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by Sherwood Smith

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Sherwood Smith’s literary accomplishments span the galaxy of imagination from Young Adult fantasy (her Wren and Crown Duel series) to adult fantasy (most recently, her Inda series from DAW) to space opera (the Exordium series with Dave Trowbridge), science fiction (collaborations with the late Andre Norton) and media tie-in novels. Sherwood’s latest short story was “Court Ship,” published in Firebirds Rising from Penguin, and her most recent books are Treason’s Shore (DAW), A Stranger to Command (Norilana), and Trouble with Kings (Samhain).

In between writing and teaching, Sherwood participates in the SFWA Musketeers, enjoys watching The Three Stooges, and reads the letters of Jane Austen.

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The generally accepted definition for ‘genius’ is an extraordinary intellectual power especially as manifested in creative endeavor. A simpler definition might be, one who recreates. In its turn, ‘recreation’ has its own polysemy. The irony is ingenious, I find.

Much has been written about the mysterious gap in Jane Austen’s letters between 26-7 May, 1801, and 14 September 1804. Evidence indicates she had suffered a disappointment in love, but to protect Jane’s privacy after the latter’s death, her sister Cassandra burned all Jane’s letters during that period.

The determined scholar glimpses her through mention in family letters beginning that autumn, and thenceforward until she reappears again in 1804. What happened during those four months? Jane’s movements are detailed in a travel diary, which Cassandra never saw.

Here is the opening:

As you can see, I obtained this little travel book, with the intention of writing you an extended letter. I dare not claim the vaunted pinnacle of Volumes of Travel Reminiscence. My purpose is humble. Where would I post my letters? We are not so grand as to expect a convenient diplomatic pouch, or even some lieutenant carrying dispatches, as Charles had so confidently predicted. Naval lieutenants are not to be met with everywhere—especially as we plan to travel farther in from the sea.

What has happened, you ask? Permit me to retrace.

In the two days after I last wrote, the Endymion arrived at Portsmouth, and Charles having got leave, posted to us at once. I can say ‘at once’ because it so occurred: it seems that the vessel carried passengers from Calais, among whom were a clergyman and his sister, Dr. and Miss Crawfurd. They offered a place in their Carriage to Charles, posting all the way to Bath, which demonstrates their good nature.

At first Jane did not write what happened to spark that friendship, because she felt ambivalent about the cause.

The Channel crossing was made difficult by stormy, contrary winds, which confined the passengers to the officers’ cramped wardroom. Charles Austen, one of Jane’s many brothers, happened to be off-duty. He chuckled as he read from a packet of papers; on being encouraged by one of his fellow officers to read aloud to the company, he obliged. The text was Lady Susan, and when his audience lauded the story as not only funny but quite unlike anything they had ever heard, Charles admitted with scarcely concealed pride that it had been written by his sister. The packet, containing close-written sheets of Lady Susan, First Impressions, and Elinor and Marianne, was passed among the sea-faring Austen brothers to enjoy during their off-duty moments.

After the passengers had all disembarked and the officers were granted leave, Charles encountered the Crawfurds just as he was about to purchase a mail coach ticket. When it was discovered that they all had the same destination, the Crawfurds insisted he accompany them. No sooner had they rolled out of the inn yard than Miss Crawfurd begged Charles to while away the tedium of travel by reading more of his sister’s tales, and so he took out Jane’s most recent effort, Elinor and Marianne.

Amid much laughter over the Dashwood family, the blue gazes of brother and sister met in triumph. Charles kept reading.

~o0o~

Last night, Charles brought his Benefactors to meet us. The Crawfurds began with “genius” and “extraordinary”—all the loud compliments I hate most, because, whether it’s true or not, there is nothing one can gracefully say before strangers. But once they saw my discomfiture was real, and no fine lady bridling, they left off the Subject. That enabled me to enjoy the “We laughed out loud all the way” and “There was never a coach ride so short.”

The delicacy the brother and sister displayed thus had more appeal than the exaggerations about Genius. He is a gentleman-like man of stylish appearance, and his sister young and while you know I would as soon fling my pen out the window than say “as beautiful as an angel,” in this case it is very nearly true.

Jane Austen’s code for “handsome and attractive” was “gentleman-like.” She had never been effusive. Her earliest writings made fun of gushing language. Since Tom Lefroy had imageso recently gone back to Ireland, leaving her waiting for the proposal that both families expected, she had become more than ordinarily cautious.

When the Evelyns called—bringing Mr. Thomas Evelyn, who shares with his Uncle the all-consuming Love of Horses— glad was the outcry at their unexpected Encounter with the Crawfurds, which three or four years of perfect indifference had delayed from the last. Once the usual nothings were said, the Crawfurds were so witty and full of engaging conversation, we were all soon talking and laughing, even Mr. Evelyn, who on rare occasion can be transformed from a Yahoo about Horses. We discovered similar Tastes in books—Evelina delightful— Arthur Fitz-Albini dreadful—Madame de Genlis fashionable— Smollett at his best when satirizing the Great but in execrable taste—so comfortable when everyone is in agreement without expectation.

We went from Hesperus to the continent. Miss Crawfurd, as both visitor and the prettiest woman in the room, was acknowledged the principal talker. She expressed a Desire to travel upon the Continent, to visit castles and places of antiquity. As soon as she uttered the words, the gentlemen all caught her idea.

