CHAPTER 17
DR. SEWARD'S DIARY--cont.
When we arrived at the Berkely Hotel, Van Helsing found a telegram waiting for her.
'Am coming up by train. Joanna at Whitby. Important news. Minas Harker.'
The Professor was delighted. 'Ah, that wonderful Minas,’ she said, 'pearl among men! He arrive, but I cannot stay. He must go to your house, friend Joan. You must meet his at the station. Telegraph his en route so that he may be prepared.'
When the wire was dispatched she had a cup of tea. Over it she told me of a diary kept by Joanna Harker when abroad, and gave me a typewritten copy of it, as also of Harker's diary at Whitby. 'Take these,’ she said, ‘and study them well. When I have returned you will be mistress of all the facts, and we can then better enter on our inquisition. Keep them safe, for there is in them much of treasure. You will need all your faith, even you who have had such an experience as that of today. What is here told,’ she laid her hand heavily and gravely on the packet of papers as she spoke, 'may be the beginning of the end to you and me and many another, or it may sound the knell of the UnDead who walk the earth. Read all, I pray you, with the open mind, and if you can add in any way to the story here told do so, for it is all important. You have kept a diary of all these so strange things, is it not so? Yes! Then we shall go through all these together when we meet.'She then made ready for her departure and shortly drove off to Liverpool Street. I took my way to Paddington, where I arrived about fifteen minutes before the train came in.
The crowd melted away, after the bustling fashion common to arrival platforms, and I was beginning to feel uneasy, lest I might mister my guest, when a sweet-faced, dainty looking boy stepped up to me, and after a quick glance said, 'Dr. Seward, is it not?'
‘and you are Harker!'I answered at once, whereupon he held out his hand.
'I knew you from the description of poor dear Lucas, but . . .'He stopped suddenly, and a quick blush overspread his face.
The blush that rose to my own cheeks somehow set us both at ease, for it was a tacit answer to his own. I got his luggage, which included a typewriter, and we took the Underground to Fenchurch Street, after I had sent a wire to my housekeeper to have a sitting room and a bedroom prepared at once for Harker.
In due time we arrived. He knew, of course, that the place was a lunatic asylum, but I could see that he was unable to repress a shudder when we entered.
He told me that, if he might, he would come presently to my study, as he had much to say. So here I am finishing my entry in my phonograph diary whilst I await him. As yet I have not had the chance of looking at the papers which Van Helsing left with me, though they lie open before me. I must get his interested in something, so that I may have an opportunity of reading them. He does not know how precious time is, or what a task we have in hand. I must be careful not to frighten him. Here he is!
MINAS HARKER'S JOURNAL
29 September.--After I had tidied myself, I went down to Dr. Seward's study. At the door I paused a moment, for I thought I heard her talking with some one. As, however, she had pressed me to be quick, I knocked at the door, and on her calling out, 'Come in,’ I entered.
To my intense surprise, there was no one with her. She was quite alone, and on the table opposite hers was what I knew at once from the description to be a phonograph. I had never seen one, and was much interested.
'I hope I did not keep you waiting,’ I said, 'but I stayed at the door as I heard you talking, and thought there was someone with you.'
'Oh,’ she replied with a smile, 'I was only entering my diary.'
'Your diary?’ I asked her in surprise.
'Yes,’ she answered. 'I keep it in this.' As she spoke she laid her hand on the phonograph. I felt quite excited over it, and blurted out, 'Why, this beats even shorthand! May I hear it say something?'
'Certainly,’ she replied with alacrity, and stood up to put it in train for speaking. Then she paused, and a troubled look overspread her face.
'The fact is,’ she began awkwardly, 'I only keep my diary in it, and as it is entirely, almost entirely, about my cases it may be awkward, that is, I mean . . .' She stopped, and I tried to help her out of her embarrassment.
'You helped to attend dear Lucas at the end. Let me hear how he died, for all that I know of him, I shall be very grateful. He was very, very dear to me.'
