"Mina, how can you
believe such a terrible thing?"
I laughed. Though I knew he wouldn't understand,
I could not help myself. I had been foolish enough to think that words alone
could make him understand. I should have waited and shown him. "It doesn't
have to be terrible, Jonathan.” I saw his reaction, the horror in his eyes.
Nonetheless, I continued, looking evenly at him, refusing to be ashamed.
"It isn't,” I added, certain that this was the bravest act I had ever
committed.
Jonathan moved away from
me and walked toward the door. I had a premonition that if d let him leave, I
would never
see him again. It was a
foolish feeling, but so real that I did beg him, "Stay with me, darling.
Stay with me tonight. "
"After him, after
this?" The softness of Jonathan's voice revealed not a hint of his fury.
"Jonathan, have you
ever felt real passion? Dracula showed that to me. And passion free of fear?
Gance taught me
that. "
I saw no change in his expression. He would have
faced Gance this way, and Gance would have thought his incredible self-control
nothing more than weakness and pliancy. f wish I could have said that Gance and
I were nothing to one another, but for my part at least, it was not true. I
could not apologize for my deeds, either, nor lie and recant them. I had made
a decision. I would not lie any longer. "The dreams are still with me, but
I no longer fear them. I can control his blood, Jonathan. I'm strong enough
now. "
"This isn't you,
Mina," he said.
"I saw your
drawings of the vampire women,” I replied. "You've changed as well as I.
Don’t fight what you feel,
Jonathan. Please!"
For the first time, I
glimpsed the grief he hid so well. "Someone else is speaking through you,
Mina. Someone I could
never love.” He turned
to leave. I gripped his arm, forcing him to wait.
"I have to talk to you,” I said. "So much has happened,
you must know of it."
"I am aware,” he said, his frigid tone
hiding the hurt he must feel. "Perhaps tomorrow."
"Jonathan, your
life may depend on it.”
"Tomorrow,” he repeated firmly and left.
It amazed me that he could go without listening
to what I had to tell him. We were allies once, he and Jack and all the others.
Now, when there was so much he should know, I heard the click of the lock. I
opened the window and saw the bars that covered it. This was not a guest room
any longer, but a private cell for a privileged inmate. I pressed my face
against the bars and listened to the silence. From somewhere deep in the house
a woman began to sob, her cries rising and falling in the night. When I slept,
I did not dream. I think my life has become the nightmare, and there is no need
for any other.
This morning, I found a
journal and pen on the desk along with a note from Jonathan. He tells me that
he loves me. He
asks me to record my
thoughts to help Seward treat me.
Seward is to read them.
I have written in longhand to save him the trouble of arranging a
transcription. I want him to
know how I feel. Perhaps
through him the others can be warned.
Mina's closing words were a lie.
When she was not recording the details of last night's conversation, she had
been privately considering her situation. It did not occur to her that a
lesser woman might remain hysterical, or that the display of weakness she had
shown the night before was natural. Instead, she simply resolved to be strong
with the same determination she'd had when she resolved to confess everything
to Jonathan. He hadn't given her a chance. Now she would have to hide whatever
she believed in order to make her visit here as short as possible.
She refused
to contemplate where she would go once she left Seward's.
Seward came
to see her in midmorning. He found her dressed, her bonnet on her head, her
cloak laid across the foot of the bed.
He was prepared for a battle. Instead, she was standing at the
open window, looking down at the grounds below. "I feel ever so much
better, Jack," she said. "Do you suppose we could go outside for a
walk? The view from this window is so oppressive."
"I'm
sorry you had to be given this room. The only other one is mine, and it's so
cluttered with books and patient files that I could
hardly give it to a
guest."
"But I'm not a guest, am I, Jack? Perhaps you could put me in
the asylum with the other lunatics." He flushed. "No," he said.
"You've had a terrible shock, but you hardly belong there."
She laughed. "Well, that's encouraging, anyway." She
walked past him, through the door and down the stairs. She paused on the steps
of his house to wait for him, and link her
arm through his. "You'd best
hold on to me, Jack, or I might fly away like a bird, or should I humor your
belief that I am delusional and say bat?"
Seward
smiled and patted her hand. They walked on until they came to a little bridge
over a creek flowing into the Thames.
Willows grew along the banks, and there was a covered gazebo close
to the water. He took Mina there and sat beside her. "Tell me what
happened yesterday?" he said.
"I
cannot start my story there, Jack, because it began long before that, even
before we left Transylvania."
She lied, but only a little. She
told him that she had found the book in the gypsy cart, below Dracula's box of
earth. She told him, too, of the feeling that she had, the feeling that
whatever poison had been put in her was still there, infecting her. She spoke
of her trip to London to find a translator, of the attack on Winnie Beason.
She mentioned the note Gance had sent to her and how they had discovered
Ujvari floating in the river.
"I felt
so guilty then, Jack. His death was my fault, you see. If I had told Jonathan
about the book and about my feelings, we might
have contacted Van Helsing
for help. Instead, I acted alone and the outcome was terrible."
"Guilt
is not hysteria, Mina," Seward explained patiently. "You were hysterical
when Jonathan and I saw you."
"The old man in Gance's garden
was James Sebescue's father. He was going to kill me, Jack. He called me
nosferatu."
She described
the attack as it had happened. "There was blood everywhere. Yes, with the
past horror so recent and vivid, I suppose I did lose my mind. So they drugged
me, Jack, and I dreamed of Dracula and the terrible night he made me drink from
him. I woke.
