Dracula in Love

Dr. Seward did not seem to see my savior standing there, much less that he was holding the door open for me. Seward continued to talk as we walked right past the carriage, even though my savior held my gaze.

There is nothing for you here, Mina. Come with me.

No one else seemed to notice him, which was strange, considering his formidable presence would surely command anyone’s attention. Was everyone so caught up in mourning the passing of a young life, or was I hallucinating? I wanted to run into the arms of my mysterious stranger, just to see if he was real. But Dr. Seward was already helping me into one of the carriages in the cortege.

“You seem very distraught,” he said to me. “You must tell me what is the matter.”

Dazed, I took my seat in the carriage, and he sat next to me. “What is it?” he asked. His liquid gray eyes were full of concern. The carriage began to move, and I looked out the window, where my mysterious stranger still stood, staring at me as we drove away.

I turned around, running directly into Dr. Seward’s questioning eyes. “It’s a rather difficult subject,” I began slowly.

“I am a doctor. You may confide in me,” he said.

“Thank you for inquiring about my husband. I believe that he needs help,” I said, though I knew in the back of my mind that the person who also needed help was me.

I unburdened myself to Dr. Seward as much as I dared. I did not disclose Jonathan’s infidelity, only that he had suffered a shock before contracting the fever. The doctor urged me to bring Jonathan to the asylum, where he and his colleague might observe and treat him. He assured me that Dr. Von Helsinger was a pioneer in understanding the complexities of the mind, and that if anyone could usher Jonathan out of melancholia, it was he. I did not know if Seward was looking for an excuse to spend more time with me, or if he was genuinely interested in helping Jonathan. I knew only that I had to take action. If Jonathan regained his strength, he could put behind him whatever he had done in Styria and be a husband to me. And that, dear reader, was what I believed would put an end to my own bizarre dreams, yearnings, and visions. Please do not think me naive; I was merely-how shall we say?-uninformed. It is easy to judge the actions of another, but at the time, I completely believed my own simple logic.

I had arranged to spend the night in my old room at the school. Headmistress explained to me that it would be my last opportunity, as she had found a replacement for me who was arriving in two days. “Of course, no one will ever replace you, Wilhelmina. But I am too old to teach. Young girls these days are allowed to act just like little boys at home, and then their parents send them to us to sort them out. I do believe that if these lax and indulgent parents are not careful, girls will be entirely spoiled, and no one will want to marry them.”

Headmistress had passed her sixtieth birthday. Her hair was silver gray, swept up into a French-style knot that added to her considerable grandeur. While many private schools kept their students in mean conditions, denying them heat and well-cooked meals, Headmistress charged a high fee and warned parents that if they could not pay their daughters would be sent home immediately. She had explained to me over the years that she could either be harsh with the few whose parents tried to take advantage of her, or she could tolerate lack of payment, which would make life less luxurious for all the girls in her care.

We sat in the parlor, each with our impeccable posture and manners. I had spent much of my life imitating this woman, whose graceful hand lifted a teacup and brought it to her lips as if it were part of a ballet.

“Tell me, Wilhelmina, why did you and Mr. Harker marry so suddenly? I thought you had your heart set on an Exeter wedding.”

I told her what I had told everyone else, a condensed and sanitized version of the truth. “Jonathan contracted a fever of the brain while he was in Styria, and I went there to help him. He did not think it would be proper for us to travel together if we were not married.”

“That was very sensible,” she said, and she patted my arm.

She reached into a drawer and produced two envelopes, which she handed to me. They were addressed to me in Lucy’s handwriting. “These arrived at the time that I was searching madly for a teacher to replace you. I just found them earlier today under a stack of papers. I hope that whatever she wrote to you gives you some comfort for the loss of her.”

I held the letters tight to my bosom. Headmistress kissed my forehead and went upstairs, while I remained in the parlor. A few embers burned in the fireplace, but the room was chilly. I retrieved Headmistress’s shawl from the back of her chair and wrapped it around me. It smelled of the rosewater that she put on her neck after a bath. I breathed it in deeply, remembering all the times that the scent had given me comfort and strength and had staved off the ever-present loneliness that lurked just outside the perimeter of my life, and I started to read.

25 September 1890

My dearest Mina,

Has there ever been a reversal of fortune as dramatic as mine? I will try to elaborate in as much detail as I have time to gather here on the page, for my devoted Hilda, whom mother and I took back to London with us, has promised to sneak this letter out and get it into the post. I am sending it to Headmistress, who I know will faithfully forward it to you wherever you are. I dream that you are fulfilling the plan that you and Jonathan had of letting one of the little Pimlico houses, and that you are there now and will come to see your Lucy as soon as you receive this missive.

Mina, I am a prisoner in my own home, and my jailer is supposed to be my protector. Just three days after Arthur and I were married at Waverley Manor, as we were packing for our honeymoon tour, we received word that my poor mother had died. After all the years that I silently mocked her, skeptical at times that her ailment was real, she had an attack of angina in the night and was found in her bed, reaching for the servants’ bell. The death of a loved one is always a shocking thing, especially to me, an only child, who has no other living relations. But the most shocking news was yet to come. After we buried my mother, Arthur and I visited the solicitor, who read us the will. I then discovered that before her death, my mother changed the terms of succession.

The considerable fortune left by my father is passing directly to Arthur rather than to me. My mother’s words, included in the document, were that I was a flighty girl of uneven temper and I required Lord Godalming’s sober mind to ensure the continuance of the trust. She added that her medical condition would undoubtedly lead to her untimely death, but she could go to her grave in peace, knowing that she had done a mother’s duty by seeing her daughter married to a man of distinction. Her final request was that if we had a daughter, we would name it after her.

Now you might not think this news to be egregious. However, in my short stay at Waverley Manor, I gathered very interesting information. Arthur inherits a title and vast lands but has no money to speak of. He requires my fortune to support us in the style to which we are both accustomed and to renovate the manor house, which, though grand, has not seen improvements this century.

No sooner had the solicitor read the words than I saw at last the plan that had undoubtedly been made between Arthur and my mother. Outraged, I turned to my husband and accused him of marrying me for my fortune. “That is why you professed love even after learning that my heart belonged to another. Your motive all along was to gain control of my money!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Lucy,” Arthur said. But I was not assuaged. I asked the solicitor, Mr. Lymon, when had my mother made these changes. “Immediately upon returning from Whitby,” he said.

“You made changing the will a condition of marrying me, did you not?” I demanded of Arthur. He did not answer, but put his arm around me and explained to the solicitor that I had suffered an assault in Whitby, and, combined with the shock of my mother’s death, I had not yet recovered my senses. I begged Mr. Lymon, who had been a friend of my father, to help me. “My father would not want this!” I said. “My father would have wanted me to be protected.” I held on to the man’s desk, screaming these words as Arthur tried to take me away. I am certain that I did appear to be mad, but I was in such a state of shock that I could not control myself. “Please allow Lord Godalming to take care of you,” Mr. Lymon said, with a look of great pity in his eyes for me, as if I were the madwoman Arthur claimed me to be. “Lord Godalming knows what is best for you.”

I thought of Morris, of what true love had felt like, and that I would never again have that feeling. My husband had married me for my money, had successfully gotten control of it, and now may do with me as he pleased. I saw the obsequious manner with which Mr. Lymon treated Arthur, and I realized that those four all-