“Godalming laughed at him and said, ‘What’s the matter, John? Don’t you want me to rid you of Harker? Isn’t he the obstacle to your fondest desire?’”
Jonathan waited for me to respond. “Yes, Jonathan, I am aware that Dr. Seward has some feeling for me. I assure you that it is neither welcomed nor returned.”
“Has he made overtures to you?”
“No, nothing like that,” I lied. “When we met in Whitby, he needed someone in whom to invest his disappointed passion for Lucy. Arthur teased him about it one evening at dinner.”
“There was no sense of jesting in the crypt. Godalming ignored Seward and turned to the coffin. He lifted the knife high above his head, and with something like a cry to battle, he thrust it into the chest of the corpse. ‘Now I defy you to come ask for your money, little bitch!’ That is what he said, Mina.”
Life has its moments of great clarity. They usually come retrospectively and rarely at a convenient time. At that moment, I knew to the core of my being that Arthur had married Lucy for her money and had had her committed, and perhaps even killed, so that he might keep it. Dazzled by his title and his charms, Mrs. Westenra had played straight into his hands.
“We must pack our things and leave this place in the morning,” Jonathan said. “I am sorry for what happened to Lucy, but we cannot help her now. That is up to God and God alone.”
At that moment, I put aside all thoughts of vindicating Lucy, of pleasing Kate with my discoveries, of saving any more women like Vivienne from Von Helsinger’s treatments-of anything at all but Jonathan and me saving ourselves. We threw our belongings into a valise, leaving behind the odorous clothing he had worn that night. We planned to announce our departure first thing in the morning and we agreed to brook no arguments for our continued stay. Jonathan and I slept that night holding each other, our arms encircled. We were, at last, a family.
When I woke up the next morning, Jonathan was not in the room. I supposed that he had gone to Von Helsinger to announce our imminent departure. I dressed in the clothing I had laid out the night before. At eight o’clock, Mrs. Snead came to the door with the announcement that my husband would like to see me in Dr. Von Helsinger’s study. I asked her to send someone up for our luggage. “I have not been informed of your departure, madam,” she said.
I assured her that we were leaving immediately.
When I entered Von Helsinger’s office, Jonathan and the two doctors were standing over the desk, staring at a newspaper. Jonathan glared at me with hostility. “You almost had me in your thrall,” he said.
Seward put his hand on Jonathan’s arm. “Let me handle this.” He turned to me. “Mrs. Harker, were you actually planning to leave the asylum this morning?” His eyes completed his thought:
“My husband decided it was time to go home,” I said, deferring the blame.
He picked up the newspaper and handed it to me. There, on the front page, was my own image, staring back at me. The photograph of Kate in mourning attire holding the ghostly baby was side by side with the photograph of me with the mysterious stranger hovering next to me. The headline read: CLAIRVOYANTS EXPOSED IN FRAUD SCHEME by Jacob Henry and Kate Reed.
“Now deny that you are one of them.” Jonathan seethed.
I tossed the paper aside dismissively. “Did you gentlemen not read the article? I accompanied my friends on their mission to expose these frauds. This is but a photographic trick, Jonathan. I don’t know what you are upset about.” The room was thick with tension and with the smoke that churned from Von Helsinger’s pipe, which was turning my empty stomach acrid. I waited for someone to break the cold silence and to draw away the attention of the three men who were eyeing me suspiciously.
“Are you going to deny that you know this man?” Jonathan yelled at me, and I cowered at the ferocity of his voice. I could not speak because the truth was elusive. No I did not know the man. But at the same time he was no stranger to me.
“Mrs. Harker, I think it is in your best interest to tell the truth,” Seward said. “Have you had secret relations with the Count? Do you have some secret history with him that you hid from your husband?”
“With the Count?” I asked. “Who is the Count?”
Jonathan threw his hands up in frustration and then reached them out to me, forming a noose around which I knew he would like to put my neck. “Stop pretending that you are innocent. What an actress you are, Mina! What a performance of guileless virginity you put on last night! When the truth is that you are one of his she devils, undoubtedly practiced in every sordid act.”
My face was on fire with mortification, blood burning over it like an army marauding across a continent. I put my cold hands to my hot cheeks, hiding my face, hoping to make sense of what he was saying.
“Mrs. Harker, do you deny that you know the Styrian count?” Seward’s voice was cool and steady.
Jonathan picked up the paper, pointing to the ghostly figure beside me. “You were in conspiracy with him all along! That is how he found me. You sent me to my ruin! Why, Mina? Was it all in the name of evil?”
“The man in the photograph is the Austrian count?” I felt as if someone had just scrambled a puzzle that I had been working on for a long time, sending its pieces scattering to the wind.
“Enough of this pretense!” The vein slashing the length of Jonathan’s forehead was a vivid purple. Tense muscles ran along the sides of his neck like two columns. He smashed his fist on the desk so hard that I jumped. I believe that if the two doctors had not been in the room, he would have attacked and killed me. “Admit what you have done, Mina. Admit once and for all who and what you really are.”
Von Helsinger spoke for the first time. “Mrs. Harker, do you deny that you have ever seen this man before?”
What could I say? “I have seen him, but I do not know him,” I said. I was too baffled and far too afraid to try to be clever. How could this be the man Jonathan had gone to see in Styria? “I have no idea how he inserted himself into the photograph. He was not in the room. Ask Kate Reed.”
“Who is this Kate Reed?” Von Helsinger asked.
Jonathan spoke before I could answer. “Kate Reed is a brazen creature who has been trying to corrupt Mina for years.”
I could not contain my tears anymore. I broke down, sobbing, and for a while, they let me cry. No one spoke, but the tension in the air was palpable. I made a decision. I thought that if I confessed everything I had been trying to hide-the inexplicable mysteries I had been trying to solve on my own-that someone, anyone, would help me to clarify them. “I do not know this man, but he follows me,” I began.
“That’s better Mrs. Harker. You are among friends here. Tell us everything,” Seward said. The velvety words flowing from his mouth caressed my nerves. “We are doctors. We can help you.” He addressed Jonathan. “Are you willing to listen to your wife’s side of this story?” Jonathan nodded. The men took seats, and I asked for a cup of tea from a pot sitting on a tea cart by the small stove. Omitting details too graphic or sexual in nature, I told them of the night I found myself on the riverbank after sleepwalking. I told them of the rude man’s attack and of the way that the mysterious stranger rescued me.
“This is the first I have heard of any of this,” Jonathan said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was afraid to upset you. I thought I had done something wrong, but I had no control over what happened. I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me.”
He did not answer, so I continued, relating my experiences in Whitby, about the storm and shipwreck, and how I saw the Count, or thought I saw him, at the abbey. I even admitted that I had received a note from that same person giving me Jonathan’s whereabouts. “If you are his victim, then so am I,” I said to Jonathan. “I have invited none of this.”
Von Helsinger put down his pipe. “Mrs. Harker, the female always feigns innocence when seducing the male. It would be better for you if you would admit your weakness for this man. Then we might be able to help you.”
I started to protest, but Jonathan stopped me. “You told me that you found out from my uncle that I was in the hospital.”
“I did not know how to explain it to you otherwise. I am sorry. You were in no condition to hear another’s bizarre tale.” I started to cry, and Seward handed me a handkerchief. “I had no rational explanation for how he knew where you were, but if he is, in fact, the Count, then of course he knew where you were. But how he knows me, I do not know.”
Seward had been taking notes as I spoke. He continued writing, while the other two men looked at me
