I came back into Jermyn Street despondent. Many would have treated the sudden departure of a servant with no great emotion, but I had not realised how attached I had become to Fred. And then I remembered Mrs. Shoeberry. It was possible that she was sick, or ailing, and that Fred had been obliged to stay with her. I knew from him that she lived in one of the courts off Drury Lane, at the upper end of that street, and I made my way there on foot. Everyone knew Mrs. Shoeberry in that quarter, and I was directed to the tenements in Short’s Rents where I was assured she would be “rinsing.” There was another laundress by the pump in that court, with soap and pumice stone, and I supposed that the water ran more freely here: I asked her for Mrs. Shoeberry’s lodging, and she pointed to an open window on the second floor. “She,” she said, emphasising the word, “is in there.” I made my way up the staircase, not so clean as it might have been, and found Mrs. Shoeberry’s apartment. The door was ajar, and I could already smell the familiar sour odour of London laundry. I knocked, and pushed open the door, but I could see no sign of the laundress herself. Sheets and linen were hanging in profusion all about the room.
“Whoever is it?” Mrs. Shoeberry’s voice came from behind a sheet.
“Victor Frankenstein.”
“Why, Mr. Frankenstein. Beg your pardon.” She stepped out, clutching a brace of wooden pins and a roller. “What has Fred done now?”
“He has done nothing, Mrs. Shoeberry. I was hoping to find him here.”
“He ain’t been here, Mr. Frankenstein. He only comes on a Sunday, when I need him for the lifting.” I had no idea what she meant. “Has he gone, then?”
“I have not seen him since yesterday evening.”
She considered the matter for a moment. “That is not like Fred.”
“I know.”
She looked at me steadily. “Has he been in any trouble, sir?”
“Not that I am aware of.”
“There will be something on his mind. I know that boy. When the late Mr. Shoeberry passed off, Fred hid himself away for two days. Said he had been sleeping on the boats. He never mentioned it again. He is deep, that boy.” She went behind the sheets, from which came the sound of an enormous sneeze. After a few moments, she recovered. “Never you mind it, Mr. Frankenstein. He will be back by Sunday. He would not leave me to the lifting.”
I departed a few minutes later, having given her a florin for her “trouble,” and walked back to Jermyn Street. I had been to some degree reassured by her confidence that Fred would return by Sunday, and so once more I devoted myself to experiment. I went to the workshop each day, where I refined the galvanic mechanism in the light of my further researches: the problem of reversal was still one that exercised me, and led me to a thousand different variations in the batteries and machines. I was confident of a solution, however, and did not weary in my efforts.
FRED DID NOT RETURN by Sunday. Mrs. Shoeberry came to Jermyn Street in a state of consternation, and asked me whether we should alert the officers of the parish. I did not put much faith in the constables, or in the watch, but I agreed to go with her to the compter in St. James’s Street. There had of course been no reports of a missing boy, but she felt that she had somehow discharged her duty. However, she was not in a comfortable state of mind. She feared something. She asked me if I wanted one of her other sons to take the place of Fred, but I declined the offer.
As the days passed, I was so intent upon my work that I paid very little attention to my outward circumstances. Polidori continued to lodge in my chambers, and often questioned me about the state of my researches. I could not, as a gentleman, ask him to leave. I never referred to his sudden appearance at Sweep Fair, but I took care to reveal nothing to him. We were, as a result, uneasy companions.
Two weeks after Fred’s disappearance I received a letter from Mary Shelley, informing me that the household (in which she included Lord Byron) had left Switzerland and made their way south to Pisa where they had procured lodgings on the Lung’Arno:
It is sufficiently commodious, and we pay only thirteen sequins a month. We have an excellent mezzanino, and three rooms on the fourth floor. From here we have a view of the sunsets, which Shelley deems incomparable. Lord Byron has taken up residence in a much grander house, but he deigns to dine with us each evening. He is at this moment reading to Shelley some passage out of a poem he has recently composed. I cannot make out the words. He wishes to remove us all to the Gulf of Spezia, but the prospect of yet another journey appals me.
When I read this out to Polidori, he grimaced. “The man is demented,” he said. “He would drive a saint to madness. He has a demon inside him that will not let him, or anyone, rest.”
“But wait. You have not heard Mary’s postscript. She must have written it some days later.” I read out to him the forlorn message with which she ended the letter:
We have now moved on to a dwelling built on the shore at Lerici. It is known as Casa Magni and, although it is indeed large, it hardly qualifies as a house. It is more like a fortress buffeted by the sea and the sea-wind. There is a rough path to take us to the little village of San Terenzo, where we can purchase only the most rudimentary provisions. And there is only one chimney for cooking! There is no garden, and the rear of the house faces a thick wood. It is the most gloomy spot imaginable, and only the prospect of the sea lifts my spirits. Oh, how I long to be in London now!”
I put down the letter. “She is tired of travelling.”
“She is tired of Byron, too, I imagine,” Polidori said.
THEN, TWO WEEKS LATER, I received another letter. I recognised the handwriting on the envelope to be Mary’s, but it was so scrawled and strained that I knew that it contained fearful news:
There is something I cannot say. And I can barely express it in words. Shelley is dead. He was drowned at sea. He died with a companion, in a boat that has not yet been found. They had set sail from Livorno into the Gulf of Spezia, when by all accounts they were overwhelmed by a sudden summer storm.
Her letter broke off at this juncture, but then at some later time she resumed it on a separate sheet.
Yesterday he was recovered. He had been washed onto the shore, near the mouth of the Serchio river, two miles from here. Lord Byron formally recognised the body. I could not do it. Bysshe was wearing the double-breasted jacket and nankeen trousers he purchased in Geneva. Do you remember them? The officials here demanded that he should be buried where he was found, with his grave filled with quicklime, but Byron and I revolted at such a coarse procedure. For once I felt grateful to Byron for assuming the manner and authority of lordship. We were given permission to cremate poor Bysshe on the sea-shore. Two servants of the house, together with Byron, built up a funeral pyre on the beach. It was a day of bright sun. How I wish you had been with me, Victor, during these last rites. We placed Bysshe on the flames, and Byron poured wine, salt and frankincense on the conflagration. I could not look, but Byron plunged his hand into the fire and took out Bysshe’s heart still intact. He means to bury the ashes in the Protestant cemetery at Rome, but I could not endure any further time in this country. I must leave. And there is an end of all but despair.
THE DEATH OF MY COMPANION had so thoroughly unnerved me that for two days I lost all sensation of living. I do not know how I conducted myself, or where I travelled; I awoke in soiled linen and, as far as I am aware, I did not eat. I believe that Polidori avoided me, in consideration of my grief, but on the third morning he knocked upon the door of my study.