Mina by Elaine Bergstrom

only two of us."
    "Mr. Hawkins had four and he rarely entertained. However, Mr.
Chapel does agree with you. He told me that he is getting too old for
full-time duties. He has gone to Wellington to be with his son for the
holidays. After the new year, he would like work here in a part-time capacity
to manage the hired staff when you and Mina entertain."
    So there would only be a cook, a
maid and an occasional Mr. Chapel. Mina smiled, grasped her husband's hand and
said, "Aunt Millicent is right, darling. I had learned to type so I could
help you with your work. But that would hardly be appropriate now that you
head the firm. Instead I shall manage the household and be the best possible
wife for you. Now, if you do not mind, I still feel ill and would like to
retire."
    "Would
you like some sherry first?" Jonathan asked her. Mina ignored the older
woman's disapproving expression. "Please," she
    said softly and took a glass
from her husband. He had filled the stem goblet nearly to the rim, and she
sipped it awhile then carried it

upstairs with her.
    "Is
that her custom?" Millicent asked when Mina had gone.
    "It
helps her sleep. It was a difficult journey."
    "Where
did you go? What did you see?" Millicent, who had never traveled farther
than London, was nonetheless fascinated with
    foreign countries.
    Jonathan could never explain the horrors they had witnessed, the
things they had done. The memory of the creature that still kept Mina awake at
night for fear of the dreams that would come when she slept was not one he
wished to share. Besides, his aunt was a stolid woman, her feet firmly planted
in a reality that had no place for wolves, gypsies or vampires.
    He decided to lie and listed places
he had already been. "Amsterdam. Paris. Zurich. It was primarily a
business trip for Lord Godalming. I thought Mina would enjoy it, but during it
she became quite ill. One of our party died of the same strange fever that affected
her."
    "Wine is hardly a cure for illness." "A glass. One
glass to help her sleep." "Was how your mother started, remember? Jonathan,
you are the master of your family. You have to be firm with Mina."
    The way his
father had never been. Did Millicent know the pain she caused each time she
reminded him of that past. "Please,
    Aunt . . ."
    Millicent's
eyes, dark like her grandmother's, flashed with an anger that Jonathan recalled
far too painfully. Her voice was as cool
    as ever. "Promise me
that you'll at least speak with her."
    His aunt
didn't understand, indeed couldn't, Jonathan thought. Nonetheless, his aunt
might have some reason to worry. "Very
    well," he said.
"I'll talk to her tomorrow."

IV
    In the room upstairs, Mina was
preparing for bed. She had little energy to undress, none at all to write in
her diary or in the journal still hidden in her traveling cloak. It seemed now
that the only journal that mattered was the one she had taken from Dracula's
castle. She dug into her traveling bag and slipped it into her pocket, then
opened each of the drawers in her bureau. One held her slips and chemises,
another corsets and stockings, the others less intimate clothing. All the
garments were neatly folded and arranged. It seemed a violation of every ethic
she held dear that someone should be paid to do this work for her, yet that
would be her life now unless she fought for it to be otherwise.
    She didn't have strength to spare for that battle. The fatigue
that had plagued her in the last days of their quest had lessened, but still
it seemed to surround her like a dense fog muffling her emotions, and her
ability to concentrate on anything beyond the hour to come. Nonetheless, she
had to plan.
    There were
answers in that journal, she told herself. Her main goal must be to have it
translated.
    She pulled
the bottom drawer out of the bureau and put the journal in the space beneath it
then replaced the drawer. Hardly a
    secure hiding place but the
simplest one for now. With that done, she washed her face and went to