“You rogue. You led me to believe that you stood guard perpetually.”
“Nobody can be perpetual, Mr. Frankenstein. I needed the air.”
“A foul air by Newgate.”
“This it is, sir. I had never been to a hanging before. I wished to see the thing.”
“And you did.” I leaned over to him. “So did I.”
Suddenly I began to weep. I bent forward in the carriage and sobbed, the tears unbidden and unexpected. Fred passed me a handkerchief, and looked steadfastly out of the window until I had composed myself. Eventually I sat back, and put my head against the leather rest. We were travelling along a stretch of road beside the Thames, and I noticed that the current of the river was turbid and irregular. There was something lying in the water, impeding its progress. “There is the boundary stone,” Fred said. “We will be there shortly.”
We arrived at dusk. The air by the river was chill and laden with moisture, but Fred led me briskly down the principal street of the town. It was wide enough for two carriages, and muddy after recent rain, but we crossed it without any difficulty. We turned left down a smaller thoroughfare, lined with superior shops and houses. “Here we are, sir. This is the house.”
It was a two-storey villa of recent construction with a plain lattice-work porch and large windows on the ground floor. “Will you knock, Fred?” I had not the slightest energy.
The door was opened by Bysshe himself, who seemed astonished to see me so soon after he had despatched his invitation. “My dear Frankenstein,” he said, “you are like an apparition. I was just speaking of you! And here is the boy, looking as fresh scrubbed as a Tenterden apple. Come in.” We entered a narrow hallway, where there was a plentiful supply of boots and umbrellas. I had forgotten that Bysshe had a strange partiality for umbrellas, of whatever description, and an equally strong propensity for losing them. He led us into the drawing room, a brilliantly lit room with long damask curtains and comfortable furniture of the provincial style. Sitting by the fireside were a gentleman of middle age and a young lady, evidently deep in talk.
“Here is the man,” Bysshe said, “whom I was describing. It is the oddest and most singular coincidence. This is Mr. Godwin, Victor, and his daughter Mary.”
The man rose from his chair, and greeted me with great cordiality; his daughter took my hand, and welcomed me to Albion House as if she were the mistress of it. “We have been considering the name of Albion, Mr. Frankenstein,” her father said. “Bysshe believes it is derived from Alba, the Celtic word for Britain. But I believe it to be more classical. I take it to spring from albus, meaning white. Thus from the white cliffs. What is your opinion?” He was wearing a pair of pebble spectacles that seemed to emphasise his pale and almost rimless eyes. His manner was cordial, as I have said, but somewhat too intense and magisterial; it seemed to be a forced cordiality.
“I have not the least idea, sir. I am sorry-”
Bysshe brought a chair for me, and offered me a glass of Madeira wine that I willingly accepted. “You are tired after your journey, Victor.” He had noticed my listlessness and weariness. “This will revive you.”
The father and daughter looked at me with placid interest, and waited for me to speak.
“It has been a hard time,” I said.
“Of course. William and Mary know all the sad facts of the matter. You can speak freely.”
“I do not know if I can speak at all.”
“You attended Harriet’s funeral?”
“Yes.”
“And were you present at Daniel’s execution?”
I looked round for Fred, but he had silently left the room, no doubt in search of the company of Bysshe’s servants.
“Yes. He died bravely. He was an innocent man.”
“How do you know that, sir?” Mr. Godwin put the question to me in a challenging manner.
“I know it. I know-I knew-Daniel Westbrook. I saw him in his prison cell. There was no gentler being on the earth. He had nothing to do with this crime. Nothing whatever.”
“No one else was suspected,” Mr. Godwin said. “We read the public prints, even in Marlow.”
“The murderer walks free.”
“Do you have private information, Mr. Frankenstein?” Miss Godwin asked me this with the faintest impression of a smile.
“No. I have no information on the subject except that which instinct and intuition give me. I am sure that, as a lady, you will grant me that right.”
She gave me a keen glance then. “Instinct is very right and just. My father adopts more rational principles, but I have always believed in the divining powers of the imagination.”
“She has read Coleridge,” her father said. “She is an enthusiast for the divine afflatus.”
“Without the imagination, Father, the human frame is dust and ashes.”
“You cannot go so far, Mary.”
“I may trespass into the world of the ideal, may I not?”
Bysshe had been listening in silence to their conversation, and I could not help but notice the profound admiration that he evinced for Mary. It seemed to me strange that, after the recent death of Harriet, he should be so struck by another woman. Yet I was not wholly surprised by his interest. I had heard of Mary’s mother, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. She was the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman that, as a student in Switzerland, I had read with great fervour. Yes. Fervour is the word. She had instilled in me a love of liberty in all its forms, and I believed that human happiness should be the prerogative of all regardless of sex. I hoped to see in Miss Godwin some sign or token of her mother’s genius. I soon gathered that she had quieter but no less interesting virtues.
Bysshe seemed to divine my interest because, a moment later, he led me to the other end of the room on the excuse that he wished for a “private symposium.”
“I could not have endured the funeral, Victor,” he said. “The horror of it. The senselessness of it. I still think of her as a dear, good girl. I will never lose that memory.”
“What of your child?”
“Ianthe is better with the Westbrooks. I have made arrangements that an annual income be paid to them through my banker.” He looked at me in appeal, as if seeking my approval.
“You have done what is necessary, Bysshe.”
“And what is right?”
“Of course.” I was silent for a moment. “You have mentioned Mr. Godwin to me before.”
“Did I tell you that I visited him in Somers Town? I have always admired him, ever since I read his Enquiry Concerning Political Justice. I share his belief that Man can be improved and even perfected.”
“Indeed? How does he reach that conclusion?”
“You never used to be so sceptical, Victor.”
“I merely ask the question.”
“Mr. Godwin is animated by a keen sense of the natural man. The first men were not savage or cruel. In their natural state they were peaceful and benevolent. It is only the tyranny of law and custom that has made us what we are. But man is perfectible. Once we have removed his shackles, he will be capable of perpetual improvement.”
“And you also believe this?”
“It is an article of faith. There was a time, Victor, when you would also have subscribed to it.”
“I do not have all of my old enthusiasm, Bysshe.”
“Are you sure you are quite well? You seem to have lost your spring.”
“It has turned to winter, I am afraid.” I longed to unburden myself to him, to explain all that had occurred in the most exact and methodical manner, but I knew well enough that even Bysshe would deem me to be a madman.
“The deaths of Harriet and of Daniel,” he replied, “have been a monstrous blow to us. You have fallen, dear Victor, into a melancholy from which I vow to save you. You will stay with us here in Marlow until you are quite recovered. We will spend long quiet days at our ease. We will journey along the Thames. You see. Already you are returning to life. Come. Let us join the Godwins.”