Dracula in Love

Epilogue

London, 31 December 1897

Dear reader, my tale is not yet done. I fear that more blood is on my hands. Early in the year 1891, Kate Reed and I wrote a story exposing the doctors at Lindenwood for administering blood transfusions that killed at least two patients. Authorities began an investigation after the story was published, but before evidence could be gathered, John Seward committed suicide, and Dr. Von Helsinger disappeared, possibly going back to Germany. Kate and I visited the asylum with a lunacy commissioner, and Mrs. Snead told us that the night before, a red-haired man with a bump on his forehead came for the doctor and drove him away. I suppose that together they concocted the far-fetched tale with which some of you are already familiar.

Soon after our story was published, Kate got pregnant by Jacob, who married her, left the newspaper business, and became a partner in her father’s textile company. Kate’s editor fired her, claiming that no respectable man would employ a pregnant woman. I see Kate often; our sons are the same age, though her daughter is five years old and mine is still an infant. Kate continues to attend meetings of organizations that are fighting for women’s equality. For myself, I am still relieved to not have the responsibility of voting, but I suspect that my daughter and her generation will feel different. It was Kate who showed me the newspaper announcement that Lord Godalming was engaged to another heiress, though I have heard that he is thin and pale, that his health is not good, and that he has a recurring problem with insomnia.

Perhaps of all of us, Headmistress came to the most surprising and happiest end. As Kate predicted, Miss Hadley’s School for Young Ladies of Accomplishment closed its doors as wider doors of education opened to girls. At the age of sixty-five, Headmistress finally used the skills she had taught to other females for almost fifty years and married a handsome, widowed grandfather five years her junior.

Though I do muse on what might have been, I do not regret my decision to stay with Jonathan. He and I do not bring up the past, but our exploits with the immortals opened up a world of infinite sensuousness, which we continue to explore with each other and enjoy. Jonathan no longer has the youthful exuberance that had drawn me to him, but I recognize that I am largely responsible for its loss. On the other hand, he is a well-respected solicitor and a loving father.

Our son, Morris, is a sanguine child. As a baby, he nursed furiously-almost violently-but since that time, he has proven to be a happy little boy. Our daughter, Lucy, is just a baby, and I am not sure what sort of temperament she will develop. My labor with her was shockingly easy. She came out of me without a cry, and when the midwife lifted her up, she stared back at me with my own green eyes. “Look at this,” the midwife said, pointing to the wine-colored stain on her thigh. “She has the exact same birthmark as her mother.”

As for me, I have evidence that I still have my powers, and that if I desired, I could develop them. I often hear others’ thoughts, which is not as interesting as it sounds, for with the exception of children, most minds are cluttered with the mundane. I cannot say that I crave blood, though I look forward to a time when I will drink it again-and this I will do, though I cannot say when. Once while Jonathan and I were making love, he was at the height of arousal and encouraged me to take his blood. Though it brought both of us ecstasy, it later made him feel weak and ill, so I have not done it again.

When people see me, they always comment that I have not changed in many years, but I am only just approaching my thirtieth birthday. We shall see what the future brings.

A few weeks after the death of Morris Quince, Jonathan went into his office to discover that the title to the Count’s London mansion had been transferred to my name, along with a substantial endowment for its upkeep. The Count’s staff had disappeared, so I hired my own minimal one. We do not live there-we are more comfortable in our home in Pimlico-but I visit it often by myself, reading the Count’s books or lying in the big bed in which I found myself after he had rescued me from the asylum. It is in these two rooms that I most feel his presence. He has not come to me since the day he vanished, but I am aware of him, though I cannot locate him in time or space. Yet I know that he still exists somewhere, and, as he said before he vanished, it is not finished between us.

I have no idea what happened after Jonathan and I left the mansion on that last evening. By the time I took possession of the house, it had been long cleared and tidied, looking exactly as if the Count still lived there. No one was charged with a crime, and, undoubtedly owing to Godalming’s name and connections, there were no newspaper reports, nor was there a public scandal of any sort. Morris’s body was to be sent back to his family in New York but was lost at sea in a shipwreck and never recovered. My heart bleeds for his parents, and if I ever find myself in America, I will pay them a visit and tell them what a heroic man their son was.

I do not know what will become of the red-haired writer’s story. Despite its sensational tone and its gripping narrative, it has failed to sell many copies or capture critical acclaim. Like almost all works of fiction, I am sure that it will be read by a few, and in the coming years, all copies not thrown out with the rubbish or lost in fires or other disasters will rot in musty libraries until the shelves are purged to make way for newer and more relevant stories. But I have said my piece and corrected the record so that in the future, my children, should they ever come to associate their parents with that work of fiction, will know the truth.