European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman

by Theodora Goss

  Once again, she heard cursing—the man in the window? Quickly, she looked up, but could not see him. She glanced around. Justine was fighting one of the men—Justine, fighting? When did Justine ever have to fight? With her strength, she could overpower any man in a minute. And there, by the fountain, was another of them—Greta was there as well, taking aim, but then Diana leaped on him with her knife. Stupid, foolhardy Diana! Why couldn’t she let Greta handle it? He swatted Diana with the back of his hand as though she were a fly. She flew back onto the pavement, landing in a crumpled heap by the fountain. Diana! Was she all right?

  “Mary, bandages!” shouted Irene. “Lucinda is down. Do you still have bullets? I’m out, and Justine needs help.” Irene was running toward her. Behind her lay two of the men, dead. How many of them were still standing? Mary had no idea.

  “Two bullets left,” she said, holding out her revolver. Bandages, she thought. Of course, for Lucinda.

  Irene grabbed the revolver and ran back to where Justine was still fighting—still? How strong were these mysterious assailants, who could match the Giantess in strength, who could take two bullets and keep coming?

  But there was no time to think about that now. Mary tore strips from her petticoat—well, there went another petticoat!—and began to bandage Lucinda’s shoulder. “Hold still!” she said. “You’re badly injured—you need to hold still, or you’ll lose too much blood. You don’t want to die, do you?”

  “Mijn moeder!” said Lucinda, holding out her hand. Mary looked up. Mrs. Van Helsing crouched over the man who had attacked her daughter. What was she doing? Mary could not see . . . There was a horrible tearing sound. Mrs. Van Helsing raised her head and—her mouth! It was covered with blood. Then she fell back onto the pavement, with her arms sprawled out.

  “Moeder!” cried Lucinda. Without waiting for Mary to finish bandaging her shoulder, she leaped forward and knelt by her mother’s side.

  “Wait—” Mary followed her. Lucinda was holding her mother’s hand. Mrs. Van Helsing’s eyes were open, but it was obvious that she was fearfully wounded—her neck was a mess of blood.

  “Ik hou van jou, mijn dochter, mijn liefste,” she whispered to Lucinda. And then she closed her eyes.

  “Nee! Moeder, nee!” Lucinda screamed and fell forward onto her mother’s body. She was sobbing—heavy, wracking sobs. Mary lifted Mrs. Van Helsing’s wrist—no, nothing. No pulse, no sign of life. What in the world could she do? She still needed to bandage Lucinda’s shoulder, or the girl might die as well from loss of blood.

  “We need to get out of here,” said Irene, just behind her. “Is Mrs. Van Helsing—”

  “Dead,” said Mary. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Damn and double damn. I should have—I don’t know what. But they were so strong! We’ve got them all—Greta shot the last one—but I think the police are coming.” Irene put Mary’s revolver in her pocket. “Can you take care of Lucinda? We need to get out of here.”

  “I’ll carry Mrs. Van Helsing,” said Justine. Mary turned—there were Justine, Greta, and Diana. Still standing, although Diana had a red welt on one side of her face.

  “All right,” she said. How in the world was she supposed to take care of this girl, doubled over and sobbing as though her heart were broken—as it probably was? She had a sudden and vivid recollection of the night she had sat silently, for hours, by her mother’s dead body, with Mrs. Poole occasionally patting her hand. “Come on,” she said to Lucinda, taking her by one arm. “Please, I need to finish bandaging your shoulder.”

  As gently as though she were lifting a flower, Justine picked up Mrs. Van Helsing.

  Lucinda looked up. In the first light of dawn, her face was a horrifying sight—so pale, smeared with blood and tears. She held out one hand, as though reaching out to Mrs. Van Helsing, then dropped it back into her lap. In a voice filled with despair, she said, “My mother has died the true death.”

  “Come on,” said Irene. “If the Viennese police find us here, we’re all going to be arrested, and we don’t have time to spend breaking out of prison. We need to get out of here now.”

  Mary held Lucinda’s arm, half supporting her, half pulling her as they hurried across the square, with Irene leading them, Justine carrying Mrs. Van Helsing’s body, and Greta in the rear, her pistol still drawn.

