The Frankenstein Testament

Emily Brunty opened her eyes.

A rush of blinding pain stabbed into her brain and she quickly closed them again. If nothing else, at least she could be sure that she was still alive.

Memories of the night before came flooding back and a chill of panic gripped her. She opened her eyes once more and looked around wildly. With relief she saw the familiar surroundings of her room in her uncle, the Reverend Wilson's house. It was a small, sparse room with one bed, a washstand and an uncomfortable wooden chair. The only decoration was a faded piece of needlework hung on the wall that preached that "the Devil finds work for idle hands". It may not have been much, but it was infinitely better than that damnable, fog-haunted lane with its horrors lurking in the dark. She cast a glance at the stack of books sitting on the chair-The Monk by Mathew Lewis, The Vampyr by John Polidori, Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe and The Skeleton Count by Elizabeth Grey-and realised with a pang of regret that after the reality of the previous night’s experience their narratives would never quite inspire the same thrill of terror for her again.

Sunlight streamed in through the window and Emily got out of bed. The pain in her head faded rapidly as she was overcome by a strange, woozy, thick-headedness, that engulfed her like a warm wave. This, she reasoned, was probably the last comfort from the laudanum they had given her the night before. She touched her face and though it felt numb she knew it was bruised on one cheek and her forehead was grazed.

The night before, a policeman had woken her from her swoon by waving a bottle of smelling salts under her nose. Mercifully for her, the corpse of the poor murdered policeman had already been removed from the scene. There seemed to be policemen everywhere and thankfully there was no sign of the beast who had attacked them. Her uncle reassured her that while the murderer had vanished in the dark, he was gravely wounded and would not-could not-get very far. This had the opposite to its intended effect as the thought that the madman was lurking somewhere nearby in the dark terrified her once again.

Disorientated and frightened, she had been carried up the lane by two policemen until they arrived at her uncle's manse. The policemen assured them that there would be a guard of four constables outside the door all night and she and her uncle had retired inside.

Her uncle's dour, rather severe housekeeper had undressed Emily and put her in her night clothes, then insisted on her drinking a draft of laudanum to make her sleep. Almost as soon as the contrasting bitterness of the opium mixed with the cloying sweetness of the syrup in her mouth she was slipping away into unconsciousness again.

She got out of bed. Standing up, her head swam a little as she crossed to the room’s single twelve-paned sash window. Looking out Emily noted with a certain degree of relief that two policemen still stood outside the doorway below. It was past midday and the street outside was busy with horses, carts, drovers and a few cyclists.

For Emily, the sight of so much traffic was still a novelty and not an annoyance. She had not yet been in Belfast long enough for the exciting freshness of city life to be dulled to the habitual cynicism of the urban dweller. It was only a matter of weeks since she had left her job as teacher in a small country school outside Rathfriland and moved to stay at her uncle’s house in Belfast, ostensibly seeking employment as a governess. Belfast had plenty of newly-rich linen magnates building mansions on the fashionable Ormeau Road and they all needed someone to look after and tutor their children.

Emily’s real motive was very different. She thought of her sober, elderly uncle and felt a thrill of trepidation. The Reverend Wilson would probably have a fit if he knew her actual intentions. He might even throw her out of his house which would be a disaster. That would force her to return to the limited, closely controlled confines of her parents’ house back in the country. Whatever happened, she had to keep her plans secret from him at least until she found herself a job.

At twenty five years old and still unmarried, her despairing parents had given up on her. To them she was now an old maid left on the shelf and grandchildren were out of the question. Their one consolation was that she had a good, steady job as a school teacher and now the she also had the prospect of advancement in the respectable employment as a governess.

Emily had other ideas. She wanted to be a writer and in Belfast there was the potential for making a career in Journalism. Since the recent reduction in their cover tax the newspapers of the town were flourishing. Thousands of readers eagerly devoured their editions daily. Emily, tired of the stultifying life of a county school teacher dreamed of the excitement of a career as a reporter.

Her uncle, the Reverend James Wilson, was not an unkind man, but he was somewhat old fashioned in his ideas. It was bad enough for a man to work in Journalism, but a woman? There would be no way he would allow his niece to fall into such disreputable, even scandalous employment. Her mother and father, she knew, shared his convictions.

Unfortunately, Emily had found that the newspaper editors she had visited also found that the idea of a woman working in journalism unpalatable, even ridiculous. In a depressing series of interviews over the last few days, she had visited the offices of the Belfast News Letter, The Northern Star, The Belfast Guardian and the Northern Herald. Her reception had ranged from downright dismissive (“I don’t think so, love”) to condescending (“we do need a tea lady”).

The afternoon before, in the office of the Editor of the Northern Whig, she had finally cracked.

