The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein (31 page)

ON THE MORNING OF THE CORONER’S INQUEST
, there was great excitement in the town. A crowd had gathered outside the public house, the Cat and Currant, where the proceedings were to be held; but, as soon as the beadle saw us, we were led with great ceremony through the townspeople and in single file mounted the staircase to the first-floor room. It smelled strongly of sawdust and spirits, with the aroma of beer and tobacco somewhere in the mixture; some tables had been pushed together in the middle of the room which, the beadle informed us, were reserved for the gentlemen of the jury. The coroner then walked in. He was dressed in clerical garb, and Bysshe whispered to me that he was indeed the rector of the parish church; he had seen him in the garden of his vicarage, pruning his vines. That gentleman was followed by the jurors;
they entered the room with an air of solemn distinction, although I had seen one or two of them drinking ale in the parlour when we had first arrived. Then the people of Marlow crowded in, taking up every particle of space until the air became almost insupportable. Bysshe pointed out to me two or three gentlemen sitting at a table evidently reserved for them. “Penny-a-liners,” he said. “You can tell them from their cuffs. They will be reporting this for the public prints. The news has reached London.”

“Gentlemen—” The coroner began to speak.

“Silence!” called the beadle.

“Gentlemen. You have viewed the unfortunate young woman known as Martha Delaney.”

“I never knew her last name,” Mary whispered to me.

“You are impanelled here to ascertain the causes of her lamentable death. Evidence will be given before you, as to the circumstances attending that death, and you will give your verdict according to that evidence and not anything else. Anything else must be disregarded and blotted from the copybook.” Bysshe gave me an odd look of merriment. “A young lady is present here.” Bysshe assumed an expression of intense seriousness. “A young lady who may have seen the perpetrator of this foul crime. May I ask you to rise, Miss Godwin, and take the oath?” There was a general murmur of approval, from the people of Marlow, as Mary stood beside the jurors and recited the oath. But there was absolute silence when she recounted the events of that night. She had glimpsed a face at the window—“a leering countenance,” as she put it. When her scream woke the others in the house (she refrained from
saying who they were) the intruder was gone. Mary had great skill in narrative, and added little touches of description to the simple story. Then she nodded to the coroner and resumed her seat, while the penny-a-liners were still busy with their pens. “Thank you, Miss Godwin, for that affecting testimony. Now I will call an eminent gentleman who, I am informed, was accidentally present when discovery of the death was made. I will call Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley.” There was a murmur of interest among those assembled, and evidence of the keenest attention among the penny-a-liners; they were no doubt aware, or had been informed, of the fate of Harriet. Bysshe stood beside the table of jurors but, when asked to take the oath, replied in a calm clear voice. “I will say to you, sir, that I swear to tell the truth before the eyes of my fellow men.”

“This is very irregular, Mr. Shelley.”

“I hope and trust that I will follow the principles of the utmost honesty in anything I may say.”

“Mr. Shelley is the son of a baronet, gentlemen,” the coroner informed the men of the jury. “Are you content to accept his unsupported word?” They were content. So Bysshe narrated the story of our recent journey down the Thames, and the discovery of Martha’s body among the weeds; he particularly noted the marks of bruising about her neck and upper torso. Then one of the party tracking the path of the creature was called—it was he who had fired the shot into the field—and he described the pursuit and flight of the supposed killer. He described him as “monstrous big” with a “wonderful celerity.” In his opinion we were dealing with an escaped convict, or a lunatic, hiding in the woods beside the river. The session was quickly concluded, with
a verdict from the jury that the young lady, Martha Delaney, had been killed unlawfully by person unknown. She could now be buried in the churchyard.

Bysshe hired a carriage for our return to London. He intended to lodge with the Godwins, at their house in Somers Town, until he could find accommodation of his own. I suspected, however, that he would wish to remain in the closest possible proximity to Mary Godwin. Fred and I disembarked at Jermyn Street, to the great delight of the crossing sweeper’s dog that had formed an attachment to Fred over the last few months. The dog jumped against him, and left traces of mud and mire on his serge breeches. “That reminds me, sir,” he said as we climbed the stairs. “I have left your laundry with Ma.”

“Then you must fetch it, Fred. I need clean linen after Marlow.”

“The country is a dirty place, sir. It abounds in soil.”

“We are fortunate, then, to live in a clean city?”

“Oh, yes. The mud in London don’t stick. Look. I can brush it off.” After he had unpacked, and taken up the linen in a great bundle, he made his way to Mrs. Shoeberry.

There had been a marked change in my constitution, I discovered, after the journey to Marlow. I was no longer so listless, so devoid of energy. The murder of Martha served to inflame my desire for vengeance and, in the carriage, I had consulted with myself over all possible means of fulfilling it. It was then I decided upon a course of action. I would return to Limehouse, where I would reconstruct my shattered equipment in the hope of reversing my experiment and reducing the creature once more to lifeless matter. The more I contemplated the venture, the more fervently I embraced it. Would it be
possible to build an engine that by means of magnetic force might extract the electricity from the body of the creature? Or was there some way of discharging a negative energy that might balance the power of the electrical fluid already within him? I determined to begin my studies anew, with the single purpose of destroying that which I had created. I also conceived a scheme with which I might trick and deceive the creature. If he visited me in Limehouse, I would welcome him. I would tell him that his frightful acts had forced me to revise my judgement, and that I was willing to create for him a bride as long as he swore a solemn oath to depart these shores for ever. I might even be able to persuade him to endure certain experiments; I would assure him that these would have to be undertaken before I could start work on his female double. He would then be within my power. Such were my enthusiasm and optimism that I considered travelling down to the estuary, and there confronting him in his hidden retreat with the news of my intentions. I had no compunction about deceiving him. Had he not already betrayed me in as deadly a fashion as I could envisage?

