Frankenstein's Monster (33 page)

“Walton would never harm Lily! It makes no sense.”

“She is with child. You knew as much,” I said. “That’s why she was being married off. Perhaps I should have brought her to her husband instead.”

“Lily has no husband,” Winterbourne snapped. “He died before the New Year. And it would not have mattered if he
had lived. The church was his sole beneficiary in absence of a wife and heir, and he had already changed his will back. The child is yours, isn’t it, and you want it for your own. That’s why you took my daughter.”

I jumped up and paced in the central aisle.

“The child is not mine, nor did I know of its existence when I took her.”

Should I now repeat her taunts that even
she
did not know who the father was? Should I tell him that the child was in as much danger from her as from Walton? No, I had to look at myself as he did—a person not worthy of trust.

“Whether or not you believe me does not matter. Walton does not believe it. He is convinced that the child is mine and that it must be unnatural. He would kill Lily, too, for bearing it. He believes I have debauched her. He believes she has become my whore.”

I looked away, unable to face the sudden dread in Winterbourne’s eyes.

“You must protect her!” I exclaimed, confused by what I felt and by how he was reacting. “Her time is almost here and Walton is close behind. Do not refuse her because of my actions. She deserves far more than what you should give me.”

“Why did you do it?” Winterbourne asked, slumping wearily against his seat. “Why did you come to England, why present yourself at my house, why take my daughter, why destroy my life?”

“Everything was done only to ensure my freedom. You cannot imagine my life under Walton’s pursuit. I have not been allowed to be a man. I would be one, and more than a slave, too: I would be free.” I faced Winterbourne, remembering how he and I had spoken of such matters at the estate. “Is freedom not worth any price? ‘
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly. It is dearness alone that gives everything its value.
’ ”

“The only thing of value here would be your death! You cannot separate fine-sounding words from the mouth that speaks them. Neither can
you
become a man by speaking like one.”

Pounding my clenched fists onto the bench, I cried, “I am a man!”

“Nothing you have done proves it!” Winterbourne shouted, leaping to his feet. “Nothing! Now where is my daughter?”

“She is here, Gregory.”

Both of us spun round at the voice. Reverend Graham stood at the back of the church, his arm around Lily. They had slipped in unnoticed while we were arguing.

Winterbourne fell back against one of the pews as he saw her more closely. He shook his head over and over then rushed to Lily, snatched her away, and held her tightly.

“This is how you protected my daughter? When you took her, she was a bride … a beautiful bride,” he whispered into her hair. Pushing her back to arm’s length, he stared at her bloated stomach and the ragged line of stitches across her cheek. His expression was tormented. “You took a bride. What have you returned to me? Not my daughter. A monster! A monster like yourself!”

My pen ripped the page as I wrote that last word, the ink bleeding through to the pages beneath. I had returned to Winterbourne wanting nothing less than redemption. He had called me a monster.

Writing the word, I had to stop, slam shut my journal, and run. I raced down the dark country roads like a drunken fool, stumbling with my eyes half-closed, fingers pressed to my
ears, as if I once more heard his denunciation spoken aloud–heard it in both his own voice and in that of my father’s. The two of them have entwined themselves.

I had killed the one already. Perhaps I must do it again.

I try to make my thoughts stony. Have I done so much to save the worm only to now strike down the one man who might protect it? I cannot yield to the rage that throbs in my hands.

Now it is over, and I am at last rid of both Winterbournes.

Stupidly I had made too much of them, the father as well as the daughter. Neither was extraordinary apart from the feelings I invested in them. Neither was worth the anguish they inflicted on me. And if I have learned anything from them it is this: I was made by nature to be a solitary creature and now have become one by desire as well.

I must return to the Continent. I am too much of a foreigner in England, as if my accent were the final insult beyond my face. This morning I head south. Eventually I will cut west to Liverpool, which should be an unexpected port from which to leave the country, in case Winterbourne sends a party after me. Perhaps, too, Walton will follow me in the end rather than stop for Lily. My thoughts are far ahead of me, though, as I am still in the farthest reaches of Northumberland and have far to travel.