We were assured that everywhere there is peace, and everyone smiles: the Treaty of Luneville during winter appears to have given the Prussians Cause to put away their swords, and the negotiations beginning in London intimate that the French will trouble us no more. Charles insists that after their naval defeat at the Nile and their recent losses in Egypt, their adventures have ended.

Then Dr. Crawfurd declared that he had that morning received a letter via Diplomatic Pouch, inviting him to visit the Home of a Patron, and he is to bring any party he cares to invite.

Miss Evelyn exclaimed at once. You know her wish for Distinction through her drawings. Once she had spoken, I felt I could add my voice to the general outcry, without it seeming to be particularly aimed at Dr. Crawfurd, who even Cousin Eliza acknowledged as the most interesting man in the room.

I confess to you, who well knows my tastes, that a tour through crumbling castles with old moats would draw my eye and fire my imagination even if we are not to meet with a pack of ghosts, or a young lady dressed in white and bearing a single flickering candle as she runs weeping through the graveyard. I condition only for the moat not being filled with horrid creatures—or horrid smells.

Dr. Eldon Crawfurd’s courtship of the reticent Jane was delicate, conducted not through compliments—he understood quickly that those resulted in silence—but through conversation. Those who listened to the tales of his travels gained the impression of a clergyman in the agreeable situation of having no present living, but as the inheritor of a sufficient fortune, in no immediate need of one. He once or twice alluded to his intellectual patron, a well-traveled and educated prince in the Austrian Empire, which added greatly to his impression of erudition.

Miss Crawfurd made her life with her brother, but she assured them in a witty aside that she did not have to depend upon him for her menus plaisirs. Miss Evelyn whispered to Jane during the bustle of getting the tea things ready, that she had once met them in London, where Miss Crawfurd presided over entertainments in her brother’s house in Wimpole Street. Miss Evelyn added meaningfully that the Crawfurds numbered among their acquaintance people of rank and wit.

Jane commented to Cassandra that everyone likes to be known to have visited people of “rank and wit,” even if one can make no claim to those distinctions themselves.

At first, the idea of the castle tour faltered with the Austen parents. But Dr. Crawfurd exchanged his seat next to Dr. Austen, and he explained in the smoothest, most sympathetic manner his conviction that a clergyman who travels and sees much of the human condition can bring more wisdom to a parish than one who has learned only through the threadbare sayings obtainable in published sermons. Dr. Austen was much struck by this observation.

Then Henry Austen, who had irritated the family by marrying their widowed cousin Eliza de Feuillide despite everyone’s wishes, commented, “Of course you will not wish to go, Mother. You may find a comfortable home with Frank, or Edward, while we are gone.”

Mrs. Austen promptly claimed her share in the prospective treat, adding plaintively, “I do not know why everyone would assume I would not be a good traveler. I am equal to anything that Father is, and why should anyone presume that I should not wish to go?”

That settled the question. They would go. They had only to establish the means. When Charles reported that the Endymion would be ferrying to the continent a party of relations belonging to the first lieutenant and the captain, and that he would send off a request by post to gain permission from his captain for passage, the conversation turned to the important topic of what to take—Mrs. Austen stating that the first thought must be given to sheets, as she had heard that foreigners had no notion of proper washing.

~o0o~

The journey to Portsmouth was agreeable. We talked and laughed the entire way, which shortened the distance by at least an hundred miles.

Besides the Crawfurds, the party included the Austen parents, Jane, Charles, Henry, and Eliza—who had no interest in returning to the continent, where so many she knew had been beheaded ten years before, but the way Henry’s roving eye had landed on the fair Miss Crawfurd, she decided the time had come to call on her extended relations. Mr. Evelyn could not be got to leave his phaeton and four, but Miss Evelyn had declared (with a cant of the head in the direction of the handsome Dr. Eldon Crawfurd) that an artistic Grand Tour would be something worth doing, and her cousin Mr. Thomas Evelyn (his gaze stayed on Miss Maria Crawfurd) offered to go as her escort.

The Crawfurds had to exert their considerable charms once the party was on board the Endymion. Mrs. Austen took an immediate dislike to the motion of the ship upon the water, and to the evil smells below the decks, despite the neatness of the arrangements. In spite of her list of alarming symptoms (punctuating a stream of messages to the captain to steady the boat, messages which Charles wisely offered to carry, so that the captain never saw them), they arrived without mishap on the continent. Here a magnificent array of hired voitures awaited them, ordered by Dr. Crawfurd.

Jane Austen was so pleased with new sights, sounds, everywhere people in curious dress speaking other tongues, and she found their new acquaintances so agreeable, she accepted the Crawfurds’ generosity toward their entire party as part of their enormous charm. She had no apprehension of any purpose beyond the subtle social minuet of courtship.

Rotterdam pleased the entire party. Mrs. Austen’s spirits rose at the sight of flower-boxes everywhere, and streets so swept and scoured that she declared she might walk abroad in her slippers and return without carrying one spot of dirt.

They set out for Cologne. The pleasantly undulating countryside was tidy, from the rows of the farms to the canals full of boats, but they had to stop frequently for Mrs. Austen.

They began their tour of antiquities at the Cathedral in Cologne, where they viewed the Golden Sarcophagus containing the Bones of the Magi. By the time they had heard the details of the martyrdom of Saint Ursula and the 11,000 virgins, Mrs. Austen was speaking of palpitations and nervous disorders again.

