Now Comes the Mist

CHAPTER ELEVEN

W e are alone in the garden. Dr. Seward is gone, and all is quiet: I hear the muffled din of voices from the house, the rustling of the trees around the bench, and Arthur’s soft breathing. He is on one knee before me in his fine evening clothes and his face is calm, though his eyes are not. He watches me apprehensively, as he had the night he overheard me telling Mamma that he did not care. I look back at him, remembering his laugh as we danced, and I wait to feel joy. After all, it was his face I pictured even as two other men proposed to me tonight.

But instead of relief, I feel an intensifying shame for my childish resentment toward Arthur. I was angry with him for toying with my affections … when I have only done the same to Quincey Morris and Jack Seward. Regret builds at my temples, a mounting pressure that feels like a pot coming to boil. I heartily despise myself but cannot find a way to express this to Arthur, not when his hazel eyes meet mine with such fear and hope and longing.

My torment is such that when I speak, my voice comes out cooler and more distant than I had intended. “Is there something you want, Mr. Holmwood?”

Arthur’s hands drop to the bench on either side of my lap at my chilly formality. He takes a deep breath in through his nostrils, his shoulders moving with the inhalation. When he exhales, the breath comes out with words. “I want you to marry me,” he says.

Inside the house, a man laughs, the bright brassy sound carrying toward us. The door has been left open, either by Arthur when he came out or by Dr. Seward when he went back inside. I wonder if the doctor and Quincey Morris are talking about me. Perhaps they are comparing their proposals and my refusals of each of them. I feel the inexplicable desire to laugh once more, and I know it must be the emotional turbulence of being tossed and turned between these men like a toy tugged between children. All wanting to play with it. All wanting it to belong to only them.

“I want you to marry me,” Arthur says again. “Please, Lucy.”

For the first time in my life, I am without words. I, who have always had the perfect jest or the wittiest, most sparkling retort, can think of nothing to say to this declaration.

“I know you’re still angry with me about the other night, but it’s only because you don’t understand. You thought I didn’t want to kiss you.”

I put my hand up. “Arthur, it is I who owe you an apology. You don’t have to explain—”

He continues speaking, his voice low and pleading. “You thought I didn’t want you, but it was the opposite. I knew that if we kept kissing the way we did, I would not be able to control myself. You make me not want to remember what is proper, and most of all, you make me not want to care . I kept arguing with myself when you were in my arms, telling myself we didn’t need a big society wedding, the kind that both of our mothers want. I kept thinking about my carriage waiting nearby and how quickly I could take you to Gretna Green by dawn.”

My hands are claws around Arthur’s handkerchief. I can feel the imprint of my own nails in my skin. “You wanted me? You wanted to marry me that night?”

There it is again: Arthur’s smile, like a flash of light behind clouds, and I am sick, sick with the need to see it once more. “So badly, I would have gone against our parents’ wishes and eloped with you, had our behavior led us to … to impropriety.” He lays a large, warm hand on my clenched fists and it calms me instantly. “Lucy Westenra, I have wanted to marry you for almost twenty years. I have been desperately in love with you for almost twenty years.”

I hold my breath, waiting to feel the prickle of guilty tears or the pain of knowing that I have to disappoint him. But I do not … nor do I sense overwhelming joy or relief. There is only numb unease and disquiet deep in my belly, heavy like a bag of stones in water. This is it , I think. The moment in which I lose what small freedom I had.

This is everything my short existence has led to from my very first breath on this earth. From the moment I was placed into my mother’s arms, tiny and red and screaming, and been announced a girl, this has been expected of me. Nineteen years of learning how to curtsy, how to hold a fork, how to dance and sing and play music. Nineteen years of being educated and groomed and dressed like a doll so that I might first be a credit to my father, then to my husband. There is no other route my life could have taken, no hidden path of brambles leading me off the road that has faced every woman who came before me, even my great-grandmother with her royal and romantic past in a land far away.

There will be no journeys for me now, no voyages across the sea, no sprawling ruins or sun-touched mountains or deep shady forests. It had all been an unquenchable yearning and a useless hope only to be spoken in the dark. “Some of us must sacrifice a great deal, must we not? Names, tongues, and roots,” Dr. Van Helsing had said, but he had not mentioned the sacrifice a woman must make of her own existence. Of course he had not. Only Mamma and Mina would understand, and they have spent years pressing me to accept my fate and be that ideal of womanly perfection and virtue. Someone modest and circumspect, someone who loves children, someone who does not desire her dearest female friend, someone who speaks and moves and lives with such elegance and grace as to be the perfect choice for a gentleman’s wife.

Like Van, who became Vanessa so that she could be with my great-grandfather, I will be Lucy, who became what she was not so that she could belong to Arthur Holmwood.

There is only one correct answer to what he has asked of me.

My reeling, frantic mind searches for a way to stall. I reach for my favorite armor, my playful demeanor, and keep my eyes on my lap where his hand still covers both of mine. “Why have you not spoken before now? Perhaps,” I add, with a touch of wickedness, “you only want me because you know that two other men wish to be my husband.”

“Do you really believe that?” Arthur asks quietly.

“You never made clear your intentions before. You came when I called and kissed me in the churchyard, but you did not mention marriage until Jack and Quincey proposed. Neither of them ever made me wonder, you know.” I sigh and turn away, watching the branches sway in the breeze. “Tonight, I considered securing my future at last with either the doctor or the cowboy.”

