by John Kessel
“Miss Bennet?” he said absently, as if calling her name up from the bottom of the sea.
Mary was startled by his physical presence. “May I come in?” she asked.
Victor stood dazed a moment, and then reluctantly opened the door wider. She entered and he closed it. He said, “I thought I would never see you again. How did you find me?”
“Mr. Clerval told me you had gone to Thurso.” The degree to which he accepted her appearance as if he had expected it made her wary.
Moving slowly, he bade her to sit down, and offered her some tea that had not been hot since the day before. He said, “I have been starved for the company of another human soul. You are the answer to my prayers.”
Mary would have welcomed this profession had Victor not seemed at once both nonchalant about and bewildered by her appearance on his doorstep. He was unshaven and clearly had not changed his clothes for a number of days.
She looked around, fearful of what she might discern. A small room, recently plastered, a fireplace in which the coals of last night’s fire had not been stoked into today’s. The single window let in enough light to relieve the gloom but not vanquish it. A wooden table, two chairs, two tallow candles in pewter holders, a crate of wilting vegetables, a small wheel of cheese and a knife on the table, a pot, some mugs, some bottles of spirits. In the corner stood a wooden bed frame with a flat pillow, mattress, and disordered blankets. Unlaundered clothing spilled from an open trunk. A closed rough wooden door, with a lock, led to a second room. Victor, seated in the other chair, leaned forward, hands clasped before him, as he had in her room at Pemberley an age ago.
Beneath the musty odor a slight chemical smell hovered in the air.
“You look so tired,” he said, gradually coming to himself. “And your clothes. My Lord, what has happened to you?”
“It has been a difficult journey. I lost my money. But let’s not speak of that now. Victor, I know that you stole Kitty’s body. I know what you are here to do.”
The concern he had shown vanished. “How do you know this?”
“I was forced into the company of the man you created. He has explained everything to me.”
“Man?” Victor seemed to turn this word in his mind, and looked at her oddly. “Mary, I warned you. I am sure he told you of vast injustices he has suffered because of me. Remember, he murdered my brother William and sent Justine Moritz to the gallows.”
“He did not hide that from me.”
“It does him no credit to admit what he knows I told you already. All else is lies.”
“So you did not steal Kitty’s body?”
Victor’s brow knit. He seemed to come out of his lethargy, as if preparing for battle. “For your own safety, Mary, you must not give the slightest credence to what he says.”
Here was the crux of it. “Shall we go into the next room? I would like to see what you have there.”
Victor stared at her. “We shall not.”
“I have not come to accuse you, Victor, nor am I offended by your lying to me. In your circumstances I might have done the same. I have the greatest sympathy for you, and I hope that you will trust me. I only want to help. But you must tell me what you are about here.”
He gave an exasperated sigh.
“Yes, I took Kitty’s body. In order to prevent that demon’s taking revenge on the world, I have agreed to create a female like him. He swore that if I did so, he and she would leave the world of human beings and never be seen again.”
“I know this as well. He has told it to me.”
“Perhaps I should remain silent, then, since that thing has revealed everything about me.”
“Come, Victor, do not act aggrieved. I have left my family, traveled hundreds of miles, and suffered many indignities in order to speak with you. You say you are starved for company. I offer it, if you will treat with me as your friend.”
His shoulders slumped. “I warn you—this is a grisly business, not fit for a person of your sensibilities. Every day my nature rebels at the work that monster compels me to. Must you insist?”
“I must.”
He stood, took a key from his pocket, and unlocked the door to the other room. He gestured for her to enter ahead of him. Until this moment Mary had acted the part of cool reason, but as she passed through the doorway, her soul was awash with dread.
A single window admitted enough light for her to make out a room crowded with equipment. Along the wall were lined empty crates and several large bottles; on a bench above them Leyden jars, spools of copper wire, and cables. A microscope sat just below the window. Several voltaic piles, stacked disks of copper and zinc like those she had seen exhibited at the Royal Institution, stood on the floor. On another shelf were ranked a row of large ceramic jars. The room smelled acidic, but below that was a not unpleasant odor like that of yeast; the closest Mary could come to it was the odor of rising bread dough. This room was noticeably warmer than the other.
A low table with massive legs dominated the center of the room. Atop it rested a large copper tub, perhaps six feet long and two wide; its sides rose to two feet. It was filled with a cloudy fluid to within a few inches of its top. She stopped, not daring to draw nearer.
“This is my laboratory,” Victor said. “It was with great difficulty that I was able to transport these materials here; the only virtue of these northern Scots is that, though they will gossip, they do not question the strangeness of my pastimes.” He moved to the side of the table. “Come closer.”
Mary stepped to the side of the tub and peered into it. Beneath the surface of the milky liquid she could make out the figure of a woman. Her features were unclear, but long hair floated about her head. Mary’s heart beat fast.
“This is the mate that you are creating for your Creature,” Mary said. She blinked back tears. “This is Kitty Bennet.”
“Kitty Bennet is gone,” Victor said, “never to return.”
