What, precisely, I could not say. But suddenly I was wary.
"Vlad," Mina said, briskly and without preamble, as she came up, "you have given me your a.s.surance that I have nothing to fear in the way of-of permanent physical consequences, as a result of our relationship to date. Is that not so?"
"It is." I bowed, without taking my careful eyes from hers.
"It is a matter of some importance that this should be so, now," she went on, and paused to emit a faint belch. "Excuse me."
"You have been reluctant to eat? That should vanish soon, as your stigma has already done. I told you these manifestations in you were merely the result of Van Helsing"s hypnotic-"
"This has nothing to do with Van Helsing, or with hypnotism," she interrupted brusquely. "The fact is that I am pregnant."
My mouth opened but I could find no words.
"I am pregnant, and I intend to take no chances with the welfare of my child-to-be.
I am saying goodbye to you now, Vlad. Do you understand?"
I could but nod.
It was the summer of 1897, I believe, when Mina and her good Jonathan, along with Lord G.o.dalming and Dr. Seward-who were by then enc.u.mbered with their own wives and infants-and of course with you-know-who acting as mentor and guide, journeyed once more to my fair land. I suppose that, as before, the peasants waggled fingers and blessed themselves with prayers and incantations upon learning the pilgrims" destination as they pa.s.sed; that sort of thing does not change much in six or seven years.
Although by now, of course, Castle Dracula is almost obliterated, from truthful memories as well as from the landscape, the tourists in 1897 found it but little changed. I am sure that Mina had to put forth some effort to persuade them-to persuade her husband, at any rate-to make the journey; if I were he I would not have chosen Transylvania for my holiday.
I knew that she was on her way, across the miles... I knew. And of course I knew it also when she walked into the ruined courtyard of the castle on a day of birdsongs and summer light and here and there a climbing flower.
After chatting with the others of her party for a while over this and that item of the architecture she descended alone toward what I might call my public tomb- which is the one Van Helsing had already found. There was and is another, much more private, and not far away.
With all the sunlight up above, even the dim underground chamber was almost bright as day. Before the impressive monument that bears my name, Mina stood for a long moment with her head bowed. Then turned-and I was waiting for her, sitting casually upon a lesser slab nearby.
"You startled me," she said, raising one hand toward her breast in a Victorian maiden"s gesture that she gave up on halfway through, beneath my gaze. Then she asked: "How is it with you, Vlad?"
"Well enough. I continue to-pursue my destiny." I made a vague gesture, not knowing, myself, quite what I meant. "And you?"
The voices of the rest of her party were audible somewhere above, a childish treble among them. A slight shadow crossed Mina"s face and I divined its meaning, and went on: "The child is innocent of me and mine. The bloodstreams do not mingle in the womb." So I thought then; latterly, men of science are no longer quite so sure.
"Two children, Vlad. I have borne twins."
"Then both are innocent. But what if they were not? There are worse fates in this world than to be a vampire." On Lucy, Mina"s daughter, I will have no comment now, for she was still alive the last I heard. But certainly Quincey, her son, kept to breathing all his short life; he needed bayonets and hand grenades to drain the blood of others, and it was German iron that drank his, in 1916 at the Somme.
Mina"s face cleared and we stood looking at each other, and she seemed to be wondering what to say next. But gradually she began to smile and shook her head at me. "Vlad, Vlad. There have been times in England, in the bright sunshine, when- forgive me, but when I have doubted your very existence."
"Oh? But that is all right. Every year there are fewer and fewer people who believe in me. But if they all forget me I will be here anyway, like an artifact of some lost civilization."
"Oh, Vlad! Your life is such a lonely one. And for six years you have been here waiting." I had not been waiting entirely unaccompanied, but saw no reason to correct her estimate.
Above, sharp careless footsteps of a small throng resounded on stone vaulting, drawing closer now, and a high voice was raised: "Mummy! Mummy, are you down there?"
I reached Mina in one silent bound, planted a kiss upon her lips, and pressed something into her hand. I was held in man-shape by the daylight, but still those were my grounds and I knew them well. By the time two children came racing into the vault I was out of sight, but watching.
"Mummy, mummy, there you are. Ohh, what"s this? Tombstones!"
Then Harker himself, gray and solid and growing a little portly, strolled in and came to a sudden stop as he realized what chamber he had entered. "Lord," he murmured, "I never thought to see the day when we could stand here in calm safety."
"I came to offer up a prayer, Jonathan," his wife said. "For him." Her husband was not looking at her, and her eyes flicked in the direction where I had disappeared.
"That we may meet someday in-in a happier place than this."
"How lovely of you, my sweet, to pray for him," Harker murmured, and gave her hair a little proprietary touch, which must have disarranged it, for a small restorative fingering by her own hand followed in a moment. "What have you there in your hand, Mina?"
"Why, it"s a gold ring. It was here in a crevice between the paving stones, and I picked it up. Do you think I might be allowed to keep it?"
"I don"t see why not, my dear. I believe the proper owner is not likely to come looking for it now. Ha, hum. Quincey, Lucy, show some respect, do not sit on the tombstones, please."
Have I seen Mina since? Why yes, I must admit, a time or two.
Jonathan died of apoplexy, raging at Neville Chamberlain in 1938. Mina lived to be ninety-five, and breathed her last in an Exeter nursing home in 1967, and was interred in her family"s plot nearby. In St. Peter"s Cemetery, as a matter of fact, not far from this very snowdrift where we sit...
Van Helsing, G.o.d rest his own perturbed soul, was right about one thing at least...
When I have mixed my blood with theirs, often enough, they all must walk after they appear to die. Exceptions are extremely rare. Some, like Lucy Westenra, bestir themselves in a mere three days or less. With some it takes three years or more.
Modern embalming methods are to be considered, for if the vampire heart is nearly destroyed it needs a long time to regrow. But it will do so, if destruction is not utterly complete. But after that regrowth, more healing time will pa.s.s, time in which the buried body, still quiescent, restores itself inexorably to youth. And after that...
The bond has stretched twixt Mina and myself, but never broken. And I have come here tonight to welcome her into a new life. A life in which I trust she will find, despite its continuation of earthly sorrows, some great joys too, unknown to those who merely breathe... Mina!
The tape ends shortly, the only sounds on its remaining length being the hissing of snow and wind around the windows of the car, and what some listeners describe as faint and distant peals of laughter, one feminine and gay, one masculine and deep.