by Syrie James
While we supped, I told Jonathan about Dr. Van Helsing’s visit, beginning with what had happened to Lucy. He listened with quiet compassion, expressing his sorrow over Lucy’s death and sharing my puzzlement as to its cause. He became alarmed, however, when I came to the part about his diary.
“You read it?” he cried, his fork clattering to his plate. “But why? I thought we agreed—”
“You said that I should only read it if some solemn duty should command it. That hour has come, my dearest. When you saw that man in Piccadilly, you reacted so violently, and with such fear, that I knew I had to act; I had to understand what you had gone through.”
“Dear God. I was hoping it would never come to this.” He ran his fingers through his brown hair in great agitation. “What you must think of me! Go on: say it. You think I am mad.”
“Far from it. What I think, Jonathan, is that you are perfectly sane, and a very brave man—and Dr. Van Helsing thinks the same.”
“Dr. Van Helsing? Do you mean you told him about my journal?”
“I did more than tell him. I copied it all out on the typewriter and gave it to him, along with my own journal. Look! Here is the letter Dr. Van Helsing sent me this very evening. He says it is all true!”
Dumbfounded, Jonathan took the good doctor’s letter, his eyes widening in astonishment as he read it. Then, as if unable to comprehend the news it imparted, he read through it a second time, murmuring in amazement: “It is true…all true.” With a triumphant shout, Jonathan leapt to his feet, sending his chair crashing to the floor. “My God! This is incredible! You have no idea what this means to me.”
He paced up and down the room in excitement, clutching the letter in his hand. “It was the doubt that knocked me over, Mina: the terrible doubt as to the reality of the whole thing. I felt impotent and in the dark. I did not know who or what to trust, not even the evidence of my own senses. So I just tried to put it behind me and throw myself into my work, into what had hitherto been the groove of my life. But the groove no longer availed me, for I now mistrusted myself.”
“I understand, dearest.”
“No; you cannot possibly understand—not truly. You cannot know what it is to doubt everything, even yourself.” At this, he drew me up from my seat and wrapped me in his arms. “Oh! Mina, Mina; thank you for this. I feel like a new man. I have been ill, but the illness was only my own self-doubt. I am cured, and for that, I have you to thank!”
We embraced again, laughing. I had not seen Jonathan so happy or confident since the day he had left on his journey abroad, so many months ago. Our giddy mood soon waned, however, as the reality of what we were facing began to sink in.
“If it is all true,” said Jonathan, as he shook his head in rising horror, “then what kind of creature have I, in my ignorance, helped to transfer to London?”
NINE
JONATHAN MET DR. VAN HELSING AT HIS HOTEL EARLY THE next morning and brought him to the house. They arrived so deeply engrossed in conversation, one would never have guessed that they had only just met; it seemed as though they had been friends for years.
“So you think it was Count Dracula that I saw in Piccadilly?” Jonathan said, as we three sat down at the dining-table and helped ourselves to eggs and kippers.
“It is highly likely,” Dr. Van Helsing replied.
“But if it was him, then he has grown young! How is that possible? And what about everything else I saw at the castle? How can it be?”
“The answers to these questions are not so simple, Mr. Harker. I have read the diaries you both with so much honesty and detail have written. You are clever. You reason well. I must ask: after all you see and experience, have you any idea—any suspicion—of the kind of being with which we deal?”
Jonathan glanced briefly at me, then shook his head. “Not really, Doctor.”
“When I read Jonathan’s diary, I thought—I wondered—” I began, then stopped myself, colouring.
“You wondered what, Madam Mina?”
“Nothing; it is too far-fetched, too ridiculous.”
“Ah,” Dr. Van Helsing replied with a sigh, “it is the fault of your science, that it wants to explain all; that is why you react thus. Yet we see around us every day the growth of beliefs which think themselves new but which are very old. Tell me, do either of you believe in hypnotism?”
“Hypnotism?” repeated Jonathan. “I never used to; but I suppose I do now, after reading about the work of Jean-Martin Charcot.”
