Dracula in Love by Karen Essex (2)

Intrepid reader, before I allow you to meet Jonathan Harker and proceed with our present story, I would like to briefly take you back in time one year to the spring of 1889, when Headmistress had decided to lease a floor of the house adjacent to the school to secure additional rooms for her boarders. She had called upon an old friend, Mr. Peter Hawkins, Esquire, who maintained offices in both London and Exeter. Hawkins had largely retired to Exeter, so he sent his young nephew and apprentice in the legal field who lived in London to advise on the transaction. That was how Jonathan entered our lives and entered Headmistress’s rather fusty parlor, which was where I saw him for the first time.

The room had none of the new eclecticism of Kate Reed’s flat, but had been decorated some fifty years ago by the elder Mrs. Hadley, from whom Headmistress had inherited the house. The furnishings were heavy and ornate, as was the style in the earlier part of our century. In keeping with its formal atmosphere, Headmistress used the parlor to receive prospective parents and their daughters, or her most special guests, serving them tea in bone china and using the linens from her grandmother’s wedding chest, for which she personally supervised the starching, pressing, and folding. An antique Belgian point de gaze tablecloth of roses with raised petals covered the tea table, revealing only its lower legs, which looked as if they belonged on a colossal mahogany giant.

During their meeting, I had poked my head in the door to ask Headmistress a question, and Jonathan caught my eye. He looked quite boldly at me, making me blush. Before Headmistress could open her mouth, he had leapt to his feet requesting an introduction. One was dutifully provided, and I gave him a little nod, all the while assessing how tall and handsome he was, how white his collar, how starched his shirt, and how well-tailored his coat of subtle velour stripes. He had long hands so nicely shaped and so very clean that the white arc at the bottoms of his fingernails seemed to glow. I could not judge the color of his eyes. Hazel, perhaps, with a touch of amber. It appeared that he had had, that very morning, a haircut and a shave at his barber’s. A hat, fashionable, but not ridiculous or unmanly, sat on the table. It looked new.

He inquired as to what subjects I taught, and was told that I instructed the girls in etiquette, decorum, and reading. He fumbled for words, making a feeble joke about being deficient in the first two areas, but considered himself rather well read for a solicitor. Headmistress dismissed me, but not before I looked him straight in the eye and smiled.

The next day Headmistress informed me that Mr. Harker had offered to lecture my reading class on the importance of developing strong literary tastes. He arrived a week later with notes in hand. He told the girls that as a student, he had read Goethe in translation and was so moved by the work that he decided to learn enough of the German language to enjoy the original. He had hoped that at least one girl present would develop that sort of serious literary sensibility. For those with more romantic tastes, he read a poem by Mr. Shelley, furtively glancing at me as he read, and blatantly staring at me as he explained its meaning. He looked very tired, as if he had been up the night before composing his lecture. At tea afterward, he confessed that that was exactly what he had done, and asked Headmistress’s permission to call upon us again. She said, “If you mean to call upon Wilhelmina, then the answer is yes.”

He stammered out a short sentence: “Yes, that is precisely what I meant.” He then left in such a hurry that he had to return to collect his hat.

That was the beginning of our courtship: a year of fruitful visits, Sunday strolls and picnics, and lengthy conversations about similar interests over tea, culminating in a proposal of marriage put to Headmistress just weeks ago, who accepted on my behalf with delight.

“It is the perfect culmination of every lesson I have taught you, Wilhelmina. You will be sorely missed here, but your success will be an inspiration to our pupils and a superb advertisement for the school. I am as happy as a mother that I had a hand in your good fortune, and even happier that you did not need to marry beneath you.”

We both knew that it had been a danger; girls with my ambiguous family background were usually left with the choice of marrying a man of even less status or spinsterhood. In fact, Mr. Hawkins, who had reared Jonathan after his parents died in an epidemic, did voice some consternation about me. I’m certain that he thought I was a fortune hunter. With Jonathan’s good looks, education, and bright future, he had his pick of many girls from prominent families. But Jonathan explained to his uncle that we two orphans had found immediate kinship, in addition to romantic attraction. We understood the loneliness that only parentless children experience, and we both longed to create a family that would give us the sort of domestic life we had yearned for as children. After a long tea with Headmistress, and after interrogating me, Mr. Hawkins gave us his blessing. “Pardon my caution in this matter, Miss Murray,” he said to me. “Jonathan is my liege, my kin, and my heir. I am thoroughly satisfied as to your character, and I am sure that you will be a lovely wife and a solid partner to him.”

