DRACULA
PART 22
CHAPTER
XXII
JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL
3
October.—As I must do something or go
mad, I write this diary. It is now six o’clock, and we are to meet in the study
in half an hour and take something to eat; for Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward
are agreed that if we do not eat we cannot work our best. Our best will be, God
knows, required to-day. I must keep writing at every chance, for I dare not
stop to think. All, big and little, must go down; perhaps at the end the little
things may teach us most. The teaching, big or little, could not have landed
Mina or me anywhere worse than we are to-day. However, we must trust and hope.
Poor Mina told me just now, with the tears running down her dear cheeks, that
it is in trouble and trial that our faith is tested—that we must keep on
trusting; and that God will aid us up to the end. The end! oh my God! what
end?... To work! To work!
When Dr.
Van Helsing and Dr. Seward had come back from seeing poor Renfield, we went
gravely into what was to be done. First, Dr. Seward told us that when he and
Dr. Van Helsing had gone down to the room below they had found Renfield lying
on the floor, all in a heap. His face was all bruised and crushed in, and the
bones of the neck were broken.
Dr. Seward
asked the attendant who was on duty in the passage if he had heard anything. He
said that he had been sitting down—he confessed to half dozing—when he heard
loud voices in the room, and then Renfield had called out loudly several times,
“God! God! God!” after that there was a sound of falling, and when he entered
the room he found him lying on the floor, face down, just as the doctors had
seen him. Van Helsing asked if he had heard “voices” or “a voice,” and he said
he could not say; that at first it had seemed to him as if there were two, but
as there was no one in the room it could have been only one. He could swear to
it, if required, that the word “God” was spoken by the patient. Dr. Seward said
to us, when we were alone, that he did not wish to go into the matter; the
question of an inquest had to be considered, and it would never do to put
forward the truth, as no one would believe it. As it was, he thought that on
the attendant’s evidence he could give a certificate of death by misadventure in falling from bed. In case the coroner
should demand it, there would be a formal inquest, necessarily to the same
result.
When the
question began to be discussed as to what should be our next step, the very
first thing we decided was that Mina should be in full confidence; that nothing
of any sort—no matter how painful—should be kept from her. She herself agreed
as to its wisdom, and it was pitiful to see her so brave and yet so sorrowful,
and in such a depth of despair. “There must be no concealment,” she said,
“Alas! we have had too much already. And besides there is nothing in all the
world that can give me more pain than I have already endured—than I suffer now!
Whatever may happen, it must be of new hope or of new courage to me!” Van
Helsing was looking at her fixedly as she spoke, and said, suddenly but
quietly:—
“But dear
Madam Mina, are you not afraid; not for yourself, but for others from yourself,
after what has happened?” Her face grew set in its lines, but her eyes shone
with the devotion of a martyr as she answered:—
“Ah no!
for my mind is made up!”
“To what?”
he asked gently, whilst we were all very still; for each in our own way we had
a sort of vague idea of what she meant. Her answer came with direct simplicity,
as though she were simply stating a fact:—
“Because
if I find in myself—and I shall watch keenly for it—a sign of harm to any that
I love, I shall die!”
“You would
not kill yourself?” he asked, hoarsely.
“I would;
if there were no friend who loved me, who would save me such a pain, and so
desperate an effort!” She looked at him meaningly as she spoke. He was sitting
down; but now he rose and came close to her and put his hand on her head as he
said solemnly:
“My child,
there is such an one if it were for your good. For myself I could hold it in my
account with God to find such an euthanasia for you, even at this moment if it were
best. Nay, were it safe! But my child——” For a moment he seemed choked, and a
great sob rose in his throat; he gulped it down and went on:—
“There are
here some who would stand between you and death. You must not die. You must not
die by any hand; but least of all by your own. Until the other, who has fouled
your sweet life, is true dead you must not die; for if he is still with the
quick Un-Dead, your death would make you even as he is. No,
you must live! You must struggle and strive to live, though death would seem a
boon unspeakable. You must fight Death himself, though he come to you in pain
or in joy; by the day, or the night; in safety or in peril! On your living soul
I charge you that you do not die—nay, nor think of death—till this great evil be
past.” The poor dear grew white as death, and shock and shivered, as I have
seen a quicksand shake and shiver at the incoming of the tide. We were all
silent; we could do nothing. At length she grew more calm and turning to him
said, sweetly, but oh! so sorrowfully, as she held out her hand:—
“I promise
you, my dear friend, that if God will let me live, I shall strive to do so;
till, if it may be in His good time, this horror may have passed away from me.”
