European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman

by Theodora Goss

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  CONTENTS

  EPIGRAPH

  VOLUME I

  * * *

  FROM LONDON TO VIENNA

  CHAPTER I THE TELEGRAM FROM BUDAPEST

  CHAPTER II AN APPOINTMENT IN PURFLEET

  CHAPTER III DR. SEWARD’S DIARY

  CHAPTER IV CROSSING THE BRITISH CHANNEL

  CHAPTER V ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS

  CHAPTER VI MORNING IN VIENNA

  CHAPTER VII THE ADDRESS IN SOHO

  CHAPTER VIII JOINING THE CIRCUS

  CHAPTER IX THE MARVELOUS MESMERIST

  CHAPTER X CONSULTING DR. FREUD

  CHAPTER XI A CONVERSATION WITH IRENE

  CHAPTER XII ESCAPE FROM THE ASYLUM

  CHAPTER XIII LUCINDA’S STORY

  CHAPTER XIV LA BELLE TOXIQUE

  CHAPTER XV EVENING IN VIENNA

  VOLUME II

  * * *

  FROM VIENNA TO BUDAPEST

  CHAPTER XVI THE BLOOD IS THE LIFE

  CHAPTER XVII A CASTLE IN STYRIA

  CHAPTER XVIII ESCAPE FROM THE CASTLE

  CHAPTER XIX CARMILLA’S STORY

  CHAPTER XX MORNING IN BUDAPEST

  CHAPTER XXI THE PURFLEET VAMPIRE

  CHAPTER XXII THE EGYPTIAN QUEEN

  CHAPTER XXIII AT THE CAFÉ NEW YORK

  CHAPTER XXIV THE MYSTERIOUS ABBEY

  CHAPTER XXV A MEETING OF THE SOCIETY

  CHAPTER XXVI MADAM PRESIDENT

  CHAPTER XXVII EVENING IN BUDAPEST

  CHAPTER XXVIII THE MESMERIZING GIRL

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  For all the girl monsters.

  May they conquer the world.

  At the end of the world, they encountered monsters. . . .

  CATHERINE: Mary, you’re not even going to protest?

  MARY: When has my protesting done any good? When it comes to a book, you usually do as you please.

  CATHERINE: That’s not necessarily true!

  MARY: Anyway, Budapest is not the end of the world.

  VOLUME I

  From London to Vienna

  CHAPTER I

  The Telegram from Budapest

  Lucinda Van Helsing looked out the window. They were coming for her, she knew they were coming for her. She walked back and forth over the carpet, rubbing her hands together, occasionally putting one to her lips. She could feel the sharpness of her teeth, which no longer felt like hers. Yesterday, she had inadvertently bitten her own mouth.

  The clock on the mantle chimed. It was almost time for her afternoon coffee. Helga would bring it as usual, and she would stare at the coffeepot, the selection of little cakes. She could no longer eat. She had not eaten for three days.

  There . . . what was that, out beyond the linden tree, against the line of privets? A flicker of something black. For the last few days she had seen them, lurking. Frau Müller, the housekeeper, had said there was no one there, but she knew—she could sense them. Yes, they were coming for her, and soon she would be in that place, where no one could find her or know what had become of her ever again.

  When Helga, the parlormaid, entered five minutes later, the parlor was empty. A chair had fallen over, but otherwise the parlor looked as it always did. Lucinda was gone.

  DIANA: I don’t think you should start with Lucinda. You should start with us.

  CATHERINE: Why are you telling me how to write this book?

  JUSTINE: I think she’s right, Catherine. Forgive me, I know you’re the author, but I think Diana is right. You should start with us.

  CATHERINE: Fine. Whatever.

  The Athena Club was meeting, with all members present.

  The parlor windows were open to let in the morning air. It was late summer, and for once, miraculously, London was warm. Beatrice sat on one of the window seats, reveling in the sunlight like a happy poisonous plant. “This weather reminds me of Italy!” she said. How London can remind anyone of Italy, I don’t know.

  Mary and Diana were sitting together on the sofa, although officially they were quarreling. Yesterday, Diana had cut the feathers off Mary’s favorite hat with the sewing scissors.

  “Why can’t I go?” she asked, petulant as a child.

  “First, because I can’t trust you,” said Mary, imperturbable. Our Mary is always imperturbable. She had already retrimmed the hat. “And second, because you’re my sister, and I want you safe, here. I’m going, because I’m the only one who knows Miss Murray. Justine is going, because she speaks French and German.”

  “But only a little German,” said Justine.

  “And Catherine is going because it will be useful to have someone along who can bite people.”

  “I can bite people!” Diana showed her teeth, as though prepared to demonstrate.

  “And third, because you need to focus on your studies. You don’t even know where Vienna is, so how can you go there?”

  DIANA: I wasn’t petulant! I’m never petulant. What does that mean, anyway? I think you made that word up. Are writers are allowed to do that?

  MARY: I am certainly perturbable! Catherine, you’re describing me as though I were some sort of female Sherlock Holmes, which I am not, thank you very much.

  DIANA: That’s not such a bad comparison, actually. You’re as annoying as he is.

