor. On one side of the room was a long table covered with the scientific instruments necessary for Holmes’s investigations, including a Bunsen burner and microscope. On the shelves behind it were specimen jars with parts of bodies swimming in them—mostly ears. By the window stood a camera on a tripod. On the other side of the room, on the mantelpiece, were skulls of various physiognomic types, all human except the last, which was that of an ape. This morning it sported Holmes’s deerstalker cap.

  Lying on the sofa was the man himself, Sherlock Holmes, smoking a pipe. Dr. Watson sat in one of the armchairs, reading The Times.

  “Ah, good morning, Miss Jekyll,” said Holmes. “We had some excitement over the weekend and missed you
r assistance. It was the case of Mr. Lydgate, the Hounslow butcher accused of murdering his daughter and cutting her up like one of his carcasses. Watson did his best, but I could have used a lady’s hand to retrieve the murder weapon from a drainpipe into which the murderer had jammed it. Instead, we had to use a pair of fireplace tongs, and even then we almost lost it down the drain.”

  “And of course your insights, Miss Jekyll,” said Watson. “I assure you, we do not value you solely for the smallness of your hand. You cannot be replaced with fireplace tongs.”

  “You are both in very good humor this morning,” said Mary. “I deduce, following the precepts of Mr. Holmes himself, that you solved the case of poor Mr. Lydgate and delivered your murderer to Inspector Lestrade. Probably with a ribbon tied around him, like a Christmas present.”

  “Ha! She’s got us,” said Holmes, sitting up and giving one of his rare smiles. Mary had long ago told them not to stand when she entered the room, any more than they would have stood for Charlie or another one of the Baker Street boys. She could not work with them if they were continually bobbing up and down like apples in a bucket. “We wrapped him up in red ribbon and drove him to Scotland Yard ourselves. And it was not Lydgate, as you have no doubt guessed, but the local Reverend, who had gone completely mad by the time we got to him, insisting that he had been sent to divide the sheep from the goats, and poor Amelia Lydgate was a goat, ready for slaughter. Evidently he had seen her with one of his curates in a compromising position, and decided he had been divinely appointed as an instrument of the Almighty. I have no doubt that he would have gone on to commit another murder—the mania had taken hold.”

  “The man will be sent to Broadmoor, no doubt,” said Watson.

  “But for the present, we have no pressing cases on hand. There is something—but no, it’s not worth discussing yet. So today we might work on that disquisition on ears I hope to present at the meeting of the Anthropological Institute. Ears, as you know, are my fascination.”

  “Indeed, how can one not be fascinated by ears?” said Mary, trying not to smile. She could not quite tell whether he was joking—he did it so rarely. Now was the time to show him the letter and ask for his advice . . . as well as time off. After all, she would be leaving for Vienna in little more than a week.

  “What is it, Miss Jekyll? Out with it. There’s something you mean to say.” Holmes looked at her expectantly. It always bothered her, just a little, that he seemed able to tell when something was on her mind. Was it her expression?

  “And do sit,” said Watson. “Wait, let me move that pile of books. You haven’t even taken off your hat, and already Holmes has started on one of his hobbyhorses.”

  Mary took off her hat and placed it atop one of the skulls on the mantelpiece—the one representing the highest intellectual type. She put her gloves on the mantle, with her purse beside them, taking out the envelope with Lucinda Van Helsing’s letter. Then, she sat in the armchair Watson had cleared for her, uncertain how to start. Ah, of course Mr. Holmes could tell something was different today—usually she took off her jacket and got right to work. Even Dr. Watson had noticed. How to begin? At the beginning, as the King of Hearts said in Alice in Wonderland.

  Holmes looked at her keenly, like a hawk sighting its prey.

  DIANA: Oh please!

  BEATRICE: He does look like that, actually. It’s rather frightening, until you realize what a gentle man he is.

  DIANA: When he’s not shooting someone.

  “When I was a child,” she began, “I had a governess named Miss Wilhelmina Murray. She came shortly after my father’s death and left just before my fourteenth birthday. As my mother’s illness progressed and she required the constant presence of a nurse, I could no longer afford a governess, and anyway Miss Murray had been offered a position at a prestigious girls’ school up north, which I encouraged her to take. After she left, we kept in touch by letter, and I always thought of her as a friend.” Miss Murray had been her one intellectual companion, the only person who had ever truly encouraged Mary to develop her mental capacities, suggesting books to read, telling her about the world beyond her doorstep. If not for Miss Murray, who would she be now? Certainly not the Mary Jekyll she had become.

