Jump to new as of October 10, 1999
Jump to new as of October 18, 1999
Jump to new as of October 28, 1999
Author's note: most of the characters you see below aren't based on our beloved P&P2, or on the well-known Boris Karloff movies. The timeframe, for instance, is the 1860's. Accordingly, I'll try to go into a little more detail about the appearances of characters, the feel of their environments, etc. The appearance (& somewhat the personality) of Victor Frankenstein Darcy is inspired by a film called the Revenge of Frankenstein, available from Columbia Home Video. The flick also crops up on Cinemax and Thrillermax occasionally, and inspired some of my plot twists...enough exposition, on with the plot :-)
Chapter 1
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a mad scientist of good fortune must be in want of a project. These projects are invariably harrowing to the minds of his neighbors. It was well, then, that the people of Vienna did not regard Dr. Victor Darcy as a mad scientist. To them, he was simply the most brilliant and successful physician in the city - and its most eligible bachelor. Mrs. Bennet was therefore delighted when her two eldest daughters decided to take up nursing.
"You will have the most AWFUL vagabonds as patients. But the doctors are so very rich, and very handsome."
"Mama, Jane's going into nursing precisely to help those 'awful vagabonds'," Lizzie pointed out. "And I'd prefer a career to a husband - both are demanding, but I can escape the career every evening. Marriage cannot be so easily fled."
"Meaning you can't find a husband because you are too plain and too pert. Still if you were a little more polite, and made more of yourself, men would flock to you." On this point Mrs. Bennet was right. Lizzie was tall and vivacious, with flame-red hair and cat-green eyes. Gentlemen tended to find her both fascinating and intimidating. "But poor Jane," Mrs. Bennet continued. "With her golden hair and blue eyes will catch a husband for sure."
Jane and Lizzie turned up in the ward on time the next morning. The walls were gray with age, and one could scarcely walk between the beds. Not a bed was empty - each contained a grotesque, dirty person, gender indeterminate. Most were missing arms or legs. A little humpbacked man, no taller than Jane, hobbled over to the Misses Bennet.
"Are you the new nurses?" Though he addressed both of them, his eyes never left Jane.
"Yes," said Lizzie, trying not to stare. "I'm Elizabeth Bennet, and this is my sister Jane."
"Oh here comes Dr. Darcy now. Should I introduce you?" The little man seemed unsure of how to proceed.
"If you would please," said Jane with a wide smile.
The Doctor was passing to and fro among his patients, examining them. He paid no attention to the newcomers. Tall and slender, Darcy wore a dirty white smock over his clothes, but he moved with the self-assurance of an aristocrat. His face, too, was aristocratic: pale, aquiline, with high cheekbones and ice-blue eyes. Lizzie had often heard him called handsome by those who hoped to have him for a son-in-law. In truth, though his features were more geometrically pleasing than strictly handsome. They seemed vaguely familiar, too...Lizzie suddenly realized that he resembled a portrait her father had shown her - a portrait of the notorious Baron Frankenstein...
Chapter 2
Darcy (or Frankenstein, as Lizzie now thought of him) bent over a patient with an injured arm. The doctor pulled it out of its sling. He was careful not to damage it further, but there was no sympathy or gentleness in his touch.
"Quite a work of art," he commented, pointing to a tattoo on the injured forearm. The 'work of art' showed a blowsy décolleté woman with the words "Sal's easy but not free" above her. Lizzie didn't need to turn her head to see that Jane was blushing furiously.
"You'll have to have that arm off." said Darcy to his patient.
"But that's me right hand! 'Ow am I going to work?" the man howled.
"What's his profession?" said Darcy to the hunchback.
"Pickpocket."
"Well, as of now, he's a left-handed pickpocket," said Darcy in a level voice.
"Beg pardon, doctor," began the hunchback, "These are the new nurses, Miss Jane Bennet, and Miss Elizabeth Bennet." Darcy looked at them without enthusiasm.
"More rich young things trying to ease their consciences with a little charity work, eh?" He said. "Have them bathe the patients, and then we'll see how charitable they feel."
