Dr. Frankenstein's Daughters

by Suzanne Weyn

  “That’s all right.”

  “Well, to be fair, my sorry condition isn’t entirely due to Napoleon — or the Norwegians or the Danes, for that matter. I might have been able to get out of the way of their cannon fire had I not already been slowed down by an illness that has been slowly progressing since my late teens. I hid it from everyone, but in the end it caused me injury.”

  “How terrible! What illness is that?”

  “The doctors don’t understand much about it. They say it’s a disease of the nervous system.”

  “Is there no cure?” I asked.

  “No. There is not,” Walter said. “Though I once consulted a doctor who believed electric current might be helpful in —”

  “He was a student of Galvani?” I interrupted excitedly.

  “You know of Galvani’s experiment?” Walter was clearly surprised by this.

  “I studied with Count Volta, a student of Galvani. Did you pursue the electric treatment?”

  “I did not,” he answered. “It seemed too dangerous. I have seen a man struck by lightning while standing atop a ship’s upper mast during a storm. He quaked and shuddered, caught in the lines of the sails, jolted by the impact. I couldn’t see why a man would willingly subject himself to such a shock.”

  “Even if it might cure you?”

  “At the time, I didn’t realize how far this illness would progress. The doctor who was willing to do this has since died.”

  “If he was alive, you might reconsider?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Another awkward silence fell between us. My eyes had adjusted to the dimness and I took stock of the place. In the plain kitchen area I noticed shelves stocked with food. “Are you able to get on here by yourself with no help?” I dared to ask.

  “A woman who lives on the island comes to look in on me.”

  “You pay her?”

  “Yes.”

  Someone rapped on the front door and we both looked to it. Standing, I parted the drawn curtains and saw Giselle outside. “My sister,” I reported. “She’s probably worried about me. I’d better go.”

  “As you wish.” A formal stiffness returned to Walter’s tone.

  “May I visit you again?” I asked, surprised by my own boldness.

  “As you wish.”

  “You won’t mind?” I questioned, suddenly insecure.

  “No. I would welcome the company.”

  “Very well, then. I will come see you again.”

  “Should I meet your sister?” Walter asked.

  “No. I’ve taken enough of your time,” I said, heading for the door. “My sister wouldn’t come with me, so she doesn’t deserve the pleasure.”

  He laughed scornfully. “Quite a doubtful pleasure.”

  “I will see you soon,” I promised quickly. For some reason, I was anxious to get out before Giselle came in.

  When I was once again out in the bright, windy world, Giselle placed her hand on my arm. “I was getting concerned about you. Who lives there?”

  “Just a grumpy, very old man,” I lied.

  I don’t want to share Walter with her. I had discovered sad, sick Lieutenant Walter Hammersmith, and I wanted to keep him for myself.

  FROM THE DIARY OF

  BARONESS GISELLE FRANKENSTEIN

  June 17, 1815

  The days grow ever longer and warmer in this strange windy climate. It serves to make the place less forbidding. The fatigue and congestion I was feeling are slowly abating as I recover from my exhausting journey with long, dream-filled bouts of sleep. The constant crash of waves and calls of seabirds create a lullaby that I find deeply soothing, conducive to healing slumber.

  Ingrid and I turned seventeen two days ago, and though there was no real way to celebrate, Baron Frankenstein bade Mrs. Flett to make a special dinner and a sumptuous cake. He gifted each of us with a jeweled broach from the estate of our grandmother Caroline Beaufort Frankenstein. Mine is in the form of an exotic bird with long, draping, emerald-laden feathers; for Ingrid, he selected a rose pin with rubies.

  With my renewed energy, the undertaking of the castle’s restoration seems less daunting. I am convinced that it has a life that belongs to it alone, as though it were a living creature. With the aid of the very capable Mrs. Flett, it is gradually showing signs of returning to its former self, much like a recovering patient who day by day regains the glow of his former health.

