European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman

by Theodora Goss

  Diana, whose sense of direction was almost as good as Catherine’s, led them back to the stone staircase, and then down to the room where they had eaten last night. Mary worried about leaving Lucinda—would she be safe alone? But what else could they do? They had to eat, and then they had to figure out what was going on in this castle. Why had Hyde brought them there? What was his nefarious purpose? At least she assumed his purpose was nefarious. He was Hyde, after all, and that business with the hypodermic was certainly not what one might consider harmless. She could not blame herself for his crimes—she would not blame herself for them. But she was thoroughly ashamed that he was her father.

  In daylight, the castle looked less imposing than it had the night before. At the end of the hallway on which their room was located, the wall was half tumbled down, with half a window frame set into it. Sunlight streamed in where stones had long ago fallen. They passed windows with broken glass, wooden doors that hung on rusted hinges. Some of them had burn marks. It was obvious that the castle had suffered a catastrophe of some sort, long ago. The stairs were worn by the tread of feet over centuries, but also chipped, so it was a wonder that none of them had tripped going up the night before. Everywhere there was dust and sunlight, and the sense of something that had been long abandoned.

  In the great hall where they had dined the night before, many of the flagstones were broken or missing, and one corner of the ceiling was gone—through the hole, Mary could see the sky, which was very blue. The electric lights were turned off now, and the wires connecting them looked incongruous against the stone walls.

  Breakfast had been left on the table—rolls, butter and jam, slices of ham under a mesh cover to keep out flies, and a bowl of pickles. Clearly some of the castle’s inhabitants had already breakfasted, for there were plates with crumbs and smears of jam on them, as well as clean ones stacked by napkins and cutlery. There were mugs as well, but nothing to put in them.

  “No coffee?” said Diana, frowning. “I want coffee!”

  “I think we had better make some sort of plan for the day,” said Justine, stacking the soiled plates to get them out of the way and taking a clean one for herself. She put a roll on her plate and sat down.

  “My plan is to get coffee,” said Diana. “There’s got to be a kitchen around here somewhere. I bet I can smell my way to it!” She turned and headed back toward the door.

  “Diana!” called Mary. “Don’t go anywhere without us!” But Diana was already halfway across the room. And then, she was gone—off to find the kitchen, presumably.

  “Damn. That. Girl.” Mary sat down on the bench and put her head in her hands. “What in the world are we going to do?”

  Justine reached over and put a hand on her back, then gave her what Justine probably thought was a reassuring pat. It did not feel particularly reassuring. “We’ll think of something. I know this is a terrible position for us to be in, but I’ve been in worse. When I was on the island, and Adam had killed Victor Frankenstein, and I was forced to live with him as his wife. When I was alone for so long—a century, all by myself in that big house. Those were the saddest, most difficult times of my life, because I had no friends to talk to or share the difficulties with me. Certainly we are in the frying pan, as Diana might say, but we are together and we know there are friends elsewhere who are expecting us. Perhaps they are even now wondering where we are, and surely they will search for us if we do not appear when scheduled? Do not allow yourself to despair—Hyde may have his weapons and his henchmen, but we have one another.”

  Mary felt ashamed. Of course, Justine had been through much worse than this—forced to live with Frankenstein’s monstrous creation on an island in the Orkneys, and then isolated for so long in a house on the coast of Cornwall. But she also felt heartened. They had faced adversity before and overcome it. Had they not killed Adam and solved the Whitechapel Murders? Of course, this was a different circumstance. They would not be taking a cab back home to Park Terrace from a castle in Styria! Would they prevail this time? Surely they owed it to themselves—and Lucinda, as well as the other members of the Athena Club, to try.

  CATHERINE: Reader, if you would like to hear more about these events, you have only to purchase the first of these adventures, The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter, two shillings from reputable booksellers. Or you could read my latest story in Blackwood’s Magazine, in the special Christmas issue.

  MARY: Justine and I were talking! Now you’re interrupting in the middle of our conversation with an advertisement?

  CATHERINE: We need money. Unless you’ve decided that we don’t need to pay the gas and water bills? Or discovered a stash of banknotes we didn’t know about somewhere?

