by John Kessel
I tolerated this for as long as I could—longer, really, than I might have, but the thought that Henry watched, expecting me sooner or later to take up my researches, was enough to trouble every moment. In the end my fate lay before me, not to be dispensed with by the wave of a lady’s fan or the trepidations of a friend.
When I told him we must separate, Henry was unhappy. “Please do not go. I apologize for what I said that afternoon on Arthur’s Seat.”
“It is I who should apologize to you,” I said. “I cannot explain what I have been about, but believe me when I say it is something I must attend to. Please forgive me. Do you enjoy yourself, and let this be our rendezvous. I may be absent a month or two. I entreat you to leave me in solitude for a short time. When I return, I hope it will be with a lighter heart.”
“I had rather be with you than with these Scottish people, whom I do not know.”
Without my having to reiterate my resolve, Henry saw that this last importunity would have no effect. He managed a rueful smile, at himself or at me, and continued, “Hasten then, my dear friend, to return, that I may again feel myself somewhat at home, which I cannot do in your absence.”
And so I bid farewell to Perth, and with relief and dread, made my way in the most uncomfortable coach ride of my life to Thurso, on the northernmost Scottish coast. The northern scenery had its stark beauty, but I was not engaged. In Thurso I retrieved all the materials I had collected to essay my final task and hired a sloop to carry me to the tiny isle in the Orkneys, five miles from the mainland, that I had chosen as the site of my labors.
The island claimed only five inhabitants and three decaying huts, one of which I rented and had refurbished. It consisted of two rooms under a thatched roof. Workmen from the mainland replastered the walls, repaired the roof, laid down a plank floor, and constructed a shed attached to the house. I brought in simple furniture. One room became my living quarters and the other my laboratory.
The dull wretches who peopled the island scratched out a meager living fishing and tending the few scrawny sheep that cropped their barren pastures. All other fare had to be brought from the mainland; with a grocer in Thurso I established a weekly delivery of vegetables, bread, and meat; otherwise I had nothing to do with any person other than those I might occasionally encounter on my solitary walks along the beach. I listened to the endless churning of the surf, gazed at the swelling waters that ran from slate gray to deep green, and ducked the raucous seabirds that swooped over the waves.
When the improvements to my dwelling were completed, I set up my equipment and steeled myself to begin the task that I had delayed for so long. All illusions were sped. I was alone. Nothing now stood between me and the filthy work before me, only this time my eyes were not obscured by the enthusiasm that had blinded me in the months leading up to my bringing my tormenter to life.
My microscope and slides, the carboys of chemicals, the metal table, the large copper bath and electrical apparatus, all stood neatly arranged, awaiting use. I dragged the trunk containing Kitty Bennet’s body to the center of the laboratory. When I unscrewed the lid and opened it, I gagged at the sweet stench that assaulted me. Struggling, I dragged her decaying corpse from its refuge and laid it out on the table where I was to fashion it into a bride for the fiend who had ruined my life.
TWELVE
Since Kitty’s death Mr. Bennet’s health had declined, and their return home to Longbourn had done little to recover it. Her absence hovered over every room of the house, every walk in the garden. Mary did her best to comfort both her parents.
Today was a splendid August afternoon, warm and bright with sun. Mary had arranged to have a place prepared outdoors for her father with an armchair, a small table, and tea. Mr. Bennet sat beneath one of the trees, a robe over his lap and a book open on it, but he was not reading. His head lay back against the chair, and his eyes were closed. He wore a black armband. Mary did not think he was sleeping. She wondered at the content of his thought, and hoped whatever it was comforted him.
The emerald turf lay thick beneath the elms, and the fine gravel of the path had been raked until it was as easy for her parents to traverse as Longbourn’s second-floor hallway. The house, with its many-paned windows and ivy-covered walls, stood as lovely and inviting in the afternoon sun as any such residence in England. Mary sat with her mother on a bench some distance from Mr. Bennet, beside a low wall surrounding a bed of roses. Mrs. Bennet was silent. She had been more silent since their return than Mary had ever seen her.
