On her way to her brother's lab, she ran into Brooks. The butler politely handed her an envelope from Jane Van Helsing.
Opening the envelope and reading the brief letter inside, Lady Mary frowned. Jane was not going to be able to make the ceremony. Poor girl, Lady Mary commiserated. Going to Holland to care for her injured aunt and then coming down with the measles—as if Jane didn't have enough on her plate already, being one of those eccentric Van Helsings. How Jane survived in that family of vampire-hunting lunatics, Lady Mary would never understand. Fortunately, she herself was a Frankenstein and removed from such things.
Glancing back up at Brooks, she asked, "Do you know where Frederick is?"
"In the library, asleep on the floor," Brooks replied, stonefaced.
"He's bosky, is he?" Lady Mary asked, shaking her head. "Well, I suppose boys will be boys—or in this case, monsters will be boys."
Brooks looked heavenward, beseeching. Employed for over thirty years with the Frankensteins, he often wondered how he had remained sane.
"How late was he out?" Mary asked. "And can he be made to sober up before the wedding?"
Brooks replied, "He arrived home around four this morning, singing about graveyards and monster balls."
Lady Mary raised her hands to her eyes. Of all the days for Frederick to be nursing a hangover! He would be very cranky when he awoke, and a cranky monster was usually one to avoid.
Brooks leaned in closer to her, confiding, "Master Frederick was with that bell-ringing fellow from Notre Dame last evening."
"Heavens," Lady Mary exclaimed. "That fellow is mad as a hatter. Running around bell towers and swinging on ropes!"
Suitably satisfied that Lady Mary would put the blame square on the humpbacked shoulder where it belonged, Brooks sniffed disdainfully and added, "That bell-ringer fellow took your nephew to one of those places for Frederick impersonators who like to play cards. Unfortunately, one of the young gentlemen decided to try and attain Master Frederick's height with a pair of stilts, and he fell onto a stage where a person of suspect repute was singing. This enraged the singer, who threw a bottle of wine at the young gentleman and hit him on the head. Which upset that bell-ringing fellow, who grabbed up the singer and threw her over his shoulder, fleeing off into the night. Naturally Frederick and his impersonators were all asked to leave."
Brooks leaned in even closer, almost whispering to Lady Mary as if the walls had ears—which of course in the Frankenstein manor could well be true. "You know how Master Frederick feels about rejection."
Lady Mary patted the butler on the arm. "I know. Poor dear boy."
At the first appearance of the Frederick impersonators, Lady Mary had worried that her adoptive nephew would get a swelled head from all the attention being focused upon him. And that wouldn't do at all, since Frederick already wore a size-eleven hat. Instead, her nephew had grown more and more upset until Victor finally explained that the young gentlemen were seeking his approval. Victor's words had finally settled Frederick down, which was a good tiling. A three-hundred-pound monster throwing a temper tantrum was not a pretty sight.
Brooks nodded regretfully.
"Well, there's nothing to be done for it now, Brooks. Let us leave him to sleep two hours more. Then please wake him up and be sure to give him my tisane for overindulgence," Lady Mary commanded. She peeped into the library. Inside, Frederick was sleeping as peacefully as a baby—well, as much of a baby as a six foot eight man with feet the size of Derbyshire could sleep. Mary smiled sweetly, noting that Brooks had gone to the stable and brought a horse blanket back to cover her nephew.
Studying Frederick, Lady Mary worried that he looked a tad greener then usual this morning. Her nephew really must have tied one on last evening.
She quietly closed the library door and, shaking her head, she headed in the direction of her brother's lab. Victor too would be behaving inappropriately, working on the morning of his sister's greatest achievement.
"Men," she mumbled as she made her way down the basement steps to Victor's laboratory. You couldn't live with them and you couldn't live with them. Of course, Ozzie might be the exception to the rule. Mary was certainly willing to find out.
Opening the door, she entered the lab to find her brother scribbling something in his large maroon journal. It was a book Victor Frankenstein was never without.
"Victor, Victor, do you know what day this is?" she asked pettishly.
"The eighteenth," her brother answered absentmindedly, continuing with his writing.
"Good. Now that we know the date, can you tell me what is important about this date?" Lady Mary jibed, her eyes narrowing as Victor continued scribbling.
"It should have worked perfectly," he grumbled. "Just perfectly. I used the right-sized corneas for the eyes. All the muscles and nerves were attached precisely. The patient could see just as clearly in the day as in the night," he muttered to himself.
Lady Mary sighed. Her brother was talking about his latest scientific work. He had taken the eyes of a jaguar and transplanted them into a blind man's eye sockets. The results had been remarkable. The blind man had not only been able to see perfectly well in the daytime, but he had gained uncanny night vision as well. But it appeared a glitch had been thrown into the wheels of the experiment, and Victor never handled glitches very well. In fact, Frederick had learned his temper-tantrumming from Victor, his adopted father.
"The last time we spoke, your patient was doing incredibly well. What has happened, Victor?" Lady Mary asked worriedly. Her brother's transplant operations could give hope to so many.
Her brother raised his head wearily. "Side effects. Who would have thought a jaguar's genes would be so similar to those of an ordinary house cat? Every time my patient sees a mouse, he chases it about the room, then tries to scale the drapes."
"Oh, dear. That is unfortunate."
"It gets worse. He wants milk for every meal and has the unfortunate tendency to groom himself by licking his arms and hands."
"Yes," Lady Mary conceded, "I can see how that would be a great disadvantage at a dinner party. You can't have your guests licking themselves at the table."
"Quite," Victor agreed morosely.
Lady Mary leaned over and patted her brother's arm. "You'll correct the problem. Perhaps you can give your blind patients the eyes of owls. They have remarkably clear sight."
"Hmm?" Victor managed, his forehead creased in thought. "Hmm," he said again. "It might just work." He thought some more, looked momentarily hopeful, but that look was soon replaced with a crestfallen expression. "Owls wouldn't groom themselves at dinner parties, true, but there is still the mousing side effect."
"Oh dear, you're quite right." Lady Mary paused; then, leaning over to look her brother in the eye, she asked archly, "Victor—besides the eighteenth, do you know what day this is?"
Her brother focused, truly focused, on her words, and his eyes widened in recognition. "Good grief. It's Clair's wedding day to that baron fellow!"
Good! Lady Mary rejoiced. She had finally gotten through to her brother. "Yes. And you need to prepare yourself for the ceremony. After all, you are giving the bride away." And with those words, Lady Mary burst into tears. She had just realized for the first time that her niece would be leaving the Frankenstein home—the niece whom she had loved like a daughter, whom she had raised since Clair was four.
Mary remembered the first frog Clair had tried to make fly after attaching paper wings to its back. Grimacing slightly, she also recalled the frog's rather ignominious landing, after it was dropped from the top of the house. Clair had been in tears and never again tried to get any creature to fly unless its wings were already built in by nature. Lady Mary would never forget her niece's horrified expression as the frog fell thirty feet and made a terrible splat.