THE PROMETHEAN BRIDE

Alec Robertson

 

 

From the Collected Memoirs of F.R. Grey, Esquire

 

Try as I might, I am consistently unable to recall to mind, the first time Robert Walton came to my attention at the club. I can still picture him now, where he used to sit next to the carved oak mule chest coffer by the window. Divested of his brown sovereign regency tailcoat with its velvet collar, he would sit, holding his copy of the Edinburgh Evening Courant up to the light and peering at the script over his spectacles. I still look over at that same velvet upholstered armchair, and remember the worthy wordsmith that had sat there.

A typical braggart’s story begins with the setting of the scene, suitably exaggerated, and told in a loud voice. It was late afternoon in the Darien Club on 12 Chesterfield Street, off Curzon Street, Mayfair, in the City of Westminster. Cunnignham was speaking, having cast himself in the lead role in the theatrical production he was about to direct, featuring a recent heated conversation himself and George Campbell, Duke of Argyll had had in the billiards room upstairs.

When such people tell a story in which they are the central character, all secondary parts are played by badly drawn caricatures. They themselves talk with exaggerated world-weariness; the character they have conjured up for themselves, a quite obvious prince among fools. A tobacco lord by trade, William Cunningham, the speaker, had a voice that was quieter, restrained and measured with a hint of self-pity. For his part the Duke had been given a voice that was relegated to a semi-canine growling waffle and meaningless bluster, demonstrating the low import of what he had to say. Attributing a dialogue that never was, Cunningham wished to ridicule and discard, seeking to acquire sympathy from his audience. It was a performance that, to my mind, lacked impact due to it being a role that three months previously featured a friend of his as lead.

I lowered my paper, giving Cunningham’s mute companion a sympathetic look. The man smiled back. We had both heard what Cunningham professed to be and had reached an opinion as to what he was. Then began, “So I said…” the supposed prelude to commonsense entering Cunningham’s tale.

The tale was brought up short when Cunningham, on getting up to ‘find that blasted Harker with my gin,' encountered an acquaintance of his, near the window and was loudly asking after his welfare. An inhalation of breath and Walton looked over at me.

“A frightful bore,” I offered. And we both smiled.

In the silence that had fallen, we began to talk. We smoked the same pipe tobacco from a tobacconist I knew on the Gray's Inn Road. A taste for a tobacco in common created a bond of familiarity, the shared experience of smoke establishing a camaraderie that led us, after much smalltalk, to speak of finer things. He was a man that you might notice in a crowd. Arrayed as always in his lavishly tied cravat, fine holland shirt with its full sleeves, square cut waist-coat with its pewter buttons, finely tailored breeches and stockings and well-polished black buckled shoes, a golden locket, like one that would contain the picture of a child, hung at all times from his watch chain.

I idly mentioned my recent sojourn to the Dutch capital. For his part, Walton told me of his voyages to the northern parts of the globe on whaling vessels, on one occasion serving as an under-mate on a Greenland whaler. The impetuousness of youth had it seemed, driven him to seek adventure through the extremes of hardship. Conscious of his own experiences and having a pressing need to share them, Walton took some pride in how he worked harder than those he called ‘common sailors.’ Walton then, was something of an adventurer, had tried his hand at poetry to no acclaim, and was the kind of man that strongly desired the intimacy of a close friend. That, I suspect, is why he told me, with some hesitation, what was a secret tale of great significance that would, in the weeks that followed, serve to bind us together as such things inevitably do.

Bearing a countenance that expressed the deepest regret, in a weak, brandy-fuelled moment, Walton began his tale with the practiced care of one that had told it so many times before. It began with Walton, at the age of 28, alone aboard a crowded whale-ship as he dreamt of journeying to ‘the land of mist and snow.’ He did not, however, dwell on this. His failure in this endeavor, it seemed, led him to prefer to talk of his meeting with one Victor Frankenstein while his vessel, hired in the Russian port of Archangel, was trapped within a vast, endless plain of ice in the frozen north.

Enclosed by ice and encompassed in thick fog, Walton told of how he and his shipmates saw a man of immense stature, in a low carriage, fixed on a sled and drawn by dogs, half a mile from the boat and lost among the inequalities of the ice. This was in spite of their being very far from land. When the ice broke and the ship was free, the crew encountered another sledge, marooned on a large fragment of ice and with one surviving dog tethered to it. Containing a more normally proportioned man, emaciated through fatigue and hunger, Frankenstein—for it was he, who was eventually to die in Walton’s cabin.

As conversation this was certainly novel and I indicated that I found his tale of great interest. Walton told of how, previous to this, Frankenstein, in some state of agitation, had striven to persuade him to destroy the larger man that he and his shipmates had seen upon the ice. Walton, on returning to his cabin, where the then lifeless Frankenstein lay, found the monstrous creature itself leaning over him, looking down upon what Walton called, “his creator.” When the monster left through the cabin window and was borne away on an ice raft, Walton did not follow.

I was of course intrigued and prompted him to tell me more of what he had encountered. Curiously, Walton told me of how through the discussions that he had with Frankenstein he came to feel that he had found the ideal companion that he so craved. His affection and admiration for Frankenstein, as he spent time with him, increased and he professed to still feel his loss even now. Like Walton, Frankenstein was a reckless adventurer, but, more so in the world of scientific discovery. I suspect also, that Walton’s sense of separation that he had experienced for so long among men of such differing backgrounds upon the ship drew him all the closer to one of Frankenstein’s familiar social station.

A native Genovese, educated at the University of Ingolstadt, Frankenstein was to tell him a story of having discovered, what he called, “the spark of life” and this had drawn him to fashion a man from human and animal parts. On giving the creature life however, the enormity of what he had done caused him to reject his creation, fleeing from the creature’s newly brought sight.

But the creature would not be denied, and was eventually to wreak a terrible vengeance. First his younger brother William, then his close friend Henry Clerval, and finally his wife on their wedding night were to die at the monster’s hands and Frankenstein was a broken man. There had, Walton believed, been a way in which Frankenstein could have avoided the slaughter however. On an attempt to climb the summit of Montauvert, Frankenstein had met with the monster, who expressed his wish for a mate to share what remained of his life.

Hoping to rid himself of this living haunter of his footsteps, Frankenstein travelled to Orkney to fulfill this task. It was three years after he had created this man that had become the bane of his life, so it was not the first time he had brought life to dead flesh. Taking a cottage that he was to use as a laboratory, Frankenstein worked late into the nights, under insufficient light. At one stage in the narrative he spoke of a vision of his creation and in a dream attempted to tear it apart. Back in the waking world, Frankenstein told of how he saw his monster looking in through the window of his laboratory, grinning upon him and the new creation in malevolence.

In a fit of madness, Frankenstein turned upon the half-finished creature, tearing it apart in a frenzy before fleeing the cottage. Two days later, he was to return to the house to gather his chemical instruments and dispose of the remains. Thus began the brutal struggle between man and his creation that was to end in the demise of both.