  MARY: No, you’re right. We do need money. Especially since the diamonds Prince Rupert paid us with for saving his life turned out to be paste.

  After breakfast—which was not as filling as Mary would have liked, but how filling could bread and jam be?—the first task of the day was to reconnoiter. Diana still had not returned.

  “Well, she’ll just have to find us,” said Mary. “I can’t worry about her right now. We need to get a sense of where we are—the lay of the land, as it were.”

  “Diana is quite good at taking care of herself,” said Justine. “And somehow, I do not think Hyde would harm his own daughter.”

  “I would not put it past him,” said Mary grimly.

  DIANA: I wasn’t with Dad. I found the kitchen, and Ágnes was in there making some sort of stew, so I stirred the pot while she made me coffee. Then János came in and we had an arm-wrestling contest. You know, he’s a lot nicer when he’s not scared witless by Dad. And then Ágnes wanted us to try the pastries she had made—they were a different kind, all in layers with bits of bacon inside, and you sort of peeled them off. She and János couldn’t speak much English, of course, but you don’t really need much English to say “Hey, try these pastries.” I mean, the pastries say it for you.

  MARY: We were imprisoned in a castle in Styria, trying to figure out how to escape, and you got into an arm-wrestling contest?

  DIANA: And then I taught them how to play vingt-et-un, with me dealing. Don’t look at me so disapprovingly! They didn’t have any money, so we played for walnuts. Even when she’d lost all her walnuts, Ágnes wanted to keep playing. She’ll be a gambling addict someday, you mark my words.

  “But what about Lucinda?” Mary continued. “Diana may be able to take care of herself, but we can’t just leave Lucinda up there alone, can we? Who knows what Hyde might do to her.”

  Justine sighed. “I don’t think we have much choice. If we’re going to rescue her, we must know where we are, what options we have. Even if Mr. Hyde were to come for more of her blood, we would not be able to prevent him, as we could not prevent him this morning. I think we shall have to leave her for now. What else can we do? There are only two of us.”

  “There would be three if Diana hadn’t wandered off!” Mary wanted, more than anything else, to slap her sister.

  DIANA: See? I’m not the violent one. Or not the only violent one, anyway.

  But that sort of thinking would not help; they had to deal with the situation as it was. “Come on,” said Mary. “No one’s threatening to shoot us at the moment, so I suggest we go outside and have a look around.”

  They made their way once again to the front door, then out into the courtyard. Or what had once been a courtyard. Most of the castle had long ago fallen to ruin. Mary could see low stone walls that had been rooms, now with grassy floors. The section containing the great hall still stood, as well as the arching front entrance where they had walked beneath a portcullis the night before. But everywhere there were signs of destruction and decay. Although the castle had once been covered with yellow stucco, most of it had chipped off or faded, leaving the underlying stone exposed. The other section still standing seemed to be a stable and carriage house, and in front of the stable door sat Dénes Ferenc, on a three-legged stool, cleaning some har
ness.

  “Good morning,” he called to them, cheerfully for a man who had pointed a rifle at them the night before. “If you are thinking to run away, the nearest village is in that direction.” He pointed northward. Or at least Mary assumed it was northward, based on the position of the sun.

  The castle was situated on a hill, from which they could see the surrounding countryside. Mary followed the general direction of his finger. There were forests, meadows, the light brown dirt of the road that wound here and there, sometimes appearing across a field, sometimes disappearing again into the trees. She could see nothing . . . no, there, in the distance, she could see a cluster of red roofs. But it was very far away, several miles downhill through difficult country. Toward her left rose a series of hills, culminating in the wooded slopes of high mountains.

  JUSTINE: They are not high! The high mountains of the Styrian Alps are farther east, and even then they are not like the Alps of Switzerland.

  MARY: Well, they seemed high to me! They were a lot higher than anything I’d seen before.

  JUSTINE: That’s because you are English. England is an extraordinarily flat country.

  MRS. POOLE: As God made it. This sceptered isle, this seat of majesty, this other Eden just like paradise, this precious stone set in a silver sea, this England . . . something like that.

  BEATRICE: Why, Mrs. Poole! You are quite the poet.

