Gracefully Salacia leapt through the hole in the cobwebs on her way to the second floor landing. However, Jonathan stepped and cringed.
“Yuck! Cobwebs!” His voice was unflatteringly feminine.
Mina shook her head in disapproval as she walked to the staircase. “I don’t know why men are terrified of cobwebs. It’s just a sign of poor housekeeping to me.”
“This word housekeeping….” Dracula’s voice trailed off.
Mina began knocking down the cobweb wall with her hands.
“What are you doing?” the count asked, all aghast.
Mina jumped a little to bring down the furthest corners. “These cobwebs are a disgrace. Susie Belle, being from a former British colony, should know better.”
“You’re pulling down my cobwebs!” Dracula’s hands went to his cheeks.
“You needn’t thank me.” Mina displayed her pertest smile. “This place will look much cheerier once we get it spruced up.” She looked at the long draperies hanging over a tall window and tutted. “And get rid of these draperies. They’re simply dreadful. Perhaps a nice pink taffeta—“
Dracula drowned her out in mid-sentence with a loud, wolf-like howl. “You work centuries getting cobwebs just the way you like them and in a few seconds some silly little twit comes along and ruins them all!” Dracula was on the verge of a genuine Transylvanian hissy fit as he bent over to pick up the remnants of his cobwebs.
“There, there, honey child.” Susie Belle patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t get so riled up.”
When the count lifted his eyes he realized he was the center of everyone’s shock and pity, which were not the emotions he wished to evoke. Mina’s lower lip was quivering, and Van Helsing’s eyes were no longer filled with cynicism, which was a major shift for him. Dracula let the cobwebs drop from his hands, which he then wiped clean on his cape.
Outside wolves began to h owl. Dracula used the diversion to transition back to the Prince of Darkness. He smiled at his guests as he gracefully motioned to the window.
“Children of the night! What music they make!”
Within moments the wolves’ howl took on a semblance of order in rhythm and tone, evolving into a recognizable tune.
“Very nice.” Van Helsing nodded knowingly.
“Catchy tune.” Mina furrowed her brow as she cocked her head. “But I can’t quite place it.”
“It’s Mozart,” Dracula informed her, well pleased with his range of cultural knowledge.
“It’s the Lacrymosa from Mozart’s Requiem, reputed to be the last arrangement he wrote before he died.” Van Helsing could not help but exchange in a brisk brief display of one-upmanship.
Susie Belle’s raucous laughter broke the spell of intellectual repartee. “Yeah, the wolf gang really loves Wolfgang!”
The others looked at her with the same disdain as the upper crust would have at high tea if a Cockney flower girl burst through the door singing a common music hall ditty, as their ilk is wont to do. Susie Belle’s laughter trailed off.
“Don’t you get it? A pack of wolves is a gang—a wolf gang. And Mozart’s first name was Wolfgang. Wolf gang, Wolfgang?”
After an awkward silence, Mina plastered a smile on her face and said, “Oh yes. Quite amusing. Ha ha. Don’t you think it was amusing, Professor?”
“To be perfectly German,” Van Helsing growled, “I thought it stunk.”
“Susie Belle, how many times must I remind you,” Dracula lectured her, “American wit is not highly regarded in Europe.”
She sniffed loudly and turned on her heels. “Bunch of foreigners. No sense of humor at all.”
Quite in a snit, Susie Belle stalked off toward the game room. Dracula followed her trying to make amends. “Oh, Susie Belle, my sweet, would you mind looking down in the basement for more cobwebs?”
She turned and winked at the count. “All right. Why don’t we go down there right now and look for them together?”
He glanced around at Van Helsing and Mina. “Too many prying eyes. Later.” He put his hand in the small of her back. “Why don’t we go play on the bouncy thing?”
They giggled as they went into the game room and shut the doors behind them. At the same time Jonathan came out of his bedroom, now properly dressed in his trousers, coat and tie. He bounded enthusiastically and innocently down the stairs
“Mina! My sweet!”
They joyfully met at the bottom of the staircase.
“Jonathan! My love!”
They appeared to be on the brink of embracing and kissing passionately but instead they lightly held hands, touched their cheeks and made smoochy sounds.
“I’ve missed you, dearest!” Jonathan cooed.
“I can hardly wait for our wedding, light of my life!” Mina exclaimed.
They pulled apart, held hands and glowed with the joys of anticipation.
“Were you able to secure our favorite chapel for the nuptials?” he asked.
“Oh yes!” Mina answered with pride. “Our Lady of the Perpetual Headache!”
“Jolly good!”
They touched cheeks again and made more smoochy sounds. Van Helsing, who h ad endured this exhibition of puritan rectitude for as long as he could, placed his hands gingerly on his slightly protruding paunch.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” he mumbled.
Jonathan looked up to offer commiseration. “I know what you mean. It is rather dusty here. My sinuses are killing me.”
“That’s not what I meant,” the professor responded bluntly.
“Oh?” Jonathan was caught off guard by Van Helsing’s statement.
“To be perfectly German—“
“I wish you wouldn’t,” Mina interrupted.
“Very well.” He turned away in a huff.
Jonathan took her hand again. “I still don’t understand why you’re here, Mina. Oh, please sit down.
“Thank you.” A note of concern entered her voice. “It was your letters, Jonathan.”
As they sat on the divan, a poof of dust arose which caused them to cough and hack. Eventually Mina recovered sufficiently to continue.
“They frightened me with your strange stories of bats and of Count Dracula crawling up the wall. And when you wrote the ladies here wore shrouds, well, you must admit that is rather bizarre apparel—for someone outside the theatre, that is.”
“What we write in haste, we regret in leisure,” he apologized.
Mina shook her head in incomprehension. “You mean you made all that up?”
Van Helsing could take no more. He rushed over to them. “Of course he did not make it up!”
“Not intentionally, doctor,” Jonathan replied. “It seems the wine here is very potent. And as a result I had some rather peculiar dreams.”
“That’s interesting,” the professor snapped back. “I had a glass of wine. It didn’t affect me that way.”
“And I had one,” Mina added. “I found it better but other than that….” Her voice trailed off when Jonathan stood abruptly and walked away.”
“I must admit I h ad more than a glass or two.”
“Exactly how much more, dearest?” she asked with an edge.
He closed his eyes in anticipation of an approaching feminine storm of disapproval. “Two bottles a night.”
“Jonathan!”
He rushed to kneel at Mina’s feet in supplication. “I hated to see all those bottles to go to waste in the wine cellar.” He looked to the professor for support. “It seems the count and his wives never drink wine.”
“Yes,” Van Helsing concurred. “He told us.”
Jonathan returned his attention to his fiancée. “Do you forgive me, my divine vision?”
“Well….”
He stood and walked away, scuffing a shoe on the floor. “Oh gosh gee willickers, Mina. It was only wine, and I drank it all alone in my room. It’s not like I did anything so awful, awful terrible.”
Van Helsing walked briskly over, slapped Jonathan across the face and marched away. “I hate men who snivel.”
“Of course, mon amour,” Mina said, mostly to show the professor how properly to respond to a sniveling man. I forgive me.”
He ran back to her, fell to grovel at her feet and kissed her hands. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Van Helsing harrumphed loudly to draw their attention. Jonathan and Mina snapped their heads in his direction.
“Now that the hour of confession is over, may we continue?” he asked with that arrogance only attainable by men who hold the titles of both professor and doctor. “Our time is limited, and our safety is in peril!”