In the Shadow of Frankenstein: Tales of the Modern Prometheus

by Edited By Stephen Jones

  “I was born there and live there with my father.” The girl answered and then, as if in afterthought, added: “My name is Helen Trevaskis.”

  A sensation of delight caught Brian.

  “Trevaskis? Your father would not, by any chance, be Doctor Talbot Trevaskis?”

  The girl arched her eyebrows in surprise.

  “Indeed he is, sir. Why, then, do you know my father?”

  “We have never met, but I am to be his new partner in his medical practice.”

  The girl bit her lip in bewilderment as she gazed at the handsome featured young man before her.

  “I knew my father was going into partnership with a doctor … someone from London, but I thought it was some worthy and elderly gentleman who had known my father when he was a medical student.”

  Brian smilingly shook his head.

  “My father, who is also a doctor, went to medical school with Doctor Trevaskis. But my father is now retired. When I qualified in medicine I spent some years at St. Luke’s Hospital in London, but I was in need of experience in general practice in the provinces. My father accordingly wrote to Doctor Trevaskis asking him if he would take me on in partnership and, very kindly, Doctor Trevaskis agreed.”

  The girl gave Brian a swift, shy smile.

  “Bosbradoe is not a town for a young and ambitious doctor, Doctor Shaw. There is little social life there. Indeed, it is a dull place.”

  “That I refuse to believe if you live there,” exclaimed Brian fervently. The girl’s cheeks reddened but the smile came readily to her lips.

  “You will find it quiet after a great city like London, I’ll warrant.”

  “Miss Trevaskis,” said Brian adamantly. “My aim is to spend two years in general practice in the provinces in order to encounter and observe the illnesses of the rural populace. But with this experience behind me, my ambition is to return to London and join the staff of a hospital to enter into medical research.”

  They chattered on until The Bodmin Flyer turned from the moorland road, through dark forests of tall trees, and along an open stretch of highway that ran parallel to a cliff top. The salt smell of the sea came to their nostrils and the rhythmic roar and crash of the waves on the rocks below caught their ears.

  “We are nearly there,” announced the girl. And, indeed, within a few minutes the mail coach was clattering down a village street. The coach driver was tugging his horses to a standstill and crying out, unnecessarily: “Bosbradoe! Bosbradoe!”

  Bosbradoe was a tiny village which stood atop a long stretch of rugged cliffs, some four hundred feet above sea level, on the north coast of Cornwall. From its cluster of thickset stone cottages, a tiny path ran down to a small cove—a tiny haven amidst the forbidding granite cliffs of the coastline—where an old harbor had been built. Some fishermen’s cottages clung defiantly to the slope of the path as it wound its perilous way down to the harbor. By its side, a stream plunged on its way, cascading down into the harbor waters.

  The coachman had brought his team to a standstill outside the tavern, a low, rambling building, which was little different in design from the cottages, although it was, of course, much larger. A wooden sign, creaking on its hinges outside the door, displayed a picture of a mermaid while underneath this picture the word morvoren was painted in ancient lettering. Brian Shaw later learnt from the landlord that it was the Cornish word for mermaid, since the inn had been in existence when the old language was generally spoken from Land’s End to the Tamar.

  As Brian alighted from the coach and turned to help Helen Trevaskis down, he was aware of flickering lights and singing in the square. It seemed that the entire village was packed into this square, standing around two large bonfires which sent their sparky blaze up into the blue-black darkness of the night.

  “What is happening?” asked Brian as the landlord lifted his trunk down from the roof of the coach.

  “Why, bless you, sir, it’s All Hallows’ Eve! The village turns out to light bonfires and sing, to keep away the evil spirits. Tonight be the night that all manner of evil things come abroad and prey on the unwary.”

  Brian smiled indulgently and offered his arm to Helen Trevaskis as she climbed from the coach.

  He noticed that the landlord’s face had suddenly become pinched and worried as his eyes fell upon the young girl. The big man moved forward awkwardly and raised a crooked finger to his forehead.

