Penclosa - Chapter 2
In which there is a spectacle, a rescue, and names are given.
Prof. Wilson’s home was a charming brownstone box set back in a frame of trees frothing with blossoms. These boughs were only slightly more crowded than the interior of the building. There were many a scholarly shoulder and erudite elbow to dodge as, much to the host’s delight, his discovery’s legitimate successes had apparently drawn enough of a crowd to merit his second party within a month’s time.
“I do regret to say my initial partner in the examination of Miss Penclosa’s skill has, ah, found himself busy with other affairs,” Wilson could be heard lamenting at odd corners around the throng. “Even so, quite excellent progress has been made in our sessions. If only we had started sooner! My wife has been hiding a positive wonder under my nose all these years.”
From her own corners, Mrs. Wilson could be heard sighing in turn, “You know, when I hear other wives lament about how their husbands are only interested in other women, it’s usually something predictable. ‘Oh, he’s got a mistress! Oh, he’s sniffing after some well-to-do daughter! Oh, he’s eyeing my best friend!’ While I can at least somewhat identify with the latter, how am I to take this particular turn? ‘Well, he has not started an affair with her, but if he could run away and elope with the very concept of her mesmeric ability, he would be on the first train out of Devon.’ What am I to do with that?”
There was lilting laughter in answer to this and a general jostling murmur packing the space overall. Whoever Miss Penclosa was, wherever she was in the chattering sea, there was no guessing for Van Helsing or the Harkers. Her apparent throne-to-be, an overstuffed armchair standing apart from the couches, was currently vacant and aimed at by a harried photographer’s camera. The fellow was trying his best to adjust the lens under the focusing cloth while also trying to protect his box of position from tromping guests. It was such a packed scene that one stocky visitor gnawing a cigar nearly bowled the tripod over with a wave of his hand; a lecturer’s gesture that had the photographer floundering to rescue his device.
In the face of all this, Van Helsing turned an apologetic look to the couple.
“I had not realized Wilson meant to pack a country of academics under his roof. A few guests, he said in his letter, not a circus. If you should like to make good your escape, I can perhaps have him open the door to you another day, and say to him you are not yet—,”
“Professor Van Helsing!” Prof. Wilson seemed to manifest all at once from the herd, both hands trapping Van Helsing’s in his own to shake. “I recognize you from…well, there are very few published works of note I do not recognize you from. Oh, it is wonderful to have you here, my friend. And are these the guests you spoke of?”
He had asked the question before he looked fully at the Harkers, both of whom had taken a slight retreating step away. Mina, Jonathan saw, was perused only with an instant’s interest before being dismissed. But the man’s gaze froze and somehow stuttered upon looking at him. It was a reaction Jonathan had grown accustomed to upon that final return to England. Perhaps one time out of three, he would find himself being gawped at rather than simply seen or, in certain blushing cases, ogled. This one-in-three phenomenon was almost always a result of his own mistake in failing to school his demeanor.
A failing that always came when he seemed to recognize something of a deriding edge in any glance in his wife’s direction, as was the habit he saw mirrored anyplace where the fairer sex dared to loiter where men with titles milled. A failing that likewise always guided his hand to rest on the kukri’s handle. Yet Mina gripped his other hand and anchored him back. Jonathan duly reset his face into a more cordial mask and turned his pinching of the blade’s handle into a lax gesture. It did a little to return some pink to the gawking host’s face.
“They are my friends, yes,” Van Helsing interposed, stepping forward and seeming to half-steer Wilson back into the clutter of people. “They have some passing interest in these so-intriguing fields of the natural and the more-than-natural sciences. Their holiday overlapped handily with my visit and so here we are. But I am a greater glutton for introduction. Please, do show me to what others there are in our learned fields. I am thinking I recognize Professor Gregg, the great ethnologist, orating in the next room…”
Within a heartbeat, the Harkers were left to their devices as their friend tossed a look of mingled apology and desperation back over his shoulder.
En sotto voce, Mina murmured, “Run while you can, go on without me!”
“He is truly a man of sacrifice. Let us make our escape toward the table.”
For the host had indeed opted for a table rather than subjecting staff to the obstacles of winnowing through the rooms with over-heaped platters. Jonathan’s reach was longer and so he filched a suitable sustenance of canapés and two full flutes for them both while Mina led the way to an unburdened divan. They tucked themselves in at the far end to nibble and sip and try not to catch the other checking the time.
“It is bit much, isn’t it?” Mina said over a rich and delicate offering that lasted only a bite and a half.
“I foresee us having quite a wait before the party thins,” Jonathan nodded. “If even a quarter of these people are here for Miss Penclosa to put on a show, we may as well be back by the stage so everyone may gape in comfort. I can’t even guess which of these ladies might be the mesmerist in question. You would think she would have the run of the room rather than Professor Wilson.” Jonathan frowned at his flute. “He speaks of his discovery as though he personally excavated her out of some mystic vault on an expedition.”
“For courtesy’s sake, we’ll say he’s just excited at having living evidence for his pursuits.” Mina regarded him from under her lashes, her hand finding his once again. “We are neither of us strangers to the joy of having ourselves proven right on outlandish realities, after all.”
“True. I don’t mean to throw stones. Only we also have our fair history with dodging the risks of spectacle. Whether done in earnest or not, I’d rather not approach Miss Penclosa with the toll of being made into an exhibition.”
“Of course not. We can wait until all’s clear. Though, truth be told, I’d rather have a less congested space to do the waiting.” Jonathan leaned in as she dropped her voice to a whisper of illicit intent. “I smuggled in two books.” Jonathan feigned a gasp. “Anthology for me, one of the new world guide books for you. Found it at the station when your back was turned.”
Jonathan laid his free hand to his heart, half-swooning, “Mrs. Harker, the hedonism of it all. I am aghast.”
“We could be especially daring and read it in full view of the assembly, Mr. Harker. But I would just as soon be a coward and take our rudeness outdoors. It really is too fine a day to waste inside.”
This change in mind, the Harkers nodded to Van Helsing from across the room and made their exit to the rear yard. It was a handsome view and mercifully lacking for fellow escapees, not counting the woman reclining in a floral alcove set in the garden. Jonathan might have mistaken her for a sculpture for how well and still she was placed against the arch of trained vines. She was a lady tipping near the midpoint of life, perched with the subtle but knowing posture of wise women of myth. An oracle who had swapped her robes for a swaddling high-buttoned ensemble of faded green. There was also a washed-out fragility in her look that likewise brought old dressmaker models and abandoned toys to mind, as though she were a cracked figure left too long in the whitening sun. It was all a canvas to serve the shock of her eyes.