From the vantage point of the garden at Longbourn, the events that had occurred at Pemberley seemed inconceivable, but Mary could not purge the disordered jumble of images from her memory: Kitty trembling in her arms as she confessed her indiscretion with Mr. Clarke, Victor Frankenstein’s face in the light from the fireplace as he told his own impossible story, the voice of tipsy Reverend Chatsworth at dinner, Victor and Mary bantering over the fossils in the natural history cabinets, her conversation with the monster in the taproom of the Matlock inn, the blood running from Kitty’s arm into the basin that Mary held on that last night of her sister’s life.
In many ways nothing at Longbourn had changed but the banishment of color from their dress. Mrs. Hill, the housekeeper; Alice; and the other servants were the same, as were the daily round of pastimes, Father in his study, Mother writing to her grandchildren. Mary might have imagined that Kitty was simply away visiting Pemberley while she was consigned to stay at home. But of course everything was different. Kitty was dead. And the extraordinary memories in Mary’s mind would not be wiped away.
“Mary, would you see that your father’s tea is warm?” Mrs. Bennet asked her.
Mr. Bennet overheard her, lifted his head, and called from across the lawn, “My tea is quite warm, my dear. Do not trouble yourself, Mary.”
His voice piped like that of an old man.
“Very well, Mr. Bennet,” her mother called, in a tone that would convince no one that all was well.
“What does Mr. Woodleigh write you about?” she asked Mary.
Mary folded the letter she had in her lap. “His sister has given birth to a son. Her second. The family is very pleased.”
“I wish we had had a son,” Mrs. Bennet said idly. She caught herself and looked at Mary with more purpose. “Please forgive me, Mary. Of course I would not have traded any of you for a son.”
“You have done nothing that requires forgiveness, Mother.”
“You are a good girl,” Mrs. Bennet said. “You are all good girls.”
She observed her husband for a space of seconds. Mr. Bennet adjusted his spectacles and took up his book. Mrs. Bennet could not rest easy, and stood. “Will you walk with me, Mary?”
“Certainly, Mother.”
They took a turn around the garden. Lady Catherine De Bourgh had taken Elizabeth outside to walk along this same path while Mary, her sisters, and Mrs. Bennet had peered through the windows trying to surmise what they discussed, a prelude to Lizzy announcing her engagement to Mr. Darcy. Mrs. Bennet was not commonly a lover of strolls through nature. They walked in silence. Mary could see that her mother was working her way toward addressing some difficult subject. She was not a woman who long kept her thoughts to herself, and her reticence made Mary only more curious. Finally, without looking at Mary, she spoke.
“I have been thinking,” Mrs. Bennet said slowly, “and I believe that Kitty died because of me.”
Mary stopped. Her mother took a step beyond her, halted, and turned. Her eyes glistened.
“No, Mother,” Mary replied. “That is not true. You were not even there.”
“I let her go to Pemberley when I knew she was not well.”
This sort of talk from her mother was new. It was perhaps in keeping with her character that she would see Kitty’s death in the light of how it affected her, but not if that meant taking responsibility.
Mary said, “Mother, if you must blame someone, blame me. I went walking with her when I might
have noted that it threatened rain.”
“It was not your duty to care for her. It was mine.”
“And you did care for her. You gave her every attention.”
“I gave her the sort of attention that suited me. I sought to make sure she dressed so as to represent me well, and to get her a husband that would increase my importance in the world.”
This was like nothing Mary had ever heard from her mother.
Mrs. Bennet resumed walking. After some moments she said, “Do you believe in Providence, Mary?”
“Yes. I do.”
