Dracula in Love

occasional word to single out for emphasis.

“Watching you work is like attending the theater,” I said. “I observe, but I do not see the need to participate.” And then I wondered if what I said was true.

Today, I walked through heavy summer rain to Kate’s rooms off Fleet Street, passing newsboys hawking evening editions of the papers, their enthusiasm undiminished by the weather, and other street vendors selling their goods. She lived, to her parents’ dismay, on the third floor of an eighteenth-century building that hadn’t been renovated in fifty years and thus needed repairs. Her door was open, spilling soft yellow gaslight into the hallway, and I poked my head in. Sprigs of her dark blond hair escaped the haphazard bun at the nape of her neck, kept in place with a pencil. She held a burning matchstick in her bony fingers with which she had just lit a cigarette. She blew out the flame and waved the matchstick at me as if it were a magic wand, a big smile slashing her freckled face.

She hugged me with her long arms so that I could feel her wide shoulders begin to wrap round me. Tall and wiry, Kate had sharp-cut cheekbones and even sharper blue eyes. She was without a corset today, in keeping with her feminist principles.

“My editor is allowing me a full three thousand words for an article on the state of girls’ education in Britain, the longest story of my career. Only you, Mina, have the organizational skills to help me sort through all this data,” she said, gesturing to the pamphlets, magazines, and newspapers scattered about the room.

“You’d better make me some tea,” I said, bracing myself for the task.

“Already going,” she said, pointing to her steaming kettle.

“Lovely rug,” I said. I had never seen the bright teal hooked rug, with its swirling abstract pattern of green, red, and yellow. Kate had made the room seem larger by hanging the bellows above the fireplace as a sort of sculptural relief. Three new wicker chairs sat around a wooden table with turned legs.

“Present from Father. He’s venturing into machine-made rugs. He claims that the modern woman has a mania for home decor.”

I surveyed the piles of papers. “What is your angle on the story?” I had assimilated some of Kate’s journalistic jargon and had begun to freely use it.

“The task is to show the growing breadth of educational opportunities available to girls and the necessity for them to take advantage of them.”

“Girls are already taking advantage,” I said slyly. “Miss Hadley’s School has no vacancies.”

Kate gave me one of her sideways looks. “Did you know that the University of London is now offering all degrees to women, including one in medicine? Imagine someday being tended to by a lady doctor!”

Secretly, I used to fantasize about studying at a university, and I did feel envy that other girls were being given such opportunities.

She picked up a notebook and waved its pages at me. “Wait until you read my notes. Soon all children under the age of thirteen, girls included, will be mandated by law to attend schools-schools that give boys and girls the same sort of education in math, history, and the sciences. When that happens, you will have to say au revoir to Miss Hadley, in whatever language she considers a sign of good breeding. She will have to adapt or close.” Kate blew a cloud of smoke into the air as if to emphasize her point.

“That will be a very sorry day for girls who want to become ladies,” I said. “In any case, I think your predictions are wrong. The queen herself is against this sort of thing.”

“It does not matter what an old woman thinks. Laws and people’s minds are changing very quickly. Once we have the right to vote, things will change even faster.”

I took an issue of The Woman’s World from my bag and handed it to Kate, who had introduced me to the magazine. “That is what Mrs. Fawcett claims in her article on women’s suffrage,” I said. Kate and I shared copies of the magazine, which was published for “women of influence and position,” and edited by Mr. Oscar Wilde. While I merely read the contents, Kate was trying feverishly to place an article within its pages.

“It’s a very good essay, isn’t it?” Kate said. “I wish I had written it.”

“I found myself even more absorbed in the piece about weddings,” I said. “After all, it won’t be long now before I am Mrs. Harker.”

Kate stubbed out her cigarette on a dainty porcelain saucer. “To be serious, Mina, you know that you have a way with words on the page. You should consider becoming a journalist yourself.” Before I could object, she continued. “Mina, this is our time. I love you, my friend, and I see your gifts. Do not waste these opportunities never before given to those of our sex.”

Her words surprised me. I was in awe of Kate’s abilities but never dreamt that I possessed her talents. “Jonathan would never have it,” I said.

“Then I should never have Jonathan!” Kate shook her head in little paroxysms as if the very thought of capitulating to a man’s will would send her to the madhouse. Then she softened. “Oh, I know, he’s handsome and intelligent and has a bright future, and you love him and he adores you. But does one really need a husband, lord, and master?” She looked at me with the same mischievous smile that I recognized from our adolescent days. “I think that the modern woman should only take lovers.”

“Have you forgotten Lizzie Cornwall? She took a lover, and now she spends her time in the opium dens of Blue Gate Fields.”

Lizzie Cornwall had taught at Miss Hadley’s until one of the students’ fathers turned his eye on her and convinced her to leave her employment. “He’s going to set me up in beautiful rooms,” Lizzie had told us, her dark eyes dancing.

“I always give her a little money when I see her,” Kate said, sighing, “but she was a fool. We are not fools, Mina. We are women with intelligence and gifts.”

“Lizzie had gifts, but now she walks up and down the Strand in a rented dress throwing herself at any man who passes. She’s ruined! No one would hire her after he abandoned her. Discarded women are treated worse than animals!”

“Mina, how very dramatic you are. If you were not so concerned with preserving your sterling reputation, I should advise you to take to the stage.” Kate put her lips together and rolled her eyes toward the sky. The face was so funny that I burst out laughing.

“You are as puzzling as a sphinx, Mina Murray,” Kate said. “You speak one way, but sometimes your actions do not match your words.”

“What do you mean?” I asked defensively.

Kate stood up, rearranging some paper Japanese lanterns she had stuck into an Oriental vase. “When Jonathan was away in Exeter last month, you leapt at the chance to go to the music hall to see those mashers. You do have a bit of daring in you.”

It was true; I had accompanied Kate to see Kitty Butler and Nan King, two mashers who donned men’s clothing and sang to each other as if they were sweethearts. “What would Jonathan think if had seen you in that place with girls drinking ginger beer and swooning over the performers?” Kate asked.

The girls in the audience-working-class girls for the most part-seemed to be completely in love with the two singers, as if they did not understand that the two handsome “lads” were actually women. After the show, I pointed this out to Kate. “They have the beauty of a woman with the swagger of a man,” she explained. “Why, I believe I love them too!” The two of us giggled so hard at this that people on the streets stopped to stare at us.

“I did enjoy that show,” I admitted, “but what does that have to do with being daring?”

Kate put her hands on her hips. “The creature you call a lady would not be caught dead at such a performance, much less admit to enjoying it, if she weren’t daring enough to test the limitations of society. I submit that you, ’neath your Miss Hadley’s uniform and correct posture, are very much the daring sort. You just don’t know it yet.”

We worked together into the evening, and Kate suggested that she take us to supper at a nearby restaurant. The clientele were mostly journalists who stayed up late to meet the newspapers’ deadlines or to read the early morning editions as they rolled off the presses. I thought that the establishment would have a ladies’ dining room, which it did not, so that men, some of whom knew Kate, surrounded us. Mercifully, she declined their invitations to join them at their beer-soaked, newspaper-strewn tables.

As we quietly cut and chewed our capon, each lost in her own thoughts, a man in evening clothes came into