These days, when sitting with Jonathan, sipping tea and having a simple discussion, I was overtaken with gratitude for my good fortune. Unlike Kate, I was not “in the middle of things,” where I might meet a compatible mate, nor did I have the family connections that would bring me a man of distinction. My dearest friend, Lucy, was a year younger than I and had already turned down a dozen offers of marriage from men she always tried to send my way. But after rejection by Lucy, those men simply pursued other heiresses of lesser beauty and wealth until they found one who accepted their offer.

Jonathan was above all that. He was good and kind and honorable, and he had an open mind and a broad way of thinking. He put love above fortune, and though he was manly and protective, he also encouraged me to read books and newspapers so that we might discuss literature, which I have always enjoyed, and also current events, which I must admit that between him and Kate, I had begun to find more interesting.

Today, he entered that same parlor, removing his hat with what I can only describe as flourish. He kissed me on the lips, an intimacy we had allowed since our engagement. “You will not regret the day you agreed to marry me, Miss Murray.”

“I never believed I would, Mr. Harker,” I replied, remaining on my tiptoes, hoping that he would kiss me again. I let my arm linger around his neck, enjoying the broadness of his shoulders.

“Truly, Mina, something extraordinary has happened. A count, a member of the Austrian nobility, has retained the firm to conduct a substantial real estate transaction in London. My uncle is consumed with settling two entailed country estates and has turned this affair entirely over to me.”

Jonathan’s eyes, today honey-brown, had a new sparkle. His skin was flushed with the early summer warmth and with his own enthusiasm. “After a lengthy correspondence, the Count was very specific that my uncle send me as his personal emissary. I leave in a few days for the duchy of Styria.”

I wanted to share Jonathan’s enthusiasm, but all I comprehended was that this business would take him out of the country and away from me.

“Don’t you see, Mina? A substantial bonus will be coming to me. We will have a very tidy sum of money to begin our married life, enough to lease one of those little town houses you have set your heart on in Pimlico.”

I slapped my hand to my mouth in surprise, a most unladylike gesture, but I could not help myself. “Do you mean it, Jonathan?” I asked. “You would not toy with me about so important a subject?” I had spent hours imagining Mr. and Mrs. Harker living in one of those brand-new houses with a cozy parlor, two bedrooms, a dining room, a kitchen, and a water closet.

Jonathan saw my happiness. He picked me up by the waist and twirled me around. “Mr. Harker! You forget yourself!” I teased.

“Oh, no, Mina, when I finally forget myself, it will be much more interesting than this!” Since our formal engagement, Jonathan had begun to hint at the excitement of the marriage bed, which of course, both thrilled and embarrassed me.

I poured our tea and sat down, and Jonathan sat in the chair next to me, pulling it close. “Of course I would not tease you, Mina. Seeing you happy makes me happy. I have sent for a brochure on the property. After my business with this count is concluded, I shall be more than ready to negotiate the lease. Our first home will have two bedrooms. Do you think that Quentin will mind sharing a room with little Maggie for the first few years of their lives?”

Jonathan and I had spent endless hours picturing the children we would have together, their names and characteristics, and the details of their early years.

“But little Maggie may arrive first. We will have to ask her if she would mind a baby brother invading her nursery.”

“Maggie is a very generous child,” Jonathan said, breaking into a broad smile at the thought of his future daughter. “She will be delighted to share her quarters with her brother, provided he respects the dollies that Father has given her. Do you know, Mina, that I have already bought her one.”

“You bought Maggie a doll?” I asked.

Jonathan was blushing. “I went to the shops yesterday and found an entire department devoted to children’s toys! Imagine! I bought a dolly for Maggie and a little wooden train for Quentin.”

I squealed, wrapping my arms around myself at the thought of Jonathan’s love for our future children. “I hope you don’t think me foolish,” he said.

“I think you are the most wonderful man I have ever met!” I said, and I leaned forward and kissed him delicately on his lips. He reached into his pocket and brought out a small jewelry box, handing it to me. I had been given so few gifts in my life that I was not sure how long I should wait to open it. “Well, go on,” he said, smiling. “The box is not the gift, Mina.”