Later that evening, Lizzie slipped into Darcy's surgery, where he treated rich hypochondriacs and charged a fortune. She slipped up the back stairs, and into his private rooms. She hid in the shadows when the doctor walked in. He was exquisitely dressed, in well-tailored clothes that emphasized his lean build, but could not make his cold intelligent face look foppish. A table was laid with dinner for one, and he strolled over to it, and began to slice up the roast chicken. Now is the time, thought Lizzie, I must do what I came here to do...
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Chapter 3
Lizzie spoke. "Good evening, Baron Frankenstein."
Darcy turned and looked at her. "Good evening, Miss Bennet," he said coolly. "And my name is Darcy, Victor Darcy - you are I think acquainted with it, pray use it." If her appearance or her accusation startled him, he gave no sign of it.
"That may be your name now, but once you were the infamous Baron Victor Frankenstein. I can prove it."
"Assuming that I were this Baron, what then?"
"I would ask you to take me on as an apprentice." Darcy's thin lips curled into a faint smile. "Run home to your mother, my dear young lady. Surely she can find you a proper beau. Or do you expect to build one yourself, with my help?"
Lizzie did not know whether to be amused or offended. But she pressed on. "I want neither to catch nor to make a husband. I hope to be a surgeon, and what better teacher could there be than you?"
"I am not a one-man university, invested with the power to grant degrees."
"No, but you are the proof that degrees are basically unnecessary. You set up in business here three years ago, with no credentials to speak of, and have established the most successful medical practice in Vienna."
"What training have you had?"
"My father, the late Dr. Bennet, taught me at home, and my sister and I aided him in his practice. The University does not accept women."
"I see. Your father was a near-genius, marred only by his humanitarian mindset. You've inherited that, I suppose?"
"I would rather cure people than experiment on them, yes. But I do have to experiment in order to be able to cure them."
"Hmm," said Darcy. "And if I do not teach you what you want to know?"
"The authorities will suddenly discover that the late Baron Frankenstein is alive and well and practicing in Vienna. I don't think you'd consider that a pleasant experience."
Darcy looked thoughtful. "Come with me," he said abruptly. "I think I can give you the training you desire, with a minimum of outrage to your humane sensibilities."
"Where are we going?"
"To my laboratory. Better bring your coat, it's a long walk."
Chapter 4
Darcy led Lizzie through one of the less civilized parts of town. A working class neighborhood, lacking in sophistication but not in liquor, it wasn't particularly criminal or unsafe. Still it was a disconcerting experience, walking in such a place after sunset with Darcy's cool, uncaring voice asking question after question about her education. When his curiosity was satisfied on this point, he started asking about her plans.
"Do you really think that you, a woman, can build a successful practice, without a degree?" he asked. "The men here would not want a woman doctor."
"True, but the women would."
"I give you leave to steal as many of my socialite patients as you like. They are an infernal nuisance."
"How so?"
"Take Miss Sophie Grey for example. On alternate weeks, she comes in, complaining of heart palpitations. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with her - except for her desire to appear before me, in underclothes, and try to entrap me into marriage. I've raised my fees six times, hoping to get rid of her. No luck."
"How have you managed to avoid the trap, so to speak?"
"A female nurse is in the room at all times. I try to minimize contact with her, try to discourage her attentions. Nothing seems to stop her, or any of the others. I cannot understand why they are so persistent - have you any theories, Miss Bennet?"
Lizzie thought of her first impressions of him. The man had an aura of searingly cold intelligence, weird and fascinating. Many women - and men too - might assume that it was only superficial, that there was a normal, friendly heart and soul behind it. She of course knew better.
"Have you ever heard of the charm of the uncatchable, Baron?"
"In Vienna, my name is Darcy, Victor Darcy," he said, as he led her down into what appeared to be the wine cellar at the back of a bar. He threw open the heavy door to reveal a room full of glass beakers and electrical wires. The hunchback was already there.
"Hello, George!" Darcy smiled at the little man with surprising warmth. "Miss Bennet, I don't think you've been formally introduced: this is George Bingley."
