Dracula
that all night long he patrolled round and round the house.
When the day came, its searching light showed the ravages in poor Lucy’s
strength. She was hardly able to turn her head, and the little
nourishment which she could take seemed to do her no good. At times she
slept, and both Van Helsing and I noticed the difference in her, between
sleeping and waking. Whilst asleep she looked stronger, although more
haggard, and her breathing was softer; her open mouth showed the pale
gums drawn back from the teeth, which thus looked positively longer and
sharper than usual; when she woke the softness of her eyes evidently
changed the expression, for she looked her own self, although a dying
one. In the afternoon she asked for Arthur, and we telegraphed for him.
Quincey went off to meet him at the station.
When he arrived it was nearly six o’clock, and the sun was setting full
and warm, and the red light streamed in through the window and gave more
colour to the pale cheeks. When he saw her, Arthur was simply choking
with emotion, and none of us could speak. In the hours that had passed,
the fits of sleep, or the comatose condition that passed for it, had
grown more frequent, so that the pauses when conversation was possible
were shortened. Arthur’s presence, however, seemed to act as a
stimulant; she rallied a little, and spoke to him more brightly than she
had done since we arrived. He too pulled himself together, and spoke as
cheerily as he could, so that the best was made of everything.
It was now nearly one o’clock, and he and Van Helsing are sitting with
her. I am to relieve them in a quarter of an hour, and I am entering
this on Lucy’s phonograph. Until six o’clock they are to try to rest. I
fear that to-morrow will end our watching, for the shock has been too
great; the poor child cannot rally. God help us all.
_Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra._
(Unopened by her.)
“_17 September._
“My dearest Lucy,--
“It seems _an age_ since I heard from you, or indeed since I wrote. You
will pardon me, I know, for all my faults when you have read all my
budget of news. Well, I got my husband back all right; when we arrived
at Exeter there was a carriage waiting for us, and in it, though he had
an attack of gout, Mr. Hawkins. He took us to his house, where there
were rooms for us all nice and comfortable, and we dined together. After
dinner Mr. Hawkins said:--
“‘My dears, I want to drink your health and prosperity; and may every
blessing attend you both. I know you both from children, and have, with
love and pride, seen you grow up. Now I want you to make your home here
with me. I have left to me neither chick nor child; all are gone, and in
my will I have left you everything.’ I cried, Lucy dear, as Jonathan and
the old man clasped hands. Our evening was a very, very happy one.
“So here we are, installed in this beautiful old house, and from both my
bedroom and the drawing-room I can see the great elms of the cathedral
close, with their great black stems standing out against the old yellow
stone of the cathedral and I can hear the rooks overhead cawing and
cawing and chattering and gossiping all day, after the manner of
rooks--and humans. I am busy, I need not tell you, arranging things and
housekeeping. Jonathan and Mr. Hawkins are busy all day; for, now that
Jonathan is a partner, Mr. Hawkins wants to tell him all about the
clients.
“How is your dear mother getting on? I wish I could run up to town for a
day or two to see you, dear, but I dare not go yet, with so much on my
shoulders; and Jonathan wants looking after still. He is beginning to
put some flesh on his bones again, but he was terribly weakened by the
long illness; even now he sometimes starts out of his sleep in a sudden
way and awakes all trembling until I can coax him back to his usual
placidity. However, thank God, these occasions grow less frequent as the
days go on, and they will in time pass away altogether, I trust. And now
I have told you my news, let me ask yours. When are you to be married,
and where, and who is to perform the ceremony, and what are you to wear,
and is it to be a public or a private wedding? Tell me all about it,
dear; tell me all about everything, for there is nothing which interests
you which will not be dear to me. Jonathan asks me to send his
‘respectful duty,’ but I do not think that is good enough from the
junior partner of the important firm Hawkins & Harker; and so, as you
love me, and he loves me, and I love you with all the moods and tenses
of the verb, I send you simply his ‘love’ instead. Good-bye, my dearest
Lucy, and all blessings on you.
“Yours,
“MINA HARKER.”
