Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match(55)

“Ouch,” Angelika cried out.

“I started working for your grandfather,” Mary hissed. “I watched your father meet your mother and marry her. I saw Victor being born, then you crying the house down for years. I’ve kept every secret, when I could have had you taken away in irons.”

“You’re hurting me!”

“And now you come up to my private quarters, touching my personal things, to tell me I am no longer required?”

Angelika protested with her cheek on the doorframe, “I didn’t say that. Things will be changing, that is all, and we don’t need you for the difficult work. Lizzie will be mistress soon, and Will has seen to it that we almost have a full staff again. I thought you’d be pleased to hang up your duster and sleep past the rooster crow. You know we will compensate you generously for your years of service.”

Mary ignored that and instead asked, “Who will be head housekeeper?”

“You’re already training Sarah.” If everyone accepted the girl’s meek shyness and allowed her to grow in confidence, she could see no reason why it shouldn’t work out. With a noise of utter contempt, Mary pushed Angelika out.

“I always knew you were heartless, Angelika Frankenstein. Good riddance. And by the way”—she pointed a finger in her face—“I pray for the poor soul who marries you.”

The door was slammed, and Angelika was left stunned on the landing, rubbing her burning wrist and rotating her shoulder.

She probably did sound like a fleeing child as she took the stairs. She’d certainly had this kind of red, tight, upset feeling before, and she’d clutched a doll in her hand, both then and now. How had she so utterly botched that conversation?

Angelika ran below her mother’s portrait but kept her eyes down. “I should have asked Lizzie to broach it with her. It is practically her house now, after all. Dammit, I should have just left it.”

Angelika ran through the kitchen, where the warm cooking smells made her feel sick, and headed down the path to the laboratory, but it wasn’t Lizzie she sought. Approximately once a year Victor afforded her a genuine hug. Perhaps she’d be in luck.

As she climbed the stairs to the laboratory and walked across the landing, she sharpened her hearing in case she was about to walk in on a passionate scene she would not be able to erase. Then she heard Lizzie say, “And when are you going to tell Jelly?”

Victor: “Nothing’s certain yet.”

Lizzie said, “But if you had to make a prediction?”

“It’s not certain,” Victor repeated, but now his tone was different. Bleaker. “We are in entirely new realms of science. He knows that.”

“She deserves to know. This is her entire future. She cannot make a proper choice without knowing it.”

“Inevitably she will work it out; she’s a clever little monkey. But let’s begin again with this formulation. I need to train you well if you are to be my very special new assistant. Let me tell you exactly how I like it.” Victor’s tone became velvety.

Angelika wrinkled her nose. She’d better make herself known, and fast.

“I deserve to know what?” Angelika’s voice caused them both to jump. Lizzie dropped a glass tube and it smashed at her feet. “Is it Will?”

“Jelly, don’t sneak.” Victor picked up Lizzie and sat her on the bench, and then bent to scrape together the glass fragments. “How long were you there?”

“Long enough to know that secrets are being kept. It’s about Will’s fatherhood prospects, isn’t it?” She belatedly remembered to dash the tears from her cheeks with the back of one hand. “It’s fine, he told me already. And I’ve just had a row with Mary.”

“That statement could apply on any given day,” Victor said.

It was not a hug day. At least, not for Angelika. Once he straightened up, he stood between Lizzie’s legs and put his arms around her. On the floor was an open crate, and on the bench was the new microscope. Victor hadn’t even come to tell her it had arrived.

Lizzie wore Angelika’s work apron. “Are you all right, Jelly?” she asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

The sight of her wearing that apron hit in the way the diamond ring should have; it was a jealous-lonely-loss type of feeling compounded on top of the feelings Mary had just instilled. She could see on the opposite bench that a simple chemical experiment was laid out, one she had learned many years ago.

There was steam rising from her regular mug, and her pencil was behind Lizzie’s ear, and the apron looked better on her. Mary was not the only one retiring today.

“Jelly? What’s the matter?” Lizzie asked again.

“You’re officially his new assistant?” Angelika asked, trying her best to smile and sound normal, but it was clear from their faces that she was not succeeding. More tears fell. “I’m sure he’ll keep you terribly busy, just like I was. Make sure you don’t make him repeat himself, or he’ll positively shout at you, and don’t ever drop a glass tube again. That’s the only one you’re allowed to break for your whole life.”

“Jelly.” Lizzie said her nickname like an apology.

It was time for another escape—as dignified as she could—this one made worse by Victor’s disgusted voice. “She’s seeking attention, as usual.” He was right, of course. He always was. “Let her go.”