I opened it slowly. Inside, resting on alpine green velvet, sat a gold filigree heart on a chain, with a small gold key attached as an amulet. Both the heart and the key were dotted with little amethysts. I took it out of the box and let it hang in the air. To me, the little stones were as dazzling as diamonds.

“It’s the key to my heart, Mina, which you already possess.” He took the necklace from me and fastened it around my neck.

“It is beautiful, Jonathan. I shall treasure it,” I said. I pressed the necklace into my breastbone.

“I have wanted to give you something for a long time, but I did not know if it would be appropriate. Today, I could not help myself. I was carried away with buying gifts for my family.” Jonathan reached into another pocket and retrieved a small leather-bound notebook. “I also purchased one of these for you and one for myself. I leave tomorrow on my journey, but let us record our every thought and experience so that when I return, reading the diaries will compensate for the time we spent apart.”

“What a lovely idea,” I said, running my hand over the smooth brown leather.

“There must be no secrets between a man and his wife. We must share our innermost thoughts. That is the way to keep a marriage vital and fresh.” Jonathan had been reading marriage manuals since we announced our engagement.

Every woman intuitively knows to censor her thoughts when expressing them to a man, husband or otherwise. Undoubtedly men go through a similar process when speaking to women. But the sincerity of Jonathan’s words touched me, so I thought I would try to confide at least a small part of my recent experience.

“Does sharing innermost thoughts also apply to one’s dreams?” I asked.

He blushed. “Dreams are out of our control, Mina.”

“I have had disturbing dreams of late,” I said. “Frightening dreams, in which people are doing bad things to me, hurting me.”

Again, he took my hand. “Dear Mina, who could possibly want to harm you, even in a dream?”

“I dreamt that I was being attacked by a man.”

He waited, and then he dropped my hand. He took a sip of his tea. “I was afraid of this very sort of thing. Did you not tell me that Kate Reed took you into those terrible tenement houses in the worst part of the city, and then dragged you to the offices of the very men who built them, where she confronted them?”

“Yes, but-”

“Do you not think it dangerous for a woman to be running around the filthiest part of London, and then confronting the men who developed it?”

“Yes, of course I do, but it is Kate who confronts. I am as quiet as a mouse.”

“But that neighborhood is rife with criminals. You might have been hurt. Don’t you see, Mina? Venturing into these seedy worlds with Kate is giving you nightmares. The mind doctors now say that dreams are reflections of one’s own fears. If you are exposed to frightening places and frightening men, then it follows logically that you will dream of being attacked.” Jonathan considered himself a thoroughly modern man, following all the new trends in science, medicine, and industry and especially the explanations of Mr. Darwin about human evolution.

“But the dreams are upsetting,” I said. “The actual experiences were not.”

“Your unconscious mind gave you the dream to warn you against doing these things again.” He took both my hands and kissed them. “When we are married, all bad dreams will disappear. I shall banish them from our kingdom, my princess!”

Jonathan’s concern for my well-being always had the effect of salve on the wounds of my childhood. Had anyone ever cared for me so? Yet I did not want my activities with Kate prematurely curtailed.

“Let us strike a bargain,” I said. “If I promise not to venture into dangerous situations, will you allow me to assist Kate until we are married? After that, I will be too busy making our home. Besides, I only learned stenography and typing to help you, and that is what I shall do, at least until our first child is born.”

The tension melted from his jaw and relaxed into a big, boyish grin. “That sounds like my girl,” he said.

“I love your smile, Mr. Harker, and I will do anything to keep it on your face,” I said, touching his cheek.

“But no secrets between us, Mina? No matter what misadventures you are led into at the hands of Miss Kate Reed?”

“No, my darling, I promise,” I said, wondering how I would keep my side of the bargain if I had another strange episode. “No secrets.”

Jonathan had been gone two weeks, and the school term was coming to an end, when Kate invited me to accompany her on an assignment. Godfrey and Louise Gummler, husband and wife spiritualists and photographers, had risen to popularity in recent years in London, thriving in a city where many who had claimed to photograph spirits had already been exposed and driven away. A newspaper photographer that Kate knew had examined their photographs of clients with spirits hovering in the background and had suspected that they used a sophisticated double-exposure technique to achieve the effect. A French spirit photographer using the same technique had just been put on trial and convicted in Paris. The Gummlers charged a good deal of money for their service, and Kate and Jacob, always keen to expose fraudulent activity, were anxious to get to the truth of the situation.

