Dark Designs

by Flowers, Thomas S.

  As the afternoon wore on, lightly I made reference to the tale that Walton had previously so intrigued me. For a moment he stopped and looked down into his brandy glass thoughtfully before taking a deep breath, perhaps acknowledging to himself that the horse had bolted.

  “Perhaps there is part of the tale that I have omitted or changed for reasons of prudence,” he said.

  The missing part of the story, having sensed a weakness in the chains that bound it, was struggling fiercely, jaws wide to be released. Walton was himself wrestling with his better judgement but the story demanded completion.

  "It was starting to rain as I approached the three miserable huts, a short distance from the dirt track. The two-roomed, thatched hut that Frankenstein had described as having utilised as a laboratory was in darkness, having never been used since that terrible night. Lighting the four candles that I had brought with me and two of the lamps that were in situ, I stood surveying the cottage interior. Frankenstein, it transpired, had left a lot of his notes in the house, no one of the locals knowing the true value of these so that they lay untouched in the adjoining room. Frankenstein had refused to reveal the secret of his creation to me in that ship’s cabin amidst that sea of ice, but here it was, inscribed in his own hand upon slightly dampened paper.

  "In later recounting the tale, as entrusted to me by Frankenstein, I have often said that he related how he had put what remained of his new creation into a basket weighted with stones. I have talked of his being driven half-mad and indeed unable to even look upon his work, waiting for darkness to hide the moonlight so that he might take a boat four hours from the shore to cast the basket into the sea. Certainly there was much taken from the house to be pitched into the water, among them many pieces of cadavers that were not destined to be joined with the new creation.

  "In the silence of the evening, I stood in the abandoned house meditating on all that had happened here. In my mind I could feel the electrical storm raging overhead. Within the room, the hum of the fully charged generators filled the cottage as, under a sheet on the great table, the cold form of what would become Frankenstein’s second creation, awaited rebirth. On one wall, the improvised electrical switch that Frankenstein had bolted there, was still thrown although the current had long since drained.

  "Frankenstein’s journal; more of a notebook really, made interesting reading. There were references to electrical charges, parts of the internal organs that I had never heard of and that did not appear to have names; even pieces of animal had been suggested for use.

  "In a separate notebook Frankenstein recorded many of his observations including a fear that his new creation would fall to pieces if a shove were to be delivered. But the body had knitted together, it seemed. From the many into one powerful whole. What kind of male would be a match for this creature, possessing as he thought, the femininity of a female gorilla.

  "But then a thought halted me as I made to leave and I looked back into the room, still partially lit by a guttering, dying candle. Realisation dawned. The switch on the wall had been thrown.

  "Naturally this set me to thinking and I sought out Diarmid once again. He was not difficult to find. Sitting on a dilapedated dyke close to one of the stony beaches, he was smoking as he looked out to sea. He saluted me with his clay pipe as I approached. My time on Orkney was at an end and on Diarmid’s advice, I paid another fisherman to take me to the mainland.

  "Amid the stone dykes and smooth and unblemished grassy fields of Caithness, the coastal village of Crosskirk seemed quiet and somewhat unimaginative. Almost immediately however, I heard of a creature that could only have been the Bride, described as a giant, hulking woman that prowled the countryside. The population was sparse in this part of the country and I moved from town to town and village to village in search of her. There were many tales around the inns where I found lodging.

  "Then, on the heather covered hills of Sutherland one evening, I suddenly saw two men approaching me in some haste. It turned out however that they were not rushing towards me but away from something else. They drew up short before me, quite obviously as surprised by the encounter as I. I could not understand the language of the first man as he spoke breathlessly. The second, on hearing my professed ignorance of what he was saying, lapsed into that curious guttural form of English spoken by the southern Scots.

