13 March 1820

13 March 1820 marks a reunion in Buda that sharpens the danger surrounding the Wright family: Andrew Wright visits his sister Glynis Wright, but comes to suspect that Vlad Dracula has arranged the encounter to advance his own plans. The date appears in two journal records with different years—Glynis’s is dated 1820, while Andrew’s heading reads 1920—so the text preserves a chronological discrepancy even as their entries converge on the same visit and its unease.

The Date in the Journals

The date is anchored by two separate first-person records. Andrew’s journal places him in Buda on the morning after an emotionally wrenching night, when he had struggled to let Glynis leave with the intimidating man she had married. He recalls holding her hand and repeatedly asking whether she was happy; each time, she answered yes. Her words sounded heartfelt, but did not settle his misgivings.

Glynis’s journal is also dated 13 March 1820 and begins with her admission that she was ecstatic, yet nervous, to have her brother visit her home. The paired entries therefore record the reunion from opposing but compatible positions: Andrew is protective and suspicious, while Glynis welcomes him but cannot meet the visit with uncomplicated ease.

The headings do not agree on the year. Andrew’s entry is headed 13th March, 1920, whereas Glynis’s is headed 13th of March, 1820. The date’s canonical form follows Glynis’s explicit heading, but the discrepancy remains part of the documentary record rather than something the journals themselves explain.

Andrew’s Suspicions in Buda

Andrew’s unease grows as he investigates the people and business around Vlad Dracula. He visits Sir Stephen Sheridan at his office, a modern building completed five years earlier. Sir Stephen speaks enthusiastically of Buda’s prospects, predicting that it may be joined with Pesth into a great cosmopolitan city within thirty years. He presents himself as a businessman ready to profit from change, representing commercial visitors from across the Continent.

The scene gives Andrew a concrete reason to distrust the apparent domestic welcome. Sitting in Sir Stephen’s office and studying him, Andrew concludes that Vlad has drawn him into a sinister web and brought him to Buda for a purpose. He suspects that Vlad’s marriage to Glynis may have secured a contact in England who can ease Vlad’s entry into English society. Andrew sees himself and his sister as ensnared, and hopes he can outwit the man who has drawn them into the scheme.

That suspicion belongs to a longer plan, not a sudden idea. In an earlier letter dated 30 June 1819, Vlad Dracula explained that Earl Wright’s death had altered his arrangements but had not changed his intention to move to England with Glynis; he now needed another route into English high society. By September 1819, Sir Stephen’s journal recorded that Vlad had set new plans in motion and intended to use the sale of one of his properties to finance his next undertaking. On 13 March, Andrew begins to recognize how those political and commercial preparations may involve him personally.

A Wider Historical and Supernatural Frame

The date’s stakes extend beyond the family visit. Sir Stephen’s account of Vlad’s ambition links his social maneuvering to a lost political power: Vlad speaks of his victories in mortal life and of escaping confinement to his own country so that he may return to the halls of power. Sir Stephen, who has worked to build Vlad’s wealth and standing in Hungarian society, understands himself as an intermediary between the vampire and the mortal world, even while admitting that Vlad frightens him.

Glynis’s life with Vlad is also governed by supernatural limits. Vlad explains that, as a vampire, he is restricted by the curse of the day and cannot recover his former princedom through ordinary influence. He claims authority over the territory around his castle and warns Glynis that other vampires may be mad, dangerous, and a threat to secrecy. The contemplated move to England is therefore not merely a social relocation: it is bound up with Vlad’s ambitions, his constraints, and the need to navigate a world in which exposure can summon vampire hunters.

The journals place this immediate danger alongside older histories of confinement and power. In a recollection told to Glynis, Cneajna describes meeting Vlad at Visegrád while both were prisoners. She recalls that he understood why she had killed Piroska, that they fell in love, and that he promised to return for her after leaving to reclaim Wallachia. The recollection does not occur on 13 March, but it deepens the date’s context: Vlad’s present schemes are framed by a past in which captivity, dynastic politics, and personal attachment were already intertwined.

The Date Within the Larger Record

The novel’s documentary structure makes the date more than a calendar marker. Andrew’s and Glynis’s journals offer separate, partial accounts of the same family encounter. Andrew records his fear that his sister’s marriage has made her a route into England; Glynis records her excitement and nervousness at his arrival. Their records do not erase the difference between what she says—that she is happy—and what he fears her situation means.

The surrounding chronology shows how that uncertainty develops. An earlier unfinished letter from Lady Antoinetta Wright reports the deaths of Earl Wright and his family, with Glynis as the survivor, and describes Vlad’s continued intention to take her to England. Later, the epilogue is dated 5 May 1820 at the Golden Krone Hotel in Bistriţa, locating a subsequent point in Glynis’s story beyond the Buda entries. Between those records, 13 March stands as a moment when the plan to enter English society becomes visible to Andrew as a threat and when the siblings’ reunion reveals both their attachment and the limits of what either can safely say.