I pondered that one, because it’s a tricky question. Love and a willingness to forgive don’t always go hand in hand. “I think she wanted to protect him. I think she loved him… Forgiveness? That’s harder to say. He hadn’t trusted her and that’s always hard for a woman to accept.”
“Suppose, for the sake of argument, she could have come back from the dead—would she have loved him then?”
He really did ask the oddest questions. Death seemed to be always at the forefront of his mind.
“I suppose she might. If a ghost is capable of love.”
That seemed to really hit home. “It has to be possible!” he snarled. “There must be a woman capable of loving beyond the grave.”
I touched him gently on the arm. “Who was she?”
“Everyone I have ever loved. Do you realise that it is possible for a man to live forever? To go on down through the centuries, never changing, never aging? But there is a price, and that price is to be forever alone. Would you walk that path if you could take it?”
To never see my few grey hairs turning into thousands? To never feel the stiffness and blindness of old age? To be able to see my grandchildren grow to adulthood? How could anyone not want these things?
“It would be a gift beyond price, but you’re wrong about being alone. No one need ever be alone.”
There was a cat lying down ahead of us, sunning itself on the pavement in the way cats do. A butterfly carelessly darted within paw range and the cat had it at once. It teased it, and pounced every time the butterfly thought it had escaped. I shouted at the cat to go away and it ran, leaving the butterfly to struggle into the air once more. Such a pretty thing, all red and purple, the sunlight making the wings look as though they were dusted with gold.
“Do you know what my sisters would have done?” Dracula asked.
I shook my head.
“Pulled its wings off”.”
I pulled away in instinctive horror.
“The price,” he said, “is to be unloved and always alone.”
The butterfly flew higher and as I watched it, I heard the church clock strike noon. When I turned back to face Dracula, he was gone. Make of it what you will.—Yours sincerely,
Ellen Terry
Later—
I still haven’t posted this. Maybe I never will. I’m still not sure what happened, or whether, indeed,
No, not concern—pity.
The Three Boxes
Elaine Bergstrom
London—August 19.
“The English is not difficult,” the Count said, settling into a plush chair in his host’s den, his reflection curiously absent in the polished mahogany top of the desk. His host did not notice, so intent was he on watching his visitor’s face, his body.
“You might find it odd that I should sit like this. But I find the acts of sitting, standing, even breathing—or at least pretending to—so important now that I am surrounded by the life of this great city and must do my best to fit in.”
His host did his best to listen the tale. One that would end here in Mayfair, but began days earlier in a far less civilized corner of the country. He would say nothing in the hour that followed, for in truth there was nothing he could say as the Count continued…
* * *
The Englishman himself is the puzzle. In my country, the poorest work the hardest, for they know it is only through work that they will survive. But here, after the ship ran aground and broke apart in the tide—that is good sailors’ English for the matter, I think—with all the wealth the ship carried scattered across the beach, none of Whitby’s poorest watching the ship break apart would provide me with any assistance in retrieving my sea-soaked boxes and getting them safely to shore.
So there was I, with not a soul to help me, dragging my boxes, heavy with soil and water, above the tide line. I had only the little money I had taken from the sailors. The bulk of my wealth was in jewels that I loathed to show to the lazy rabble lest they plot to rob me while I slept. Not such a fool, I worked alone, waiting for someone to come and offer service.
Someone did, but not at all the person I expected. To anyone less perceptive my helper appeared to be a boy, a youth of about sixteen. But I noted how the body moved, how weak the work it did, the slight scent of blood. No, not a man but a woman passing as one.
There were many reasons for such a disguise when I was alive—escaping slaves or willful women who did not like the husbands chosen for them. But I had come to understand from my solicitor visitors and from my readings of your land that a woman here would not need to hide. Not understanding, I did not let her know I had seen through her disguise.
I also did not have time to speak of it. Night was giving way to a dawn barely visible through the thick clouds. “How soon will the sun rise?” I asked my helper.
Face lifted to the sky, studying. “Noon,” she finally said, and shrugged.
I understood, and she seemed so clear on it that I trusted her. With my life. But, you must understand, I had little choice.
As she predicted, the sun did not break through the mists for some hours. By the time it did, she had already been paid and taken leave of me, promising to meet me at the warehouse five nights later. And so I slept in the innermost box, thankful that two pounds and the promise of more covered the storage cost.
A happy meeting with a fine outcome. I was safe for the moment with time to get my bearings before I left for the city I would call home. For the next four nights, as I walked the cliffs near the city, watching men and women, absorbing language and manners, even while dining on a noblewoman of uncommon beauty, my thoughts returned frequently to the woman who had helped me.
I met her again as we’d arranged. Her clothes were the same as before, but were now ripped and muddy from the knee down as if she had been hiding in some swamp. Again, I did not ask for an explanation. It was not my affair.
“These boxes you need shipped, are they all yours?” she asked.
I nodded. “I have property near London. I need to take them there.”
An interesting woman. She did not question the contents, instead asking, “You have money for this?”
“I have… means to obtain it,” I replied, still wary—not of her honesty but of the possible slip of her woman’s tongue.
She began a long explanation of currency exchanges until I stopped her with a wave of my hand, the gesture having some effect even on someone who did not know my temper. “I have the means… not in coin, but in goods. Do you know an honest person who would buy some… trinkets in gold?”
“Gold?” Her voice rose in curiosity, almost betraying her sex. “There are always those who would buy gold.