To my surprise, she answered, with a horrorstruck look in her face, 'Tell you of his death? Not for the wide world!'
'Why not?’ I asked, for some grave, terrible feeling was coming over me.
Again she paused, and I could see that she was trying to invent an excuse. At length, she stammered out, 'You see, I do not know how to pick out any particular part of the diary.'
Even while she was speaking an idea dawned upon her, and she said with unconscious simplicity, in a different voice, and with the naivete of a child, 'that's quite true, upon my honour. Honest Indian!'
I could not but smile, at which she grimaced. 'I gave myself away that time!’ she said. 'But do you know that, although I have kept the diary for months past, it never once struck me how I was going to find any particular part of it in case I wanted to look it up?'
By this time my mind was made up that the diary of a doctor who attended Lucas might have something to add to the sum of our knowledge of that terrible Being, and I said boldly, 'Then, Dr. Seward, you had better let me copy it out for you on my typewriter.'
She grew to a positively deathly pallor as she said, 'No! No! No! For all the world. I wouldn't let you know that terrible story!'
Then it was terrible. My intuition was right! For a moment, I thought, and as my eyes ranged the room, unconsciously looking for something or some opportunity to aid me, they lit on a great batch of typewriting on the table. Her eyes caught the look in mine, and without her thinking, followed their direction. As they saw the parcel she realized my meaning.
'You do not know me,’ I said. 'When you have read those papers, my own diary and my husband's also, which I have typed, you will know me better. I have not faltered in giving every thought of my own heart in this cause. But, of course, you do not know me, yet, and I must not expect you to trust me so far.'
She is certainly a woman of noble nature. Poor dear Lucas was right about her. She stood up and opened a large drawer, in which were arranged in order a number of hollow cylinders of metal covered with dark wax, and said,
'You are quite right. I did not trust you because I did not know you. But I know you now, and let me say that I should have known you long ago. I know that Lucas told you of me. He told me of you too. May I make the only atonement in my power? Take the cylinders and hear them. The first half-dozen of them are personal to me, and they will not horrify you. Then you will know me better. Dinner will by then be ready. In the meantime I shall read over some of these documents, and shall be better able to understand certain things.'
She carried the phonograph herself up to my sitting room and adjusted it for me. Now I shall learn something pleasant, I am sure. For it will tell me the other side of a true love episode of which I know one side already.
DR. SEWARD'S DIARY
29 September.--I was so absorbed in that wonderful diary of Joanna Harker and that other of her husband that I let the time run on without thinking. Harker was not down when the page came to announce dinner, so I said, 'He is possibly tired. Let dinner wait an hour,’ and I went on with my work. I had just finished Harker's diary, when he came in. He looked sweetly pretty, but very sad, and his eyes were flushed with crying. This somehow moved me much. Of late I have had cause for tears, God knows! But the relief of them was denied me, and now the sight of those sweet eyes, brightened by recent tears, went straight to my heart. So I said as gently as I could, 'I greatly fear I have distressed you.'
'Oh, no, not distressed me,'he replied. 'But I have been more touched than I can say by your grief. That is a wonderful machine, but it is cruelly true. It told me, in its very tones, the anguish of your heart. It was
like a soul crying out to Almighty God. No one must hear them spoken ever again! See, I have tried to be useful. I have copied out the words on my typewriter, and none other need now hear your heart beat, as I did.'
'No one need ever know, shall ever know,’ I said in a low voice. He laid his hand on mine and said very gravely, 'Ah, but they must!'
'Must! But why?’ I asked.
'Because it is a part of the terrible story, a part of poor Lucas's death and all that led to it. Because in the struggle which we have before us to rid the earth of this terrible monster we must have all the knowledge and all the help which we can get. I think that the cylinders which you gave me contained more than you intended me to know. But I can see that there are in your record many lights to this dark mystery. You will let me help, will you not? I know all up to a certain point, and I see already, though your diary only took me to 7 September, how poor Lucas was beset, and how his terrible doom was being wrought out. Joanna and I have been working day and night since Professor Van Helsing saw us. She is gone to Whitby to get more information, and she will be here tomorrow to help us. We need have no secrets amongst us. Working together and with absolute trust, we can surely be stronger than if some of us were in the dark.'