Chapter 5
Lizzie shook hands graciously with the little hunchback, Mr. Bingley.
"Mr. Bingley," said Dr. Darcy, "Has the parcel arrived?"
"Yes, sir. It's right over here." The little man seemed rather uneasy as Darcy strode confidently over to the table. The "parcel" was just a long bundle of red-stained burlap, partly open. Through the opening, Lizzie could see the pickpocket's tattoo.
"One needs sensitive fingers in his line of work," Darcy remarked. "And the break in the bone can be mended."
"It could have mended while still attached to its rightful owner," Lizzy protested.
Darcy tutted. "We've been partners for less than an hour, and you're already criticizing my techniques. Still, you might find it comforting to know that the same accident which broke his right arm, completely destroyed the nerves in his shoulder. He would never have been able to use it again."
Lizzie did not, actually, find this terribly comforting. "I see you're still up to your old tricks," she said. "Cobbling together people out of bits of other people."
"What else would I be doing?" Darcy stepped into another room within the lab, Lizzie following him closely but reluctantly. "Here's my latest project," he said, pulling a white cover off a glass vat full of water. Lizzy stared down into the water in shock. She had heard stories of the Frankenstein-monster, that wretched creature so grotesque that its own creator had fled from it in terror when it first came to life. None of the stories had prepared her for this. In the vat lay a man of average height, muscular build, and handsome features. There were scars and sutures in odd places, but otherwise...
"He's perfect," she murmured in astonishment.
"Yes, he's a vast improvement on my previous attempt," said Darcy, with evident pride. "He doesn't have a brain yet, but that I shall supply tonight."
Lizzie looked at him, horror and suspicion in her heart. Did this coldly insane genius intend to use her for a donor?
Darcy gave a thin smile at her reaction. "No, Miss Bennet, your brain is far more useful where it is," he said.
"Indeed it is," put in Bingley. "You see, I'm to have that body?"
Chapter 6
The operation on Bingley went slowly but smoothly. Lizzie did not actually participate, but aided Darcy. He kept up his end of the bargain by explaining what he was doing at each stage of the procedure, and by making sure that she could see what was happening. The removal of Bingley's brain from his anesthetized body, was delicate work, and the process of putting it in the "constructed" body was no less exacting.
"Tape the electrodes to his chest, either side of his heart."
"It's a clear night, and this is the cellar," Lizzie protested. "There's no lightning to supply electricity."
"You mean to say that that old wives' tale is still making the rounds?" Darcy stared at her. "I've never needed lightning for my work." He strode over to a treadmill
Chapter 6 (continued)
Darcy casually removed his lab coat, jacket and waistcoat and stepped onto the treadmill. Lizzie looked at him skeptically. Somehow, he hadn't struck her as the athletic type.
"Well," she said as he walked, faster and faster, "I've often heard of human dynamos, but this is the first time I've ever met one."
He didn't answer. He was running, almost bounding now. The movement reminded her of a greyhound in a race. A greyhound, forever chasing an artificial rabbit which it could not catch. Eventually, it would burst its heart in the pursuit and perish. Suddenly she realized she was thinking of Darcy and his infamous attempts to create life. She rather hoped this mad quest wouldn't get him killed. Or her.
Blue-white electric bolts screamed down the guide wires, from the treadmill to the chest of Bingley's new body. It jerked sharply, bursting the restraints. Then it sat upright...
Chapter 7
"I say, Darcy, did it work?" Bingley's voice was cheerful and friendly. A smile twitched its way across Darcy's face.
"The transplant obviously did," he said. "But we don't know for a while if your brain will adjust to its new body properly." He pulled out a syringe. "But now, you must rest-"
"Before you put me under, Darcy, could I see *me*?"
Darcy frowned. "Sorry, I don't have any mirrors. I'm a doctor, not a beautician, you know."
Lizzie eyed the "monster" critically. "Maybe you are, at that. Though it's an awfully radical beautifying."
Bingley smiled. "I'll take your word for it, Miss Bennet."