  Mrs. Flett has lived on Gairsay from the dawn of time and seems to be related to every soul on the island, nearly all of whom share the bright orange locks they claim to have inherited from their forbearers, the Vikings. This I have no difficulty believing, as they — the men in particular — are as strong, rough, and in some cases as savage as those Nordic plunderers of old.

  Thankfully, the good Mrs. Flett knows how to harness all the raw energy of her unruly relatives into a most impressive group of workers, and has employed nearly all of the young men in the restoration of the castle. Whatever misgivings they may have had about the place have been overcome by the appeal of the steady pay that will last at least until the castle is as I desire it to be, which I estimate to be months away. Crude and boisterous as these young men are, I have to admit that their shouts and laughter have enlivened the place considerably and dispel a great deal of the ominous feel of the castle, at least during the day.

  There is one young man in particular who holds me in a most bold, direct gaze every time I pass by. His insolence should anger me, yet I find it difficult not to make eye contact with him. He is strikingly handsome in a rough sort of way, with orange hair to his shoulders and a well-muscled torso that he displays when his arms lift. The other day I controlled myself until I thought I was well past him, then gave into the urge to sneak a glance. He was still looking at me, and our eyes locked for a flash before I averted mine. Even though I was turned away, I could feel him grinning with triumph.

  As I turned to leave, I ran right into Mrs. Flett and jumped back in surprise. “Don’t let Riff bother you,” I think she said, although it sounded more like “Dunna le Riff ba ye.” The best I could make out of the rest of her words amounted to the fact that Riff chases all the girls on the island and catches most of them. Honestly, Diary, I can see why. He has a sort of strange magnetism, though he certainly is not someone I would ever be interested in.

  Riff kept watching while I spoke to Mrs. Flett. Noticing, she shooed him off with a wave of her hand until, with an obnoxious smirk, he finally turned away. From now on I shall go out of my way to avoid him whenever he is near.

  It makes me sad that Ingrid does not partake in the excitement of the renovation. Now that Baron Frankenstein has departed for Scotland to visit with an associate in Edinburgh, Ingrid is my only company, and she has spent all of this past week in that tower room, poring over the volumes of our father’s work that she discovered on the first day we were here. Occasionally I can persuade her to take a walk with me in the front grounds overlooking the ocean, but when we do venture out, she is so hopelessly lost in thought that she’s not much of a companion.

  “Don’t become like our father,” I joke.

  She doesn’t find much humor in this statement, and her sour reaction makes it less of a joke than it had been when I made it.

  Often I see that she’s looking over at the little cottage to the right of the castle, as though she expects to see smoke signals forming in the puffs of white smoke that lift relentlessly from the chimney stack.

  “What do you find so intriguing about the old man who lives there?” I asked yesterday, and Ingrid seemed not to know what I was referring to.

  “Old man?” she asked me blankly as we stood at the edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean, the wind whipping our skirts.

  “You told me an unhappy old man lives there,” I reminded her, exasperated.

  “Oh, yes!” Ingrid recalled. “Well, perhaps he’s not as old as I made him out to be.”

  “How old is he?” I demanded.

  “Har
d to tell exactly,” she replied. “Not as old as I thought at first. In fact, he’s not that much older than we are.”

  “Not much older than we are? Then he’s not old at all! How could you have made such an error?”

  “It was dark and he’s ill. I told you that,” Ingrid snapped.

  I was quite taken aback by her peevishness; it’s not like Ingrid to be so easily vexed, and her reaction bewildered me. “What’s wrong with him?” I asked.

  She told me that a nerve disease had wreaked devastating effects on his body and that he’d been wounded by cannon fire from Napoleon’s war. As she explained, there was such tender sympathy in her eyes as I have never seen there before.

  “Will you go see him again?” I inquired.

  “I think I will,” she said. “He strikes me as someone deeply in need of a friend.”

  “You’re sure he’s quite sane?” I checked. “From what you describe, he seems rather odd. Is there any threat of danger in being there with him alone?”

