The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein (12 page)

“Not conjurors. Philosophers. Men of science.”

“Of the
secreta secretorum
of their arts. And I must say that I have been alarmed.”

“My dear Lang, there are people alarmed by Faraday and by Mesmer. All new forms of thought and practice provoke disquiet. What did Coleridge just say to us? Under the force of the imagination, nature itself is changed. Faraday has awakened dead limbs with his electrical fluid. Mesmer has relieved suffering invalids of all pain. Is that not an alteration in nature’s laws?”

“It cannot lead to good.”

“Is the passage from death to life not good? Is the alleviation of pain not good? Come now. You must think like a man, Horace, not like a theologian.”

We fell into silence, my companion uttering a subdued farewell as we parted from each other in the quad, but I climbed
my staircase with a light heart. Coleridge’s valedictory words, on the shaping role of the imagination, had aroused my enthusiasm to such a pitch that I could think of nothing else. I mixed myself a hot collation of rum and milk, a legacy from my days in Chamonix, and then retired to bed with a fixed determination to rise early and to pitch myself into my studies.

When I placed my head on the pillow, however, I did not sleep; nor could I be said to think of anything in particular. My mind was like a canvas on which a succession of images passed. Once, when I had been ill of a fever in Chamonix, the same sensation had possessed me; it was as if my imagination had become my guide, leading me forward in a direction over which I had no possible control. As I lay in my bed in Oxford I saw Elizabeth, as she would have been had she still been in life; there were pictures of my father climbing steadily, along the side of a vast glacier that threatened to overwhelm him; there were pictures of Bysshe, fleeing across an open plain with a girl in his arms. And then, most tremendous of all, I saw myself kneeling by the bed of some gigantic shadowy form. This bed was my bed, and the shape was stretched out upon it. Yet I could not be sure of its nature. Then it began to show signs of life, and to stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion.

I must have lapsed into sleep, for I can then only recall a sequence of sounds like some roll of drums in the prelude to an opera. I heard a gate creaking upon its hinges and then swinging back, a number of heavy steps, a key turning and then a door opening. I opened my eyes in terror, to find Florence entering the room. “You will miss the service, Mr. Frankenstone,” she was saying. “You must rouse yourself.”

Never had I washed and dressed myself with such relief, to
find the phantasms of the night quite dispersed. I rushed down into chapel, where I saw Lang blinking and yawning as if he had not slept at all. I was about to join him in hall for breakfast, after the service, when the porter brought over to me a note. “This has been left for you, sir,” he said. “Just this morning.”

There was a message scrawled in pencil on a small sheet of paper torn from a notebook:
May I see you? I am by the bridge at the end of the street
. It was signed by Daniel Westbrook.

I HURRIED DOWN THE HIGH STREET
to Magdalen Bridge. He was waiting for me on the parapet, looking down at the green ooze of the Cherwell. “Thank goodness you are here,” he said as soon as he saw me hastening towards him. “Good day to you, Mr. Frankenstein.”

“Good morning, Daniel. I hardly expected to see you in Oxford.”

“I travelled on the overnight coach. You are the only one I know—”

“What has happened?”

“Harriet has vanished.”

“What?”

“We believe that she has eloped with Mr. Shelley. There is no sign of either of them. Mr. Frankenstein, they are not married!”

“Pause a moment. Go back. How do you know that she has gone?”

“All her possessions have been taken away, including her precious books. Of course I went immediately to Mr. Shelley’s rooms.”

“Where are these rooms?”

“In Aldgate. He moved there to be closer to us. But he had gone. His landlady said that he had entered a carriage with a young woman, and that he had taken his portmanteau with him. Her description was that of Harriet. They have fled, Mr. Frankenstein. My father is in a weakened state. My sisters are dreadfully upset. What shall we do? My first thought was of you.”

“We shall stay very calm. No progress will be made in a state of excitement.” I took his arm, and we walked back towards my college. “You will have some tea with me, and revive yourself. Look how cold you are.”

“I was sitting outside during the journey. The wind was very fresh.”

“Come back to my rooms then. We will make our plans.”

WHEN WE WERE SETTLED
, and the kettle warming by the hearth, Daniel explained the course of events since my departure for Switzerland four months before. Bysshe had continued to tutor Harriet, in his rooms at Poland Street, and within a few weeks there had grown up a friendship between them. That is when he had moved to Aldgate, so that she could have further lessons with him without the inconvenience of travelling across London. Harriet had no chaperone, of course, since her sisters were obliged to work; but there had been no sign of any intimacy. “Harriet would repeat to me what she had learned each day,” Daniel said. “Mr. Shelley had introduced her to the Greek poets and philosophers, but he had also acquainted her with what he called the new spirit. He read to her from the Lake poets and, in her words, guided her through wild and magical
landscapes. I
really
do believe, Mr. Frankenstein, that she was a changed person. I had never seen her so animated, so bold.”