"Miss Bennet and I will take you back to the hospital, and put you in a private room." said Darcy as he injected the sedative. "I want to be able to keep an eye on you." Bingley's eyes closed.
"We could've gotten him there more easily under his own power," Lizzie objected.
"He can't control his new body properly, and won't be able to for several days." Lizzie suddenly remembered that he had done this before. Without a volunteer, if the stories were to be believed. She felt suddenly cold.
Getting Bingley back to the hospital was relatively easy, Darcy had hired a cart for the occasion and all that was needed was to carefully carry Bingley on a stretcher into the cart, throw a sheet over him, and be on their way. Lizzie thought she saw someone in the shadows when they unloaded Bingley at the hospital. She was not sure, though.
Darcy did not offer to accompany her home. She was not sorry for that. Still it was not safe to travel alone after dark. She had walked a block from the hospital when it happened.
"Miss!" A tall young man stepped out of the shadows. He was handsome, in a bland way, and dressed like a gentleman "My Name is Wickham"
Chapter 8
Mr. Wickham stepped under the gaslight. There he proved to be a blandly handsome man, his complexion marred by a few vague blemishes a little below the hairline. His clothes were of stylish cut but cheap materials. "I mean you no harm," he said to Lizzie.
"Lucky man." She said sarcastically. "If you had meant me harm, you would have ended by receiving, not giving, pain."
He stared at her for a moment. Then, he burst out laughing - laughing hysterically.
"Upon my word, sir, you are very easy to amuse," said Lizzie. "If I told you a proper joke, it would drive you straight out of your mind."
"Please forgive me, Miss Bennet," he said wiping his eyes. "It's been long since I've heard a jest, and longer still since I've had the heart to make one. Indeed, it has been a long time since Dr. Darcy - as he was NOT called then - drove all laughter from my heart."
"What do you mean?" Lizzie's voice was calm but her heart was not. The Baron's projects had caused much pain and suffering, it was said, and not just for the poor wretches he experimented on.
"I will not use his rightful name, though I know it well," Mr. Wickham began. "You want to interrupt, and tell me that Darcy is his real name? So be it, but let me continue. Before he came to Vienna, THAT MAN lived in Geneva. I fell into his power one night, in a tavern there. When I came to, I was trapped in his laboratory. He experimented on what he pleased to call my nervous system -without anesthetic."
A chill ran through Lizzie's body. Wickham noticed her more rigid pose with something that looked like satisfaction. Then he went on with his story. "I fought with him and escaped, before he did anything worse to me. But what he did was bad enough. I want him to put it right."
"I don't understand."
"May I walk with you a ways? My problems will soon become obvious." His weaknesses turned out to be slight in appearance. A limp in one leg. A stiff left hand. But to Lizzie -
"Good heavens!" She said, "You're in the very early stages of nervous deterioration. I shall try to arrange an appointment with Dr. Darcy, as soon as possible." Then she stopped, and looked Wickham in the eye.
"I suggest that you leave your accusations at home, sir, when you do meet him. The Doctor would not be amused." Wickham smiled blandly and nodded.
With a stiff little curtsey, Lizzie walked home alone. Her mother had waited up for her all night. In answer to Mrs. Bennet's questions, Lizzie said rather curtly that she fancied Darcy much more as an employer than as a potential in-law, thank you very much, and she liked him still less as a potential husband. Having thus covered all the possibilities, she went to bed.
Chapter 9
The next morning, Lizzie again went to see Darcy at his surgery. She found him taking his breakfast.
"Forsooth, Miss Bennet, are you some sort of poltergeist that only appears at mealtimes?" He remarked. She told him of her encounter with Mr. Wickham.
"Nervous deterioration, eh?" Darcy's tone was mocking. "I suppose that was inevitable." The ruthless scientist changed from mocking to sad.
"Then you'll correct the problem?"
"Never!" Darcy's eyes shone glacier-blue with anger, but he did not raise his voice. "This weakness is something he alone has brought on himself."
"You deny that his condition is your fault?" Lizzie demanded. Then she lowered her voice. "You deny ever experimenting on Mr. Wickham?"