And there the tale should have ended had it not been for Walton having a chance meeting in a notary’s office (coincidentally I found, a man of my own acquaintance) in Edinburgh. Walton was there to have a number of routine domestic attestations of documents carried out and had met with a ship’s captain that, having come there on business of his own, proved quite agreeable to chat. In the talk that followed, the seafaring gentleman spoke of how, on landing upon one of the isles in Orkney, he had heard many earnestly expressed rumours of a large woman that had been terrorising the local people. Such tales, he had explained, receive as much attention in the mainland cities as the many reports of large wildcats haunting the moors and forests. It was of course idle chatter but Walton saw significance in it.

Here I could see that Walton was torn over continuing his tale although I could not guess why. What could he possibly impart that I would find more fantastical than of what he had already told? The silence dragged, Walton writhed in the void, the chasm into which his tale teetered, needed to be filled. And so Walton resumed his tale afresh, adding details, he explained, that it was his habit to exclude.

"You see, the rumours revolved around a crofting family upon the island that had found and taken in a woman that some said had been washed up on the beach. Details were scarce and I suspected the seafarer's tale had been fuelled by strong drink somewhere in the telling. The woman they spoke of was great in size (in the region of eight feet in height) and thoughts abounded of her origins.

"I had of course been intrigued by the cruelly injured specimen that I had encountered only briefly in that cabin and my attempts to put this new story from my mind proved fruitless. There were many miles between Whitechapel High Street where I had rooms and the Northern-most British isles and for two weeks this revelation was never far from my thoughts. But I felt the growing urge to see, or be driven insane by my own thoughts, how my late friend’s tale was to end, or be condemned to wonder ever after.

"Although I had neglected my formal education somewhat, embarking on a seafaring life against my late father’s wishes, I had learned about Orkney from a book in my Uncle Thomas’s library which I had secured when I inherited my cousin’s fortune.

"Once the decision was made, I felt strangely at peace. Travelling north by stagecoach, sleeping at inns along the way, I eventually put into port several days later on the island described by Frankenstein. Stepping into the herring boat that was to take me to the Orkneys, on the quayside of John o' Groats, it was only 10 miles to the archipelago of the 70 Orkney Isles. Landing at Burwick, a small village and harbor on the island of South Ronaldsay, from there I took another fishing boat to the port town of Kirkwall.

"Staying overnight at an inn, I was able to secure a passage on yet another fishing boat to the island that Frankenstein had told me about, the following morning. It was, as Frankenstein had said, on one of the remotest of the Orkneys, being little more than a great rock, whose high sides were continuously beaten by towerring waves.

"Standing on the cliffs looking out over the sea, the waves matched my moods. Having just stepped off the boat, I wandered around the island. The fisherman’s accent was too thick for me to understand properly but he was able to direct me to a small hamlet, one of which, he assured me, was an inn.

"The local inn was little more than a cottage itself with one spare room set aside for travellers, of which there were few. The information I sought was easily found as the locals had not set themselves against talking to mainlanders, however southerly. It may seem foolhardy and indiscrete, but on striking up conversation with a fisherman, whose English language was passable, my enquiries were graciously received.

"The fisherman, his name was Diarmid, sat close by the jetty in his thick woollen jumper smoking a pewter-lidded pipe and scrutinising the horizon. Diarmid told me the story of how a family on the island (he gestured vaguely), had found a woman in their byre suffering from hideous injuries and bearing terrible scars, and had taken her in.

“Aye, it was a sad business that, so it was,” he said, and said little more.

"When I asked as to what had happened, Diarmid looked grave and said that she had been driven out suddenly by the family. When I subtly pressed him further, he admitted that, at the time, he had seen the great figure fleeing to the coast emitting a sound that was both a strange sobbing coupled with heavy, laboured breathing. A giant of a woman, she had worn a simple dress that was far too small for her. Diarmid however, noticeably skirted over the events that caused the creature to be cast out of the crofter’s house. Going on, he told me that there had been several sightings of the creature about the island before she finally disappeared to what appeared to be much relief.

"It was Diarmid’s belief that the creature had hidden in the caves for several nights, and then a fishing boat went missing. He himself claimed, on alighting from his cottage shortly afterwards, to have noticed a boat, far out in the choppy sea, heading towards the mainland.

"Venturing further around the island I was to find that noone I spoke to wanted to talk to a stranger of what had happened that night, often casting glances towards the house where the creature had been nursed back to health as a place of ill-omen. I was myself reluctant to inquire too deeply into what had happened to the family that had so graciously opened their door to the unhappy creature."

Here Walton’s countenance took on a far-away look. Of course I wanted to ask the pressing question as to whether the woman was of Frankenstein’s own making. As I clumsily made an attempt, the club was suddenly plunged into uproar. Although I did not see it, having seated myself facing the wrong direction, I was informed later that Sir George Pultney had stood up, clutching his chest, before sliding to the floor.

Naturally I feared for the ill man’s safety as Doctors Smollet, Seddon, and Carlyle all rushed to attend him. In danger of being suffocated by their chianti-fuelled zeal, the hubub that followed drew reminiscences of “the last time I spoke to him and he seemed quite well.” This was succeeded by expressions of awareness of how he appeared as he was borne upstairs and I became vaguely aware that Walton was no longer in his chair. I thought to seek him out later.

It was customary for men of Walton’s nature and means to be a member of several clubs as this greatly helped progress within the professions. This also greatly hampered the prospect of my meeting him again at the Darien. I was however, surprised to see the figure of Walton once again, standing by the doorway to the British Coffee House in Charing Cross, a meeting place for Scots in London. Over a cup of Earl Grey, Walton apologised for his sudden departure. In the confusion, he informed me, he remembered that he had an engagement and left when it was clear Pultney would be fine. We subsequently agreed to lunch together in the club the following day.

In my capacity as a notary public, I had arrived early to the club to authenticate the contents of a number of documents for William Molyneux, 2nd Earl of Sefton. Fortune smiled and my work was long completed by the time that Robert Walton entered the dining room where I had been waiting but a short time. The menu featured the very best of British game: grouse, partridge, wild salmon, gull’s eggs, potted shrimps, smoked eel and smoked trout. In the event, we both chose the latter, washed down with a claret that was not without its charm.

As the afternoon wore on, lightly I made reference to the tale that Walton had previously so intrigued me. For a moment he stopped and looked down into his brandy glass thoughtfully before taking a deep breath, perhaps acknowledging to himself that the horse had bolted.

“Perhaps there is part of the tale that I have omitted or changed for reasons of prudence,” he said.

The missing part of the story, having sensed a weakness in the chains that bound it, was struggling fiercely, jaws wide to be released. Walton was himself wrestling with his better judgement but the story demanded completion.

"It was starting to rain as I approached the three miserable huts, a short distance from the dirt track. The two-roomed, thatched hut that Frankenstein had described as having utilised as a laboratory was in darkness, having never been used since that terrible night. Lighting the four candles that I had brought with me and two of the lamps that were in situ, I stood surveying the cottage interior. Frankenstein, it transpired, had left a lot of his notes in the house, no one of the locals knowing the true value of these so that they lay untouched in the adjoining room. Frankenstein had refused to reveal the secret of his creation to me in that ship’s cabin amidst that sea of ice, but here it was, inscribed in his own hand upon slightly dampened paper.

