Lord of the Vampires (29 page)

As I bitterly contemplated my failure, John returned and stood beside me in silence, both of us contemplating the corpse. For a time, neither of us spoke; and then John asked:

Professor. Does a dying man have the right to know he is dying?

His tone was so calm and conversational that I believed he was trying to distract himself, perhaps by trying to decide whether Lucy herself had been
so
aware; thus, I answered in the same manner. Of course. If he does not know, how can he properly prepare himself?

He spoke again, and this time I noted a faint but growing anger behind his words. And does a man engaged in battleeven a battle he cannot possibly win have the right to know who it is he fights?

A slight chill seized me, for I suddenly understood where his line of questioning ledyet I could not bring myself to reply. Instead, I gazed up at him, and saw that he was struggling terribly to hold in a powerful tide of emotion.

When he realised no answer would come, he said heatedly, Professor, you cannot bear this terrible burden alone any longer. You have seen Arthur and Quincey and, I hope, come to know them as the brave, honourable men they are. They have

What do you suggest, John? That I tell them the truth? Even if they believed it, what good would come of it? Only that they would be endangered

Lucy was ignorant, he cried, with a sudden vehemence that flushed his cheeks scarlet. What good came of
thatr

For this I had no answer, so I stood mutely as he continued to release grief in the form of anger. He shook, lie raged, he lifted his fist and shook it in my face.

They have as much right as I to know the cause of Lucys death so that they might avenge itand wipe this terrible scourge from the earth! They are my dearest friends, and I will not stand by and see them die of ignorance! Good God, Quince could very well have been bitten himself, wandering around outside in the night, trying to make himself useful in some small way!

And at that, the storm of tears finally came, with such fury that he sank to his knees beside Miss Lucy and buried his face in the bed, one fist helplessly pounding against the mattress.

I said nothing; I let him cry. But his words pricked me, and evoked within me a different sort of tempest.

After some moments, he raised his damp, flushed face and rose to leave. Before he reached the door he turned, and said with calm, quiet dignity so that I would know hed meant every word, despite the accompanying emotional display:

Dr. Van Helsing, you have long put your trust in secrecy and science, in magical protections and rituals. Now all those things have failed you. But there is one thing which will never fail, one thing which will always be stronger than any evil: the human heart. I offer you mine and those of my two closest friends in the coming battle, for their sake as well as your own.

* * *

26 SEPTEMBER
.

Lucy was buried in a double service with her mother on the twenty-second; a bitter affair for all, especially those two who knew she had not gone to a peaceful end.

Intense contemplation has not permitted the truth of Johns angry words to fade; indeed, the more I savour them, the more I come to believe that he is right. We have agreed that when Miss Lucy is truly set to rest, it shall be Arthurs hand which performs the deed, and John, Quincey, and I will all be in attendance. I have written Arthur and Quincey letters, asking them to accompany me to the gravesite. Beyond that, I offered no explanation; words cannot convince as thoroughly as physical evidence.

In the meantime, the last few days have been busy ones for several reasons. As there were no surviving kin, Mrs. Westenra left her estate to Arthur. He in turn asked John and me for assistance in sifting through papers and making burial arrangements, as he was already quite overwhelmed by similar obligations in connexion with his fathers death. I asked him for leave to examine Lucys personal papers and diary for more insight as to the nature of her disease. This he granted, being too distracted even to question my request.

In going through those papers, I discovered a thick bundle of letters from a Wilhelmina Murray, whom Lucy also mentioned constantly in her diary as Mina. It seems these two women were the best of friends; in fact, Lucy often summered with Madamthat is, MissMina at the Westenra cottage at Whitby. Lucy did not keep a diary at the time (upon returning to London, however, she succumbed to Miss Minas journalistic influence and began one), so we have no record of what precisely occurred. But I know it was there she was first bitten.

Minas letters, some of which were sadly never opened, reflected a lady of great kindness and intelligence. Upon reading them, I felt at once as if I had already met and befriended her; so I was even more fearful to learn of her time at Whitby with Lucy. For if Lucy had been bitten, why not her friend?

