Frankenstein's Bride (13 page)

“What has that to do with it, Mrs. Jacoby?” Cordelia asked.

“The lady is most certainly at Frankenstein's—or was, last night,” Hugo intervened.

“Ah,” Mrs. Jacoby said angrily. “It is just as I thought—just as I told you, Gabriel.” She turned to me, “Will you go to him
and persuade him to release her?” she asked.

Hugo, however, said, “She went there of her own free will. I and my wife were reluctant witnesses to the scene. She arrived
late last night still in her stage dress in a state of great agitation and appeared to be asking for shelter. Which,” he said
grimly, “was granted.”

“That villain!” exclaimed Mortimer. “What does he want with her?”

“But what do you want with her?” came the clear voice of Cordelia Downey. “What do either of you want with her?”

There was a silence, broken by Mrs. Jacoby, “You appear to me to be a sensible and respectable woman, and I feel ashamed that
the upset of Maria's going has caused Mr. Mortimer and I to intrude on you so early.”

“Thank you for your tribute to my character,” Mrs. Downey said. “It does not explain your presence.”

“I must tell you—none of you knows Maria Clementi as I do,” Mrs. Jacoby cried out passionately. “She is the most wicked, immoral
creature who ever trod the earth. Come, Gabriel—this is not the place for us. Maria has gone to Frankenstein—did I not tell
you that witch was not abducted? Mr. Goodall cannot help us. We must go to Cheyne Walk and have it out.” And apologizing hastily
for their intrusion, the couple left as abruptly as they had arrived, leaving Hugo and Lucy, Cordelia and Mrs. Frazer looking
at each other in bewilderment.

“There is nothing we can do,” Hugo announced stoutly, “The woman went to Frankenstein, Frankenstein received her, what more
is there to say? We must go, Lucy, now. Mrs. Downey, I fear you have had a bad start to your day. I thank you for your hospitality.”

“Well, my dear,” Cordelia said to Lucy Feltham. “Mr. Feltham may be prepared to whisk you breakfast-less from the house before
you have had a chance to arrange yourself, but I will defy him on your behalf. You must have an egg, hot water, a little cologne
and some small chance to restore your equanimity. While all that is taking place my servant can put up some food for your
journey and these gentlemen can step round together to the magistrate's to put in hand the matter of the arrest of the imbecile.”
She could not resist adding, to me, “As for the character of Miss Clementi—you now have it from the lips of her own, paid
companion.”

We were swept from the house as by a broom leaving the ladies to deal with their arrangements. Mrs. Frazer, naturally enough,
was bursting with curiosity as to what all the events of the morning might mean. As we walked to Mr. Wortley's house Hugo
said, “A woman of some character, your Mrs. Downey. You could go further and fare worse—” but I did not reply.

At Mr. Wortley's I reported I had reason to suspect that a man who lived on a wharf at Chelsea might have information bearing
on the death of Mrs. Frankenstein and her child, might indeed be the perpetrator of the crime. Hugo supported this statement
and Wortley dispatched men to lay hands on him. I heard from him later that the fellow had decamped during the night. When
his workmates arrived in the morning they found him and his very few possessions gone from the hut.

How happy I was during the next weeks. How little I desired gloom, mystery, dreads and doubts. And, though few would have
believed it, I was able to banish such thoughts for some weeks as all my tenderness for Cordelia Downey increased and, so
she said, did hers for me. Such times are rare and precious for all of us.

Since I was now an admitted lover, it appeared unsuitable for Cordelia, scion of a freedom-loving family though she might
have been, to stay alone in the house with her prospective husband. Either I must remove myself or Mrs. Frazer stay on as
chaperone, and Mrs. Frazer having no pressing reason to return home, it was decided she should remain. So, in the light of
love offered and returned, small wonder it was possible for me to put darkness from my mind. We planned a visit to my family
in Nottingham. I began to forget the frightening and complicated affairs of Victor Frankenstein (who, during this period,
did not approach me in friendship, nor I him). When I thought of the affair, I hoped it was over. Alas, this was not to be.
Dreadful news arrived all too soon.