Though they remained half-closed, the great size, the sharp slant, and the surprise of their misty jade stood out with all the power of a single stained-glass window set in an empty house.
That she did not look up, and that her chestnut brows were knitted in some far-off concentration, suggested she had either not noticed their intrusion on her solitude or else she had no attention to spare for the couple if she did. The Harkers took a stone bench for themselves on the other end of the yard and fell to their pages. Engrossed as both were, it was still a short matter of time before their tongues fell loose, as was their custom at home or abroad.
Mina spoke of the ghosts and mysteries scrawled into being, Jonathan gushed over foreign panoramas made vivid with their painted and photographed reproductions. They spoke of where they wished to go in Tuppeton once the attempt with Penclosa was made, what sights there were to see, what activities to try. Again, the novelty of a new camera was brought up. This slipped into talk of the latest typewriter models that Remington had put out, trying to lure Mina in through the shop windows in Exeter. Talk of which turned another corner into news Mina had been sitting on a while, waiting until a more buoyant moment to talk about it.
What news was that? Jonathan was as buoyant as he was likely to be for the day.
She had had her work accepted! Twice! True, it was only a little cozy interview with a train engineer for a local paper here, and a smaller ghost story for one of the penny dreadfuls there, but still!
He mirrored her thrill and the thrill was reverberated back by her, and so the better part of an hour was spent in alternately hearing the details pour from her in a jubilant flood or, for his part, dropping a goading comment or query to make the deluge to continue. The sight and sound of Mina’s delight was worth a ticket price in Jonathan’s opinion and he felt no need to hinder himself from taking advantage of her glee to help himself to her arm and make them lean together against the fence at their back. Had there been space enough on the bench, he might even have tried his luck at wheedling her to mimic a pose from home with his head in her lap and her voice overhead. Lacking the opportunity, he settled for bending himself enough to rest his chin against her thick crown of hair.
He did not quite slip into the trap of sleep, but permitted his eyes and mind to rest against her and the balmy day. Peace settled around them like a blanket. Then the back door opened.
“See that, Daniels? Proof of my point. This modern age has got girls so backwards they cannot recognize when their prattle isn’t wanted. Have to jaw a man’s ear off and the rest of him into the grave before they can catch on. This New Woman twaddle has gone and broken the sensible lock that keeps a woman’s gossip shut in with her tea parties and sewing circles. Soon they’ll come marching into campuses, Diogenes in a girdle, trying to talk over the greybeards mid-lesson. Wretched state we’re coming to, I tell you.”
Jonathan Harker’s eyes opened like slow shutters.
Though he felt both of Mina’s hands fly to his, neither their grip nor their warmth were enough to keep him from standing.
“Jonathan. It’s alright.”
“It isn’t.”
His words went to her, but his line of sight remained unmoved from the two men who had come out with their cigars. The one who’d spoken gave him an appraising look from under a bushy duo of iron brows while the man named Daniels pretended to adjust his spectacles. Jonathan recognized the former as the one who had nearly swatted the camera over indoors. He raised a slate brow at him.
“Is there some issue?”
“There is, I’m afraid. The severity depends on whether your affront was meant toward women as a whole, or if you intended to be overheard by, and explicitly insult, my wife.”
“Hardly an insult, young man.” His cigar pointed idly at the flax of Jonathan’s hair. “Assuming you are a young man. You’ve got a face like the greenest upstart in a class, but a mop whiter than my own teachers’. I must assume youth for your ignorance or else addled hearing. No, there was no insult. Merely a statement of fact for our times. A woman’s voice is meant for women’s ears or a music hall if she’s got a good tune in her throat. That’s how it was in a better time. I know, for I was there to enjoy it. I cannot speak for you or whatever nonsense your girl’s been putting you to sleep with, but that is the simple truth.”
Jonathan shared a look with Mina—
We may have to leave early after all. I apologize in advance if this trip was for nothing.
—and gave her hands a squeeze.
Then he was closing the distance between himself and his fellow conversationalist. He did not sprint or stalk. It was an almost leisurely pace. Yet it was leaden in a way that, this time, was not a matter of accident. In the corner of his eye, he saw Daniels abruptly retreat back inside. The speaker stood his ground. If half a pace nearer to the door. Perhaps two. This close, the man could now see the long accessory at Jonathan’s hip.
“Do forgive me, sir,” said Jonathan with a small bow of his head. “It is most rude to carry on our chat at such a distance.”
“Ah, you are a young buck after all. You truly think a discussion can be won with a puffed chest and a weapon you cannot even brandish without consequence.”
“What weapon, sir? This is but my letter opener and we are only having a conversation. A debate, even. I have evidence for my own side. I have lived it. The greatest bliss of my life came from the Mother Superior who saw over my wedding and from every day and night that I’ve been lucky enough to hear my wife’s voice. I see you wear a wedding band, sir, and must wonder whether you have a wife or a mute housekeeper you’ve chained to your side with an empty act of matrimony. I must wonder further if she is privy to your insights regarding her and her like. Or worse, does she talk, sir? Does she read words and say them in proximity to your poor tender ears? My deepest condolences if so.”
Jonathan would have closed the distance already had the other man not retreated up to the door and made a pretense of merely leaning near its knob.
“She has her business as I have mine. It’s the drift of husbands and wives as they get on. You cannot know it yet, for you’ve not a speck of tarnish on your own rings, but the hour of Romeo and Juliet rots fast to Macbeth and his Lady before you know it. The moment you face a real trial and see each other in all your ugliest facets—oh, yes, there’s ugliness aplenty under even the daintiest faces, do count on it—the truth starts rusting all the shine off. You…”
But the last of the man’s words dried at the sight of Jonathan’s smile. Though Jonathan could not see it, he felt the familiarity of the shape. He knew it as keenly as the fear in Daniels’ face as he scuttled back inside. That fear had been with him up in the snow of Transylvania as he closed in upon the wagon and its cargo in the earth-box. The smile had been with him far earlier, when they had first gotten word that the Count’s ship changed course to flee. He’d read Dr. Seward’s own words on that instant and puzzled at them once before.
The dark bitter smile of one who is without hope.
He hadn’t known he was smiling then. No more than he had properly registered the retreating terror of the men Dracula had ordered to convey him back to the castle. All he had known in the moment was that there was an evil in existence and that he wanted it gone. So it was now, albeit with more cognizance in play. He knew the awful smile was on him again just as the grotesque radiation that had chased a flock of men away was hanging around him.
