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Authors: Elaine Bergstrom
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given him.
He managed to ignore it until a week after the reading of Gance's will. That afternoon, still exhausted from a long, sleepless night brought on by too much wine at an impromptu wake for Gance that Wilde had tossed with his legacy, he found himself too weary to run away from his curiosity any longer.
He made a grand gesture of uncorking a bottle of Gance's well-aged Merlot and pouring a glass before opening the transcribed journal of Countess Karina Aliczni. When he came to the reference that implied that perhaps vampires did not need to kill, a shudder rolled through him, then another as he realized that he was thinking not of Lucy but of Mina and what they might have done to her had their mission failed.
Though he had loved Lucy, he understood her shortcomings. She had been loyal but flighty, a bit eccentric but lovely, flirtatious, but in time she would have made a marvelous mother for his children. All in all, the perfect wife as long as she did not face undue adversity.
Then she would have wilted and given in.
And yet?
He recalled Jonathan's words to Mina—that if she were to change, he would change with her so she would not go alone into that dark and terrible half life. It had seemed a grand gesture at the time, but not now.
Suppose that when Lucy had tried to give him that dark, eternal kiss, he had pushed back the others with their crosses and their stakes and their hosts and holy water. Suppose that he had let her change him as Dracula had changed her. Would he have possessed enough self-control for both of them?
He didn't know. He had never looked closely at his own defects. But he was certain of one thing: The faith that might have sustained a better man had long ago left him. It would not have been God that kept him from breaking that most basic of all commandments—it would have been the memory of what human contact had once meant to him.
No. In the end it would not have been enough.
Mina, on the other hand, would only grow stronger in adversity. She had already proven that far more than once.
He thought of her, of Lucy, and last of himself. Then he cried, until there were no tears left in him—one final grand gesture of grief for her memory.
In the morning, he took stock of his pounding head, his eyes red-rimmed as some widowed woman's, and vowed to take Gance's advice from months before and put the matter behind him.
It was not so easily done. Arthur had lost his own parents when he was thirteen—a father to a riding accident, a mother to grief. He had been raised by a bachelor uncle who had more money than common sense. Some ten years after his parents' death, he lost his uncle when the ship taking the man to India sank off the Cape of Good Hope.
With a title and the money to accompany it, Arthur drifted for a few years until he met Lucy. No sooner had he started courting her than her family adopted him as their own.
He'd reveled in their exuberant attention. But they were just as exuberant in their grief. The family still draped their doors in black ribbons and their bodies in black wool, and most still had to reach for kerchiefs when her name was mentioned, as if she had been laid to rest last week instead of nearly a year before.
He has lost a fiancée. Would he lose her family too?
Yet he knew that the best way to begin his own healing was to stop his constant visits to her family and instead mourn with the stronger ones who also had loved her.
And so his thoughts turned to Mina. He intended to send her a letter telling her that he was coming to Exeter and wanted to call. Before he could do so, he received a telegram from her, inviting him to come and visit and see her new home.
He'd heard about the house; all Gance's close friends knew of it. But it had been Gance's private retreat. Few even knew the address, and of those who did, none had ever been invited inside.
Seeing Mina had been a pleasant idea. Now curiosity made the journey downright irresistible.
He sent a
He managed to ignore it until a week after the reading of Gance's will. That afternoon, still exhausted from a long, sleepless night brought on by too much wine at an impromptu wake for Gance that Wilde had tossed with his legacy, he found himself too weary to run away from his curiosity any longer.
He made a grand gesture of uncorking a bottle of Gance's well-aged Merlot and pouring a glass before opening the transcribed journal of Countess Karina Aliczni. When he came to the reference that implied that perhaps vampires did not need to kill, a shudder rolled through him, then another as he realized that he was thinking not of Lucy but of Mina and what they might have done to her had their mission failed.
Though he had loved Lucy, he understood her shortcomings. She had been loyal but flighty, a bit eccentric but lovely, flirtatious, but in time she would have made a marvelous mother for his children. All in all, the perfect wife as long as she did not face undue adversity.
Then she would have wilted and given in.
And yet?
He recalled Jonathan's words to Mina—that if she were to change, he would change with her so she would not go alone into that dark and terrible half life. It had seemed a grand gesture at the time, but not now.
Suppose that when Lucy had tried to give him that dark, eternal kiss, he had pushed back the others with their crosses and their stakes and their hosts and holy water. Suppose that he had let her change him as Dracula had changed her. Would he have possessed enough self-control for both of them?
He didn't know. He had never looked closely at his own defects. But he was certain of one thing: The faith that might have sustained a better man had long ago left him. It would not have been God that kept him from breaking that most basic of all commandments—it would have been the memory of what human contact had once meant to him.
No. In the end it would not have been enough.
Mina, on the other hand, would only grow stronger in adversity. She had already proven that far more than once.
He thought of her, of Lucy, and last of himself. Then he cried, until there were no tears left in him—one final grand gesture of grief for her memory.
In the morning, he took stock of his pounding head, his eyes red-rimmed as some widowed woman's, and vowed to take Gance's advice from months before and put the matter behind him.
It was not so easily done. Arthur had lost his own parents when he was thirteen—a father to a riding accident, a mother to grief. He had been raised by a bachelor uncle who had more money than common sense. Some ten years after his parents' death, he lost his uncle when the ship taking the man to India sank off the Cape of Good Hope.
With a title and the money to accompany it, Arthur drifted for a few years until he met Lucy. No sooner had he started courting her than her family adopted him as their own.
He'd reveled in their exuberant attention. But they were just as exuberant in their grief. The family still draped their doors in black ribbons and their bodies in black wool, and most still had to reach for kerchiefs when her name was mentioned, as if she had been laid to rest last week instead of nearly a year before.
He has lost a fiancée. Would he lose her family too?
Yet he knew that the best way to begin his own healing was to stop his constant visits to her family and instead mourn with the stronger ones who also had loved her.
And so his thoughts turned to Mina. He intended to send her a letter telling her that he was coming to Exeter and wanted to call. Before he could do so, he received a telegram from her, inviting him to come and visit and see her new home.
He'd heard about the house; all Gance's close friends knew of it. But it had been Gance's private retreat. Few even knew the address, and of those who did, none had ever been invited inside.
Seeing Mina had been a pleasant idea. Now curiosity made the journey downright irresistible.
He sent a
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