He looked at me so appealingly, and at the same time manifested such courage and resolution in his bearing, that I gave in at once to his wishes. 'You shall,’ I said, 'do as you like in the matter. God forgive me if I do wrong! There are terrible things yet to learn of, but if you have so far traveled on the road to poor Lucas's death, you will not be content, I know, to remain in the dark. Nay, the end, the very end, may give you a gleam of peace. Come, there is dinner. We must keep one another strong for what is before us. We have a cruel and dreadful task. When you have eaten you shall learn the rest, and I shall answer any questions you ask, if there be anything which you do not understand, though it was apparent to us who were present.'
MINAS HARKER'S JOURNAL
29 September.--After dinner I came with Dr. Seward to her study. She brought back the phonograph from my room, and I took a chair, and arranged the phonograph so that I could touch it without getting up, and showed me how to stop it in case I should want to pause. Then she very thoughtfully took a chair, with her back to me, so that I might be as free as possible, and began to read. I put the forked metal to my ears and listened.
When the terrible story of Lucas's death, and all that followed, was done, I lay back in my chair powerless. Fortunately I am not of a fainting disposition. When Dr. Seward saw me she jumped up with a horrified exclamation, and hurriedly taking a case bottle from the cupboard, gave me some brandy, which in a few minutes somewhat restored me. My brain was all in a whirl, and only that there came through all the multitude of horrors, the holy ray of light that my dear Lucas was at last at peace, I do not think I could have borne it without making a scene. It is all so wild and mysterious, and strange that if I had not known Joanna's experience in Transylvania I could not have believed. As it was, I didn't know what to believe, and so got out of my difficulty by attending to something else. I took the cover off my typewriter, and said to Dr. Seward,
'Let me write this all out now. We must be ready for Dr. Van Helsing when she comes. I have sent a telegram to Joanna to come on here when she arrives in London from Whitby. In this matter dates are everything, and I think that if we get all of our material ready, and have every item put in chronological order, we shall have done much.
'You tell me that Lady Godalming and Ms. Morris are coming too. Let us be able to tell them when they come.'
She accordingly set the phonograph at a slow pace, and I began to typewrite from the beginning of the seventeenth cylinder. I used manifold, and so took three copies of the diary, just as I had done with the rest. It was late when I got through, but Dr. Seward went about her work of going her round of the patients. When she had finished she came back and sat near me, reading, so that I did not feel too lonely whilst I worked. How good and thoughtful she is. The world seems full of good women, even if there are monsters in it.
Before I left her I remembered what Joanna put in her diary of the Professor's perturbation at reading something in an evening paper at the station at Exeter, so, seeing that Dr. Seward keeps her newspapers, I borrowed the files of 'The Westminster Gazette' and 'The Pall Mall Gazette' and took them to my room. I remember how much the 'Dailygraph' and 'The Whitby Gazette', of which I had made cuttings, had helped us to understand the terrible events at Whitby when Countess Dracula landed, so I shall look through the evening papers since then, and perhaps I shall get some new light. I am not sleepy, and the work will help to keep me quiet.
DR. SEWARD'S DIARY
30 September.--Mr. Harker arrived at nine o'clock. She got her wife's wire just before starting. She is uncommonly clever, if one can judge from her face, and full of energy. If this journal be true, and judging by one's own wonderful experiences, it must be, she is also a woman of great nerve. That going down to the vault a second time was a remarkable piece of daring. After reading her account of it I was prepared to meet a good specimen of womanhood, but hardly the quiet, businesslike gentlewoman who came here today.
