“No, he couldn’t have perished,” said Mary. “Wasn’t that the name in Dr. Seward’s letter? It was Prendick, I’m sure of it. Let me go check. . . . I’ll be back in a moment.”
In the morning room, she opened the drawer of her mother’s desk and pulled out the portfolio. Yes, there it was. She took out the letter and brought it back with her into the parlor. Justine was talking to Catherine in low tones, and Beatrice was answering a question about transmutation posed by Dr. Watson. When Mary entered, they all fell silent and turned to look at her. Catherine had an expression on her face that Mary did not understand.
“Yes, there, I was sure. Listen: ‘I assume you will be traveling with Mr. Prendick? Poor man, I hope he may someday be ready to participate fully in our community again. I cannot tell you how I mourn the loss of Moreau. You and Prendick belong to a younger generation. You do not know what it was like for us old fogeys, as you may call us, resurrecting the Société from the decrepitude into which it had fallen and redirecting its energies to biology, to the material of life itself!’ That has to be the same Prendick, doesn’t it?”
Catherine opened her mouth, then closed it again, as though she could not continue.
MARY: I didn’t understand your reaction that night. It was only later, when you told us about your . . . relations with him, that it made sense.
CATHERINE: My relations . . . how delicately you put it! I didn’t want to say anything in front of Holmes and Watson. And why should I have? It was my story to tell—or not.
MARY: No reason, I’m not questioning your judgment, Cat. But I’m glad you told us later.
CATHERINE: He was there when I tore the manacles out of the walls. He didn’t stop me—just stood there as I ran out of the room and through the compound. I think he felt guilty for having done nothing all those months, while I screamed in pain. It was easy to open the gate with my human fingers and disappear into the forest like the puma I had been. He didn’t anticipate that I would kill Moreau, of course. Once Moreau was dead, Edward and James fought over me. I was the only woman on the island, the only one who didn’t look like a beast, and James thought I should be his as Moreau’s successor. But I rejected him. That may be why he became drunk that night. . . . When you told me that Edward was still alive, I didn’t know what to think or say. Justine was the only one who knew, the only one I’d spoken to about it. I still don’t know . . . whether he ever loved me. Or whether I was simply convenient.
BEATRICE: I’m sure it wasn’t that. There must have been more to it than that.
CATHERINE: Must there? I don’t know. I don’t suppose I’ll ever know for certain.
“It’s all right,” said Justine. “She’s startled, that’s all.”
“Yes, startled,” said Catherine, finally. “I wonder how he survived. . . .” She remembered looking down from the hilltop, watching Prendick’s raft float away into the distance, until it was lost against the immensity of the sea. Finding herself completely alone on an island where her only companions were beasts. Feeling as though she should lie down and die, and then deciding that she was going to survive. She did not know how, but somehow.
“A week later, the supply ship came. The captain had been sacked for brutality to his men, and another captain hired. In the transition, the supply ship had missed a scheduled delivery. When I saw the ship, I made a signal fire from whatever wood I could find, including planks left after Prendick had built his raft. It was the last of the wood from Moreau’s boat. When the sailors picked me up and took me aboard, I told the captain that I was an Englishwoman shipwrecked on that shore. I said I had no knowledge of Moreau or his compound, that the island had been deserted as long as I had been there. I told him I had lost my memory, and remembered only having come from the city of London. Because I spoke with the accent of an educated man, the accent Prendick had taught me, I was believed. They assumed my clothes must have come from a drowned sailor, my complexion from living in the sun unprotected for so long. My scars from my misadventures.
“The captain took me back with him to the port of Callao, and then to the capital city of Peru, where he needed to deposit his cargo. In Lima, I became a sort of cause célèbre among the English population—the Englishwoman who had survived on a deserted island! I was offered a room in the house of an English industrialist who had come to Peru to reestablish trade after the late war, and invited to dinners and balls. You can imagine my confusion on first encountering women’s clothes! On the island, and even on shipboard, I had always worn the clothes that were available, which were men’s. In Peru, for the first time, I was given a chemise and corset and petticoat. I had no idea what to do with them. Luckily, the maids helped me dress, or I assure you, I would not have figured out all those buttons and laces!
“A subscription was taken up for me, enough to pay for my passage to London. The industrialist, Sir Geoffrey Tibbett, was returning to England, and he offered me his protection on the voyage. He told me that I could stay with his family while being treated by a mesmerist, who would help me recover my memories and find my own family, my own home. I wonder what a mesmerist would have made of the incidents I recalled! After the long sea voyage, during which Sir Geoffrey and I played endless games of cribbage and backgammon, I stayed at the Tibbett household in Mayfair for several months, recovering—or so it was thought. I was learning as much about England as I could, going to lectures, reading novels and poems and collections of essays.
“Sir Geoffrey was fond of me. He said if I could not find my family, he wished to adopt me as his daughter. But his wife did not like me. She was a woman with a pinched nose and a back as straight as a poker, whose primary interest was climbing into the right social circles. A strange girl from a South Sea island did not fit into her plans.
“Her small dog did not like me either. He was a Pekingese, horribly overfed, and although he was the approximate shape and size of a bolster, he was still a dog. He knew I was a cat. One day, I was reading in the parlor and he would not leave me alone. He kept yapping at me and nipping at my toes. Finally, I could take it no longer. Lady Tibbett heard his squeals and came into the room, only to see his body dangling from my jaws. That was my last day with the Tibbetts!