  MRS. POOLE: Well, we did a fair bit of Shakespeare when I was in the Park Terrace Players. I was Viola once, and then Lady Macbeth.

  JUSTINE: There is nothing in England I would call a mountain.

  MARY: I think you’ve made your point.

  Justine tugged Mary by the sleeve and started walking toward the stables. Mary followed, although she did not particularly want to converse with Dénes—not after his deception! As they approached, he smiled at them as though they were the greatest of friends.

  Justine could break your neck, thought Mary.

  But they needed information, and who else was likely to supply it? Of all the Ferenc family, he seemed to speak the most English.

  “Where are we?” asked Justine. “Or are you not permitted to tell us?”

  His smiled turned into a sort of smirk. “What I am permitted to do is of no consequence. I am my own master, you see. I help my father when he needs, but I am not like János, to jump at every command.” He swept his hand to indicate the castle, both the standing and fallen parts of it. “This is the castle of the Karnsteins since very long time. But the family it was very wicked—Mircalla Karnstein, the last Countess, was terrible woman. So the people, they burn the castle. Once, there was village here, but no more. Everything was burned to get rid of that wicked family.”

  “Your sister called her a vampire,” said Mary.

  He frowned. “Ágnes is a silly girl. We are not all silly peasants in Styria—we do not all have these superstitions. I myself am studying to become an engineer at the university in Gratz.”

  “And Hyde,” said Mary. “What does he want? Why did he hire you and your father?”

  “That I cannot tell you,” said Dénes. “He hire my father, and I help, but he does not tell us why, or what is so important about the girl, what he is doing with her blood. Only, he says it will help my mother—édesanyám.”

  “And those strange cries—,” Mary continued.

  “So now I ask—why do you dress like a man?” He looked up at Justine, shading his eyes with his hands. “You are not a man. You are too tall, yes, but you could be pretty girl. I myself would take you to dance in the village, even though the other men would look at me. But I do not mind! I like strong, brave women. I see you were very brave in Vienna.”

  “Um, thank you,” said Justine, looking as uncomfortable as Mary had ever seen her.

  “Yes, thank you indeed for that information,” said Mary. “I think we will look around now a bit, if you don’t mind.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said. “That is the English phrase, is it not? Although a suit is also something you wear. It is a curious language, English. I am very good at it, I think.”

  “Yes, precisely, how very clever of you.” Mary smiled her you have overcharged me for the coal delivery smile. It is a polite, frightening sort of smile: the artillery of the English lady. Next thing you know, she’s going to hit you over the head with an umbrella.

  MARY: I would never!

  CATHERINE: No, you just shoot people.

  “Come on, Justine. We have things to do.” She drew Justine away by the arm.

  Once they had rounded the corner of the carriage house and could no longer see him, she said, “The gall of the man! Take you to a village dance, indeed. . . .”

  “I think he was trying to pay me a compliment,” said Justine.

  “Then he could have done it like a gentleman and not an idiot. Look, what is that?”

  On this side of the castle were the ruins of what had once been a church or chapel—some of its walls were still standing, although its stone altar was bare to the sky, and grass had long ago grown over the floor. Around it they could see the remains of a churchyard—ancient gravestones here and there, mostly askew, and at its center a stone tomb, like a mausoleum but half buried in the earth. There was something written over the heavy wooden door—Mary could not quite see it. She walked closer, raising her skirt because the grass had grown tall here. Yes, now she could make out the letters, although they were partly covered with lichen:

  MILLARCA KARNSTEIN

  1680–1699

  This must have been the wicked countess herself, although evidently the stonemason had misspelled her name. Well, now she was lying peacefully in her tomb. On this side of the castle, the landscape was wilder. The hill rose behind them, dark and wooded. There was no escape in this direction.

  “Such destruction must have resulted from one of the peasant revolts so common in the seventeenth century,” said Justine, looking around her at the remains of the church, and then back at the castle. From this side, it was even more clearly a ruin. “You can see there is damage from a fire within the house. It was not uncommon, in that era, for peasants to rise up against their masters, particularly in these old districts where the feudal system still lingered. They were seeking greater freedom for themselves, relief from the burden of taxation—”

  “Right,” said Mary. “Except now isn’t the time for a lecture. The question is, how are we going to get away from here? Not that I don’t sympathize with the plight of seventeenth-century peasants, but seriously, we have to do something, and I simply don’t know what.”