Two days after the Westenra funeral, I wrote Miss Mina Murray (now Mrs. Mina Harker) asking if I might interview her, as I had been Lucy Westenras physician and was investigating the cause of her death. She responded promptly and most warmly, inviting me to her home in Exeter the very next day.

With some trepidation, I went. My heart was still sore after the terrible defeat with Lucy, and I dreaded finding yet another kind gentlewoman stricken with the vampires curse.

Fortunately, when I arrived in Exeter and stepped into Mrs. Harkers drawing-room, I saw a young lady blooming with health: the rosy cheeks and lips were a welcome and beautiful sight after poor Lucys pallor. Even lovelier was the sight of her long neck rising pure and unmarked from a collarless gown. Yet Madam Mina (I could not resist calling her so at once, for it was clear that Lucys death had already united us in friendship) looked nothing like what I had expected. Her letters indicated a woman of such great maturity and wisdom that I had imagined her as older than Lucy, taller, and more solidly built.

But she was a good head shorter than her late friend, a tiny, fragile-looking creature hardly larger than the schoolchildren she had taught before her recent marriage to Mr. Harker. Her face, too, was that of a childheart-shaped beneath a dark brown pompadour, with great hazel eyes, small nose, and rosebud mouthso innocent and ingenuous that she would go through life always looking far younger than her years. Ah, but those eyes They reminded me of Johns, for they were sensitive, intelligent, quick to absorb every detailand blessedly free from any trace of treacherous glittering indigo. Indeed, even in the bright daylight streaming through the open shutters, a definite violet glow could be detected surrounding her: a strong aura for a strong woman.

She had apparently been hard at work when I arrived, for I heard clacking out in the hallway, which ceased the instant the maid knocked to announce my arrival. When the door swung open wide, I saw that one corner of the drawing-room had been converted into a study. Behind her stood a desk upon which rested stacked newspapers, a small black diary, white paper stacked in a wire basket, and a large typewriter with a sheet of paper inserted.

And in that seconds pause when we two faced each other and I verified that she was indeed Mrs. Harker,
nee
Mina Murray, those intelligent
eyes
scrutinised me most intently, yet swiftly enough that courtesy was not breached. Apparently I impressed her as favourably as she had me, for a look of subtle warmth came over her cherubic features.

She approached with a gracious smile, and held out a delicate, pale hand one third the size of my large, callused brown one. I took it, grateful to sense by touch that my visual appraisal of her had been accurate: she was uncursed, unmarked. Thus the smile I returned to her was the first genuine one in many days.

Madam Mina, I said, instinctively using the less formal form of address, which seemed to please her. It is on account of the dead that I come.

Her gaze was refreshingly intense and direct (as we Dutch prefer), without the averted glances and eyelash-fluttering so favoured by Englishwomen. And I saw in it love for her dead friend and honest gratitude towards me; and when she spoke, I knew she did so directly from the heart. Sir, replied she, in a strong, mature voice that belied her juvenile appearance, you have no better claim on me than that you were a friend and helper of Lucy Westenra.

The moment of introduction over, she asked as to precisely what information I desired from her, and I explained my need for certain information about Whitby as much as she could remember.

Why, I can tell you everything about it, she said, gesturing for me to sit upon a nearby sofa. I have written it all down. Would you like to see it?

Of course. So she retrieved the black diary from the desk, and handed it to me with a sudden impish glint in her eye; Madam Mina, it seems, has a wry sense of humour.

I opened the diary, intending to begin reading at once but upon the page were neat but totally incomprehensible squiggles and curls and lines. Mr. Jonathan Harker is a lucky man, I said, handing it back to her, to have such a talented wife. But alas; I do not know shorthand. Would you be so kind as to read it for me?

The child blushed as she took the diary, and at once retrieved a stack of papers from the wire basket. Forgive me. Here: when you told me you wished to inquire about Lucy, I went ahead and wrote all the Whitby entries out on the typewriter for you.