  "It transpired that they were under the direction of the local factor and had seen someone in the house of an evicted tenant farmer that had not been burned to the ground by the fire-raisers. When the two of them, with the factor, had gone to the house to evict the intruder, the latter resisted, killing the factor himself. I had silver enough to make both men a fellow conspirator and I gave each of them a princely sum in return for their going home and not reporting the murder until a full day had passed. They were suspicious but complied readily enough.

  "Following the direction from which they had come I hurried towards the croft, my feet sinking in the boggy ground. While I approached however, I could see that I was too late. Looking down into a glen that was opening before me, I could see a large hulking figure lumbering, like some great jackanape, from what could only have been the croft, situated some way down the slope. From the high point where I stood I got my first glimpse of Frankenstein’s second creation as the figure fled down into the glen. I stood amid a cloud of confounded midges, quite moved by what I had just seen.

  "To cut a long story short then, I eventually discovered that after she had fled the cottage, she had gone to live in one of the caves along the coast. She quickly became a local bogey, living on fish and raiding local farmers’ fields. The people of the area love their fireside stories and I found that she had been the subject of tales since her presence had become known. She had also haunted the nearby forests where the locals came to know her as ‘The Lady in White.’

  "Naturally then, my next step was to explore the caverns on the coast. I do not remember much about the first encounter I had with the Bride. I think I was overcome with awe. A quick search of these caves and what I fancied to be the wretched creature’s echoing misery in the darkness, came to my ears. On reflection however, it would appear that the creature sung to herself within the echoing cavern, the sound stopping when I appeared to her, black against the cave mouth.

  "She gazed at me from where she crouched. She had large eyes, indeed large of features and I glimpsed large, strong teeth behind full lips. The seams on her shift strained against her muscled, curiously unfeminine frame that she held poised. Her limbs were certainly in proportion and she had slightly sallow skin, her lustrous black hair drawn into a rope-like braid that hung down one shoulder.

  "We regarded each other in what was a partially submerged cave. She looked surprisingly clean suggesting that she bathed in the sea at high tide. At first I considered her to be like a cornered animal. Closer inspection however, revealed that she was moving like a fox within sight of a chicken coop and it struck me that she had a look of quiet intelligence.

  "I recall trying to soothe her so that I might talk to her. I told her that I knew what she was and not to be afraid. She remained poised and watchful, sometimes impassive. I told her my name was Robert. She repeated it twice and then nodded slowly. She was not overly fearful although I supposed one that has such strength would not need to be. Suddenly my guide, one Donnchadh MacMhaighstir from the village, called my name from the mouth of the cave. In the confusion, the creature moved suddenly and apparently escaped through an exit in the cavern roof that I had not previously noticed.

  "And so I had failed. For several days afterward I searched to no avail. The Bride had flown, and flown far. Standing at the topmost part of Scotland, I had a long way to travel homeward. Transport was less than salubrious but fortunately there had been a great road-building plan, begun in the 1720s that made travel easier.

  "If you had seen these roads before they were made, you would lift up your hands and bless General Wade.

  "I therefore procured a less than adeq
uate steed and began my journey south. Consequently it took me a day to reach the White Hart Inn in Edinburgh, where I found board and a welcome meal of bread, cheese, ale and brandy. The following day I caught a coach to London.

  "Over the next four years I watched the newspapers closely. One of the reasons I had joined the Darien Club was that it carried the Scottish papers, retained for the several doctors and lawyers that frequented these walls.

  "On perusing the Edinburgh Evening Courant on one occasion, I found the tale of a man that had met a woman of large proportions on a lonely road. The story had been told by a minister of the kirk and so his testimony was not dismissed as the result of strong drink. It related how the good clergyman had first caught sight of the apparition in the kirkyard. When he attempted to approach the figure, apparently arrayed in what looked like a man’s nightshirt, the woman had loped away in a strange hurpling motion. A few nights later he again encountered the hulking woman on a deserted track. Taking fright, the creature then pelted him with stones, forcing him to flee. Although couched in the language of respect, I suspected that the author of the piece hoped to elicit some humour in the reader.

