I was in a state of astonishment and fearfulness not to be expressed. I ran into the kitchen, where Fred was frying a veal chop for my breakfast. “Stop what you are doing,” I said, “and leave.”
He looked at me in disbelief.
“You have done nothing wrong, Fred. Here is money to keep you. I must go. I must go at once.”
“You are still dreaming, Mr. Frankenstein.”
“This is no dream, Fred. This is reality. I must leave the house as soon as possible. A terrible fate hangs over it.”
My impatience and anxiety seemed then to infect him. He ran into the bedroom, and began to pack my portmanteau, even though I did not have the slightest notion of my destination.
Within a very short time I was ready to depart. I gave Fred a set of the keys, with strict instructions to lock every door and window. “If I am not the guard-dog here I will be with my mother,” he said. “In Short’s Rents.”
“I have given you enough money to support yourself?”
“You have been very generous, sir. When will you be back?”
“I am not sure. I do not know.”
When I came out into the street I looked fearfully from side to side, in case he had returned; but there was no sign. I still had no notion of where I might travel, but then Bysshe’s recent journey came into my head. He had told me that the coach for the north left from the Angel at Islington, and on a sudden and peremptory instinct it was there I travelled. By great good fortune the coach had been delayed by a collision blocking the Essex Road, and I managed to purchase a ticket that would take me-if I wished-as far as Carlisle. I was delighted to put as many miles as possible between myself and London.
I must have seemed a strange fellow traveller, for I remained in silence and in a kind of stupor throughout the whole journey; we rested and changed horses at Matlock, and I tried to sleep in a box-seat in the parlour of the inn there. But I could find no rest. In my mind was always his image, wrapped in my dark cloak, his blank eyes staring up at my window. I alighted at Kendal and caught a local post-chaise to Keswick, to which Bysshe had once referred; during my ride the landscape did indeed seem delightful, although I was scarcely in a frame of mind to entertain its beauties. The great lake reminded me of Lake Geneva, and the mountains around it were like a smaller relic of the mountains around my native city. I was half-expecting the bell of the great cathedral to sound across the waters. I took in all this at a glance, while my anxious thoughts remained elsewhere. How could I ever be able to shake off this demon, this incubus, that haunted me?
I was directed to a small inn that lodged travellers, where I lay that night. I slept only fitfully, woken by a storm that had rolled down over the mountains and by the stirrings of my own unquiet mind, but I spent my first day attempting to tire myself by walking over the steepest ground. To be free-to live among the mountains-now seemed to me the height of my endeavours. I contemplated removing myself to my native land, and there leading a life of blissful withdrawal from the world.
I returned to the inn that evening weary and in need of sleep. I ate the meal that the landlord’s wife put in front of me, and drank copious quantities of Cumberland ale seasoned with port and pepper. But still I could not rest. I slumbered only fitfully, my rest interrupted as it were by flashes of lightning in which I glimpsed the form and figure of the creature. I rose at dawn, and walked to the side of the lake; the garden of the inn sloped downward until it reached the bank, where I stood and surveyed a scene of stillness and silence. There was an island near the middle of the lake, already partly illuminated by the rays of the rising sun, while the landscape of hills and mountains behind it was still in shadow. There was a mist coming off the water that swirled across its surface; curiously, too, there were congregations of wispy vapours that seemed to hover above the water in the pattern of a vortex or whirlpool.
A small boat emerged from the other side of the island, a speck in the mist around me, but steadily it grew larger. The fishermen rose early here. As the craft came nearer to the shore I could discern a man standing upright at the prow, a dark figure silhouetted against the water and the vapour. As he came closer still I could see that his arms were raised above his head, and that he seemed to be waving at me. It was possible that he was in distress, and I waved back in reassurance. Then to my utter horror and amazement I realised who it was that stood in the boat and hailed me. The creature came steadily closer, and I could see the lurid yellow hair and the blank grey eyes. Now he held out his arms: his hands were covered in blood.
I turned back and ran towards the inn, in my haste stumbling over the root of a tree; as I rose from the ground I looked back fearfully over my shoulder. The boat, and its occupant, had gone. They must have been swallowed up in the mist which now crept over the further shore. Still I hastened back to the inn and, although I knew that nothing could hold him at bay, instinctively I locked the door of my chamber. This visitation was evidence of some terrible event. I was sure of it. His bloody hands were the token of some crime perpetrated in vengeance. I went to my window, overlooking the garden and the lake, but he was no more to be seen. My first impulse was to flee, but then I checked myself. I could not spend the rest of my life in headlong flight from my persecutor; even the fate of Cain was less terrible than that.
I decided to return to London, and there verify any deeds he might have committed. I was in a sense curious about the nature of his exploits, since he may thus have displayed something of his debased temperament. I might discover at first hand the nature of that which I had created. But these were fugitive thoughts, not to be expressed even to myself in a definite form. I was still too much in a whirlwind of fearfulness and foreboding.