"In later recounting the tale, as entrusted to me by Frankenstein, I have often said that he related how he had put what remained of his new creation into a basket weighted with stones. I have talked of his being driven half-mad and indeed unable to even look upon his work, waiting for darkness to hide the moonlight so that he might take a boat four hours from the shore to cast the basket into the sea. Certainly there was much taken from the house to be pitched into the water, among them many pieces of cadavers that were not destined to be joined with the new creation.

"In the silence of the evening, I stood in the abandoned house meditating on all that had happened here. In my mind I could feel the electrical storm raging overhead. Within the room, the hum of the fully charged generators filled the cottage as, under a sheet on the great table, the cold form of what would become Frankenstein’s second creation, awaited rebirth. On one wall, the improvised electrical switch that Frankenstein had bolted there, was still thrown although the current had long since drained.

"Frankenstein’s journal; more of a notebook really, made interesting reading. There were references to electrical charges, parts of the internal organs that I had never heard of and that did not appear to have names; even pieces of animal had been suggested for use.

"In a separate notebook Frankenstein recorded many of his observations including a fear that his new creation would fall to pieces if a shove were to be delivered. But the body had knitted together, it seemed. From the many into one powerful whole. What kind of male would be a match for this creature, possessing as he thought, the femininity of a female gorilla.

"But then a thought halted me as I made to leave and I looked back into the room, still partially lit by a guttering, dying candle. Realisation dawned. The switch on the wall had been thrown.

"Naturally this set me to thinking and I sought out Diarmid once again. He was not difficult to find. Sitting on a dilapedated dyke close to one of the stony beaches, he was smoking as he looked out to sea. He saluted me with his clay pipe as I approached. My time on Orkney was at an end and on Diarmid’s advice, I paid another fisherman to take me to the mainland.

"Amid the stone dykes and smooth and unblemished grassy fields of Caithness, the coastal village of Crosskirk seemed quiet and somewhat unimaginative. Almost immediately however, I heard of a creature that could only have been the Bride, described as a giant, hulking woman that prowled the countryside. The population was sparse in this part of the country and I moved from town to town and village to village in search of her. There were many tales around the inns where I found lodging.

"Then, on the heather covered hills of Sutherland one evening, I suddenly saw two men approaching me in some haste. It turned out however that they were not rushing towards me but away from something else. They drew up short before me, quite obviously as surprised by the encounter as I. I could not understand the language of the first man as he spoke breathlessly. The second, on hearing my professed ignorance of what he was saying, lapsed into that curious guttural form of English spoken by the southern Scots.

"It transpired that they were under the direction of the local factor and had seen someone in the house of an evicted tenant farmer that had not been burned to the ground by the fire-raisers. When the two of them, with the factor, had gone to the house to evict the intruder, the latter resisted, killing the factor himself. I had silver enough to make both men a fellow conspirator and I gave each of them a princely sum in return for their going home and not reporting the murder until a full day had passed. They were suspicious but complied readily enough.

"Following the direction from which they had come I hurried towards the croft, my feet sinking in the boggy ground. While I approached however, I could see that I was too late. Looking down into a glen that was opening before me, I could see a large hulking figure lumbering, like some great jackanape, from what could only have been the croft, situated some way down the slope. From the high point where I stood I got my first glimpse of Frankenstein’s second creation as the figure fled down into the glen. I stood amid a cloud of confounded midges, quite moved by what I had just seen.

"To cut a long story short then, I eventually discovered that after she had fled the cottage, she had gone to live in one of the caves along the coast. She quickly became a local bogey, living on fish and raiding local farmers’ fields. The people of the area love their fireside stories and I found that she had been the subject of tales since her presence had become known. She had also haunted the nearby forests where the locals came to know her as ‘The Lady in White.’

"Naturally then, my next step was to explore the caverns on the coast. I do not remember much about the first encounter I had with the Bride. I think I was overcome with awe. A quick search of these caves and what I fancied to be the wretched creature’s echoing misery in the darkness, came to my ears. On reflection however, it would appear that the creature sung to herself within the echoing cavern, the sound stopping when I appeared to her, black against the cave mouth.

"She gazed at me from where she crouched. She had large eyes, indeed large of features and I glimpsed large, strong teeth behind full lips. The seams on her shift strained against her muscled, curiously unfeminine frame that she held poised. Her limbs were certainly in proportion and she had slightly sallow skin, her lustrous black hair drawn into a rope-like braid that hung down one shoulder.

"We regarded each other in what was a partially submerged cave. She looked surprisingly clean suggesting that she bathed in the sea at high tide. At first I considered her to be like a cornered animal. Closer inspection however, revealed that she was moving like a fox within sight of a chicken coop and it struck me that she had a look of quiet intelligence.

"I recall trying to soothe her so that I might talk to her. I told her that I knew what she was and not to be afraid. She remained poised and watchful, sometimes impassive. I told her my name was Robert. She repeated it twice and then nodded slowly. She was not overly fearful although I supposed one that has such strength would not need to be. Suddenly my guide, one Donnchadh MacMhaighstir from the village, called my name from the mouth of the cave. In the confusion, the creature moved suddenly and apparently escaped through an exit in the cavern roof that I had not previously noticed.

"And so I had failed. For several days afterward I searched to no avail. The Bride had flown, and flown far. Standing at the topmost part of Scotland, I had a long way to travel homeward. Transport was less than salubrious but fortunately there had been a great road-building plan, begun in the 1720s that made travel easier.

"If you had seen these roads before they were made, you would lift up your hands and bless General Wade.

"I therefore procured a less than adequate steed and began my journey south. Consequently it took me a day to reach the White Hart Inn in Edinburgh, where I found board and a welcome meal of bread, cheese, ale and brandy. The following day I caught a coach to London.

"Over the next four years I watched the newspapers closely. One of the reasons I had joined the Darien Club was that it carried the Scottish papers, retained for the several doctors and lawyers that frequented these walls.

"On perusing the Edinburgh Evening Courant on one occasion, I found the tale of a man that had met a woman of large proportions on a lonely road. The story had been told by a minister of the kirk and so his testimony was not dismissed as the result of strong drink. It related how the good clergyman had first caught sight of the apparition in the kirkyard. When he attempted to approach the figure, apparently arrayed in what looked like a man’s nightshirt, the woman had loped away in a strange hurpling motion. A few nights later he again encountered the hulking woman on a deserted track. Taking fright, the creature then pelted him with stones, forcing him to flee. Although couched in the language of respect, I suspected that the author of the piece hoped to elicit some humour in the reader.

"For me though, this was the clue I had been waiting for, although my knowledge of Southern Scotland was limited. Fortunately, in recent times, I had reaquainted myself with a friend of mine from my schooldays. John Harding had a practice in Edinburgh. A surgeon by trade and a heroic claret drinker, somewhat nervous in his movements, he had grown a goatee beard with a curling moustache since last I saw him. With his fairish red hair and immaculate dress, favouring the old-fashioned neck-cloth, Harding was very cautious and careful as a person.

"My coach had let me off at the ‘Long Dykes’ area of Edinburgh and we walked the short distance to his house. Taking a pinch of snuff from a silver snuff box that he continually fiddled with, he told me of his having a successful medical practice and of having attained some recognition as a leading light in the medical establishment. Physicians see themselves as a cut above surgeons, but Harding would always refer to himself as a ‘gentleman surgeon.’