  "For me though, this was the clue I had been waiting for, although my knowledge of Southern Scotland was limited. Fortunately, in recent times, I had reaquainted myself with a friend of mine from my schooldays. John Harding had a practice in Edinburgh. A surgeon by trade and a heroic claret drinker, somewhat nervous in his movements, he had grown a goatee beard with a curling moustache since last I saw him. With his fairish red hair and immaculate dress, favouring the old-fashioned neck-cloth, Harding was very cautious and careful as a person.

  "My coach had let me off at the ‘Long Dykes’ area of Edinburgh and we walked the short distance to his house. Taking a pinch of snuff from a silver snuff box that he continually fiddled with, he told me of his having a successful medical practice and of having attained some recognition as a leading light in the medical establishment. Physicians see themselves as a cut above surgeons, but Harding would always refer to himself as a ‘gentleman surgeon.’

  "Although he often professed to have wanted to, he had never left the shores of Britain. He did however enjoy my tales of travel to Archangel and my attempts at the Pole.

  "Over the years we had developed the habit of keeping each other’s secrets. I knew he used resurrectionists or ‘body-snatchers’ to help with his work and I therefore took Harding into my confidence telling him all that Frankenstein had imparted to me of his putting the creature together. He was intrigued by Victor Frankenstein’s insights and we talked long into the night. He was very interested in the notebooks I had found and assailed me with questions I could not answer. The spark of life that I found in the journal however, he now had in his possession.

  "Harding spent several hours scrutinising the diagrams, the observations and notes that were contained in one of the battered volumes. At lunch, one afternoon, he told me that what he found remarkable was the need for the creation to be so large due to the surgeon’s need to work within the body. This explained why Frankenstein had built his creature to be over eight feet tall. Fascinated by the ground-breaking challenge to his vocation, Harding agreed to help me; a decision aided by the fact that I once saved his life in a boating accident many years previously.

  "And so we discussed the situation. Frankenstein had wanted to create, and many of the relevant considerations that lurked in the wings, remained under-lit. Frankenstein had abandoned and betrayed both of his creations, of that there was no doubt. I at least was saved from such folly; my eyes were fixed upon finding this modern marvel and so was mindful of my need to approach with subtlety.”

  Here, Walton inexplicably halted his narrative. Looking up I noticed that he was hurriedly excusing himself and had moved to greet an aquaintance of his that was just crossing the floor. In the ensuining interval I was able to ponder how, in many ways, I had come to consider Walton and Frankenstein to be very alike in their lusts for adventure and need to learn. Their differing points of view however, were quite significant.

  Walton returned but it seemed the story had fallen away, like loose earth on the edge of a river bank. There was no way back to the tale and I could only wonder at Walton’s words. Again and again I wrestled with certain parts of the story.

  What makes us share things about ourselves to complete strangers? It was quite plain to see, that the information Walton imparted to me could have caused him great peril if I had thought to go to the constabulary. Walton however, was not, I suspect, a Catholic and such a tale mayhaps weighed heavy upon him without recourse to confession. The conversation had descended into silence and although I tried gently to bring Walton back to his tale, he seemed adept at changing the subject.

  We met again several times in the months that followed, but Walton never returned to the subject. On one occasion however, we were both by the bookcase. I was searching for an obscure book on the Nandi people of Africa as I recall and, on mentioning it to Walton, he informed me that he in fact had that particular volume. He invited me straight away to his house as he sensed my enthusiasm.

  In the darkened study, I mused on an antique piece of furniture as Walton searched his bookshelves. His copy, when he found it, was in excellent condition.

  “You have an interesting life,” I commented, somewhat out of the blue.

  Walton mused for a few moments and I saw an opportunity as he served a particularly fine sherry. While we sat talking in the study, Walton complained that the nanny had left the child in the room. I had not previously noticed the crib where it stood in the room. It was strangely large and richly decorated.