“I have heard this word my entire life, and I never gave it thought until now. I fear I have been a very vain woman. The world vexes me, and I blame your father, or the neighbors, or one of you, or the servants, or some other person. I have gone to church on the Lord’s Day, sat in our pew, sang the words of the hymns, and never once considered what any of this meant. I might as well have been singing nursery rhymes. My prayers were no more serious than the wishes a little girl makes on a rainbow. I might as well be a little girl, for all the wisdom I have accumulated, all the virtue I have brought to our family. Your father stopped caring for me many years ago. Now God has stopped caring for me, as well.”
Mary was frightened. “Mother, you mustn’t speak this way. I know that you grieve, but the Lord does not wish you to take all this onto yourself.”
“If the Lord wants anything, he wants sinners to admit their sins. I am finally ready to do that. He told me that when Kitty died. He told me again when she was stolen from her grave. Who would do such a thing?”
“Whoever did it,” Mary said, “was certainly not doing the Lord’s work.”
They had come to the end of the grove, to the little wild hollow they called the hermitage, from which they could only see the very top of the house and chimneys. Mary and her sisters had played hide-and-seek here. Lydia and Kitty had come here to scheme about the brilliant marriages they would make.
Mrs. Bennet sighed. “I suppose to be vexed at God is another sin. And many have seen much more trouble than I.” She pulled her shawl closer around her and looked about the place as if seeing it for the first time. “Why, this is a lovely spot. I don’t know why I have never come here before.”
Mary felt overcome with tenderness for her mother, and on an impulse embraced her. Mrs. Bennet stiffened, then relaxed and put her arms around Mary. Mary swallowed back tears. Her mother whispered into her ear, “I am so glad that you are still with me. You are my comfort.”
They separated. Mary looked into her mother’s aged eyes.
“We should go back and see after your father,” Mrs. Bennet said. “And we must plan the dinner for Sir William Lucas and family, just you and I, together.”
On the walk back, Mary considered what her mother had said. The great pity she felt for her mother was genuine, and to hear her call Mary her comfort was gratifying. But as they prepared for supper and Mrs. Bennet began to tell Mary all that they would have to do to prepare for their next social engagement, Mary felt less easy.
To be her mother’s comfort was to be needed, but it was not what she had lived for. In fact, in the aftermath of Kitty’s death and the encounter with Victor Frankenstein and his monster, Mary had come to wonder what it was for which she lived. Those moments confronting the Creature in the Matlock taproom had been the most frightening of her life, but they had also opened a view to a mode of existence that she had not imagined. Life and death lay very close beneath the surface of every earthly thing, and the door to them might be torn open at any moment, leaving no time to prepare the way one might prepare for a visit from Sir William.
One of the things they would certainly speak of at this dinner would be the deaths of Charlotte and Kitty. They would say the proper, polite things, and no one, not even her mother, would overstep the bounds of propriety. Mary could not imagine telling them what she knew of Kitty and Mr. Clarke. She could not tell them of Victor’s visit to her room at night, or the nature of the Creature she had confronted. Or the kiss that Victor had given her. The feel of his body against hers in the St. Giles churchyard.
Not a day had gone by in the last month when these things had been far from her thoughts. Either Victor or the monster had lied to her. If the monster was to be believed, Kitty was to be brought back to life again to be his bride. Victor had insisted that such a being, if he were to create her, would not be Kitty, but Mary could not untangle truth from falsehood in all of this. Perhaps by some miracle Kitty might be restored. Even if that were impossible, it occurred to Mary that, if the burden that so obviously weighed Victor down was his vow to create a companion for his monster, once he had accomplished this task he would be free. Mary would give much to see his face untroubled by the torment of obligation to his demonic creation. In that happy moment, able at last to act in accordance with his best nature, to whom might his grateful attentions turn?
If there were a Providence, Mary believed that her role in it must go beyond providing comfort to her mother. Why otherwise would God have put Mary in the way of Victor Frankenstein and his Creature? Why otherwise would He have Kitty taken for their purposes? There had to be some sequel to these events. But she would never find it if she stayed in Longbourn. She would have to journey north, to Scotland, to fulfill whatever role destiny might have in store for her.