“Yes,” I concurred. “Charcot’s reports are fascinating. He proved that, with his mind, he could read into the very soul of the patients he influenced.”
“You are satisfied, then, that hypnotism is possible—a verified science?” We both nodded, and Dr. Van Helsing went on, “From this, I think you must also believe that the reading of thought is possible?”
“I do not know about that,” Jonathan said.
“And what about corporeal transference? Materialisation?”
“See here, doctor,” Jonathan said, frowning, “I know you said everything that happened to me in Transylvania was true—and it has lifted a load off my mind to think that I did not conjure it up in some fit of madness—but I still do not see how it was all possible; and I do not understand what you are you getting at.”
“That is because you think like a solicitor, my young friend. You admire facts: if something you can understand, then that thing is. I am saying that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are. Galileo, he grasped the truth about the earth and the heavens, and for this he was found guilty of heresy. Indeed, there are things done to-day in electrical science which would have been deemed unholy by the very men who discovered electricity—who would themselves not so long before have been burned as wizards! Do you know all the mystery of life and death? Can you tell me how the Indian fakir can die and be buried, and his grave sealed and corn sowed upon it, and years later men can dig up the coffin and find the Indian not dead, but that he rise up and walk amongst them?”
“That defies explanation, Doctor,” Jonathan said, “if indeed it ever happened.”
“Oh, it happened! Many times it has been verified.” Setting down his coffee-cup, Dr. Van Helsing looked at us across the table, his eyes gleaming. “Madam Mina: how would you define faith?”
“Faith? I once heard that faith is the faculty which enables us to believe things which we think to be untrue.”
“Yes, Madam, precisely! For what I am to tell you now, you must both have this kind of faith. Did you know that men, in all ages and places, believe there are some few beings who live on always and for ever? That there are some men and women who cannot die?”
“I have read such superstitions,” I said slowly.
“Is it superstition?” Dr. Van Helsing responded. “I admit that I, too, have been sceptic. I have read the teachings and records of the past, which offer their theories and proofs. But I could not believe all that I read; not until I see it with my own eyes. To-day, we are faced with a great puzzle, an enigma—yes? There is still much to learn and discover; but you have seen a part of it, Mr. Harker, in Transylvania; you, Madam Mina, have seen another part at Whitby; and Dr. Seward and I have made further witness with Miss Lucy, in her illness and death.”
“With Lucy?” I replied, confused.
“What does Lucy’s death have to do with what I went through in Transylvania?” Jonathan asked.
“It has everything to do with it. You know the answer, I think. You are both familiar with the lore of Eastern Europe, are you not? You refer to it in the early pages of your journal, Mr. Harker, but the concept is so alarming that you forget. And you, Madam Mina: you saw Miss Lucy grow pale and weak from loss of blood. You saw the two small, red marks upon her throat—marks which Dr. Seward and I also were alarmed to see, in the days before her death.”
“Do you mean the pin-pricks I made, which—” I began; but even as the words left my mouth, the truth came over me in a great rush. It was
as if my mind had taken in everything I had seen and read and been told, and at last put it all together like the pieces of some terrible jigsaw puzzle. My entire body tingled with horror, as I cried, “Oh! They were never pin-pricks, were they, Doctor? Those marks on Lucy’s throat, they were made by a—by a—”
“Yes?” Dr. Van Helsing waited, his blue eyes flashing.
My voice dropped to a whisper; I had to force myself to go on, barely able to believe the words even as I spoke them: “They were made by a being who—who sucked her blood! A vampire!”
Dr. Van Helsing nodded grimly. “I think so, Madam. Yes: I think so.”
Jonathan’s face went chalky white. “A vampire? You are saying that vampires are real, not some folk-tale or superstition? That—that the dead can truly come back to life?”
“There are mysteries, my friend, which men can only guess at, which age by age they may solve only in part. I believe we are on the verge of one: the proof that the nosferatu—the Un-Dead—exist.”
“Oh!” I cried with a shudder.