  In the growing light, Mary could see the men more clearly as she walked past them, lying on the pavement. Rough men, large and strong, some with beards, some without, all in shabby clothes, like down-and-out laborers. Why had they attacked? Had they been sent by the Société des Alchimistes? Was this Heinrich Waldman’s doing?

  She hurried behind Justine, holding Lucinda’s arm, out of the square and up the alley they had originally been heading toward.

  Irene led them through what seemed like a maze of small, crooked streets, under balconies and lines hung with washing. They emerged at what Mary could immediately tell were the mews—a long line of stables and carriage houses. After the insanity of the previous night, there was something sane and reassuring about the smell of horses.

  “Hermann!” Irene shouted. “Hermann! He may still be asleep,” she added. “It’s—what? Five o’clock?”

  Mary glanced at her wristwatch—yes, almost five. She could just see the yellow edge of the sun rising over the buildings.

  A man ran out from one of the stables. He was in shirtsleeves, with lather on his chin.

  “Madame Norton!” he said. And then he said something in German, and Irene replied in German, and they disappeared into the stable together. Mary looked around for some place to sit. She felt light-headed, and judging from how much Lucinda was hanging on to her arm, the girl was about to collapse. How long had it been since any of them had eaten?

  There was a bench in front of the stable, probably to assist with mounting the horses, or shoeing them, or something—she was not clear on the details of what one did with horses. In London, you called a cab and it came.

  “Let’s sit down,” she said to Justine. “We all look as though we’re about to fall over.” Although actually Justine looked as though she could stand there all day, holding the dead woman in her arms, her face perfectly impassive—which meant that she, too, was feeling a sense of despair. Mary knew Justine well enough to judge her moods—stillness and silence were not good signs. Lucinda stood silent as well, looking down at the pavement. Greta had dark circles under her eyes. Only Diana looked perfectly fresh—as though she could do it all over again, if she had to, despite the welt on her cheek, which was rapidly turning glorious shades of blue and green.

  “Go on, sit down,” said Mary. “All of you, go sit!” They went—even Diana went quietly, for once. When they were all seated on the bench, there was no more room for Mary, so she leaned against a post with an iron ring in it. She looked at the faces in front of her, still not quite believing what they had just gone through. Justine cradled the body of Mrs. Van Helsing like a pietà—the Virgin Mary holding the dead Jesus in a church alcove.

  Diana pulled the white cap off her head and combed her fingers through her red curls. “Well, that’s over with,” she said.

  “I don’t think it is quite over,” said Greta. “There will be an investigation into the asylum fire. They will search for the missing patients—that is you, and Lucinda, and Mrs. Van Helsing—assuming you escaped while the asylum was being evacuated. Dr. Freud may even come under suspicion—we shall have to divert the investigators in some way. And remember, we have left seven dead bodies for the police to find.”

  “They are not dead,” said Lucinda in a strange, singsong voice, as though she were intoning poetry. “They shall rise again, yea, even from their slumbers they shall rise.”

  “That’s how she was talking when I found her,” said Diana. “All crazy like that.”

  “Come on!” called Irene. She was standing by the large double doors of the stable. One of them had been open—now she opened the other. A minute later, out rolled her carriage, with
Hermann, now properly coated and hatted, perched on the driver’s seat.

  “Get in,” she said, opening one of the carriage doors. “Let’s get out of this dismal place.”

  “Look!” said Diana. She was pointing back down the alleyway. There stood—no, it was impossible. Yet there he stood, the man Mary had shot between the eyes. Another man stepped out of the shadows and stood next to him, then another. Yes, they were, all three of them, men she and Irene and the others had fought—and killed.

  “You have got to be kidding,” said Irene. “Into the carriage, now!”

  “Come on!” said Mary.

  She made sure Lucinda climbed in first, then she climbed in herself. It was a tight fit for the six of them, plus the dead body of Mrs. Van Helsing. At least Justine had wrapped it up in her coat. With its eyes closed, it looked almost asleep—if one could ignore the terrible gash at its throat that no longer bled, but had left a stain on the coat collar. As soon as they were all in, with Diana half on Mary’s lap, Irene shouted, “Hermann, los jetzt!”