In his most recent letter to Mary, Mr. Woodleigh alluded to the sale of a fossil collection that was to take place at the University of Edinburgh. Mary showed her parents the announcement in the notes of the Geological Society. She told them that she wished to travel to Edinburgh to take part in the auction.
Mrs. Bennet said that she could not possibly spare Mary for such a purpose. Mary felt a twinge of conscience at the thought of abandoning her mother so soon after her revelations of her troubled conscience, but she also feared that if she did not get away now, no matter the outcome of her flight, she would never have the will to do so.
Mr. Bennet said that the distance was far too great, and suggested that Mary might bid on those items that interested her from their home. Mary maintained that she needed to see these fossils in person, and would need to know what other bidders there were, before she could make a sensible judgment. Mr. Bennet replied that, unfortunately, his health would not allow him to accompany her, so that should settle the matter.
Mary pointed out that she was not a girl but a woman of thirty-two years old. She proposed that they should send Alice along with her as a companion. Alice could serve in that capacity as well, probably better, than Mr. Bennet, if indeed a chaperone for someone as unexceptional as Mary might be required.
In the end, Mary’s arguments carried the day, and it was arranged that she and Alice should leave by post coach in three days. They would stop briefly at Pemberley, and continue on to Edinburgh. Mr. Bennet prepared a letter of credit that Mary might use at the Bank of Scotland. Mrs. Bennet fussed, but in the end, clutching a handkerchief to manage her tears, she kissed Mary on both cheeks and released her to climb into the coach in front of the Meryton Assembly Rooms.
Alice was excited. She had seen London with Mrs. Bennet and her daughters, but had never in her life traveled in the north, and was eager to see the sights of Scotland. They arrived at Pemberley in good time. The memory of Kitty’s loss made for a melancholy visit, and Mary remained for only two days before continuing.
The journey from Derbyshire to Edinburgh was arduous, some two hundred fifty miles. Though the roads had recently seen great improvement, there were still long stretches where the coach jolted along ruts at a walking pace and any passengers perched on top had to hold on for dear life. The coaching inns along the way provided poor meals at a high price, and because the coach stopped for only twenty minutes to change horses, Mary and Alice often could not finish the meals they had paid for before they were obliged to climb back aboard for further sleepless hours of discomfort. At least they were not forced to ride on the top, exposed to the elements. For some stages of the trip th
ere were as many as seven people up there. Yet the inside was frequently unpleasant and crowded, the conversation of their fellow travelers insipid, and the reek of their close quarters at times made Mary wish she were up top after all.
Alice’s excitement at being away from Meryton faded rapidly. She did not spare Mary her complaints, ones she would not have voiced to Mrs. Bennet. “More than once I ask myself why you, miss, should trouble to make this journey for the sake of some curiosities,” she sighed when they had spent a rainy day staring out the coach window at the dreary countryside, “but I suppose these rocks is vallable to those ’at knows them.” In the end Alice recognized in Mary a milder mistress than her mother, and did not abuse the liberty Mary allowed her.
At last they arrived at the Two Swans in Edinburgh. If the porter thought it untoward that Mary traveled with only a female companion, he showed no sign of his skepticism. Alice saw to unpacking their trunks and preparing their room at the inn. She was a shrewd woman when it came to dealing with servants and innkeepers, but she had been so long habituated to Mary’s submission to the strictures of her family that she could not expect what Mary was planning.
Mary discovered that the mail coach to Perth left every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at six in the morning. Without letting on to Alice, she arranged for her passage on the Friday coach. On Thursday she visited the Bank of Scotland and, using the letter of credit, obtained twenty pounds in banknotes and ten in coin. The bank clerk hesitated to disburse so large a sum, but Mary’s far-from-girlish behavior did not offer him the opportunity to question her. On her return from the bank she stopped at the post office and mailed a letter to her parents. She packed a small case with those things she would need to continue her journey, and left it in the porter’s keeping with the instructions that it should be loaded on the Friday morning coach, so that Mary might depart without having to alert Alice.