Dracula
and kissed it, and bent over and kissed her forehead. He came away,
fondly looking back over his shoulder at her as he came.
I left him in the drawing-room, and told Van Helsing that he had said
good-bye; so the latter went to the kitchen to tell the undertaker’s men
to proceed with the preparations and to screw up the coffin. When he
came out of the room again I told him of Arthur’s question, and he
replied:--
“I am not surprised. Just now I doubted for a moment myself!”
We all dined together, and I could see that poor Art was trying to make
the best of things. Van Helsing had been silent all dinner-time; but
when we had lit our cigars he said--
“Lord----”; but Arthur interrupted him:--
“No, no, not that, for God’s sake! not yet at any rate. Forgive me, sir:
I did not mean to speak offensively; it is only because my loss is so
recent.”
The Professor answered very sweetly:--
“I only used that name because I was in doubt. I must not call you
‘Mr.,’ and I have grown to love you--yes, my dear boy, to love you--as
Arthur.”
Arthur held out his hand, and took the old man’s warmly.
“Call me what you will,” he said. “I hope I may always have the title of
a friend. And let me say that I am at a loss for words to thank you for
your goodness to my poor dear.” He paused a moment, and went on: “I know
that she understood your goodness even better than I do; and if I was
rude or in any way wanting at that time you acted so--you remember”--the
Professor nodded--“you must forgive me.”
He answered with a grave kindness:--
“I know it was hard for you to quite trust me then, for to trust such
violence needs to understand; and I take it that you do not--that you
cannot--trust me now, for you do not yet understand. And there may be
more times when I shall want you to trust when you cannot--and may
not--and must not yet understand. But the time will come when your trust
shall be whole and complete in me, and when you shall understand as
though the sunlight himself shone through. Then you shall bless me from
first to last for your own sake, and for the sake of others and for her
dear sake to whom I swore to protect.”
“And, indeed, indeed, sir,” said Arthur warmly, “I shall in all ways
trust you. I know and believe you have a very noble heart, and you are
Jack’s friend, and you were hers. You shall do what you like.”
The Professor cleared his throat a couple of times, as though about to
speak, and finally said:--
“May I ask you something now?”
“Certainly.”
“You know that Mrs. Westenra left you all her property?”
“No, poor dear; I never thought of it.”
“And as it is all yours, you have a right to deal with it as you will. I
want you to give me permission to read all Miss Lucy’s papers and
letters. Believe me, it is no idle curiosity. I have a motive of which,
be sure, she would have approved. I have them all here. I took them
before we knew that all was yours, so that no strange hand might touch
them--no strange eye look through words into her soul. I shall keep
them, if I may; even you may not see them yet, but I shall keep them
safe. No word shall be lost; and in the good time I shall give them back
to you. It’s a hard thing I ask, but you will do it, will you not, for
Lucy’s sake?”
Arthur spoke out heartily, like his old self:--
“Dr. Van Helsing, you may do what you will. I feel that in saying this I
am doing what my dear one would have approved. I shall not trouble you
with questions till the time comes.”
The old Professor stood up as he said solemnly:--
“And you are right. There will be pain for us all; but it will not be
all pain, nor will this pain be the last. We and you too--you most of
all, my dear boy--will have to pass through the bitter water before we
reach the sweet. But we must be brave of heart and unselfish, and do our
duty, and all will be well!”
I slept on a sofa in Arthur’s room that night. Van Helsing did not go to
bed at all. He went to and fro, as if patrolling the house, and was
never out of sight of the room where Lucy lay in her coffin, strewn with
the wild garlic flowers, which sent, through the odour of lily and rose,
a heavy, overpowering smell into the night.
_Mina Harker’s Journal._
_22 September._--In the train to Exeter. Jonathan sleeping.
It seems only yesterday that the last entry was made, and yet how much
between then, in Whitby and all the world before me, Jonathan away and
no news of him; and now, married to Jonathan, Jonathan a solicitor, a
partner, rich, master of his business, Mr. Hawkins dead and buried, and
Jonathan with another attack that may harm him. Some day he may ask me
about it. Down it all goes. I am rusty in my shorthand--see what
unexpected prosperity does for us--so it may be as well to freshen it up
again with an exercise anyhow....
The service was very simple and very solemn. There were only ourselves
and the servants there, one or two old friends of his from Exeter, his
London agent, and a gentleman representing Sir John Paxton, the
President of the Incorporated Law Society. Jonathan and I stood hand in
hand, and we felt that our best and dearest friend was gone from us....
We came back to town quietly, taking a ’bus to Hyde Park Corner.
Jonathan thought it would interest me to go into the Row for a while, so
we sat down; but there were very few people there, and it was
sad-looking and desolate to see so many empty chairs. It made us think
of the empty chair at home; so we got up and walked down Piccadilly.
Jonathan was holding me by the arm, the way he used to in old days
before I went to school. I felt it very improper, for you can’t go on
for some years teaching etiquette and decorum to other girls without the
pedantry of it biting into yourself a bit; but it was Jonathan, and he
was my husband, and we didn’t know anybody who saw us--and we didn’t
care if they did--so on we walked. I was looking at a very beautiful
girl, in a big cart-wheel hat, sitting in a victoria outside Guiliano’s,
when I felt Jonathan clutch my arm so tight that he hurt me, and he said
under his breath: “My God!” I am always anxious about Jonathan, for I
fear that some nervous fit may upset him again; so I turned to him
quickly, and asked him what it was that disturbed him.