  “The child appears to settle best in this room.” Walton commented.

  The baby on occasion, made the strangest of noises, like a howler monkey. Walton smiled, saying that the child had been ill.

  “I was thinking about that tale you told,” I ventured. “I keep thinking of the creature in that house in Orkney.”

  “Ah yes,” he said, “I may have slightly altered the story in my retelling, suggesting that the Bride had been destroyed.”

  I noticed that Walton did look uncomfortable as he began his tale once more.

  "Certainly there was an attempt to do away with the creation. But in the few days that Frankenstein absented himself from the laboratory, the creation was somehow activated when Frankenstein, in his frenzy, caused his electrical devices to spark into life. Alone in the cottage, the jilted Bride must have begun to stir. Born without help into the world. Certainly, on his return, Frankenstein gathered up the many body parts that were strewn around and disposed of them. But it would seem not all the parts were still there.

  "My curiosity regarding whatever it was that found birth in that thatched, unplastered room had not waned and I was not ready to abandon my investigations. There was then much searching and wasted hours over the weeks that followed in the land around Scotland’s capital. Harding could not accompany me as he had much pressing work to do. He had also been compelled, he told me at breakfast that first morning, to attend the funeral of the eminent physician, William Buchan.

  "I took an inn at Haddington, in Haddingtonshire that I hoped to secure as a ‘nest’ from which to scour the surrounding landscape. After three days at the inn, while breakfasting on white wine and oysters, a stone-carrier who was also a guest and whose acquaintance I had made, informed me of a nearby legend that was known locally as ‘the Sea Hag of Port Seton.' The surrounding area beckoned. Along the coast, that evening, I forgot the time, darkness falling surprisingly quickly.

  "Fortune smiled upon me however, and I was able to find refuge in a salmon fishers’ bothy a short distance from a sandy beach just as it began to rain. The weather worsened and I decided to shelter overnight as the rain beat down overhead, lighting a fire in the fireplace. The gorse brushwood came to life, bringing heat and light to the small room and lifting my spirits.

  "The night wore on and the rain became steady. I went out to gath
er wood that was stacked by the back door. The wood was not adequately sheltered and some of the logs were damp as I gathered them into my arms. Gazing into the deluge and the darkness, I could just discern a tall marker of white some distance from where I stood. A moment's concentration and I saw that it moved, transforming into a figure that approached out of the darkness and driving downpour. My mind struggled in the face of what I was seeing. The apparition approached and I wrestled with my own vision. Did this thing see me? Was it approaching the house?

  "Drawing close, I saw that it was a woman of monstrous size. She wore what looked to be a man’s night-shirt. Her long black hair had been braided into a single pigtail that hung down her right shoulder.

  "'Hello Robert,' she said in a hoarse whisper, sounding like she spoke with her mouth full of biscuit.

  "Dumbfounded, I stood and stared. She regarded me steadily.

  "'May I come in?'

  "Appearing to fill the room, she sat down by the fire and allowed me, when I had broken free of my awe and plucked up my courage, to drape my blanket around her shoulders. There was silence for a long time, the woman staring into the fire. As I watched, I could only wonder, as to whether her brain recalled another, greater fire.

  "At last she spoke, 'You have been following me for some time I think.'

  "The bothy, like others of its kind, was very smokey and the fire was the only light after I put out the lamp to conserve oil. Looking into her eyes through the smoke that curled up out of the fireplace, I felt that I could see the lingering phantoms of a thousand-fold horrors, in this world and in others beyond. This jilted Bride had voyaged upon undreamt of seas. Her eyes shone with an amazing lustre and she sat with a placid countenance, having the air of one that has looked down upon humanity from a great height. I fancied that the spirit that looked out from behind those piercing eyes had seen such sights.

  "'How did you find me?' I finally asked.

  "'It is easy to find someone that is looking for you without hiding himself,' she said.