Dr. Frankenstein's Daughters (8 page)

FROM THE DIARY OF
BARONESS GISELLE FRANKENSTEIN

June 26, 1815

Today was warm enough to wear my blue silk traveling suit, the one with the empire waist and long jacket. Our hotel room has a fire in which I was able to warm my hair curling tongs, so I could frame my face in curls and form a few ringlets at the sides. Satisfied that I looked my best, I met my uncle, who has his own room at the end of the hall. After complimenting me on my beauty, he walked with me to the restaurant where Johann and I had agreed to meet.

I was grateful that Baron Frankenstein escorted me through the winding and hilly streets of the medieval center of Edinburgh. More than once the low heels of my boots caught in the uneven
Belgian blocks that make up the old roadways, and if my uncle’s arm had not been there to catch, I might have stumbled. Moreover, Baron Frankenstein was a dear and stayed with me at the restaurant as we waited for Johann to arrive. The place was lovely, all dark carved wood, mirrors, leaded glass, crisp white linen tablecloths, and lit candles in iron sconces. The clientele was refined and the waiters dressed in white shirts with black pants under their aprons.

“I am so glad to see you again,” I told him sincerely as we sat sipping tea. It surprised me how fond I’d become of my uncle, yet it was true. I had missed his protective presence while he was away.

“And I you. Your health has improved since last I saw you,” Baron Frankenstein observed.

“You are right, I am happy to say,” I agreed. “Though when the nights are windy and wet, I still feel congested. It is worst when I lay down to sleep.”

“It can be a rough climate,” Baron Frankenstein said. “Although temperate, it is damp and the wind is like nothing I have seen anywhere else.”

The wind had become even more severe of late, and I found its intensity unnerving sometimes. It wasn’t always easy to recognize where the roar of the ocean ended and the wail of the wind began. To step out of doors was to surrender oneself to a restless world of crashing waves and rustling leaves; the wind ran across the
pasture grasses, moving them as though some invisible creature was parting the greenery. One’s clothing and hair were constantly buffeted by an unseen hand.

“The wind clogs my ears and gives me bad dreams,” I admitted to Baron Frankenstein.

A worried expression washed over his face, and when I inquired what was concerning him, he asked if I’d experienced further episodes of walking in my sleep. I assured him that I had not. I didn’t elaborate on my nightmares, so as not to worry him, but I am starting to believe that the rattling and clanking of the wind pounding against the antique stones of the castle somehow gets into my mind and agitates it. Since arriving in Orkney, my dreams are the strangest I have ever experienced: I dream I am places I have never seen, talking to people I have never met.

Sensing someone’s eyes on me, I glanced at the doorway and there I spied Johann. My heart leapt at the sight of him with his tall, strong physique, thick blond hair, and handsome face. As he approached, Baron Frankenstein prepared to depart, promising to meet me back at the hotel. Clearly he was eager to be off to his business meeting and that was fine by me since I longed to have Johann all to myself.

Johann and Baron Frankenstein exchanged quick cordialities and my uncle then left.

“Giselle, you are more gorgeous than ever,” Johann said after
kissing my hand and taking a seat beside me. “Being a baroness suits you.”

It surprised me that he knew of my title, but then I recalled I had mentioned it to Margaret, my friend back in Ingolstadt.

“Do you think so?” I responded coyly. “In what way does it suit me?” This was of course a shameless ploy to elicit compliments from him, but I wanted to hear what he would say. I wanted to hear all the sweet words I had so longed for back in the very recent past when I had hoped he would love me, when I had hung on his every small expression of interest or the merest smile.

“It may be the fresh air, but were your eyes always such a vivid violet blue as they are now?” Johann inquired.

“I don’t think they have changed.” It was hard to be casual when I was so excited to see him, but it was important not to seem overly eager, especially after the way I had previously embarrassed myself.

Johann leaned closer to me and smiled. “Then it must be the time that has passed. You are now seventeen, are you not? You have turned a corner and become more womanly somehow.”

“I can’t imagine that being seventeen by only two weeks should make such a difference in one’s appearance or demeanor,” I protested.