I discovered that the next carriage to London left from Kendal on the following morning; so for the rest of that day I stayed in my room, looking steadfastly at the lake for any further sight of him. There was none. I suspected-I knew-that he would follow me back to London, just as he had traced me to this secluded place. How he travelled I had not the faintest idea, but I believed that he was still possessed of some preternatural strength. My apprehension rose as, on the following morning, I boarded the coach and began the journey southwards.
WHEN EVENTUALLY I BEGAN to smell London, among the fields and market gardens of its periphery, my fear increased to an alarming degree. It was as if I had smelled him. We came by way of Highgate, and from the hill I could see the great immensity boiling and smoking ahead of me. If I went down once more into its streets, its entrails, would I ever be free again? The encroaching sound was like that of a vast herd of beasts; among them, too, I knew that he would soon be dwelling.
From the Angel I took a carriage to Jermyn Street. I approached the house with some trepidation, since in my imagination I had seen him putting it to the torch or inflicting some harm upon it. But it stood as chastely as before, shuttered and locked in the quiet street. I took my keys, and entered. As I climbed the stairs, I heard a faint sound. Then, as I climbed higher, I realised that there was someone talking in a low voice in my rooms above. I could hear a voice, quiet, thoughtful. There was then a sudden movement, alarming me for that instant, and then at the head of the stairs appeared Bysshe and Fred.
“Thank God you are here, Victor!” Bysshe’s troubled voice aroused all my own fears.
“What is it? Whatever is the matter?”
“Harriet has been killed.”
I swayed upon the stairs, and clutched the banister for support. “I don’t…”
“She was found in the Serpentine. Foully strangled.”
“I met him in the street, sir,” Fred was telling me. “He begged a place of privacy.”
I was scarcely listening to him. “When did this thing happen?”
“Four nights ago.” So I had seen the creature, standing by the corner, on the morning after his crime. “And there is worse.”
“What could be worse?”
“Her necklace, the instrument that killed her, was found in Daniel W
estbrook’s pocket.”
“Her brother Daniel? No, that is not possible. That is beyond reckoning. He adored her. He protected her.” I climbed the stairs slowly, my hand over my eyes; at that moment, I did not wish to see anything of the world.
“He has been locked away in Clerkenwell,” Fred said.
“It cannot be so.” I had a sudden vision of the creature, waving at me from the lake with bloodstained hands; I ran up the stairs, and rushed over to the basin in my bedroom where I retched violently.
Bysshe followed me in. “Ianthe has gone to Harriet’s sisters. It is her best possible home. After the funeral, I do not know.”
“And you?”
“Fred kindly agreed that I might stay here. Until your return, of course.”
“No. It is not safe for you here, Bysshe.”
“Not safe?”
“I think, Bysshe, that you must leave London. Until your grief is allayed. There are too many memories for you here. What have you done with Harriet’s clothes?”
“Her clothes? They are hanging still in our lodgings.”
“Fred will collect them. He will give them away on the streets. It is the only course, Bysshe.”
I must have been talking wildly, because he laid his hand upon my arm. “That will not lessen my grief, Victor. How could it? She is absent from me every waking moment. I saw her body on the bank by the water.”
“It is a beginning. I will accompany you now to the coaching office. I will purchase a ticket. I have heard you speak of Marlow, by the Thames. Did you not stay there for a boating holiday?”
“Yes. In my school days.”
“There you must go. Do you have money for your journey?”
He shook his head. “I have exhausted my allowance.”
I took out my purse of sovereigns, and gave it to him. “That will suffice.”
Before he had time for reflection or for argument, I accompanied him to the office on Snow Hill and persuaded him to board a post-chaise. I knew that he must leave the city. As my friend and companion, he was not safe from the vengeance that had been wreaked upon Harriet.
I DID NOT WISH TO RETURN to Jermyn Street. Not yet. Instead I made my way to the Serpentine in Hyde Park; it is a modest stretch of water, longer than it is broad, populated by wildfowl of every description. I walked along its length, hoping to locate that spot where Harriet had been strangled and thrown into the water; I wished to see if I could find any traces of the creature. I had no doubt that he had followed Harriet and had murdered her: I knew it as soberly and as exactly as if I had witnessed the deed. He was the murderer. I could not doubt it. Yet in that sense I was also the murderer. I had fashioned the instrument that had killed Harriet, just as surely as if I had put my own hands around her neck. What was I to do? I could proclaim my guilt, but I would be deemed a madman in thrall to all the ravings of insanity. I would not save Daniel Westbrook.
There was a dark stretch of the bank, beneath a foot-tunnel, to which I made my way. There was a slight movement among the trees and bushes that bordered the water here, and a barely perceptible sweeping sound suggested that something was walking there with slow and steady step. Something was keeping pace with me. Then I glimpsed him, in hat and cloak, his white furrowed face turned towards me for a moment before he bounded away. No other proof was required. He wished to see my tears, and perhaps to exult over them. Yet he also had some facility to anticipate my thoughts. Why else had he waited for me to come to the scene of his crime?
Once more the utter impossibility of revealing this to any living being left me feeling bewildered and abased. I would be locked away in Bedlam, where in the end I might even seek for madness as a relief from my sufferings. In my wretchedness, however, I began to sense within myself an unexpected purpose and a fresh courage. I would return to the workshop along the river, and wait for his appearance. I would question him. I might even implore him to leave for ever the scene of his desperate crime. I did not for one moment think him capable of argument, but he might be open to command. If I were his creator, he might learn obedience.