The door to the inn stood open to the night, letting out light and laughter, pipe smoke and cooking smells—a drunken song, perhaps, if I waited long enough. I was not hungry
and could light my own fire if I wished, as bright as any that burned within, yet I did not leave. I did not want to be made to leave.

Presently a man staggered to the threshold. He paused, patted his side pocket repeatedly, and stepped down into the road with a precariously unsteady gait. Holding on to the side of the inn, he walked unseeingly toward me. I did not have to consider what to do, for he suddenly tripped. When he sank into the muddy road, he lifted his head once, then lay still. I swiftly dragged him round to where the shadows were darkest and emptied the pocket he had so considerately pointed out. Then I propped his sleeping body against the wall and walked through the open doorway.

Silence hitched over the room in starts as group after group became aware of me, and faces lifted their attention from bowls of stew or tankards of ale. Standing at my full height—no, standing tall—I surveyed the crowd with contempt, then strode to the fire, roughly shoving aside any who did not give way. At the bench closest to the hearth sat a man drawn up to a table, wolfing down a plate of sausages with no mind to what was happening. I grabbed him by the scruff of his collar, dropped him onto the floor, and sat in his place. Tossing coins onto the table, I threw back my hood, stared down the room, and dared comment.

At the clink of money, a serving girl rushed up. Her ready, thoughtless smile turned to a yelp when she saw my face. I caught her wrist and held her.

“What will you have, sir?” Her voice squeaked with nervousness.

“What’s your name?” I asked, annoyed by the fear that drained her face of color except for its paint.

“Merry Osborn.”

“A good choice. What are you offering? Something to make your customers merry?”

“Just supper, sir.” A panicky giggle escaped her lips. “Stew’s fresh today and there’s meat pies left from yesterday. We most always got sausages, too.”

“Two meat pies, Merry, and bread.”

“Ale or wine?”

“Neither, something hot.”

She bobbed me a curtsy. When she returned with the food and a mug of mulled cider, her hand shook collecting her coppers from the tabletop.

By the time I finished eating, the room had still not resumed the noisy aspect that had drawn me in from the street. Sullenly I shifted my seat toward the hearth. From behind my back came whispers.

“It’s him, I tell you. Who else could it be?”

“Ask him then.”

“No, you. You’re the one what heard the rider.”

“I say it’s
not
him, and you do.”

“He’ll like as not murder the first man as what bothers him,” said Merry Osborn.

“You then, you ask him,” came the response. “He wouldn’t murder a lady.”

“No, but what about
her?”
said with laughter.

I turned my head slightly, and the voices hushed.

“I
will
ask him,” said the girl, and she marched up to me with the pretense of clearing my plate. With a single glowering glance I warned her off so thoroughly she tripped and fell backward. Her tray of dishes clattered to the floor; she followed with a thud, landing on her bottom, skirts hiked over her knees. A glance from me muffled the room’s laughter.

I reached out and helped the girl to her feet. Though
the rider they spoke of obviously had been sent by Walton, I should at least determine in which direction he had gone.

“What is it they’ve been saying behind my back?” I asked, pulling the girl close.

At first Merry flinched at my touch, then she gained courage at the sight of the coin I held out to her.

“There was a man here on horseback. Ridin’ like the devil lookin’ for you.”

“Which road did he take?”

“I don’t know. He left a message for you in case you came here afterward.”

A message? This was unexpected. I asked her what the rider said. She closed her eyes and screwed up her face in concentration. “I’m to tell you that the woman says to go to Dunfield.” That was a town close by to the north. “The woman will wait for you there.”

“A woman?” I sat up straight. “Was her name Lily?”

“Aye, I knew there was a flower in’t!” the girl said happily. “Lily says for you to go to Dunfield. She would have you there when her time comes and if you are not, you’ll be sorry for it. The rider says he was to go up and down the post road with the message.”

“Lily,” I said with disgust. I tossed the coin to the girl, then another, and asked for a tankard of ale. I leaned back into the bench and faced the fire.

She must have escaped Winterbourne and come after me alone. Why? To see what power she could still exert over me?