“Yes, but I have not seen you in a month’s time, since you upset everyone with your abrupt departure. Before you left, I thought of you as being much younger than I am.”

“I am only two years younger than you,” I reminded him.

“Two years is a good age difference between a man and a woman.” Johann clutched my hand while gazing into my eyes with a deeply earnest expression. Then he drew me forward until our faces were very close. “Giselle,” he murmured.

Feeling certain he would kiss me, I let my eyelids drift downward and then close softly as his lips brushed mine. The pleasure of it was so lovely that I melted toward him, resting my hand on his arm: It was hard to believe that the moment I had so often dreamed of was happening at last.

Slowly, he drew back. “Forgive my boldness, but you have grown so womanly, Giselle, that I am quite overwhelmed at the sight of you. You were always a beautiful girl, but you have become the most ravishing woman.”

“Thank you, Johann,” I replied in a dreamy tone, not removing my hand from his arm. “You are kind to say so.”

“It is not kindness but sincerity.”

I ate up this flattery as though his admiration were a kind of sweet food I had been starved for. To be sitting alone in a restaurant with such a good-looking suitor made me feel sophisticated and — yes, I must admit it — beautiful. And although of late I have attracted the attentions of passing men, I have never before been so gallantly declared to be
ravishing
.

As our eyes met, I was transported back to the time when I had
once desired his love and esteem more than life itself. I didn’t care if his behavior might be considered improper. To me, it was as if we were in a world all our own.

“I feel that you love me still, Giselle,” Johann said softly. “Say it is so and you will make me happy, for I am consumed with my love for you. If you meant your absence to make me wretched, it has indeed. I have missed you every hour of every day.”

My powers of critical thought seemed to have slipped beneath the surface of some sea of love and all I could do was take Johann at his word.

“Tell me you still love me,” he urged. “I adore you and was a fool not to see it sooner.”

At this I dropped my eyes, avoiding his gaze, unsure of how to compose my facial expression because the sheer happy delight I must have emanated was not the womanly aura I wished to project. Sliding my hand from his arm, I suggested that we should order our food.

“You’re trembling,” he noted tenderly.

“It’s only hunger,” I lied. In truth his nearness, his voice, his touch had left me shaken, feeling vulnerable and unsure of what to say or do next. There was no mistaking the emotion: I was once more as completely consumed by Johann as I had been before.

We ordered a lunch of lamb chops and potatoes, and while we ate, Johann did most of the talking. He told me how much he
wanted to travel, that leaving Germany for the first time had kindled his appetite to see the world.

“We could go together, Giselle,” he suggested with avid enthusiasm. “Your castle could be our starting point for exploring all of Scandinavia. Maybe we would go from there to Russia — perhaps even experience the Orient. We’d have to be married, of course.”

“Married?” Had he really just used that word?

“Naturally. Imagine what a beautiful wedding we could have at the castle on the ocean!”

I easily pictured the gala reception since I had been envisioning my wedding day for as long as I could remember, even knew what my frothy white gown and billowing veil would look like. But all my life I had imagined that the man who asked me to marry him would be on bended knee, speaking beseechingly as he held forth a dazzling ring.

“Such a wedding might be too time-consuming, though,” he said. “I think we should marry quickly. We could return to Edinburgh and be married by a judge, or even an itinerant minister if you prefer.”

“What would be the reason for haste?” I asked.

“The sooner we’re married, the sooner we can begin our life together. Imagine me, the lord of a castle on the ocean, married to a beautiful, smart, entrancing baroness! Not too bad for the son of a lawyer to become a member of the nobility.”

“I find your suggestion somewhat pragmatic,” I said. Was this what he was after — my castle and my title?

“Forgive me, Giselle! I was simply swept away with my visions of our happy life together. Of course I should not have presumed you would marry me, but you have always been fond of me, have you not?”

It suddenly irked me that — despite my previous declaration — he was so sure of himself, so confident that I would melt into his arms.

“I have liked you well enough,” I said. “But life has changed.”