“But you refused them.” Arthur now lays both of his hands on mine. They are so much larger than my own that his fingers splay over my lap, and only my skirts separate his touch from my naked legs. He swallows hard, but he manages to hold on to his composure. “When Quincey came inside, I saw your answer in his face. And then Jack went out to you, and I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I followed after a while, and his eyes … I just knew. And it gave me hope.”

“Refusing them doesn’t mean I will accept you,” I whisper, my playfulness dissolving as I try to take my hands away. But Arthur’s grasp tightens, and I think again of how he held me in the churchyard, his arms locked around me like a drowning man’s on a buoy. “That night, I told myself to forget you. And when the moment came, to choose another—”

“But you didn’t choose another,” Arthur says, calm and determined. He inches closer to me, his eyes level with mine. If he tipped his head forward, our mouths would meet again. He spreads his hands, expanding the heat of his touch on my legs and trapping my breath in my raw throat. His plea comes out in a hoarse whisper. “Please, Lucy, I am begging you. Marry me.”

He has prostrated himself before me, helpless with longing. He will offer me his hand, his heart, and his home, and I have the ability to determine the course of his life with one word. I will choose whether this man is happy or heartbroken. But however immense this power seemed on the night we first kissed, it is pale and weak and silly to me now.

Already I am envisioning our life together. There will be a ring upon my hand, binding me to him. He will take away my name and give me his to let the world know that I belong to him as much as his horse or his carriage do. I will live in his home, entertain his guests, please his parents. I will sit by his side at every event, another hunting trophy won after a long and victorious chase. And—I swallow hard to clear the bile in my throat—any children I bear will be considered his, though I buy them with the pain and blood of my own body.

I will have nothing.

I will be nothing.

“Lucy, you’re killing me.” Arthur moves his hands to either side of my face, as though he might squeeze my answer from me like juice from a berry. “What are you thinking?”

“I am thinking of how much it hurt when you pushed me away,” I say shakily. “And of how much more it will hurt when you push me away after we are married.”

A fire ignites in his eyes. I have said after we are married, not if . “What do you mean by that?” he asks eagerly. “I already explained about the other night—”

“I mean that when I become your wife, Arthur, you will see all of me,” I say. “And I am afraid you will turn away. I am a woman made of dark thoughts. Death is always with me, and I with it. There is a sadness I cannot shake, and you will grow tired and frustrated with me.”

“I would never turn away from you.” He moves even closer, until my knees are pressed into his abdomen. Whoever is watching us from the house will have quite an interesting view of his back, shielding whatever we are doing from their curious gazes. “I would love and accept all of you, Lucy. Please believe me. I know how you still mourn your father. Don’t be angry, but your mother has told me that you often sleepwalk to the churchyard where he lies.”

This startles me. “When did she tell you? What did she tell you?”

“Not much. Only that she and your maid have found you wandering in your sleep.” The corners of his mouth lift shyly. “I think your kind mother hopes as much as I do that you will marry me. She told me she could never presume to know your heart, but she thought she sensed a regard in you that she had not seen for any other man. Was she right?”

I look straight into his eyes. “Yes,” I whisper.

Arthur touches my face so tenderly that I almost cry again. “How can you think that I would consider your grief a failing? You are a woman who loves deeply and are marked forever by those you love. I … I only hope you think I am worthy of that love, too.”

“I do think that.” I place my hand over his with the feeling of someone standing on the edge of a crumbling cliff. Every second that passes is another rock, and another, and another, bringing my feet closer to the fall. “But why did you wait so long to ask me?”

He gives a short, rueful laugh. “You know how bashful and awkward I am. I’m not a dashing cowboy, painting beautiful pictures with my words, or a handsome doctor who always knows the right romantic gestures to give.” He indicates himself. “This is all I can give you. And I know it is a poor offer compared to the ones you’ve received tonight.”

As stunned as I had been to see him smile, I am even more shocked by the tears in his eyes. Arthur Holmwood is crying before me as he professes his feelings, and through my muddle of grief, confusion, and anxiety is the overpowering need to make him happy. I want him to know only joy, this gentle soul who might ease the pain of being forced down this road for me.

“I love you,” I say quietly.

The change that comes over Arthur’s face clears my mind of any other man walking on this earth. It is like he is a candle and I have lit the wick, and the flame is dancing before my eyes, bright and searing where moments before there had been nothing, only darkness. He puts his arms around me and whispers, “Say it again.”

“I love you,” I tell him. Only when I taste a drop of salt do I realize that I, too, am crying—though I am not certain whether it is because of that long-awaited happiness or the dreadful certainty that I have now embarked upon an irreversible course. Perhaps it is both. “I love you, Arthur. My answer is yes. I will be your wife.”

And then he is kissing me, as passionately as he had that evening. I lean into him, feeling all the warm points of connection between us: our lips, moving with urgent intent; his arms gathering me close to him; my breasts against his jacket; the warmth of his torso against my legs; how soft his hair feels in my fingers as I stroke the back of his head.

He stops the kiss, panting, but does not move away. We look into each other’s wet eyes, and he holds me even tighter against him until I am pulled to the edge of the bench. I wrap my arms around his neck and over his shoulder, I see Mamma and her friends beaming at us through the windows of the house. Behind them are the other guests, Jack and Quincey among them, now fully realizing why I did not accept them. They are gentlemen, and they will toast Arthur and me with genuine congratulations even through their disappointment.

I think of how Mina will squeal and hug me when she finds out about my engagement.

With my acceptance, I have made so many people happy.

But am I happy? I wonder as I stroke Arthur’s hair.

I look up at the stars in the darkening sky with a sorrow and a longing for something I cannot name.