Karen Essex - Dracula in Love

We stood, staring at each other for a while, until he knew that I was not going to change my mind.

I will be watching . And then he left the room.

I opened the door myself before Jonathan had a chance to use the knocker. Standing at the portal with him was Morris Quince. Both men wore heavy, dark coats against the December chill, and their shoulders were hunched, either from the cold or from the anxiety of the visit. Quince looked larger and more chiseled than I had remembered. His strong jawline was set with a new ferocity. Jonathan had lost the haunted and defensive look he had worn on his face since his days in Styria. His eyes were clear and his face determined.

I invited them to come into the parlor, but they hesitated. “We would like you to come with us,” Jonathan said. “Mr. Quince would like to talk to you.”

“Please come in,” I said, knowing what the Count’s reaction would be if I left with them.

“Is he here?” Jonathan asked, trying to peer inside. Before I could answer, he said, “I have no care for my own safety, Mina. I will face him if necessary. But I do not want to put you in danger. Or the baby,” he added. “Things are happening that you should know about.”

“We will all be safe, I assure you,” I said, though seeing Morris Quince brought back the memories of his abandonment of Lucy and her subsequent death, and I could not be sure that I would not try to kill him.

The men exchanged looks to reassure each other and then followed me inside to the parlor. No one sat down. Morris Quince began to speak immediately. “I can only imagine your opinion of me, Miss Mina. I know that you think I callously left Lucy last summer, but I assure you that I did not.”

I did not respond, but sat down, waiting for him to explain himself. Jonathan hesitantly sat in a chair opposite me, but Quince continued to pace while he talked. He poured out his story, explaining that he had left Lucy in Whitby only so that he could hurry home to reconcile with his family and tell them that he intended to come into the family business and to marry. “I had begun to realize that I was not much of a painter after all,” he said, shaking his head with what looked like regret. “When I read that nonsense in the paper about Lucy being attacked, I saw the terrible stress our relationship was putting on her. I rushed to see her, but her mother told me that she was ill and could not see anyone. I thought that I was making her sick-sick with passion and longing, which made me aware that it was time for drastic action. I wanted to move the mother aside and go to Lucy, but Mrs. Westenra already despised me enough, so I left a letter with her that she promised to give to Lucy. I also sent a letter to Arthur, informing him that Lucy and I loved each other and intended to marry, and that as a gentleman, he must not press the issue of their marriage.

“When I arrived in America, I sent Lucy a telegram telling her to wait for me. I wrote her a letter every day, and, after weeks of not hearing back, I returned to London to find out that she had married Arthur and had died.”

His face was full of self-recrimination. “I am a wretched man. I never should have left her, but I did not want her to be treated as a runaway bride. My family would have thought less of her. She was too good for that. Instead, I killed her.”

As he spoke, I listened with the sorry knowledge that everything he said was true. Guilt flooded me, competing with sadness for mastery of me. “I had a hand in it too, Mr. Quince,” I said. Would I ever be able to forgive myself for encouraging Lucy into the arms of Holmwood? “I was convinced that you were a scoundrel and tried my best to convince Lucy of the same. If it is any consolation, she never doubted your love.”

The clock chimed four o’clock, and Jonathan stood up and looked out the parlor window. “I am sorry to interrupt, but there is a matter of some urgency that we must discuss,” he said. “There is not much time.”

“I have spoken my piece, and you have my gratitude for listening to me,” Quince said. “If you don’t mind, I will go outside to smoke.” He turned to Jonathan and added that he would keep watch.

I was about to ask Jonathan what he might have meant, but he spoke first. “Mina, you must leave this house immediately.” His voice was grave.

“What are you trying to tell me, Jonathan?” I asked. He was terribly nervous, and I realized the risk he was taking in coming here to talk to me.

“Just listen to me, Mina. Listen, and judge me later. We’ve no time for that now. We must get away from here.”

“I will decide what I must and must not do,” I said. How dare he come here, trying to command me like a husband? “Are you trying to recapture me for another of Von Helsinger’s experiments? Do you have any idea what I endured, with your consent, in that asylum? They would have killed me if they had gone through with their plans.”

“I will spend the rest of my life atoning, if you will just hear me out. I was in shock after what happened-seeing you in the photograph with the man who had orchestrated my ruin and believing that you were in league with him. The doctors assured me that they would help you. I did not know what else to do. My mind was muddled from all that I had experienced. This world, Mina”-he gestured around the room-“this world-the Count’s world, Ursulina’s world-that you now inhabit is not my world! And now you tell me that I am going to have a son and he is going to be raised in this world?”

I saw the frustration and helplessness in his eyes. “After I left you to have the transfusion, I sat in the parlor, worried about what was going to happen to you and wondering if you were to meet Lucy’s fate. I was about to return to the room to stop them, or at least question them further, when Seward and Von Helsinger came running into the parlor. They were bleeding and screaming that a wild beast had attacked them. We gathered weapons and we went back into the room, where the window had been ripped from its frame, the thick iron bars that no man could have possibly removed had been torn asunder, and your bed was empty.

“Not knowing what else to do, and believing that it was not safe to be alone, I remained at the asylum. I wanted to call the authorities and report you missing, but Von Helsinger said that the matter was beyond anything that the police could comprehend. He was right, of course. I lost all hope and spent weeks lying in bed, disillusioned and certain that I was suffering from a madness from which I would never return. When Ursulina came for me that night, offering pleasures that would relieve my anguish, I did not resist.”

Like a bolt of lightning, the sure knowledge that the Count had arranged the entire affair struck me. I knew beyond a doubt that it was true, that he bade the lamia to seduce Jonathan yet again, so that I would see him as unfit to be a father to his child. I felt manipulated by him, and I started to feel angry.

Love is not a game played fairly, Mina .

He was listening to every word. I could not hide from him, so I made up my mind to speak plainly to Jonathan regardless. “I hold you blameless for that,” I said. “You were the victim of forces beyond your control. But are you not afraid of me after what you saw me do to Ursulina?”

He almost smiled, not the boyish grin I had so loved in our innocent past but a more mature, knowing smile. “With all that I have seen, I too have changed. I have thought of little else but you and the child in the weeks since I saw you. I do not think that I am worthy of it yet, but I do want to be a father. I will do whatever I must do to strengthen myself for that task. I wish for that, Mina. Despite what you may think, I have never stopped loving you or wanting the life we dreamed that we would one day have together.”