“Ladies and gentlemen, I am Professor Petronius. Welcome to this august institution, which has so generously allowed me to reveal to you one of the scientific wonders of our age—a marvel out of the classical world, when such a phenomenon was known, although it astonishes us to see it in the nineteenth century! Today I will show you a young woman, as beautiful and innocent as a rose in bloom, whose system has been so imbued with poisons that she herself has become poisonous to all she touches. Imagine, ladies and gentlemen, not being able to touch, to kiss, other human beings for fear of harming them—of rendering them lifeless! Imagine being so deadly that your fellow men shun you once they learn of your powers. Today you shall see just such a creature, separated forever from others of her kind. She is not a monster—no! For unlike the Elephant Man or Bear Woman, of whom you have no doubt heard, she was not born with her peculiarity. The poison was introduced into her system slowly over a period of many years, as you may read in my article, a copy of which you hold in your hands, originally published in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute. Beatrice Rappaccini is not a monster, but a marvel of modern science! Behold!”
He flung out his right arm, pointing toward the entrance. There stood a woman, about Mary’s age, dressed in white. With the rest of the audience, Mary gasped. Even Diana, who was usually unimpressible, whistled under her breath.
She was beautiful. She was, it was no exaggeration to say, the most beautiful woman most of the audience members had ever seen. Her dress was in the Grecian style, leaving her neck and arms bare. Her skin, of a soft olive hue, proclaimed her a daughter of the temperate South, and her cheeks were tinged with red, as though she had spent time under a southern sun. Her features were as clearly cut as those of an ancient statue. Her hair, a lustrous black, hung down to her waist. She stood still for a moment, then walked toward the platform, swaying as gracefully as one of the reeds so admired by the classical god Pan.
JUSTINE: That’s a lovely description, Catherine.
CATHERINE: Thank you! I’m glad someone notices when I write particularly well.
“Let her through, let her through,” said Professor Petronius. “Mothers, nurses, if you please, protect your children. Make certain they do not touch her, not even the hem of her gown. Remember that she is deadly!”
The audience parted before her like the Red Sea, some of the mothers pulling their children back sharply as she passed, although the children strained to see her.
Poor girl, thought Mary. Surely this Petronius is both cruel and a charlatan. She could not possibly harm those children. And indeed, as she moved through the crowd, the woman’s face was so sad that Mary would have liked to comfort her.
BEATRICE: Is that truly what you thought, when you first saw me?
MARY: More or less, although you know how Catherine romanticizes everything. But I was thinking about how sad you looked.
BEATRICE: I was! Oh indeed, I was so sad that you could not imagine the depth of my sadness.
The woman stepped onto the platform and stood beside Professor Petronius. She looked out at the audience, calmly and with an expression of resignation on her face.
“This charming creature,” said Professor Petronius, “was born in the city of Padua, in Italy. No doubt even those of you who have not traveled in Europe have heard of the splendors of Italy—the ruins of an ancient civilization turned up by every farmer’s plough, the perpetual sun that warms the soul and makes it so much more eloquent than here in England. In Italy, the soul becomes poetic, although the body is lethargic. It is the country of Petrarch, of Michelangelo! That is the country in which Signorina Rappaccini was born.”
Looking around at the stolidly English audience, Mary very much doubted that any of them had dreamed of traveling in Europe. A nice trip to Bournemouth would be more in their line.
“Her father was a professor at the University of Padua, a famous doctor specializing in the vegetable poisons. He knew how to draw out their properties and turn the deadliest toxins into the most beneficial pharmacopeia. His daughter tended his garden of poisonous plants. So she could tend them properly, with the attention that the most delicate specimens required, he forbade her from protecting herself with gloves or masks. Slowly, as she assisted her father in his experiments, she herself became poisonous. The essence of the plants seeped into her, and as she grew into splendid womanhood, she also grew deadly to man. And now,” said Professor Petronius, “you shall see how deadly Miss Rappaccini can be.”