"Although he often professed to have wanted to, he had never left the shores of Britain. He did however enjoy my tales of travel to Archangel and my attempts at the Pole.

"Over the years we had developed the habit of keeping each other’s secrets. I knew he used resurrectionists or ‘body-snatchers’ to help with his work and I therefore took Harding into my confidence telling him all that Frankenstein had imparted to me of his putting the creature together. He was intrigued by Victor Frankenstein’s insights and we talked long into the night. He was very interested in the notebooks I had found and assailed me with questions I could not answer. The spark of life that I found in the journal however, he now had in his possession.

"Harding spent several hours scrutinising the diagrams, the observations and notes that were contained in one of the battered volumes. At lunch, one afternoon, he told me that what he found remarkable was the need for the creation to be so large due to the surgeon’s need to work within the body. This explained why Frankenstein had built his creature to be over eight feet tall. Fascinated by the ground-breaking challenge to his vocation, Harding agreed to help me; a decision aided by the fact that I once saved his life in a boating accident many years previously.

"And so we discussed the situation. Frankenstein had wanted to create, and many of the relevant considerations that lurked in the wings, remained under-lit. Frankenstein had abandoned and betrayed both of his creations, of that there was no doubt. I at least was saved from such folly; my eyes were fixed upon finding this modern marvel and so was mindful of my need to approach with subtlety.”

Here, Walton inexplicably halted his narrative. Looking up I noticed that he was hurriedly excusing himself and had moved to greet an aquaintance of his that was just crossing the floor. In the ensuining interval I was able to ponder how, in many ways, I had come to consider Walton and Frankenstein to be very alike in their lusts for adventure and need to learn. Their differing points of view however, were quite significant.

Walton returned but it seemed the story had fallen away, like loose earth on the edge of a river bank. There was no way back to the tale and I could only wonder at Walton’s words. Again and again I wrestled with certain parts of the story.

What makes us share things about ourselves to complete strangers? It was quite plain to see, that the information Walton imparted to me could have caused him great peril if I had thought to go to the constabulary. Walton however, was not, I suspect, a Catholic and such a tale mayhaps weighed heavy upon him without recourse to confession. The conversation had descended into silence and although I tried gently to bring Walton back to his tale, he seemed adept at changing the subject.

We met again several times in the months that followed, but Walton never returned to the subject. On one occasion however, we were both by the bookcase. I was searching for an obscure book on the Nandi people of Africa as I recall and, on mentioning it to Walton, he informed me that he in fact had that particular volume. He invited me straight away to his house as he sensed my enthusiasm.

In the darkened study, I mused on an antique piece of furniture as Walton searched his bookshelves. His copy, when he found it, was in excellent condition.

“You have an interesting life,” I commented, somewhat out of the blue.

Walton mused for a few moments and I saw an opportunity as he served a particularly fine sherry. While we sat talking in the study, Walton complained that the nanny had left the child in the room. I had not previously noticed the crib where it stood in the room. It was strangely large and richly decorated.

“The child appears to settle best in this room.” Walton commented.

The baby on occasion, made the strangest of noises, like a howler monkey. Walton smiled, saying that the child had been ill.

“I was thinking about that tale you told,” I ventured. “I keep thinking of the creature in that house in Orkney.”

“Ah yes,” he said, “I may have slightly altered the story in my retelling, suggesting that the Bride had been destroyed.”

I noticed that Walton did look uncomfortable as he began his tale once more.

"Certainly there was an attempt to do away with the creation. But in the few days that Frankenstein absented himself from the laboratory, the creation was somehow activated when Frankenstein, in his frenzy, caused his electrical devices to spark into life. Alone in the cottage, the jilted Bride must have begun to stir. Born without help into the world. Certainly, on his return, Frankenstein gathered up the many body parts that were strewn around and disposed of them. But it would seem not all the parts were still there.

"My curiosity regarding whatever it was that found birth in that thatched, unplastered room had not waned and I was not ready to abandon my investigations. There was then much searching and wasted hours over the weeks that followed in the land around Scotland’s capital. Harding could not accompany me as he had much pressing work to do. He had also been compelled, he told me at breakfast that first morning, to attend the funeral of the eminent physician, William Buchan.

"I took an inn at Haddington, in Haddingtonshire that I hoped to secure as a ‘nest’ from which to scour the surrounding landscape. After three days at the inn, while breakfasting on white wine and oysters, a stone-carrier who was also a guest and whose acquaintance I had made, informed me of a nearby legend that was known locally as ‘the Sea Hag of Port Seton.' The surrounding area beckoned. Along the coast, that evening, I forgot the time, darkness falling surprisingly quickly.

"Fortune smiled upon me however, and I was able to find refuge in a salmon fishers’ bothy a short distance from a sandy beach just as it began to rain. The weather worsened and I decided to shelter overnight as the rain beat down overhead, lighting a fire in the fireplace. The gorse brushwood came to life, bringing heat and light to the small room and lifting my spirits.

"The night wore on and the rain became steady. I went out to gather wood that was stacked by the back door. The wood was not adequately sheltered and some of the logs were damp as I gathered them into my arms. Gazing into the deluge and the darkness, I could just discern a tall marker of white some distance from where I stood. A moment's concentration and I saw that it moved, transforming into a figure that approached out of the darkness and driving downpour. My mind struggled in the face of what I was seeing. The apparition approached and I wrestled with my own vision. Did this thing see me? Was it approaching the house?

"Drawing close, I saw that it was a woman of monstrous size. She wore what looked to be a man’s night-shirt. Her long black hair had been braided into a single pigtail that hung down her right shoulder.

"'Hello Robert,' she said in a hoarse whisper, sounding like she spoke with her mouth full of biscuit.

"Dumbfounded, I stood and stared. She regarded me steadily.

"'May I come in?'

"Appearing to fill the room, she sat down by the fire and allowed me, when I had broken free of my awe and plucked up my courage, to drape my blanket around her shoulders. There was silence for a long time, the woman staring into the fire. As I watched, I could only wonder, as to whether her brain recalled another, greater fire.

"At last she spoke, 'You have been following me for some time I think.'

"The bothy, like others of its kind, was very smokey and the fire was the only light after I put out the lamp to conserve oil. Looking into her eyes through the smoke that curled up out of the fireplace, I felt that I could see the lingering phantoms of a thousand-fold horrors, in this world and in others beyond. This jilted Bride had voyaged upon undreamt of seas. Her eyes shone with an amazing lustre and she sat with a placid countenance, having the air of one that has looked down upon humanity from a great height. I fancied that the spirit that looked out from behind those piercing eyes had seen such sights.

"'How did you find me?' I finally asked.

"'It is easy to find someone that is looking for you without hiding himself,' she said.

"We continued with something resembling awkward smalltalk and I gave her what remained of my packed lunch. The food was of better quality than she was used to and she devoured it hungrily.

"In the scattered talk that followed, I recall on one occasion her saying, 'At night there are the dreams.'

"Again I recalled from my conversations with Frankenstein that her creator had thought that he had killed her on that island in Orkney. His mind, he had informed me, was confused. Beneath the sheet however, so was his creation’s.