Darcy took a deep breath. "My obligations to the man called Wickham were once grave. And...complicated. Believe me when I say that I have completely discharged those obligations."
"Am I interrupting something?" drawled Wickham's voice at the threshold.
Chapter 10
Darcy stared at Wickham. His expression was a strange mix of emotions which Lizzie could not fathom. He recognized the man, that much was certain.
"I really ought to change my locks." Darcy said. "It seems that anyone - and anything - can get into my quarters."
"What does that matter, you overdressed peacock?" Wickham snarled. In the presence of the man who had wronged him, his good humor had completely vanished. Not a pleasant sight, thought Lizzie, but not surprising either.
"Look at what you've done to me!" Wickham walked towards Darcy. Or rather, hobbled. With his bad hand clutched to his side, like a claw. Lizzie gasped.
"It looks so much worse than it did last night." She said.
"That's because it is worse!" groaned Wickham. "Darcy, you must help me. You owe it to me!"
"I owe you nothing anymore. That was part of our agreement, when last we met." Darcy retorted. "I warned you about the possibility of this happening to you."
"Liar! You said it wouldn't happen!"
"IF you took care of yourself, and didn't drink or brawl, Wickham." This took Lizzie by surprise. What if Darcy had already tried to atone for his mistreatment of Wickham? What if Wickham's illness had been brought on by his own vices, rather than by Darcy's experiments.
"You must help me!"
"And if I refuse, you'll threaten Bingley up at the hospital - don't start, man, I saw you skulking about last night," mused Darcy as he picked up a silver knife from the breakfast. "Very well, Wickham, I have no objection to operating on you again." He polished the knife with his napkin, then stared at it ominously. "If you don't mind going straight to your own funeral as a result."
Wickham and Lizzie stared at him aghast. Seeing their disbelief, Darcy elaborated. "My dear fellow," he began ironically, "Once you're unconscious, you have no guarantee that I'll keep my end of the bargain."
"What about your assistant?"
"I don't know. Miss Bennet?"
"I don't mind operating to save a life, even the life of an unctuous, vicious man who feuds with my employer," said Lizzie. "But I'm not sure I'm qualified." The two men frowned simultaneously.
"For Bingley's sake, I'll give you a speed course in brain surgery." Darcy said. "Wickham, a week from today, you have a 2pm appointment for surgery. Miss Bennet will wield the scalpel. Is that agreeable to you?" Wickham nodded. "Very well, report to the charity hospital in seven days."
With an exaggerated bow, Wickham made his exit.
"Since you're here, you might as well have breakfast with me." said Darcy to Lizzie after the intruder had gone. "And if you like, you may learn all about Wickham's grievances, from a man scarcely less involved in them than he."
"Namely you."
"Precisely..."
Chapter 11
"It may seem to you, Miss Bennet, that I am a man of wealth and consequence in this city. You are mistaken. Oh, yes, I have money and influence enough for my purposes. Yet, as the sole heir to the Frankenstein estate, I was far better off. In the material sense only - today I am far richer in knowledge than I was then."
"Is there a point here, Baron?"
"You are impatient this morning, Miss Bennet."
"That's because I have to be at the hospital in half an hour. *I* have work to do this morning."
"So do I - at my private surgery."
"Fending off the advances of Miss Sophie Grey? That must tiring," Lizzie rejoined sarcastically.
"More than you know. But you wanted to learn about Mr. Wickham."
"Yes. As briefly as possible."
"The short version is this: at Castle Frankenstein, I assembled a body out of, shall we say, spare parts. It was large, powerful, and exceedingly grotesque. I put a brain into it, jolted it with electricity, and it came to life. The personality it manifested-" Darcy paused for effect "-now goes by the name Wickham."
"What?!?!"
"When it first saw me," Darcy continued, "It fled in panic - flinging itself out of the window and into the river below. I gave it up for lost, and began again. This time, I took more care with the body, constructing something that was at least tolerably handsome. Then...IT returned. Hobbling and clumsy, its movements much as you saw it today."