Kate had convinced her father to give her the money to purchase an elaborate mourning gown to play the part of a bereaved mother. “I suppose you can wear it again after I’m dead,” he had said, handing over the money. “It will please your mother to see you so nicely turned out.”

This evening, she was somberly beautiful in a swirl of black silk moiré. I suppose that she wanted the Gummlers to see that she was a woman of means, ripe to be swindled out of a goodly sum of money. Either that, or she secretly enjoyed wearing silk finery and could not admit it, considering her ideals. Jacob wore a dark suit, which he had purchased years before to cover funerals of important people for the newspapers. He did not look quite the equal of his “wife,” but men of means often did not pay much attention to their dress. He had, however, found some way of bleaching his fingers clean of their perennial ink stains.

I came along as godmother of their fictitious deceased child. I did not own a mourning gown, but Kate assured me that the dark-colored dress I wore as a uniform would suffice. I put on a short cotton jacket to improve my style, but Kate said it brightened up the look too much and made me take it off. She threw a coarse black woolen shawl around my shoulders and stood back to look at me. I turned to look in the mirror.

“I look like your poor relation,” I said.

“That is the point, Mina. You are to look as miserable as possible, and with your pretty face and perfect ivory skin that glows like a white rose in the moonlight, and the two emeralds that you call eyes, it is rather difficult.”

The Gummlers’ parlor was a study in fringe. Flowered Spanish shawls draped most of the furnishings. Madam Gummler herself was a middle-aged woman with red streaks of rouge caked on her cheeks and powder in the creases that ran from her nostrils to her mouth. Godfrey Gummler appeared to have taken all the hair from his head and applied it to his face. He was bald as a baby’s behind, but wore the long, furry muttonchops and capacious beard made popular years ago after the Crimean War.

The centerpiece of the room was a boxlike camera, also draped with a Spanish shawl. Madam Gummler put her arm around Kate as she ushered us inside. “My dear, I was touched by your letter. Tragic! To find one’s little infant dead in the crib! Taken from you without warning, without illness, for no foreseeable reason!” She called Jacob and myself angels of mercy, “flanking this lovely woman in her time of need. How fortunate she is to have two stalwarts such as you by her side.” And then to the three of us: “Do sit down.”

Kate sat quietly at the table as Madam Gummler poured three cups of tea, placing their saucers on little lace doilies to protect the shawl on the table.

“First, we shall call upon the spirit of your dear little son,” Madam Gummler said. “After we establish a firm connection, my husband will take the photograph. As you can see by our walls, we have had great success in the past, reuniting the living and the dead.”

The walls of the parlor were lined with framed photographs of the Gummlers’ living subjects, all seated in this very room, each with a ghostly figure hovering in the background. The portraits covered the walls from the wainscot to the floral wallpaper trim bordering the ceiling. The ghosts varied; some were identical to the subject, which Madam Gummler explained meant that the camera had captured the subject’s etheric body, or higher self, while other spirits were different entities entirely.

“Here is Sir Joseph Lansbury with his beloved mother,” Godfrey said. Sir Joseph looked to be a dignified man in his forties; the ghost of his mother was a matron in a white cap and white dress with a lace collar. Others were photographed with baby ghosts wearing christening costumes, or older ghosts in antique garments. Some of the apparitions were angelic forms or, in some cases, mere swirls of light that one had to presume were spirits.

“The spirits themselves have told us how the photography comes into being,” Godfrey explained. “They manifest themselves by merging our sphere with their own. This creates a mixed aura. When rays of light pass through this hybrid atmosphere, they are refracted, which causes their images to be projected on the plate.”

“That is most interesting, and a fair scientific explanation,” Jacob said.

“It is a mere veil that separates you from your child, Mrs. Reed. Just a thin membrane, invisible, made of vapor. Believe me, he is just on the other side. What is the little darling’s name?”

Kate, who apparently should have had a life on the stage, produced a single teardrop and said, “Simon. After his grandfather.” Jacob reached out and touched her hand. What players they were! For my part, I sat quietly sipping tea and trying to look as lugubrious as possible. Godfrey went about the room lighting candles. He lowered the gas lamps on either side of the fireplace.

