Frankenstein's Monster (23 page)

Bishop frowned.

“I know nothing about courtin’, miss, and as for your question—well, I guess anythin’s possible when you’re as ignorant as me.”

He picked up the steer’s heart and held it appraisingly. “Might be too big, though, even for you. Hogs, now, there’s a thought.”

“Hogs?” Lily laughed. “Oh, Victor, you shall make your fortune hunting truffles!”

I looked at my hands, and then at the bodies, the heads, the eyes that looked back with their own questioning gaze. I had come here to shock myself, to turn the truths I had only read about in my father’s journal into bloody reality, to discover—what? What would Winterbourne have thought if he had been present tonight? What would he have thought of me?

Abruptly I pulled down my shirt and threw on my cloak. Its bottom edges were now soaked in blood.

“It’s past time we left,” I said.

“Is it?” said Bishop. “You never did tell me your business here.”

“We did! You never answered!” Lily cried. She clutched a fistful of the white lace at her abdomen. “Do you know a doctor?”

The butcher stared at us, his eyes moving from Lily to me and back again.

“None as would be happy to see the two of you at this hour. Go down three blocks to the Fightin’ Cock Tavern. Tell ’em Slaughterin’ Bishop said to give you somethin’ to eat and a place to stay. Tomorrow noon go to High Street and ask for Dr. Fortnam.”

I nodded my thanks and gestured to Lily. When she left, Bishop grabbed hold of my arm and pulled me close.

“Tell me,” he asked urgently. “What really happened to you?”

“I do not know.”

He grinned. “Well, it was a good joke, just the same. A hog’s heart, indeed.”

The shed behind the Fighting Cock, where we are now, holds a straw mattress, a blanket, and even a candle stub. There is no basin, no water to wash my bloody hands, but there will never be water enough to wash them clean.

In the corner, Lily sleeps as peacefully as ever, influenced by nothing. Still, her continued presence is becoming an unexpected comfort even beyond its novelty.

Though she has no understanding of the place’s significance, she has said she will accompany me to the Orkneys. We must fly there all the faster.

At dawn we were wakened by a loud knock on the shed and found a bowl of oatmeal and a tankard of ale outside the door. Lily gagged on one spoonful, and I ate the rest.

Outside she asked a passerby for Drexham’s market. As in Rome and Venice, I hunched beneath my cloak and drew the hood low. Lily distracted merchants with sharp criticism of their goods while from behind I raided the cash boxes on their carts. Toward late morning Lily thought we had payment for the doctor.

Soon after, we found Dr. Fortnam on High Street. The building, the very avenue, had a look of such propriety even beggars seemed to be intimidated: there were none to be seen. While I considered this from the alley, Lily darted away from me, undoubtedly confident that her true station in life would be instantly recognized despite her appearance. She was admitted to the surgery, only to emerge minutes later, angry, holding a slip of paper.

“He could not have examined you in so short a time,” I said.

“No, he would not see me at all. The woman there said that he treats the
poor
and the
unfortunate
, but separately from his respectable appointments. I was to leave at once. He will see me at eight o’clock tonight”—she held out the paper—“at this address.”

That night, in a run-down neighborhood, we stood before the building designated on the scrap of paper; it was entirely dark, then a lamp flared on the second floor.

“Does your wound require a doctor’s care?” Lily asked, not wanting to go alone.

Without looking, I said, “No, the bleeding has stopped.”
I was unwilling to be confined in so small a place as that upstairs room.

There was silence as she looked at the light.

“He will leave soon if you do not go,” I said.

“There are so many kinds of death,” she murmured, as if she had not heard, “and I fear each one.” She started toward the door, then ran back. “Here.” Removing her barrette, she thrust it at me. “I have his fee in coin. He shall not get a penny more!”

At great length she reappeared. Teetering in the doorway, she grabbed the jamb. Her eyes glittered wildly; her mouth was set into a ghastly smile.

“I am too far gone,” she whispered. “There is nothing he can do.” She pounded my chest and cried, “Coward!”

“Coward?”

Fury quickly spent, she slumped against me.

