Those eyes at this moment were bloodshot. He looked as if he had not slept or changed his clothes in days. Von Helsinger’s pipe smoke was probably saving us from the smell of Arthur’s rank-looking shirt.
“At first, she only came to me in my dreams,” he said to me. The men were silent. “She was bloodied and horrible, in some unnatural state between life and death. She would not speak, but she stared at me as if she hated me, just as she did sometimes in the last days, when she was so ill. It got so that I was terrified to go to sleep at night, but I consoled myself with the fact that these were mere dreams. ‘Holmwood, get hold of yourself,’ I’d say. I restored my grip on reality, and for one night I did not see her, and I slept with ease. But for the past three nights, she has come to me again, staring at me in anger as blood drips from her eyes and her mouth, and gushes from her arms.
“Then, this morning, I awakened, safe in my bed. I rubbed my eyes, feeling relief that I had been dreaming. I took in a deep breath and sighed, but when I took my hands away from my eyes, she was standing at the foot of the bed, bloody, just as she was in the dream. She held her arms out to me. ‘I want your blood, Arthur,’ she said, hissing like the most toxic asp, her tongue long and ugly. She said, ‘Do you not love your Lucy? Do you not want to give me more of your blood?’”
He turned his head away, looking into the fire, burning in the grate.
“Then what happened?” I was completely caught up in his story.
He did not look up. He spoke quietly. “I shut my eyes and screamed, and when I opened them again, she was gone.”
Seward was staring at me with such intent that I wondered if my husband was going to notice. But Jonathan clutched the arms of his chair, his face whiter than Arthur’s, his forehead pinched so tight that his eyebrows could not be distinguished from the furrows.
“Does Mrs. Harker need to be subjected to this, Arthur?” Seward asked.
Lord Godalming ignored his friend. He picked up two pieces of newspaper, waving them at me. “Lucy is alive, I tell you. I saw her, and so have others.”
I scanned the two articles that described a “Bloofer Lady,” who was luring the children of Hampstead away from their playgrounds, returning them hours later or the next day, with wounds at the neck and throat.
“The newspapers print fright stories like this every year as All Hallows Eve approaches merely to sell papers,” I said. “This is naught to do with Lucy.”
Lord Godalming turned to Von Helsinger as if he were about to spring on him. “You just said, before Mina came into the room, that there are women with unnatural powers over men and that they thrive on drinking blood! I believe that you turned Lucy into one of them with your strange treatments!”
Von Helsinger showed no reaction. Seward stood, putting his arm around his friend.
“Arthur, you must get hold of yourself,” Seward said. “With all due respect to my colleague, I believe that you have been having nightmares, which would be a natural response to the death of your wife. I can help you to analyze these dreams and settle your mind, but you must calm down.”
My husband interrupted. “I think we must excuse my wife.”
“As I have already suggested,” said Seward in his doctor’s voice. Seward offered his hand to me to help me out of the chair. To his colleague, he said, “Ring the bell, please.”
I did not take his proffered hand. Remaining in my seat, I said, “I will not be excluded. Lucy was my dearest friend.”
“That is why you must leave, Mrs. Harker,” Seward said. “All this talk of her, bloody and rising from the dead, is too upsetting.”
“I am not upset,” I insisted.
“Mina, let the men handle this.” Jonathan was animated now, his eyes bright, the lines of worry in his face smoothed over.
Von Helsinger reached under his desk, tapping something with his foot, which created a loud buzz. A few seconds later, Mrs. Snead arrived. “Escort Mrs. Harker to wherever she would like to go,” Seward said. He offered his hand again, and this time I took it. As I was leaving with Mrs. Snead, he mouthed the words,
At suppertime, Mrs. Snead brought me a tray of food with a note from Jonathan that I should dine alone in the room. Later still, he came to the room to change into heavy clothing.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“I will tell you about it when I return,” he said.
I questioned him about what had transpired after I had left Von Helsinger’s office, but he would say no more, only that he was going somewhere with the men.
I had no idea how long they would be gone, but I wasted no time in asking Mrs. Snead to let me into Seward’s office. “I want to make use of his medical library while he is gone. That way I can look through the volumes without disturbing him.”
She let me into the office and lit the lamps before warily closing the door. Worried that she might reenter the room, I pulled a fat volume off the wall and opened it on the desk in front of me so that I might pretend to be reading.
Fortunately, I had convinced Headmistress a year before to purchase a phonograph to utilize in teaching elocution, for there was no better way to rid a girl of her coarse accent than to let her hear how she sounded to others. I looked through the cylinders on his shelf until I found the two that were labeled with my husband’s name. I reached for the first and removed its cardboard cover, afraid of what it was going to reveal.
The cylinder was new, its waxy surface still nubby, whereas for economy’s sake, Headmistress insisted that I use the same one over and over until its surface was smooth. I placed it in the machine and turned it on, praying that no one would hear. I supposed that I could tell Mrs. Snead that I had permission to listen to the doctors’ recordings and face the consequences if she reported me to Seward.
Sitting at the desk, I poised my diary inside the larger volume so that I could take notes. Coughing to clear his throat, Von Helsinger began to speak. “Jonathan Harker, twenty-eight years of age. The patient suffered a severe case of brain fever in which he experienced erotic hallucinations and loss of memory. He was hospitalized and treated, with an extended period of rest in the town of Exeter. Symptoms of neurasthenia, melancholia, and listlessness persist. Upon occasion, he also exhibits paranoia, believing that women, in particular his wife, are in league with the devil. Reasons for this assumption will become clear.”
My pen dropped from my hand, blotting ink on the few words I had already written. Von Helsinger’s voice continued. “Harker claims that while in Styria, the niece of the Austrian count for whom he was conducting real estate transactions, seduced him. He describes the girl as more beautiful than the paintings of Mr. Rosetti, with flowing hair of gold and a naturally red, sensuous mouth. Harker engaged in sexual relations with her, and, in turn, with her and two other women, both described as raven-haired beauties with mesmerizing eyes, red lips, and glittering white skin. All three of the women were irresistible and exotic, and in his words, ‘not pure like our English beauties.’ The women performed what he called ‘unspeakable and unholy acts,’ exciting his ‘most base instincts and desires.’ He was unable to resist them and, in fact, searched them out in the Count’s castle whenever they left him alone. After two weeks, he was no longer able to keep track of time. All three women were practiced in the arts of intercourse and fellation, which the patient had never experienced. Because of this, he awarded to these females magical powers.
“Even under hypnosis, he has had difficulty talking about aspects of the experience, so I asked him to write them down. Here is an excerpt of what he wrote:
Ursulina invited me to ride with her one morning. Never have I seen a person, male or female, gallop across difficult terrain with such reckless abandon. Her dazzling blond tresses danced in rhythm with the steed’s long white tail as she galloped across the valley ahead of me; it was as if she were the goddess of dawn riding Pegasus. After exhausting me in the outdoors, she enchanted me in the castle by engaging my senses with feasting and music and dancing, and lulling me with wine, all the while slowly removing her clothing and mine, one agonizing piece at a time. Then she showed me the very meaning of pleasure with her hands, her lips, her mouth, and even her teeth. When she had me in her thrall, and when I was at my most vulnerable, she invited two of her demon sisters to join us. These creatures weaken a man’s feeble will against temptation, thrilling him with every bliss-making act. Oh, they have secrets, sir, undreamt of secrets to bring a man to a state of incomprehensible enjoyment.
“Harker continues to have vivid dreams about the women, especially the one named Ursulina. He cannot