“Simon. Lovely. Now we begin,” Madam Gummler said.

“Should we all hold hands?” Jacob asked.

“No, none of that nonsense is necessary,” she replied. She raised her hands to the ceiling and with eyes turned upward, she called out in a voice from deep within-octaves lower than her speaking voice. “I call upon the heavenly bodies and angels of high rank to deliver the spirit of the child Simon Reed! Simon Reed, your mother is calling to you! If little Simon has already made his transition and is sitting in heaven with God, then ask the Lord to allow us to borrow his spirit for a brief moment to comfort his bereaved mother. Let us borrow him from eternity! O Holy Ones-Michael; Jophiel; Uriel; Gabriel; and Afriel, protector of babies and children-hear my pleas and answer me!”

Her eyes were closed, and she swayed gently as she waited for a reply from the heavens. I looked about the room. Everyone’s eyes were shut tight. Candles flickered, making the photographs on the walls doubly eerie. But nothing happened.

“Simon Reed, your mother, father, and godmother are calling out to you. O Spirit Mothers, free the infant to come to us, and we shall return him to you, where he may rest in your holy bosom for eternity.”

Suddenly, the medium’s breathing pattern changed, and she started to take short breaths, as if she was about to have an asthmatic attack. She threw herself back in her chair as if something had knocked the wind out of her.

“Another presence has entered the room,” said Madam Gummler, opening her eyes and looking directly at me. “Is there anyone near and dear to you who might inhabit the spirit world?”

She looked convincingly afraid but excited at the same time. Either she was an actress with the skills of Ellen Terry, or she had genuinely felt something happen that had gone undetected by the rest of us.

I looked at her blankly.

“Anyone close to you who is deceased?” she asked.

“Why, everyone,” I said. Jacob laughed. Kate opened her eyes and looked at me angrily. “Surely we are not dead, Wilhelmina.”

“N-no, of course not,” I stammered. “Perhaps my mother may be trying to contact me.”

“No, it is emphatically a male who is attempting contact.”

“I cannot think who it may be,” I said, hoping that it was not my father. The last time I remembered seeing him, he beat me and yelled horrible things at me. I did not want him manifesting here in this parlor, intruding upon the new life I had created and saying things that would disturb Kate’s opinion of me.

“Perhaps it is Simon,” Kate offered.

“Yes, oh yes, I do feel little Simon as well. Yes, I do. Oh, what a sweet little darling. He has a message for you, Mrs. Reed.” Madam Gummler closed her eyes tighter as if she were straining to hear someone. Then she spoke in a high, delicate voice, imitating a small child. “‘I am here, Mama. I did not leave you. It’s just that God wanted me by his side.’”

“Oh!” Kate exclaimed.

“Let us take the photograph while the child is with us,” Godfrey said, rising from the table. He lit the two lamps on either side of the mantel, drowning out the softer light of the candles. “We must have enough light to take the photograph but not enough to frighten away the spirit,” he said. “These are delicate balances that must be maintained.” He placed a high-backed Jacobean-style chair in front of the fireplace and asked Kate to sit in it. “Now, Madam Gummler, if you please.”

Madam Gummler rose from her chair, tossing the corner of her shawl that had drooped off her shoulder back around her neck. She walked to the camera and placed her hand above it. “This encourages the process,” she said, swirling her hand over the camera.

“How should I pose?” Kate asked.

“Hold out your hands as if to receive your little boy,” Godfrey said.

Kate did as she was told, sitting very still while Godfrey took the picture.

Madam Gummler put her hand over her chest and took a deep breath, looking as if she were about to swoon. She turned to me. “Someone is trying to contact you, and he is being most persistent. Would you like a photograph, dear?”

I shook my head violently.

“Please do not reject the spirits who have come to see you. It insults them,” she said. “I work to keep my parlor a hospitable environment for those on the other side. Do not destroy my efforts with your skepticism.”

“I am not skeptical,” I replied, trying to keep my voice calm. “I simply cannot afford your fee.”

“Why, Wilhelmina, we will pay for the photograph,” Kate said magnanimously. “Perhaps little Simon wants a picture with his Aunt Mina,” she said, taunting me with the moniker my students used for me.

“Yes, Wilhelmina, please allow us to get this for you,” Jacob said. I supposed that he and Kate wanted to gather more evidence for their story.

