Dracula (28 page)

‘Oh, Madam Mina, I knew that the friend of that poor lily girl must be good, but I had yet to learn – 'He finished his speech with a courtly bow. I asked him what it was that he wanted to see me about, so he at once began: –

‘I have read your letters to Miss Lucy. Forgive me, but I had to begin to inquire somewhere, and there was none to ask. I know that you were with her at Whitby. She sometimes kept a diary – you need not look surprised, Madam Mina; it was begun after you had left, and was made in imitation of you – and in that diary she traces by inference certain things to a sleep-walking in which she puts down that you saved her. In great perplexity then I come to you, and ask you out of your so much kindness to tell me all of it that you remember.'

‘I can tell you, I think, Dr Van Helsing, all about it.'

‘Ah, then you have good memory for facts, for details? It is not always so with young ladies.'

‘No, doctor, but I wrote it all down at the time. I can show it to you if you like.'

‘Oh, Madam Mina, I will be grateful; you will do me much favour.' I could not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bit – I suppose it is some of the taste of the original apple that remains still in our mouths – so I handed him the shorthand diary. He took it with a grateful bow, and said: –

‘May I read it?'

‘If you wish,' I answered as demurely as I could. He opened it, and for an instant his face fell. Then he stood up and bowed.

‘Oh, you so clever woman!' he said. ‘I long knew that Mr Jonathan was a man of much thankfulness; but see, his wife have all the good things. And will you not so much honour me and so help me as to read it for me? Alas! I know not the shorthand.' By this time my little joke was over, and I was almost ashamed; so I took the type-written copy from my workbasket and handed it to him.

‘Forgive me,' I said: ‘I could not help it; but I had been thinking that it was of dear Lucy that you wished to ask, and so that you might not have to wait – not on my account, but because I know your time must be precious – I have written it out on the typewriter for you.'

He took it, and his eyes glistened. ‘You are so good,' he said. ‘And may I read it now? I may want to ask you some things when I have read.'

‘By all means,' I said, ‘read it over whilst I order lunch; and then you can ask me questions whilst we eat.' He bowed and settled himself in a chair with his back to the light, and became absorbed in the papers, whilst I went to see after lunch, chiefly in order that he might not be disturbed. When I came back I found him walking hurriedly up and down the room, his face all ablaze with excitement. He rushed up to me and took me by both hands.

‘Oh, Madam Mina,' he said, ‘how can I say what I owe to you? This paper is as sunshine. It opens the gate to me. I am daze, I am dazzle, with so much light; and yet clouds roll in behind the light every time. But that you do not, cannot, comprehend. Oh, but I am grateful to you, you so clever woman. Madam' – he said this very solemnly – ‘if ever Abraham Van Helsing can do anything for you or yours, I trust you will let me know. It will be pleasure and delight if I may serve you as a friend; as a friend, but all I have ever learned, all I can ever do, shall be for you and those you love. There are darknesses in life, and there are lights; you are one of the lights. You will have happy life and good life, and your husband will be blessed in you.'

‘But, doctor, you praise me too much, and – and you do not know me.'

‘Not know you – I, who am old, and who have studied all my life men and women; I, who have made my speciality the brain and all that belongs to him and all that follow from him! And I have read your diary that you have so goodly written to me, and which breathes out truth in every line. I, who have read your so sweet letter to poor Lucy of your marriage and your trust, not know you! Oh, Madam Mina, good women tell all their lives, and by day and by hour and by minute, such things that angels can read; and we men who wish to know have in us something of angels' eyes. Your husband is noble nature, and you are noble too, for you trust, and trust cannot be where there is mean nature. And your husband – tell me of him. Is he quite well? Is all that fever gone, and is he strong and hearty?' I saw here an opening to ask him about Jonathan, so I said: –

‘He was almost recovered, but he has been greatly upset by Mr Hawkins's death.' He interrupted: –

‘Oh yes, I know, I know. I have read your last two letters.' I went on: –

‘I suppose this upset him, for when we were in town on Thursday last he had a sort of shock.'

‘A shock, and after brain fever so soon! That was not good. What kind of shock was it?'

‘He thought he saw some one who recalled something terrible, something which led to his brain fever.' And here the whole thing seemed to overwhelm me in a rush. The pity of Jonathan, the horror which he experienced, the whole fearful mystery of his diary, and the fear that has been brooding over me ever since, all came in a tumult. I suppose I was hysterical, for I threw myself on my knees and held up my hands to him, and implored him to make my husband well again. He took my hands and raised me up, and made me sit on the sofa, and sat by me; he held my hand in his, and said to me with, oh, such infinite sweetness: –

