The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein

“You would prepare my meals. Lay out my clothes. And so forth.”

“I would run errands, would I?”

“Naturally.” He smiled broadly. “You would be my factotum, Fred.”

“I do not know if I could do that.”

“You would do everything. A guinea a week.”

He smiled, and seemed about to break into laughter. “That would be every week, would it?”

“Every week.”

“Under the circumstances, sir, I am happy to accept. I must just run and tell Mother.”

The mother returned with him an hour later. She was a weak-legged and somewhat woebegone woman; her shawl had the remains of snuff upon it, and there was a distinct smell of spirits upon her breath. She had difficulty in recovering herself, after climbing the flights of stairs, and I offered her my flask of strong water. She accepted it readily, and gulped down most of its contents before putting her hand upon her son’s head. “He is a good boy,” she said. “He is worth the guinea.”

“Mother-”

“I hear you are a foreign gentleman, sir.”

“Yes. From the land of the Swiss.”

“Is that so? You are handsome enough to be an Englishman, if I may say so.”

“It is very kind of you.”

All the while she was scrutinising my apartments. “Fred,” she said, “you must take care of that hearth. It is rotten in the corner. And those windows need a clean.”

“You are quite right, Mrs.-”

“Shoeberry.” When she smiled at me I could distinctly see that some of her teeth were missing. “You have heard of Mr. Shoeberry and the donkey?”

“Indeed.”

“It was a blow to the neighbourhood, sir. Yet I still do the laundry. That is my profession.”

She seemed to be waiting for me to speak. “It would be very good of you, Mrs. Shoeberry, if you were to take in my laundry.”

“A shilling for the linen. Sixpence for the sheets.”

“That is very reasonable.”

“I hope I am, sir. Do you have laundresses in Swisserland, sir?”

“I do not know. I believe so.”

“They will not come cheaper than me, I can assure you of that. Now then, Fred, look sharp and brush the gentleman’s coat. He has been travelling.”

So it was that Fred Shoeberry and his mother took charge of my life in Jermyn Street. I was happy for them to do so, since I was intent upon nothing except my work. I wished to begin immediately, but of course there was no possibility of undertaking it in such a fashionable district of London; I needed as much secrecy and isolation as I could find, and so I roamed through the less respectable areas of the city in search of suitable premises. The eastern sections, abutting on the river, seemed most promising. I inspected Wapping and Rotherhithe, in the hours of daylight, when in plain dress I walked u

Then I found a structure perfectly suited to my purposes. It was an old pottery manufactory in Limehouse, with its own yard or wharf upon the river. The buildings around it were warehouses of various descriptions and, as I imagined, quite deserted at night. I made enquiries in the neighbouring taverns, and I discovered that the employees had left several months before-after the owner had been declared bankrupt. Further enquiries led me to a commercial agent in Baltic Street who had an “interest” in the property. I soon discovered that he was the owner who had broken, and so it was a relatively easy matter to purchase his abandoned manufactory for what I regarded as a relatively modest sum. So I became a Limehouse freeholder.

I HAD WRITTEN to Daniel Westbrook a few days after my arrival, a

“This lad has been barking at me like a Cerberus.”

“He says he knows you, sir.”

“Of course he knows me, Fred.”

“But he has no card, sir.”

“He does not need a card. Mr. Westbrook is an old friend. Now that you know his face, you must welcome him.”

“Do you hear that, old fellow?” Daniel asked him.

“My bark is worse than my bite, Mr. Westbrook.” Fred had an incurably silly look upon his face, which made us both laugh out loud.

“Well, they are safely married,” Daniel said to me as soon as we were settled in the apartment. “Harriet has written to me from Edinburgh. She is now Mrs. Shelley.”

“Are you not pleased?”

“I would have preferred better circumstances. But, yes, I am pleased for her. Her prospects in life are now immeasurably greater. Even my father sees the advantage of it.”

“Has she discussed her plans with you?”

“They are moving to Cumberland for a few months. Mr. Shelley has an interest in the Lake poets, I believe. Do you know of them?”

“I have read them.”

“He has already been in correspondence with one of them, according to Harriet, and has been offered the rental of a cottage by a lake. She did not remember which one.”

“It sounds delightful.”

“I hope it may be. They have invited me to stay with them.”

“Excellent. Did Harriet say anything of Bysshe?”

“He spends his time reading books from a circulating library and composing letters to his father.”

I suspected that very little profit would emerge from either activity, but I said nothing. I did not wish to injure Daniel’s happy expectations for the marriage, although I could see small cause for optimism. If it was a misalliance, as I believed, then little good would come of it. We spoke of other matters. He told me news of the Popular Reform League, and of a recent meeting on Clerkenwell Green when the army had been called; they had been told to quell any disturbances but the meeting passed off peacefully enough. By Daniel’s account the army had in any case been singularly reluctant to intervene. “They are working men, too,” he said. “They will not spill our blood.” Naturally I was pleased, and relieved for his sake, but my own enthusiasm for the cause had diminished. I was so intent upon my own studies that I had little inclination for other pursuits. What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man? I was as fixed as fate.

NOW THAT I HAD OBTAINED the pottery manufactory in Limehouse, I had to furnish it with all the equipment and apparatus I would need to create and to store the electrical fluid. I enquired in many different workshops until one afternoon I found myself in the laboratory of Mr. Francis Hayman, a civil engineer who was employed by the Convex Lights Company to investigate new methods of illumination. He was situated in Bermondsey, next to a hat company, not far across the water from Limehouse itself. Once he had learned the nature of my mission he was happy to show me around his workshop, as he called it, where there were a variety of engines and coils and jars which immediately excited my interest. “What have you so far accomplished?” he asked me.

I told him that I was eager to revive life in animal tissue by means of electricity. “I have begun to experiment,” I said, “by small shocks.”

“There is no doubt that the fluid can be a healing compound. So why should it not be employed to excite dormant organs? Did you happen to read, in Wesley’s journals, that his lameness was mended when he was electrified morning and evening?”

“I did not know of it,” I replied. “But it does not surprise me in the least.”