Part 22 (1/2)

Doomed! If his side had not felt as if it were on fire, he would have laughed. He lay silent, contemplating the future until he fell into a fitful sleep in which he dreamed, as he often did in times of pain, of his father.

The previous Lord Gance had lain in bed for months before he finally succ.u.mbed to what his family privately termed debauchery.

Though the man had been no more than fifty, his mind had failed him. Too young to understand what was happening, Gance watched in terror as his father's temper grew less predictable each day. The man demanded drink, foods he should not eat. The servants were forbidden to cater to him.

Gance, who loved him, had.

And when his father finally died-raving in his last hours for his dead wife, and for the mistress who was not permitted to enter his house--Gance had known who killed him.

When Gance was younger, he'd dreamed that his father's ghost had come to punish him. Now, he dreamed that he was in that bed, screaming for Mina, and for all the others he had used, to come and comfort him. He struggled as the darkness closed around him, fighting to wake before he died.

He was roused, some hours later, by the announcement that Jonathan Harker had arrived.

With the horror of the attack and his dreams to strengthen his resolve, Gance replied, ”Show him in.” Gance did not ask to be made presentable, or to be propped up higher in the bed. His very helplessness would disarm this enemy, and he needed Harker impotent during the words he was about to say.

Gance had observed a number of Harker's moods in the past, but he had never sensed him dangerous until now. With his arms rigid at his side, his face red with fury, Harker refused a chair, standing instead at the foot of the huge Galle bed like some crazed specter from Gance's feverish dreams. ”What have you done with my wife!” he demanded.

”I wooed her shamelessly. On the dance floor the night I first met her. At your dinner party. I kissed her in the yard of St. James Church. I think that even then she thought I was someone else.”

Gance waited to see some flash of understanding. He was not disappointed. Jonathan sank into a chair. ”Someone else,” he echoed. The words were not spoken as a question.

”Even that hardly surprised me except that Mrs. Harker seemed to be such a practical, intelligent woman. Later, I discovered that her practicality was all a facade. Nothing else can explain what she did to me:” He paused, giving Harker a chance to comment.

When he didn't, Gance went on. ”Come here, Mr. Harker. Let me show you.”

Jonathan moved toward him, all anger dissipated, a terrible expression of fatality on his face.

Gance slowly raised his arm, moaning from the pain the motion caused, and pulled down the collar of his nights.h.i.+rt. The mark Mina had made on his neck was darker now, a bruise in the shape of a pair of lips, the cut a red streak at its center. Gance heard the quick intake of breath, and Jonathan bent over to look at it. Pressing his case, Gance held out his cut palm. ”I told the doctor that the man who attacked us did this, but she cut me here as well just last night.

”She is quite mad, you know, though I admit there is something wildly arousing in her insanity. I have never seen such a pa.s.sionate woman. I could not believe that she would drink from me with such . . .”

Jonathan's face grew white, but, Gance noted clearly, the confession still did not confuse him. ”Why are you telling all this to me?”

Jonathan asked.

”Because Mina said that she will. There's some honor in being first and sparing her the words, especially when the lady is so apparently ill. I would not want you to think that her talk of what we did was ... well, another delusion.”

”If you weren't in your sickbed, I'd . . .”

”You'd what? Throttle me? Call me out? Jonathan Harker, I a.s.sure you that I would kill you. Then where would your darling Mina be? It's my nature to win even if the outcome is a sentence to the gaol.”

”What happened to her?”

How calm Harker seemed, yet how concerned. So he loved his wife still, would most likely forgive her what he would see as a foolish display of pa.s.sion. Poor Mina, Gance thought. She deserved better.

”Today?” Gance asked. ”You've heard part of the story already. An old man, most likely a thief, was in the garden. Mina saw him and became quite agitated. As she had with me, I believe she thought him someone else. I told her I would send the man away personally. I ordered her to stay in the house, but she picked up a knife we had been using to cut fruit and followed me outside.

”I don't think the man would have harmed either of us, but when he saw her so distraught, it must have aroused the insanity in him as well. He raised his gun and shot me. As I fell, Mina attacked him. I never saw such fury.

”I'm thankful to her for saving my life, but I don't think that's why she did it. She called out a name as she lunged for him. Dracula, I think it was. Then another foreign word, nosferatu.

”Afterwards, she dropped to her knees beside me. She eyed my wound so intently I thought she meant to place her lips against it as she had against the cut on my hand. When the servants rushed around us, I said that it was me who had stabbed the old man. I s.h.i.+elded her because I did not think she was capable of answering any questions and because . . .”

”I quite understand.” Though the words seemed to gag him, Harker added, ”And I appreciate your candor. It will be of great help in treating her.”

”You may stay here tonight if you wish.” Jonathan shook his head.

”Then use my carriage and driver to get to the station. I think that would be more secure than a public cab.” Jonathan stood and started for the door.

”Wait one moment,” Gance said. ”I want you to understand something. I pursued your wife because she is beautiful and intelligent and independent. I want you to know that had I any indication that Mrs. Harker was at all disturbed, I would not have gone near her. I have never been indiscreet when it mattered, and I find this situation most unfortunate for all of us.

”I intend to leave for Paris as soon as I am well enough to travel. I think it best under the circ.u.mstances that I go away for a while. There'll be talk of the killing, and we need to let the rumors die. Mina was not present when the police were summoned, and you can trust my staff not to mention that she was here.” Gance didn't touch on their business dealings. Neither did Harker, he noted.

”And, if you would, ask the doctor to come in when you leave,” Gance went on. ”He has an injection he has been trying to give me since the first wore off this afternoon.”

It had gone well, Gance decided after Harker and his wife had left. His driver would know if Harker had taken his wife to Seward's asylum or, hopefully for the woman, home.

If Mina had told her strange tale to him when he first met her, Gance might have wondered at her sanity. Once he knew her, he was certain something had happened. Now he was utterly convinced that Mina had told him the truth, for the steady, sensible Jonathan Harker had stared at the wound on his neck as if he had seen many like it before. No, they weren't all sharing the same delusion. They had all seen something they believed to be immortal and utterly deadly.

Well, one thing Gance had told Jonathan was true. It would be wise for him to leave England when he was well enough to travel.

There were so many parts of the world he had not seen. He tried to recall where Mina had said the Borgo Pa.s.s was located. Near Odessa? Galati? No matter he'd made certain that when he left, Mina would be coming with him. She'd show him the way.

III

Early in the morning, Jonathan conferred with Seward on what should be done for Mina. He began by telling of he affair, concluding bitterly, ”I thought her obsession with Dracula was over when we returned from Transylvania. I was wrong.”

”Memories survive, Jonathan, and they can be more damaging than the events that created them.”

”What can be done?”

”Mina must be taught to control the past, to bury it if need be. It's difficult work, even for a man, and men are less emotional.”

Jonathan thought of Arthur, his desperate search to end his loneliness by whatever means he could.

”Leave her with me for a while,” Seward said.

”Here? In this house? After all that happened here?” The suggestion seemed impossible.