“You would not know a trial if it slapped you in the face with a court summons,” he heard himself say. “I suspect you know even less of the point to a marriage. Whatever self-gratifying lies you choke on, a marriage is meant for partnership. For love. Not a business deal or a trap to have some warm body filling out the bed and keeping the house tidy while you turn around and complain about the very person you chose to bind yourself to. Even so, I know the perfect woman does exist for you and your wise taste. To meet her, go to any dress shop on the street, pick out a mannequin, and you shall have the ideal mistress ever after.”
“Jonathan.”
Mina’s hand was on his arm. Jonathan turned to her. In the same instant, the man with the cigar tapped the neglected ash off its end and sidled hastily inside where he nearly collided with Daniels and two other onlookers crowded at the door’s ornate window. Through the gap there was some muttering in a worried tone and more muttering in a lilt that was curiosity pretending to be worry, then the door was shut. Jonathan swallowed a sigh and felt a belated rush of heat come to his face.
“Well. I do believe I’ve soured things quite thoroughly.”
“You don’t know that.” Her free palm floated up to his cheek. “Though you did worry me. You weren’t really about to come to blows over so petty a thing, I know. But why..?” She indicated the whole of the last few minutes with her eyes alone. In answer, Jonathan boxed both her hands in his own, siphoning out their warmth as she gripped their cold.
“We did not risk Hell itself and battle its horrors just for mundane villains to get their unctuous way because it would be impolite to counter their rudeness with barbs rather than a turned cheek. I do not doubt that I survived as much as I did by dancing on eggshells at the start, nor do I regret the opportunity it gave me. But that was merely my risk then. More, by doing the ‘proper thing’ and leaving you wholly sealed off from our affairs and vice versa, you were left alone in the dark when—those nights when…”
“I know,” from her. A whisper. “We have gone over that.”
“Yes. But what all has been learned from it? Circumstances made it prudent for us to condense ourselves to be the least obtrusive, most benign caricatures of ourselves all our lives. Childhoods of charity and scraps and always bowing to what we were told was proper. Rules we did not dare break for fear of being burdensome. Rules that nearly destroyed us when powers that reigned outside those civilized borders used them as a noose. We would not have succeeded in the end if we had sat and waited and nodded our heads to what was expected of us from start to finish. So it is even within these softer aggravations. All of which is to say, I am not about to let any wretch, however great or small, take their venomous shots at you while I sit by.”
At this, Mina could not withhold her own small sigh. No more than she could resist resting her brow against his front.
“Ever my knight.”
He spoke down into her hair.
“You were mine first. And I admit you remain the cannier of us two cavaliers. I don’t foresee a warm welcome once the man goes flying to Wilson’s ear.”
“We aren’t here for Professor Wilson. We might still approach Miss Penclosa, whoever she is. And Van Helsing will surely take your side if it comes to pointing fingers. In any case, Miss Penclosa is the star of the show. It would be quite something if he suffered a supposed friend like that to insult her sex while coming to see her work.”
Jonathan almost replied, but a mellow voice cut across the garden.
“Supposing he was not already a skeptic of her, dear. The only members of an audience who are more adamant onlookers than admirers are hecklers.”
Both Harkers whirled to spot the woman still sitting in her flowering alcove. Whatever musing concentration she had been steeped in was thoroughly broken. All the light and life of her was now consolidated in the great gems of her eyes. Jonathan found he could not avoid comparing them to the stare of some hungry housecat spotting a plump mouse. Nor could he avoid how wholly that gaze seemed to be latched onto him. He worried for a moment that he might have tripped himself and Mina into the verbal pit of a sermon. Sedate though she was, there was enough of time and gravity about the woman that suggested a potential tongue lashing similar to Mina’s more caustic fellow-teachers of etiquette.
Instead, the lady offered a contrite smile as she went on, “Forgive my playing eavesdropper, both of you. Only, your show has been the most engaging part of my day since this latest pageantry began. I am only here for duty’s sake and could not suffer the crush in there any longer. Yet it seems the rabble have tried to leak out after us.” Her smile increased the smallest increment. “It is a most heartening thing to see the worst of it properly chased back from whence it came…did I mishear ‘Jonathan?’”
“You heard right, madam.”
“Alas, no madams on this side of the yard,” she lifted her left hand, barren of a band. “You may call me Helen, Jonathan. And you, dear?”
“Mina.”
“Engaged or wedded already?”
“Wedded,” she allowed her band to flaunt its small shine. “Fortunately.”
Helen nodded, “Most fortunately. Whether that carbuncle of a lecturer wants to admit it or not, yours is the treasured status over any tawdry sham he’s trapped his poor wife into. I would wager even his mistresses must suffer, should he have them. Although, and I do apologize for prying, may I inquire if there was some manner of unhappy shadow in your lives that might want for hypnotic aid? If such is your case, I am certain you shall have your way regardless of any stamping feet from your new friend.”
The Harkers regarded each other cautiously for a moment. Mina flung her message up into him as he passed his gingerly back. This had become something of a routine. While Jonathan had taken the lion’s share of shock on his head, even Mina had some threads of early silver cutting through the dark cloud of her hair, and there were times when one or both of them let slip a trace of the haunted months in their eyes.
Something had happened to the Harkers.
Something had left its mark on them.
In answer to inquiries, the Harkers always scraped only the top crust of truth off the larger story and repackaged it as the tale in full. In this way they came to sit on Helen’s stone bench. Husband and wife held to each other as they recited the meticulously vague trials of the year before.
First, Jonathan had been struck with a terrible accident while on a business trip in Europe. The sort of accident that comes shaped like powerful persons with dark designs. He had scarcely escaped it and had to do so while stripped of his property and papers.
Second, when he finally made it to civilization, half-dead and boiling with fever in a hospital, Mina had fetched him home and nursed him back from the brink. This should have been the whole of it.
But then, third, Fate had gone and afflicted Mina herself with a far more dire illness that had put her at the very knife’s edge of life and death. Jonathan had championed her then, and had his turn to pull her back to health. This, coupled with a long chain of morbid tragedies that saw too many friends going into their graves around the same time, had stained them over the course of only a few months.
“It was more than enough to weigh upon our minds for some time after,” Mina allowed. “Neither of us slept well even after the worst hours had passed. Yet fortune has taken a kinder turn with me, it seems. I have gotten past my nightmares and can allow myself simple dreams or wholly blank nights. But Jonathan…” Her lips pursed around the truth.
