Mina (34 page)

servants were forbidden to
cater to him.

Gance, who
loved him, had.

And when his
father finally died-raving in his last hours for his dead wife, and for the
mistress who was not permitted to enter his

house--Gance had known who
killed him.

When Gance was younger, he'd dreamed
that his father's ghost had come to punish him. Now, he dreamed that he was in
that bed, screaming for Mina, and for all the others he had used, to come and
comfort him. He struggled as the darkness closed around him, fighting to wake
before he died.

He was
roused, some hours later, by the announcement that Jonathan Harker had arrived.

With the horror of the attack and his dreams to strengthen his
resolve, Gance replied, "Show him in." Gance did not ask to be made
presentable, or to be propped up higher in the bed. His very helplessness would
disarm this enemy, and he needed Harker impotent during the words he was about
to say.

Gance had observed a number of Harker's moods in the past, but he
had never sensed him dangerous until now. With his arms rigid at his side, his
face red with fury, Harker refused a chair, standing instead at the foot of the
huge Galle bed like some crazed specter from Gance's feverish dreams.
"What have you done with my wife!" he demanded.

"I
wooed her shamelessly. On the dance floor the night I first met her. At your
dinner party. I kissed her in the yard of St. James

Church. I think that even
then she thought I was someone else."

Gance waited
to see some flash of understanding. He was not disappointed. Jonathan sank into
a chair. "Someone else," he

echoed. The words were not
spoken as a question.

"Even that hardly surprised me
except that Mrs. Harker seemed to be such a practical, intelligent woman.
Later, I discovered that her practicality was all a facade. Nothing else can
explain what she did to me:" He paused, giving Harker a chance to
comment.

When he didn't, Gance went
on. "Come here, Mr. Harker. Let me show you."

Jonathan
moved toward him, all anger dissipated, a terrible expression of fatality on
his face.

Gance slowly raised his arm, moaning
from the pain the motion caused, and pulled down the collar of his nightshirt.
The mark Mina had made on his neck was darker now, a bruise in the shape of a
pair of lips, the cut a red streak at its center. Gance heard the quick intake
of breath, and Jonathan bent over to look at it. Pressing his case, Gance held
out his cut palm. "I told the doctor that the man who attacked us did
this, but she cut me here as well just last night.

"She is
quite mad, you know, though I admit there is something wildly arousing in her
insanity. I have never seen such a

passionate woman. I could not
believe that she would drink from me with such . . ."

Jonathan's
face grew white, but, Gance noted clearly, the confession still did not confuse
him. "Why are you telling all this to me?"

Jonathan asked.

"Because
Mina said that she will. There's some honor in being first and sparing her the
words, especially when the lady is so

apparently ill. I would not
want you to think that her talk of what we did was ... well, another
delusion."

"If you
weren't in your sickbed, I'd . . ."

"You'd
what? Throttle me? Call me out? Jonathan Harker, I assure you that I would kill
you. Then where would your darling

Mina be? It's my nature to
win even if the outcome is a sentence to the gaol."

"What
happened to her?"

How calm
Harker seemed, yet how concerned. So he loved his wife still, would most likely
forgive her what he would see as a

foolish display of passion.
Poor Mina, Gance thought. She deserved better.

"Today?"
Gance asked. "You've heard part of the story already. An old man, most
likely a thief, was in the garden. Mina saw him

and became quite agitated. As she had with me, I believe she
thought him someone else. I told her I would send the man away personally. I
ordered her to stay in the house, but she picked up a knife we had been using
to cut fruit and followed me outside.

"I
don't think the man would have harmed either of us, but when he saw her so
distraught, it must have aroused the insanity in him

as well. He raised his gun
and shot me. As I fell, Mina attacked him. I never saw such fury.

"I'm
thankful to her for saving my life, but I don't think that's why she did it.
She called out a name as she lunged for him. Dracula,

I think it was. Then another
foreign word,
nosferatu
.

"Afterwards,
she dropped to her knees beside me. She eyed my wound so intently I thought she
meant to place her lips against it

as she had against the cut on my hand. When the servants rushed
around us, I said that it was me who had stabbed the old man. I shielded her
because I did not think she was capable of answering any questions and because
. . ."

"I
quite understand." Though the words seemed to gag him, Harker added,
"And I appreciate your candor. It will be of great help

in treating her."

"You
may stay here tonight if you wish." Jonathan shook his head.

"Then
use my carriage and driver to get to the station. I think that would be more
secure than a public cab." Jonathan stood and

started for the door.

"Wait one moment," Gance
said. "I want you to understand something. I pursued your wife because she
is beautiful and intelligent and independent. I want you to know that had I
any indication that Mrs. Harker was at all disturbed, I would not have gone
near her. I have never been indiscreet when it mattered, and I find this
situation most unfortunate for all of us.

"I
intend to leave for Paris as soon as I am well enough to travel. I think it
best under the circumstances that I go away for a

while. There'll be talk of the killing, and we need to let the
rumors die. Mina was not present when the police were summoned, and you can
trust my staff not to mention that she was here." Gance didn't touch on
their business dealings. Neither did Harker, he noted.