E L E V E N

ONE MORNING IN FEBRUARY the magistrate Mr. Wortley arrived, calling me from work on my dictionary to impart some most dreadful
news.

Victor Frankenstein lay gravely ill, near death. He had been found, the day before, in the early morning, stabbed as if by
a lunatic, in his own drawing-room—that same long, gloomy salon overlooking the garden from which I had observed the lurker,
now missing. The window of this room had been broken, exactly as on the night Elizabeth Frankenstein was killed. On the otherwise
unbroken snow of the lawn huge, erratic footprints, as if made by a limping man of great stature had been discovered.

Wortley added the dreadful fact that a gardeners' hut near the house bore traces of occupation. Inside was discovered a pile
of bedding, some of which had been taken from Victor's house. There was a ragged, black coat, crusts of food lay about, even
a plate from the house. Plainly someone had been living in the hut and stealing supplies from Victor's household. Mr. Wortley
did not doubt that this man was he who had broken in and almost killed Victor, nor that the madman was the very monster I
had reported to him.

“While men had been searching everywhere for the culprit,” Wortley said bitterly, “he was in the last place anyone might have
expected to find him—hiding close to his prey. Far from escaping, he had come closer to the man he wished to kill.”

I expressed the utmost horror at this story. I would, I said, go to Victor immediately.

“There is another thing,” Wortley said, a little uncomfortably. “When the servants raised the alarm they found your friend,
bleeding, and a lady with him, a lady who is dumb, cradling him in her arms. I think you will discover she is still there.”

It made a dreadful picture. Victor mortally wounded in that bleak drawing-room at Cheyne Walk, under a broken window, the
footprints of his murderer leading away across the white expanse of lawn while Maria, unable to speak or cry out for help,
stayed with him as he lay there, near death.

Wortley continued, “It is unfortunate she cannot speak, for when we catch Mr. Frankenstein's attacker—who may, alas, by then
be his murderer, for he is between life and death even now—we will need a witness to what happened. But she cannot tell us
what she saw. Do you know her? Is there any way she can be got to speak?”

I told him that, to the best of my knowledge, there was not.

I then went to see Victor, accompanied by Cordelia, who offered to give any help she might.

It was very cold but bright as we clopped over hard-packed frozen snow to Cheyne Walk. The sun glinted from the ice of the
Thames which was solidly frozen. A ship, sails furled, was trapped in mid-channel; little boys were sliding and whooping on
the ice. On the pier where Victor's assassin had once lived and worked, the men had lit a big fire of driftwood round which
they stood to warm themselves, though there would be little work for them until the river unfroze.

Victor's butler, a man with an expression of deep doubt and anxiety on his face, opened the door to us, and said he would
conduct us to Victor's room. The house was cold, for which he apologized, saying that morning all the maids and the other
manservant had left, out of fear. We began to mount the huge, cold staircase to Victor's bedroom, but as we ascended I looked
down and through the open door to that large and desolate drawing-room where I observed two burly men sitting on chairs, playing
cards. They had been hired, no doubt, to protect the house and Victor from further attack. However, when I commented on this
the butler shook his head. “Would that they had been here last night. I have locked the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Alas, the doctor's opinion is that Mr. Frankenstein may not have long to live.”

As we reached the landing at the top of the stairs, I was surprised to see seated outside Victor's sick-room the heavily mantled
figure of Mrs. Jacoby. She stood up as Cordelia and I approached. Her face was very lined; she looked ten years older. She
spoke to me with some urgency: “Mr. Goodall, Maria is within, sitting with Mr. Frankenstein. But I must speak to you privately—alone.”

“Yes—perhaps,” I said, “but first let me see poor Victor.” My hand was on the handle of the door.

She grasped me by the arm. “Make her leave that room,” she urged. “Mr. Goodall—make her leave.”

I entered the vast room where a great fire burned. Victor lay in a four-poster bed, his face turned away from me, looking
at Maria, who sat beside him. All the hair was gone from the back of his skull, cut away so as not to clog his wounds. There
were two great slashes which had been stitched in black in the form of a cross at the back of his head. His arms lay outside
the bedclothes, both heavily bandaged. Mr. Wortley had said the weapon used had been a heavy knife, such as cooks employ for
large joints of meat. Thirty separate wounds had been made, Wortley said, but of these the most serious would probably be
those less visible which had penetrated his chest and stomach.