“I do not fall asleep anymore,” Jonathan said to the ground between his shoes more than either of his listeners. “I fall into nightmares, wake in terror, and then, when exhaustion grows too heavy to fight, my mind allows me to black out. It is a poor enough state on its own, but worse for forcing my wife to return to the drudgery of playing caretaker over some imagined—,”
“Stop,” Mina cut in. “You know that isn’t fair.”
“Nor is it a lie.”
“And your aim,” Helen mused, “is to undo these nightmares? Have them banished by mesmerism?” Her eyes illuminated at the prospect. “It would be a trying attempt, even for a practiced hypnotist. One who practices in the ordinary manner, at any rate.”
“Does Miss Penclosa not operate in the ordinary manner?” Mina asked. “We had heard she took a more unique approach than her contemporaries.”
“That she does.” Helen’s smile at last showed teeth. “I have seen many hypnotists make their attempts.” She fussed with the high collar of her dress, kneading at it as though it chafed. “Some are quite impressive. But none so far have shown the method or the ability that Professor Wilson has been so dedicated to making a display of. If it were otherwise, he would only have yet another lookalike act to be shrugged aside by his peers. I know firsthand that the ‘Performances of Penclosa,’ as I have seen him titling his observations, are undertaken with a method quite alien to anything else he or his peers have witnessed before. The how of it seems lost even upon the performer. All that’s known is that it is strange, but undeniably effective.”
“You sound as if you’ve witnessed her before.”
“I have. I can attest to her ability and character enough to say that, regardless of any opinion of Wilson’s or his poor choice of compatriots, she will undoubtedly be of a mind to assist how she can. Now, might I ask another question of you both?” Despite the last word, her gaze slipped pointedly to Jonathan and the watchchain glinting at his side. “How near are we to noon? I can tell the pitch of their clamor inside has changed and so it must be nearly time for the spectacle.”
Jonathan checked his watch and saw it was ten past twelve. As they all moved to rise, Helen sighed. Jonathan saw her craning around on her spot, frowning at a cluster of roses.
“What is it?”
“Oh, my crutch. I set it by me here and it fell back in the rosebushes.”
She had scarcely got past the third syllable before Jonathan had circled around to fish the thing out of the thorns. It was a striking piece fashioned from a well-worn length of oak. Though Helen took it in hand easily enough, he let her have his arm as a brace when she got to her feet. It took her a moment to actually release his sleeve, and then only because Mina gathered his other arm. Helen made a small noise close to a laugh.
“Goodness, but you are a sturdy one. Between your bearing and your choice of accessory,” she nodded to the kukri, “a charlatan clairvoyant would feign that they ‘read’ you as an ex-soldier. As I am neither, I must instead determine that you are a solicitor by trade and that you operate out of Exeter.”
That brought Jonathan and Mina both up short.
“You determined that from my arm?”
“From your seat. Rather, what you left there.” Helen pointed them back to the bench where Jonathan’s card case sat open on the stone. As Mina gathered it up and Jonathan set it more securely within a front pocket, Helen went on, “Before we head into the noise, a last query: Do you also live within the Exeter area? If so, I should like to know your judgment on the city and available living quarters in the area. I believe I am overdue to seek out new housing.”
“We can both vouch for it being something of a busy city, but it has its comfortable corners. In the event Mina and I get herded out the front door as soon as we enter,” he handed Helen one of the cards from his rescued case, “I should be happy to have you call on Hawkins and Harker to see about properties in the area.”
“If I may ask, for I cannot guess it by your arm or your card, are you in the firm’s employ, or are you the Hawkins or the Harker in the title?”
“Harker,” Jonathan admitted.
“A pleasure then, Mr. and Mrs. Harker.” With that, they made their way back into the brownstone.
Jonathan’s new friend and some comrades were waiting with many a furrowed sideways glance. Daniels, seeing Jonathan see them, appeared to stutter some excuse before vanishing into another room. Others, clearly ticking off the minutes until Miss Penclosa would appear to astound or confound, followed first this retreat, then the line of sight that had sent him running. Jonathan wished he had his hat to duck behind. Doubly so when his new friend—he decided to refer to him as Professor Carbuncle, lacking a better title—and his associates murmured their own asides to the gawkers. He pondered keeping his watch out to see how many minutes there would be between himself, Mina, and the hailing of a cab.
Before he could do so, Van Helsing filled the couple’s view, looking very much like a man trying his best not to seem like a castaway frantic for an island to rest on. His smile nearly groaned with the effort to stay in place.
“My friends, I would risk many things for you. Life and death and worse. Yet if I must battle with Wilson’s voice another hour by my own self, I fear I shall try to do as good Jonathan did in time of action and make my exit by the nearest window. Have either of you seen this Miss Penclosa? Wilson only departed from me and my ears because Mrs. Wilson could not herself find the lady in the crowd.”
“Not yet—,” Mina began, but cut herself short when Helen laid a light hand against her shoulder.
“I’m afraid I lost track of time,” Helen said through a slight smile.
“Ah, then you are that Miss Penclosa? A pleasure to meet you,” Van Helsing clasped her hand gently.
“Likewise..?”
“Professor Van Helsing.”
“If you are a friend of the Harkers, then I will trust at once that you are of a fine character, sir. I do apologize for keeping them away. Please, might you tell me where I can find my poor Wilsons?” Van Helsing pointed the way, offering to take her arm to better break through the throng. Helen, Miss Penclosa, declined. She followed her crutch into the fray with ease. The Harkers could only stare after her.
Once her back vanished in the crowd, they divulged all that had happened in the garden to Van Helsing, starting from Prof. Carbuncle to meeting Miss Helen Penclosa on her bench. As they spoke, Jonathan spotted Prof. Carbuncle striding towards Prof. Wilson’s bobbing head as the latter entered the room, now thoroughly incandescent with enthusiasm. This visage redoubled its glow when Prof. Carbuncle came upon him, though the cigar-gnawing man’s expression seemed to aim for stormy while landing only on puckered. Carbuncle seemed no match for Wilson’s patter either, for whatever words he had for the other man seemed drowned in a flood of exhilaration.
The hand Carbuncle had lifted to point Jonathan and Mina out was trapped in an instant as the gesture was mistaken—perhaps forcibly—for an agreeing handshake. Then Prof. Wilson must have gotten something out that caught Prof. Carbuncle’s interest more than revenge. His expression altered in a way that suggested not only doubt, but an eagerness to have that doubt proven right. Something near to a smile appeared on him as he gave Wilson a curt shake of the hand. The cool countenance was fractured a bit when Wilson abruptly turned to announce:
“Attention, my friends! I thank you for your patience. We have delayed some while in the hopes of not shorting any of the invited guests by beginning the display too soon. As it stands, it appears all are present and my guest and friend, the inimitable Miss Helen Penclosa, can now rescue you from my stalling.”