"But-"
"I know. One thing at a time. Its condition was due to a brain-damage, suffered in the fall into the river. A taste for liquor, which the poor wretch had picked up somewhere in its adventures, hadn't helped."
"Where had it been?"
"My creation had washed ashore near Ingstadt, a village some ways downstream. It killed a woman - by accident, it said, though the villagers claimed otherwise - and was wanted by the law."
Darcy sighed, staring off into the distance. "It cursed me for bring it to life. 'Go back to Ingstadt, then,' I said. 'The peasants will gladly relieve you of the life you find so unpleasant.'
"'No, Baron. Fix my brain, and for God's sake, give me a real body!'"
"'You have a real body.'"
"No. Like the one I had before.'"
"'Before?'"
"'Before you made me into a monster!'"
"I was stunned. The brain could remember its old life, and its original body. I had not succeeded in creating life, only in prolonging it! And then, I recalled with shame how I had acquired that brain. An English traveller come to visit me at my castle. A charming man - with as little conscience as myself, but with a cowardly streak and a weak heart. I had shown him the unfinished body I had made, and he died straight away of a heart attack."
Lizzie did not quite know whether to smile at the absurdity of this last, or wring her hands in horror. Luckily, Darcy expected neither reaction of her, and continued with his strange tale.
"I resolved to make amends as best I could. I repaired the injuries to the brain, and placed it in the new body I spoke of. That body you have seen today. I sent this new and improved version on his way, with the understanding that my responsibilities towards him were wholly discharged. At the time, he agreed. Do you?"
Lizzie nodded. "How did you lose your estate?" She asked.
Darcy's face grew pale and diamond-hard. "The Constable of Ingstadt traced Wickham to my home. He learned of my experiments and put me on trial. I was sentenced to be hanged. From that rather unpleasant fate, I was saved by the only friend I had."
"Bingley?"
"Yes. He was the warden's son, deformed from birth as you first saw him. We had played together as children - my father was the magistrate of the area. Perhaps it all started there - wondering why young George Bingley was so different from myself. At any rate, he helped me escape."
"And you repaid him as best you could," Lizzie mused.
Chapter 12
Lizzie had much to meditate on as she made her way to work. She was inclined to believe Darcy's story, if only because she saw no reason why he would lie about the events. He could easily have used his story to dissuade her from operating on Wickham, for instance. Yet, he had made no attempt to do so.
When she got to the hospital, there was no sign of Jane.
"Has anyone seen Miss Jane?" she asked.
"She went round a bit earlier," said one of the patients.
"I think she went into one of the private rooms," said another.
Lizzie found Jane in Bingley's room. The two were chatting enthusiastically. "Hello, Lizzie," said Jane. "I found the door to this room locked. When I got it open, I found this man inside. It doesn't seem right to treat a patient like that. Although I know, of course, that Dr. Darcy means well."
He doesn't, actually, thought Lizzie. Aloud, she said, "This man is in here for his own protection. He has enemies who wish to harm him."
"I can't believe that anyone would want to harm Mr. Bingley," said Jane, with an admiring glance that made the handsome young topic of conversation blush. "He seems very amiable."
Bingley realized that Lizzie must be puzzled at him giving Jane his original name. "Tell me, Miss Bennet, what happened to that little hunchbacked man who used to work here? Darcy called him Carl - poor fellow didn't seem to have a last name."
Lizzie understood this as it was meant: no one at the hospital had known his former self by his true name. "We must be going, Mr. Bingley," she said, taking Jane with her and locking the door after them.
"You know, Lizzy," said Jane.
"Why?"
"I've been introduced to many nice men, but just now...I think I've finally met a man whom I could become partial to."
Lizzie's mind suddenly conjured up Darcy, with his grim past and utter ruthlessness - and his curious sense of honor. She dismissed the image immediately. "why in the world am I thinking about him?" she wondered.
Chapter 13
Darcy did not arrive until late that evening. He found Lizzy with Bingley. "Mr. Bingley has made a new friend today," she said teasingly. She sat on one side of the bed as Darcy approached from the other.