“I am a coward, else I would end this thing myself. End it now, for my suffering has not even begun.”

I held her close in silence until I felt her composure return. She straightened her back and stiffened her manner. In a few minutes she pushed me away. “Do not hold me so tightly,” she complained. “There is a horsy odor about you that makes me long for a whip.” She brushed herself off as if I had befouled her. Her expression was indifferent; her hands trembled.

“What is it?” I asked softly.

“Should I tell
you?”
she asked, her voice rising. “That would be like telling one of my hounds. What can an animal know of a woman’s pain?”

“Obviously as little as the woman knows of the animal’s.”

Scotland at last! Crag gives way to bog, black woods to glen—the ever-changing landscape of the Highlands. The Scottish weather, as sharp as my thoughts and just as changeable, seems to bring me salt in every breath I take. The sea is just beyond the moment, and beyond that, the Orkneys!

I feel an optimism today I did not feel yesterday: perhaps my spirit knew the exact moment it trod on Scottish soil. Given the enmity between the English and Scots, I no longer fear pursuit. I move of my own will now. I hasten toward, rather than from.

Shrouded by last night’s visit to the doctor, Lily does not share in my good cheer. She is more tired, as if the doctor’s confirmation somehow made her illness more real.

She is being eaten by a worm.…

I shudder at the thought, while knowing it is the fate of all men. How curious that I, not a man, was food for the worms before I ever breathed.

These thoughts are morose!

No longer will the smell of burning itch my nose, or the stain of blood sully my hands. No longer will I see faces in the shadows, from my father, who would deny my existence, to Winterbourne, who would reproach me with what might have been. I will create my own life just as I was created: apart from the natural order.

And if I am able to leave my past behind, perhaps Lily shall, too. Beneath her paleness, she is still beautiful; beneath her cross words, she is still my companion by her own choice.

Lily spoke little, ate less, and walked more and more slowly. Just lifting her gaze from ground to sky seemed to exhaust her. That she did not dispute my every decision was the surest proof of her fatigue: she had not the strength to complain.

I sought out a place more comfortable than the ones I had been choosing. About eleven at night, I broke into a small barn, set a distance from a cottage. The barn held an ancient horse, a lean cow, and scraggly chickens, as well as hay, feed, and a few farm implements. I spoke gently and stroked the horse. When it calmed, so did the other animals.

I made a bed for Lily at the back of the barn, behind bales of hay, and laid her down. I planned to nap a few hours, but to give her as much sleep as possible. Instead, I myself slept through. Shortly after dawn, voices from outside the barn woke me, but Lily did not stir. I crept closer to listen.

An older man was sharply giving instructions to a youth regarding the care of the cottage during his two days’ absence. His commands seemed endless. Finally a carriage pulled up and took him away. Not five minutes later, I heard the voice of a boy. The young man passed to the boy his just-assigned chores of milking the cows and feeding the chickens so that he, too, could be off. He gave the boy a coin and promised another on his return.

“If I find you did nae keep still, but went braggin’ round your kith how you run the farm in my stead,” he said, as sharply as the older man, “I’ll give you a beating
and
get my money back.”

“I’ll tell no one. You know I mean it.”

The young man hurried off, whistling a gay tune.

The boy performed his duties quickly, letting the animals out into the fenced yard and throwing feed on the ground.
He brought out a bucket, hurriedly milked the cow, then took the milk away with him. Lily slept through everything.

The cottage was simple enough to break into; a loose shutter gained me entrance to the bedroom. Inside were a clothespress, washstand, chamber pot, and a straw bed piled with quilts. The kitchen held a table and chairs; cooking utensils hung over the fireplace. At one end of the room stood a wooden deacon’s bench, a hooked rug before it on the puncheon floor. Just outside the kitchen was a larder with steps leading to a root cellar. The cellar held potatoes, carrots, turnips, onions, and a barrel of meat covered with foamy brine.

If alone, I might have done no more than raid the larder. But Lily was undoubtedly still tired. I unlocked the cottage from the inside, woke her, and explained that we could use the cottage till the next day. We need only keep out of sight when the boy came to milk the cow that evening.