I pounded on the door until
my hands were sore." She showed him the bruises. "But no one came
until you and Jonathan arrived."
She sensed that he wanted to believe her, to hold and comfort her,
but he remained aloof, a doctor rather than a friend, and a friend only
because he could not be something more. "We should go back," he said.
"I'll have the staff clear my room. You can sleep there tonight."
In a
calculated, seemingly impetuous gesture that Lucy would have envied, Mina
kissed Seward's cheek. "You always were so
kind to me, but the move
isn't necessary," she said and pulled him to his feet, starting back
toward the asylum, willingly it seemed.
He stopped
just inside the door. "I must work," he said.
"I understand, Jack. May I choose a book to take upstairs to
occupy my time?" "Yes. Yes, of course." He led her into his
study and pointed to the shelves along one wall. "Take more than one, if
you like." "I would like to know as much as possible about my
illness." "Then take this." He handed her a book by Henry
Maudsley. "It discusses the origins of dreams."
"And a
novel, Jack. Something light to pass the time." She reached for
The Count of Monte
Cristo
because its binding was
worn. She assumed it had been
read many times.
She was
correct. "Have you read it?" Seward asked with a new warmth in his
voice.
"Yes,"
she responded. "It is such a beautiful tragedy. Do you suppose that lovers
so perfect for one another can ever find
happiness with others?"
"If
they can accept that as their fate," he replied.
"Is that what life is, Jack? Acceptance?" He knew
exactly what she meant. "I'll help you," he said.
A servant
brought them lunch. After they ate, he showed her back to her room, apologizing
profusely before he locked her inside.
In truth,
she welcomed the solitude. The words were already forming in her mind. Wincing
with the hypocrisy of them, she
opened the journal and began
to write.
I began to tell Jack all
the secrets I had kept from Jonathan with a sense of fatality. Someone must
know them, and
Jack, like Van Helsing, is trained to listen and understand. I
found my confession so easy as we sat by the river, and I felt a great
closeness to him. He treats me as an equal, the way Van Helsing did, and the
way Jonathan does so rarely now. I
think that is why I am
able to speak to Jack so easily.
Mina paused. The sudden memory of
Seward's daily examinations on their journey East returned. She recalled his
fingers lifting her lips, moving through her mouth, feeling her teeth to see
if they had grown. She shivered, as if shaking the images from her mind.
Thinking only of what had to
be done, she went on.
I have
become so useless to Jonathan. All our dreams
of
being helpmates vanished
with his sudden success. I have servants to keep house. He has clerks to help
him with his work. My position all too often resembles that of an obedient pet-I
am pampered so long as I adore. Even the woman's domain, the care of the house,
has been ceded to another.
Yet I feel a need to
help where I can. Tonight I shall ask Jack if there is some work I could do
during my treatment here.
I may not have formal training, but I have an instinct for dealing
with people. If that isn't possible, I could work in his office. I think he
could use some assistance with the files. Like all busy men, he has so little
time to organize the clutter in his life.
Was the
flattery too obvious? Much of what she wrote was actually true; only the tone
was off. Somehow, she doubted he would
detect the deceit. When she'd
finished, she placed one of her hairs across the corner of the last page and
closed the book.
At dinner
that evening, Mina noticed that Seward had dressed more formally, arranged to
have the table set and included a
wineglass at her place.
"Do you think it's wrong for me to drink?" she asked as he poured it.
"It is
a weakness, Mina. I don't drink because I don't believe in giving in to
weakness, but I could certainly understand that
others . . ."
"Then I
won't have it," Mina declared and set it aside. "I want to get well,
Jack. I want you to do whatever is necessary to help
me get well."
"And
what do you think is necessary, Mina?"
"That I
not dwell on the past. That I be useful to someone. You said you were so busy.
There must be something I can do."
Seward
thought a moment. "There is. We have inmates who cannot read but find
stories and poetry a great comfort. If you could
just read to them for an hour
or two every day it would be welcomed."
For the
first time, Seward spoke of his patients as individuals, each with his or her
own needs. This revealed a different side of
him, one Mina had never
suspected. "I would be happy to help, Jack," she said sincerely.
Later, as she sat in one of the
quieter rooms of the asylum, reading a poem by Robert Browning to a girl whose
face was an impassible mask hiding all emotions, she noticed Seward standing
in the doorway. He listened. He watched. For a moment, Mina wondered at the
intensity of his expression, then she noticed the girl, tears rolling down her
cheeks though her blank expression did not change.
Mina's voice remained steady, but when the poem was done, she set
aside the book and gathered the trembling girl in her arms, stroking her
matted hair, paying no mind to her dirty clothing or the smell of old sweat
that hung about her. Instead, Mina hummed softly, rocking the girl back and
forth, comforting her with the pressure of her arms.
I felt humbled by my own
instincts,
Mina wrote that night.
The girl never spoke. She never indicated any
particular poem,
yet I chose one that touched her. What a sad past she must have
had to have isolated herself so perfectly from those around her. What
wonderful work Jack does. And how kind he is to those in his care.
If Winnie were here, Jack would
learn exactly how kind, Mina knew. Winnie would not tolerate the filth of the
asylum, the way the staff treated the inmates with boredom and occasional
cruelty, or how Seward turned a blind eye to all of it. If her entire focus were
not on leaving this place, Mina would have voiced her outrage as well. Instead
she hid it as best she could and, when it surfaced, lied about its source.