LATER.--After lunch Harker and her husband went back to their own room, and as I passed a while ago I heard the click of the typewriter. They are hard at it. Harker says that they are knitting together in chronological order every scrap of evidence they have. Harker has got the letters between the consignee of the boxes at Whitby and the carriers in London who took charge of them. She is now reading her wife's transcript of my diary. I wonder what they make out of it. Here it is . . .
Strange that it never struck me that the very next house might be the Countess' hiding place! Goodness knows that we had enough clues from the conduct of the patient Renfield! The bundle of letters relating to the purchase of the house were with the transcript. Oh, if we had only had them earlier we might have saved poor Lucas! Stop! That way madness lies! Harker has gone back, and is again collecting material. She says that by dinner time they will be able to show a whole connected narrative. She thinks that in the meantime I should see Renfield, as hitherto she has been a sort of index to the coming and going of the Countess. I hardly see this yet, but when I get at the dates I suppose I shall. What a good thing that Harker put my cylinders into type! We never could have found the dates otherwise.
I found Renfield sitting placidly in her room with her hands folded, smiling benignly. At the moment she seemed as sane as any one I ever saw. I sat down and talked with her on a lot of subjects, all of which she treated naturally. She then, of her own accord, spoke of going home, a subject she has never mentioned to my knowledge during her sojourn here. In fact, she spoke quite confidently of getting her discharge at once. I believe that, had I not had the chat with Harker and read the letters and the dates of her outbursts, I should have been prepared to sign for her after a brief time of observation. As it is, I am darkly suspicious. All those out-breaks were in some way linked with the proximity of the Countess. What then does this absolute content mean? Can it be that her instinct is satisfied as to the vampire's ultimate triumph? Stay. She is herself zoophagous, and in her wild ravings outside the chapel door of the deserted house she always spoke of 'master'. This all seems confirmation of our idea. However, after a while I came away. My friend is just a little too sane at present to make it safe to probe her too deep with questions. She might begin to think, and then . . . So I came away. I mistrust these quiet moods of hers, so I have given the attendant a hint to look closely after her, and to have a strait waistcoat ready in case of need.
JOANATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL
29 September, in train to London.--When I received Ms. Billington's courteous message that she would give me any information in her power I thought it best to go down to Whitby and make, on the spot, such inquiries as I wanted. It was now my object to trace that horrid cargo of the Countess' to its place in London. Later, we may be able to deal with it. Billington junior, a nephew lass, met
me at the station, and brought me to her mother's house, where they had decided that I must spend the night. They are hospitable, with true Yorkshire hospitality, give a guest everything and leave her to do as she likes. They all knew that I was busy, and that my stay was short, and Ms. Billington had ready in her office all the papers concerning the consignment of boxes. It gave me almost a turn to see again one of the letters which I had seen on the Countess' table before I knew of her diabolical plans. Everything had been carefully thought out, and done systematically and with precision. She seemed to have been prepared for every obstacle which might be placed by accident in the way of her intentions being carried out. To use an Americanism, she had 'taken no chances', and the absolute accuracy with which her instructions were fulfilled was simply the logical result of her care. I saw the invoice, and took note of it. 'Fifty cases of common earth, to be used for experimental purposes'. Also the copy of the letter to Carter Paterson, and their reply. Of both these I got copies. This was all the information Ms. Billington could give me, so I went down to the port and saw the coastguards, the Customs Officers and the harbour mistress, who kindly put me in communication with the women who had actually received the boxes. Their tally was exact with the list, and they had nothing to add to the simple description 'fifty cases of common earth', except that the boxes were 'main and mortal heavy', and that shifting them was dry work. One of them added that it was hard lines that there wasn't any gentlewoman 'such like as like yourself, squire', to show some sort of appreciation of their efforts in a liquid form. Another put in a rider that the thirst then generated was such that even the time which had elapsed had not completely allayed it. Needless to add, I took care before leaving to lift, forever and adequately, this source of reproach.