From a vase on the table, he lifted a Madonna lily—a long stem of white flowers, no doubt forced in a hothouse, since it was before the season for them. Ceremoniously, he handed it to the woman—to Beatrice. She took it in her hand, held it for a moment, then opened her mouth and breathed on the flowers. Almost at once, they began to turn brown, to shrivel and dry up. Their petals fell to the floor, then the stem itself turned brown and was simply a dry stick. The audience gasped.
In quick succession, as the audience stood spellbound, Professor Petronius handed Beatrice a variety of living objects. An apple on its branch rotted from her breath. Bees in a jar that had been buzzing a moment before fell silent and lay on the glass bottom, their wings twitching and then still. A mouse Professor Petronius handed her—Mary noticed that he donned gloves before doing so—scampered up her arm, stopped on her shoulder, then stood as though transfixed. She lifted it off and kissed it tenderly before laying it back on the table, where it did not move. A small green snake that he lifted out of a box wound itself around her wrist. In a few minutes, she unwound it and returned its limp form. Finally, Professor Petronius held up the canary in its cage. Beatrice touched the cage gently with one hand. There were tears in her eyes as she leaned forward and breathed on the unfortunate bird. A moment before, it had been cheeping. It gave a final querulous cheep, then it too was silent. Beatrice turned away, as though she did not want to see—either the destruction she had caused, or the reactions of the audience.
“Who will volunteer to approach and feel the power of Miss Rappaccini’s breath?” asked Professor Petronius. “We need a robust gentleman who is willing to risk his life for a kiss from the Poisonous Beauty. Gentlemen, if you volunteer, Miss Rappaccini will kiss you on the cheek, and you will feel her power. But do not volunteer if you have a heart condition or your medical advisor has forbade you from taking vigorous exercise!”
Mary was astonished to see that there were indeed volunteers. Professor Petronius chose two: a younger gentleman who was no doubt some sort of clerk, and an older man who proclaimed that he was a builder, and not afraid of a girl. Both were given the opportunity to go up to Beatrice and hold her hands. Then, she leaned over and kissed each of them on the cheek, quickly and with no indication of enjoyment. When they turned back to the audience, the clerk looking dazed and the builder grinning, Mary could see the red mark of her lips on their skin.
“How do you feel, gentlemen?” asked Professor Petronius, according the builder a rank he did not deserve. Both proclaimed that they felt dizzy. “It’s like being drunk, it is,” said the builder. “Don’t know as I could make my way home if I felt like this after leaving the pub on a Friday night!”
“You are brave, gentlemen,” said Professor Petronius. “When you go home tonight, tell your wives or sisters or mothers that today, you were kissed by death and survived! Those marks will fade in a few days, although I would recommend a topical ointment to assist with healing. Now, if anyone in the audience has questions about this marvel of science, I am available to answer them!”
There were questions: What did Miss Rappaccini eat? How long would it take her to poison a full-grown man? Who did her hair?
While Professor Petronius answered them, Mary slipped closer to where Beatrice stood on the platform. How could she communicate with the Poisonous Girl? There had been no indication that she spoke anything but Italian. Quickly, Mary drew a pencil from her purse. Did she have any paper? Yes, the pamphlet—she tore off a corner, scribbled on it the letter
s she had seen on the watch fob in Molly Keane’s hand and the seal on the mysterious letters from Budapest, and held it out, whispering as loudly as she dared, “Miss Rappaccini.”
Beatrice heard her and turned her head. For a moment, Mary was not certain whether she would take the note. But then, she took a step toward Mary and held out her hand. Mary placed it on her palm—she could not help being glad that she, like Professor Petronius, was wearing gloves. How far did Miss Rappaccini’s baleful influence extend? Beatrice glanced at the note. When she saw the letters, her expression changed: for the first time, she looked interested, alive. “What is your name?” she asked in a low voice.
“Mary Jekyll,” Mary replied.
“Wait for me in the park,” said Beatrice. “I will try to get away, although it will be difficult—he watches me all the time. But wait for me. I will be there when I can.”
It was obvious, from Beatrice’s furtive glance at Professor Petronius, that she did not want to speak further in the exhibition hall. Mary nodded. Their conversation would have to wait.
