Mina (37 page)

"I went with her to find Anton
Ujvari. He had burned the book, I assume just before he was attacked, since the
cover must have been pulled from his fireplace. The man would not have burned
it if he hadn't finished the work. According to a letter he never mailed, he
had placed it in a safe place. I assume he meant that he'd sent it to his
client, one Mrs. Beason of Exeter." Gance laughed. "You aren't
Mina's only confidant, Winnie dear."

"I see
that, but sadly Anton Ujvari took his secret to the grave. Now, where is
Mina?"

"I don't know, though I have a good idea where to start
looking for her. Now, if I am to crawl off what until yesterday was my deathbed
to help you, I need some incentive. Winnie, don't scowl. Reach into the drawer
in the night table and look at the sheets Mina gave me."

Winnie did
as he asked and recognized them immediately. She sighed. "I'd give you the
rest of the translation to read if I had it. I

do not. Now, please, for
Mina's sake, where is she?"

"You're
certain that she's not at home?" Winnie nodded.

"Then
she has to be at Seward's," he said.

"Are
you certain? If we go and aren't certain, Seward can lie."

"Seward will lie in any event.
But, yes, she's there. My driver took her and Harker there. I would think that
someone like Mina would be too precious for Seward to release, and he is
persuasive enough to convince Jonathan that his wife's hysteria could be protected
there." Gance's logic was impeccable, and his grin implied that he knew
it. "The question is, now that we're certain, what shall we do?"

Each night the mists closed around the asylum at Purfleet. Each
night Mina stared out at them then went to sleep on the bed she had pushed
close to the window. With the breezes soft and damp against her skin, she
dreamed of her last visit m this house. The Maudsley book implied that a
recurring dream meant something more than its face value.

If so
,
Mina
thought, hers meant freedom.

From
convention. From conventional relationships. And, God knew, from Jack Seward.

She recalled how Lucy had described
Seward's straightforward, rather nervous proposal. When Lucy turned him down,
he'd asked if there was another suitor. He must have been pleased to hear that
there was and that he had not been rejected for himself alone.

Mina wondered why he was not
married, for truthfully any intelligent woman could control Kim easily. Perhaps
they all saw through him, as she did. The more she infatuated him with her
wit, her helpfulness, her glowing references to him in her journal, the more
she understood the incredible ego of the man.

Yet he
trusted her too, enough that she might have escaped that morning. They had been
walking the grounds when a sudden

emergency in the asylum
called him back. She had asked to wait for him on the terrace, and he had
agreed.

Had she been
certain that this was not a test of her reliability, she might have gone.
Instead, she was content to bide her time here

with the staff and the
lunatics, not certain to which group she belonged.

Today Mina had achieved a
breakthrough with the blank-faced girl who'd cried when she heard Browning. She
had taken the girl to her own room, helped her bathe and wash her hair. When
she was clean, Mina gave her fresh clothes then combed out her hair in front
of the mirror. The work took most of the afternoon, and when she was through,
the girl smiled and shyly whispered her name, "Annie." She beamed
when Mina said her own in return.

"Annie
is reaching out to you," Seward said when she told him. "You're a
woman. Perhaps she feels more comfortable being with

you. You would be a great
asset to this place."

"Is
that an offer, Jack?"

"I
hadn't meant it quite that way, but yes, I think it is. When you're well enough
to decide what you want to do, consider it."

Night six,
she thought, as she brushed out her hair and extinguished the light. A long
howl coming from the lawn, like the cry of a

wolf or a large dog, made her
heart race with fear. She ran to the window and stared down at the grounds.

Near the
wall, she saw a figure of a man dressed in a dark inverness, a large hound
walking beside him.

As she watched through the bars of
her window, a carriage rode slowly by on the road. In its light, she saw the
man in the inverness more clearly, the whisps of white-blond hair falling over
his forehead. At that distance, she could not have been certain that Gance had
come for her, but the presence of the dog made it clear. This was a wolfhound
the size of Byron. Gance had told her that there were few so large.

She hastily
lit the lamp, held it up to the window and extinguished it again.

The carriage
lamp dimmed then flared once more.

Signal
received, she saw Gance open the carriage door. When dog and master were
inside, the carriage moved slowly on in the

direction of Car
^-
fax.

She heard the howling again after sunrise, ran to her window and
saw the carriage in the light, dog and master once more walking on the edge of
the road. She grabbed a white scarf from her dressing table and waved. Though
Gance must have seen her waving, he wisely gave no indication.

Again the carriage moved on; this time she saw it turn into the
old drive leading to Carfax. At the place where the wall between the estate
and the asylum was highest, it disappeared from view. Though Mina watched for
some time, it did not reappear farther down the drive.

Gance waited
for her! She dressed quickly, then sat and wrote quickly in her journal.

I asked Jack yesterday
if he would have some work for me, and he said he would when I was well. I
asked him when that

would be, and he said when Jonathan decides so. "After all,”
he noted in his logical way, "if you thought Jonathan delusional or
despondent, would you want him to determine when his treatment would end?"

"Do you think I'm
ill?" I asked him.

"Obsessed,” he
replied. "But so much better."

And it's true. I am
better, and if Jonathan would only come, I would show him how much better. I
find it terrible that he

would leave me here so coldly
after all we've been through.