"'I began life in darkness, hearing the muttering of my creator as the first sounds in revived ears. The maddened god that was breathing life with his strange smelling, acrid chemicals like the ardent and heavy breath of a sorcerer’s cauldron, was hidden from me. My eyes, that had closed in death, struggled to open once more, stung by the light that came through the sheet that covered me.'

"I was both impressed and mystified by the clarity and refinement of her speech and between us we came to the understanding of how she had revived in the room and escaped out into the night. Frankenstein must later have entered the room in much distress, gathered up the cadavers in the house without due care. Putting the body parts in a basket and weighing it down with stones, he cast it into the sea and thought that there was an end to it.

"'It seems that I was taken in by two people on the island. I remember that they spoke a different tongue to my maker. They looked after me well I am sure, and I was happy in their presence. But they took closer care of their babe in arms and I looked upon it with envy.'

"She told me something of being driven out of the house by the couple, of sleeping in a fishing boat that carried her to the mainland in emulation of her maker and how she had to be away from such a place. In my own mind, I also fled that place, conscious that something terrible had occurred.

"'Sir William Calder of the Scots College in Douai, near Paris, decided that I was ‘nickey,’ or simple-minded. The doctor had prevented his colleagues from trepanning me however as he thought it unnecessary. He was also to note that I responded well to conversation.

"'I was eventually placed in an asylum. Where else would a creature such as I be boxed away from frightened eyes? But unlike the poor wretches around me, I appeared to be getting better. The asylum is full of people like me. Living but failing to understand why. Full grown men and women drooling like babies.

"'The resident physician, Dr Thomas Cochrane, found me very interesting. He took a lot of time teaching me to speak. Often he would just talk; he liked to talk and could do it for hours. He spoke of his life, his studies, his travels in Europe. I did not understand at first but he slowly brought order to chaos. When laws and patterns are presented to you and understood, knowledge and learning can be consumed. With the good doctor as my oracle, I learned much. I was however entrapped within the confines of his wisdom and his prejudices.

"'But I was educating myself and I chose my models for behaviour, not from the gibbering madness around me, but from the asylum staff; the attendants and keepers. The good doctor was quite intrigued.'

"Her story was certainly revelatory and I was careful not to interrupt. When she looked longingly at the water jug by my side, I handed it to her without comment. She gulped deeply, wiped her mouth and continued.

"'One of the keepers thought me a demoniac and would not come near me,’ she said with a strange smile, gazing at me with those deep dark eyes; watching my every move.

"We remained awake talking through the night. Who could sleep at such a time? The following day was overcast. The Bride came with me, amiably enough, to Harding’s house, its position in the city ensuring that there were few people around to see. In Harding’s study, after he had recovered from his surprise, the giant woman looked on with an expression of disinterested wisdom as the surgeon examined her.

"Joining me where I stood by the window, looking out over the rising storm, Harding buttoned his sleeve cuffs.

"'The body is very strong and resilient,' he said. 'There are a lot of organs missing however for her to live more than a few more years. She needs to be finished; to be fully built if you prefer.'

"'If we could find the parts, could you transplant them?' I asked hopefully.

"Harding nodded thoughtfully. We were both thinking of the next step. For a long time, Harding said nothing; then, 'There is a man, Half-Hangit John Allardyce, that I have found to be very reliable.'

"Harding looked at me meaningfully and I knew not to ask any indelicate questions. He informed me that the man in question hung around burial grounds, himself like a ghostly cadaver. Harding did not want him near his house however, neither did he want to be seen with him in public. I on the other hand, had no such qualms.

"'Half-Hangit,' I said, 'What does that mean?'

"Harding smiled. 'A man of your learning will discover soon enough.'

"And so I entered the murky world of the resurrection men. The man known as ‘Half-Hangit’ Allardyce haunted the public houses within the parish of Greyfriars. Body snatching season actually begins in the Autumn with its dark nights and the fact that the new terms in anatomy schools are just beginning, so I supposed that he would be relatively idle.

"At Harding’s instigation I took myself off to a public house known as The Gravedigger. Feeling uncomfortable in the less than salubrious surroundings, a hand suddenly fell upon my shoulder. As I looked up in some alarm, a dishevelled man in a black, double-breasted pea-coat threw himself down on the bench opposite. This was ‘Half-Hangit John.

"'Guid evenin’ sir,' he said, 'our mutual acquaintance, ‘London Jack’ advised me to ‘look out for the toff in the snug.'

"Looking around at the other faces amid the smoke, his side-glancing eyes, cunning and quick in a sallow, slightly gaunt face, appraised me as I sat. Thin and unkempt, with a strange scar about his throat, he had a couple of day’s fair stubble upon his jaw. His fingers fiddled with a length of black twist.

"'Harding told me what it is you would be wanting,' he said, not looking at me, 'Prospects are thin on the ground this time o’ year so there shouldn’t be a problem.'

"Allardyce, it transpired, was eager to talk as the interest of a toff was not common to him. In the taproom where it was less crowded I bought him several pints of ‘half-and-half.’

"'It’s a strange name that you have,' I said. 'Why are you known as Half-Hangit?'

"Allardyce looked strangely solemn. 'They always said that I would get myself a halter.'

"'A halter?' I asked.

"'Get myself hanged.'

"My eyes returned to the scar around his neck. And then, of course, it struck me. He bore the mark of the rope. His sentence had been carried out and an ‘act of God’ had saved him so that he was cut down alive.

"I was a little uncomfortable but Allardyce returned to the business in hand.

"'I think I can do the job that you need.' He looked over slyly. 'But I’ll need a bit o’ help.'

"There were many defences against grave-robbery within a graveyard. Families sometimes employed watchmen or stood vigil themselves, staying for several weeks until the corpse was rendered unusable. It was a moonless night as we approached the fresh grave. Allardyce gestured to the Watch-house with its tall chimney. It appeared empty, Allardyce telling me to cast my eye upon it in case the watchman should return.

"Using a shielded lantern and several candles placed in jars and arranged around the grave to reduce light, the two of us tipped over the flat gravestone with an iron bar. Allardyce went to work with the diligence of a craftsman. The job was long and difficult as straw had been mixed with the soil. Using a hatchet to break up the ground, Allardyce had a wooden shovel to keep down the noise of digging. Again taking up the hatchet, he broke open the upper part of the coffin, pulling the corpse out of the box with two hooks. Allardyce called this “fishin’ her oot.” Wrapping the body up in a blanket, Allardyce dropped the shroud and a ring he had found on her finger back into the coffin. Seeing my surprised look he explained that we could be accused of theft if the corpse’s possessions were taken.

"There are many names for ressurectionists, ‘sack-‘em-ups’ being but one. As I watched Allardyce putting the body into a hemp sack I could see why. Hurrying away from the scene, we put the body into a large tea chest on Allardyce’ handcart and drew it back to Harding’s house, carrying the chest between us up to his anatomy room. After a quick examination, Harding had us stow the body, covered in a blanket under a flagstone in the cellar until the next day.

"Due to the lateness of the hour, Harding instructed the housekeeper to make up a bed for Allardyce in one of the spare rooms. Harding was reluctant to send Allardyce out of his sight now that he knew some of the business afoot. Allardyce was himself a little surprised that Harding had detained him. In bed that night, the household noises grew fainter until they were drowned out by my thoughts.