Miss Helen Penclosa made her official debut to general applause and a smattering of surprise as the room opened up to see her clearly. She had taken her spot on the overstuffed armchair with her crutch standing to one side. A soft smile turned to the guests.
“Hello. I must say I recognize very few of you this time around. The last get-together Professor Wilson was kind enough to throw had only a third the number. I must then assume that the two new thirds are comprised of those with some belief in what I mean to display and just as many looking to oust whatever chicanery of mine is surely at work. The better to spare the latter’s time and get on to those here with genuine questions or desire to volunteer in earnest, I have submitted to Wilson that I should like my first demonstration to be with the sincerest disbeliever present.”
The foggy green eyes slid to Prof. Carbuncle. There was a new cigar in his teeth and a sharkish bend to his lips.
“Professor Richard Atherton has obliged to fill the role. My thanks, sir.”
“You’ve mine back, madam,” Carbuncle, who was Atherton, spoke through his smoke. “How is it done, then? Do you need a pocket watch to swing before my eyes? Shall we have a staring contest until boredom puts me to sleep?”
“Not at all. Merely take your seat and we will begin.”
Penclosa nodded to the chair Wilson had dragged up to stand across from hers. As Atherton sat, Penclosa stood. She did not make use of her crutch. Whatever injured wobble she might have in her faulty leg seemed to undo itself as she rose. Later, both Harkers and Van Helsing would agree that it looked almost as if her eyes were their own empowering force, drawing her up like a string raising a marionette. Her gaze certainly seemed to pump some notable new life into her tired countenance.
All watched as her arms raised and gestured in a series of swings and shapes that appeared almost like directing signals. It had none of the gentle sway of hands from an experimenting doctor or the theatric waggling from a stage performer. More than one witness would point out how near it came to the motions seen in religious rites or archaic dance.
Whatever their purpose, the motions and Penclosa’s stare had an effect on Prof. Atherton. A remarkably brisk one. His apparent confederates in the crowd seemed to take this for some act at first. Likely playing dim from the outset only to spring up and call the woman a fraud. And perhaps this had been Atherton’s goal as he took his seat. Yet as one minute ticked into another and into another, the man’s face appeared to become unstitched from within. Expression slackened, eyes glazed. The still-smoking cigar drooped in his teeth until it finally dropped and fell in his lap, flinging ash as it went. Thankfully it was no longer smoking. He’d stopped puffing on it some while ago and the thing did not have heat enough left to burn through his trousers.
Still, he did not startle at the drop. Nor did his hand move to clear his lap. Penclosa stopped her arms but still did not blink. She regarded the half-murmuring room, then silenced it by holding her finger to her lips. Once all was quiet, she turned her full attention back to Atherton’s drooping head. It was not the look of a weary woman. Here was a high empress idling over the means of an execution.
She folded her hands before her and smiled.
“Professor Atherton, I have wonderful news. The hypnotism failed. Attempts were tried for hours and all the guests have left. You are free to speak honestly without fear of eavesdroppers.”
Atherton’s head raised an inch and something of his former expression drifted back into his face. He grated out a chuckle.
“Knew it,” he said in a dreaming voice. “Knew that crippled crone was all talk. All Wilson’s talk, anyhow. By next year the fool will be nattering about some tart with a crystal ball and a deck of cards claiming she’s the next Oracle. Where’s my cigar?”
“A new box is being fetched. While we wait, let us talk. First, the crippled crone. How old would she say she is, at a guess?”
“Damned if I know. Has to be circling forty.”
“And yourself?”
“Fifty-six as of last month.”
“And your wife?”
“Forty-one, alas.”
“And your mistress?”
“An even twenty-two. A springy dear, she is.”
“I imagine she must be. Is she at the party?”
“Lord, no. Nor the missus. One of her few virtues, not having any care for twaddle like mesmerists or spiritualism. Pity about the rest.”
“What is the rest?”
“The face, the gray, the days out with those harpy friends she meets with to talk about that American woman, that Bascom with her degree in bloody rocks and—,”
“I see. And this mistress, what is she like?”
“Blessedly quiet. A fine change of pace and a finer help in a man’s odds and ends. Good enough girl, though I fear it may be near time to break things off.”
“Why is that?”
“She’s been acting squirrely in that way women do when they’re working up to simper for something big. Money, a wedding ring, your solemn oath you’ll stay for the baby. Some headache or other. I do hate stepping away while things are sour. Better to cut things while they’re still sweet and she won’t think to get up to anything foolish.”
“Like telling your wife?”
“The wife scarcely matters. It’s telling the university that’d pull the rug out. Just look at that mess with Professor Gilroy. Ha, ex-professor, I should say. That debacle shows well enough how quick a position can be cut out from under your feet. I’d bet money he got hit by some brain bug or other, some undiagnosed fever, but just a few days of him playing eccentric killed his station. If little Ellie Daniels goes tattling, it’ll be my position in the bin just for starters.”
Somewhere in the back of the room, a man’s voice drew sharp breath. Other voices muttered and shushed. There was a scuffle and rustle as someone was held back. Penclosa pressed on:
“That does sound serious.”
“Between her brother and the state of affairs with the soft-hearted and softer-minded infecting the realm of logic, it is infinitely serious. I tell you, it would not be half so precarious if it were not for all this New Woman claptrap spoiling the mentality of our times. The next generation of men will live their lives bowing to every little infantile fancy of women and go hollering around on their behalf to intellectual betters, wailing the same tunes of false equality.”
“Most distressing. But that all sounds quite vague, if you don’t mind my saying. Mere hypotheticals all. Can you think of any recent example of such a thing?”
“Oh, yes. Not half an hour ago, as a matter of fact.”
“Goodness. What happened?”
“Some pup wrapped around his wife’s finger felt the need to come puff his chest at me over a little idle comment or other—,”
“Stop.” Atherton stopped like a cylinder plucked from its phonograph. “To this point, you have spoken as if there are no witnesses. You may continue to do so, Professor Atherton, but now you will do so without bluff or obfuscation. You will speak only the truth aloud until I tell you to wake. Tell me if you understand.”
“I understand.”
“Good. Now, to the best of your ability, repeat exactly what you said when you stepped out the back door into the garden.”
Professor Atherton repeated what he had brayed to Daniels, nigh verbatim.
“Why did you say so?”
“Because it’s true.”
“Why did you say so right then?”