She looked around for Diana. Where had the girl gone? Mary assumed she had been standing beside her all this time, but no—Diana had slipped away and was on the far side of the room, staring at one of the glass cases. Mary pushed through the crowd, which was still questioning Professor Petronius.
“Do you ever do as you’re told?” she said to Diana when she had made her way to the case.
“No,” said Diana without turning. “Look, it’s the skeleton of Charles Byrne, the Irish Giant. Seven feet tall, he was. And there’s the brain of some kind of mathematical bloke. I’ve never seen a brain before.”
Mary glanced over: the jar was labeled BRAIN OF CHARLES BABBAGE, MATHEMATICIAN.
“Diana, we don’t have time to look at all these things, not right now.” She told Diana about the note she had passed to the Poisonous Girl and Beatrice’s reaction. “We need to go wait in the park. That professor—I think she’s afraid of him. She said that she had to get away from him, to meet us. We need to go wait for her, so we’re there when she has the opportunity.”
It was difficult to drag Diana away from such a tempting display of grotesquerie, of fetuses in jars, some of them with two heads or four arms, or only one eye. Of tumors and abnormalities. But Mary took a firm hold of her coat collar and pulled.
DIANA: My favorite was Charles Byrne. I’d never seen a giant before.
JUSTINE: He was not a giant, simply a very tall man. There is nothing wrong with being tall.
DIANA: Says you. Of course you don’t think it’s abnormal, any more than Beatrice thinks it’s abnormal to go around poisoning people.
BEATRICE: But I know perfectly well it’s abnormal, I assure you. Justine’s height is not extraordinary—for a man. For a woman, yes. But as she says, there is nothing wrong with being different.
DIANA: Oh, come off it! You’re both freaks. Just like me.
Outside, the rain had started again—not a proper rain, but a sort of mist that fell from the sky and covered their clothes in water drops. Mary put up her umbrella. They crossed the street and once again entered the park, then followed the central walk around and around the gazebo, trying to keep warm. It must have been half an hour before they saw a woman hurrying toward them. She was wrapped in a thick shawl, and Mary did not immediately recognize her. She looked so different than she had in the exhibit hall. But as she drew closer, her graceful movements identified her as Beatrice Rappaccini.
“Miss Jekyll,” she said. “Please forgive me, my English is not always adequate to my wishes.” Her English was, in fact, perfect—although she spoke with a lilting Italian accent. “I must speak with you, but there is no time. Fortunately, Petronius has been detained by one of the trustees of the college—I believe he owes the college a considerable sum for allowing him to put on my shows. But he will be along any minute, and then I will not be able to speak freely. I agreed to these shows because he promised that the physicians of the college would attempt to heal me of this dreadful curse, but he has made so much money that he has no interest in my cure—he has become greedy, and I believe he will not willingly let me go. Each night, he locks me in, but even if I were to escape, where would I go in this country? I have no friends in England. Except perhaps you—I have heard your name mentioned, and I am familiar with your father’s work. He must have told you about the Société, or you would not have handed me that piece of paper. Have you come to help me? This must be your—servant?” She looked at Diana curiously.
“This is my—sister, Diana Hyde,” said Mary. “This Société—Society—what is it? I don’t understand.”
“Hyde! This is Hyde’s offspring?” Beatrice looked astonished. “How could your father have done something so disastrous? Allowing Hyde to reproduce himself. I cannot believe it.”
“Hey, who are you calling disastrous, poison breath?” said Diana.
“Then you know what this is all about?” said Mary. “These experiments . . .”
“Yes, of course,” said Beatrice. “I was my father’s assistant. I took his notes and made fair copies of his papers for the journal of the Société. But you—do you truly not know? About the transmutations, the Société des Alchimistes? Your father died when you were still young. He must not have had time to explain . . .”
“Don’t look now,” said Diana, “but Professor Whiskers is coming this way.”
It was indeed Professor Petronius, walking down the path toward them.