At this point the party split up. Mrs Austen insisted upon a stay in Holland, which she might enjoy at leisure while awaiting the others. Jane and Charles were surprised when their father also decided to remain behind, saying something unintelligible about being old—one is decided in one’s tastes— clergymen today—it’s the fashion to be familiar with Fordyce, but where Donne and the great Milton are forgotten, the old must make way for the new.

The Austens were a fond family. Jane was troubled on her father’s behalf, but felt it was not her place to inquire into his reasons. Surely her father could not have found fault with Dr. Crawfurd, so witty, elegant, and fascinating! She decided her father sought an excuse to stay by Mrs. Austen. Charles would have pursued this matter, but Maria Crawfurd laughingly linked her arm within his as she claimed his protection on a walk about the town, and when they returned, in the bustle of parting he forgot to ask.

The next day, it was a smaller party that set out. The Crawfurds contrived to have Charles and Jane in their voiture; in the second carriage, Eliza was pleased to keep Henry beside her, with no more distracting company than Miss Evelyn (who hid her disappointment of Dr. Crawfurd in talking determinedly of antiquities, the proper use of the pencil in the making of shadows), and her disappointed cousin (who felt that Charles Austen had unfairly stolen a march by his walk about town with Miss Crawfurd).

As the carriage rolled alongside the river, Eldon Crawfurd offered to read poetry to the company. He read aloud well, pleasing Jane with his expressive interpretations of Cowper, and for a while they conversed on the spark of poetic genius. Was it inherited? Shakespeare’s progeny was not famed. Was it taught? Socrates to Plato to Aristotle to Alexander the Great were the most obvious examples.

“But beyond that, I can’t name many,” Charles said.

“One might have to define greatness,” Jane murmured.

Maria looked amused. “Do you claim that Alexander of Macedonia was not great, then, Miss Austen?”

Jane had not thought she was heard. She blushed. “I make no claims to scholarship.”

But Eldon said, “We’re not in school now. We are a private and informal company, with little to do besides conversation. I believe I speak for us all when I say, we may safely put forward opinions without the demand of academic proficiency.”

Jane said, “Well, despite all we’re told, what did Alexander accomplish, besides conquering a lot of people who probably would as lief been left alone, had they been asked? It is true he built the library at Alexandria, but anyone may build a library without being thought wise.”

Eldon laughed. “You are not the first to make that claim against the Macedonian, and I find I must concur, unless one is given to admiring battles. We had a debate on this very subject when I was at school in Germany. One of my poetical friends made a case exactly like yours.”

“Madame de Staël said much the same,” Maria put in. “Though I believe some of her discourse was aimed at the First Consul.”

“Madame de Staël,” Charles repeated, sending an uneasy glance his sister’s way.

Maria touched his wrist. “Oh, surely you are not going to exhibit tiresome country-town attitudes. Who is here to be impressed? We are quite alone, you a world traveler as is myself and my brother, and your sister the author of Lady Susan.”

Jane reddened, and Maria mistook her blush of shame for bridling at a compliment. She privately thought Jane Austen affected, but went on in soothing tones, “Some say that to geniuses must be applied a different rule; Madam de Staël’s recent publication on literature is very widely regarded, you know.”

Eldon smiled. “Widely regarded from Scotland to America, where Thomas Jefferson has written in its praise. So much good will transcending national boundaries can only be considered a fine thing, after so many years of war.”

Jane found herself in an uncomfortable dilemma. This was not the first time Maria Crawfurd had scorned country-town attitudes, which in Jane’s view might better be characterized as scrupulous.

Maria took her silence for capitulation. “The Count whom we are to visit—he is actually a prince, you must understand, but we English translated his title as Count. He remarked about Madame de Staël that faces age, but wit never does.”

Eldon laughed. “My sister would have both if she could.”

A warning glance flashed between brother and sister.

Charles was frowning in thought. “You have mentioned the Count before,” he said. “What can you tell us about him?”

Eldon replied, “He collects books representing all branches of knowledge, from many countries. He says it would require several lifetimes to read them all. Something, perhaps, all artists wish they could have.” He turned to Jane. “Would not you, Miss Austen?”

“Everyone would like to possess youthful beauty and wit for ever,” Jane said to him, glad to have bypassed the uncomfortable subject of Madame de Staël, and her irregular life. “Some never have either, which they regard as tragic. Some only think they do—”

“—which we regard as comic, when they are exposed,” Charles said. “How I love Jane’s pompous windbags! Anyone would take Mr. Collins for my old headmaster.”

Miss Crawfurd pressed Jane’s hand. “That is part of your great gift, Miss Austen, to expose falsity in all guises.”

Eldon offered to read from Pope, and Jane’s uneasiness subsided. She realized that, by degrees, she had relinquished the idea of marriage to Dr. Crawfurd, handsome as he was.

Friendship was altogether more comfortable; she was content that he might become a brother if Charles and Maria wed.

~o0o~

Saturday, June 29, 1801. Hotel König von Ungarn, Vienna.

At Ratisbon we were able to join up with the Danube as this river, unlike the Rhine, is polite enough to flow in the proper direction.

I found it impossible to write aboard the boat, so you are spared my description of the wild forests and ruins and monasteries perched on cliffs, enough for a thousand Otrantos. You may apply to me for details, as I see my future self hovering beside your chair, helping your reading along with such questions as “What page are you on? Have you reached the boat yet?”