I've made a decision. Jack, I know you will read
this and I want to put your mind at ease. I am going back to Jonathan. I will
face him and demand to he released from my marriage. He had grounds, and once
it is done and I am free of him, I will come back and work with you if you
will still have me.

Please do not be
concerned. I have the means to travel. I will write as soon as I am home.

She returned
the book to its drawer, then knocked on her door until one of the aids unlocked
it. "I would like to have breakfast

alone with Anne," she
said. "Dr. Seward gave me permission to work with her."

"It
will be ready in an hour, madam. You can dine in the room where you read to
her."

They ate
together. Mina talked a great deal. Annie, as always, said little, though Mina
was certain the girl listened and

understood. Seward joined them for tea, then agreed to Mina's
request that the three of them take a walk on the grounds. "She looks so
much better, doesn't she?" Mina asked him, knowing it was the clean
clothes, the combed hair, the kindness that made it appear so.

"She does," he said. His
arm was linked with Mina's while Annie moved ahead of them going in the
direction Mina had pointed out to her, toward the corner of the grounds where
the wall to Carfax and the main road met, moving faster than Mina walked, increasing
the distance between herself and the couple.

When she was
near the road, Annie turned to Mina and saw her nod. With a shriek, the girl
bolted, jumping the low wall and

disappearing into the stand
of willows and brush on the opposite side of the road.

"Go
after her, Jack. I'll get help."

Seward ran.
He caught Annie easily and took her, squealing with happiness at how she'd
duped him, back to the house. Only

after he'd given her to the
care of an aide did he realize that Mina had gone.

By then, Gance's hired carriage had pulled out of Carfax with
Mina, Gance and Winnie hiding in the back. Though Mina was fairly certain that
Seward would believe her letter to be true, they did not return to Gance's
house. Instead, they traveled south through London, stopping only long enough
to give the dog to the care of a servant before continuing on to Croydon. After
they

made arrangements for rooms,
Gance suggested that they eat.

"Rest first," Mina said.
"You're hurt. Your wound even opened on the ride." She spoke of it so
naturally, as if his bleeding were common knowledge. He lifted the corner of
his shirt and saw the tiny circle of red. Winnie gaped at her. Mina shrugged.
"I just know," she said.

They
compromised and dined in a private room, Gance stretched out on a bed, the
women at the table beside the bed. Gance ate

carefully, almost as daintily as the women, taking small bites and
swallowing with some difficulty. His breathing was shallow, his expression
somewhat strained, as if hiding his pain were becoming as great a trial as the
pain itself.

"Now
that you're a free woman, Mina dear, where do you want to go?" Winnie
asked.

"I
never thought of that. I only wanted to be free of Seward," Mina replied.
"You've brought me this far, Gance. Where would

you take me?"

"We can
go to France. I have friends in Paris. Your husband won't be able to touch you
there," Gance suggested. Winnie shook

her head. "Don't,"
she said.

"What should I do, then? Go back to Jonathan?" "You
have to face him."

"He
will do what Millicent wants. He will do what convention demands. I'll face
him, Winnie, but only when I have proof that

what I feel is not some
delusion that Seward or another like him can repair."

Winnie
pointed to the translation. "Give him this. Tell him how you feel."

"It
isn't enough. I need proof, not just for him but for me. I'll find it . .
." Her voice trailed off, the sudden thought of what she

needed to face having
unnerved her.

"At Dracula's castle," Gance finished for her.
"I'll go with you." "You're in no shape to travel," Winnie
snapped.

"I will
be soon enough. A day or two in Paris followed by a luxurious trip east in a
private car will be easy enough on my

recovery. By the time we reach Transylvania, I'll be ready for the
overland ride. If I'm not, we can find Van Helsing. We ought to find him
anyway, unless we want to end up permanent residents of that castle."

"You
would do this for me?" Mina asked incredulously.

"No, Mrs. Harker. I do it for me. This is the sort of
adventure Old Uncle Byron himself would have relished." He raised his mug
of ale in a jaunty salute to the dead. "Since it's settled then, Winnie
and I will leave you for the night," Mina said, kissing him on the forehead.

As soon as
the women were in their own room, Winnie took her friend's hand and said,
"Mina dear, may I request a favor?"

"Of course, anything." "I want to take the
translation home. Then, in a week or two, I'll take it to your husband." "I
was going to ask you to do that. I also want you to give Jonathan this."
She handed Winnie her little book.

"This
is your journal!" Winnie exclaimed. She knew what was written there.

"There
will be no more secrets between Jonathan and me, not even as to where I've
gone." She waited to see that moment of

understanding in Winnie's expression then went on. "Tell him
that I'd like him to wait in Exeter until I write him. Tell him to please try and
understand why I have to go back."

"What
if Dracula is still alive?"

Mina smiled bitterly. "Then I'm still cursed, and I'll have
to deal with that." "How?"

"I
don't know. Perhaps I'll ask Van Helsing to kill me. I'd trust him to do it
well. Perhaps I'll weaken and choose that terrible life.

If so, I will do my best to practice control and hope I'm not
suffering from self-delusion. Whatever I choose, I promise that you'll get
word of it. Don't look so sad, Winnie. Isn't knowledge better than
ignorance?"

"Dearest
Mina!" Winnie said, holding out her arms. Winnie cried that night while
Mina lay beside her, holding her, comforting her,

feeling Winnie's broken
breaths warm on her neck, Winnie's anguished pulse so strong against her cheek.