“One of the reasons I came all this way was the chance that, despite what you told me, you might be able to bring her back.”
“At one time I might have hoped to do that. What drove me on in the quest for the secret of life was the possibility of recovering those we have lost. I would give parents the chance to retrieve children dead too young, and husbands and wives their beloved spouses.”
He took both of her hands in his. “Alas, Mary, I cannot do that.” He gestured at the copper basin. “What you see here was once your sister but is no longer.”
“What’s become of her?”
“She is being transformed. Within each cell of every creature God has written a plan that causes it to function as it does. A myriad of different cells make up a human being. In the beginning I removed samples of these different cells from Kitty’s body. Working upon them, I am able to bring some of them to a kind of incipient life, like a seed. I then plant these seeds back into chosen sites in her remains. These fertile cells consume and replace those dead cells surrounding them. Kitty’s body thus supplies an armature around which a new being grows. This nascent creature is made of the same substance that made Kitty, but what results, though it will be born an adult, is a creature as new as an infant.
“Your sister’s body has gestated in this chemical womb for three weeks. Little of what she was remains. Soon her transformation shall be complete. But she shall not be alive yet, merely reconstructed. It remains then to remove her from this bath and, using the voltaic charge that you have read of in the experiments of Galvani and Aldini, bring her to life.”
“Will it look like Kitty?”
Frankenstein shook his head. “Though this creature will no doubt in some ways resemble your sister, it will be no more Kitty than the monster that you have met is the person whose body I used to form it. And I must warn you that it will be as appalling in appearance as that creature is. Once animated, this new thing’s mockery of humanity will be evident in its every movement.”
Mary’s throat was dry. “Might I have some water?” she a
sked. She felt unutterably weary, and swayed on her feet.
“You are not well,” Victor said. He helped her back into the other room. He led her to a chair and poured a cup of water from a pitcher. She held it in both hands and sipped, her eyes closed.
“I should have spared you this horror. It is not something that you need ever have seen, and I should not have allowed it, no matter how much you protested.”
Mary could not have come here and been kept from knowing Kitty’s fate. She drank until the cup was empty. She handed it back to Victor. “Thank you.”
He put it on the table. “You must be famished. Would you eat?”
“Not yet,” Mary said.
He sat across from her. “Miss Bennet, my conscience has troubled me from the moment in Matlock when I deceived you. I beg your forgiveness.” He was silent for a moment. “But how is it that you arrived here? You say that the monster told you his story?”
“We traveled together from Perth.”
“My God! How awful!” He contemplated the prospect, and his expression darkened. “Why, he must have abused you beyond belief. It is a miracle that you live. But . . . how is it that you were able to escape from him?”
“I did not escape,” Mary said. “He awaits outside. He has been waiting all the time that I have been here with you.” She felt stronger, more certain of what must happen next. “I need you, Victor, to let him remain here, in peace, with both of us, until your work is complete.”
SEVENTEEN
When Mary Bennet told me that the monster waited outside the cottage, and had been waiting there all morning as we spoke, that she had not escaped but instead traveled willingly with him, that it was she who had discovered where I was and she who had brought him, and that she wanted me to let him live here until I brought his monstrous bride to life, I sat stunned.
From what conceivable perspective could she choose to do so many things dangerous and irresponsible beyond comprehension, and then so calmly relate them, as if I would accept her actions as sweet reason? Yet here Miss Bennet sat, offering me sympathy, her eyes an open appeal.
She might be versed in natural philosophy beyond most women’s understanding, but it was clear that the demon had played upon her good heart in order to use her.
“You have entered a pact with your Creature to create a spouse for him,” she said. “I would not have wished you to use Kitty’s body, but now that you have begun her transformation, I feel, despite my own dismay, Christian charity demands that I do what I might to see both of you fulfill your sides of the agreement. That is the right thing, and the moral thing, and the practical thing. I know, Victor, that once you see the matter in this light, you will agree that this is the only reasonable course.”
Miss Bennet’s mix of prim moralism with naïveté had charmed me, and I might yet have been amused but for the fact that she had brought with her that demon and was speaking on its behalf. I had expected the Creature to find me, of course, since he would have to claim his bride before I could be done with him. But how could I work with the monster himself waiting like a starving man outside a kitchen?
Like a starving man, he was ruled by his hunger. I had no illusions that his desire for a mate represented anything beyond lust untempered by any civilizing influence. The history of men in venery is not a happy one for the women who are the focus of their obsession. How much worse would it be for this bride I was creating? But of course, her nature would be no more noble than his. Perhaps they would be well suited to each other.
Thank God I had made sure they would produce no offspring.
The monster would have been here sooner or later anyway. If I rejected Miss Bennet’s arrangement, she might tell someone about my situation, with disastrous results. And though keeping her here as long as the monster remained would not be safe, someone needed to care for her. Better to allow her to stay until we were done.
“It is not possible for me to take that thing into my house,” I said.
“Perhaps he might sleep in the shed?”
“Let him live outdoors on the island. He is used to living outdoors.”