“And then?”

“I had not the slightest suspicion, as I said, of any connection other than that of teacher and pupil. I would not have dreamed of anything else. The gulf between them was too wide. Mr. Shelley is the son of a baronet whereas Harriet—well—she is merely the daughter of Mr. Westbrook.”

“There must have been an occasion—”

“No. Never. Not until she had fled.”

I rose, and went over to the window. “He is hardly likely to have come to Oxford. Of all places on earth, this is the one he most detests. He could not have returned to his father. That would be unthinkable. Did you enquire at the principal coach offices?”

“I went to Snow Hill and Aldersgate. They had not been seen. I even walked out to Knightsbridge, in case they had tried to avoid pursuit, but there had been no sign of them.”

“They may have gone to some other part of London.”

“In which case, we are lost.”

“This is what I will do. I will write to him, and address the letter to his father’s house. He will not have gone there, but he may have sent a message. It is the only possible means of reaching him. You must return to London, Daniel, in case your sister tries to communicate with you. Try the other coaches.”

“There is an office in Bishopsgate. And in the Tottenham Court Road. What was he thinking? Harriet is still young—”

“Be cheerful. I do not believe that Bysshe is guilty of any dishonourable action.”

I HAD RETAINED MY FAITH
in Bysshe and that evening, after Daniel had gone back to London, I began a letter to him in which I wrote broadly of my own affairs. It was possible that it might be opened and read by his father, for whom he professed the most invincible dislike, and so I refrained from mentioning his removal from Oxford and his attachment to Harriet Westbrook. Instead I told him of my journey to Geneva, of the death of my sister and my father, and ended with an appeal to him for news of his own travels over the past months.

Yet I had no need to send it. The following afternoon a letter was delivered by the London carrier. It was from Bysshe, announcing in the most abrupt fashion that he had taken Harriet from Whitechapel for the simple reason that her father “was persecuting her in the most horrible way” and was about to force her return to the spice factory. She had spoken of suicide, and had clamoured for Bysshe’s “protection.” That was his word. He had felt obliged to rescue her in her distress, and to take her beyond the reach of her father’s anger. In a hurried postscript he asked me for funds. It seems that his detested father had stopped his allowance, and he had scarcely the means to live.

Bysshe had inscribed his address at the end of the letter—a house in Queen’s Square—and at once I wrote back, offering him the use of my rooms in Jermyn Street and enclosing a note for the payment of fifty guineas at Coutts. I also urged him to communicate with Daniel Westbrook, and explain the circumstances of his sister’s sudden departure. I had no doubt that
Bysshe’s intentions were as honourable as he described them. He was, in a sense, my mentor. So I experienced the noble sense of a duty well performed, and secretly congratulated myself on my liberality to my friend.

Imagine my surprise and horror, therefore, when three days later I received a further letter from London. It came from Daniel Westbrook, who had received a note from Bysshe. He was now writing to inform me, as he put it, that Mr. Shelley and Harriet had absconded to Edinburgh, with the help of the money I had given them, where they intended to be married.

My bewilderment was followed by anger. I believed that Bysshe had betrayed my trust, not only in asking money for such a purpose but also in concocting the story of Harriet’s despair. He had lied to me under the most shameful circumstances.

I took the letter Bysshe had sent to me, and tore off a small piece of it. I put it in my mouth and swallowed it. Systematically I reduced the paper to shreds, and devoured every one of them.

I HAD ALREADY RETURNED TO MY EXPERIMENTS
with renewed enthusiasm after the long absence from my studies. My anger at Bysshe prompted me to work ever more arduously, and to shun all human company so that I could lose myself in my pursuits. I felt myself to be truly alone, having been so signally betrayed by one whom I looked upon as friend and companion. I purchased electrical apparatus from a manufacturer in Mill Street, but I soon realised that the scale of his work was not sufficient. I had made some advances. I had acquainted myself with the coroner of Oxford, a former student of my college. I explained to him that my studies required the use of human specimens, and after some reflection on the matter he agreed to help me in the cause of the advancement of science. He was himself an explorer of natural phenomena, having become interested in geological speculation and the structure of the earth, and so he sympathised with my desire to seek out the sources of life in the human frame. I promised to bring him some Alpine rocks after my next visit to Geneva.