Charles was distraught when Miss Crawfurd went walking with Mr. Thomas Evelyn. He paced about in a manner to satisfy any Young Werther. At least he did not rant verses of Klopstock at us, hindered as he is by not speaking German. Dr. Crawfurd once again brought forward the subjects of artistic creation, and of genius, until I began to suspect that some cause lay behind it. I can only suppose that either he or his sister think to commence author. I am minded to say that people who talk forever of writing without ever squaring to their page probably will never do it from some cause or other. But I might be mistaken.

It is Sunday afternoon. We had to apply at the Embassy to discover a Protestant Church, with the result we attended Divine Service with a great many Diplomats. This will, I feel sure, constitute my own brush with Greatness, so I record it for your benefit, Cassandra, as well as mine.

Speaking of which, we have paraded along the Prater with the grand and the chimney-sweeps alike, and we have obtained diplomatic passes to be conducted on the morrow through Schönbrunn, which Miss Crawfurd assures us looks like a Cleaner Versailles.

Miss Evelyn has bought new crayons for just this purpose. If someone hints at faults in her drawings—which are as flat as ever—she punishes them with medieval masonry and baroque styles until they agree with her sense of her own Genius, or run out of the room.

After hearing music wherever we go, I am almost sorry to depart on Tuesday for Buda-Pesht.

~o0o~

With some deft handling on the part of the Crawfurds, the party that left Vienna was reduced yet again. Charles would go at any cost, and the Crawfurds were determined that Jane would go with her brother.

Maria flattered and smiled Mr. Thomas Evelyn into bringing himself to the point, then turned him down. Having no interest in old castles or book-collecting counts who claimed to speak at least twenty languages, he remained in Vienna to seek the source of the horses he had seen exhibiting their skills at the Spanish Riding School.

Eldon did his best to disengage Miss Evelyn from the group, but she was as oblivious to hints as she was to criticism. She had determined that the fabulous castle of Count Dracula would aid her in achieving fame when she returned to England with her book of sketches, and she disclaimed any hardship.

Henry and Eliza did not have to be disengaged. She felt that Henry had had enough of Maria’s bewitching conversation, and swept him off to a castle nearby, to which her own relations had fled after the French Revolution.

So it was just one carriage that left Vienna, and rolled into the vast woods to begin the long journey eastward.

And now, the Crawfurds began to approach their purpose.

~o0o~

“You will discover,” Maria said one morning as the carriage rolled across a bridge, “that the Count is fascinated with the latest theories of scientific discovery. If you have any interest, you will find the latest publications at the castle, far as it is from any modern city.”

She smiled on Charles, who smiled back, hopelessly besotted. To be so beautiful, and so well-informed about the world!

“Just last year I attended a lecture on electricity by a fellow who spoke before the Royal Society,” Charles exclaimed, not including the fact that a fellow lieutenant had all but dragged him and his fellow officers in order to fill chairs for his father, a learned man but no public speaker.

“I attended a similar lecture in Paris,” Eldon said. “You have probably observed how scientists will travel between nations, or at the very least correspond with one another, quite ignoring the struggles of governments. The most exciting discovery of late has been the principle of the galvanic spark.”

Charles had been bored into lockjaw by his friend’s father, but now was glad he’d been forced to listen. With a glance toward Maria, he said with tolerable ease, “Galvani’s theory of animal magnetism is quite exploded. Alessandro Volta proved that there was a magnetic spark not in the dissected musculature, but in the metals used to mount them.”

Miss Crawfurd said, smiling, “The Count sent a message to my brother while we were in Paris, requesting him to procure the newest publications on that very subject. Did you read the latest theory, putting forward the notion the spark of life can be imbued in living organisms?”

Charles shook his head, having to give up his pretense of scientific expertise. “My duties have kept me out at sea.”

Maria patted his hand. “Of course. While you sailors labor so admirably to protect our borders against invaders, ideas cross quite freely. They are there to be met with when you gain liberty.”

They stopped at an ancient inn that night, and had the drawing room to themselves. They agreed to eat in company, without the ladies separating off. Maria had a capital idea—they would read Lady Susan, the men taking turns with the male characters’ letters, and Maria and Jane the women’s, as Miss Evelyn said she preferred to listen as she worked on the Ostrogothic ruin she had taken in swift sketches that morning.

The laughter this time was pointed, the Crawfurds enjoying how Lady Susan had succeeded in fooling the fools, Charles laughing because Maria laughed, and Jane swinging between pride and pain. When she retired, she wondered if all authors found their opinions mistaken for those of their creations. Perhaps this explained why so many books were published in anonymity.

~o0o~

Bistritz—uncertain date.

It is very odd, Cassandra. I pride myself on being a rational creature. But as we traveled east, the land around us not only got wilder, it seemed somehow older, the darkness darker, the light more fitful, and night full of noises that make one sit closer to the fire. I told myself that particular area had long been controlled by the Turks, until scarcely a century ago, so the marks of our Civilization would seem the rarer, and signs of Eastern Civilization strange.

That does not reason away the constant howling of

wolves.

But it is not our surroundings that disturb my thoughts so much as my company.

I see you looking satirical, and in truth, so should I, if I were sitting in my room at the Paragon, with the noise of Bath outside the window. Perhaps I ought to review Elinor & Marianne, not just to correct the manifold errors I detected in my reading, but to remind myself of what my heroines learnt about the conflict between Reason and Passion.