Maria sat on a chair by the window, clad in a pretty grey dress with a lace fichu at her shoulders. Her hair was arranged
in curls on top of her head. She smiled as I approached the bed. She was holding Victor's hand.

I said, “Victor—Victor—I am desolated to find you like this. What can I do for you?” But Maria, with a little wave of her
small hand, attracted my attention and, wearing a small, rueful smile, pointed at Victor, then at her own mouth, shaking her
head. I did not take her meaning at first, so she went through the pantomime again. This time I understood. “He cannot speak?”
I questioned. She shook her head again.

I went round the bed to the side where she sat, to show him my concern, even if it was impossible to speak to him. I gazed
down at that grey, wasted face and was appalled by what I saw.

Maria had his hand in hers, his eyes were upon her face—and on his face was an expression of absolute horror. He gazed into
that pretty face as if he were looking into the pits of hell. She continued to smile gently at him, then bent gracefully to
kiss him on the brow. A puff of smoke caused by some back draught came from the fireplace into the room. For a moment I saw,
as if in a dream, smoke curling round Maria, and the prone figure of Frankenstein.

I thought of Mrs. Jacoby's appeal to me to make Maria leave the sick-room. I dropped to my knees beside the bed (which inevitably
meant that Maria had to let go of Victor's hand) and put my face to his, saying, “My dear fellow—my very dear fellow—are you
afraid, what is the matter?”

His eyes met mine in fear and underneath I thought I saw an appeal. I glanced at Maria, who shook her head, smiled and indicated
by her expression that what I saw was not to be taken seriously. I gazed deep into her inexpressive, lovely eyes and felt
I was drowning. I wrenched my own eyes away and they fell on Victor's fearful face.

“Victor,” I appealed. “Can you tell me what ails you?” But he could not, though he seemed to be pleading with me. Then, as
if he had been mesmerized, his gaze, frightened, yet in some way obedient like a beaten child's, went back to Maria.

“Miss Clementi,” I said. “I know you mean well, but it appears to me that your presence in this sick-room is disturbing Victor
in some way. Would it not be better to end your visit and return at a later time?” She smiled directly into my eyes—a pang,
most shameful in these circumstances, went through me. I thought, I am mad. I must be mad. Then she bent her pitying look
on the invalid, whose hand she took again in her own, and at that his face seemed to become more ashen, more lined, if that
were possible. I was forced to say again, “I truly think your presence agitates him. A man as ill as Victor must be indulged,
or his recovery will be slowed.” Or never take place at all was what I meant, though I did not say so. “Why do you not leave
him now,” I continued, “and return tomorrow, when perhaps he will be a little stronger.”

But she only smiled and shook her head and held the hand of the terrified man. She would not leave.

I flung myself from the room, finding Mrs. Jacoby in sympathetic conversation with Cordelia, as if the unpleasant early morning
interview at Gray's Inn Road had never taken place, I exclaimed, “Mrs. Jacoby, she makes love to him even as he lies there
dying, but his eyes are full of fear when he looks at her! She terrifies him. He pleads wordlessly with me to make her go
but she will not—will not. He has conceived some irrational fear of her. She must leave him.”

“That was why I asked you to try to get her from the room,” Mrs. Jacoby said. “She has been with him now for a day and a half,
ever since he was attacked.”

“Can you not influence the doctor to force her out and install some determined nurse to stay with Mr. Frankenstein all the
time?” Cordelia asked. “One must pander to the fancies of a man so ill.”

“Fancies?—These are no fancies,” replied Mrs. Jacoby, grimly. “I told the doctor yesterday of this, but he was taken in, no
doubt by Maria's pretty face. Mr. Goodall—he comes in an hour. Will you speak to him?”

“I will,” I said. “But should not Victor's parents be here to direct matters now he is so ill?”

“Mrs. Jacoby tells me he will not have them called,” Cordelia told me.

“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.”