I heard the voice of Mrs. Shoeberry. She was trailing her son up the staircase, all the while complaining of her “poor knees” that could hardly stand the strain of climbing. “Well, here you are, sir,” she said when she came onto the landing. She seemed surprised to see me in my own lodging. “I have laboured long and hard over your linen, sir. Fred, give Mr. Frankenstein the parcel. All crisp and white like a snow field.”

“I am glad to hear it, Mrs. Shoeberry.”

“The sheets are perfection. You will sleep as cleanly as a nun.”

“I hope so.” I took her into the drawing room and paid her a florin, which she accepted with alacrity.

“I hear, sir, that you have been in strange parts.”

“Ma!”

“It is my way to converse with my gentlemen, Fred. I am not a post.”

“We have been to Marlow, if that is what you mean.”

“I don’t exactly know where that is, sir.”

“Along the Thames.”

“Oh, the Thames, is it? Quite a long river, sir.” It was clear to me that Fred had not informed his mother of Martha’s death; it was no doubt too explosive a topic. “There is an awful lot of water in the Thames, sir. Mark my words.”

“Undoubtedly, Mrs. Shoeberry.”

“And to be plain, sir, we don’t quite know where it all comes from. There is a deal of dirt in it. It is ever such a hindrance to us laundry women. I never go down to the stairs no more. I would come back more dead than alive. Filthy smell, sir. Pah!” She mimed all the symptoms of disgust, much to Fred’s annoyance.

“You must get back, Ma,” he urged her. “Little Tom will be missing his tea.”

“Stop your pushing and your pulling, boy. Mr. Frankenstein and I are enjoying a quiet chat.” Her eyes roamed about the room. “I shall look after them shirts as if they were my own, sir. Do you happen to have an ounce of spirits about you? This rain has upset my constitution. Women are frail, sir, in wet weather.” I went over to my cabinet and poured her a glass of gin, which she swallowed in a moment—taking care afterwards to lick her
lips, in case any of the precious fluid had escaped her. “The water gets into our bones.”

“Ma, I have to prepare Mr. Frankenstein’s supper.”

“Oh? What are you having, sir?”

“What am I having, Fred?”

“Pork chops in onion gravy. With a good head of crackling.”

“That’s sumptuous, that is. Make sure the crackling is moist, Fred. It draws up the richness.”

“We must not detain you any longer, Mrs. Shoeberry. I know you are a very busy woman.”

“Busy? I am like a cartwheel, sir. Always turning.” Fred left the room and began to descend the stairs, with the clear understanding that his mother should follow. “Yes, boy,” she said. “Don’t fluster me. You will make me all of a quiver.” She went out of the door, and then stopped. “I will starch your cuffs, sir. They will be so stiff that you will not know them.”

“I am obliged, Mrs. Shoeberry.”

ON THE FOLLOWING MORNING
I took once more the familiar way to Limehouse, but fired now by a new eagerness to embark upon the means of destroying the creature. The workshop was still in disarray, of course, but there was no evidence of further incursions by him. All lay in disorder. The pieces of the electrical columns, constructed for me by Francis Hayman, lay upon the floor. They had some marks of the elements, where the rain had blown upon them, but I observed that each part was still intact: the discs, the cakes of wax and resin, the vitreous glass and metal lay in separate pieces. There was rust
upon the metal, but it would be easily removed. If I could enlist the aid of Hayman once again, I could re-create the conditions of my original experiment. But first I needed to restore the workshop itself. Over the next few days, with the help of the workmen who had rebuilt the interior so many months before, I repaired the walls and replaced the shelves and cabinets. I told them that a gang of scuffle-hunters, the local name for the river thieves, had broken in and searched for money. They warned me of the dangers of working by the Thames, and placed a great padlock upon the newly fitted door.

I called upon Hayman at the offices of the Convex Light Company in Abchurch Lane. Here I explained to him the injury to the equipment he had constructed for me—blaming once more the activities of the scuffle-hunters—and asked his help in restoring it. Then I asked him the question that most concerned me. “Have you debated, sir, on the possibilities of a negative fluid?”

“You will have to be more precise, Mr. Frankenstein.”

“What I mean is this. We believe the electrical fluid to be transmitted in wave form, do we not?”

“That is the theory. Although some deem it to be comprised of particles.”

“Let us assume it to be waves. Would I be right in conceiving of these waves, in effect, as a series of curves?”

“You are close. I am convinced that there are innumerable magnetic curves, packed so closely together that they seem to form an indivisible line.”

“But each curve could in theory be traced and measured?”

“In theory.”

“It would have a high point and a low point?”

“There will be parabolic and hyperbolic arcs.”

“Precisely my meaning. And what, Mr. Hayman, if they were reversed?”

“You astonish me, Mr. Frankenstein. It would entirely change the nature of the electrical fluid. But it could not be done. The laws of physical science stand in the way.”

“I am used to defying such laws.”

“Truly?”

“I mean only that like you I wish to make advances in our knowledge of the world. All physical laws are provisional, are they not?”

“How far have you proceeded, sir, with your original research?”

I had told him, in the course of our earlier conversations, that by means of the electrical fluid I wished to restore life and energy to animal tissue. “I have made some small steps,” I replied. “I have found it possible to restore animation to certain fish. But for a short time only.”

“Carry on with the work, Mr. Frankenstein. It is of the utmost interest and importance to the rest of us. Be assured of that.”

He agreed to visit the Limehouse workshop on the following Sunday, and to assist me in the restoration of the broken equipment. On his arrival, as I had hoped, he concluded that the damage could be repaired without undue effort; in fact, he began the task at once. “Sunday,” he said, “is my day for private working. I gain strength from it. Work is my church.”