Miss Evelyn only speaks to insist we stop for a short time at every castle or ruin so that she may sketch it. The rest of us use the opportunity to walk about, and breathe air that is not enclos’d in a Carriage.

Charles pines if Miss Crawfurd is not by. She is as bewitching as ever when she is among us, always ready with a fund of easy conversation and wit. She speaks constantly of the power of Youth and Beauty, as if there is nothing of importance in life but these. Am I rational to own to these Misgivings? Cassandra, I hardly know what I write; the candle is already guttering (I was in a reverie between every sentence) and the wolves howling abominably.

The Crawfurds promise that they have saved the best for last—that we shall love Castle Dracula, and that its Count is so honored to receive us as guests, that he will meet us to conduct us the rest of the way.

Wolves—there goes the candle, I can scarcely see to write.

If I hear chains, or a shriek, I believe I will change my name to Clorinda.

~o0o~

Jane had just written the above when the maid, a thin young girl, brought hot water. Jane thanked her in French as she handed her a vail.

The girl’s mob cap trembled with her nervous effort, but she darted forward and thrust into Jane’s hand—a rosary! Then she darted out again, the remains of the water in her pitcher sloshing.

Jane did not know whether to regard this scene as comical or pitiful. Hearing a commotion in the shared parlor, she went out, and found the Crawfurds and Charles.

When she opened her hand to disclose the rosary—and a homely, rough thing it was, the beads carved from wood by no delicate hand, the crucifix also made of wood—Miss Crawfurd drew her skirts aside and made a noise of disgust. “Fling it out of the window!” she exclaimed.

Dr. Crawfurd protested with a laugh. “My dear sister, it is merely a peasant icon, and a rough one at that.”

Miss Crawfurd turned away in disgust. “I have a distaste for peasant superstitions.” She added with meaning, “And you know the Count has a worse.”

The clergyman said, “Miss Austen, surely you do not intend to collect idolatrous objects. You know what the church leaders have to say upon the subject of false pieties.”

Jane realized it was the first time he had made reference to Church teachings in all their travels, clergyman though he was. Everything else—literature, science, history and famous people, especially people of genius—had been canvassed, but nothing about religious principle.

Here was part of the reason she could not consider him seriously as a mate. There was no time to consider this further, as a commotion in the outer room heralded an arrival.

I promised to lay everything out as exactly as I can describe. I had thought on meeting him that Dr. Crawfurd the handsomest man of my acquaintance, but he was nothing compared to Count Dracula.

He is tall, very fair. Light-colored eyes. I leave the excess to my fellow Authors, but when one is in his presence, one notices nothing else. In consequence, I scarcely questioned traveling at night. Nor did any of the others.

We were bundled into very fine carriages, all warmed with bricks, and so we raced into the night, pursued by the cries of unseen Wolves.

I do not remember the details of the journey. It might have taken all night; I just know that we arrived, weary and half-asleep, in a court lit by torchlight. In that uneven illumination, I gained the impression of great archways, perhaps in series. We drew up, the horses steaming, before a great door of ancient hard wood, studded all over with iron nails. This door was set in stone, conveying the impression of withstanding enormous force—whether of weather or other threats I could not say.

“Come within,” the Count said.

The door opened with a screech of metal joinings, and a great many servants in livery appeared, conducting us into light and warmth. My senses were alert now, aware of iron wheel chandeliers overhead, and behind the rattle of chains and the grating of bolts securing that massive door.

The tired, bewildered guests were overwhelmed by the magnificence of the castle. The light within was quite bright, though not the familiar hue of beeswax candles, or oil lamps, much less the faint, noisome glow of tallow. From the chandeliers hung silver lanterns, each containing a flame of sorts, burning from a source mysterious to the Austens. (Miss Evelyn paid the lights no heed; her attention was all for the carved gargoyles over the archways, which she could already hear herself explaining to a rapt audience were surely Byzantine in origin.) The air smelled of old stone.

“Welcome to my house,” said Count Dracula. “My people will make you comfortable. Your journey has been long. I am aware how far from the civilized world my land lies. We will all meet again after you have had your rest, and then I will conduct you over the castle, that you may explore, and sketch, to your heart’s content.” He gave Miss Evelyn a slight bow.

Jane was led away by a girl not much older than the one who had given her the rosary, which lay in her pocket still, as she’d had no time to pack it before the sudden and surprising departure.

Jane closed her hand around the comforting wood as she observed the lowered eyes and meek manner of the servants. Unlike the people they’d seen in villages and on the road, these servants did not wear religious emblems at all.

On impulse she drew from her pocket the rosary. When the servant saw it, she stood still as stone, gazing with such desperation that Jane extended her hand. The girl reached tentatively, and then clutched the gift, her eyes closed, tears leaking from them. “Thank you, thank you. Now I may be free,” the girl whispered in broken French. And she flitted out before Jane could speak.

~o0o~

I sit in this room with a single light, the bitter smell of iron-gall ink heavy in my nostrils; I will shortly get to why. I said I must lay it all out rationally, though what I am about to retail will make you think I am dreaming.

Not that things seemed ill at first. I slept deeply on our arrival. Already my mind was turned about, as what seemed night was actually day, though we could not know it, as the shutters in our windows were nailed tight. We all slumbered the same number of hours, or perhaps we were wakened by some agency I did not detect, but we appeared in a refectory at about the same time, everyone looking weary still, except for Miss Crawfurd, who entered with a light, dancing step, smiling at us in triumph. It was she, and not the Count, who commanded the silent servants to bring the breakfast, which was well cooked and plentiful.

