“Is it right to be guided by him over that? I doubt it. He is very ill and his judgment may be affected. I am sure they would wish to be here.”
Mrs. Jacoby said, “All I know is that Maria must be excluded from the sick-room.”
I felt I could hardly bear to re-enter the room and look again into the terrified eyes staring desperately from that grey and wasted face. Yet I forced myself to do so, crossing the room to where Maria sat, still clutching Victor's hand. I assured him I would speak to the doctor as soon as he came and that we would get a capable nurse to be with him all the time. Having said that, which I thought from his expression relieved his mind somewhat, I cast a glance at Maria, who smiled as ever. Was there malice in her eyes or did I imagine it?
After I left the room Cordelia took my arm and said, “Mrs. Jacoby must speak to you.” I followed her downstairs to that long, cold salon with its shrouded chandeliers and fading light. A couple of candles stood on the mantelpiece where a pathetic fire burned. As we came in the two guards leapt up as if to appear vigilant. We stood away from them by the window, conversing in low tones, possibly on the very spot where Victor had lain, stabbed, after the attack.
Outside the snow still lay on the branches of the trees and on the grass. Now the ground was covered with the marks of frozen footprints, left by the belated search for Frankenstein's attacker. But the searchers had gone—I only wondered, had the man for whom they searched returned? Was he out there, his body pressed against the black trunk of a tree?
Then Mrs. Jacoby grasped my arm—I felt her fingers pressing hard into my flesh, in spite of my coat. She said urgently, “I can stay silent no longer. You must know the truth, I must tell you everything about Maria Clementi.”
T W E L V E
MRS. JACOBY'S FACE was very strained as she said, “You must hear what I have to say now, for tomorrow I leave Miss Clementi's service. Would that I had gone sooner. I have stayed on with her, though, God knows, my conscience has urged me over and over again to leave. Why did I stay? For the money, I confess. She paid me well. And because, in my vanity, I thought I did more good than harm by staying and even—vain hope—believed I could convert her, eventually into a reasonable human being, a creature with a heart and with a soul. But now I must tell you everything about her.”
“You are very bitter, Mrs. Jacoby,” Cordelia said. “Pray, do not say too much in the heat of your anger and disappointment with Miss Clementi—”
“There is no heat to my anger,” Mrs. Jacoby interrupted. “Nor to my distress, nor my loathing of that abominable creature. I am stone cold. I have been with her for years. I have seen all her doings. I have no feeling left but disgust. Maria Clementi,” she went on, “is immoral, profoundly immoral by any normal standards, yet I believe she is actually beyond morality, if any mortal can be. She is evil—yet I believe she does not know, she does not understand what she does. She is a savage—perhaps even worse than a savage, for we read that savages have their society, their laws, their taboos, however strange. Maria is secretly cruel: she steals, if she thinks she will not be caught; she is a libertine, but conceals it. She cares not what she does, only whether she will be found out. And I—I have helped to hide what she does.”
“Mortimer is her lover?” Mrs. Downey asked calmly, as if asking the price of fish. I thought, he cannot be—that venal, shady creature cannot be Maria's lover—but Mrs. Jacoby answered, “Yes. Of course he is. He and a hundred others. I have been with her for five years in all the capitals of Europe and there have always been men, too many to count. Some loved her, poor creatures, their sufferings were the worst. She did not know how she wounded them. How could she, for she cannot give or receive love? I have seen dogs with more apparent love and loyalty. As to the rest, I cannot tell you all the terrible things she has done and which I, for my sins, have helped her conceal.
