The Frankenstein Papers

by Fred Saberhagen

  But to recount the conclusion of my trans-Atlantic voyage. On the day before we were to make port, an effort to imprison me was made, as I had more than half expected. The captain and a squad of sturdy men (I could hear their muttering, and heavy breathing.) approached the closed door of my cabin. In only a moment all the locks, bolts, and bars there on had been made fast, much good did it do them.

  Not that I broke out immediately; I contented myself with some startled grumblings for a start, rattled the door a little, and then allowed myself a full-throated howl or two, to demonstrate that the fact of my imprisonment was finally borne in upon my weak intelligence. I followed this with a few minutes of half-hearted hammering upon the door until it was plain—even to the dull wits of a monster—that I should not be able to break out.

  I rested quietly until darkness had fallen, and I was sure, from the familiar sounds of other commerce upon the Thames that we were close to shore. Then one swift surge and the hinges that I had so thoughtfully weakened at the start of our voyage burst asunder, startling a sleepy sentinel so badly that he dropped his musket before he could think of what else to do with it. To save him the trouble of attempting any additional thought I promptly threw the musket over the rail, and followed it in a swift dive.

  We were, as I had deduced, quite close to shore, and my swim was short. Climbing from the icy water onto a dock, I terrified a few stray onlookers and fled inland, losing myself quickly in the maze of London streets and alleys, and managing to steal some dry blankets before I perished of exposure.

  I am not totally unfamiliar with this environment, thanks to my earlier stay here near the docks as Saville's guest. I am now hiding out, hungry, a fugitive again from my enemies, but for the moment satisfied to be here, in the city of my greatest enemy's greatest power.

  I remember very well the location of Saville's warehouse-office; and I intend to go there as soon as I have the chance. Beyond that point I remain uncertain.

  Later_I have been meditating for some time on the idea that special goods or materials must now and then be imported for Saville's luxurious mansion (Which by the way I have never seen—does he have his laundry done in the tropics, as do some of the French nobility?). Vague mention of some such shipments once or twice reached my ears during the epoch of my warehouse residence. I should be able to keep an eye on the warehouse for these imports, see who shows up to accept them, and follow when the materials are picked up for delivery. What I should really like to have is entree to his dwelling.

  February 19_The contact I sought has been established. A delivery wagon evidently carrying luxuries left the warehouse late this afternoon, and I managed to climb into the vehicle and stow away before it took its departure. There were hams and cheeses in the cargo, amid less appetizing items, and I took care to fill my pockets with a food supply, not knowing what provisions I might find available when I reached the end of my journey. Towards the end of an interesting ride through the city and far into its outskirts, we passed through huge iron gates, set in a high stone wall. The gates were promptly closed after us when we had entered. I understood that I had arrived at the suburban Saville estate, which I had often heard mentioned by Saville himself, but had not thought, until very recently, ever to have the opportunity to see for myself.

  After a circling drive through wooded grounds we passed around the house, which I meanwhile observed through a chink in the canvas covering the wagon's rear. It is very large, and there seems to be a large staff. I dropped off the wagon, at what seemed a likely opportunity, and fled unnoticed through the dusk to conceal myself in the parklike woods. Meanwhile the vehicle proceeded, I suppose to deliver its legitimate cargo at some tradesman's entrance in the rear.

  The state, though at only a few miles': distance from London, appears to be remarkably isolated, and the house is surrounded by several acres of wooded grounds. I only wonder that Saville did not choose this establishment to be the site of Frankenstein's first experiments under his sponsorship, instead of dragging us all off to Scotland. But perhaps the villain thought his murderous schemes only likely to succeed if afforded that extra degree of secrecy possible only on such a remote island. Whether or not he was correct in this assessment remains to be seen.

  I am presently ensconced in a hollow oak, some twenty feet above the ground. An owl established at an equal altitude in a neighboring trunk has been regarding me for some time with solemn astonishment. From this position I can see the great house but dimly, a gray bulk mostly obscured by the leafless branches of innumerable trees. I hear dogs, probably a mastiff or two, now evidently roaming free in the grounds. If the beasts hold true to canine form, they will not care to follow or find me, but my presence in the grounds will make them uneasy.

  More later, after I make my first approach to the house, which I shall attempt after dark. I can hope that all my enemies are gathered in the house, and that they remain ignorant of my proximity. But in any case I shall persist.

  LETTER 7

  February 20,1783

  Saville Estate, near London

  Sir-Many of the messages I have written you during the past few years have been composed and dispatched under what I considered the most difficult circumstances. But I have perhaps more doubt regarding this one than I have had for any other, that you will ever see it. I know that I am surrounded by our enemies as I write; and, when I have finished writing, I intend giving this paper into the care of the very being whose existence has been, for some months now, the object of our search. Tonight I have seen him, touched him, and have discovered that he lives. He thinks, he speaks! Nay, more than that! He tells me that he has seen you and spoken with you, not two years past, in your house at Passy. The tone in which he made this claim, the evident keenness of his thought, and the particulars of detail that he can give, regarding your person, your servants, and your surroundings there, are such that I tend to believe him. If it be true, there must be, I suppose, some reason of good policy why you could not have told me long ago about that meeting. In any case I pray that you will now tell me all about it, as soon as you can, and in no uncertain terms.