“Those women at the castle,” Jonathan added with animation, “when I felt the sharp points of one’s teeth at my neck, I wondered, could she be—but I told myself no, it was impossible, it was madness—”
“Just as bats come in the night and suck dry the veins of their victims,” Dr. Van Helsing said, “those women I believe would have done the same to you, Mr. Harker, had they the chance.”
“My God!” Jonathan cried, horrified.
“And Count Dracula?” I said. “Is he a vampire, too?”
“The Count neither eats nor drinks; he has inhuman strength; he sleeps by day in a deep trance, on the earth of his homeland—which, it is said, is the only way to restore his strength and powers; and he has been seen to grow young, which we are told the nosferatu can do, perhaps when fully fed with blood. I think we can safely assume that Count Dracula is a vampire, yes.”
“What other fearsome powers does that monster have?” Jonathan cried. “Can he vanish into thin air, as those awful women did?”
“That, I can only guess at present,” Dr. Van Helsing replied, “but after reading your accounts, one thing now seems clear: the Count has attained his designs and has gotten to London. How did he get there? By ship, I believe. And where did he first enter the country? I tell you where: I think he docked at Whitby.”
“Whitby?” I said, surprised. Then, all at once, the last piece of the puzzle fell into place, and I saw the facts as Dr. Van Helsing saw them. “The fifty boxes of earth!”
Dr. Van Helsing raised his bushy eyebrows at me with approbation. “You have a good and clever wife, Mr. Harker. She sees; she understands! But Madam Mina: if your husband has not yet read your journal, I think you must explain.”
I told Jonathan about the ship Demeter, its vanished crew, its dead captain, and its strange cargo. “In your diary, Jonathan, you said you found Count Dracula lying in a box of earth in his chapel, and a total of fifty other such boxes which the gipsies were loading onto wagons. Could it be that Count Dracula was aboard the Demeter, inside one of those boxes? And en route—” With a grimace, I finished: “he killed every one of those poor sailors to satiate his appetite?”
“I saw a map of England in the Count’s library,” Jonathan said excitedly, “with various locations circled. One was near London, where his new estate is situated; another was Exeter; and he had circled port cities from Dover to Newcastle, including Whitby! The Count asked endless questions about the means of making consignments at an English port and the forms to be gone through.”
“He planned with great care for his arrival,” noted Dr. Van Helsing.
“But if his destination was London,” I put in, “would it not have been easier to go straight there, or to some other, larger port to the south? Why go to Whitby?”
“Why, indeed?” Dr. Van Helsing said, his forehead furrowed. “It makes no sense to me that the Count went to Whitby—but to Whitby he did go, and to the great misfortune of poor Miss Lucy. For it is there, I think, that he first found her, sleep-walking on the cliffs one night. After she went back to London, whether by coincidence or design, he seems to have again found her there.”
My mind revolted with sudden, deep hatred for the man who had so grievously assaulted my dearest friend and who had cruelly tormented my husband. Still, I wondered: “Do we know for certain that it was Count Dracula who attacked Lucy in London? It is a huge city. Could there be other creatures like him?”
“Anything is possible, Madam Mina. But in my years of study, I find these beings are few in number, and keep mostly to their own lands. I hear of no such others in England in recent history. Remember, it is not so easy for the vampire to travel. The Count, he must bring so many boxes of earth by ship from Transylvania; and why? To assure his existence here; for without that earth to rest on every day, he will lose his powers and in time perish.”
“That would be one way to defeat him, then, would it not?” I asked. “To deny him access to his boxes of earth?”
“Yes! Or to sterilise that earth with holy objects, and thereby render the boxes useless to him.”
“Where did all those boxes go, I wonder, after they arrived in Whitby?” Jonathan mused. “Are they still there? Were they shipped to the Count’s place in London? Or did he send them all over the map?”
“I would give much to know this also,” Dr. Van Helsing replied. “The key now is to find all fifty boxes. If we have them, we have the Count.”