  Before Justine could reply, Mary heard it again—the cry she had heard earlier that morning. But now it sounded closer, as though it were coming through the stone walls of the castle.

  “Mary!” That was Hyde’s voice. She looked around her in all directions, but could not see anyone except Justine. “Up here!” She looked up, and there he was on the second floor—that must be the end of the hallway leading to their bedroom. She recognized the broken window frame. “I’ve been searching for you for the last twenty minutes. And where is Diana—isn’t she with you?”

  “No,” said Mary. She wasn’t about to tell him where Diana was—not that she knew herself!

  “Oh,” he said. “Well, I need you. And Miss Frankenstein, although he said not to bring her—but I think you had both better come. Just around the next corner, at the back, you’ll find a small door. It should be unlocked. Go in and follow the hallway. Your first right will be my laboratory. I’ll meet you down there. Can you do that?”

  “If you tell us what this is all about,” said Mary, frowning. He was not as domineering and dismissive as he had been that morning—no, he was almost asking her. Why? What had changed?

  “I’ll tell you, but just meet me!” His face disappeared from the broken window.

  Mary looked at Justine and shook her head. She must have appeared particularly exasperated, because Justine said, “At least we’ll find out what’s going on.”


  Mary certainly hoped so.

  Around the corner from the graveyard was what must have once been a kitchen garden. There were still raised beds with paths between them, and here and there Mary could see sage or rosemary growing among the weeds.

  DIANA: You mean Justine could see them. Mary wouldn’t know sage from . . . anything else green that grows in a garden.

  MARY: That’s not necessarily true. I know it’s—well, it has small leaves. And you use it to stuff the goose.

  CATHERINE: I was in Mary’s point of view. I can’t just change point of view whenever I want to. That’s not how it’s done.

  DIANA: Why does everything have to be from Mary’s point of view? What makes her so special?

  CATHERINE: She’s the easiest to write about. You’re too chaotic, and I can’t think like Justine—all that philosophy. Anyway, our readers would fall asleep if I wrote down all the things Justine thinks about—seventeenth-century peasants’ revolts and the rights of man, and whatever Voltaire said. . . .

  JUSTINE: I do realize that, while I am interested in such things, our readers might find them tedious or tiresome.

  CATHERINE: I’m not criticizing, Justine. You know I’m glad you’re the way you are, and I wouldn’t wish you any different. But a narrative has to move.

  DIANA: Yeah, but Mary wouldn’t have recognized sage if it had bitten her.

  MARY: Well, it doesn’t bite. I do know that!

  As she passed through the doorway, she felt once again the chill of the castle walls, the weight of the stone above and around her. The only light came from a small window at the end of the hall. She found a door on the right—there was another on the left a little farther down. But Hyde had said right, hadn’t he? She pushed the door open. “Come on,” she said to Justine, who was directly behind her, and then she entered.

  If this was a laboratory, it was a poor excuse for one. There was nothing in the room but a long wooden table and a stool tucked under it. One end of the table had been burned long ago—here, too, that ancient fire had raged. On top of the table were instruments she immediately recognized: a microscope, a Bunsen burner, a scale with hanging balances. In the center of the table was an alembic, and ranged along one side were a row of glass bottles filled with different powders—his chemicals, she guessed. They were rather pretty, with their different colors. Next to them was a ceramic mortar and pestle. This was what the table in his laboratory had looked like, long ago, when her father had still been the respectable Dr. Jekyll. Except of course there had been shelves filled with scientific books—heavy tomes bound in leather with gilding on their spines—as well as stacks of official-looking journals. She remembered the table of elements hanging on the wall, and sunlight coming through the glass dome of the old operating theater he had used as his laboratory. Now all he had was this bare room, the most basic instruments of his trade, and a single book perched on one corner of the table. It was bound in leather and had a coat of arms stamped on it, with an awkward, medieval-looking dragon on a shield. Unless it was a dog with wings?