“There was a beggar woman in Vienna, a poor woman with a child in her arms who stopped Maria nightly as she entered the opera house asking for money. This woman Maria could not abide. She began by kicking the woman when she begged of her. But the woman persisted. One evening, as she was entering the theatre, Maria fell on that woman—and her child—in a frenzy. She tore at the woman's eyes and there was blood all over her face—and Maria's hands. The child fell to the ground—doctors had to be called. Silence cost us dear. It was in Vienna too, on another occasion, when she thought the director of the theatre was favoring another singer over her—this woman was given a song Maria thought was hers, she was put in the center of the stage where Maria thought she should be. Perhaps the director was her lover and favoring his mistress. Maria put lime in the cream the other actress used to clean her face. Imagine the pain and deformity with which that woman was left. Even in Dublin, where she was first found, they told me she had killed a man among the people with whom she then lived. Perhaps she had some cause. Perhaps he had attacked her but—oh—I have seen her close to murder so many times that I would not be sure she had any good cause to kill the man.
“You see,” Mrs. Jacoby said, “Maria is unlike anyone in the world. She is violent, vengeful, without remorse. I have tried to control her. I have covered up her misdeeds. But this affair with Mr. Frankenstein is the end. I knew she wanted him—but why? Yet, as she wanted him, she had him. She is skilled at the measures of the old dance—as he moved forward, she moved back, but only so far as to be nearly within reach. Then he moved forward again and she, with the appearance of the utmost purity and virtue, moved away again—but only to bring him further on. She knew she must do that, for if she yielded too soon he would value her less. And thus she hooked him and even now as he lies on what may be his deathbed she sucks the life out of him.
“I have borne enough; she has bought five years of my life at a price I should never have agreed—the price, almost, of my soul.” She paused for a moment, the cold winter light on her drained face. She was no longer the capable woman I had first met. “Why?” she questioned. “Why, having enticed him, does she wish to torment him? I have thought sometimes her evil ways were the result of her upbringing, mute and defenseless among Irish tinkers, though not of them. She was untaught, used to beg and sing for money in the streets. I had thought to help and improve her, make her more gentle in spirit, but now, after five years, she is more ruthless and immoral than before. This refusal to leave Mr. Frankenstein's sick-bed is vile, a new vileness, I cannot understand it. I will not bear it. I must leave.”
“But where will you go?” I asked.
“To my sister's in Chatham, today,” she told me. “She is a widow on a small pension. There will be little money and she is an adherent of a narrow, canting sect. I expect to have their pastor with me continually exhorting me to wash in the blood of the Lamb. It will not be a pleasant life, but better, better by far, than that with Maria Clementi. I leave you to protect Mr. Frankenstein from her attentions.”
Cordelia then asked, “Who is she? Where did she first come from? You must have some knowledge of what made her what she is? What of these gypsies, or tinkers?”
“It was Gabriel Mortimer who found her at the house of friends in Dublin, where they had her to sing after supper. She had been singing and begging in the street for some time before that, and due to the sweetness of her voice and her beauty it came to be the habit of some of the better families to hire her to perform for them in the evenings after supper. The beautiful gypsy, they called her. At that time she was in the charge of a dirty old woman who controlled her comings and goings and I'm sure took her wages from her when she was paid. That woman may have been a tinkerwoman or have bought her from tinkers. Anyhow neglect and cruelty must have been Maria's portion. Sometimes she screams aloud at night, as I confided to you, Mr. Goodall. Sometimes she will sit and stare with clouded eyes as if recollecting some scene from the past. But because she cannot speak she is locked away from ordinary discourse with others, as a prisoner is locked away, and for that reason I believe she lives much in the past, even as a prisoner will. For that I pity
her. But for nothing else.
“I came into her employment as a result of Mr. Mortimer's visit to some members of my husband's family in Merrion Square. I was staying with them and had become used to the occasional visits of Maria, who was brought to the house by the old woman of whom I have spoken. Even then she had a fastidious nature, for considering her condition she was as clean as a cat, and of course able to sing most beautifully, not just in English and French but also the old Erse songs. One could not understand the words of them, yet listening one found oneself almost weeping. She had, you see, a facility, perhaps compensating her for her dumbness—she could learn any piece of music after hearing it only once.
“Then we come to Gabriel Mortimer. He was visiting my brother-in-law having some business with him touching a joint share in a trading venture in Canada—this on the verge of going wrong (Mortimer has a finger in many pies; money is his god). He heard the girl sing and there was I, on a soldier's widow's pension, vigorous and lacking occupation—who better to act as the girl's guide and companion when Mortimer rapidly decided to take her to London for her debut? I believe he bought her from the old woman.