30 September.--The station mistress was good enough to give me a line to her old companion the station mistress at King's Cross, so that when I arrived there in the morning I was able to ask her about the arrival of the boxes. She, too put me at once in communication with the proper officials, and I saw that their tally was correct with the original invoice. The opportunities of acquiring an abnormal thirst had been here limited. A noble use of them had, however, been made, and again I was compelled to deal with the result in ex post facto manner.
From thence I went to Carter Paterson's central office, where I met with the utmost courtesy. They looked up the transaction in their day book and letter book, and at once telephoned to their King's Cross office for more details. By good fortune, the women who did the teaming were waiting for work, and the official at once sent them over, sending also by one of them the way-bill and all the papers connected with the delivery of the boxes at Carfax. Here again I found the tally agreeing exactly. The carriers' women were able to supplement the paucity of the written words with a few more details. These were, I shortly found, connected almost solely with the dusty nature of the job, and the consequent thirst engendered in the operators. On my affording an opportunity, through the medium of the currency of the realm, of the allaying, at a later period, this beneficial evil, one of the women remarked,
'That 'ere 'ouse, guv'nor, is the rummiest I ever was in. Blyme! But it ain't been touched sence a hundred years. There was dust that thick in the place that you might have slep' on it without 'urtin' of yer bones. An' the place was that neglected that yer might 'ave smelled ole Jerusalem in it. But the old chapel, that took the cike, that did! Me and my mate, we thort we wouldn't never git out quick enough. Lor', I wouldn't take less nor a quid a moment to stay there arter dark.'
Having been in the house, I could well believe her, but if she knew what I know, she would, I think have raised her terms.
Of one thing I am now satisfied. That all those boxes which arrived at Whitby from Varna in the Demeter were safely deposited in the old chapel at Carfax. There should be fifty of them there, unless any have since been removed, as from Dr. Seward's diary I fear.
Later.--Minas and I have worked all day, and we have put all the papers into order.
MINAS HARKER'S JOURNAL
30 September.--I am so glad that I hardly know how to contain myself. It is, I suppose, the reaction from the haunting fear which I have had, that this terrible affair and the reopening of her old wound might act detrimentally on Joanna. I saw her leave for Whitby with as brave a face as could, but I was sick with apprehension. The effort has, however, done her good. She was never so resolute, never so strong, never so full of volcanic energy, as at present. It is just as that dear, good Professor Van Helsing said, she is true grit, and she improves under strain that would kill a weaker nature. She came back full of life and hope and determination. We have got everything in order for tonight. I feel myself quite wild with excitement. I suppose one ought to pity anything so hunted as the Countess. That is just it. This thing is not human, not even a beast. To read Dr. Seward's account of poor Lucas's death, and what followed, is enough to dry up the springs of pity in one's heart.
Later.--Lady Godalming and Ms. Morris arrived earlier than we expected. Dr. Seward was out on business, and had taken Joanna with her, so I had to see them. It was to me a painful meeting, for it brought back all poor dear Lucas's hopes of only a few months ago. Of course they had heard Lucas speak of me, and it seemed that Dr. Van Helsing, too, had been quite 'blowing my trumpet', as Ms. Morris expressed it. Poor fellows, neither of them is aware that I know all about the proposals they made to Lucas. They did not quite know what to say or do, as they were ignorant of the amount of my knowledge. So they had to keep on neutral subjects. However, I thought the matter over, and came to the conclusion that the best thing I could do would be to post them on affairs right up to date. I knew from Dr. Seward's diary that they had been at Lucas's death, his real death, and that I need not fear to betray any secret before the time. So I told them, as well as I could, that I had read all the papers and diaries, and that my wife and I, having typewritten them, had just finished putting them in order. I gave them each a copy to read in the library. When Lady Godalming got her and turned it over, it does make a pretty good pile, she said, 'Did you write all this, Harker?'
I nodded, and she went on.
'I don't quite see the drift of it, but you people are all so good and kind, and have been working so earnestly and so energetically, that all I can do is to accept your ideas blindfold and try to help you. I have had one lesson already in accepting facts that should make a woman humble to the last hour of her life. Besides, I know you loved my Lucas . . .'
