This Dark Endeavour (with Bonus Material) by Kenneth Oppel Read Free Book Online

said.
    But later when he tried to get up, he did not have the strength to stand for more than a minute without shaking. His face had a gaunt look.
    He was as weak as a newborn.
    Over the next several days I tried to stay hopeful and tell myself Konrad was on the mend.
    The fever didn’t return with its earlier ferocity, but it refused to leave him altogether. After a morning lull it would come on again in the late afternoon—like some infernal gale that paused only to renew its strength.
    Now that we knew he wasn’t contagious, Elizabeth spent a good deal of her time helping Mother and the servants tend to him, reading to him to distract him from his aches. When he felt well enough, Henry and I would drop by to talk with him, or sometimes even play a game of chess. These were rarely finished, as he complained of headaches, or simply felt too unwell to concentrate.
    I felt oddly incomplete moving about the chateau without my twin. Not that we had always been side by side, but I felt his absence more intensely now. Once, when we were six, and Mother was unwell during her pregnancy with Ernest, Father sent us each to stay with different relations for a fortnight.
    It was one of the loneliest and most miserable times of my life.
    But this was worse.
    Why wasn’t Konrad getting better?
    “You must take me to Mass, Victor,” Elizabeth said Sunday morning during breakfast in the dining room.
    I looked up from my boiled egg, my mouth still full of bread, uncomprehending for a moment because I was so used to Konrad escorting her to the cathedral in Geneva or the small village church in Bellerive.
    “Yes, of course,” I replied.
    “Philippe will ready the trap for you,” Father said.
    Though my parents had no faith themselves, they had no desire to deprive Elizabeth of hers, and I was certain no Sunday had ever passed without her attending a Roman Catholic service.
    It was a relief to be away from the chateau, to be in the warm spring air, holding the reins, driving the trap along the lake road. We travelled in silence, but our worries of Konrad kept pace with us.
    When we arrived at the small church, Elizabeth said, “You can come inside if you like.”
    “I will wait here, I think.”
    “You could light a candle for Konrad.”
    “You know I don’t believe in such things.”
    She nodded and looked at the other parishioners entering the church with their families. For the first time it occurred to me that it must have been lonely for her, attending Mass alone all these years.
    “Did Konrad go inside with you?”
    “Not at first.”
    I helped her down, and watched as she walked into the church. I thought of how she would light a candle and pray—and I envied her.
    “What are you doing?” Ernest asked, coming into the library.
    It was Monday afternoon, and I’d spent nearly the entire day with books spread all around me, taking notes furiously.
    “I’m trying to learn about the human body and its ailments,” I said.
    My nine-year-old brother came forward, looking gravely at the book’s illustrations.
    “Konrad will get better, won’t he, Victor?” he asked.
    To my shame, I realized how little I’d thought of Ernest and how his older brother’s illness might be affecting him. Little William was far too young to understand—and it was a great comfort to me sometimes just to hold his little body, and try to lose myself in his warmth and laughter and oblivious good cheer—but at nine, Ernest, like all of us, was having to endure the gloomy weather change that had beset our house.
    I put down my pen and smiled as Father did when trying to reassure us. “Of course he will get better. I have no doubt whatsoever. He is strong, like all of us Frankensteins!”
    He pointed seriously at the book. “Is the cure in there?”
    I laughed. “I don’t know. Perhaps.”
    He became interested in the diagram of a man’s spleen. “What does that do?”
    “They used to think it ruled our temperaments.”
    “You’ll find