"She's in, and that's that," Saville said, shortly after completing the formal introduction of his bride to Frankenstein and Clerval. There was little that they could say. I, of course, had not been introduced, but was observing the ceremony through a convenient knothole in the wall between the room of the meeting and a passage leading to my own rude accommodations.
The lady, perhaps feeling somewhat unwelcome, departed soon after the introductions were over, and without actually seeing me. Looking back now, I think that she had not yet grasped the fact that I, the proof of the scheme on which money was to be spent, was physically present somewhere on the premises.
It was not that Margaret ruled Roger, as some women are able to rule their husbands, but that he, confident of his authority, sought to put to use her naturally great abilities.
Her next visit to the warehouse came shortly after the wedding, I think on the very next day. It occurred at an hour when Saville was elsewhere, engaged in some other of the numerous enterprises that consume the time and effort of a man of wealth.
Naturally, since the time when her husband-to-be had first told her about our establishment and its goals, her curiosity had grown enormously. She was now unwilling to wait any longer to learn about the mysterious enterprise in which he was engaged with a sea captain, and a philosopher; and to see and hear what evidence existed of the tremendous secret they possessed, and that had awakened in them all such dreams of avarice and power.
She returned to the building on an afternoon when Victor alone of the gentlemen was present, and bullied him into exhibiting me to her—or, rather, she was well on the way to achieving such a result when I decided that the time had come to take my own destiny more firmly in hand. What harm was this young woman likely to be able to do me? Standing tall and walking boldly, I emerged from my usual place of hiding, into the laboratory where she could see me. My creator turned from the lady to gaze at me in consternation; I had managed to surprise him utterly.
The lady too was surprised. "What is it?" she asked Victor in a whisper. Yet in her eyes, as she gazed upon my countenance, was not terror or disgust, but interest tinged with horror.
I said, "I am capable of speaking for myself, Madam."
Victor, with spasmodic arm movements that he must have thought were subtle but forceful gestures, was trying to quiet me. Meanwhile he assured his guest that she was in no danger.
But the woman only gave him a contemptuous look, and turned back to me. She too was able to decide what her own ideas were, and to express them. "Where are you from?" she asked me at last.
"Bavaria," I replied evenly. "And you?"
A stunned silence greeted this bold question. Realizing promptly that something was amiss, I hastened to offer an apology. "Forgive my lack of social graces; but you see, my education has been inadequate. No one's fault, really, I suppose, but there it is—if there is aught you would like to ask me, I repeat, I am quite capable of speaking for myself. As I see you are."
My creator was speechless. As for the lady, she shook her lovely head in silence, not knowing what to make of me. The fashion for high-piled constructions in the hair was coming in that year, but this lady would not incommode herself with such nonsense; black natural ringlets shook, tumbled, against ivory skin. I think the fact that she did not know just what to think delighted her, instead of producing a stunned or angry reaction, as it would have done in a lesser woman.
Other words were said between us on that occasion; I find that now I cannot very well remember them. I do know that our meeting ended with the suggestion, at least, that Mrs. Saville intended somehow to get to know me better.
The time came when Frankenstein's gathering of materials was nearly finished, and our stay in London was drawing to its close. I still did not exist, officially. The story put forward locally by the gentlemen to explain their activities was that they had formed a company to go into the north of Ireland, there to establish a hospital for indigent fishermen and their families. How many people in London who heard this story of the hospital actually believed it I do not know. But no one scoffed openly at the pretense, as far as I am aware. I have said that Saville was—and is—immensely wealthy.
For reasons I was not completely aware of at the time, it was decided among the gentlemen that a certain increase in staff was necessary. Mrs. Hammer somehow recruited two poor girls, Bess and Molly, both very young, sturdy and healthy, to join our establishment. They were to accompany us when we sailed (to Ireland, as they were told) and serve some role as housekeepers when we established a hospital for fishermen. I believe that both of them were country lasses, only recently arrived in London.
In private conversation Victor told me that he believed the hospital story would provide just the cover that we needed; and that the girls were really needed to serve as housekeepers, when we set up our small colony in isolation. This explanation seemed believable; both young women struck me as at least dimly respectable (How should I have been able to judge? But I could judge such matters. Even then.) and I supposed whores would have been recruited if that service were needed, and it was thought there was a shortage of them in Ireland. There was certainly no insufficiency in great London.
Bess and Molly were not members of the Hammer family, but I am sure that one of the requirements in their recruitment was tolerance for such business activities as that family practiced. Looking back, I suspect, that at least one of the two girls, country origins or not, came from a family engaged somewhere in a similar trade. I believe they were told frankly that when we arrived at our northern destination there would be some such work in progress, delivery of dead patients to a medical school perhaps.
Meanwhile, the task of gathering Victor's necessary materials proceeded quite successfully, with a stock of young female bodies accumulating in our warehouse. I observed Frankenstein, with his own hands, packing these materials in hogsheads of brine, and I wondered how they should be listed in the cargo when we set sail. It did not really occur to me—as yet—to wonder whether all of these bodies had been obtained by robbing graves, or whether the strict requirements for freshness had encouraged our new provisioners to adopt even more enterprising methods.