“But Mr. Gummler has already taken the camera away,” I said. He had indeed left the room with the camera immediately after Kate had been photographed.

“Ah, but I have returned.” For how long he had been standing at the parlor door I did not know. “I unloaded the exposed plate in the darkroom, and I have placed a fresh plate in the camera,” he said, attaching the instrument to its tripod. “If you please,” he said to me, pointing to the antique chair, which suddenly looked to my mind like it had been used in the Inquisition.

I did not see how I could refuse. I took Kate’s place in the chair and, sitting very still and very glum, allowed myself to be photographed.

“I understand from other clients of yours that you allowed them to witness the development process,” Jacob said. “May we be afforded that privilege?”

“My pleasure,” Godfrey said, “if you can spare the time.”

We entered a small darkroom, foul with the odor of the chemicals of Godfrey’s trade. The room was stuffy and lit with a single lantern, its glass darkened with red-black paint. “It only takes a minute or two to develop the negative plates,” Godfrey said as he brushed both sides of the plate with a little camel-haired brush to remove the dust. “High-contrast pictures must be developed quickly, and in these cases, the contrast between the living subject and the spirit provides a veritable chiaroscuro of dark and light.” He placed the first negative in a pan and mixed a solution that smelled like ammonia in a large cup. After stirring it like a sorcerer with a glass rod, Godfrey poured the solution over the negative and swished the dish from side to side.

“Remarkable!” he said. “Mother, come look at this.”

Madam Gummler lowered her head over the dish. “Why look, there is the little babe,” she exclaimed. “There is your Simon, come to see his dear mother.”

The three of us looked over her shoulder. On the plate, as if it had come straight out of the ether, a wispy image of a bundle appeared lying in Kate’s lap. The face was indistinguishable, but the image did look like a baby swaddled in a pretty lace blanket.

Kate looked at the image, and then looked at Jacob.

Madam Gummler asked Kate if she needed to sit down, or if she thought she might faint, as was usual with women who make communication with their deceased children. Kate answered without emotion. “Will we be able to take a finished photograph with us when we leave?”

“Why yes,” Godfrey said. “Though I would prefer if you left it with us to dry. We could send it tomorrow.”

“No, we are set to leave for the country tomorrow to visit our relations. We must take the photograph with us,” Kate said.

I was surprised at Kate’s restraint in not exposing her true mission, but I supposed that she had to carry the ruse straight through to obtain her evidence. I began to have difficulty breathing, what with the acrid chemical odors and the heat in the tiny, cramped room generated by five bodies and no ventilation. I said as much, and Madam Gummler offered to make tea for us in the parlor while her husband developed the other negative and made prints of the pictures.

“You must be very excited,” Madam Gummler said to Kate as she poured tea for us.

“You have no idea how very much,” Kate said.

“Perhaps your photograph will show you who is trying to contact you, dear,” the woman said to me. “Sometimes the spirits are shy, but this is someone of power. I felt him here,” she said, pointing to her heart.

Kate snickered, and I was afraid that she was about to give us away, but she busied her mouth with sipping tea. After seeing the image of Kate’s nonexistent dead baby, we all knew that the Gummlers were running a fraudulent operation, but I was still curious about what Madam Gummler was saying. I wanted to question her, but I also did not want to alert Kate as to my recent disturbing incident. Not inquisitive, disparaging Kate.

Jacob walked over to the fireplace, which was not lit, it being summertime, and stared into it as if flames were there keeping his attention. Madam Gummler took a Spanish shawl from the back of one of her chairs and draped it over Kate’s shoulders. “It’s best to keep the body warm when one goes into shock from having contact with the dead.”

I wished she would have put the thing around me. I felt a draft sweep through the room and past my face, though no one else seemed to notice it. My body, which had been so hot in the darkroom, now felt as if a piece of ice were slithering down my spine. I wrapped my hands around the warm teacup and brought it to my stomach. It did not help the inexplicable coldness that was sweeping over me, and my hands started to shake. I put the cup down, hoping that no one would notice.

Madam Gummler was about to offer more tea, when Godfrey entered the room. He spoke to his wife. “Mother, I need your assistance.”

She excused herself and followed her husband back to the darkroom. Kate looked at me. “Are you well, Mina? You look positively stricken.”

“I’m just a bit cold,” I said.

“Do not worry. We will soon be out of here,” she said.

