Peter Ackroyd - The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein

IT WAS LONG PAST MIDNIGHT when I returned to Jermyn Street. I called for Fred, but there was no reply. I went over to the window and looked down at the dark street; for a moment I thought there was a movement among the shadows, but then the moment passed. So I retired to bed.

On waking the next morning, I noticed that my clothes had not been laid out. I arose quickly, and left my room: the kitchen door was open, but there was no sign of Fred. He had never absented himself before, and I could think of nothing that would have detained him for the whole night. I dressed myself and went out into the street, with no definite course of action, and wandered into Piccadilly. There was a coffee-stall there, by the corner of Swallow Street, that I knew to be patronised by Fred. “Have you seen my manservant? Fred Shoeberry?” I asked the young girl pouring the coffee into tin mugs.

“Fred? The one with the crinkly hair and the tooth missing?”

“Him.”

“I have not seen him since yesterday morning, sir, when he commented on the state of the weather. Foul it was.”

I moved on, carried as much by the crowd as by my own volition. Of course I had no chance of finding him. London can be a wilderness, for those who seek out a particular face. And although I knew that Fred was experienced in all the ways of the city, I also knew how easy it was for a boy to vanish altogether as if snatched from the streets into oblivion. I believe that many were forcibly impressed as seamen; as for the fate of others, I had no notion. Of course I feared that the creature might have seized him; but in my last interview with him he had exhibited such shame and repentance, had so eagerly forsworn any further violence, that I dismissed the speculation. What possible motive could he now have in perpetrating such a deed, when he was anxiously anticipating the end of his earthly life?

I came back into Jermyn Street despondent. Many would have treated the sudden departure of a servant with no great emotion, but I had not realised how attached I had become to Fred. And then I remembered Mrs. Shoeberry. It was possible that she was sick, or ailing, and that Fred had been obliged to stay with her. I knew from him that she lived in one of the courts off Drury Lane, at the upper end of that street, and I made my way there on foot. Everyone knew Mrs. Shoeberry in that quarter, and I was directed to the tenements in Short’s Rents where I was assured she would be “rinsing.” There was another laundress by the pump in that court, with soap and pumice stone, and I supposed that the water ran more freely here: I asked her for Mrs. Shoeberry’s lodging, and she pointed to an open window on the second floor. “She,” she said, emphasising the word, “is in there.” I made my way up the staircase, not so clean as it might have been, and found Mrs. Shoeberry’s apartment. The door was ajar, and I could already smell the familiar sour odour of London laundry. I knocked, and pushed open the door, but I could see no sign of the laundress herself. Sheets and linen were hanging in profusion all about the room.

“Whoever is it?” Mrs. Shoeberry’s voice came from behind a sheet.

“Victor Frankenstein.”

“Why, Mr. Frankenstein. Beg your pardon.” She stepped out, clutching a brace of wooden pins and a roller. “What has Fred done now?”

“He has done nothing, Mrs. Shoeberry. I was hoping to find him here.”

“He ain’t been here, Mr. Frankenstein. He only comes on a Sunday, when I need him for the lifting.” I had no idea what she meant. “Has he gone, then?”

“I have not seen him since yesterday evening.”

She considered the matter for a moment. “That is not like Fred.”

“I know.”

She looked at me steadily. “Has he been in any trouble, sir?”

“Not that I am aware of.”

“There will be something on his mind. I know that boy. When the late Mr. Shoeberry passed off, Fred hid himself away for two days. Said he had been sleeping on the boats. He never mentioned it again. He is deep, that boy.” She went behind the sheets, from which came the sound of an enormous sneeze. After a few moments, she recovered. “Never you mind it, Mr. Frankenstein. He will be back by Sunday. He would not leave me to the lifting.”

I departed a few minutes later, having given her a florin for her “trouble,” and walked back to Jermyn Street. I had been to some degree reassured by her confidence that Fred would return by Sunday, and so once more I devoted myself to experiment. I went to the workshop each day, where I refined the galvanic mechanism in the light of my further researches: the problem of reversal was still one that exercised me, and led me to a thousand different variations in the batteries and machines. I was confident of a solution, however, and did not weary in my efforts.

FRED DID NOT RETURN by Sunday. Mrs. Shoeberry came to Jermyn Street in a state of consternation, and asked me whether we should alert the officers of the parish. I did not put much faith in the constables, or in the watch, but I agreed to go with her to the compter in St. James’s Street. There had of course been no reports of a missing boy, but she felt that she had somehow discharged her duty. However, she was not in a comfortable state of mind. She feared something. She asked me if I wanted one of her other sons to take the place of Fred, but I declined the offer.

As the days passed, I was so intent upon my work that I paid very little attention to my outward circumstances. Polidori continued to lodge in my chambers, and often questioned me about the state of my researches. I could not, as a gentleman, ask him to leave. I never referred to his sudden appearance at Sweep Fair, but I took care to reveal nothing to him. We were, as a result, uneasy companions.

Two weeks after Fred’s disappearance I received a letter from Mary Shelley, informing me that the household (in which she included Lord Byron) had left Switzerland and made their way south to Pisa where they had procured lodgings on the Lung’Arno:

It is sufficiently commodious, and we pay only thirteen sequins a month. We have an excellent mezzanino, and three rooms on the fourth floor. From here we have a view of the sunsets, which Shelley deems incomparable. Lord Byron has taken up residence in a much grander house, but he deigns to dine with us each evening. He is at this moment reading to Shelley some passage out of a poem he has recently composed. I cannot make out the words. He wishes to remove us all to the Gulf of Spezia, but the prospect of yet another journey appals me.

When I read this out to Polidori, he grimaced. “The man is demented,” he said. “He would drive a saint to madness. He has a demon inside him that will not let him, or anyone, rest.”

“But wait. You have not heard Mary’s postscript. She must have written it some days later.” I read out to him the forlorn message with which she ended the letter:

We have now moved on to a dwelling built on the shore at Lerici. It is known as Casa Magni and, although it is indeed large, it hardly qualifies as a house. It is more like a fortress buffeted by the sea and the sea-wind. There is a rough path to take us to the little village of San Terenzo, where we can purchase only the most rudimentary provisions. And there is only one chimney for cooking! There is no garden, and the rear of the house faces a thick wood. It is the most gloomy spot imaginable, and only the prospect of the sea lifts my spirits. Oh, how I long to be in London now!”

I put down the letter. “She is tired of travelling.”

“She is tired of Byron, too, I imagine,” Polidori said.