“At first all went well. She was pleased to be well housed and fed and not beaten—her body was and is badly marked by beatings. On her arm there is a scar where she was pushed or fell into a fire as a child. She most rapidly learned the manners of those in a better way of life, how to comport herself and to dress and to behave abroad and at table. Her progress was so rapid I wondered if she might have been at one time locked away by a respectable family ashamed of her deficiency in speech, given away or stolen away from her parents, unable to cry out. That might account for her aptitude in learning so quickly the niceties of life. But it was not long before her evil ways emerged—she would steal anything and everything, always with the utmost skill. She was cruel, wantonly needlessly cruel, as if possessed. To try to make her love something, even if she could love no human being, I tried the experiment of getting her a little dog. She burned its body, artfully hiding the burns for as long as she could. When I found out, the wounds had festered—Mortimer and I had to have it killed.
“And her behavior was lewd, debauched. Not two months after we reached London Mortimer was her lover—I daresay he was after two days but I did not suspect until later. Though when I say he was her lover I do not mean there was love involved in the affair. On his side, low as he is, there may have been some—on hers, none. She took him as an animal will, with no thought but to satisfy her base desires. She is not, however, exclusive. Those looking for her relationships with Lord This or the Count of That will find nothing. Thus, as well as due to my help, she retains her reputation for extraordinary purity in a profession not given over to virtue. No—if you wish to find out where Maria Clementi disposes of her body, go to the waterfronts of any of the capital cities of Europe, go to the stews, go into the filthiest parts of the towns—there you will find her, with one man, or many. I will spare you more. I have said enough already before Mrs. Downey. Leave it that she is the foulest creature who ever walked the earth.
“Mercifully, we were always moving from city to city—from Vienna to Rome, from Rome to Budapest. Had that not been the case much trouble would have come to us. Mortimer and I, in conspiracy, by bribery and by continually moving on, were able to hide what she did. All the while we pretended Maria was an angel—and all the while I knew I was protecting, was paid to protect, a woman who, thwarted, prevented or annoyed in any way, reacted by attacking the source of her pain without any consideration at all, who saw no reason not to take what she wanted, hurt whom she wished to hurt, without any remorse. I do not know how long it is,” Mrs. Jacoby said, “since I realized I had lost all hope of influencing her for good. I know that for too long I have eaten her bread and quenched my conscience.”
As this confession continued I wished my dear Cordelia absent. Mrs. Jacoby's tale, as she had said, was unsuitable for her ears. However, inasmuch as I could tell what Cordelia, who listened intently, was thinking, she showed no signs of shock or horror. She now said, “My dear Mrs. Jacoby, if what you say is true, you have been in a most unusual situation, one you could not have prepared for, and must have had much difficulty in understanding.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Jacoby, fastening her bonnet strings and folding her mantle firmly about her, “thank you for those words. I must now go to earn my forgiveness in Chatham and regret I shall have to leave the business of the doctor to you, for, to be honest, I hope never to hear the names of Mr. Frankenstein and, above all, that of Maria Clementi, ever again. I go to do my penance now, but, before I go, I warn you, if you become any further involved in this matter you may find yourselves having to do your own penance later. This affair is damnable and may entangle the best of individuals like weed dragging them down to the bottom.” And with that she turned abruptly, crossed the long room and went out, leaving us standing in that cold room together.
Cordelia gazed after the departing figure, then turned to me and asked, “Jonathan? Do you believe what Mrs. Jacoby says?”
“I do not fully know,” I answered her, “but it is as well we are due in Nottingham as soon as the weather is sufficiently improved for us to make the journey. We cannot disappoint my family, who dearly wish to meet you and I long to take you to my home. And in that way I do what I ought, and dearly desire to do and we take Mrs. Jacoby's parting advice also. We will be far away from London soon.”