She was so good and brave that we all felt that our hearts were strengthened to
work and endure for her, and we began to discuss what we were to do. I told her
that she was to have all the papers in the safe, and all the papers or diaries
and phonographs we might hereafter use; and was to keep the record as she had
done before. She was pleased with the prospect of anything to do—if “pleased”
could be used in connection with so grim an interest.
As usual
Van Helsing had thought ahead of everyone else, and was prepared with an exact
ordering of our work.
“It is
perhaps well,” he said, “that at our meeting after our visit to Carfax we
decided not to do anything with the earth-boxes that lay there. Had we done so,
the Count must have guessed our purpose, and would doubtless have taken
measures in advance to frustrate such an effort with regard to the others; but
now he does not know our intentions. Nay, more, in all probability, he does not
know that such a power exists to us as can sterilise his lairs, so that he
cannot use them as of old. We are now so much further advanced in our knowledge
as to their disposition that, when we have examined the house in Piccadilly, we
may track the very last of them. To-day, then, is ours; and in it rests our
hope. The sun that rose on our sorrow this morning guards us in its course.
Until it sets to-night, that monster must retain whatever form he now has. He
is confined within the limitations of his earthly envelope. He cannot melt into
thin air nor disappear through cracks or chinks or crannies. If he go through a
doorway, he must open the door like a mortal. And so we have this day to hunt
out all his lairs and sterilise them. So we shall, if we have not yet catch him
and destroy him, drive him to bay in some place where the catching and the
destroying shall be, in time, sure.” Here I started up for I could not contain
myself at the thought that the minutes and seconds so
preciously laden with Mina’s life and happiness were flying from us, since
whilst we talked action was impossible. But Van Helsing held up his hand warningly.
“Nay, friend Jonathan,” he said, “in this, the quickest way home is the longest
way, so your proverb say. We shall all act and act with desperate quick, when
the time has come. But think, in all probable the key of the situation is in
that house in Piccadilly. The Count may have many houses which he has bought.
Of them he will have deeds of purchase, keys and other things. He will have
paper that he write on; he will have his book of cheques. There are many
belongings that he must have somewhere; why not in this place so central, so
quiet, where he come and go by the front or the back at all hour, when in the
very vast of the traffic there is none to notice. We shall go there and search
that house; and when we learn what it holds, then we do what our friend Arthur
call, in his phrases of hunt ‘stop the earths’ and so we run down our old
fox—so? is it not?”
“Then let
us come at once,” I cried, “we are wasting the precious, precious time!” The
Professor did not move, but simply said:—
“And how
are we to get into that house in Piccadilly?”
“Any way!”
I cried. “We shall break in if need be.”
“And your
police; where will they be, and what will they say?”
I was
staggered; but I knew that if he wished to delay he had a good reason for it.
So I said, as quietly as I could:—
“Don’t
wait more than need be; you know, I am sure, what torture I am in.”
“Ah, my
child, that I do; and indeed there is no wish of me to add to your anguish. But
just think, what can we do, until all the world be at movement. Then will come
our time. I have thought and thought, and it seems to me that the simplest way
is the best of all. Now we wish to get into the house, but we have no key; is
it not so?” I nodded.
“Now
suppose that you were, in truth, the owner of that house, and could not still
get it; and think there was to you no conscience of the housebreaker, what
would you do?”
“I should
get a respectable locksmith, and set him to work to pick the lock for me.”
“And your
police, they would interfere, would they not?”
“Oh, no!
not if they knew the man was properly employed.”