"Your sister was always remarkably kind to me, Miss Bennet," said Bingley, as Darcy began to examine him.
"True," Lizzie conceded. "But now, I fancy she likes you better than ever."
"I can't believe that."
"You're a very handsome man now, sir," Lizzie explained to Bingley. Darcy looked up at her, eyes flashing. She stared back. His pale face reddened slightly, and he bent over his patient again.
"And you've always been a very amiable person," she continued. "You must've been, to keep on friendly terms with this intellectual iceberg."
Darcy's lips curled slightly upward. "I'll take that as a compliment," he said.
"He isn't as bad as all that," Bingley insisted. "Really."
"I'll have to take your word for it, then. Incidentally, Doctor, how soon can he be on his feet? I think Jane would like to meet Mr. Bingley socially."
"He should be able up and about in four or five days. Miss Grey's having a ball six days from now. I should be able to finesse invitations for the two of you and Miss Jane."
"That would be wonderful, sir." Lizzie meant it. Miss Grey might have dubious standards in men, but by all accounts she certainly knew how to throw a party. "But won't she insist on you coming too?"
"To see poor Bingley, whom the rich folk used to treat like dirt, the toast of the party? It'd be worth it."
Chapter 14
Author's warning: more Mad Science this time. Some implied violence and very mild innuendo.
"Come to the laboratory tonight," said Darcy, after they had told Bingley good-night. "I have something to show you..."
"Not another one!" Lizzie protested, about half an hour later. A still, human form lay on the laboratory's operating table, covered with a sheet. Darcy led her up to it, and uncovered the face.
Lizzie gasped. That high aquiline nose, criss-crossed with scars, the lifeless blue eyes. Concave cheeks and temples, corpse-pale. "It's you!" she exclaimed.
"Well, it will be, if necessary," Darcy replied. "This took me longer than anything else I've done."
"And is it very like you?"
"Yes, apart from the scars and sutures. And of course, this," he lifted the right arm. On it was the pickpocket's tattoo. "Help me get this into the tank."
By the time Lizzie walked home that evening, she had discovered that Darcy was a gaunt, fine-boned man, with muscles that were practically non-existent to the eye, but lean and hard to the touch. At least, if his dopppelganger was anything to judge by. He had also explained his plans for said doppelganger. Impossibly daring, yet a logical and relatively ethical extension of his activities to date.
Darcy, meanwhile, went to call upon Miss Sophie Grey.
"My dear Doctor," she beamed. "I'm so glad you've changed your mind and decided to come to my little soiree! Of course, I'd like to meet your friend Bingley and his friends the Misses Bennet. I'll send them invitations tomorrow."
"I am in your debt then," Darcy said with a bow. Not a stiff bow - his manners were impeccable. A keen observer might have seen his lips twitch sardonically, his eyes flicker with a cool, remote irritation. Fortunately for her, Miss Grey was not a keen observer.
"What think you of my new dress?" She asked.
"It suits your personality very well," Darcy answered after a hard stare. Silently, he cursed the stupidity of blonde women who wear yellow and think a little "tantalizing" decolletage will seduce a man who knows anatomy inside out. He made his escape as best he could, and retreated to his residence, meditating on Miss Elizabeth's superiority to Miss Grey in every respect.
Chapter 15, Part 1
Author's Warning: mild gross-out element here.
Miss Grey's party was a great success. Bingley was the most popular man there, and Jane the most beautiful woman. Miss Grey was not even jealous. She had eyes for only one man - Darcy. Lizzy found herself - as usual - surrounded by foolish young men, good for only a laugh or two, who were rather afraid of her.
One of the tall windows shattered. A shape disentangled itself from the curtains and moved towards the throng. Shards of glass tinkled beneath its feet. The face was indescribable - constantly twitching and convulsed. Saliva dribbled from one corner of its gaping mouth. It shuffled, apelike, across the floor. Its clothes, though disheveled, were those of a gentleman. The guests got out of its way as it lurched towards Darcy. It stopped in front of him.
"Frankenstein!" Lizzy could barely recognize Wickham's voice. "Help me!"