The Count made his appearance when they had finished, and said that he would conduct them over his castle himself.

Miss Evelyn had her sketchbook and crayons ready to hand, but the Count offered her arm to Jane.

They traveled through several well-proportioned rooms, handsomely fitted up. The Count related the history of the castle, using the royal ‘we’ and speaking in the immediate, giving so vivid a description of attacks and battles engaged in by his Norse forefathers, whom he named the Szekelys, he conveyed an unpleasant sense of having witnessed these spectacles.

Charles only half heard. He walked along on Maria’s arm, gazing at her in blissful admiration. Miss Evelyn paid scant attention: she was too busy storing up details of ancient artifacts, and trying to decide where to begin sketching first. Visions of a royal exhibition had begun to take shape in her mind.

The Count gazed down into Jane’s observant eyes and talked about the purity of his northern racial blood, breeding leaders since before the time of the Romans. He looked for evidence of awe, but instead heard in her breathing and saw in the tilt of her button chin that she did not appreciate the details of impalements and beheadings any more than she was impressed by the necessity to cleanse the countryside of lesser races, which were identified by their swarthiness of skin and grossness of feature.

By the time they had walked the length of three great rooms, the Count had shifted his discourse to the number of Royal Houses with connections to his, giving an account of royal gifts in evidence, from an ancient hunting tapestry to a pair of dueling sabers affixed to a wall above a carved and gilt escritoire.

Miss Evelyn stayed behind to sketch that last while the others mounted the stone steps spiraling up a tower to reach the upper level. Jane, looking everywhere, noticed that the sound in a tower was odd: a whisper far below sounded like a rustle next to one’s ear. But then one stepped around a corner and the rushing of the wind outside snatched away all sound but its keening.

Dr. Crawfurd’s voice speaking her name caught at her attention. “...with Jane? He promised that any poets or writers I brought would be mine.”

Miss Crawfurd’s distinctive laugh echoed up. “Tais-toi, cher Eldon! Remember what you did to Johann Hölderin! To beguile the best blood is not enough to earn its mastery....”

Then they were around the turn.

The Count looked down at his prize genius. “Do you have a question, Miss Austen?” He smiled.

Jane had learned to observe smiles. This one was complacent, the smile of expectation.

“Thank you, no,” she said. She was small and round-cheeked, and the Austen manners were always good, for she had been raised by enlightened and rational people. Self-control was of paramount importance to the Austens. To people for whom it was not of paramount importance, the Austens could be misunderstood.

At the tour’s end, most of the company dispersed to rest again. Jane returned to her bed chamber, but she found it so cold and uncongenial, with its nailed shutters warding the light, she left it again.

Remembering the many conversations about the Count and his library, she sought that room in hopes of finding something to read in order to distract herself from inchoate worries.

The library was a long gallery of a chamber, with bookshelves extending up the walls so high that the mouldering volumes at the top were in reach only of a ladder. A fire roared in a fireplace wide and deep enough to hold entire trunks of trees. The tables were enormous, probably hewn from the trees too large to put into the fireplace.

Miss Evelyn sat at a corner of one table, within the warmth and light from the fire, finishing her gargoyles. The room was otherwise empty, so Jane perused the lettering on the spines of the shelved books. Many were in Latin, or in unfamiliar alphabets, so she turned over some of the titles lying on the table. These were recent, some works from the Encyclopedists, and several medical texts, most of them in Latin. Topmost was William Harvey’s work on the circulation of blood.

Next to it lay a pamphlet upon the same subject, printed in French, with a great many underlinings, and notes in Greek and Latin. Jane remembered the odd words about blood she had overheard in the tower, and turned over the pages. The theory stated that blood injected into someone else’s veins would carry to the receiver the qualities of the donor. Therefore, the blood of a king would convey the royal heritage, and likewise, the blood of a genius would, upon circulating through the recipient, carry the qualities of genius. The question only remained, how much blood must pass into the recipient until the effect would become noticeable?

There was a note below, in a strong handwriting: You must take it all to gain the effect entire.

Jane stared down at those words, remembering all the conversations about genius, blood, electricity and galvanic sparks. Her sense of formless worry had sharpened into a distinct apprehension of threat when the Count spoke from the other side of the library. “Do you understand now, Miss Austen?”

Jane looked up. “Understand what, pray?”

“Come, come. You are perceptive and intelligent. My acolytes claim genius on your part, a claim I am prepared to accept. Maria is as discriminating as she is ambitious.”

‘Maria?’ Jane wondered if Miss Crawfurd and the Count had come to an understanding, of which her poor brother was unaware. She glanced at Miss Evelyn, but she had fallen into reverie, her gaze turned toward the fire, and her hand dropped loose upon her sketch.

Jane turned back to the Count. “I perceive in this text a theory about blood circulation. I know from family experience that medical practice dictates the letting of blood, that impurities may be driven out. I have not learned of better blood being successfully put into a person’s veins.”

Laughter met her words. Jane whirled around, considerably startled. It was not the affected titter of girls new to company, or the quiet laughter of well-bred people, but a tinkling sound, like the play of silver hammers on glass. She found so inhuman a sound issuing from human mouths to be unsettling.