  “He’s safe enough, and there’s no violence in him. But he is tormented by a profound unhappiness.”

  “He’s ill,” I pointed out.

  “Even so, it’s not proper for you to be there alone with him so much,” I pointed out.

  “He’s always a gentleman!” Ingrid cried, vexed by my inference. “And I don’t care a thing for what others might think.”

  “This is a small island, Ingrid. People will talk.”

  “Let them! We’ve done nothing wrong!”

  “He is a dark and brooding man,” I reminded her. “That’s what you have told me. He may be more unpredictable than you think. Perhaps his illness is driving him mad.”

  “He’s not mad, I tell you! Instinct tells me that there is some very sad secret in his past. If only I knew what it was.”

  “What could you do, even if you knew?”

  “I would help him to rise above it.”

  “Some secrets are best left unrevealed,” I commented.

  We stood in silence for a few moments more, each looking out over the ocean, lost in thought. It occurred to me that Ingrid had not answered my original question, so I asked it once more. “What do you find so intriguing about Walter Hammersmith?”

  “What do you find so intriguing about Castle Frankenstein?” she countered.

  “I envision it as it must have once been. I imagine its former grandeur and long to return it to the glory it once possessed,” I answered.

  Ingrid gazed out over the ocean a few moments before answering. “Yes. That’s how I feel about Walter Hammersmith, exactly the same way.”

  “I can restore the castle, but you can never bring Walter Hammersmith back.”

  “I can,” she insisted.

  “How?” I challenged.

  “With love.”

  “Love?”

  “And science,” she added.

  “Ingrid, you worry me.”

  She smiled grimly. “I worry myself.”

  “You mentioned love. Do you love him?”

  “As one human loves and feels compassion for another,” she replied, but I didn’t believe her.

  She was clearly enamored of this sick and morose individual who could never be a suitable husband to her. “You are getting involved too deeply with this man. Stop now: Don’t go there anymore,” I beseeched her.

  Ingrid sighed, and it occurred to me that she had been sighing quite a lot lately. “I have to go,” she insisted before turning back to the castle. “Please don’t try to stop me,” she added as she walked off.

  I am so worried about her reputation as well as her emotional well-being. I know not what she has in her mind but no good can come of it, I’m afraid. If only this Walter Hammersmith would simply disappear, my mind would rest so much easier.

  June 17 (continued)

  Oh, Diary! The thing I both dreaded and dreamed of has happened, and I don’t know what to do!

  The mail here comes about once a week, brought over from the mainland of Scotland by boat. In the near fortnight since we arrived, the boat hadn’t brought a single piece of correspondence, even though I have written to several of my friends from Ingolstadt.

  But this afternoon, I received a letter from Johann.

  It is the first letter he’s ever written to me, so I did not recognize the hand at first. But once I opened the envelope, I knew.

  My breath was quite knocked out of me.

  Before I could read a single word, I was dizzy with questions: How had he found me? Why had he written?

  In order to read in private, I hurried out to the cliff overlooking the ocean and, with trembling hands and racing pulse, I read it. Dear Diary, it is no exaggeration to say that his words have shaken and stunned me, as they are wholly unexpected.

  I have used sealing wax to attach the letter here:

  Dearest Giselle,

  I hope you are well and that your grand adventure is everything you dreamed. Please don’t mind me writing to you. I received your new address from your friend Margaret. (She promises to correspond soon.)

  I was happy to find out where to write to you since I feel badly about how things were left between us. It has occurred to me that you must be suffering from wounded feelings since I thought it necessary to be harsh with you the last time we spoke. Previously I may have put a distance between us, but did so only because I was involved in an intimate correspondence with a girl in Geneva. I broke off that relationship because of my feelings for you, but unfortunately this happened right at the time when you felt compelled to leave.