“Because of the girl rambling at her man. I wanted her to hear. It heartens me to see them caught out of line. Especially the young ones. You have to nip them while they’re young and sponge-headed and susceptible to all the rubbish that wants to shape them out of what they ought to be.”
“And what ought they be?”
“In their place. Otherwise you get things like her husband.”
“And what thing was her husband?”
“Some—some tetchy little buck, huffing about insulting women and his wife and whatnot when I was just—just—,” Atherton was turning purple.
“You are struggling, Professor Atherton. That’s you trying to shake off the command for honesty. Tell the truth about her husband and you’ll be fine.”
The man seemed to chew his words another moment. Then, finally:
“The truth is he scared me. Truly, properly scared me, getting as close as he did. It wasn’t just the blade on his hip either. There was something wrong about him. Meeting his eye made my bowels turn to jelly. I felt certain he could take my head off like you’d pop a daisy from its stem, and that he was considering doing just that, with or without that massive bloody Gurkha knife. That moment was the closest I’ve come to soiling myself since I was six years old. If his wife hadn’t made him look away, I don’t know that I wouldn’t have still been standing there, soaking my trousers because I couldn’t unhook myself from those awful eyes and all the promises they were making.
“But he did look away and I got inside, thank God. He’d not lay a hand on me before witnesses. Certainly not in front of ones of actual importance. I have to talk to Wilson about him when I have the chance. If I can get a name out of him, I can see about seeking some proper recompense later. At the very least I can see the snow-headed bastard and his keeper are tossed out. I took him for some sort of young officer. Perhaps I can nettle things higher up his ranks.”
Penclosa nodded coolly at this. It was the first time she bothered to spare a glance for anyone other than Atherton, looking first in the direction of Professor and Mrs. Wilson, who had been turning alternate shades of cherry and chalk throughout, then at the Harkers. At Jonathan. For the moment he was bookended by both Mina’s grasp and Van Helsing’s heavy hand at his arm. Whether this was to support or halt him, he couldn’t guess, but he was grateful that they provided some small insulation between himself and the increasing number of inquisitive eyes steering his way.
He felt fires burning in his face as murmuring rose on their side, on the Wilsons’, and on the irate Daniels’. It was the sound of an intrigued audience before a stage play rather than a scientific demonstration. Jonathan could see there had even been a refilling of glasses and a fetching of concessions from the table as the show went on. Penclosa seemed to note this as well, finally retreating from her looming stance and retreating to her armchair.
“This has all been very enlightening, Professor Atherton. I give my thanks for your being so candid. Your last instruction is this: If or when news of these revelations leak out of this room and reach ears ‘of importance’ in your campus’ alumni—those few who are not already present—and you are called to elaborate on the features of it all?” Her eyes flashed like dim jade and her voice carried the intonation of a tolling bell. “You will tell the whole truth without any withholding, any muddying, any twisting of narrative for your benefit. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“Good.” She snaked out one hand to grasp the crutch. This she lifted just high enough so that it would make a resounding crack as she struck the floor. “Awake!”
Prof. Richard Atherton blinked blearily as a man swimming out of a thick sleep. In the next moment, consciousness snapped fully into him as his teeth clicked shut. This confused him for a moment. Then:
“Damn! My trousers.” He snatched up the cigar and wiped at the ashes. “I will give you some credit, madam, for at least getting me halfway to the so-called mesmeric sleep. Or sleep alone, anyway. Though I’m afraid you’ve got your first poor mark for the hypnotist act. You may yet find a niche as an in-person sedative, however. There’s a number of colicky babes in the world who could use a nanny with that trick. You could…” Atherton was on his feet now and finally aware of the sharp looks thrown his way by the group at large, as well as the downright acidic glare coming from Daniels. Even Prof. Wilson, who had kept his notebook out and open, was scratching at the pages with a significantly strained shade of enthusiasm. “For God’s sake, what is it? Don’t tell me she actually got anything out of me. What, did she have me butcher a tune? Insult someone’s mother?”
“Ellie.” All heads turned to Daniels. Narrow man that he was, he seemed to quiver like a livid tuning fork. “My baby sister, Eleanor, has spent the last year and a half dancing around the name of a scholar she claims to be smitten with. One she has admitted to playing both secretary and editor to for numerous manuscripts, such that she has practically been penning the things herself. Our family has assumed it was just some unscrupulous student or other taking advantage and have tried numerous times to have her divulge the young man’s name or to break it off, to no avail. But it occurs to me that it has been roughly as long since you started crowing about what a loss it is to the modern man that he cannot flaunt a mistress with impunity, what with the advent of divorce gaining its little toeholds in the world of marriage. Adultery is no longer a sport, but a vice, you’ve said. You wouldn’t happen to be sharing that vice with little Ellie, would you, Dick?”
Prof. Richard Atherton suddenly gained the complexion of old cheese from the temples down. Epiphany turned him back to Miss Penclosa in her chair. A glass of claret stood on the same end table she’d rested her crutch on. She met his gaze placidly as she lifted the wine for a toast and a dainty sip.
What came next felt paradoxically abrupt and endless.
Later it would come out from his former friends that Atherton had, in fact, gotten a drink too many in him beforehand. He was many things by nature, but violent was rarely one of them. Not without a pond’s worth of inebriation in him. If not an excuse, it was a reason for what he attempted to do there in plain view of the room. He was the nearest body to Penclosa, after all, in that snug gap between the armchairs. It was quick work for him to dart forward, snatch up the crutch, and raise the sturdy oak with the heavy end aimed squarely at Miss Penclosa’s head.
It happened too fast for gasps, for shouts, for reaching hands, for jolts, for steps. Too fast even for Penclosa to do more than open her eyes in shock.
The crutch came down—
Snick!
—and lost half of itself on the thick nap of the rug. Atherton made a high strangled sound like that of a child yelping over a twisted ankle. Something was twisting, but it was a higher limb. One that dropped the remaining half a crutch as his forearm shrieked in Jonathan’s left hand. Jonathan’s right still held the bared kukri. Some would remark, in varying states of hyperbole, how suddenly cold they felt in the white-haired fellow’s presence. A man of ice freezing the churl in place. At which point a whiff of ammonia hit the air. What Atherton had avoided since the age of six trickled down his leg.
“I think, Professor Atherton,” Van Helsing’s voice broke gently in, “it is wise for you to apologize to Miss Helen Penclosa, and then to sit in the foyer until police come to have their words with you.”
“To hell with the police,” Daniels grated out. “Give him a new elbow, Officer.”
Jonathan released a small breath and eased his grip enough to keep from breaking Atherton’s wrist.