Miss Crawfurd stood just inside the doorway, smiling in triumph, her blue eyes so wide they reflected the burning lights overhead. Jane looked past her to several young women. These advanced with graceful, drifting steps to stand beside the Count. Jane gazed at their parted red lips that revealed prominent white teeth, with lengthened canines of a type never filed by dentist’s hand. She would never call those teeth natural, yet they appeared to be Nature’s make.

“Blood can be taken, Miss Austen,” Miss Crawfurd said. Her teeth were normal, but her smile was avid, her voice low and breathless. “It can be taken by those who have the will and the power to reign, ever young.”

“Even so old a race as mine can learn modern ways,” the Count said, laying one hand on the pamphlet, the other hand indicating his companions.

Jane’s gaze lifted to his face. Her pupils contracted when she noticed for the first time his strong white teeth, the canines wolf-long. “No more the indiscriminate feeding. We begin a new experiment, not just with the better blood of people of good family, such as your purblind friend here.”

His hand indicated Miss Evelyn with negligent dismissal—and she did not move, did not seem to hear.

“What I desired my young friends to bring me is the blood of genius and innovation. You, Miss Austen, are possessed of creative genius. But never think that we take without trade, for we respect genius. You may become one of us, which will furnish you with many lifetimes of these other fools, the longer to exhibit your talents.”

“Lifetimes?” Jane repeated, her heartbeat quite wild.

To the Count and his companions, her fear was evident, but also the longing which the idea of lifetimes for writing engendered.

“Your culture’s assumption that humans are just below angels is a comforting but erroneous assumption. The Vampire is above human in all ways: strength, vitality, and intelligence. There is only one circumstance which we do not share with the thoughtless animal breeding of the generality of humanity: we are not born as vampires, we are made.”

“Vampires?” Jane had never before spoken the word. She had read enough tales to understand what was meant. It would be easy to dismiss the evidence of her eyes as the fervid imaginings of authors penning horror tales, but she knew that the stuff of novels derives out of the truth of experience.

The Count made a gesture that took in his castle. “The superstitious fools regard the transference as magic, but we are the possessors of galvanic impulses ill-understood by you with short and blinkered lives. My lanterns, burning without apparent source, are the easiest understood manifestations.” He indicated the steady illumination of those iron wheel chandeliers overhead.

Jane folded her hands tightly against her. Even in the face of the irrational, she would remain rational, and polite. “May I put to you a question?”

“Please.” He smiled with those terrible white teeth. “I have been reading from your work while you were slumbering. The creator of Lady Susan, which is so witty an exegesis upon the groundless moralities and pieties of your culture, will surely come to a swift comprehension of my offer.”

Jane did not explain that Lady Susan was a cautionary tale, and unsuccessful at that: all its soi-disant wit and cleverness came to nothing when Henry went ahead and married his cousin Eliza de Feuillide. The failure of her message was as great a reproach as the Crawfurds and the Count’s conviction that its sardonic ironies represented her own views.

She had already made her decision about the eventual publication of Lady Susan—which would not happen.

If she survived this rencontre.

She asked politely, “It is on the blood of humans that you feed, is it not?”

“Entirely.” Miss Crawfurd laughed gently as she came forward. “I have begun my transformation; you can see yourself the effect.” She raised her arms and twirled around. “Do you think I was born to this beauty? I assure you, I was not. And you will be the same.”

“Do people consent to surrender their blood?”

“If they are wise.”

“Are those who refuse harmed?”

Maria gave her elaborately careless shrug. “Why worry about peasants or fools? There are enough of them in the world.”

The Count said, “The effect is the same whether we take it or it is let by sword or other means as practiced by humanity upon itself every day: if enough is lost, the donor dies.”

Miss Crawfurd tossed back her golden curls. “What are a few peasants more or less? They breed like rats. I greatly favor this experiment with better blood.”

The Count’s pale eyes flashed wide. Jane knew she was fully awake, and yet between one heartbeat and the next he was next to her. “You must make your choice, Miss Austen. Become one of us, or your corpse will be buried, unmourned, outside the castle grounds, and your writings forgotten. Because I assure you, if we permit this fool to live—” he indicated Miss Evelyn, “—and we probably will, as the English are notoriously inquisitive when too many of them vanish, she will never remember her visit here.”

Miss Evelyn neither stirred nor spoke.

“My brother?” Jane asked.

“He will be our first consort,” Miss Crawfurd said, smiling as she indicated the Count’s young ladies. “He is entertaining enough for a little while. Who knows? In a few years, he might even become interesting, and make vampire consorts of his own.”

The Count’s long teeth were more terrible a threat than mere words. “Or, if you consent to join us, you may write a letter home, informing your family that you have found love here, and chose to remain behind. Your brother will be released to carry your missive home, with Miss Evelyn. You and my young friends, the Crawfurds, will join my children of the night, and live for ever.”

“Taking the lives of others is evil,” Jane said. “A breaking of one of the Ten Commandments.”

“Broken every day, not only by your criminals, but your own governments.”

“That may be true, but that does not make it right.”

“Right! In my castle, my commandments are the only law we obey. Conduct her to her chamber, that she might reflect,” the Count said to the vampires. “And make certain that she has pen and paper for her letter.”

Jane’s last glimpse of Miss Evelyn was of her vacant gaze, her profile outlined against the fire.