YET IT WAS MY DUTY first to visit Daniel Westbrook in his prison cell, and offer him what comfort I might provide. On the next morning I made my way to the New Prison at Clerkenwell, furnished with payment for his gaolers as well as books and wholesome food for Daniel himself. He had been placed in a cell below ground, and I was led down a gloomy passage way; it was lit by torches, and smelled of urine and fetid air. “More fierce than Newgate,” the gaoler whispered to me.
Daniel was in a small cell at the end of the row; he jumped up from his plank-bed when I entered, and embraced me. “It is so good of you, Victor, so good of you.”
“It is not good. I am not good.” I scarcely knew what I was saying, faced as I was with the unwitting and innocent victim of my own crime.
“You know what I am accused of?”
“Take your time. I fervently believe in your innocence, and will essay every means in my power to free you.”
“They say that I murdered Harriet, Victor!”
“Tell me what occurred.”
“I had gone to the Serpentine to meet her. We often walked there together in the evening. She was not at our usual meeting place. I was fatigued after my day’s work; I slept beneath a tree-lulled to rest by the sound of the water-but then I was roughly shaken awake. It was a party of the watch. To my horror I saw that my hands were smeared with blood. When they searched me at their office, they found a necklace in my pocket. It was her necklace, Victor. How could it have been in my pocket? At first they considered me no more than a thief or footpad. But then her body was found in the water. She had been strangled with the necklace, and had bled copiously from the nose. Who could think it, Victor? Who could accuse me of murdering her?”
“There has been some terrible miscarriage here, Daniel. Some wilful perversion of facts. Do you have a solicitor?”
“I have no funds-”
“Leave that to me. What are your circumstances here?”
“Look around. My only comfort is that the gaol is used for democrats and revolutionaries. But they have no fellow feeling for me. They look upon me with horror. As the murderer of my sister.”
As I stood in the wretched cell, with its floor of beaten earth, I resolved to use any and every means to save Daniel from the executioner. I believed that I understood the sequence of events. The creature, having committed the crime, had decided in his malevolence to throw the suspicion upon someone else. Or perhaps in some primitive sense he believed that he might avoid the guilt by placing it upon someone other. Who could fathom his reasons? Had he known that Daniel was Harriet’s brother, or had he come by chance upon his sleeping form?
When I took my leave of Daniel I glanced back at his dimly lit cell, where he seemed to be the most isolated and wretched being on the earth. And I had placed him there! It was my crime for which he was to be judged, and my doom to which he had been assigned. If I could have changed places with him, I would have done so without hesitation.
AS SOON AS I HAD LEFT Clerkenwell I made my way to Bartholomew Close, where my lawyer kept his chambers. Mr. Garnett had assisted me over the purchase of the workshop in Lambeth, but I knew from his own account that he also dealt in criminal matters. He was a man of sanguine complexion, full of pleasantries, and he listened attentively as I laid out the facts of the matter.
“Your friend,” he said, “is in a deal of trouble. I have read of the case, Mr. Frankenstein, in the Chronicle.”
“Is opinion against him?”
“Decidedly. But that is no bar to justice.”
He possessed a reassuring manner, which I caught at eagerly. “Can Daniel be saved then?”
“If it is within the bounds of possibility, then it will be done. Where are the husband and child of the unfortunate lady?”
“The child is with her sisters in Whitechapel. The husband-has retired to the country for some rest.”
“He is the son of a baronet, is h
e not? According to the Chronicle.”
“That is so.”
“Your friend’s position is all the more difficult. Will you join me in a glass of sherry? Cold weather, is it not?” He rose from his desk and, after pouring out two glasses, he went over to the window. “I get a very good view of the churchyard, Mr. Frankenstein. It is an interesting speculation how many lie buried there. Over the centuries, it amounts to a fair number. If they were all to rise again, I feel sure that the neighbourhood would be crowded.”
It was not a speculation that I cared to pursue. “Is there any chance that Daniel might be released before his trial?”
He laughed, in the politest manner. “Not the slightest possibility, I am afraid. Unthinkable. If he is innocent, of course, then the murderer is still walking on the streets of London. It is to be hoped that he kills again, in exactly the same circumstances.”
“So Daniel might then be cleared?”
“A case could be made. Do you have any doubts about your friend’s innocence?”
“No. None whatever.”
“What makes you so certain?”
I hesitated for a moment. “I know him very well. Violence is utterly foreign to his nature. Especially against his beloved sister.”
“But people are not always what they seem, Mr. Frankenstein. They harbour secrets. They work in the dark.”
“Not Daniel.”
“Very well. I will visit the police office this afternoon, and acquaint myself with the evidence in this case. Do not attempt to see the prisoner, if you please. You should not be implicated in this matter. I will be your messenger. The authorities know me well enough. In the meantime I suggest that you leave London for the cleaner air. The fogs are almost upon us.”
The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein Page 15