_Report from Patrick Hennessey, M. D., M. R. C. S. L. K. Q. C. P. I.,
etc., etc., to John Seward, M. D._
“_20 September._
“My dear Sir,--
“In accordance with your wishes, I enclose report of the conditions of
everything left in my charge.... With regard to patient, Renfield, there
is more to say. He has had another outbreak, which might have had a
dreadful ending, but which, as it fortunately happened, was unattended
with any unhappy results. This afternoon a carrier’s cart with two men
made a call at the empty house whose grounds abut on ours--the house to
which, you will remember, the patient twice ran away. The men stopped at
our gate to ask the porter their way, as they were strangers. I was
myself looking out of the study window, having a smoke after dinner, and
saw one of them come up to the house. As he passed the window of
Renfield’s room, the patient began to rate him from within, and called
him all the foul names he could lay his tongue to. The man, who seemed a
decent fellow enough, contented himself by telling him to “shut up for a
foul-mouthed beggar,” whereon our man accused him of robbing him and
wanting to murder him and said that he would hinder him if he were to
swing for it. I opened the window and signed to the man not to notice,
so he contented himself after looking the place over and making up his
mind as to what kind of a place he had got to by saying: ‘Lor’ bless
yer, sir, I wouldn’t mind what was said to me in a bloomin’ madhouse. I
pity ye and the guv’nor for havin’ to live in the house with a wild
beast like that.’ Then he asked his way civilly enough, and I told him
where the gate of the empty house was; he went away, followed by threats
and curses and revilings from our man. I went down to see if I could
make out any cause for his anger, since he is usually such a
well-behaved man, and except his violent fits nothing of the kind had
ever occurred. I found him, to my astonishment, quite composed and most
genial in his manner. I tried to get him to talk of the incident, but he
blandly asked me questions as to what I meant, and led me to believe
that he was completely oblivious of the affair. It was, I am sorry to
say, however, only another instance of his cunning, for within half an
hour I heard of him again. This time he had broken out through the
window of his room, and was running down the avenue. I called to the
attendants to follow me, and ran after him, for I feared he was intent
on some mischief. My fear was justified when I saw the same cart which
had passed before coming down the road, having on it some great wooden
boxes. The men were wiping their foreheads, and were flushed in the
face, as if with violent exercise. Before I could get up to him the
patient rushed at them, and pulling one of them off the cart, began to
knock his head against the ground. If I had not seized him just at the
moment I believe he would have killed the man there and then. The other
fellow jumped down and struck him over the head with the butt-end of his
heavy whip. It was a terrible blow; but he did not seem to mind it, but
seized him also, and struggled with the three of us, pulling us to and
fro as if we were kittens. You know I am no light weight, and the others
were both burly men. At first he was silent in his fighting; but as we
began to master him, and the attendants were putting a strait-waistcoat
on him, he began to shout: ‘I’ll frustrate them! They shan’t rob me!
they shan’t murder me by inches! I’ll fight for my Lord and Master!’ and
all sorts of similar incoherent ravings. It was with very considerable
difficulty that they got him back to the house and put him in the padded
room. One of the attendants, Hardy, had a finger broken. However, I set
it all right; and he is going on well.
“The two carriers were at first loud in their threats of actions for
damages, and promised to rain all the penalties of the law on us. Their
threats were, however, mingled with some sort of indirect apology for
the defeat of the two of them by a feeble madman. They said that if it
had not been for the way their strength had been spent in carrying and
raising the heavy boxes to the cart they would have made short work of
him. They gave as another reason for their defeat the extraordinary
state of drouth to which they had been reduced by the dusty nature of
their occupation and the reprehensible distance from the scene of their
labours of any place of public entertainment. I quite understood their
drift, and after a stiff glass of grog, or rather more of the same, and
with each a sovereign in hand, they made light of the attack, and swore
that they would encounter a worse madman any day for the pleasure of
meeting so ‘bloomin’ good a bloke’ as your correspondent. I took their
names and addresses, in case they might be needed. They are as
follows:--Jack Smollet, of Dudding’s Rents, King George’s Road, Great
Walworth, and Thomas Snelling, Peter Farley’s Row, Guide Court, Bethnal
Green. They are both in the employment of Harris & Sons, Moving and
Shipment Company, Orange Master’s Yard, Soho.
“I shall report to you any matter of interest occurring here, and shall
wire you at once if there is anything of importance.
“Believe me, dear Sir,
“Yours faithfully,
“PATRICK HENNESSEY.”
_Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra_.
(Unopened by her.)
“_18 September._
“My dearest Lucy,--
“Such a sad blow has befallen us. Mr. Hawkins has died very suddenly.
Some may not think it so sad for us, but we had both come to so love him
that it really seems as though we had lost a father. I never knew either
father or mother, so that the dear old man’s death is a real blow to me.
Jonathan is greatly distressed. It is not only that he feels sorrow,
deep sorrow, for the dear, good man who has befriended him all his life,
and now at the end has treated him like his own son and left him a
fortune which to people of our modest bringing up is wealth beyond the
dream of avarice, but Jonathan feels it on another account. He says the
amount of responsibility which it puts upon him makes him nervous. He
begins to doubt himself. I try to cheer him up, and _my_ belief in _him_
helps him to have a belief in himself. But it is here that the grave
shock that he experienced tells upon him the most. Oh, it is too hard
that a sweet, simple, noble, strong nature such as his--a nature which
enabled him by our dear, good friend’s aid to rise from clerk to master
in a few years--should be so injured that the very essence of its
strength is gone. Forgive me, dear, if I worry you with my troubles in
the midst of your own happiness; but, Lucy dear, I must tell some one,
for the strain of keeping up a brave and cheerful appearance to Jonathan
tries me, and I have no one here that I can confide in. I dread coming
up to London, as we must do the day after to-morrow; for poor Mr.
Hawkins left in his will that he was to be buried in the grave with his
father. As there are no relations at all, Jonathan will have to be chief
mourner. I shall try to run over to see you, dearest, if only for a few