Chapter Text
If anything, the vexation was worse than the anger.
She had been furious at her sham of a marriage. She had not been present – the groom had not been present – her signature on the certificate had only been obtained after she admitted to herself that, locked into her room, she could not survive indefinitely without water.
The marriage was not valid, except that her father and uncle, and her new father-in-law Baron Frankenstein, would all swear blind that it was, that there had been a full legal ceremony with both bride and groom present.
So there was nothing she could do but be carted off to the Frankenstein estate, so livid she could barely speak.
But the estate had a gaping hole in the fact of it.
Her husband did not seem to exist.
Baron Frankenstein had not introduced her to him. Servants had sworn they had heard nothing about Baron Frankenstein having a bastard son until the wedding had been announced in the papers. It had not been much of an announcement, either: ‘Lately, M Adam Frankenstein Esq., to Mlle Camille Delacourt.’
There did not appear to be anyone else in the house apart from the servants and her new father-in-law, who must have been very young when he fathered the son he claimed to have, and was absent from the house for long hours of the day, returning at dinner time looking frustrated.
But when she demanded to meet her new husband, the Baron refused her. He was a heartless man, that much was clear, and scornful besides.
Eventually, she hit upon the idea of telling him that she must meet her husband sometime, otherwise he would never see grandchildren.
He had almost laughed at her.
“My – son – will never father children. It was born with the capability, but once I saw what I had made, I performed a sterilisation to ensure that it would father no obscenities. If you feel you must have a child, I can provide. It will ensure the result looks like a Frankenstein. Believe me, you would not want my son to get a child on you, if you met it.”
Camille had recoiled, drawn herself up, and told him to never dare to such a presumption upon her person again.
But that still left the gaping question of where her husband actually was.
Two weeks after the ‘wedding’, there were visitors. The Honourable William Frankenstein and his fiancée Elizabeth Harlander.
They took tea together while Camille seethed at the Baron, and the disapproval of Mlle Harlander was palpable. Someone, at least, understood the wrongness of what the Baron had done.
Eventually, Camille managed to get her alone.
“Mlle Harlander, I must insist on someone showing me to my husband. I have been in this house a fortnight, I have not met him, nobody will tell me anything about him. I refuse to be played a fool.”
Mlle Harlander shot her a look of infinite sadness. “I can bring you to him. But you must tell no-one. Be ready after dark.”
*
Camille was ready. She sat up late, and Mlle Harlander came to her room. Together, carefully shielding their candles, Camille allowed herself to be led out into the grounds of the estate, down a path which she never saw anyone but the Baron tread during daylight hours.
They stopped outside a smallish sort of barn. The door held an impressive iron padlock, but instead, Mlle Harlander led Camille around the side of the barn, until she stopped to pull a ladder from where it had been hidden within the bushes.
“Wait until I call for you.”
With clearly practised movements, Mlle Harlander climbed the ladder and pushed at one of the upper panels of the barn, slipping under it where it gaped, holding her candle in one hand.
Camille waited. She thought she could hear quiet voices from within the barn, one low and one higher-pitched, but could not make out what they said.
At length, Mlle Harlander quietly called out, “You can come in, now.”
Careful with her candle, Camille managed the climb up the ladder and push herself under the loose panel. Within the barn, on the other side, a pile of crates allowed her to climb down. She was so focused on descending that she did not take in what was held within the barn until her feet were firm on the ground.
A heavy block of stone was set in the middle of the barn. Chained to it was what Camille thought of as a man because she could think of no other word to apply to him.
He was tall – at least seven feet – and pale, greyish, hairless, with black-tinged lips. His skin was a patchwork with deep scars for seams, and one eye was darker than the other, with almost no sclera. The pupil of that eye reflected the candlelight in red.
He wore only a few scraps of stained, once-white wrappings.
Camille managed not to scream. It helped that the man was standing very still, and appeared to be, if such a thing was possible, even more nervous than she was. It also helped that beside him stood Mlle Harlander, calm but very worried.
Then Mlle Harlander turned to her, forcing herself to smile, and said as calmly as she could manage, “Camille, this is Adam.”
It was the first time someone had addressed Camille by her first name in weeks. Even her personal maid had switched to ‘Madame Frankenstein’.
Then the man – Adam – her husband – very shyly stepped forward, chains clinking, and said in a low, rough voice, as if coached (very probably by Mlle Harlander), “Hello, Camille, I am very pleased to meet you.”
He picked over the words like a bird, as if it took a little effort for his throat to form them.
Camille tore her eyes from Adam to Mlle Harlander. “Why is he chained up?”
Mlle Harlander’s eyes were pleading. “Victor thinks he’s dangerous – but he isn’t – he really isn’t. He’s a good person. And Victor won’t let him out for other reasons, too. He wants Adam to be better at – speaking – and he is, I’ve taught him so much, he’s read every book I brought down to him, but…”
Adam picked up her sentence where she left off. “I am not good at – talking – to Victor. He does not want to listen.”
Mlle Harlander drew another breath. “So you see, Adam didn’t have anything to do with your marriage, not at all. But the Baron wanted –”
“My money. I’d guessed that much. The Baron is a bastard.”
“What is a bastard?” asked Adam, appearing to genuinely not know.
“Oh heavens,” cried Camille, aghast “Has he been locked in here his whole life?”
