coming days, we will observe the effects of the infused blood on the other inmates. I predict that we will see miraculous improvements in the behavior of some of these hysterics.
“I hold to my theory that blood transference is the key to expedited human evolution. The female, strengthened by male blood, will be relieved of her biological and moral weaknesses, and from the union of two superior beings will come a race of supermen with the highest and purest of human qualities and the most desirable genetic characteristics.”
Chapter Thirteen
Jonathan’s experience with the women in Styria reminded me of some of the things that Vivienne had described. Yet Von Helsinger had not leapt to the conclusion that Jonathan was mad. Suddenly, I wanted to see her, to see if her stories held any further clues to these mysteries. But I had no idea if I could convince Mrs. Snead to give me access to a patient at this late hour.
I neatly packed up the volume I had opened and went to put it back on the shelf, but out of nowhere, thunder exploded in the sky, and I dropped the book on the floor. It fell upon the broad plank with an echoing thud. I stooped to pick it up, but the clock chimed half past the hour, and the noise made me drop it again. Frustrated, I fell to the floor and clutched the leather volume to my chest, which was how Mrs. Snead found me.
“Madam?” She came toward me, leaning over me. “Are you well?”
“I dropped a book, that is all. Mrs. Snead, I would like to see the patient Vivienne, the older woman with the long white hair,” I said.
Mrs. Snead took a step away from me as if I had frightened her.
“I realize that the hour is late, but didn’t Dr. Seward tell you to afford me access to what-”
“Madam, I am afraid you don’t understand. It will always be too late to speak to that poor soul now. Vivienne is dead. She died earlier today.”
“That is not possible!” I knew that by my reaction, I must have sounded mad, but the news stunned me. I had just visited with Vivienne, and though she was crazy, she was not physically ill.
Mrs. Snead stared just to the left of my cheek, as if she were addressing an invisible sprite on my shoulder. “She’s dead, all right, poor old soul. She went into paroxysms this afternoon, shivering with fevers and chills and the like. I called the doctor out of his meeting with the older doctor and Lord Godalming and Mr. Harker. It was after you left the room, madam. By the time Dr. Seward arrived, she were gone. I believe he said it were a stroke, madam. ‘She’s out of her misery now, isn’t she, Mrs. Snead?’ That is what the doctor said. He was very sad.”
This unexpected culmination to the day’s bizarre events shattered my already fragile state of mind, and I started to cry. “Please tell me that you are lying, Mrs. Snead.”
“Madam, I ain’t lying. You can see the body if you like.” She offered this with the ease with which she would offer a cup of tea. “’Twon’t be carted off till morning. We use the cellar as the morgue.”
I followed Mrs. Snead downstairs and outside to the rear of the house. A slanted rain struck us as I waited for her to disentangle the cellar key from her bulky ring. She opened the door, and we stepped into the wet, moldering air of a low-ceilinged brick room. A single torch cast light on a cot, covered with an old, graying sheet. Vivienne’s long white hair fell over the side of the cot, hanging almost to the floor, like some lengthy dust ball that had gathered over the years.
We walked closer, and I noticed that the room was used as a wine cellar, walls lined with diamond-shaped wooden bins, many of which were filled with bottles-an odd juxtaposition to the lifeless body on the cot. Mrs. Snead approached the body, and I followed her, unsure why I had come. Without asking me, she pulled back the sheet, revealing Vivienne’s face and chest. She looked as if she were asleep. Her eyes were closed, and the torchlight cast a warm glow on her face, making her seem lifelike and not pale like the dead. She wore a loose, unbuttoned nightdress, and I noticed a tiny drop of blood marring the sleeve. I did not want to ask Mrs. Snead’s permission to lift the sleeve, nor did I think it proper to begin to undress the dead. Bracing myself, I took Vivienne’s cold, stiff hand. Closing my eyes, I began to pray. “Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.” I opened my eyes slightly. Mrs. Snead’s hands were in the prayer position at her chest and her eyes were shut tight. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done…” I continued to pray, eyes open, sliding Vivienne’s sleeve higher up her arm until I saw what I suspected I’d see: a fresh wound at the inner elbow covered with a patch of blood-soaked gauze.
Jonathan returned to our room at midnight, his clothes and hair drenched, and carrying an indescribable scent- dirt, decay, and other odors I could not identify. He took off his coat and boots and dried his hair with a towel, rubbing furiously as if he was trying to scrub off his scalp. After a few moments of this, he dropped the towel, fell to his knees, and started pounding the floor.
“It’s wrong, all wrong!” he cried. When he lifted his face, his cheeks were wet and his eyes wild. He started tearing off his clothes. “I have to get rid of these things,” he said. “They carry the scent of death, Mina. I have seen it and smelled it.”
He ripped off his shirt, tearing off a few of the buttons, which flew through the air and landed on the floor. His suspenders slid from his broad shoulders, and he fumbled wildly with the inlay of buttons beneath the flap of his pants. When he finished, they shimmied to the ground and he stepped out of them. He started to take off his underclothes when I realized that I had yet to see my husband naked.
I went to the wardrobe and opened it. “Would you like your sleeping shirt or your night suit?” When he was ill, he had favored woolen men’s pajamas as advised by the doctors.
“Nightshirt,” he said quietly.
I heard him stripping off his flannels as I removed the nightshirt from the drawer. When I turned around, he was naked but for his socks and garters, and I saw for the first time his lean physique, the triangle of nut-brown hair on his chest, his slim pelvis, and his penis, which jutted straight out from a thicket of dark pubic hair. An unexpected surge of desire shot through my body, and I cast my eyes downward in embarrassment, but they rested on his long thighs, and I felt the thrill of arousal once more. I had been trying to ignore how much I longed for him to touch me, but my reaction to seeing his body left me unable to deny it. Quickly, without meeting his eyes, I went to him with the nightshirt open at the neck, my hands inside it, ready to slip it over his head. He leaned forward, allowing me to do that, and then tucked his arms into the sleeves.
“I am going to put these clothes in the hall so that the laundress will pick them up at dawn,” I said, bundling up the wet mass and holding my breath against the rank odor. I put the clothes outside the door and closed it behind me. When I turned around, Jonathan grabbed me into his arms. “I love you, Mina,” he said.
Before I could respond, his lips were on mine and his tongue was inside my mouth, searing it with heat, probing, searching for something, some answer that I was not sure I could provide. He backed off a little but held me tight against him. “How sweet you taste, and how pure you are.” He picked me up and carried me to the bed, laying me on the velvet duvet. He gathered my hair in his hand. “The first time I saw you, I knew that if my hand ever got hold of this thick black hair I would lose all control.”
I was titillated by his words, but I had no experience with men’s loss of control. The stranger who made love to me in my dreams was the one in control.
“You don’t know how much I want to make love to you, Mina. Do you want me?”
“I do, Jonathan,” I said. “I have longed for this.”
“Let me see you. Let me see what you look like.”
I pulled my nightdress up slowly, revealing my legs. “Go on,” he said. His face was expressionless. I squirmed a little so that I could raise the gown even more, pulling it up to my neck, exposing everything. I could not tell by the look on his face whether he was pleased with me or not. His eyes scanned me as if he were taking inventory. “Beautiful,” he said. “I knew that your skin would be finer than silk.” He saw the heart with the key that he had given me before he had left for Styria and he touched it gently with his finger. “You still wear it? Even after what I did?”