"The following day, Harding went to work in his anatomy room. As I watched, Harding took a teak wood box of instruments out of his medicine chest, the many knives and scalpels being laid out in the brass fittings within. Carefully, Harding proceeded to set these out on the linen table cloth. Alongside this I noticed one of the battered books penned by Frankenstein.

"Throughout the day, Harding studied Frankenstein’s book, and, by turns, the Bride. She seemed mildly curious as he examined her skin, complying fully whenever he had her make slight movements in her limbs and he listened to her heart. It was late evening when Harding began his work.

"When we took lunch together, Harding told me of Allardyce’s first encounter with the Bride that morning. He had apparently stood and stared. The ways of the gentry and the professions were a mystery to him, however, and he had seen much of horror and strange in the world in which he lived.

"Through the door of the anatomy room, I could see the Bride seated by the bed Harding had prepared to treat her on. She was very alert and observant, sometimes bearing a strange, distant half-smile on her lips. Then the door closed, shutting us out.

"While Harding worked, myself and Allardyce waited in the study, a room of heavy dark furniture. I sat by the chimney-piece opposite the ressurectionist, watching the tallow candle burn down. The candle-wick had been left unsnuffed, so that it rose higher than the flame, flakes of charred cotton falling from it. Eventually I trimmed the wick with the steel snuffers causing the light to brighten.

"As we sat, Allardyce amused me by referring to Harding as ‘yon saw-bones.’ Outside, the ‘Skellat’ bellman wearing a tricorne hat, long red coat, blue breeches, white stockings and buckled shoes rang his bell and called out news and useful information. In a strong, booming voice, he was letting the populace know where fish had been freshly landed, the departure times of the stagecoaches and the closing times of local inns and hostelries.

"Allardyce was saying something, talking mysteriously about seeing ‘the other side,’ rubbing his neck as he did so. Suddenly becoming aware of what he was saying I turned to ask a question but he had moved on. He had adopted the annoying habit of referring to the Bride as ‘yir guid wife.’ The tall clock at the stair-head sounded the hours three, four, five, and then Harding, in his shirt-sleeves, emerged wiping his bloodied hands on a linen towel.

"Standing next to me before the great street window, he remarked, “She has a number of serious ailments that her robust physique seems to be well capable of bearing.

"'Ailments,' I echoed.

"'She has bloody flux, cardiac insufficiency; there are some symptoms of cramp colic, hectic fever and a touch of nephritis. Her condition is quite remarkable.' He went on, 'She also has a little trouble with her left oracle.'

"Harding however, felt the work had gone well. The Bride was late to rise the following morning, still sleeping off the laudanum. She was to sleep the clock round in fact, Harding awakening her with a sweetmeat late in the afternoon. In consultation with Harding, I had decided to give her the name Elisabeth, sometimes shortened to Beth.

"I had also realised quickly that there was a need to make the Bride aware of her own strength. Beginning with flower blooms, she became visibly disappointed when the beauty came apart in her grip. Harding’s cat, that had watched her with some surprise and curiosity itself played a role. The two eventually struck up a relationship and the cat’s frequent yowls of annoyance went some way in teaching her ‘a lighter touch.’

"Harding had begun feeding a diet of raw eggs mixed with milk to Elisabeth at mealtimes. She gulped this concoction down, eyes wide and staring. But the concerns around her health remained.

"I also felt from Harding that his nerves would not cope with Elisabeth languishing in his home for much longer, filled as she was with stolen body-parts. I decided therefore, to return to London as quickly as possible.

"Over a particularly fine bottle of claret, I persuaded him to take a leave of absence to come south with us however. I did not have to try hard as although he complained about such an excursion, his curiosity and his intellect were greatly aroused.

"'Perhaps we can persuade Allardyce to come also.' Harding suggested, 'He has his uses.'

"Harding was of the opinion that Elisabeth needed one more operation to be a truly created woman. He felt that some of her internal workings would need augmentation or replacing. Inevitably we had to confront the reality that we needed another corpse. For that we needed Allardyce.

"'The small amounts of money that we give him and the conditions that he now works in are so much better than the dark squalor of Edinburgh,' I suggested.

"Harding thought for a moment, 'You know, I do not think that he is a native of this city.'

"A modest amount of shillings made Allardyce our accomplice for the days ahead. His accumulating knowledge of the situation and his trade made this appear to us a wise decision.

"Harding had borrowed the coach of a friend to travel south. It was a port chaise (a four-wheeled coach that stops at inns to change horses, etc.), Allardyce modified the seat with his hatchet to accommodate Elisabeth. On the journey, he would accompany her into the woods along the way to answer the call of nature, likening this to ‘walking his dog.’ I confess I was outraged and relieved in equal measure. He was just so useful.

"Elisabeth was clothed in a loose man’s shirt and a pair of trousers, secured for her by Allardyce that had once belonged to a simpleton of roughly her size. It was necessary to give her man’s clothes as no woman attained such stature. Her braided hair when necessary was put down her shirt to conceal her womanhood when it was necessary to move away from the coach. She learned quickly, on the road south her speech improved noticeably day-by-day. Her diction became clearer, the growl going from her voice, becoming quite male at first before softening to that akin to a young lady.

"Harding had a real talent for itinerary and we stopped at several post houses and inns along the way. Harding did his research and soon discovered that a fresh female corpse had just been interred in the tomb of a wealthy family in a small Suffolk town called Bures. We therefore decided to make a detour on our journey. When the post-boy at Carlyle came out to help change the horses, Allardyce threw a blanket over Elisabeth, persuading her to remain still.

"Throughout the journey we endeavoured to pass the time as best we could. On occasion I told stories that I remembered from my childhood. The tale of Prince Vanye greatly delighted Elisabeth and she clapped when the prince evaded the Mountain hag within the Valley of Despond. Allardyce sang a weavers’ song. Unaccompanied by music, the song lilted, in Gaelic, suggesting that he was not a native of Edinburgh.

"Allardyce also had a number of ‘chapbooks.’ These are cheaply produced booklets or pamphlets, bought from a chapman, or travelling peddlar. Allardyce had used to read these to the out-of-work weavers that shared the lodging house with him. They included thrilling tales of adventure in the Caribean. At times he would read these to Elisabeth, the simple language and the halting way in which he read being ideal.

"Pulling into the small village of Bures, a name I could not properly pronounce, the lack of people in the street made it highly desireable for us to disembark. Taking rooms at the Bures Swan, we endevoured to keep Elisabeth out of sight and she hid in the stables with Allardyce and the horses, sleeping under the coach on a horse’s blanket.

"'The toffs look after themselves,' Allardyce said somewhat pointedly.

"After a dinner of butter, bread, cheese and roasted fish, each with a heavy bumper of brandy, myself and Harding went out to the stable to discuss our way forward. Sitting in, or standing around the coach, we four planned our next step. In preparing to rob the tomb of the local Howard family, Allardyce informed us that he would require both myself and Harding’s help. It therefore became obvious that we would have to take Elisabeth with us as we could not risk her wanderring off.

"Allardyce gathered the tools of his trade, including with them an old Brown Bess musket wrapped in a hemp sack for concealment, putting these in the handcart he had borrowed from the corner of the coach house.