And so, my sister, here I am, writing to you as a way of setting out my thoughts. Now, what I have surmised is this: there is no use in refusing to believe the evidence of eyes and ears. There is indeed a terrible power in these Creatures.

But at the same time, that Power appears to have its limitations, though I was not told of those. Sunlight, I suspect, is one. There has to be a reason the Count only travels about at night, and keeps the shutters nailed. The most important question is this. Is there a second limitation on the vampires, one that goes beyond morality to the Supernatural? I refer to the rosary, specifically the Crucifix. Outside of the castle, even the most humble wore them, and moved about freely. The meek servants here do not have them, making me wonder if the these servants are forced to serve a vile purpose when they do not serve in other ways. In short, they are prisoners, which would explain the reaction of the serving girl to whom I gave my Crucifix. What power has this symbol?

My understanding of Holy Communion is that it is not the thing, but the essence of the thing which celebrates our faith,

which furnishes the sacred connection to Providence. If that is true, then there is power not in the Crucifix itself, but in the faith behind it? Miss Crawfurd’s response to the Crucifix in my hand just before the Count came convinces me that I am in the way of it.

Though my faith in Divine Providence is strong, I do not know that my dangling a Crucifix before these vampires will avert them. I was not raised to express my faith through this symbol. We speak less of miracles—though it seems here I am surrounded by anti-miracles—than of grace.

But if it is true there are Galvanic Sparks that can be Harnessed, and that faith (faith in evil as well as faith in good) provides the motivator for either the propagation or the limitation of Evil Powers, then Providence already gave me my own Power: my imagination.

And so I end this account, which either will be found when I am gone, or—if I succeed—you and I might read it together, and then burn it, because I will never tell the world of this experience. Only you will understand what was in my heart, or know of the power I once gripped in my hand. The power of force is evil. The power of imagination, I believe, can be used for good.

To that I will dedicate my life, however long I am given.

~o0o~

Screams echoed through the castle, high shrill screams that shivered on the air like the rubbing of fingers round the rim of crystal glasses.

Jane was still writing when the door to her chamber was struck open by an angry hand, and Maria Crawfurd stood on the threshold, her eyes quite wild. “What have you done?” she demanded.

“I employed my genius,” Jane replied, but her accuser was too incensed to suspect irony. So she explained, “I used my imagination to summon the galvanic powers gathered here, and described the opening of all locks, the unfastening of shutters, that we might gain the benefit of light and air.” She pointed her quill at the window, from which slants of golden afternoon light patterned on the stone floor.

“The Count—what have you done to the Count? His face—he’s transformed into a vile Semitic peasant!”

“I described him with the countenance he despises most,” Jane said. “I hope his new face will teach him compassion, if not wisdom.”

“You stupid fool!” Maria advanced on Jane. “He’s gone! The vampires are all gone down to the crypt and locked themselves within!”

Actually, that was not quite true. One remained, watching.

“My brother is trying to rouse them now—it might be months—it might be years before they dare emerge!”

Jane had packed her belongings. “I trust they will have cause to reflect. After all, if one is to claim to be a superior being, should not one’s actions reflect a superior standard of civilization?”

Maria’s face twisted with hatred. “And so, with your hypocritical countrified convictions you condemn us all to a short existence and ugly old age. Jane Austen and her duplicity! I am glad you will never amount to anything.”

“I hope I am no hypocrite. But that is a battle we must fight every day, to choose what is right even when we are surrounded by foolishness and venality. Or evil.” Jane indicated the rest of the castle with her quill, trying to hide how frightened she was.

“Fight for what?” Maria retorted. “The only battle worth fighting is against age, and ugliness. There is nothing I will not do to remain young and beautiful. Nothing.”

Jane did not point out that the hatred distorting Maria’s features did not make her beautiful now. Instead, she put pen to paper, and looked at up Maria Crawfurd with intent. “I think I will—”

Maria turned and fled.

“—put you in a book.”

~o0o~

The servants stripped the castle of its treasures as they fled. The Crawfurds departed in the only coach, leaving the imageAustens and Miss Evelyn behind, but some of the servants— perhaps aware of who their benefactress had been—aided them in leaving.

In the chaos of departure, Jane Austen’s papers vanished, but she was too hurried to search for them. By the time they reached civilization again, Charles Austen had recovered from Maria Crawfurd’s spell, and Miss Evelyn had never noticed anything amiss. She had been too bespelled by her visions of fame to notice anything around her not made of stone.

Those visions had to remain just that. The world was not agog at her drawings, and as she had not thought to sketch any of her companions, even a later mention of having traveled with Jane Austen did not raise much interest, as she had no proof to offer but a cross-hatched series of ruins and gargoyles much like anyone else’s.

As for Jane Austen, she had only sixteen more years to live—an eyeblink in the existence of a vampire—so she could not know that the Count and some of his companions would eventually dare the world again, nearly a century later. And because they had not learned either the compassion or the principles that Jane had tried to teach them, they were defeated, this time more permanently.

That left the castle to me—the one who had taken Jane Austen’s papers, and who eventually obtained her other writings, as well as the subsequent imaginings of the men and women Jane Austen influenced, minds both wise and foolish, visionary and telluric.

It has been well over a century since the Count, driven by passion and greed, emerged to attempt the recovery of his powers, and two centuries since his first defeat via the pen in the small hands of a plain little woman. Though he desired the regenerative influence of genius, he did not understand its power.

I will not make the same mistake.