“Quiet, darling,” Jacob said. “The spirits might be listening.” They both giggled. I did not know if he called her darling because he was pretending to be her husband, or if they were, in fact, lovers and Kate had declined to tell me.

The Gummlers entered the room slowly, Madam Gummler leading her husband as if the two were in a solemn procession. Each held a still-damp print with two fingers.

“We have a rather startling surprise,” Madam Gummler said. Godfrey went to give me the photograph, but his wife snapped at him. “One at a time, dear.”

She gave one of the photographs to Kate. Jacob and I rose to look at it.

“There he is, little Simon, so lovely in his mother’s arms,” Mrs. Gummler said.

“What do you think of little Simon, Mr. Reed?” she asked, handing the photograph to him.

“I think we have everything we require,” Jacob said.

“Require for what purpose?” Godfrey asked. His eyes, already hooded by heavy lids, narrowed into suspicious little gashes.

“We are journalists and colleagues, sir. We are not married, and neither of us has a child, either alive or dead.”

“We told you our story before we arrived,” Kate said in the familiar tone she had used with the tenement landlords. “You tampered with the plate before taking the photograph. You have deceived many people and defrauded them of money, but it won’t continue.”

Rather than succumb to humiliation or back down, Madam Gummler replied calmly. “Journalists, you say? Who came here with a lie? I ask you, who are the real frauds here? I submit it is the two of you.”

Godfrey looked at me. “The real question is, who is this woman?”

“Me?” I put my hand to my chest. What did I have to do with anything?

“She is our apprentice,” Kate said.

“I suspect she is more than that,” Madam Gummler said. “I think she must be a sorcerer’s apprentice.” She held the photograph out to me. “Do you know this person?”

I looked at the image of myself sitting in the chair looking placid, uninterested, and a little bit afraid. Behind me, however, stood a man in elegant evening clothes. He wore a tall hat and a cape and carried a walking stick, which he held beneath the knob, exposing the golden dragon’s head atop it. Unlike the picture of the swaddled babe in the first photograph, his body was not a swirling and indistinguishable mass of ghostly light but nearly as fully formed as my own. His deep-set, haunted eyes stared directly at me. Long hair flowed about his shoulders. I did not have time to scrutinize the image because I recognized him instantly. As soon as I did, the icy feeling again crawled up my spine, all the way through my head and into my eyes. Blackness welled up, obscuring my vision, and I felt my body go weak. Before I could break my fall, I hit the floor and lost consciousness.

When I came to, Kate was insisting that Madam Gummler call a physician, whereas Jacob was insisting that they take me away from the place as soon as possible. I sided with Jacob, who went outside and found us a hansom cab. Madam Gummler handed me the photograph of-what could I call him?-the spirit of my mysterious savior-but her husband wanted to keep it to study.

“It belongs to us,” Kate said, grabbing it from them. I suppose she wanted to have it as evidence. I did not argue with her, nor did the Gummlers, and with photographs in hand, we left their parlor. On the way home, Jacob asked what had caused me to faint so suddenly, and I made an excuse that I had been feeling ill all day and probably should not have attended such a sensational event.

“Clearly, they tamper with every negative plate. I’ll wager that fifty women in England are in possession of a photograph with that handsome ghost standing behind them.” Kate turned to Jacob. “I wish you had waited to disclose our identities. They would have spun a fabulous tale about Mina’s ghost that we might have used in our story.”

“I was bored,” he answered. “We knew they were frauds, and we exposed them as such. Not exactly a challenge. Besides, why should some bereaved mother not believe that her child is hovering about in heaven?”

Kate had initiated the investigation into the Gummlers, and I could see that she was taking Jacob’s lack of enthusiasm as a personal attack. Fortunately, this took the emphasis off what had happened to me, and all the way home, they argued over the merits of publishing the article.

I left the photograph in their possession. I was terrified of certainty; if I never looked at it again, I would not have to confirm what I saw. I would be able to tell myself that the ghostly image was a photographer’s trick. As Jonathan had explained, it was a manifestation of my fears. In time, I would realize that my mind, upset by recent events, had attributed the features of my savior to this figure, and I could eventually put the incident to rest. Once safely married to Jonathan, these strange occurrences would dissipate into thin air. I would be so busy keeping our house and preparing to start our family that I would not have time for mysterious forays into the unknown. Just as enrollment in Miss Hadley’s school had made my early experiences with the supernatural disappear, so marriage to Jonathan would force normalcy upon me and once again obliterate these inexplicable elements.

