and back into the life we had planned to live together.
The gentlest rain began to fall, a drop here and there. The wind picked up, rattling the trees and shaking clusters of leaves into the air. The mighty beast above lost its shape, its wings now simply the clouds that would soon pour more rain upon the town. I put my shawl over my head for protection and began the walk back down the steep incline.
Chapter Nine
Jonathan had been released from the hospital, and we spent our wedding night at the inn. After a small, quiet supper together, we retired to the room. I had no idea what to expect. I changed into a nightdress and lay quietly beside him in the bed. I watched the candle’s flame make quivering shadows on the wall, waiting for him to undress me, because that was what I had heard that men did. I had tried to gather information for this occasion. I wanted to please my husband, and I wanted our marital life to begin properly. When we were courting, I yearned for his touch and the pleasure that would come to us through intimacy. Though he had been sick, I still expected that he would want what all men wanted from their wives once the marriage has been celebrated. I thought that the light in the room might be inhibiting him-that he was concerned for my modesty or for his-so I asked him if he would like me to blow out the candle.
“No,” he said. “I do not care for the dark.”
I wondered if the brain fever had taken away his ability to engage in the act, and then I remembered watching him in his sleep as he made love to someone in his dream. But I also knew that I had to be patient. He had been through some kind of ordeal, which I still did not fully understand, and had contracted a disease from which he was not yet entirely recovered.
“Darling, I want you to know that I love you, and I know that when you return to familiar surroundings, you will quickly recover, and we will be the happiest couple in all England,” I said. I rolled over and kissed his cheek, caressing the other cheek with my fingers. His warm body felt good against mine, and I put my hand on his chest, letting it rest there.
He turned to face me, scooping me into his arms and pressing me hard against his body. I lifted my face, and he kissed me, at first tenderly and then harder, until I let my lips open. I felt a thrill as his tongue passed my lips and entered my mouth for the first time. He tightened his hold, and I wrapped my leg around his hip as if it was the most natural thing in the world for me to do. Comfortable and snug around him, I began to relax, giving in to the pleasure. Though I had given up my dream wedding, I loved the feeling of finally being married and in my husband’s arms. I was less nervous than I had anticipated and eager to experience what was to come. He put his hand under my nightdress, running it up my thigh, over my hip, and to my breast. A little murmur escaped my lips. Then, without warning, he let go of me and turned away, giving me his back. “It’s no use,” he said.
“Jonathan?” I asked. “What is it?”
“I have waited for this moment since I first saw you. I have dreamt of it every day, looked forward to it, lived for it. And now it is ruined, and it is because of me and my weakness. I have wronged you, Mina. I must confess my sins to you or they will eat me alive and drive me to utter madness!” Unable to face me, he said all this to the wall.
I had feared Jonathan’s infidelity ever since those long weeks in Whitby when I had had no word from him. I knew that this confession would be a tremendous relief to him but a burden to me. Such information, once shared, can never be retracted. I wanted to tell him to keep his secrets to himself, but when he finally turned to look at me, I saw in his pained eyes that the admission of guilt was necessary if he was to mend. Very calmly, I said, “I am your wife now. We must have no secrets.”
He breathed uneasily, trying to stanch the flow of tears. He began at the beginning of his tale, when he arrived at the Count’s castle in the Carinthian mountains. He was received in splendor, with a kind of lavishness to which he was unaccustomed. “I was blinded by their opulent living, Mina. Food and drink such as you have never seen, the quality and quantity overwhelming. The Count imported wines and ingredients from Italy and France, spices from the Far East, and plate and crystal from the finest makers in the world. In this manner was I greeted and entertained by him and his household.”
Jonathan completed the business transactions with the Count in a few weeks, whereupon the Count left him in the castle to see to his affairs abroad. “He invited me to remain in his abode if I wished. I had been entertained in the evenings by his nieces who lived with him, ladies who could sing and dance and play instruments and recite poetry. I admit to you, with some shame, that they dazzled me from the start, one in particular who gave me all her attention.
“I was taken in by this foreign siren, Mina. I had no intention of betraying you. But after the Count departed, in the course of one evening of feasting and drinking wine and watching these women perform their exotic dances, I succumbed to what were the most overt advances. I am not proud of myself, but I daresay that any man would have lost control under the circumstances.”
I saw through his strategy of simultaneously apologizing while making excuses for himself. I laughed to myself at Schwester Gertude’s story that my husband had been enchanted by a witch, when like any other philanderer, he had simply had an affair behind my back. “How many men have used the language of enchantment to excuse their indiscretions?” I asked. “Is this not what all men say? ‘I fell under her spell’?” I sat up, pulling the covers to my neck. “And so you succumbed to her charms. Whyever did you leave? Did you tire of her so quickly?”
He put his head down, shaking it slowly. “I don’t know what happened.”
I had to exercise control to not scream. “But you were there, Jonathan. What do you mean?”
“I mean that one moment I was in the throes of seduction and pleasure, and the next, I found myself wandering through fields and orchards. I was alone and lost, with only my clothes on my back and a small rucksack. They turned me out, or I escaped-I cannot be certain. I had money in my pocketbook and my identification papers, but my memory of those last few days was gone. I wandered, but for how long I do not know. The rows of plants in those fields were a labyrinth to my addled brain. The light in the valley was so soft, as if someone had draped a veil over it. It seemed like some magical place. I remember staring into a pond at my own face and not recognizing myself. I had no idea where I was or who I was. I walked and walked, and I stumbled into the field where women were picking the seeds out of split pumpkins. I stood there, watching their quick hands dip into the fruit and gather up the seeds. Something about the way the slime dripped from their hands sickened me and I started yelling things. I am not even certain what I was saying. That is when I was given a mixture to drink, which obliterated me. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a hospital with a German-speaking nun standing over me asking me questions.”
He leaned back on the pillow as if this confession had exhausted him. His lips were dry, and he kept licking them and biting his upper lip with his lower teeth. He looked altogether distraught.
“Jonathan, you began by telling me of an infidelity. But you speak of the women in the plural. Did you bed all of them?”
He looked straight ahead, refusing to meet my eyes. “I am ashamed to admit this to you, Mina, but they shared me among them.”
My body went cold, but he turned to me with a look of ferocity. “You must understand. They were not like ordinary women. I have never known women devoid of the simple principles of goodness. I am the most wretched of men, but I felt as if I had no choice in the matter, that my will was entirely suppressed. I was innocent until they got hold of me.”
He put his head in his hands. What could I say? This was beyond anything I dreamt I would ever hear. My Jonathan, whom I loved and trusted, and upon whom I pinned all hope, had participated in orgiastic play with