"The cemetery and churchyard were situated some way from the town, the townspeople walking through the fields and down the slope to the church on Sundays. As dusk fell the four of us approached the path that ran along the edge of the wood through ferns and brushwood. Skirting the wood, the path ran over the crest of a hill and through a meadow to where several old yew trees loomed. The corpse-gate, a roofed gateway to the churchyard used as a resting place for a bier before burial, was shaded by two great elms. Passing through the low stone wall with high iron railings that encircled the churchyard. We came into the cemetery. Crooked gravestones rose thickly amidst the grass and nettles, Elisabeth sitting herself on a low, flat gravestone.

"Allardyce however advanced with a purpose, returning to persuade her to come with him to break open a large domed burial vault at the centre of the cemetery. The masonry had not fully set and Elisabeth easily tore a hole. The creature had such fearsome strength and it set me to wondering, if the same process were to be applied to a child, would the child grow, and at an equal rate of physical development.

"Allardyce hesitated at the crudely made entrance, 'C’moan Mr Harding, an’ take the sack wi’ ye.'

"Both men struggled into the hole and were lost to the darkness. I looked around the churchyard in the gloom and then Allardyce, in silhouette, loomed against the sky. A length of rope was wound once around the sack and its macabre contents as he drew it after him, Harding following him through the hole.

"We gathered by one of the yews, Allardyce suggesting we wait in the cemetery for the rest of the night as, he explained, returning to the Swan at a late hour might cause some suspicion. We ate oatmeal bread washed down with draughts of water before retiring to a mass of broom bushes at the edge of the churchyard. Amid the smell of the cornfields that were freshly harvested, Allardyce drifted off to sleep as though unfettered by guilt or shame. Sitting against a tree, I unwrapped Allardyce’ Brown Bess flintlock musket. It was full-stocked with brass mounts and featured a brass-tipped fore-end with three ramrod pipes and a brass trigger guard and buttplate. It was loaded.

"We were awakened by the dew of morning, the sound of the bugle and the accompanying flurry of barking hounds. The local hunt was drawing nigh. Of course providence ensured that the young Master Howard liked to ride past within sight of his family vault and of course he was passing on that day. He had become separated from the hunt, met with a group of beaters, and, while giving them instructions, came upon the scene. The emergence through the trees of a man on a horse, a groundskeeper walking alongside, a musket in his hand, caused me to stand stock still. As I stood, blinking in the light and clutching my blanket, I saw the beaters that came in the young man’s wake. The ruined vault and the enwrapped body were plainly in view.

"In an instant I saw the look of outrage on the young master’s face and the arrogance of youth surrounded by the tugging of forelocks. The beaters, wearing nankeen (leather breeches) and simple linen shirts, rushed upon us enthusiastically in that eager to please obedience of the rural poor. In the cemetery, perhaps the horse made a noise, perhaps the young master cried out; but in the thrill of the conflagration, I heard nothing.

"In rushing between the gravestones, the beaters appeared reluctant to put their hand upon obvious gentlemen and so rushed towards Allardyce, where he stood bearing the tools of his trade. But Allardyce was an experienced ruffian and struck out savagely with his shovel at first one then another.

"As the beaters struggled to regroup amid the tall stone markers, Allardyce laid his hands upon his musket where I had laid it on the ground. The musket’s report rang out and the man that had distinguished himself as a leader by his calling out of instructions crumpled and fell among nettles. Then, with the loyalty of a faithful hound a large powerful creature dressed in man’s clothes moved forward. In killing the servant, Allardyce had taken Harding and myself to a place we had never been before. Elisabeth however, entertained no such qualms.

"Dragging the wealthy horseman roughly from his saddle, Elisabeth threw him through the iron railings that surrounded one of the tombs. In an instant the bars had mangled his body in a way that was quite horrific. In the midst of the maelstrom, Allardyce had kept his head while Harding, rooted to the spot, stared around him looking for salvation. Throwing the corpse against the foot of a tree, Allardyce tapped him with his musket barrel as he passed, Harding dumbly following.

"In the blink of an eye, Elisabeth had pulled up a grave marker in the shape of a cross to use as a bludgeon, swinging left and right so that the men about her cowered back. There was perhaps no more fight in the beaters but the conflagration had begun and would progress like a bolted horse. Having struck one man a glancing blow, Elisabeth threw her weapon of stone so that it spun through the graveyard, tearing lumps from other graves and tombstones. I did not see clearly where the man was struck by the spinning cross, the stonework driving and crushing him against a tall, flat marker. A moment’s look of surprise then the head fell down onto the stone that brought his destruction, and then lolled to one side.

"As I watched, Elisabeth moved like an adder to grab the head of another and dash it on a tall monument, a stone angel looking down upon the scene in distress.

"I myself struck one of the ruffians with my stick. It was a glancing blow, but was enough to dissuade him from pressing on with his attack. Before me, Elisabeth had now thrown one beater against a tree and forced another violently against a gravestone so that surely his bones would crumble.

"Then suddenly, Allardyce was at my side. To my surprise, in the conflagration, he had gone back to collect the body and now bore her, in the sack, over his shoulder.

"'This way Mr Walton,' he said, moving in a direction I could not fathom. 'Let us begone.'

"I followed, Harding appearing to my left as we followed the ressurectionist’s back out of the confusion around us. From out of the morning mist and amid the gravestones I heard him call, 'This way.'

"I could see Elisabeth close by as she pushed over a gravestone that was in her way. There was a certain grace in how she bounded. On we scrambled towards the gate.

"Amidst the horror of what had befallen, we made our escape across the fields, taking refuge in a barn close to the mill by the village stream. In the village, the locals had been roused to the trouble but I fancied that in the confusion myself and Harding would draw no suspicion and we hurried back to the inn to retrieve our coach and luggage. In our absence, some of the villagers had stumbled upon Elisabeth and Allardyce, the former smashing a hole in the wall to allow their escape. I heard the sound of a musket discharge as I opened the coach-house doors.

"Aboard the coach I drove it towards the edge of town along the rough and rutted road. I was unsure where our companions were and I was very much trusting to providence. Harding stood on the step by the open door. On this occasion providence smiled upon us and Allardyce and Elisabeth suddenly broke from a cluster of trees at the side of the road. Allardyce held his musket ready as he ran alongside the coach, hefting the corpse from off his shoulder and throwing it after Elisabeth through the swinging door. Harding drew the sack clear of the doorway as Allardyce pitched after it."

A look of relief passed over Walton’s face as he relived the escape. I fancied that it was not a time he recalled to mind often, for his own sake. He proceeded to skirt around the next part of the story and he talked somewhat aimlessly, mentioning how he would mop Elisabeth’s brow when she became feverish, changing her bandages on occasion. He was, it seemed, curious at how quickly the swellings around the wounds had dissipated. In the evenings they would stop to sit around a campfire, later sleeping in or under the coach. After hesitating for a moment, perhaps gathering his thoughts, Walton continued.

"I was disturbed for several days afterwards by the deaths that had occurred and I felt that we had 'heaped villainy upon villainy.' Allardyce did not share my sensitivities, being somewhat ‘French’ in his outlook.