‘My life is a barren and lonely one, and so full of work that I have not had much time for friendships; but since I have been summoned to here by my friend John Seward I have known so many good people and seen such nobility that I feel more than ever – and it has grown with my advancing years – the loneliness of my life. Believe me, then, that I come here full of respect for you, and you have given me hope – hope, not in what I am seeking of, but that there are good women still left to make life happy – good women, whose lives and whose truths may make good lesson for the children that are to be. I am glad, glad, that I may here be of some use to you; for if your husband suffer, he suffer within the range of my study and experience. I promise you that I will gladly do
all
for him that I can – all to make his life strong and manly, and your life a happy one. Now you must eat. You are overwrought and perhaps over-anxious. Husband Jonathan would not like to see you so pale; and what he like not where he love, is not to his good. Therefore for his sake you must eat and smile. You have told me all about Lucy, and so now we shall not speak of it, lest it distress. I shall stay in Exeter tonight, for I want to think much over what you have told me, and when I have thought I will ask you questions, if I may. And then, too, you will tell me of husband Jonathan's trouble so far as you can, but not yet. You must eat now; afterwards you shall tell me all.'

After lunch, when we went back to the drawing-room, he said to me: –

‘And now tell me all about him.' When it came to speaking to this great, learned man, I began to fear that he would think me a weak fool, and Jonathan a madman – that journal is all so strange – and I hesitated to go on. But he was so sweet and kind, and he had promised to help, and I trusted him, so I said:

‘Dr Van Helsing, what I have to tell you is so queer that you must not laugh at me or at my husband. I have been since yesterday in a sort of fever of doubt; you must be kind to me, and not think me foolish that I have even half believed some very strange things.' He reassured me by his manner as well as his words when he said: –

‘Oh, my dear, if you only knew how strange is the matter regarding which I am here, it is you who would laugh. I have learned not to think little of any one's belief, no matter how strange it be. I have tried to keep an open mind; and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane.'

‘Thank you, thank you, a thousand times! You have taken a weight off my mind. If you will let me, I shall give you a paper to read. It is long, but I have typewritten it out. It will tell you my trouble and Jonathan's. It is the copy of his journal when abroad, and all that happened. I dare not say anything of it; you will read for yourself and judge. And then when I see you, perhaps, you will be very kind and tell me what you think.'

‘I promise,' he said as I gave him the papers; ‘I shall in the morning, so soon as I can, come to see you and your husband, if I may.'

‘Jonathan will be here at half-past eleven, and you must come to lunch with us and see him then; you could catch the quick 3.34 train, which will leave you at Paddington before eight.' He was surprised at my knowledge of the trains off-hand, but he does not know that I have made up all the trains to and from Exeter, so that I may help Jonathan in case he is in a hurry.

So he took the papers with him and went away, and I sit here thinking – thinking I don't know what.

26 September.
– I thought never to write in this diary again, but the time has come. When I got home last night Mina had supper ready, and when we had supped she told me of Van Helsing's visit, and of her having given him the two diaries copied out, and of how anxious she has been about me. She showed me in the doctor's letter that all I wrote down was true. It seems to have made a new man of me. It was the doubt as to the reality of the whole thing that knocked me over. I felt impotent, and in the dark, and distrustful. But, now that I know, I am not afraid, even of the Count. He has succeeded after all, then, in his design in getting to London, and it was he I saw. He has got younger, and how? Van Helsing is the man to unmask him and hunt him out, if he is anything like what Mina says. We sat late, and talked it all over. Mina is dressing, and I shall call at the hotel in a few minutes and bring him over . . .

He was, I think, surprised to see me. When I came into the room where he was, and introduced myself, he took me by the shoulder, and turned my face round to the light, and said, after a sharp scrutiny: –

‘But Madam Mina told me you were ill, that you had had a shock.' It was so funny to hear my wife called ‘Madam Mina' by this kindly, strong-faced old man. I smiled, and said: –

‘I
was
ill, I
have
had a shock; but you have cured me already.'

‘And how?'

‘By your letter to Mina last night. I was in doubt, and then everything took a hue of unreality, and I did not know what to trust, even the evidence of my own senses. Not knowing what to trust, I did not know what to do; and so had only to keep on working in what had hitherto been the groove of my life. The groove ceased to avail me, and I mistrusted myself. Doctor, you don't know what it is to doubt everything, even yourself. No, you don't; you couldn't with eyebrows like yours.' He seemed pleased, and laughed as he said: –

‘So ! You are physiognomist. I learn more here with each hour. I am with so much pleasure coming to you to breakfast; and, oh, sir, you will pardon praise from an old man, but you are blessed in your wife.' I would listen to him go on praising Mina for a day, so I simply nodded and stood silent.

‘She is one of God's women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoist – and that, let me tell you, is much in this age, so sceptical and selfish. And you sir – I have read all the letters to poor Miss Lucy, and some of them speak of you, so I know you since some days from the knowing of others; but I have seen your true self since last night. You will give me your hand, will you not? And let us be friends for all our lives.'

We shook hands, and he was so earnest and so kind that it made me quite choky.

‘And now,' he said, ‘may I ask you for some more help? I have a great task to do, and at the beginning it is to know. You can help me here. Can you tell me what went before your going to Transylvania? Later on I may ask more help, and of a different kind; but at first this will do.'