Re: in-person: mina/dracula
The knock at the door came, and the pallid creature upon the bedsheets put aside the book with a long stretch of arm that allowed the reassurance of that cracked spine to fall along crimson and cream, forgot as soon as it was no longer a thing touched with fingertips.
She did not call out or offer admittance from her place upon the bed, though the door was close enough that she could do so without raising her voice in a manner unbecoming her station. But she was still enough her waking self that she thought it impolite, however polite receiving someone in a place such as this could be. She knew herself to be a thing tarnished; her husband had cast her aside, and even the fog that obscured the events of her descent couldn't change her understanding of losing reputation. For a woman of her class, reputation was all, and she clung to hers by a fraying thread of wealth and secrecy. A marriage called off with no reason, but with her husband claiming blame, and only this allowed her a place in crowded rooms and behind fans and snickers.
But she was still a product of her upbringing. Her mother was dead, she knew, though she'd know idea how she came to have that knowledge, but she'd been the most proper woman Mina had ever encountered. In a society built on purity, yet hiding all manner of indiscretions, Mina's mother had stood above. It had gained her nothing, and she'd died miserable, and Mina knew of it in the same way she knew death and dirt on coffins.
Sweet and garbed in softness and chaste buttons, she walked to the door and pulled it wide. Beryl blinked back at the man standing there, and recognition filtered, water through cupped fingers spread too wide. But she did not remember him as a thing of herself, related to herself. She remembered him as someone altogether different, and she took a step backward, away, and into the room fully. "You're Vanessa's suitor."