“No,” said Mlle Harlander. “He was in a different place before this, but Victor… Victor decided to kill him. He was going to burn the whole building down. He changed his mind, but only after he’d soaked the place in flammables, so he couldn’t keep Adam there anymore. He’d have never moved Adam to the estate, otherwise.”
Camille, feeling a little faint, sat down on one of the crates. “I think you’d better tell me the rest.”
*
The story was fantastical – something she never would have believed if it were not for seeing Adam before her very eyes – but he was there, so she must believe it.
Mlle Harlander did most of the telling. Adam, at parts of the story, kept his head bent so far down that his face could not be seen, deeply ashamed of his own origins.
Once the tale was done, Camille found herself looking around at the interior of the moonlit barn. The four walls. The old crates. The stone block with its chains.
“How do we get him out?” she said.
*
They began to lay plans, but such plans could not yet be put in motion, and in the meantime, Adam needed company.
Elizabeth – to Camille, she was Elizabeth now – had been leaving books for Adam in the only crate that he could reach within the length of his chains, so when Victor was not torturing him, he did have entertainment, but what he needed was company. Thus far, he had experienced only the cold anger of his creator, and Elizabeth’s kindness.
Camille and Elizabeth began to divide the nights between them. On alternate nights, Camille would sneak from her room, creep through the grounds, climb into the barn, and talk to her husband.
It was very easy to grow used to Adam’s appearance when they talked, simply because he was perhaps the sweetest man she had ever met. It took only a few nights for him to become simply Adam, the man even more trapped than she was. Adam, whose signature on their marriage certificate had certainly been faked. Adam, who had not known he had a wife and was rather struck by the fact that he suddenly had one.
Elizabeth had done her best by him, but he still knew little enough of the world. He needed conversation, and Camille readily provided it. Adam, eager to please, would talk with her on any topic he knew about, and listen raptly when Camille spoke of a concept that for him was new.
She explained to him, too, the circumstances which she believed had led up to their ‘marriage’ – William Frankenstein wanting to sell the estate, the Baron not wanting to, and looking for money elsewhere. He might have married Camille himself, but she had seen the way his eyes followed Elizabeth. Camille could guess why he had chosen to remain single, and get at Camille’s fortune another way.
Not that he would succeed. Her uncle and father cared little enough for her, but the lawyers were a little better. As soon as she had smelled a rat about whether or not her husband existed, she had written to them and made it clear that she did not trust the Baron one bit, and that no money was to be made over unless it was certain that the request came from her husband, not her father-in-law.
Camille had carefully, quietly, just once during the day, walked past the barn while the Baron was in there. She had heard the insults and the accusations of stupidity, and then the sounds of pain, and she had wanted to fly in there and strike Victor Frankenstein full in the face because Adam was clever, god damn it, he was a born scholar who wasn’t even allowed a bookshelf.
Conversation was not all Camille knew she could provide. Any comfort given must be either taken away before morning, or hidden within the sole crate which the Baron never checked. So the blanket she started bringing Adam was only a temporary warmth, but had smiled so when she first presented it to him, wrapping himself in it and murmuring how soft it was…
And a few nights after, he had sat wrapped in it, with one of the barn’s mice in his palm, gentle and careful as anything.
She began to smuggle him food, too. The first time, it was a single slice of apple cake which Camille had asked her maid to obtain for her. She did not think she would ever forget the look on Adam’s face when he bit into it.
She had stopped, too, holding back by the crates. Instead, she sat beside Adam on the stone slab, trying not to think about what happened on it during the daytime. She could do nothing for him then. All she could do was work with Elizabeth on the plan of escape.
In order to make things work, they had to bring a few more people into the plan. At first, it was only Camille’s maid, Christina, who she knew she could trust. Even then, they did not tell the whole truth. Adam’s origins they determined to keep a secret, but what they did tell was that Camille’s husband was locked up in the barn, and that they were determined to get him away from the Baron.
Christina then brought in the second person – a young man named Hans with whom she seemed to share an understanding. It was decided that, if Hans kept silent and helped in the escape, Camille and Adam would keep him employed afterwards.
So they planned and made contingencies, and Camille and Elizabeth sent off certain letters of enquiry and instruction, until the day came.
The day when a pair of carriages leaving the estate would not be at all remarked upon.
The day of Elizabeth’s wedding.
*
Elizabeth said her goodbyes the previous night, and left a file and a set of clothes in Adam’s crate. The event of the wedding would keep the Baron out of the barn all day, giving Adam plenty of time to file through his chains and dress himself.
Camille did her best to appear normal – to be the graceful, enchanting young madame, the Baron’s daughter-in-law, pleased for her new aunt. She hardly knew what she said or did. Her mind was out in the grounds, out in the snow, out in that barn.
The moment when she could be certain she would not be missed for the rest of the night, she pulled on a cloak to hide her finery and slipped out of the mansion.
Christina had already left in a hired carriage full of Camille’s luggage. Camille walked boldly up to the door of the barn and knocked on it. Then she walked around the side, in time to see Adam climb out of the barn, dressed in clothing which was ill-fitting, but good enough. The coat was long and dark, and he had a scarf and hat to hide his features. His excitement was palpable.
“This way,” Camille whispered.
She led him through the night, following a path to the road, where Hans waited with a carriage. They climbed into it, and were away.
Camille’s hand found Adam’s in the dark.