“I’m not—,”
All parties within the odd tableau were alerted by a tell-tale sound to the westward side of the room. The rustle of a focusing cloth.
“Oh, don’t mind me,” sang the photographer as he prepped for another shot. The sun shined through an otherwise nebbish grin. “Just want another angle for these next few.”
Atherton seemed to choke on either an abundance or an utter deficit of words at this. He looked for all the world like a body waiting for the final beat of a bad dream to finally dump him awake and free in his bed. Instead, a small entourage of guests, Van Helsing included, guided him away. First to the toilet, then the suggested foyer. Prof. Wilson had already passed along to the first servant he could get hold of to send for a smattering of authorities. If not for an arrest, then for the inevitable explosion of circulated storytelling that would ensue after. Mrs. Wilson had flown to Miss Penclosa’s side in the meantime, gushing apology and worry at such a rate that she appeared nearly to skip her breath.
“I’m fine, Gloria, truly. It was all far too quick for a proper scare. Rather, our friend was.” Penclosa had to look down to find Jonathan now, as he had sheathed the kukri to pick up the two halves of oak. “I could barely follow you, young man. You must have practice with this sort of thing.”
Jonathan tried to smile around a noncommittal sound. His line of sight flicked between her and Mina. The latter had caught a woman who’d toppled in a faint over the whole scene. She flicked her gaze back, mirroring his reflexive thought. Speak no evil.
“Not in this particularly, no. Solicitation is not quite so competitive a field. At least not yet.” He rose with the crutch’s pieces in hand. “I’m so sorry about this. I’ll pay for another.” Penclosa wrinkled her nose at this.
“Better it be in half than in my head. I have spares, Mr. Harker.”
“Harker, is it?” A jaunty hand clapped him on the back. “What regiment, son? Look as though you’ve seen the far end of Hell and its backyard.”
This voice came from the first of many strangers who would approach Jonathan and Mina during Penclosa’s less dramatic demonstrations. Between softer displays—everything from comical impressions to impromptu dancing to regaling with warm memories the subject had thought forgotten—the Harkers had to lose flake after chip after crumb of secrecy in skirting around the barrage of queries that found them, even with Van Helsing trying to play buffer. In order, the Harkers divulged the following:
No, he was not of any country’s military. Yes, he was just a solicitor. Yes, his hair was real. Yes, he had suffered a sizable shock in life. No, he would rather not speak of details, though illness was the least of it. Yes, she was the reason he made it through with mind and health intact. Yes, they were married. Yes, he was and remains quite adamant that she never be shown anything less than respect. Yes, she was adamant on his behalf in turn. …Yes, really, just a solicitor. Hawkins and Harker. Jonathan found himself with half his cards gone before the afternoon was out.
“Perhaps you should have new ones printed,” Van Helsing ribbed. “You could stamp a small kukri on each one. It appears to do good for your business.”
“I’m positive it was all for politeness’ sake. Honestly, I’m just baffled at how,” Jonathan fluttered his hand uncomfortably as if to encompass the whole of the afternoon, “all that bluster translates to such friendly interest. I’ve traded more cards today than I manage in a week’s work.” Mina found his hand again and drew circles over its knuckles. When he looked to her, he could not help reflecting her smile.
“Everyone loves when a hero gives a show. It’s such an assumed thing that evil acts are usually gotten away with, so it is a rare and happy thing when people get to see the stalwart knight appear with sword in hand to cut it down.”
“Yes, well. I still posit that I married the knight. I’m far better suited to being her faithful squire. Polishing her pauldrons and all.”
“Jonathan.”
“Mina.”
“My friends,” Van Helsing turned both their heads with his tone. “I believe the room is nearly thinned enough for our purposes. At least, so thin that we have become the most conspicuous of guests remaining. We, and the man with his iron grip upon the camera.” The Harkers looked up and found he spoke true. The herd had shallowed out to a few parties circling the Wilsons and the photographer going over something with Penclosa.
The latter man, a Mr. Greg Westman, had been almost as busy as Miss Penclosa and Prof. Wilson combined. There had been the images captured of Penclosa and her posed subjects, talks with the police who had arrived, both as a witness and a man who might have an impressive shot to share once all was developed, and with the inevitable circling fly or two of journalists who’d come sniffing at the sight of the authorities’ wagon. Westman was one of many rising amateur photographers inching their way into the professional field and, supposing his shots developed well enough, his photographs would find their way into print to better illustrate what might be pitched as, ‘The Misadventure of Madam Mesmerist.’
“Mr. Harker, sir?” Westman approached them now, the two halves of the crutch under one arm. “Might I bother you for just one last shot? It would make a lovely closing piece for the paper if you could just come this way?”
While he spoke, he towed Jonathan toward Penclosa’s chair. Mrs. Wilson had brought down one of her spares from her room and it rested against the table where its predecessor had stood. Jonathan sheepishly held up the kukri as Penclosa smilingly presented her two pieces of oak.
“Perfect, thank you! Now if I could have just one more of—,”
“Pardon, Mr. Westman,” Mina said as she drifted to his side. “Might I ask what model this is and where we might find one? We have been going back and forth on picking up a new camera for our own use and you seem to be quite natural with this.”
Jonathan sent Mina a silent thanks from the corner of his eye. Of the sundry traits the Harkers could find reflected in the other, the ability to dislodge monologues from even the most reticent speaker was a most useful one. As a result, Greg Westman had duly pivoted into first recommendations, then a history lesson on M. Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Jonathan might have gone to join them but for something brushing his side. It was Penclosa, tapping him lightly with the tip of the halved crutch.
“Do sit. You’ll make me tired looking at you.” She nodded at the armchair still across from her, the subject seat. Her voice lowered an increment. “It is my turn to apologize, I think. I see I must have made an error in dropping even your surname to the crowd. I’d not realized your visit was so clandestine as to remain hushed on names as much as purpose.”
Jonathan did not sit, but hovered at the chair’s side. He kept his furthest edge of attention on the rambling patter of Mr. Westman for the duration that Mina had to withstand it and on Van Helsing who had moved with calculating nonchalance into the shrinking circle of visitors still caught in the Wilsons’ orbit. The rest he reserved for trying to parse the nature of Miss Penclosa’s stare. For she did stare, intentionally or otherwise. Her blinks were rare and slow and seemed almost unnatural in the backdrop of her mild face. As the day had worn on toward the late afternoon, he’d lost count of how many times he’d felt a sensation of being observed roaming on his brow or back, only to look up and see the mesmerist was appraising him. She never dropped her gaze when caught.