Walton expressed concern that the two live girls, Bess and Molly, might somehow discover the truth about our cargo. Eventually they would learn it, but preferably not until we had sailed. He employed his literary talents to develop an alternative story, that male bodies were easy to obtain in Ireland, but that there some prudish papist prohibition was in effect against research on females. Whether there was any truth to that portion of his story or not I have never had the opportunity to discover.
Small, as I have said, had attached himself to our group, though making no real contribution that I could see. But he disappeared again a month or two before we were to sail. At the time I was relieved, thinking that perhaps I had seen the last of him, for the dislike between us had been instantaneous and mutual. Later I was to discover that his detachment from our strange community was only temporary, and that Roger knew where he had gone.
By early May of 1780, our preparations were almost complete. We were in fact on the verge of sailing, when a letter arrived for Victor, forwarded from Ingolstadt, through what intermediary I never learned. The message was from my creator's father, who thought his eldest son was still in school at Ingolstadt, and it brought shocking and terrible news—William, Victor's youngest brother, only seven years old, had been most foully murdered. At the time when the venerable Alphonse dispatched his letter, no one in Geneva yet had the slightest idea of who the guilty party might be.
This horrible intelligence took everyone in our establishment by surprise. Victor, of course, was badly shaken. He insisted that he must return to Geneva at once, to see and commiserate with his surviving family, before he secluded himself in some remote place and plunged into what he expected would be months of uninterrupted work. We must wait for him in London; he would return to us as soon as possible.
Has
tily the men who thought themselves my masters took counsel together. It was decided that our voyage need not be postponed; the establishment of the new laboratory, on lands also owned by Saville, need not wait for Frankenstein's presence. Saville and Clerval, with some help from Walton and his men—and from me—could manage the settlement and construction, down to the final arrangement and testing of equipment. We would sail.
I cannot continue to write of those things just now.
I must rest. And soon, somehow, I must get back to Europe.
Chapter 8
Later, the same night—
I cannot sleep. As terrible as the writing must be, I suffer more terribly with it until it is done.
On the thirtieth of May, 1780, we all boarded the Argo once again. I, of course, had returned to my cramped cabin-within-a-cabin some hours before our embarkation under cover of darkness. Argo was no passenger vessel, but the time in port had been used in converting some of the cargo space into cabins. Mrs. Hammer and the two young women were given berths in one of these new facilities, and there they remained for most of the voyage, only now and then taking a turn on deck under the watchful eye of Captain Walton. The rest of the passengers were in general accommodated as on the previous voyage, but another cabin was made for Small.
Our passage round Land's End and through the Irish Sea was mainly uneventful, though, as on our Channel crossing in the same ship, we were beset by storms. It was about a week before we reached our destination.
This was an island whose name I have never heard until this day. Though I am now certain that it lies somewhere among the Hebrides, at the time neither I nor any of the others who had been deceived divined that we were not in Ireland.
There being no proper harbor, we dropped anchor in a small bay and went ashore in boats. On our approach—though it was daylight, I had been allowed on deck as soon as we made landfall—I judged the island to be no more than five miles in its greatest length, and I soon learned that it was only half that wide. A small cluster of central hills, the highest mounting to perhaps a thousand feet above the sea, were covered with a carpet of grass, except where, among the hills especially, rocky outcroppings protruded. A few trees grew among the hills, none at all elsewhere.
The day of our arrival was unusually fine; though as I read it my description seems forbidding, with a fresh breeze and sunshine the aspect of the place was extremely pleasant—especially to one who had been out of sight of sun for days.
My pleasure in the view was somewhat altered by the glances I received when I first appeared above the hatches. From the lack of outcry I suppose the crew had already learned that there was an additional passenger, but none were prepared for the sight of me. There were stares and mutterings from the crew, until the captain glared them into silence. Since I cannot believe that Walton was concerned to spare my feelings I must assume that he glared at his crew almost every time he came in sight of them, and heartily disapproved of any spontaneous action that they might take. Indeed, I expect he was happiest with his crew when he was writing about them in his book, where each word and action were under his complete control.
The nameless, roadless bay at which we came ashore had been the site of a small fishing settlement, a dozen stone cottages and outbuildings, though none of the former inhabitants were to be seen on our arrival. A combination of bad luck in fishing and a series of disastrous storms had left the place nearly deserted, and a small payment from Saville had induced the others to depart for another island. The settlement's buildings were in a state of wretched disrepair; in most of the structures little more than the stone walls remained standing.
The sailors who had rowed me ashore heaved a sigh of relief as I stepped from their boat, and those already ashore were glad enough to keep their distance as I paced from shallow water up onto the shingle.