  Justine was sitting on the carpet. All our chairs, she said, made her feel as though she were folding up like an accordion. And Catherine, your author, was standing next to the fireplace, leaning on the mantle, looking particularly jaunty in a man’s suit.

  MARY: If she does say so herself.

  That day, Catherine was going to Purfleet to meet with Joe Abernathy. She went once a fortnight, to see if he had any information on the doings of the Alchemical Society or the movements of the sinister Dr. Seward, director of the Purfleet Asylum. After our previous adventures, Joe had agreed to spy for our heroines. And if those heroines keep interrupting me, this story will never get started.

  My readers may remember that in the previous adventures of the Athena Club, Mary Jekyll learned about the existence of her sister, Diana Hyde, and the secret society to which their father belonged: the Société des Alchimistes. Certain members of the society had been conducting experiments in transmutation, as they called it: experiments that involved transforming girl subjects in various ways, for their brains were the most malleable, as Dr. Moreau insisted. Female flesh was the easiest to transform. If you looked around the parlor that day, you would see the results.

  Beatrice Rappaccini, wearing one of those shapeless liberty dresses she insists are
more healthful for the female figure, sat leaning forward, with a ceramic mug in her hand. The window was open not only to let in air, but also to let out the poisonous fumes she could not help emitting. As a girl, she had tended the garden of poisonous plants created by her father, Dr. Rappaccini, until their toxic essences became a part of her. If you stood too close to Beatrice, you would begin to feel faint, and her touch burned.

  BEATRICE: You make me sound so dramatic, Catherine!

  CATHERINE: Well, you are dramatic, with your long black hair and the clear olive complexion that marks you a daughter of the sunny south, of Italy, land of poetry and brigands. You would be the perfect romantic heroine, if only you weren’t so contrary about it.

  BEATRICE: But I have no desire to be a romantic heroine.

  MARY: Brigands? Seriously, Cat, this isn’t the eighteenth century. Nowadays Italy is perfectly civilized.

  Beatrice took a sip of the noxious green sludge she called breakfast, which smelled like Thames water. Because of her unique constitution, she had no need of food. She lived off sunlight and water in which organic matter had been steeped. In other words, weed soup.

  Mary Jekyll had finished her breakfast some time ago. She was already dressed in her walking suit; after our meeting, she would walk across Regent’s Park to 221B Baker Street, where she was employed by the famous and insufferable Sherlock Holmes as a sort of assistant-secretary-Girl Friday, for which she did not receive enough credit, although she insisted that she was quite well compensated at two pounds a week.

  Diana, who had not yet had her breakfast, lounged beside her in disarray—as usual. She had been pulled out of bed just before our meeting, and was still in her nightgown, with an Indian shawl thrown over it. She was whispering to Alpha, one of the two kittens, who was not supposed to be up on the parlor sofa, according to Mrs. Poole. But there she was, snuggled into a corner of Diana’s shawl. You would not have thought they were sisters, Mary with her hair neatly pinned at the back of her neck, Diana with her freckled face and the mass of red curls she had inherited from her Irish mother. And yet sisters they were, born of the same father in different phases of his being—Mary of the respectable chemist Dr. Jekyll, and Diana of the despicable Mr. Hyde, murderer and fugitive.

  DIANA: Oy! That’s my dad you’re taking about.

  By the fireplace, as I have mentioned, stood Catherine Moreau, created by Dr. Moreau out of a puma on his island in the South Seas, where through a long, cruel process of vivisection, he turned beasts into men. There was something foreign about her, with her yellow eyes, the faint tracery of scars on her brown skin. In her respectable suit, she appears to be a civilized Englishman, but at any moment she might be at your throat, white fangs bared.

  MARY: Oh, for goodness’ sake. Do all writers romanticize themselves?

  And finally, on the carpet at her feet sat Justine Frankenstein, already in her painting smock. Taller than most men, pale and fair like the Swiss maiden from which she had been created by Victor Frankenstein after being hanged for a murder she did not commit, she was the quietest of us, the gentlest and most delicate, although she could lift a costermonger’s cart without assistance. She had a spot of paint on the side of her nose.

  JUSTINE: Did I really?

  CATHERINE: I don’t remember, but it makes for a better description. Anyway, you probably did. You usually do.

  “I do too know where Vienna is,” said Diana in response to Mary’s question.

  Just then, Alice poked her head through the doorway. “Is it all right if I clear away the breakfast dishes, miss?” The question was directed toward Mary. Although we all lived together at 11 Park Terrace, she was still indisputably the mistress of the house.

  “Of course it is,” said Mary. “You know if you want to, you can always chase us out of the breakfast room—or join us for breakfast.” As though Alice would have! I’m just a kitchen maid, she kept insisting, despite her role in our previous adventures. I don’t want to be involved in your investigation of this Alchemical Society or whatever it may be, not after almost getting killed last time, thank you very much. Now she disappeared behind the door, like a mouse.

  “Is it all right that I’m staying in London rather than going to Vienna?” asked Beatrice. “I know I could be useful to you.”

  “Of course you could.” Mary stood and smoothed the wrinkles out of her skirt. “But we need you here, to protect Alice and Mrs. Poole, and make sure Diana doesn’t do anything stupid. If you do,” she looked at her sister, “Beatrice will poison you. So don’t!”