Cordelia said, “Will you not call for Mr. Frankenstein's parents? They ought to be with him—and may manage to keep that viper from his side. But I will see Mrs. Jacoby before she leaves.” I did not ask her what she hoped to discover by a further conversation with the lady.
When the doctor arrived I urged him in the strongest terms to ensure Victor had nurses day and night and that Maria Clementi was not allowed near the sick man at any time.
We had taken a carriage home and it was there that Cordelia, one small cold hand in mine, said, with some diminution of her normal confidence, “I am afraid of all this, Jonathan, and not for fear of any madman coming to murder us. I dread further entanglement in Mr. Frankenstein's affairs may end our joy, destroy our love.”
I laughed and called her a goose.
T H I R T E E N
THAT EVENING, we sat at our fireside. The ladies sewed and rather than dwell upon the melancholy and alarming events of that gloomy house in Chelsea, we spoke rather of our forthcoming visit to Kittering Hall. Mrs. Frazer then recalled she had been invited to attend a private performance by Mr. Augustus Wheeler one evening the following week at the house of a friend, a titled Scottish lady residing in London. On account of our journey, she said, she would be obliged to tell her friend she could not come. Cordelia said she considered this a great sacrifice.
A scientist as well as a showman, Augustus Wheeler had been causing much interest with his displays on the London stage and in private homes over the past few months. Audiences had been delighted and horrified by his power over those members of his audience—apparently unknown to him—who, having been subjected to his mesmeric powers, crowed like cocks, walked about the stage on their hands, delivered long poems they claimed earlier to have forgotten and all manner of such things. Some called Wheeler a charlatan, while others were entirely convinced by him. Others still pointed to the consultations he conducted in private, for a fee, at which he cured people of stammering, bashfulness and, in the case of one lady, of an apparent inability ever to leave her own front door without fainting. The newspapers debated the truth of mesmerism; clerics warned their congregations against his displays; Wheeler was a celebrity. He was invited to great men's houses and entertained many important persons with his displays.
Said I to Mrs. Frazer, “You would not, I hope, have offered yourself for a demonstration.”
“Good heavens, no,” she exclaimed, “I have no wish to be seen clucking like a chicken in front of half London.”
“Do you think the man a fraud?” Cordelia ask
ed Mrs. Frazer.
“I do not know what to think,” she responded.
“What of you, Jonathan?” Cordelia asked me.
“There is much evidence to say it is true,” I answered. “Yet it violates our belief in man's free will if one man can mesmerize another and persuade him to do things he would ordinarily eschew.”
“That is what is so frightening,” mused Cordelia. There was a silence and then it was as though we two thought as one, for, just as Cordelia began, in a thoughtful tone, “Miss Clementi—” I myself said, “I wonder if Mr. Wheeler—” and we stared at each other in, as the poet says, “wild surmise” and both fell silent again.
“Come, come, the pair of you,” Mrs. Frazer said. “You know you must not start sentences without finishing them.”
I said, “I believe Cordelia and I both thought at the same moment that Mr. Wheeler might be the last hope of restoring Maria Clementi's powers of speech. She has seen many doctors and other eminent men of science, but so far none has been able to help her. Surely it is at least possible that a man who can make a lifelong stammerer cease to stutter, as Wheeler has, and has performed many other apparent miracles, might have some effect on Miss Clementi. Is that not so—is that not what you were about to suggest, Cordelia?”
Cordelia nodded and Mrs. Frazer said, “Maybe so. But why do you want to do anything for that nasty creature?”
“She is the only person who may know what happened on the night Victor Frankenstein was attacked. She may have seen his assailant. But she cannot speak and Mr. Wortley says even if they lay hands on the villain and accuse him of murder, there is a chance the jury will pronounce him innocent, as there is insufficient evidence.”
“Surely that cannot be true,” Mrs. Frazer said. “Here is a man, half a beast, who has been haunting Mr. Frankenstein's house. Mrs. Frankenstein has been murdered, Frankenstein himself attacked—how could they declare the man not guilty?”
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