  But all that—even that—is only the beginning of my news. I was invited to dine here last night—as I would have written to tell you then, had there been time to do so. To cut the story short, I accepted, and the dinner party—more below on its complications—was extended, by the most pressing invitations, into an overnight stay. There were some natural grounds for this, the night being one of really wretched weather, even for the middle of a British winter.

  Inside all was warm and snug, and more or less convivial. Dining and conversation were at an end, and it was only when I had said goodnight to my host and hostess, followed a servant upstairs, and was alone in my room, that I met him—he who has no name, whose existence I have long doubted_he who tells me that he has seen you and spoken with you, in those very rooms at Passy where you and I last spoke face to face—but, as I say, there is much more to tell.

  Item: Victor Frankenstein is very much alive. Not only alive and in passably good health, but still actively continuing his work, and that under this very roof; I dined with him this evening.

  Why, then, does Walton's book say that Frankenstein is dead? The explanation offered by my hosts for the deception is that the philosopher himself preferred the peace and anonymity of being thought deceased, a condition that would allow him to devote all of his energies to his ongoing labor. The man himself, who was present during this discussion, concurred in this explanation, though, as it seemed to me, without any great enthusiasm.

  Frankenstein was, it appears, really aboard Captain Walton's ship on an Arctic voyage, but he had been aboard her from the start at Archangel, and was not rescued from a sled. That voyage was the last leg of a great and well-organized pursuit, beginning in Paris, whose sole object was to recapture the "creature" he had created. Saville and Walton, who organized the chase, hive known of the creature's existence almost from the start. It was not the pursuer
s, but only their quarry who traveled by means of a dogsled for any distance across the ice.

  Item: Saville himself has returned home, and was present when I arrived. Early in the evening, a few remarks were dropped in the drawing room and around the table, in an evident effort to maintain the fiction that Saville has really been in India; but the pallor of his face and hands, if nothing else, would cast grave doubts upon that claim, and evidently it is to be allowed to die. I am sure the man would faint, or more likely explode, if he had any idea that the "demon" he has now been hunting for years was really somewhere on the grounds of his own estate, or indeed anywhere within ten miles of it.

  I, of course, have cast no doubts, either by word or by look, upon anything told me by my hosts. I have nodded and smiled, and pretended to believe everything that I was told.

  I am sure that my hosts' objective in having me here is to learn from me every thing I know on the subject of the creature, particularly to extract from me any clue I might consciously or unconsciously possess as to its present whereabouts. Mrs. Saville has been interested in that subject since I met her, but I think something must have happened very recently to arouse that interest to a new pitch. This attitude is entirely shared by her husband. Needless to say, I have tried to withhold information as much as possible, while doing my best to let them believe that I just possibly do know something, and that if properly approached I might be willing to consider sharing what I know with them.

  There are strong hints from both the Savilles that if I choose to cooperate, I am to be let in on the profits—exactly how profits are to be derived is not yet clear. They wonder if I am authorized to represent my illustrious father—yes, I am afraid they are in no doubt about the connection—and drop more hints that there will of course be profits for you also if I do.

  At dinner Mrs. Saville introduced me to her brother, Captain Walton, who had just come in. Her brother is not as pallid as her husband, but still remarkably so for a seafaring man. I took the opportunity to congratulate the captain upon his book, which, as I was able to assure him with some truth, everyone I know has read or is now reading. (My newfound acquaintance, or perhaps I should already call him friend, the very tall one I met in my room, has already assured me that he has read that book, nay, almost committed its every word to memory.)

  Walton, as is obvious from his book, is a remarkably well-educated man—at least for a sailor_and prides himself more, I think, upon his literary skill than on anything else. He basked in my compliments.

  At dinner there were Saville and Mrs. Saville, Walton, Frankenstein, and myself. The food and wine were the best I have enjoyed in a long time, the service near perfection.

  Conversation at first was general. Saville complained at considerable length about the costs of doing business on his plantations in Jamaica, and the general difficulties of trading in blacks and molasses. He related, with some indignation, the story of another businessman, an acquaintance of his, who suffered a sharp loss when the captain of one of his slave-trading ships had attempted to cheat his insurance company by dumping overboard a whole cargo of ailing Africans, then claiming them as having been lost at sea. Under the circumstances the insurance company refused to pay, and the refusal has been upheld in court. Saville's indignation was directed at the insurance company.

  I recount all this to you now, that you may have no illusions about the sensibilities of my hosts, and the tenor of their usual conversation. The fact is that the slave business and all other topics were quickly forgotten when the subject of Frankenstein's work came up.