  “Hü!” shouted the driver. “Hü, hü!”

  The horses started to trot forward—thank goodness, they would soon be out of there! But first they needed to pass the three men, who were blocking their path. As soon as the horses approached that blockade, they neighed and bucked—the carriage stopped, and for a moment it even rolled backward. Hermann shouted again, and Mary flinched when she heard the crack of his whip. Then she saw a dirty hand on the windowsill. One of the men was holding on to the carriage, about to—what? Try to stop it? Pull himself up? Irene drew Mary’s revolver out of her pocket. She stood and moved to the window, as best she could in the lurching, crowded carriage—she was half leaning across Justine and the dead woman. Yes, the man was pulling himself up—now Mary could see his face, rough and dirty, deathly pale. It was the one she had shot, and there, on his forehead, was the hole where the bullet had gone in, crusted with dried blood.

  Irene shot—right through one eye! With a scream, he fell back. Hermann cursed, and once again Mary heard the crack of the whip. Then they were moving again, at a stumbling walk and then faster, a trot that was taking them away from there, from that damn alley. Yes, she had said damn again, or rather thought it. This adventure was changing her, and she did not like it one bit.

  “I’ve used all your bullets,” said Irene, handing the revolver back to her.

  “That’s all right,” said Mary. “There are more in the—well, the room at the inn. I guess we won’t be going back there, will we? But it doesn’t matter. We’re alive. You kept us alive.”

  “I think we all contributed,” said Irene. Mary had not seen her looking quite so grim before. “But those things—they’re not men. No man looks at you with that empty stare, no man rises from a wound of that nature. What are they?”

  “Lucinda knows,” said Diana. “Don’t you?” They all turned and looked at the pale girl who had squeezed herself into a corner of the carriage, as though trying to disappear.

  “Lucinda?” said Irene. “If you know something that would help us . . .”

  “They are demons of the pit,” said Lucinda in that singsong voice. “Risen from the fires of hell to torment mankind. They have swum through rivers of blood. They wear the night as though it were an old coat, ragged, moth-eaten.”

  For a moment, they all just stared at her.

  Then, “Grief has driven her mad,” said Justine.

  “Maybe.” Irene looked at Lucinda skeptically. “Grief drives people mad less often than you would think, outside of novels. It may be hunger—the girl looks half-starved. We’ll be home soon enough, and then we’ll eat, rest—and hold our council of war.”

  War against what—or whom? Mary wondered. But she was so tired, and there was something curiously soothing about the motion of the carriage. She would close her eyes just for a moment. Just a moment, and then she would pay attention to whatever Irene and Greta were discussing. It was something about the men who had attacked them, and who they might be, and who might have sent them . . . then something about needing to get out of Vienna as soon as possible. Then somehow the carriage was flying, because the horses had wings, and when Mary looked down, she could see clouds below. . . . The moon had invited them all for tea, and the tea table was set with linen as white as snow, and she was having the most fascinating conversation with a white rabbit when Greta shook her awake and said, “Mary! Mary! We are here.”

  She rubbed her eyes and looked around. She was still sitting in the carriage, but except for Greta, it was empty. Where were they, and where had the others gone? Of course—as soon as she stepped out of the carriage, she could see that they were all back in the courtyard of 18 Prinz-Eugen Strasse. Justine and Diana were waiting at the door that led up to Irene’s apartment, while Irene was ringing the bell. Mary breathed a sigh of relief. They had done it—they had rescued Lucinda Van Helsing! And they were all safe.

  Then she saw that Justine was still holding Mrs. Van Helsing’s dead body, and that Lucinda was standing away from the others, with her arms wrapped around herself. There was blood on her uniform—spots of it on her bodice and a long streak down her skirt. She was staring down at the pavement, paying no attention to the others.

  Hannah opened the front door of the apartment. “What has happened to you?” she said. “You look like a collection of ghosts!”