  “Why, Miss Helen … we weren’t expecting you back from Bodmin until the end of the week.”

  Helen smiled.

  “Hello, Noall. I have come back earlier, because things are so boring in Bodmin. Would you fetch my bag? It is the red leather one.”

  Noall, the innkeeper, half opened his mouth to say something, and then bit his lip and turned away to pick up the girl’s bag. Brian sensed that there was something that he wanted to say to the girl; something that he did not know how to tell her. His gaze turned to Helen but she seemed blithely unaware.

  “Will you be staying long, sir?” It was the innkeeper, come back with the girl’s bag.

  It was the girl who answered for him.

  “Oh, Noall, this is Doctor Brian Shaw from London. He is my father’s new partner, and he will be living with us.”

  The red faced landlord shot a suspicious glance at Brian and then nodded begrudgingly.

  “Where is my father, Noall?” continued the girl. “I expected him to meet the coach, for I let him know I was returning early.”

  The man hung his head and moved his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other.

  Helen frowned.

  “What is it, Noall? Have you something to tell me?”

  “Miss Helen …” the man began. He stopped and chewed his lip as if searching for the right words. “It’s like this, Miss Helen … Doctor Trevaskis …”

  “My father? Has anything happened to him?”

  “He’s gone missing. He’s been missing for the past two days.”

  The girl went white, stumbled back and might have fallen had not Brian caught her arm in time.

  Helen Trevaskis sat before the roaring fire in the Morvoren Inn and sipped at a glass of mulled wine.

  “I’m much better now,” she said with a ghost of a smile at the anxiously hovering Brian. The color had, indeed, returned to her pale cheeks and highlighted well the redness of her hair which was offset by the vivid blue of her eyes.

  “You nearly fainted then,” he said in accusation.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Helen,” said Noall, the landlord, remorsefully. “I tried to break it to you as gently as I knew how …”

  “It’s all right, Noall. But you must tell me what has happened.”

  Noall scratched an ear.

  “Well, it were the day afore yesterday. The doctor, your father, set off on his rounds about midday. They tell me he were last seen walking along the cliff tops towards Breaca way, towards the foreigner’s house. When the evening came and he did not return, Mrs. Trevithick came here to see if he were in here.”

  “And was a search made?” intervened Brian.

  The red-faced man looked at the ground and shrugged.

  “It be All Hallows’ Eve, and you know the customs of folks here about. Why, fishermen do not even put to sea on such a day. It be unlucky to be found wandering too far from the village.”

  “But damn it, man,” cried Brian, aghast, “the doctor might have had an accident and be lying somewhere hurt upon the moor.”

  “Then God help him,” said the innkeeper.

  Helen’s face was pale with anger.

  “Do I hear aright, Noall? Do I understand that the villagers have made no attempt to find my father?”

  “Miss Helen, you were born and bred here … you know the beliefs and customs of us village folk … you know what it would mean if we wandered on the moor on a day like this?”

  “I cannot believe you would leave a man to die on the moors,” exclaimed Brian.

  “If he be not dead already,” snapped the innkee
per, then added to Helen: “Begging your pardon, Miss Helen. But ’twere best to face the facts.”

  Helen suppressed a sob that rose in her throat.

  “I cannot believe folk here would let him die, Noall. My father has lived in Bosbradoe twenty-five years, he has brought many of the villagers into the world, nursed them when they were sick, saved their lives … and this, this is how they repay him!”

  “Let me organize a search now,” said Brian.

  “No!”

  They turned at the hoarse voice. It was a ruddy-complexioned man with a shock of white hair. He was dressed completely in black, and stood at the open door of the inn.

  “I said ‘no’,” he repeated as he entered the inn and shut the door.

  “And who are you, sir, who presumes to give orders?” demanded Brian.

  “Brother Willie Carew, the leader of our community in Christ here, sir,” he said. “It is for their immortal souls that I do fear. And that responsibility gives me the right to give orders. On no account will the people of this village stir abroad until tomorrow morning.”