  “After the events of this past summer, when we solved the Whitechapel Murders and the other girls moved in—after we formed the Athena Club—I wrote to her. I told her everything. And she wrote back. My letter had taken a while to reach her—she was no longer at that school, or even in England. The letter found her in Vienna, for reasons she did not have time to explain. But enclosed with her letter was this.” She held up the sheet of paper, with its elegant, foreign handwriting, and read:

  Dear Miss Jekyll,

  Our mutual friend Miss Murray has told me who you are, and of the Athena Club. You do not know me, but I take the great, the very great, liberty of asking you to help me in my dire need. I am the daughter of Professor Abraham Van Helsing, a doctor and researcher associated with several important universities, in England and on the continent. My father is also a prominent member of a certain Société des Alchimistes. Miss Murray has assured me that you know of this society, and that you and your fellow club members are aware of its activities. I am, against my will and sometimes without my knowledge, the subject of certain experiments carried out by my father. As I result, I am . . . changing. And I am afraid. The one person who could protect me, my mother, is locked away in an asylum for the insane. I am not yet of age, and have no resources of my own or friends to whom I could turn. I do not know what to do. Please, if you can, help me, I beg of you.

  Lucinda Van Helsing

  Vienna, Austria

  When Mary finished reading, she looked up at Holmes, then at Watson. Holmes’s eyes were narrowed, his chin on his hands, pipe on the table beside the bedroom slipper that served as an ashtray. It was still burning—well, that would be another mark Mrs. Hudson would shake her head over. Watson was regarding her with astonishment and dismay.

  “My God, Miss Jekyll! They’re at it again, aren’t they? This is another of their abominable experiments. But the last we heard, Van Helsing was in Amsterdam, where he is a professor at the university, holding appointments in both law and medicine. That, at least, we have been able to discover. Why would his daughter be in Vienna?”

  “When did you receive this letter?” asked Holmes.

  “A little more than a week ago. I did not bring it over directly because we had to discuss it first—the Athena Club, you know. I’m sure you understand, Mr. Holmes.” Actually, she was not at all sure he would. She had been bracing herself for his displeasure.

  He frowned. “I am as interested in the doings of the Société des Alchimistes as you are, Miss Jekyll. I wish you had brought me this letter immediately, rather than waiting more than a week, particularly as it concerns Van Helsing, whom we know is a prominent member of the society. You should have brought it at once.”

  “No, Mr. Holmes.” She sat up straighter, if that was possible (our Mary always sits up straight). There was the response she had expected, but he needed to understand and respect that she made her own decisions. “Your interest is as a detective—you wish to prevent the society from committing further crimes. Our interest—that is, the interest of the Athena Club—is personal. Lucinda Van Helsing is one of us, and we mean to rescue her. We’re preparing to leave for Vienna—I plan to go, and Justine and Catherine will accompany me.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Mary saw Watson raise a hand and open his mouth—he was going to protest, wasn’t he?

  “Dr. Watson, if you are about to lecture me on how a group of young ladies can’t possibly go off to Vienna to rescue one of their own who is in trouble, I shall remind you of the night we stood outside a warehouse at the London docks, preparing to rescue Justine from Adam Frankenstein. We acquitted ourselves quite admirably, I think. So please don’t bother.”

  Watson slouched back into his chair, looking nonplussed. Had she been too hard on h
im?

  “I have no intention of lecturing you, Miss Jekyll,” said Holmes. “So may I be permitted to continue?” He looked . . . well, more amused than anything else.

  “Certainly,” said Mary. At least he did not seem angry. But there was nothing amusing about this situation.

  “If I were free, I would offer to accompany you, Miss Moreau, and Miss Frankenstein. That is, if you would allow it.” Here he bowed, but Mary did not believe in this display of humility. When had he ever been humble? “However, I am needed here. There is a matter—not this matter of the Société des Alchimistes, but the one I alluded to earlier. It is something my brother Mycroft has brought to my attention.”

  His brother? Holmes had a brother? It suddenly occurred to Mary that he must have had a mother and father—like ordinary human beings. Of course he must have—he couldn’t, after all, have hatched out of an egg!

  DIANA: Although if he had, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

  Sometimes it was so easy to see him as some sort of walking, talking automaton. A processor of information, rather than a man.

  “. . . not certain what it is yet,” he continued, and she realized that for a moment, her attention had slipped. How unlike her! “Mycroft does not resemble me, either physically or in inclination. He does not go to and fro upon the earth, making mischief, as Inspector Lestrade calls it, searching for information among the criminal elements. No, he is like a spider in its web. Information comes to him, and when he finds it, he keeps it, often until the right time to act. And he never acts himself, only through others—several times, he has acted through me. A spider, to continue the metaphor, can feel when there is some other insect on its web. That is what Mycroft has described to me—nothing more than faint vibrations on a string. But when my brother asks me to stay in London, I know there is something important afoot. And I need Watson here with me, particularly since I am about to lose you . . . I cannot do without one or the other of you. So no, Watson, you may not indulge your chivalrous desire to accompany Miss Jekyll and her fellow Athenians to Mitteleuropa, although I see it written on your face. It may console you a bit that evidently Miss Rappaccini is staying here.”