“He is no professor,” said Beatrice scornfully. “He has no degree, no qualifications whatsoever! Look, I live in that building. . . .” She pointed to a tall gray house on the other side of the park. “My room is the only one occupied on the second floor. The window faces the back. But I don’t know how I could get out. As I said, he locks me in every night, and I am watched during the day.”
“We’ll help you,” said Mary. “I don’t know how, but we will. We’ll just have to figure it out.”
Professor Petronius was almost upon them.
“Oh sir,” Mary called, turning to him. “Thank you so much for your wonderful lecture! I was just telling Miss Rappaccini how much I enjoyed it, although she probably doesn’t understand me, does she, being a foreigner? But my pupil and I thought it was so interesting! This is my pupil, Diana. Her mother gave us permission to come see the show. We enjoyed it ever so much!”
“Oh yes,” said Diana. “Especially when she killed the canary. That was prime! I hope we get to see it again.”
“Well, only if your mother lets us. Thank you again, Professor. It was all so fascinating.”
“Thank you, ladies,” he said, taking Beatrice by the arm. Mary noticed that although he bowed to them politely enough, his grip on Beatrice’s arm was firm. Up close, his dyed whiskers made him look even more like a charlatan, and his teeth were stained with tobacco. “Do come again, with your mother’s permission of course. A shilling and sixpence. Now if you’ll excuse us, Miss Rappaccini has a show again in an hour.”
He hurried Beatrice away. Mary and Diana watched them depart, the man in the top hat and the woman wrapped in a shawl. He was still holding her arm when they went into the building Beatrice had pointed out.
“We have to rescue her,” said Mary.
“Got any bright ideas?” asked Diana.
“Not a single one. Not at the moment. But we have an appointment with Mr. Holmes. We can at least tell him what we’ve learned about S.A.”
“And what’s that?” said Diana.
“Well, what the initials mean. It has to be the society Beatrice mentioned: the Société des Alchimistes. Although I don’t understand why a scientific society would want to murder girls and take their body parts. . . .”
“Unless they want to use those body parts in experiments,” said Diana.
Mary stared at her sister. The rain started again. She could hear it patter on the leaves of the trees above, and then on the pavement. “That’s horrible. That’s—well, just h
orrible.” She remembered the words of the letter from Italy: You have a daughter, have you not? Surely she is old enough for you to begin the process, in whatever direction you decide will yield the most promising results. Experiments—on girls. What had the letter said about the female brain being more malleable? Molly Keane’s brain had been missing . . . why?
“Are we going to just stand here?” asked Diana. “I’m getting wet.”
“Well, get under the umbrella.” Mary consulted her wristwatch, then thought for a moment. “I hate to spend money on transportation, but I told Dr. Watson we would meet them at noon, and it’s half past eleven. Let’s catch an omnibus back to Baker Street.”
“That’s more like it,” said Diana. “You’ve spent the morning dragging me all over the city. The least you could do is pay for a bus. And buy me something to eat.”
They bought half a dozen currant buns for tuppence and ate them as they rode in the omnibus. Luckily, the bus was almost empty and they could sit inside, dry although not particularly warm or comfortable. They disembarked on Marylebone Road, walked up Baker Street, and rang the bell at 221B. Mrs. Hudson led them right up the stairs and knocked on the door. “Mr. Holmes, it’s Miss Jekyll and—a friend,” she said, looking at Diana dubiously. Diana still had crumbs on her collar. Mary wiped them away hastily with her handkerchief.
“Let them in, Mrs. Hudson,” called Holmes. “The door is unlocked.”
Mary pushed open the door and stepped into the parlor. It was just as disorganized as the last time she had visited, with the skulls on the mantelpiece, the specimen jars on shelves, and furniture covered in books and ash. Holmes turned to her with a smile and Watson bowed, but a third man in the room frowned. It was Inspector Lestrade.
“You again!” he said. “The case is closed, Miss Jekyll. The murderer has confessed. So you can take yourself home to your embroidery, which is what young ladies should be doing, rather than interfering with murder investigations. And take that hellcat with you,” he added, seeing Diana.
The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter Page 11