“I told you it was him,” a man whispered from behind. “And now a toast, laddies. Our friend here proves there’s a woman for each of us, so there’s hope for me yet!”

“Gorm,
he’s
got money at least, if not a face or temper,” said Merry.

The girl sidled up close and set the ale by my elbow.

“Yes?” I asked when she did not leave.

“Are you goin’ to her?” She was braver now.

“What business is it of yours?”

“I’m curious, is all. It’s such an expense sendin’ a man out on horseback.”

The girl’s point troubled me: Lily did nothing without calculation, so what did her message signify? The only ones threatened by her childbirth were herself and the worm.

“It will not survive being born,”
she had said, referring to how small the worm was.
“If it does, it most assuredly won’t survive its first few moments of mothering.”

I allowed myself to feel nothing. What was the worm, after all? Just a nameless, faceless thing, an insect larvae, white and wet and overgrown.

Monstrous.

No! I had protected the worm while I could. Let Winterbourne protect it now.

Another copper, another tankard. Soon I would be needing Sister María Tomás’s ministrations. María Tomás … I saw her plump red face before me but could not read its expression. The image made me quit the inn.

Outside, carried faintly on a thin breeze, came the wail of a crying infant. Cursing, I continued south.

In the early afternoon a man on horseback raced toward me from the south. Alone on the road, I had left my hood down, enjoying the feel of the sun on my face, which meant more to me than mere warmth. Habit made me grab the cloth to pull it up. The thought made me resentful. Would men steal even the sun from me?

The distance between us narrowing, I imagined the rider
staring hard at my face even from far away. I stepped off the road to let him pass, but he reined in the animal so sharply it reared and kicked.

“It’s you!” he declared. Though tall and lanky, he was little older than a boy, and he gave me a boy’s wide smile, so pleased that he never once frowned at the look of me. “I’ve gone through four horses searchin’ for you!” Jumping down, he reached inside his pocket.

“I have a message,” he said.

“I know what it is,” I answered curtly, walking away. “So does everyone else in the county”—including Walton. Had Lily forgotten how his blade bit into her cheek? Once she fixed on an idea, reason played no part in her actions.

“No, no, this is for you alone.” He waved a letter sealed with wax. “I got paid for sayin’ you was to go to Dunfield as the woman’s time was come—though to my eyes,” he said, dropping his voice to share this confidence, “she didn’t look nearly big ’nough to be ready. I’m the oldest of twelve, so I’ve seen ready. Anyway that was my message and that’s what I was paid to say. I get paid more for deliverin’ this.”

He pressed the letter upon me. When I would rip it up unread, he grabbed my wrist.

“If you read it,” he said hopefully, “she’ll double my pay.”

I reached into my pocket.

“My coin is as good as hers.”

“At least read it.” He brushed back his thin hair, stringy with sweat, then dried his fingers on his trousers.

“Are your instructions to wait till I do?”

He nodded.

“Go back and say you did. She will pay you, not knowing if you did or not.”

He gaped at me. “I said I would deliver it, and I said I would wait till you had read it.”

“To meet an honest man so late in life,” I bemoaned. For the boy’s sake I broke the seal. I thought I would merely pretend to scan the contents, but the short message captured my eyes.

“First I will birth it. Then I will name it Victor. Last I will suffocate it.”

I crumpled the note and squeezed tightly, wishing it were Lily’s neck.

I continued south for several hours before thoughts of the worm slowed my pace, stopped it, then at last forced me to turn round. Unwillingly I began the journey north. Toward noon of the next day I met the rider again on the road. He did not seem surprised I had changed my course and said that the woman now wanted to know the hour of my arrival. Cursing Lily for anticipating me, I said I thought I should be in Dunfield around sunset.

“She said she’ll wait in the old mill at the far edge of town.” The boy shook his head and laughed. “What you’re to do there I don’t know. My pa always got drunk when the time come. Anyway, that’s what I was to say and I’ve said it. After I give her your answer, it’s back to the farm.” He sighed, his adventure over. “Good thing it wasn’t plantin’ time or Pa would never have let me go.”