There was a small stream running down through the village, and I moved toward this, and climbed along its bank, delighted to be even momentarily away from others. I thought that I could see a brown fish darting through the shallows. I suppose now it was a trout. The water in the stream, this near the sea, was brackish when I bent to taste it.
The three women had come ashore together, in the boat immediately following mine. Looking back, I saw Bess and Molly, for the moment ignoring the savage character of the place in which they found themselves, offering up prayers of thanksgiving for having solid land once more beneath their feet.
Frankenstein's laboratory equipment, and an ample stock of supplies of all kinds, were soon brought ashore. Walton did not linger; after setting all ashore the Argo set sail for London, there to await the return of Frankenstein from his sad mission on the Continent.
The first task we undertook was to set up a few tents. That was the work of an hour only, and in the remaining daylight all hands fell to, to begin the work of restoring the abandoned cottages to a livable condition. As most of the ship's crew had departed with her, much of the heavy labor of this effort fell to me. I had no objection to this, and indeed was pleased to be able, as I thought, to impel the enterprise forward. Two or three crewmen had been left on the island, but they now had the duties of servants—and of guards—to perform as well as those of laborers.
Having left his new wife more or less in charge of his affairs in London, Saville took personal charge of the reconstruction effort, issuing orders on every hand. It was obvious that he was enjoying his wealth and power in a new way in this lonely place, that he delighted in being the absolute lord and master of everything and everyone in sight.
As awareness of their lonely situation was borne in upon them, Molly and Bess became much cast down, but they had little time in which to mourn their condition. Mrs. Hammer, looking as grim and prim as ever (Hammer himself had remained at his own thriving trade in London) kept the two young women busy from the hours of their arrival, cooking, scrubbing, and washing, serving all the rest of us. Housekeeping was to be their task until, as she told them, the hospital should be ready, when each of them should find herself supervising a staff of Irish menials. This prospect cheered the girls somewhat.
Within an hour of landing I had begun to suspect that this was not Ireland—certain scraps of old papers I found among the litter in the abandoned cottages made me doubt it. And I, of course, had never believed that there was going to be a hospital.
When rain, an almost daily occurrence, came on near evening, I took shelter, as did the common hands, under pieces of tarpaulin. Fires were kept going. Discomfort was nothing new to any of us, and the night passed.
In early morning the sky cleared for a time, and again the world of early summer was transformed into a place of beauty.
I arose, and wandered unnoticed away from the others. Herons were nesting not far from the village, and I paused to watch. -Never before had I had the chance, the freedom, to become absorbed in the beauties of nature.
Looking back to where smoke rose from our fires, I saw that the young women were both up early, drawing and fetching water from the stream, carrying their empty buckets uphill and inland to where the water was fresh. In their way the two girls were beautiful too, I thought—parts of the same nature as the herons. But the girls were not of me, nor I of them. I watched and enjoyed them as I did the birds, and dreamed of the mate my creator was going to provide for me. She would look—more or less like me, and I took pleasure in the thought. Despite the universal reaction of those I met, I did not yet consider myself deformed or ugly. That feeling came upon me later, and only more lately still have I begun to rid myself of it.
Forgotten, I wandered unmolested ever farther from the village, seduced by the nature around me. At length I came upon an ancient burial mound, its top on a level with my head. How was I able to recognize it for what it was? How many of my shipmates, it occurred to me to wonder, could? I doubted that even the gentlemen, with their Greek and Latin, would recognize the long earthen shape for what it was.
As I stood musing thus the young women came by several
times, carrying their pails upstream for fresh water. Bess, on her second or third trip, dared approach me closely enough to converse. I was ugly in her eyes, of course, but doubtless she had known an ugly man or two before, and found them bearable.
Since it was plain to her I was no gentleman, she could question me freely. She wanted to know my name, and would not believe that I had none to give her. We talked about the strangeness of the place where we found ourselves, and I told her what the mound was. She stared at me, having no idea if what I said was true, and if it was, how I might have come to know about it. No more did I.
Day passed and our labor of reconstruction made good progress.
Towards the end of July, Walton brought the Argo back to our small colony, and Victor was aboard. As he was rowed ashore my creator looked as grim as I had ever seen him. When he jumped from the boat and waded through the last inches of the gentle surf, Clerval and Saville hastened to meet him.
As the rest of us gathered round unbidden on the beach, Frankenstein lost no time in outlining for us the sad strange tale of his murdered brother.
According to the verdict of the law, the child William had been killed by Justine Moritz, the motive being the robbery of some small but valuable portrait, worn like a medallion on a chain. The appearance of the trinket among the belongings of the accused had provided the chief and almost only evidence against her.
That evening, when we were alone in the laboratory (my creator had been most anxious to resume his interrupted labors) Victor related to me his own theory of the crime—that the real killer had been some unknown man, Justine's lover, who had reacted murderously when the child had caught him trying to steal the picture; that Justine's sole crime had been to protect her man with a silence that lasted to the grave.
The Frankenstein Papers Page 8