"'Mere lapdogs of the gentry,' Allardyce had grunted, 'Such people live a life of ‘yes sir’ and ‘no sir’ and ‘it won’t happen again sir.’ A long humiliating death, mercifully cut short.'

"I did not share his sentiments. A few miles distant lay the holiday home of my sister, Margaret Saville and we made for there immediately. As we drew close to the estate, the sound of horse hooves on the park road persuaded me to instruct Allardyce, who was driving, to redirect beyond the shrubbery and into the gardens, along the footpath running part of the way beside the fence. Crossing the grass beyond and past the closely planted evergreens we drew up outside the coach-horse stable.

"Margaret’s house, formerly that of my uncle’s, is a handsome mansion. Tall and of red brick where not concealed by ivy, it features a plain parapet that conceals the roof. Ascending the rather grand steps up to the front door, it would have filled me with elation had not recent events been weighing so heavily upon me.

"Walking the halls, beneath the carvings of the ceiling, the tapestries on the walls and the ebon blackness of the dark oaken floors, it seemed a melancholy house, perhaps influenced by my mood.

"We thought it prudent to break up the coach, burning the pieces in the many fireplaces throughout the mansion. The rooms were much in need of the heating. In the days that followed rumours came to us from the Bures area but the talk was of ruffians from one of the large towns or cities. A theory gaining in popularity however, was one involving French sympathisers.

"In disposing of the corpse in one of the spare rooms, I found I could not look upon it. As we struggled up the stairs, I saw a strand of light brown hair protrude from the sack. It momentarily darkened my mood still further. Harding inspected the rooms and settled on the butler’s pantry as most suited to serve as a laboratory. He consulted Frankenstein’s book for several hours while Elisabeth sat with us, on the floor by the fireplace with the high mantle. We engaged in halting chat although the talk with Elisabeth I found quite difficult.

"Presently Harding appeared at the door to summon Elisabeth to go with him, speaking softly. She got up meekly enough. She looked back once. Then she was gone. Taking up my copy of the Bury and Norwich Post, I read without interest.

"'What’s Napoleon up tae?' Allardyce asked, from where he lounged in a leather upholstered chair.

"I looked down distractedly. 'Did you know that a new Archbishop of Canterbury has been confirmed? A Charles Manners Sutton,' I said absent-mindedly.

"She appeared in the drawing room around early evening, her body bound tightly with bedsheets. Sitting quietly on a chaise lounge close to the fire, she appeared so young, and in a way I suppose she was. Harding had assured me that the operations he had carried out throughout the day had been successful and that her life would now be extended significantly. In the days that followed, her wounds healed quickly.

"Allardyce was scrupulously clean and I saw him wash in the horse trough one morning. Elisabeth, coming alongside, washed her hands and face in a manner that put me in the mind of the movements of a horse. She walked more upright as a human now, albeit with a somewhat masculine gait, learned through mimicry. She still however made good progress on all fours, like a jack-an-ape but with longer legs capable of staggering leaps.

"'She is a marvelous creation,' I said to Allardyce.

"Allardyce, who was buttoning up his shirt made a sound of agreement, 'Aye, but she knows what is ‘on the other side.’ Does she have memories from her time between lives d’ye think?'

"Certainly I would muse upon Elisabeth and the reality that hers was not a mind unused on her first day of birth. In the days that followed Elisabeth occasionally got up during the night. Several times I, or Harding, would find her, in the early hours, arrayed in white and gazing upon the somewhat fly-blown portrait of Uncle Thomas that was hung in the library. Expecting my sister Margaret back at any time however, I thought it prudent that we move on.

"Purchasing a cart to transport Elisabeth south, news reached us while we were travelling that there were soldiers on roads to the south. What they would make of Elisabeth we could not guess. Allardyce’s toughness and his determination never to be caught, Elisabeth’s inhuman strength and my own adventurous spirit led us to abandon the cart in some woodland and travel overland on foot, sending Harding ahead astride the cart horse to secure another coach in London and to meet us at the Star Inn, in the village of Ingatestone."

Walton grinned to himself, “Harding was less than comfortable on so rough a steed,” he said, “but he secured for us our passage home.

"As evening drew on, Harding appeared to us atop a four-in-hand stagecoach. He was not accustomed to controlling such a thing and had cultivated a number of blisters but we were glad to climb aboard. Travelling through country villages where the passing of a coach inspired great interest, especially among the young, I sat behind the broad back of Elisabeth who knelt on the floor. I felt the approaching relief of journey’s end. Elisabeth seemed to sense my rising spirits and as London drew near she half turned in my direction.

"'Is there a place for me in this world of yours?' she asked. 'The last of my kind left this world on a dog sled, I think.'

"I looked into those slate grey eyes and thought I saw the tall pillars of paradise and the fiery rivers of damnation beyond. Elisabeth looked back and began to smile slowly. It was not a smile of innocent happiness, but one of quiet knowing."

I here began to consider that the brandy has gone to Walton’s head. I myself was certainly beginning to feel the effects. He went on,

"You see Grey, Beth is a woman that has been to ‘the other side.’ Going beyond gives one knowledge. As the years passed, Beth opened up new vistas to me that I could not even have guessed at, taking me to a place I had thought impossible to reach from this earthly realm. It was a voyage of discovery that I had never before dreamed of when I first decided to sail before the mast."

And then abruptly, Walton stopped. The heat and the spirits in the club had taken its toll and he smiled apologetically. Although I tried to persuade him to continue, Walton’s inebriation and his apparent reluctance to continue brought the tale to its premature end.

For a long time afterwards, my thoughts were filled by all I had heard. What drew Walton to Frankenstein so strongly? Were they, as he suspected, kindred spirits? Would it be surprising that Walton had intellectual ambitions similar to Frankenstein’s, and, free of the personal tragedy that his experiments had brought, where would Walton’s adventurous spirit take him? What if the creator did not need to reject the creation, and indeed, what had become of the mysterious and otherworldly Elisabeth?

Other questions were also arising within me but Walton’s mind had descended into befuddlement from which he would not resurface that evening. Inebriation, brought on by strong drink had dropped the tale alive into a deep pool and, as it transpired, that was the last time we spoke on the subject. We continued to bump into each other, on occasion, at the club and we would chat amiably enough. But we talked only of trifles and little else.

Late evening in the club, and I could see Walton’s eyes through Sir William’s cigar smoke. A nervous twitch, and he looked away, continuing to examine the newspaper, eying me nervously and nursing the ever present fear that I might reveal his secret. Once again I guessed, he was pondering the wisdom of telling me his tale.

By chance we left the club together, stepping into the street where the light mist that accompanied dusk was rising. Flushed with brandy, Walton drew up sharply when we came to the corner.

"I’ll say goodbye here," he said, preventing me from going any further with him.

What could only have been his coach stood by the corner of the street. Thick tendrils of fog swirled around the silhoetted cab and alongside stood a figure that sent a thrill of awe through my very frame.

She must have been over eight feet tall and, in spite of the distance, I found myself looking upon her as a child would look up at his governess. In her arms she bore a bundle that could only itself be a child, of proportions complementary to the woman that held him. Manners decree that a gentleman assist a woman in entering a carriage. I did not tarry to observe the spectacle that decorum dictated should follow.