The Editor was a relatively young man in his thirties who dressed in the height of European-style fashion with a linen shirt and cravat, double breasted waistcoat and a padded shouldered frock coat. He was sitting, Emily’s folio of example work unopened on the desk before him and a patronising expression on his face.

“The thing is, Miss Brunty,” he began without even raising his eyes to meet hers, “reporting isn’t a job for the fainted hearted. Many folk in this town are openly hostile to journalists. It doesn’t stop them buying my paper thank God, but journalism is not a job for a respectable person such as yourself. Most of the juicy details on the stories we publish are to be found in the taverns and bars of this town and from acquaintance with the less reputable members of society. Its just not really a job for…for-” he waved his hand in her general direction.

“For a woman?” Emily finished for him.

With this last rejection, coming on the back of all the other from the previous days, Emily Brunty felt her dreams crumbling before her very eyes. Tears welled in her eyes and she bowed her head. It was so unfair. Suddenly her eyes dried as a new emotion-anger-arose within her, shouldering aside the feelings of despair.

“If you trouble yourself to look through my portfolio of writing on the desk in front of you,” Emily said, rising to her feet, “I believe you will see that my talents are the match of any man who currently works on this paper and as a qualified school teacher, my spelling and grammar is a damn sight better!”

The Editor noticeably flinched at her use of the “D” word.

“Really Sir,” Emily continued, her eyes alight with an intense glare, “I thought the Northern Whig was supposed to be a progressive newspaper. Not like the other conservative rags in Belfast. There is now a Queen on the throne if you haven’t noticed. The times are changing. Women won’t always be content to make tea and look after children. We have fought to abolish slavery and thank God we have won that battle-though our American cousins have yet to catch up with the rest of the civilised world in that particular respect-and the next great battle will be to establish the rights of women. Women are no longer content with their lot. We are every bit the equal of men and we will fight for our rights. You will not hold us down.”

For several seconds, the Editor sat in stunned silence, suddenly feeling sorry for any of the naughty children in Miss Brunty’s school.

Emily began to put her coat on.

“Wait,” the Editor said. “I suppose times are changing after all. I’ll tell you what: I’ll give you a chance.”

Emily stopped putting her coat on.

“Convince me that you can do this job, Miss Brunty. Reporting is a rough profession but if you think you can hack it with the rest of us, then prove it to me. Get me a great story. Find something that will have my papers flying off the shelves like hot cakes.”

“Is there anything in particular you have in mind?”

The Editor smiled and spread his arms. “There’s no shortage of stories in this city, my dear. Sectarian riots, political corruption, crime. It’s up to you. Crime’s a good one actually. A nice juicy murder sells papers like nobody’s business. The Belfast Butcher is the big story right now. If you can find something about him I’ll print it. A good reporter finds the stories people want to read about.”

Emily had left the Editor’s office excited and eager to get writing. Her problem was finding material for the story that would secure for her this dream job. She had hoped her uncle’s connections among the upper levels of Belfast society would prove a wealthy source for news stories. The previous evening she had accompanied him to an extremely boring dinner party at the fashionable townhouse of Sir William Patterson, the fabulously wealthy linen magnate and leading member of the town Corporation. With so many of the town dignitaries in the same room surely she would have picked up some juicy tidbits of news?

Things began to take an interesting turn when after the dinner had finished the men had started to discuss the murder in the town but to Emily’s dismay Mrs Patterson had scolded her husband for talking about such a frightening topic. The conversation had then shifted to the upcoming elections and the rumours of planned electoral fraud that were going around the town. Emily’s hopes had risen again but Mrs Patterson had then ushered all the women out of the dining room to leave the men to their cigars and port. To her frustration, Emily was stuck in the drawing room playing cards with the ladies whose entire conversation had been little more than gossip about who was having an affair with whom, who was rumoured to have a drink problem and who was said to have financial problems. There were no potential stories for her. Who would want to read about that in the newspapers?

In the street outside a newspaper boy of about ten with a ridiculously large flat cap on his head struggled along the footpath, a big satchel of papers slung over one shoulder. Its weight made him lurch like a cripple rather than walk. In one hand he held up a copy of the Belfast Newsletter, its headline screaming ‘Policeman murdered’. Every couple of steps someone stopped him to buy a paper from him. The previous night's events were clearly big news already.

Emily rubbed her eyes and a shudder of terror ran through her at the thought of the horrific death the young policeman had suffered. Her shock dissipated to a slight bitterness at how the ending of a human life had so quickly become cheap titillation for the general public who gathered like vultures to read the grisly events in the paper.

Then she felt another another, slightly strange emotion. A growing excitement kindled in her breast. She felt a thrill that almost made her feel guilty. She now had something that those men who ran the newspapers could not ignore. Not only that, they would be falling over each other to get it from her.

She had a story.