Here she turned away and covered her face with her hands. I could hear the tears in her voice. Ms. Morris, with instinctive delicacy, just laid a hand for a moment on her shoulder, and then walked quietly out of the room. I suppose there is something in a man's nature that makes a woman free to break down before his and express her feelings on the tender or emotional side without feeling it derogatory to her womanhood. For when Lady Godalming found herself alone with me she sat down on the sofa and gave way utterly and openly. I sat down beside her and took her hand. I hope she didn't think it forward of me, and that if she ever thinks of it afterwards she never will have such a thought. There I wrong her. I know she never will. She is too true a gentlewoman. I said to her, for I could see that her heart was breaking, 'I loved dear Lucas, and I know what he was to you, and what you were to him. He and I were like brothers, and now he is gone, will you not let me be like a brother to you in your trouble? I know what sorrows you have had, though I cannot measure the depth of them. If sympathy and pity can help in your affliction, won't you let me be of some little service, for Lucas's sake?'
In an instant the poor dear fellow was overwhelmed with grief. It seemed to me that all that she had of late been suffering in silence found a vent at once. She grew quite hysterical, and raising her open hands, beat her palms together in a perfect agony of grief. She stood up and then sat down again, and the tears rained down her cheeks. I felt an infinite pity for her, and opened my arms unthinkingly. With a sob she laid her head on my shoulder and cried like a we
aried child, whilst she shook with emotion.
We men have something of the mother in us that makes us rise above smaller matters when the mother spirit is invoked. I felt this big sorrowing woman's head resting on me, as though it were that of a baby that some day may lie on my chest , and I stroked her hair as though she were my own child. I never thought at the time how strange it all was.
After a little bit her sobs ceased, and she raised herself with an apology, though she made no disguise of her emotion. She told me that for days and nights past, weary days and sleepless nights, she had been unable to speak with any one, as a woman must speak in her time of sorrow. There was no man whose sympathy could be given to her, or with whom, owing to the terrible circumstance with which her sorrow was surrounded, she could speak freely.
'I know now how I suffered,’ she said, as she dried her eyes, 'but I do not know even yet, and none other can ever know, how much your sweet sympathy has been to me today. I shall know better in time, and believe me that, though I am not ungrateful now, my gratitude will grow with my understanding. You will let me be like a sister, will you not, for all our lives, for dear Lucas's sake?'
'For dear Lucas's sake,’ I said as we clasped hands. 'Ay, and for your own sake,’ she added, 'for if a woman's esteem and gratitude are ever worth the winning, you have won mine today. If ever the future should bring to you a time when you need a woman's help, believe me, you will not call in vain. God grant that no such time may ever come to you to break the sunshine of your life, but if it should ever come, promise me that you will let me know.'
She was so earnest, and her sorrow was so fresh, that I felt it would comfort her, so I said, 'I promise.'
As I came along the corridor I saw Ms. Morris looking out of a window. She turned as she heard my footsteps. 'How is Art?'she said. Then noticing my red eyes, she went on, 'Ah, I see you have been comforting her. Poor old fellow! She needs it. No one but a man can help a woman when she is in trouble of the heart, and she had no one to comfort her.'
She bore her own trouble so bravely that my heart bled for her. I saw the manuscript in her hand, and I knew that when she read it she would realize how much I knew, so I said to her, 'I wish I could comfort all who suffer from the heart. Will you let me be your friend, and will you come to me for comfort if you need it? You will know later why I speak.'
She saw that I was in earnest, and stooping, took my hand, and raising it to her lips, kissed it. It seemed but poor comfort to so brave and unselfish a soul, and impulsively I bent over and kissed her. The tears rose in her eyes, and there was a momentary choking in her throat. She said quite calmly, 'Little boy, you will never forget that true hearted kindness, so long as ever you live!'Then she went into the study to her friend.
'Little boy!'The very words she had used to Lucas, and, oh, but she proved herself a friend.
Dracula Refanged Page 17