We had finished breakfast by then. Dr. Van Helsing wiped his face with his napkin and regarded us with a beaming smile. “Oh! How can I tell you good people what I owe you? I arrive so much in the dark, seeking answers to Miss Lucy’s perplexing illness. Thanks to you and your so wonderful diaries, I have learned much: the very name of our foreign enemy, how he reached this country, and even the place where he maybe hide!”
“Carfax,” Jonathan replied with a nod.
“I must say, when I read your diary, Mr. Harker, I am astounded to learn that of all places, our foe has purchased an estate in the village of Purfleet, where Dr. Seward himself resides! Where is this old house called Carfax? Is it close to Dr. Seward’s property?”
“Very close, in fact. They are both large estates, but they are adjacent to each other.”
“Adjacent! This seems to me a very great coincidence.”
“Not really, Doctor. I was the agent who arranged the purchase—and it was Dr. Seward who suggested the place.”
“Dr. Seward?”
“Yes. Being unfamiliar with properties in London, I applied to every acquaintance I could think of in town for help. Lucy put me in touch with Seward. I know him only through correspondence—he was away when I scouted the area in February—but he said there was an old house with a chapel on the byroad next to his asylum, which might meet all of my client’s requirements. I thought it strange at the time that Count Dracula had sought the services of an agent so far off from London to find him a house, instead of someone resident there. He claimed it was to avoid serving a local firm, who might have their own interests at heart. But now I see the truth behind it: he wanted no one to interfere with his privacy and anonymity when he arrived.”
“Just so,” Dr. Van Helsing replied, sitting back in his chair pensively.
“To think,” Jonathan went on angrily, “that the Count is loose on the streets of London at this very moment, to kill and wreak havoc wherever he may—and that I had a hand in making it happen! Oh! It makes my blood boil! If only I had known—”
“Do not berate yourself, Mr. Harker. Had I but better understood—had I known at the first what I know now—the young and beautiful Miss Lucy Westenra would not be in her tomb in a lonely churchyard at Kingstead, on Hampstead Heath. But we must not look back, only forward, so that other souls will not perish.”
“Poor, dear Lucy,” I said softly. “At least she is at peace; her suffering has ended.”
“Not so. Alas!—not so,” cried Dr. Van Helsin
g, shaking his head. “It is not the end for Miss Lucy, but only the beginning.”
I stared at him. “The beginning? What do you mean, Doctor?”
The doctor looked up sharply, as if regretting the words he had just spoken; then he frowned and said only: “There are, I fear, still more great and terrible events yet to come. We must wait and see.” Glancing at his pocket-watch, he stood and added quickly: “Forgive me, I am out of time. I must catch the next train back to London.”
“I will see you to the station,” Jonathan said; and we all headed out to the vestibule.
“May I keep, for now, the copies of the journals you so kindly make?” Dr. Van Helsing asked, as he donned his hat and coat. I said that he could, for we had the originals, should we wish to refer to them. He thanked us for breakfast, then put out his hand to me. “Madam Mina, again I express my deepest gratitude for all you have done. You are one of God’s women, fashioned by His own hand: so true, so sweet, so noble. I am greatly in your debt.”
“I am glad if I have been of some assistance, Doctor.”
“Mr. Harker, may I now ask you a favour? Can you share with me any papers you have, about what went before your going to Transylvania? Letters from Count Dracula and such—and the information about this property at Purfleet?”
“I will give you everything I can find, Doctor. The legal documents I will have to copy out and send to you. What else I can do? What about those fifty boxes of earth? Let me trace them! I remember seeing a letter on the Count’s desk, addressed to someone in Whitby—perhaps a consignment company. The name will be in my journal. I can make some enquiries and let you know what I discover.”
“You are too good, sir,” Dr. Van Helsing said with a bow. “There is so much more I could tell you. I have a great task ahead of me, but I fear that Dr. Seward and I cannot do it alone. Perhaps we can all meet again in London in a few days and share what we learn. Will you help us? Will you come?”
Jonathan glanced at me and saw the answer in my eyes. He reached out and took my hand; it was reassuring to feel its touch—once again so strong, so self-reliant, so resolute. “We shall both come, Doctor.”