I thanked her most sincerely for her labour, and asked whether I might read it then; she agreed and excused herself, saying that she would check on lunch.

Enclosed in the privacy of the drawing-room, I read swiftly through the entries. They spoke of Whitby and Lucy and several sleepwalking incidents; in one place, it was clear that she had rescued Miss Lucy from the vampires very grasp without knowing it. The diary had obviously been intended to be private, for it mentioned her extreme anxiety over her then-fiance, Jonathan, who was apparently abroad and had not written in some time. I thought nothing of this at all, focusing all my attention on the events where Vlad was most clearly involved. Until, that is, I read the entry of 26 July, when Madam Mina had just received the long-awaited letter from Jonathan, forwarded by his employer. One sentence seemed to leap from the very page:

It is only a line dated from Castle Dracula, and says that he is just starting for home.

I was glad then that she had left me alone, for I swore aloud and struck the sofa with my fist at the sight of the name. Jonathan at Castle Dracula! And here this sweet lady, by whom I was immediately smitten, was not safe at allshe was in the very heart of danger! The vampires evil had touched her not just once, through the death of her dearest friend, but through her poor husband as well.

I read further, and learned that Jonathan had suffered from brain fever, for he had raved wildly at the station-master in Klausenburgh for a ticket home. Though he was penniless, his violent demeanour terrified the locals so that they gave him a ticket for the trains westernmost destination, Buda-Pesth. There he was of such a mental state that he was promptly taken to a sanitorium, and the good nuns there notified Madam Mina, who came and brought him home to England. (It was at the Buda-Pesth sanitorium that they were married.)

After I had read it all, I set the papers aside and began to think. The decision had already been made to bring Quincey and Arthur into our (that is, Johns and my) confidence concerning the vampire, as it only seemed right that they take part in avenging the death of the woman they loved.

Did not Madam Mina, too, have the same right? Even were Jonathan not bitten, he had already suffered great mental torment. I remembered Johns bitter statement: Lucy had been ignorant about the vampire,
yet
that had not protected her in the least. I suppose it is true, then knowledge
is
power, even if, in this case, it is only the power to surrender or flee.

In any event, it was too late; I had already opened my heart to this young woman, and cared about her welfare the same as I had cared about Lucys. I could not simply go and leave her here to make the dreadful discovery about her husband alone, or become the victim of his or Draculas attack.

Therefore, when Madam Mina returned, I thanked her roundly for her illuminating manuscriptthough she would have been horrified to know what I had discovered in its light. As casually as I could, I remarked upon her husbands brain fever and asked whether he had recovered completely.

At once a shadow came over her expression, and a deep crease appeared between her dark, delicate brows; she paused, and said carefully, He was
almost
recovered but he has been greatly upset by his employers death. Mr. Hawkins took Jonathan under his wing and has been like a father to him for many years.

I nodded and, with a few sympathetic comments, urged her to speak a bit more of it.

This increased her discomfort until the crease was joined by others on her brow, and the full rosebud lips thinned to a flat line. He had aa bit of a shock last Thursday, when we were in town, strolling in Piccadilly.

Again I coaxed her to reveal more and more, until I learned that the sight of a man (ha! No mortal man, I suspect!) had upset him, a man who clearly had had something to do with his brain disease.

Of a sudden, she was on her knees. Not in tears or hysteria, but so overwhelmed by fear and concern for her husband that she lifted her arms to me and beseeched me to help him, to make him well again. Though she did not say it, I knew she feared her Jonathan was going mad.

I gently took Madam Minas imploring hands in mine and helped her to her feet. As I led her to the sofa and sat down beside her, I saidwith the utmost sincerity:

My dear Madam Mina, since I have come to London in answer to my friend John Sewards call, I have found a number of peopleincluding Arthur (that is, Lord Godalming) and our Miss Lucywhose strength in the face of despair and whose compassion have touched me deeply. I am honoured to call them friend, and to know that they would think of me as one. From your writings and your mere presence, I know that you are as good and deserving as they. Please think of me as your friend, Madam Mina, and know that I will help you and your husband in any way.