He was very pale, and his eyes seemed bulging out as, half in terror and
half in amazement, he gazed at a tall, thin man, with a beaky nose and
black moustache and pointed beard, who was also observing the pretty
girl. He was looking at her so hard that he did not see either of us,
and so I had a good view of him. His face was not a good face; it was
hard, and cruel, and sensual, and his big white teeth, that looked all
the whiter because his lips were so red, were pointed like an animal’s.
Jonathan kept staring at him, till I was afraid he would notice. I
feared he might take it ill, he looked so fierce and nasty. I asked
Jonathan why he was disturbed, and he answered, evidently thinking that
I knew as much about it as he did: “Do you see who it is?”
“No, dear,” I said; “I don’t know him; who is it?” His answer seemed to
shock and thrill me, for it was said as if he did not know that it was
to me, Mina, to whom he was speaking:--
“It is the man himself!”
The poor dear was evidently terrified at something--very greatly
terrified; I do believe that if he had not had me to lean on and to
support him he would have sunk down. He kept staring; a man came out of
the shop with a small parcel, and gave it to the lady, who then drove
off. The dark man kept his eyes fixed on her, and when the carriage
moved up Piccadilly he followed in the same direction, and hailed a
hansom. Jonathan kept looking after him, and said, as if to himself:--
“I believe it is the Count, but he has grown young. My God, if this be
so! Oh, my God! my God! If I only knew! if I only knew!” He was
distressing himself so much that I feared to keep his mind on the
subject by asking him any questions, so I remained silent. I drew him
away quietly, and he, holding my arm, came easily. We walked a little
further, and then went in and sat for a while in the Green Park. It was
a hot day for autumn, and there was a comfortable seat in a shady place.
After a few minutes’ staring at nothing, Jonathan’s eyes closed, and he
went quietly into a sleep, with his head on my shoulder. I thought it
was the best thing for him, so did not disturb him. In about twenty
minutes he woke up, and said to me quite cheerfully:--
“Why, Mina, have I been asleep! Oh, do forgive me for being so rude.
Come, and we’ll have a cup of tea somewhere.” He had evidently forgotten
all about the dark stranger, as in his illness he had forgotten all that
this episode had reminded him of. I don’t like this lapsing into
forgetfulness; it may make or continue some injury to the brain. I must
not ask him, for fear I shall do more harm than good; but I must somehow
learn the facts of his journey abroad. The time is come, I fear, when I
must open that parcel, and know what is written. Oh, Jonathan, you will,
I know, forgive me if I do wrong, but it is for your own dear sake.
* * * * *
_Later._--A sad home-coming in every way--the house empty of the dear
soul who was so good to us; Jonathan still pale and dizzy under a slight
relapse of his malady; and now a telegram from Van Helsing, whoever he
may be:--
“You will be grieved to hear that Mrs. Westenra died five days ago, and
that Lucy died the day before yesterday. They were both buried to-day.”
Oh, what a wealth of sorrow in a few words! Poor Mrs. Westenra! poor
Lucy! Gone, gone, never to return to us! And poor, poor Arthur, to have
lost such sweetness out of his life! God help us all to bear our
troubles.
_Dr. Seward’s Diary._
_22 September._--It is all over. Arthur has gone back to Ring, and has
taken Quincey Morris with him. What a fine fellow is Quincey! I believe
in my heart of hearts that he suffered as much about Lucy’s death as any
of us; but he bore himself through it like a moral Viking. If America
can go on breeding men like that, she will be a power in the world
indeed. Van Helsing is lying down, having a rest preparatory to his
journey. He goes over to Amsterdam to-night, but says he returns
to-morrow night; that he only wants to make some arrangements which can
only be made personally. He is to stop with me then, if he can; he says
he has work to do in London which may take him some time. Poor old
fellow! I fear that the strain of the past week has broken down even his
iron strength. All the time of the burial he was, I could see, putting
some terrible restraint on himself. When it was all over, we were
standing beside Arthur, who, poor fellow, was speaking of his part in
the operation where his blood had been transfused to his Lucy’s veins; I
could see Van Helsing’s face grow white and purple by turns. Arthur was
saying that he felt since then as if they two had been really married
and that she was his wife in the sight of God. None of us said a word of
the other operations, and none of us ever shall. Arthur and Quincey went
away together to the station, and Van Helsing and I came on here. The
moment we were alone in the carriage he gave way to a regular fit of
hysterics. He has denied to me since that it was hysterics, and insisted
that it was only his sense of humour asserting itself under very
terrible conditions. He laughed till he cried, and I had to draw down
the blinds lest any one should see us and misjudge; and then he cried,
till he laughed again; and laughed and cried together, just as a woman
does. I tried to be stern with him, as one is to a woman under the
circumstances; but it had no effect. Men and women are so different in
manifestations of nervous strength or weakness! Then when his face grew