Together with her long hours of sleep, the idea of using the cottage as our own enlivened her. She cooked a quick meal of eggs, then set about preparing a chicken for the afternoon, early enough so the chimney would no longer smoke by the time the boy returned. She surprised me by scraping carrots and potatoes, then taking an axe and killing the chicken herself. Her blow was not clean, but from lack of strength, not nerve. She repositioned the dying animal at once and delivered the final stroke. For a moment I thought the exertion might be too much, for she seemed dazed as she stared at the rivulet flowing from the neck.

“It’s always easier than you think it will be, isn’t it? You need only do it.”

She tossed me the bird to pluck; a spray of blood arced through the air.

Earlier she had set pots of water on the fire to boil. Once the meal was simmering in a Dutch oven, she declared she
wanted a bath and told me to drag in from the barn the wooden tub she had spied there. I pushed back the table and chairs, carried in the tub, and pumped bucket after bucket to fill it halfway. Lily added boiling water till she found the temperature tolerable, then shooed me out. She hummed as she bathed, her voice carrying outside to where I sat below the shuttered window.

An hour later she showed me her transformation: she was not only clean, and her hair washed, but also in fresh clothes taken from the press. From a pair of trousers she had cut off length, and in a belt she had punched a new hole. The cottager’s tucked-in shirt bunched thickly at her waist. She still wore her hair swept up with the jeweled barrette.

“Now it is your turn,” she said, unbuttoning the throat of my shirt. “You are more filthy than I was. I will not let you sit down to dinner without a bath. The tub is cold, but the kettle is still steaming, and so is this pot. Go on now.” She ran outside and shut the door after her.

I undressed slowly, aware that just an hour ago she had undressed in this very spot; aware, too, of how lighthearted she was today. How long would her mood last? How far would Lily play the wife?

I picked up her wedding gown that lay forgotten in a corner, breathed in her scent, and brushed the lace against my lips. The lace had felt rough that day I had tried to take her. Time and travel had worn it smooth, perhaps had done the same to Lily. She was not a woman to be forced in the dirt. Neither would she be snared by domesticity; yet, surprisingly, it had its power on me.

Before me stood the tub filled with her bathwater. I did not add any warmth, as if to do so would dilute whatever of her might remain. The tub was too small for me. I lowered myself and sat in it anyway, feet on the outside, body wedged
against the wood. I cupped the water and washed my scarred face; cupped the water and let it spill over my scarred body. This water had touched her skin; now it touched mine.

I imagined approaching her with subtlety and delicate enticements; I imagined a drawing-room seduction. But imagining, too, Lily beneath my hands, I felt crude passion rise up instead. I could expect no more:
I
was crude, crudely fashioned, with raw, unpolished thoughts and abhorrent desires. I did not have a man’s sensibilities, nor could I fathom a woman’s heart. Lily was right: what could
I
know of humanity?

Chastened, I finished my bath quickly and once more put on my same soiled clothes. There was nothing in the clothespress into which I might change.

Bound by this ill humor, I threw open the kitchen door and tipped over the tub. From the yard where she had been waiting, Lily called me to stop. “You should take more care,” she said. “The boy will become suspicious if he sees a puddle by the door.”

I thought she knew of my desire but understood not to speak of it. I thought she …

She served me dinner, touching my arm lightly as she passed back and forth between the hearth and the table, brushing my knuckles as she reached for the saltcellar. I barely tasted the food but was pleased to see her eat.

“It is just this once, since I cooked it.”

“Then perhaps we should stay here forever,” I answered.

The afternoon grew late. I washed the dishes, put out the fire, made sure the barn was as I had found it, and locked the cottage from the inside. We waited in the kitchen in silence. Lily sat on the deacon’s bench restlessly and from time to time crossed to the window.

“You are anxious,” I said.

“I do not wish to be made to leave.”

“You can see yourself here?” I asked. “In such a place?”

“Can you?”

“If it were as today, yes.”

“Was today so wonderful?”

Today I had seen a small promise of what life might be, but could not say the words.

“Hush,” I told her. “There’s the boy.”