“I know it has changed,” he said. “You are now a baroness, a woman of independent fortune, and you need a husband to share it with.”

“Do you believe that
someone
should be you?” I asked, surprised by the coldness I heard creeping into my voice.

“A woman needs a husband to help manage her affairs,” he replied.

“And to spend her money?”

This remark was met with silence and an expression I could not interpret. A frost came into his eyes, causing me to think I had angered him. Fear of what angry words he would utter next made my heart quicken as I felt my shoulders lift, preparing for a battle of unpleasant words. I was relieved when he smiled suddenly.

“Let’s discuss this further as we stroll,” he suggested.

“You’re not angry?” I asked.

“You have misunderstood me.”

“I don’t think I have,” I said in a straightforward manner. “I once made a declaration of love that you rebuffed. Now word of my fortune has made you change your mind.”

I was suddenly seized with a great desire to be away from him. I was filled with humiliation at being so used.

“I can make you see it a different way if you will only walk with me awhile,” Johann insisted. “I have come all this distance, and I think you owe it to me to hear me out.”

“I owe you nothing and resent your presumption.”

“Giselle, did you not tell me to come meet you here? I came on this long journey at your invitation, and I believe that means you owe it to me to let me tell you how I feel. I have clearly done a bad job of it, but you must believe that is only because I am nervous at the thought of your rejection.”

His words angered me, though I supposed he made a point — I
had
told him to come, never dreaming his goal was to woo me away from my new inheritance. I decided to put up with him for just a little longer. There could be, I thought, no hurt in that.

“Perhaps we can walk in the direction of my hotel, and that way you can escort me back,” I proposed. “I’d appreciate it, since I do not know the city at all, but I do have the address of the hotel written on a paper in my purse.”

“Surely you don’t want to return there straightaway?”

“Yes, I do,” I said as I extracted the slip containing the address. “Here’s where we must go.”

Johann slipped the paper in his jacket pocket and signaled the waiter for the check. “I know how to get there.”

There seemed to be nothing more to say. It was a relief to finally reach the outside where the noises of the street distracted from the silence between us and where there were passing attractions — street performers and vendors — to casually remark upon.

As we walked, mostly in silence, I sneaked glances at him from the corner of my eye, and it occurred to me that Johann was not nearly as handsome as I had remembered him. How was it that I had never before noticed how close-set his eyes were or that there was a definite weakness in his jaw? There was a flare in his nostrils that gave his face an expression of arrogance that I had previously considered attractive, but no longer did.

After some distance, it seemed to me that we had walked for a longer amount of time than it had taken to arrive at the restaurant from the hotel. Also, I didn’t recognize the deserted park into which we had wandered.

“Johann, are you lost?” I asked as we stopped by a narrow, winding river that looked as though it were man-made. “I am certain my uncle and I did not travel this way.”

“Ah, you’ve caught me,” Johann answered. “I knew if I could
only get you alone, I could change your mind about me.” He took hold of my hand, and though I tried to draw it away, he held tight and used this grip to pull me toward him. Before I could protest, he had planted his lips on mine and was kissing me.

What I would have once longed for was now utterly repugnant to me. Pushing with all my strength, I made some distance between us.

“Johann! Stop it!” I cried.

“You love me, Giselle,” he insisted, pulling me back to him, his hold tight. “You kissed me in the restaurant, and I could tell you enjoyed it.”

“That was before I realized you were no more than a fortune hunter.”

“A fortune hunter!” His face reddened with fury at my words. He gripped my wrist, twisting upward until it hurt. “Nobody calls me that!”

Grabbing my waist, he pulled me into a rough, wet kiss.

Biting his lip, I lurched away and searched the park unsuccessfully for another person to run toward. I ran from him but he quickly caught hold and was once more kissing me. I pried my arm from him and raked my fingernails across his face, drawing blood.

Infuriated, he called me a name I have never heard before and never want to hear again. With a quick, sharp blow, he knocked
me to the ground, where we struggled until I was able to break loose and get to my feet. I lost all sense of myself, all sense of any thought but that of escape.