But that very night, something happened in my dream that I could not put off to a rational explanation, an experience thrust upon me on some astral plane where I was not in control but subject to the specters that prowl the ethers. In this dream-though it felt more vivid than an ordinary dream-a man was on top of me and inside me, and I wanted him to be there. I held him in place, digging my fingernails deep into his back, clutching him to me, urging him to move deeper and deeper into me. Wicked and desperate, my desire was unbounded. I was frantically reaching for something, but what it was I did not know. My lust was like a ladder that must be climbed one rung at a time, but I could never reach the top.

I woke in the middle of this experience, body quivering, drenched in my own sweat, and still frantic to reach the unknown destination to which only the lover could deliver me. I was alone in the room, but the presence was still deep inside me, filling that dark cavity. I lay quietly for a long time, taking in my surroundings and reassuring myself with the familiar details of the room-the little chest of drawers, the single straight-backed chair, the washstand with a bowl and pitcher on top and the small wood-framed oval mirror above it. I named the furnishings out loud, hoping that the addressed items would somehow acknowledge me too and let me know that I was indeed in my room and not still dreaming. But was I? I was alone and yet I could still feel the man, or some presence, inside me.

The naming did not make the sensation go away. I had never touched myself in that place, so I did not know what it should feel like inside. I slid my nightdress up and my hand down. Cautiously, as if I were touching someone other than myself, I let my fingers slide past my navel; down my stomach; through the hair; and to the moist, hidden part of me. What a mystery it was, this part of my body, more secretive than a heart or lung, for I had seen pictures of those organs. I heard a noise outside my door and retracted my hand, but soon realized it was only the wind coming through the hall and rattling the doors. I wanted to go back to sleep again and forget all this, but I could not ignore the full feeling inside me. Something was literally filling me up. Had some ghost come in the night and violated me? If so, I had been his desperate and willing victim. I reached again between my legs, spreading them wider. Using my middle finger, I located the small entrance, and carefully slid my finger inside. It felt like nothing I had ever felt before, soft and smooth, and empty and full at the same time, a moist cushion of a cave. Something inside me contracted around my finger, resurrecting the familiar throb of my dream. Where had my lover come from, and where had he gone? I felt nothing but the wet, creamy, hot walls of my own body. Something made me want to linger and to explore, but the more I enjoyed the sensations, the more I knew that I should stop the journey along this dark path. I retracted my finger slowly and brought it into the cool, night air, and it carried with it the heavy, salty scent of the inside of that secretive grotto. Once I pulled my finger out, the full feeling subsided, as if no one had ever been inside me.

The next morning, I received a letter from Lucy Westenra, my dearest friend from school days, who was on summer holiday with her mother at the seaside resort of Whitby. “I am lonely for a female companion with whom to share the contents of my heart and mind, not to mention some interesting news on a subject dear to us both,” she wrote, enclosing a train ticket. Lucy knew that Jonathan was away and that Miss Hadley’s closed every August. The students and staff went to their families, and Headmistress traveled to see her sister in Derbyshire, so that I, with no relatives to visit, would spend a solitary month reading books, walking about London, and supervising the maintenance of the school property. I went through the daily mechanics of living, but with the abject loneliness of one who has no familial destination such as one was supposed to have in the summertime.

I had not received a letter from Jonathan in the weeks that he had been away, which also set my nerves on edge. Was he safe? Was he thinking about me? I attributed the lack of correspondence to the inefficiency of the post, so I sent him a letter with Lucy’s address in Whitby, asking him to write to me there.

In truth, I was anxious to have this interval with Lucy who, unlike Kate, would delight in the details of my impending wedding plans. Lucy had an ardent admirer in Arthur Holmwood, the future Lord Godalming, whom I had yet to meet. If Lucy had news to share, it must be that Arthur had asked the question he had been wanting to pose to her, and that she, who never seemed to be in love with him but had accepted that it was her fate to marry a member of the peerage, had answered in the affirmative. Lucy would not trouble me with Kate’s questioning of what the trajectory of female life should, or could, be in some utopian world that would never exist. It would be a relief to spend time in Lucy’s exuberant company, where we might share excitement about our destinies as brides.