  “So a man might be lying in desperate straits on the moor this night because you are too cowardly to save him?” sneered Brian.

  The stocky man’s eyes flashed.

  “Cowardly? No. But we are good Christians, and fear the Devil and all his works. Today is the ancient feast of the dead, when the spirits of the dead visit their former homes, when it is dangerous to leave the confines of the village, because the dead prey on the living and, unless vigilance is maintained, will send a soul shrieking into hell. The people—as you see—build fires, lit from sunset to sunrise, to protect them from the devils who ride through the night seeking victims.”

  The man turned to Helen.

  “I am truly sorry that your father is lost to us. He was a good man; a Christian man. God send we can help him on the morrow.”

  Helen turned her face away from him.

  The stocky man shrugged and walked out.

  Only then did the girl’s shoulders shake in sobs.

  Brian caught her by the arm.

  “I’ll go and see what I can find, if these cowards will point the way.”

  She tried to repress the sobs which racked her body and shook her head violently.

  “You are a stranger here, Brian. What can you do alone at night, not knowing the treacherous countryside which surrounds us?”

  It was the first time she had used his first name.

  “But it will be better than sitting hopeless and useless,” he insisted.

  “No. It would be better to wait until dawn. Then maybe we’ll be able to persuade the villagers to help us.”

  “Those cowards?” There was a sneer in Brian’s voice.

  “Perhaps it is understandable, Brian,” she said sadly. “We Cornish are a strange and superstitious people. We live too near to nature, to the elements, the sea, the wind, the land. So we are superstitious. We have an old mythology, an ancient folklore and a religion which was old thousands of years before the birth of Christ. Perhaps we are not yet truly Christian, for all our high-sounding phrases. Therefore we do not open our hearts readily to people from across the Tamar, to the upcountry people, as we call them. Let us wait until tomorrow.”

  She held out a hand to Brian.

  “Let us go to my father’s house. I am well enough.”

  She let Brian conduct her from the inn, along the street filled with carousing villagers, dancing round their bonfires, to the Trevaskis house at the end of the village street. The door was opened at Brian’s imperious knock by a wet-eyed matron who gave a cry when she saw Helen.

  “Oh, Miss Helen! My lamb, my dear!” She threw her arms about the girl and swept her indoors.

  It was then that Helen’s control broke down and she sobbed unashamedly on Mrs. Trevithick’s ample bosom. Clucking like a mother hen with its young, the housekeeper—for such was Mrs. Trevithick’s position—conducted Helen to her bedroom above the stairs.

  Brian made himself at ease before the log fire to await her return.

  A nervous cough made him look up. A gaunt-looking man stood hesitantly by the door. One eyebrow seemed to twitch in agitation.

  “Good evening, sir. I am Trevithick. My wife is the housekeeper here. I understand you escorted Miss Helen home, sir.”

  “Quite right, Trevithick,” answered Brian. “I am Doctor Shaw, Doctor Trevaskis’ new partner.”

  The man frowned.

  “Oh? Yes, the doctor was expecting you.”

  “Good. I believe the arrangement was that I was to have a room in this house?”

  “Aye, sir … er, doctor. My wife has made up a room all ready for you. It only needs airing.”

  “Good. And now, perhaps, you can give me some information about this disgraceful affair, of the disappearance of the doctor?”

  “I fear he be dead already, doctor.”

  Brian’s eyes narrowed.

  “What do you mean by that, Trevithick?”

  “The last time anyone saw the doctor, he were going along the cliff tops towards the foreigner’s house.”

  “The foreigner?”

  Noall had mentioned “the foreigner” in exactly the same tone of voice.

  Trevithick nodded.

  “Strange things happen up there, they say.”

  “Strange things? Who says? And who is this foreigner?”

  Trevithick’s eyes flickered from side to side.

  “The foreigner? He is …”

  “Trevithick!”

  The gaunt man jumped and turned guiltily, as his rotund wife came into the room.

  “I was … I was …” he muttered.

  “I know what you were about,” answered his wife shortly.