  As I have already mentioned, the young philosopher has now established his laboratory within this very mansion. He has been here for some months, I gather, since shortly after last summer's Geneva tragedy. Imagine my surprise when his presence was announced to me, with elaborate casualness, shortly before we sat down to dine; and imagine if you can my great interest a minute later when the man himself appeared. Judging by appearances he must have come fresh from his labors; the odor of chemicals still clung to his clothing, and on close inspection of his sleeves the stains of what must have been his most recent endeavors could still be seen.

  In general appearance Victor is pretty much as I had imagined him, dark-haired, gaunt and pale, in physique tending to the frail rather than the robust, and with a nervous manner.

  Frankenstein appeared cheerful when he first joined us, if slightly nervous. At dinner his state of mind became agitated, increasingly so as the conversation turned to the subject of his work, and there were several occasions while we were at table when I thought he would have communicated something of real importance to me, had there been a chance for him to do so privately. When we arose, I contrived to continue my mild flirtation with Mrs. Saville; her husband, a moment earlier, had allowed himself to be called out of the room to discuss some business, perhaps deliberately getting himself out of the way. There followed a general invitation to walk in the conservatory, which Walton declined, but Frankenstein and I accepted. And, presently, when our hostess had pleaded an urgent need to confer with the servants and had temporarily withdrawn from among the stunted orange trees, I had my chance, at least for a moment, to talk alone with Frankenstein.

  I wondered whether this opportunity too might have been contrived by the Savilles, that the scientist would have a chance to add his unforced plea to theirs, that I would share with him all I had learned about his creature, most especially its present whereabouts.

  But what he whispered to me, rapidly and confusedly, when he had the chance, was that he had once fled from the Savilles himself, and that it had been a horrible mistake later to be reconciled with them. That he now feared, more than before, those who had him, and now seemed to have me too, in their power. That, if the being he had created still lived, and I knew anything of its whereabouts, I should do everything I could to assure that it never fell into Saville's or Walton's hands.

  Scarcely knowing what to make of this confused plea, or how I ought to respond, I yet managed to keep control of my countenance and my manner; I assured him vaguely that I would do my best to see that all came out well; and when we rejoined the others presently, I doubt that they were able to tell anything of what had passed between us, except that Frankenstein now appeared somewhat more cheerful than before.

  Great pressure was then put on me, though all in the finest and most generous way, to persuade me to remain as the Savilles' guest overnight. What might have happened next had I been firm in my refusal of the invitation, I cannot say. But I was too much intrigued with the possibilities of the situation to persist for long in declining to accept. If in fact I am a prisoner, it was in a willing mood that I became one.

  I retired, glad for a chance to mull over in solitude the surprises of the evening. But the greatest surprise of all was yet to come. Hardly had I been left alone in my room and the door closed after the last servant, when there came a tapping, firm, light, and regular, upon the nearest window, from outside.

  To say that on first hearing this sound I doubted the evidence of my own ears is not to overstate the case. The windows of this room are perhaps thirty feet above the ground, and I had not thought them readily accessible. Next it occurred to me that the noise might represent the tapping of a tree branch upon the pane, though there was something in it too purposeful for that. Meanwhile, the dogs out in the grounds were giving vent to melancholy howl-ings, between the howlings of the wind, and I felt sure that something was disturbing them. The tapping continued, and presently I opened the draperies.

  I had looked out of the same window once with the servants present, before the tapping came. On that earlier occasion there was almost nothing to be seen except the darkness of the night. But I could see then, far up in the adjoining wing of the great house, how a single, melancholy light burned in a high, narrow, shuttered casement. I felt sure at once that Frankenstein was working there, having taken his leave of the rest of us not to sleep but to return to the high and lonely thoughts that mu
st engage him as he labors. The sincerity of the man had impressed me more than anything else during our conversations, though when they took place I still had not the proof of his success that awaited me the second time I went to my window. And an intense sense of his isolation had come over me when I first beheld his remote light—surely, I thought, he is more alone there in that high room than it would seem possible for a human being to be, this close to the swarming throngs of London.

  During dinner and immediately afterward, Mrs. Saville had continued, as I say, what had seemed up to then to be only a mild flirtation with me. And one of the younger maids had looked at me several times, as I thought, with a certain meaning. I confess that a quiet tapping at my door should not have been a tremendous surprise. But to hear that same sound, at the window…

  When I looked out for the second time, in incredulous response to such a summons, I beheld to my astonishment a giant figure, its face muffled in a cloak against the wind and freezing rain, crouching there on what looked like an impossibly narrow ledge. With some half-formed idea that this could only be some secret courier, perhaps from you, bearing some message of vast importance that would justify such risks, I opened the window at once. I think that sheer concern for the man's survival, as I beheld him clinging in that perilous position, was also a motive for my action.

  He kept his face muffled as he crossed the sill into the room; only his dark, piercing eyes were clearly visible. But I think that from the moment he stood erect, unfolding his great height, the truth of who he must be unfolded itself to me.