  “I haven’t even had breakfast yet, and you told Alice she could clear away,” said Diana.

  “It’s your own fault for lazing in bed until all hours. Ask Mrs. Poole for something, but don’t let her see that you sneaked Alpha up here. And for goodness’ sake get dressed!”

  Diana kicked Mary on the shin, but not hard—almost affectionately. If Diana had meant to kick hard, it would have hurt.

  DIANA: You bet it would!

  “Well, I think it’s time you told Mr. Holmes,” said Catherine. “We’ve calculated how much the trip will cost, we’ve decided who’s going, we know the train routes. We should leave as soon as possible.”

  “I know,” said Mary. “I’m planning on telling him today. He may be able to give us some advice on how to rescue Lucinda Van Helsing. Anyway, I need to ask for a holiday. We don’t even know how long we’ll be gone.”

  And now I think it’s time I returned to telling the story in a more traditional way, focusing on one character at a time. However, a story about monsters can never be entirely traditional. And anyway, the nineteenth century is drawing to a close. I believe the new century will bring new ways of writing, new ways of perceiving the world. . . .

  MARY: I doubt our readers want a lecture on modernity!

  CATHERINE: You’re probably right.

  Mary smoothed her skirt again, although Diana’s foot had scarcely disarranged it, then leaned over to kiss her sister on the head, quickly to avoid being hit.

  “All right, I’m off,” she said. “Be careful in Purfleet, Cat.”

  “I’m taking Charlie with me,” said Catherine. “I want him to look around the asylum, to see if there’s anything going on. We’ve heard almost nothing for three months—why has the society been so quiet? What can Dr. Seward and Professor Van Helsing be doing?”

  Mary shook her head. She did not understand it either.

  In the front hall, Mrs. Poole was waiting for her, holding a hat and gloves, with Mary’s purse hanging on her arm. Mary wondered again what in the world she would do without Mrs. Poole. The housekeeper had been there all her life. When Mary was a child, Mrs. Poole had been her nursemaid, and as she grew older the housekeeper had taught her how to manage the servants, keep the household accounts, care for her mother as Mrs. Jekyll had slowly descended into madness. Mrs. Poole had been the solid rock upon which Mary could lean in times of trouble.

  MRS. POOLE: Oh, please. Miss Mary can certainly take care of herself.

  MARY: Catherine may have a habit of exaggerating—or, you know, lying for effect—but that at least is completely and entirely true. I really don’t know what I would do without you, Mrs. Poole.

  “You did a wonderful job on this, miss,” said the housekeeper, looking at the hat. “I can scarcely tell that devilish child snipped all the feathers off.”

  “Well, to be honest, I think it looks better without them, and I like this black ribbon,” said Mary. “It contrasts with the gray felt. Maybe now Beatrice will stop going on and on about the decimation of bird populations for women’s vanity.” She looked at the hat with satisfaction—she really had done a good job, and saved a few shillings into the bargain. Then, she frowned, worried. “Will you be all right here with Diana, while I’m abroad? You can always threaten her with Beatrice, you know.”

  “Oh, I can handle Diana, don’t you worry,” said Mrs. Poole, handing Mary the retrimmed hat.

  Yes, she liked it better this
way: simple and modern in style. She regarded herself in the hall mirror: pale face, middling brown hair pulled neatly back, middling gray eyes looking solemn, as they almost always did—not an unattractive face, but not a noticeable one either. Gray walking suit, showing the white collar of her shirtwaist. She put on her hat, then pulled on the black gloves Mrs. Poole handed her. “I look like a governess,” she said, almost to herself.

  “You look like a lady,” said Mrs. Poole approvingly. She handed Mary the purse. “If you don’t mind, miss, I’ve put in a recipe for Mrs. Hudson, behind that envelope. She asked about my quince jam, and I promised to give her my recipe, what came with my mother from Yorkshire when Mrs. Jekyll was a bride. I’ve written it down for her.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Poole,” said Mary. “I’ll be back for tea, and I expect Cat will be as well.” She checked her purse: yes, the letter from Lucinda Van Helsing was there, beside Mrs. Poole’s recipe.

  “Bread and butter and cold meats it will be today, miss, on account of it being laundry day,” said Mrs. Poole. “I hope that’s all right.”

  “That will do quite nicely, thank you.” Mary made sure she had her latchkey—a custom she had introduced that scandalized Mrs. Poole, but how much easier when they each had their own keys to the house! Then she hung the purse over her arm and walked out into the sunshine of Park Terrace.

  On the doorframe, above the doorbell, was a small brass plaque: THE ATHENA CLUB. For a moment, she stopped to wipe a smudge off the brass with her gloved finger. Was it really only three months ago that her mother had died, and she had found Diana, Beatrice, Catherine, and Justine?

  She turned left down Park Terrace. How peaceful and quiet the old brick houses looked! Until three months ago, this was the only part of London she had truly known. Since then, she had been to Whitechapel, and Battersea Park, and the London docks. She had seen sights that would shock the respectable Mrs. Poole.