  Mary followed Greta to the front door, stumbling because she was so tired, while behind her the carriage circled around—she could hear wheels on the stones, and the clopping of hooves. She remembered the last thing she had heard before falling asleep in the carriage—something about getting her, and Justine, and Diana—with Lucinda, of course—out of Vienna as quickly as possible. Yes, they were back, but they were not safe at all.

  CHAPTER XIII

  Lucinda’s Story

  Into the parlor, everyone,” said Irene, when they had climbed up the stairs and were all standing in the front hall. “Justine, could you take the body—I mean, Mrs. Van Helsing—to the office? Please place her on the table. Greta, can you arrange her appropriately? You know—in a dignified manner. As you pass the kitchen, ask Frau Schmidt to bring up coffee and pastries. And bring some fresh bandages for Lucinda’s wound—it should be looked at immediately. I’ve sent Hannah out to deal with the repercussions of this business. I know you’re all tired as well as hungry, but I think we need to talk—now, rather than later.”

  How good it felt, to be entering Irene’s parlor again! It seemed so—well, normal after the events of the past few days. Sunlight was streaming in through the windows, and someone had placed a bowl of tulips on a side table. They were the striped, frilled variety, like in a painting by Rembrandt. It all looked so civilized. As though the world of mental asylums, and fights in back alleys, and sudden death were a million miles away. How Mary wished they were!

  “This isn’t over, you know,” said Irene. “As I told Greta, the four of you need to get out of Vienna as quickly as possible. Three patients are missing from the Krankenhaus—there’s going to be an investigation. It will lead them to Sigmund, who will of course be shocked and distressed that his patient has disappeared. As soon as we’ve talked, I’ll telephone him and tell him that we have Lucinda, and Diana’s all right. He’ll have to prepare a story for the asylum administration, and most likely the police as well. But there’s another issue—the men who attacked us. Who are they? Who sent them? And why didn’t they die?”

  She turned to Lucinda, who was sitting on the sofa next to Mary. Diana had taken one of the armchairs.

  “May I?” she asked, then pulled off the white cap Lucinda was wearing. Her long, flaxen curls, which had been hidden under it, fell down around her shoulders. Lucinda put her hands up to her hair, as though making sure it was still there, then pulled strands of it over her eyes.

  “My dear,” said Irene, brushing it back again, then sitting down next to Lucinda, on the other side from Mary, and taking her hand. “I know you’ve been throug
h a terrible ordeal and suffered a great loss. I’m so very sorry. But you must tell us what happened to you and your mother—that is your mother, isn’t it? Your housekeeper, Frau Müller, told me she had died, but perhaps that is what your father told her. Am I guessing right? I can’t imagine what the both of you have endured. I hope you will tell us how the both of you came to be in the Krankenhaus—and, if you know, who those men are.”

  Lucinda clasped Irene’s hand in both of hers. “Yes,” she said. “I will tell you my story.”

  Mary wished she could say something to Lucinda—after all, she knew what it felt like, losing one’s mother. But she could not think of anything in the least helpful. Irene was better at this than she was.

  Just then, Justine and Greta returned. Behind them was Frau Schmidt, and—oh, heavenly! The smell of fresh pastries and coffee! For the first time, Mary understood the attraction of coffee. If you have been up all night, escaping from a burning mental asylum or fighting men who refuse to die when you shoot them in the forehead, or both, coffee is the perfect beverage.

  MRS. POOLE: Give me good English tea, anytime.

  BEATRICE: Technically, that is Indian or Chinese tea, Mrs. Poole. Tea does not grow in England. Camellia sinensis is a subtropical plant.

  MRS. POOLE: Well, if tea isn’t English, then I don’t know what is!

  Greta had a tin box in her hands. She went up to Lucinda and unwound the strips of torn petticoat that Mary had wrapped so hastily around her shoulder, then pulled back the collar of her Krankenhaus uniform.

  “There is no dangerous wound here,” she said. “It is merely a scratch. The blood must have come from her attacker. I will clean it with alcohol, but I do not think it needs a bandage.”

  Was that possible? Had Mary somehow been mistaken about the ferocity of his attack? She must have been, yet it had seemed at the time that Lucinda was grievously wounded.