  “You still have the chores to do, Trevithick. Be about them.”

  The man gave an imperceptible sigh and left the room without another glance at Brian.

  Mrs. Trevithick gave him a steely examination.

  “And now, sir …”

  There was a challenge in her voice.

  “And now, Mrs. Trevithick, as I explained to your husband, I am Doctor Shaw, Doctor Trevaskis’ new partner. I believe you are expecting me.”

  The woman bit her lip.

  “I see.”

  She straightened her shoulders as if she had momentarily received some blow.

  “Yes, Doctor Trevaskis was expecting you,” she admitted. “If you would be so good, sir, as to follow me, I shall show you your room.”

  “How is Miss Trevaskis?”

  “She will be the better for a good night’s sleep, sir.”

  Taking a candle, she conducted Brian up the stairs to a small bedroom. It was cold, but the woman went to the fireplace, where a log fire was already laid, and within a few minutes a fine blaze was leaping into the hearth.

  “I shall return shortly, sir, with warming pans for the bed. Will there be anything else?”

  “You can tell me why everyone here seems so suspicious of me.”

  Mrs. Trevithick sniffed loudly.

  “Suspicious, sir? You are in Cornwall now. We do not take readily to upcountry people and their ways. They have brought us nothing but harm. I cannot understand why Doctor Trevaskis did not employ a good Cornishman, before importing an upcountry man.”

  She swept from the room leaving Brian to ponder over the strangeness of his arrival in Bosbradoe.

  IV

  Brian was awake just before dawn the next morning; was washed, dressed and downstairs before anyone else was stirring in the house.

  The street was empty and littered with the remains of the previous night’s revelry.

  Brian observed that on every cottage the shutters were closed and the door firmly shut. The only movement was a stray dog burrowing into a pile of rubbish left by the revellers. The ash from their bonfires still smoldered.

  With a shrug, he returned to the Trevaskis house, passing the square-towered church and its vicarage. He had opened the gate, which led up t
he short path to the door, when a voice called: “Good morning.”

  He looked up to see an elderly man of medium height regarding him with bleary red eyes from the vicarage garden. His sombre clothing proclaimed him as a man of the cloth, and judging by his dishevelled appearance, the man had not been to bed since the night before.

  “Good morning, mister …?” Brian returned his greeting.

  “Pencarrow, sir. Simon Pencarrow. I am pastor of the flock of Christ in the village, sir.”

  Brian frowned.

  “Forgive me, Mr. Pencarrow,” said Brian, “but I thought a Brother Willie Carew was …?”

  The parson interrupted him with a laugh.

  “I am a vicar of the Anglican Church, sir, and that is my church.” He flung an arm to the nearby church building. “But, sir, meet with a Cornishman and you will meet with a follower of John and Charles Wesley. The lower orders are Methodists, every man-jack of them. Why, I have only three souls in my entire Parish, sir. You are not a Methodist, are you?”

  Brian introduced himself and the vicar extended a limp hand.

  “You are welcome to my poor parish, sir. Welcome.”

  “Why does the church keep you here, Mr. Pencarrow, if you have no flock to preach to?” enquired Brian.

  “Why? Oh, come to the house and have some wine with me. Too early? Surely not, sir? ‘Take a little wine for thy stomach’s sake’—it is in the Good Book. No? I cannot tempt you? Very well. What was I saying?”

  “You were going to tell me, sir, why you stay here with no flock to preach to,” answered Brian, smiling.

  “Ah, indeed. Well, sir, I do not complain to my bishop, for you will see, sir, that this is a beautiful spot, and I do not want to see new pastures at my time of life. The quietness of the spot lets me indulge in my antiquarian studies.”

  “What of Doctor Trevaskis, sir?” He said bluntly. “Is it not time we started to organize a search?”

  The vicar sighed and pulled out a silver flask from his pocket and swallowed a liberal draught.

  Brian caught the unmistakable odor of rum and noted the thin, trembling hands.

  “I doubt if you will get the village awake before midday, sir. They have drunk enough on which to launch a schooner.”