"And,
if you would, ask the doctor to come in when you leave," Gance went on.
"He has an injection he has been trying to give

me since the first wore off
this afternoon."

It had gone
well, Gance decided after Harker and his wife had left. His driver would know
if Harker had taken his wife to

Seward's asylum or, hopefully
for the woman, home.

If Mina had told her strange tale to
him when he first met her, Gance might have wondered at her sanity. Once he
knew her, he was certain something had happened. Now he was utterly convinced
that Mina had told him the truth, for the steady, sensible Jonathan Harker had
stared at the wound on his neck as if he had seen many like it before. No, they
weren't all sharing the same delusion. They had all seen something they
believed to be immortal and utterly deadly.

Well, one
thing Gance had told Jonathan was true. It would be wise for him to leave
England when he was well enough to travel.

There were so many parts of
the world he had not seen. He tried to recall where Mina had said the Borgo
Pass was located. Near

Odessa? Galati? No matter
he'd made certain that when he left, Mina would be coming with him. She'd show
him the way.

Early in the
morning, Jonathan conferred with Seward on what should be done for Mina. He
began by telling of he affair,

concluding bitterly, "I
thought her obsession with Dracula was over when we returned from Transylvania.
I was wrong."

"Memories survive, Jonathan, and they can be more damaging
than the events that created them." "What can be done?" "Mina
must be taught to control the past, to bury it if need be. It's difficult work,
even for a man, and men are less emotional." Jonathan thought of Arthur,
his desperate search to end his loneliness by whatever means he could.

"Leave
her with me for a while," Seward said.

"Here?
In this house? After all that happened here?" The suggestion seemed
impossible.

"I
would go to Exeter if I could, believe me. Understand that she'll be safe here,
far safer than if she had to explain the cause of

her hysteria to another
doctor."

"Could there be some grounds for Mina's belief? Have you
heard from Van Helsing?" "A brief note. He said that he had learned
nothing new." "May I see it?" "I believe I threw it
away." "Van Helsing wrote Mina that all was well. Poor Mina. I wish I
could remain here." "It wouldn't be wise, Jonathan. She must have no
audience for her delusions. Go home and let me treat her. In a week or two

she'll be calmer and ready to
see you again."

Jonathan
went to Mina's room. He found her asleep, still in her clothes, with her face
turned toward the open window. In the

early dawn light, the ruins
of Carfax darkened the sky, as much a blemish on the landscape as it was on
their souls.

Seward had told him not to let Mina speak of her delusion. What
could they say to each other besides good-bye? He placed on the desk the blank
journal and pen he had purchased for her, and wrote a note on the opening page.
With one last loving glance at his wife, he left the room as quickly as he was
able.

On the long ride to
Purfleet, I lay quietly in Jonathan's arms, thankful that he was content to
hold me and ask no

questions. By the time we reached the asylum, much of Jack's
injection had worn off. Even so, I went passively to the room they offered me,
not caring that it was the same room where I had first faced Dracula. I found
myself looking at the bed, with its new, overly bright, green coverlet, and at
the window through which he had come.

The memory of what he
did held no terror for me now, but rather instilled in me a strange peaceful
fatality. I am utterly

different from the innocent Mina who slept here before, a shy
bride with an ill bridegroom. Yet I suppose I have not changed so much from my
ordeal. After all, I was innocent enough to believe that I could actually
return from the Continent and have everything go back to the way it had been
before the vampire altered our lives.

As if
memories could die so easily. As if I would have wanted that innocence
restored. I looked out at the distant ruins of Carfax, then to Jonathan, who
stood so uneasily in the doorway. "It's all right," I .said.
"The place holds no terror for me now."

"I'm glad of
that." His eyes were scanning the room. Wondering what he was looking for,
I turned my face back to the

window. On the edge of
my vision, I saw him grab a letter opener and scissors from the desk and put
them in his pocket.

"I'm not suicidal,
if that's what worries you,” I said.

"Lord Gance told me about both of you. Is it true?" he
asked. l nodded but said nothing. There was, after all, nothing to say. "He
showed me his neck, and his hand. Mina, my love, why?”
He asked, and I had
vowed not to lie any longer. "The blood, Dracula's blood, is still in me.
It lives." “ Dracula is dead, Mina. Van Helsing says that once he dies. .
. "

Van Helsing
!
They were always
speaking of Van Helsing as if he were the final judge of everything unknown. I
hid my anger but not the thought behind it. "Van Helsing didn't know
everything,” I said. "He even admitted as much when he decided to remain
behind. Yes, Jonathan, there is no scar on my face any longer, but it means
nothing. Dracula is still alive, I tell you. I have felt him in me since that
first night he came to me in this very room. Gance . . ."

"Don't say it,”
Jonathan whispered, and the anguish in his voice seemed to pierce my heart.

If my future and my
sanity had not depended on my honesty now, I would have run to him, hugged him
and begged

forgiveness. Instead I
stood with my hands clasped tightly and forced myself to go on. "I must,
and you must listen. Gance aroused the creature I almost became. But it was my
choice to let it loose. Now the vampire is alive, Jonathan, he is inside of me
with all his needs and power. "