Beatrice simply looked down at her hands, clasped on her lap.
Mary did not know what to do. Had she insulted Beatrice? She had not meant to, but the experiments—they were wrong. Surely they must all agree that the experiments were wrong? Molly Keane, lying on the pavement in her own blood . . .
Diana belched and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
Mary did not reprimand her. She did not know what to say.
“What are those other letters?” asked Beatrice. “Are they also from my father?”
“Oh, those,” said Mary. “No, and they’re in Latin, so I have no idea what they’re about. But they have red seals on them, with S.A.”
“Bet Poison Breath knows Latin,” said Diana.
“Of course,” said Beatrice. “It is the language of science. And the seals were used by members of the Société, including my father, when transacting official business. They signaled that the letters were to be opened at once, and in secret. All members of the society had such seals, often on pendants or rings. I will approach and examine those letters, if you will allow.”
“Of course,” said Mary. She made a point of not moving back as Beatrice walked to the table, although Diana retreated to the other side of the room.
Beatrice drew the letters toward her across the table. “Ex societate expelleris. . . . These are from the president of the society to your father, warning him that if he continues his experiments, he will be expelled. This letter is the first warning. The second one—you see it is dated six months later—tells him that the warning is final. It is, as you say, an ultimatum. My father had spoken of Dr. Jekyll’s experiments as dangerous. . . .”
“What were they, do you know?” asked Mary. “I have a hypothesis . . .”
“That I do not know, not specifically,” said Beatrice. “My father did not speak of it with me, only to say that Dr. Jekyll was trying to defeat our animal nature, raise man to new spiritual heights—and that no scientist should experiment on himself.”
Mary was disappointed. She had hoped Beatrice would know . . . something. Her father had attempted to defeat his animal nature and had instead become Hyde, the animal. How? Why? She sighed, ate the remainder of her toast, and wiped her mouth with a napkin. Perhaps she would never know. Her father had taken his secrets with him to the grave—all but these fragments.
“Are we done?” said Diana. “Because I’m bored.”
They heard the front doorbell ring, and a moment later, Mrs. Poole came in. “It’s Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson,” she said. “They would like a moment of your time. They say—let me see if I’ve got this right—Renfield has escaped?”
CATHERINE: You haven’t said anything about Giovanni.
BEATRICE: I don’t want to talk about it.
MARY: But Beatrice, you’ve left out an important part. I know you don’t want to remember what happened, but it’s not as though you killed him. You can’t take responsibility for what’s not your fault.
BEATRICE: But it is my fault. When I let him into my father’s garden, when I walked with him among the poisonous flowers, I was infusing him with the poison—my poison. I did not mean to harm him. I thought if he could become like me, we could be together, and I would not be so alone. And then, he died. . . .
CATHERINE: But not just like that. Here, let me tell the story.
One day, as I was walking through the garden, I looked up, and there, looking down from Signora Lisabetta’s window, was the handsomest man I had ever seen. He was a cousin of hers, who had come to Padua to study medicine. Of course, the only other man I had seen was my father, but I have seen men since, and Giovanni was indeed handsome, with crisp, curling brown hair, brown eyes that seemed to contain his soul, and cheeks tanned by the sun of southern Italy.
BEATRICE: Oh, Catherine, please stop! It’s enough to say that he was handsome, and I loved him. All right, I shall tell the story, if only to keep you from making it sound like one of those romantic serials sold in train stations.
CATHERINE: There’s nothing wrong with train stations. If it weren’t for train stations, The Mysteries of Astarte wouldn’t have sold nearly as well.
BEATRICE: That is not at all the point.
Day after day, he would come to visit me in my father’s garden. Day after day, he walked in a poisonous miasma, not knowing. I knew—each day I kept him longer, talking to him, never touching him, waiting for him to become poisonous, as I was. My father knew of his visits—how could he not? And yet, he said nothing. Perhaps he thought Giovanni would form a useful addition to our family. After all, he was a medical student at the University of Padua. He could become another apprentice to the great Dr. Rappaccini.
One day, Giovanni noticed that a spider had woven a web in his window—he leaned closer to look, and the spider died from his breath. He realized, then, what had happened—he was becoming poisonous! He went to see my father’s rival in Padua, the physician Pietro Baglioni, who was a professor at the medical school. My father and Baglioni had been medical students together, and he had once been a member of the Société des Alchimistes himself. But he had quarreled with my father and left the society. He knew about me, about my poisonous nature. He concocted what he believed to be an antidote and gave it to Giovanni, telling him that if we drank it, we would be cured.
Giovanni brought me the antidote and told me that it would cure us both. We stood in the garden together, not touching. Even then, he did not know I had intended to make him poisonous—he thought it was an accident, that I had not been aware of my own nature. How trusting he was! He loved me, and wanted us both to be normal. He did not want to be a monster—that was the word he used. He did not want to be separated from humanity. That day, I realized what I was—a monster among men.
MARY: You’re not a monster, Beatrice. I wish you would stop using that word.
JUSTINE: Why, if it’s technically accurate? We are all monsters in our own way. Even you, Mary.
I told him that I did not trust Baglioni, as a man or a scientist. I told him we should not drink. But he pleaded with me. I took the glass vial containing the antidote. It was green, the color of emeralds. And then I heard, “No! No, my daughter! Do you not know that Baglioni is my enemy, that he would do anything to destroy my experiments?”
“Father, can’t you see what you’ve done to me?” I said. “I don’t want to be deadly to my kind.”
“Here, let me show you that it’s perfectly safe,” said Giovanni. “I will drink first.”