Peter Ackroyd - The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein

Then a rough-looking fellow came in from the street and, advancing upon the counter, asked in a loud voice for a jug of brandy and seltzer. I noticed that the innkeeper served him with a word of recognition; but the fellow paid no attention to that and, slapping a few coins onto the counter, went over to a corner. There was a window there, overlooking the paved space in front of the hospital, and he seemed to be scrutinising the gates lit by a single oil-lamp. He was watching for someone, or something, very keenly; but, from my position by the counter, I could see nothing. A few minutes later two other fellows, smelling strongly of spirits and other less delectable items, joined him by the window. Another man was standing close to me at the counter. He was staring straight ahead, with a glass of gin in his hand, when he said to me, “You do not want to fall into the hands of them dogs, living or dead.”

“I have no notion,” I replied, “of who or what they are.”

“No need to know.” He was still staring straight ahead. “Stay clear of them. Otherwise you might end up in there.” He jerked his head in the general direction of the hospital.

The innkeeper looked at him angrily. “Are you talking out of turn, Josh?”

“Only saying what we all know. This young man is a new one. He may heed a warning.”

I steadied myself by drinking down the porter and ordering another. Then I went over to the table where the three men were sitting, and placed three silver guineas in front of them. They looked at the coins, and then looked up at me.

“You are free with the bunce,” one of them said.

“One for each of you.”

“Oh?” He picked up a guinea and tried it with his teeth. “What’s your game?”

“I need something.”

“Speak to them.” He pointed towards the group of men with the old fashion of pipes. “They pick up the filth.”

“You are a foreign chicken,” another said. “Are you a Frenchy?”

“No, sir. I am from Geneva.”

“’Tis all one.”

He seemed impressed by my calling him “sir,” however, and I took advantage of the moment. “I am a student of medicine, gentlemen.” They laughed loudly-too loudly, I suspected, but no one else in the tavern so much as glanced in their direction. “May I offer you another jug?” They nodded and, when I returned from the counter, the coins had gone. The bait had been accepted.

Their names, as I discovered later, were Miller, Boothroyd and Lane. Such a trio of villains I had never before encountered. They were dissolute and depraved to the highest degree, but I trusted that they were expert in their trade. I explained to them that, as a student of anatomy, I wished for a continuous supply of new bodies. As a foreigner, I said, I was obliged to work outside the hospital schools.

“How did you find us?” Lane asked me.

“He smelled you out,” Boothroyd replied.

“I will pay you twice as much as any hospital.”

“What about smalls?”

“Forgive me?”

“Babes and young ’uns.”

“No. No children. I can use only adults. Only males. That is the nature of my work. And they must be good specimens. I want no growths. No deformities. Payment on delivery.”

“He wants them handsome so he can fuck them,” Miller said.

Boothroyd silenced him with a glance. “You are asking a lot.”

“I am paying a lot.”

“No questions asked?”

“No answers required. Bring the subjects to me, and you will have your money.” I told them how they could find me; as it happened they were used to working by boat, since they had a steady trade with the convict hulks on the estuary where they could pick up three or four items at a time. They told me that they had to drag the bodies through the river in order to cleanse them of the filth that had accrued to them in the holds of the ships. So I described in detail the location of my workshop, and of the small wharf in front of it; they knew the neighbourhood well. I promised I would be ready for them on the Friday night, giving them two nights for their work. They each spat in their hand before shaking mine, a custom that I did not wholly appreciate.

FRED WAS WAITING UP FOR ME. “There is a funny smell in the room,” he said as soon as I entered.

“Smell?”

“Of drink, and tobacco, and something else, and something else, all mixed.”

“I have been in a tavern,” I said. I took off my coat and jacket, and put them on a chair in the hallway.

“Mr. Frankenstein in a tavern. Whatever next?”

“Mr. Frankenstein in bed.”

“I was warned against taverns,” he said, “when I was a boy. They are too low. You were not robbed, sir, were you?”

“No, Fred, I was not robbed. I was cheated. Porter is threepence a pint. But I was not robbed.”

“Porter was the ruin of my father, sir. It was not the donkey that killed him. It was the drink. He never was sober after the dustcart came by.”

“What had the dustcart to do with it?”

“He shared a drink with the dustman. He was a regular toper, he was. Never knew which side of the street he was on.”

“I have come to the conclusion, Fred, that all Londoners drink.”

“They can be very cheerful, sir.” He sighed. “They like the flowing bowl.”

“You are a poet, Fred.”

He laughed and was about to leave the room, when he spun around and very deftly kicked himself. “I almost forgot, sir. There is a letter for you. It came on the northern coach, so I gave the messenger sixpence.”

“He did not carry it all the way, Fred. Never mind. Pass it to me, if you please.”

He retreated into the hall and came back with a packet that, as I saw, had been franked by an official in Lancaster. It was from Daniel Westbrook. I hoped that it might have come from Bysshe who, despite my anger at his behaviour, was still often in my thoughts. But the clumsy writing of the address told me otherwise. The letter itself was superscribed Chestnut Cottage, Keswick.

My dear Frankenstein,

Forgive me for not writing to you sooner but I have had a deal of business to sort. Neither Mr. Shelley (or, should I say, my brother-in-law) nor Harriet have any head for such matters, so I was obliged to negotiate their lease of the cottage from a Cumberland farmer who was more hard-headed than a London stock jobber. He insisted on counting the flowers in the garden, in the event that we might uproot one of them! Harriet seems very happy, and sparkles with delight whenever we go for one of our walks by the lake or by the mountainside. She is obviously suited to married life, and looks after her husband with the utmost delicacy and attention: she makes sure that he is always neat and clean in his appearance (sometimes to his annoyance, I must admit) and tries to bargain with the villagers for our simple necessities. Mr. Shelley shuts himself away for some of the day, in the upstairs bedroom, where Harriet says that he is composing; I can sometimes hear him reciting verses, which I imagine to be his own. Then he goes on long rambles through the local country, when he prefers to be alone. I am sure that he loves and cherishes Harriet, but the ways of aristocrats are new to me! We sit together in the evenings, and he reads to us from the volume that has most lately taken his fancy. He has been studying Mr. Godwin’s treatise on Necessity, and yesterday evening he recited to us the philosopher’s belief that in the life of every being there is a chain of events which began in the distant ages that preceded his birth and continued in regular procession through the whole period of his existence. It is called necessitarianism, a long word for a difficult matter. I am sure I have not spelled it properly. In consequence of which, according to Mr. Godwin, it is impossible for us to act in any instance otherwise than we have acted. That is too fatalistic for my taste, but Mr. Shelley believes it to be the case. Harriet agrees with him.