With everything that’s happened between the garden, the guard duty, and the hypnotic gamble to come, you can forgive her wanting to keep an eye on you.
“It’s no trouble,” he said aloud. “We simply don’t wish to be obtrusive, and that much is our own foible. And again, I owe the greater apology for costing you your property. In hindsight, I’m sure I might have caught it if—,”
“It’s a glorified twig, Jonathan, not a family heirloom. It’s a better thing to have you end its career as a weapon. The fact is, you saved me from a most abrupt and ugly injury, if not an ending outright.” Here the windows of her eyes performed their slow shutter of a blink. “The least I owe you is assistance with the internal injury that troubles you. That in mind, I believe we have come to the point where we must cajole our host into setting aside his notebook before he—,”
“Ah, Mr. Harker! Were you interested in a session yourself?” All heads swiveled as Prof. Wilson nearly bounded to the sitting area. Mr. Westman had mercifully taken his leave at that point, Mina having lured him towards the door by insisting she help carry his things along to wait for his hansom, him insisting back that he could carry it all, and so forth. Van Helsing had held Prof. Wilson back as long as possible, but the man’s gaze had landed on Jonathan leaning on the chair and the man had all but flown. He was already thumbing to a clean page in his book. “Where is Gregory? Gregory, wait just a moment!”
“Bradford.” Wilson glanced down to see Miss Penclosa frowning up at him. “You have already gotten more than your fill of successful examples, on top of the nigh guaranteed publicity of the police report once it turns to newsprint. Doubly so should my implanted command that Atherton speak the truth before his colleagues have reason to be set off. Mr. Harker has done more than any service a host could dare ask of a guest. More, a guest of a guest. The least we owe him is not setting him up as a prop twice in the same day.”
Wilson fidgeted with his notebook. His gaze bounced from Penclosa to Jonathan and back again.
“…So he is interested in a session? Is that so, Mr. Harker? I only ask for the purposes of tallying! These sorts of things live and die by records. How many successes, who the successes were, references on references. You would be astounded how stringent any credible journal is when it comes to such fascinating realms of science as this. They demand the most fantastic list of feats and yet will tear a work to pieces over the slightest fault. It is why I most earnestly insist on recording as much in the way of detail, you see, so if I could perhaps—,”
A callused hand landed chummily on Prof. Wilson’s shoulder. Van Helsing’s smile was at once buoyant and stiffly chiseled in place.
“Professor Wilson, I am most familiar with the trials of expressing the reality of the strange to stubborn audiences. Such is the case both within and without the precarious wilds of academia. Yet this is not the case of the present. For your purposes, you hunt for evidence, evidence, evidence, using volunteers and compatriots for the so vital need of impartial proofs. But my friends, they are not volunteers. They are not for consuming by even the wisest audiences. If it were so, there would be no need to wait for privacy. My friend Jonathan, who has done a good service today and so much more before, he comes to Miss Penclosa seeking assistance, not to your peers for his name pulled across a heap of articles. Which is all to say, in plainer words, this is a matter of help. Of health!”
The knowing gaze twinkled in its nest of crow’s feet. His hand tightened an extra chummy increment on Wilson’s shoulder.
“To spy upon or share the details in such a case would be to court the dangerous place where the confidences of doctors and patients lay. But I ramble so much. You are a man of ethics, Professor Wilson, and I would swear upon every title to my name that you would not err in such a way over one single session out of dozens.”
Prof. Wilson opened his mouth.
“Of course not, Professor Van Helsing,” Penclosa hummed over her glass. It was nearly empty now. “I know my dear Gloria would not marry a cad any more than I would stay under the roof of one. I certainly wouldn’t agree to be at the center of a study that would seek to abuse the trust of the sort of people which proof positive of my skill intends to aid. Which is the point under it all, isn’t it? Not just proving the full reality of mesmerism, but proving its usages beyond making people do tricks. If that were all these displays have been for,” a small smile flared and vanished, “likewise our early work with Gilroy, then I would be most shocked. I believe I would have to take myself out of the study entirely if it were so.” She sipped the glass dry.
Prof. Wilson shut his mouth. Cleared something out of his throat. Fumbled with his notebook before ultimately, painfully, closing it.
“Yes. Well. I suppose if this is a matter of a, ah, therapeutic nature, I suppose…” He visibly wilted. Jonathan thought inexplicably that he might be looking at some distant uncle of Dr. Seward’s. Though Wilson’s manner was notably more excitable in his pursuit of examples, there was no missing the similar duo of hunger for fresh results and disappointment at a missed opportunity.
Jack had resigned from his role as asylum head not long after Quincey Morris’ funeral in America. He’d not given himself more than a week before he turned to the neglected matter of R. M. Renfield, paying for a plot in a proper cemetery and a new stone. A day after this ceremony, he had begun the work of disentangling himself from the sanitorium—a process that had been met with equal parts entreaties to stay on and older detractors urging him out the door—which ultimately ended with him founding his own psychiatric practice. The shift in work and its purpose, hearing and working toward solutions of a patient’s ills versus merely detaining and observing violent extremes of mental havoc, had gone some way toward tipping the man out of a stranglehold of despair. In fact, it seemed to fire him into a new tier of thrill over possibilities for treatment. Not merely in the matter of pharmaceuticals or enforced methods, but skills a patient could hone for themselves. Though Jack never dared drop patient names in earshot, he had bounced ideas, successes, and frustrations off his friends on several occasions.
The despondency seen when he was stuck upon a case that had been snagged in its progress was shown in flints upon Prof. Wilson’s face.
Jonathan withheld a sigh as he said, “It’s true I would like some privacy for Miss Penclosa, myself, Mina, and Van Helsing. I do not wish my name to be flung about any more than it’s already set to be with the issue of Professor Atherton. But supposing my own trouble finds a solution with Miss Penclosa’s help, I will at least consent to go on record as an anonymous example of successful hypnotherapy.”
Emphasis on anonymous.
But even this was enough to rekindle some of the light in Prof. Wilson’s face. The notebook snapped open again and the pen resumed its giddy scratching.
“Oh, that is more than amenable, Mr. Harker! And quite right for such delicate work as this, of course.” Scratch, scratch, scratch. “Have you a pseudonym in mind? It will be a clunky thing to just place you as Mr. Anonymous or Mr. Patient.”
Mr. De Ville, Jonathan thought in a lilt so bitter it burned.
Mina returned to the room with Mrs. Wilson in tow, her line of sight floating to him. Jonathan stopped himself just short of beaming.
“Mr. Murray.”
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