The creature collapsed at its maker's feet. Darcy knelt beside it. Gently - more gently than Lizzy had ever seen him - he checked for a pulse. Then, he stood up.
"It appears the poor lunatic is dead," he said, a note of sadness in his voice. "What is to be done?"
Chapter 15, Part II
Author's warning: some violence. one instance of unladylike cussing.
"What is to be done?" Lizzie echoed Darcy's words of the evening before. The two of them were closeted in his "town" clinic, far from the hospital. The usual clients were absent - driven far away by one infamous word: Frankenstein.
Darcy shrugged. "For me, nothing really," he said. "I shall go on protesting that I am a perfectly harmless fellow who changed my name from Frankenstein to Darcy precisely to avoid being mistaken for the notorious Baron."
"What about Jane and Bingley?"
Darcy stared at her with a peculiar intensity. "You must get them together," he answered. "Find a church in town that will marry them immediately. Then put them on the next train out of town - possibly out of the country."
"That's rather drastic." Lizzie tapped nervously on the arm of her chair.
"I'd rather not take chances with Bingley's happiness. Or your sister's, if it comes to that." This is the man I once thought heartless? said Lizzie to herself. "I understand that," she said aloud. "What I don't understand is why you're so determined to stay."
"Unlike Bingley, I've made a life for myself here. A life worth keeping, if possible. And if worst comes to worst, there's the plan I told you of."
"Damn the plan!" Lizzie exploded, then blushed and got hold of her temper. Darcy seemed faintly surprised but not at all shocked. "The plan," Lizzie continued in a quieter tone, "Depends entirely on how well you've taught me this last week."
"You'll manage," said Darcy. "And you'd best be on your way. Meet me at the hospital once our love-birds are safely out of town."
It was several hours before Lizzie reached the hospital. Her thoughts were pleasanter than they had been that morning: seeing the newly wedded Bingleys off to England had been a definite treat. As she approached the ward, she heard the muffled, grumbling sounds of a mob breaking up. One of the orderlies dashed out.
"Come quick, Ma'am!" He gasped, "The patients have gone mad - they're killing the doctor!
Lizzie ran into the room. The violence stopped almost at once, so well liked was she. Frankenstein was not so fortunate. His refined face had been battered beyond recognition - it was only by his clothes and his slender distinctive build that she recognized him at all. One leg appeared to be broken, and the tears in his clothing suggested other, equally cruel injuries...
It was with great difficulty, and the help of the orderly, that she'd managed to get Frankenstein back to the secret lab. The orderly had left again, presumably to tattle to the police. Time was short.
With her ear to his chest, his heartbeat registered only as a vague flutter, increasingly faint and irregular. He could not hope to live, at least. At least, not in this body...
She had just removed the brain when the knock came at the door. She set the organ in the appropriate tray and hid it before answering the door. It was the police.
"Is Frankenstein here?" The head constable asked.
Lizzie led them to the battered, now-lifeless corpse. "His patients attacked him," she said with genuine emotion. "I operated on him in the hopes of saving his life. No good."
"He didn't teach you well enough, eh?" Said the policeman heartlessly.
Lizzie looked innocent. "He told me his name was Frankenstein, but not the Frankenstein," she said. "I knew this lab was for medical research but I didn't realize that he was doing anything illegal." She looked miserable, and the constable softened a little.
"We'll take the body," he said. "In the morning we'll be back to destroy his equipment. If any of this is yours, get it out of here before then."
Once they had left, Lizzie took the brain into the back room, and stared down into the tank. into the blank face of Frankenstein's doppelganger. "Pray Heaven I have the skill to do this," she murmured as she went to work...
Some hours later, Frankenstein's new body twitched convulsively. Lizzie jumped off the treadmill and dashed over to him. The blue eyes that met hers were keen with life and intelligence.
"Victor?" Her voice was no more than a whisper.
"Elizabeth," the tenderness in the voice sent a thrill through her...
Some months later, the Bingleys introduced their English friends to their in-laws: Dr. Elizabeth Bennet and Dr. Victor Bennet.