  I had no idea that you had inherited a castle until I learned it from Margaret. I thought you had run off because of my hard words to you and have suffered the tortures of the damned, plagued as I am with guilt for hurting such a delicate soul as yours. I hope you can see now that it was to protect your feelings and your honor that I deemed it the right thing to do to push you away.

  As it turns out, my father and I will be traveling to Scotland within the month to consult with a client in the city of Edinburgh. I wonder if I might be so bold as to suggest that we might meet while I am there. My father or your newfound uncle could chaperone. Please think upon this and let me know. I will write you with the exact dates once I know your feelings. I hope perhaps that this meeting will rekindle the fond emotions that once you honored me by bestowing. I am sincerely

  Yours,

  Johann

  With mixed emotions, I folded the letter and tucked it into the pocket of my dress. Of course I feel elation: This is my fondest dream come true. But I am also confused by this change of heart. The story about the girl in Geneva might be true, I suppose, though my friends who are closer to Johann than I was have never alluded to it. On the contrary, they assured me there was no specific rival other than the many girls who, like me, admired him from afar.

  Perhaps it is only that distance has made him appreciate me more or that his letter is, in fact, true, and he is now free and taking the opportunity to act on what he had also felt deep down. I find myself hoping this is so, and will trust that emotion to be my guide.

  I will write him immediately to say I will be Edinburgh with my uncle, and then write to Baron Frankenstein, entreating him to let Ingrid and me join him there.

  Johann spurned me as a young girl, and now I see he may have been right. But I am different now. If he saw me as I am here, he would find no trace of youth. I have become his equal.

  Dear Diary, I am filled with happiness!

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF

  INGRID VDW FRANKENSTEIN

  June 18, 1815

  I read and read without ever being bored for as long as there is daylight. (And every day the light lasts longer and longer. This morning it was light by four in the morning and stayed so until eleven at night. The night was more like dusk, lacking any true blackness.)

  Hunger drove me to set the journals aside and wander down the winding stairs to seek food. I wasn’t halfway down when the din of boisterous workmen hamme
ring, sawing, shouting, and occasionally laughing filled my ears. Giselle was in the middle of it, directing the entire campaign. How brilliant she is! If she were a man she would no doubt have made a great general. Napoleon would be no match for her.

  Good smells from the kitchen drew me in. I found Mrs. Flett serving bowls of her wonderful lamb stew to the men. Thankfully I am starting to understand her heavy dialect better each day. The moment I entered, she set a place for me at the long kitchen table and ladled a bowl of stew for me, accompanied by a hunk of her homemade bread. I thanked her with a smile and a nod.

  As I ate, various men came in looking to be fed. They tipped their caps to me politely and left with their bowls of stew. All of them were very respectful except for one young man in his twenties who actually winked at me. He was clearly related to the others but was somehow more striking.

  I am sure I blushed. No man has ever winked at me before.

  Mrs. Flett scolded him angrily. She expressed her disapproval in such a loud and agitated manner that this time her words were lost to me. I caught that she called him Riff, though.

  “Don’t you mind him,” Mrs. Flett told me once he was gone. She had calmed down enough that I could understand her once more. “Riff be a scoundrel.”

  I retreated to my room and continued to read until I noticed that the soft “summer dim” had replaced the day’s light. It was lovely to read bits and pieces of how my father and mother had met at a café in Ingolstadt and fallen in love. But this romance was related only in side notes, as if they were an afterthought. What was really obsessing my father was the question of how to animate lifeless matter. He wasn’t alone in this quest either. It was, apparently, the subject of great debate in public forums. Scholarly articles were being written about it. The subject was the cause of violent rifts among students and academics. My father was no madman. He was simply in tune with the concerns of his time.

  After several hours, hunger induced me once more to put down the fascinating volume and seek food. As I descended the stairs, I noticed that the earlier clamor had turned silent. When I reached the first floor, I saw Giselle asleep in a high-backed chair she’d purchased from a local carpenter. The day’s labors had clearly exhausted her.