“I gather that this is an inhospitable clime at best, and the weather worsens every day. If he is abroad on the island, there is more chance that the other islanders might encounter him.”
This was true.
“Very well,” I said. “He may sleep in the shed.”
“I do not know if he will accept that, but I will propose it.”
I bit back my exasperation. “You will take my bed,” I told her. “I will make up a pallet for myself in the laboratory.”
“You must promise me that you will not antagonize him, and I will make him promise the same.”
I made this promise.
She stood. “It is better that I speak with him alone. You should prepare your pallet while I am gone. When we return, I will be pleased to help you in the laboratory in any way that I may be of use.”
She left. I listened to the wind whistle around the corners of the cottage and speculated about how I might survive the week.
It was the better part of an hour before they returned. Miss Bennet entered first.
“He is just outside,” she said. “Remember your promise.”
She leaned out of the door. “You may enter.”
The monster ducked to get under the lintel. He looked much as he had in Matlock. His slouch hat brushed the rafters. His eyes met mine.
“Show me,” he said.
I led him into the laboratory. He stood motionless over the bath, peering down, and then lifted his gaze. “How much longer?”
“A week or more,” I said.
To look into his face was painful. For months I had nurtured him, thinking I was creating a human being of such beauty that the world would fall worshipping at my feet. I had made myself sick with anticipation, so devoutly was that consummation to be wished. The second he came to life, I saw him as he was: a horrid mockery, in no way worth the years I had spent creating him. My passion had been like that of some virginal young men for the act of sex: how they plot and plan, spend hours in idle fantasy, build it up to be the supreme moment of their lives. Once they taste the hollow ecstasy, they flee in disgust.
My disgust for the product of my scientific lust was far beyond that of any disillusioned lover. “This is a delicate process, and I do not wish to be distracted. I would prefer if you went away and came back.”
“I will be here every minute,” the thing said.
“Then let me not see you.”
“You shall see what you will.” He turned his back and went out to examine the shed.
Miss Bennet stood at the laboratory door. “I know this is difficult for you—” she began.
“I have work to do,” I told her, and addressed myself to my microscope.
So we constructed our misbegotten household. The Creature, whom Miss Bennet had taken to calling Adam, I kept out of the laboratory as much as I could. I gave Miss Bennet one of the cheap dresses I had purchased in Edinburgh and put her to work fashioning voltaic cells. I had several Cruickshank batteries, but I would need more electricity than they could offer. I explained to Miss Bennet my plans for the large ceramic jars I had purchased. I had her place a round copper plate, attached to an insulated wire that ran up the side, into the bottom of each jar. She filled the jar halfway with a copper sulfate solution, submerging the plate, and then carefully added a zinc sulfate solution to just below the brim. Because of its lesser density, the zinc sulfate formed a layer atop the copper sulfate. Finally, opposite the wire, from each jar’s rim I had her fit a cast zinc piece that hung below the surface of the zinc sulfate. The result was a new sort of battery that would hold a charge longer than the Cruickshanks.
Other than assembling the electrical apparatus, the chief work was distributing coals to the tray below the gestational bath in order to maintain the temperature of the fluid at a steady 102 degrees, and daily harvesting a few cells for microscopic examination. At this po
int it was merely a matter of waiting until the body was ready.
Working on these things, I spent many hours with Miss Bennet. I compared the woman before me with that unworldly spinster I had met at a ball in London. Some changes had been wrought—how else could she have survived a month with the monster?—yet the moralism that she had imbibed from her books of sermons remained. She attempted to persuade me that the Creature was in control of his passions. She told me he had saved her from assault by highwaymen.
He was more subtle than I had imagined, to have taken her in so completely.
Despite her certitude she seemed to me a person lost, torn from her moorings and adrift in a treacherous world she little understood. She watched me with a transparent intensity. I could feel the pressure of her longing. One day, as I drew fluid from the bath to test, I asked how her parents fared.
“They are greatly troubled since Kitty’s death.”
“How is it that they allowed you to make this long journey? I cannot imagine your mother accepting it.”
“I deceived them. They thought they were sending me to Edinburgh. From there I stole away from my servant. I wrote them to explain.”
“What was your explanation?”
Miss Bennet lowered her eyes. “I said I had knowledge concerning the defilement of Kitty’s grave.”
I saw an opportunity to wean her away from the distorted vision of things that she had received under the Creature’s influence. “Was that your only reason?”
“Adam threatened to annihilate you. I worried that even should you evade his ire, you were so near despair that you might take your own life.”
“I am still near despair, doing this blasphemous work at the behest of a murderous demon.” I applied a drop of fluid to a microscope slide and set aside the pipette. “I doubt you told your parents you came to save me.”
“I needed to know which of you told me the truth. Had you indeed stolen Kitty’s body? Was it possible to bring her back?”
“And now you see it is not. I told you so in Matlock.”
“Oh, Victor. You lied. You swore you had no knowledge of what had happened to Kitty.” She paused. “You never told me that you were affianced.”