“Then,” he
looked at me as keenly as he spoke, “all that is in doubt is the conscience of
the employer, and the belief of your policemen as to
whether or no that employer has a good conscience or a bad one. Your police
must indeed be zealous men and clever—oh, so clever!—in reading the heart, that
they trouble themselves in such matter. No, no, my friend Jonathan, you go take
the lock off a hundred empty house in this your London, or of any city in the world;
and if you do it as such things are rightly done, and at the time such things
are rightly done, no one will interfere. I have read of a gentleman who owned a
so fine house in London, and when he went for months of summer to Switzerland
and lock up his house, some burglar came and broke window at back and got in.
Then he went and made open the shutters in front and walk out and in through
the door, before the very eyes of the police. Then he have an auction in that
house, and advertise it, and put up big notice; and when the day come he sell
off by a great auctioneer all the goods of that other man who own them. Then he
go to a builder, and he sell him that house, making an agreement that he pull
it down and take all away within a certain time. And your police and other
authority help him all they can. And when that owner come back from his holiday
in Switzerland he find only an empty hole where his house had been. This was
all done en règle; and in our work we shall be en règle too. We
shall not go so early that the policemen who have then little to think of,
shall deem it strange; but we shall go after ten o’clock, when there are many
about, and such things would be done were we indeed owners of the house.”
I could
not but see how right he was and the terrible despair of Mina’s face became
relaxed a thought; there was hope in such good counsel. Van Helsing went on:—
“When once
within that house we may find more clues; at any rate some of us can remain
there whilst the rest find the other places where there be more earth-boxes—at
Bermondsey and Mile End.”
Lord
Godalming stood up. “I can be of some use here,” he said. “I shall wire to my
people to have horses and carriages where they will be most convenient.”
“Look
here, old fellow,” said Morris, “it is a capital idea to have all ready in case
we want to go horsebacking; but don’t you think that one of your snappy
carriages with its heraldic adornments in a byway of Walworth or Mile End would
attract too much attention for our purposes? It seems to me that we ought to
take cabs when we go south or east; and even leave them somewhere near the
neighbourhood we are going to.”
“Friend
Quincey is right!” said the Professor. “His head is what
you call in plane with the horizon. It is a difficult thing that we go to do,
and we do not want no peoples to watch us if so it may.”
Mina took
a growing interest in everything and I was rejoiced to see that the exigency of
affairs was helping her to forget for a time the terrible experience of the
night. She was very, very pale—almost ghastly, and so thin that her lips were
drawn away, showing her teeth in somewhat of prominence. I did not mention this
last, lest it should give her needless pain; but it made my blood run cold in
my veins to think of what had occurred with poor Lucy when the Count had sucked
her blood. As yet there was no sign of the teeth growing sharper; but the time
as yet was short, and there was time for fear.
When we
came to the discussion of the sequence of our efforts and of the disposition of
our forces, there were new sources of doubt. It was finally agreed that before
starting for Piccadilly we should destroy the Count’s lair close at hand. In
case he should find it out too soon, we should thus be still ahead of him in
our work of destruction; and his presence in his purely material shape, and at
his weakest, might give us some new clue.
As to the
disposal of forces, it was suggested by the Professor that, after our visit to
Carfax, we should all enter the house in Piccadilly; that the two doctors and I
should remain there, whilst Lord Godalming and Quincey found the lairs at
Walworth and Mile End and destroyed them. It was possible, if not likely, the
Professor urged, that the Count might appear in Piccadilly during the day, and
that if so we might be able to cope with him then and there. At any rate, we
might be able to follow him in force. To this plan I strenuously objected, and
so far as my going was concerned, for I said that I intended to stay and
protect Mina, I thought that my mind was made up on the subject; but Mina would
not listen to my objection. She said that there might be some law matter in
which I could be useful; that amongst the Count’s papers might be some clue
which I could understand out of my experience in Transylvania; and that, as it
was, all the strength we could muster was required to cope with the Count’s
extraordinary power. I had to give in, for Mina’s resolution was fixed; she
said that it was the last hope for her that we should all work together.
“As for me,” she said, “I have no fear. Things have been as bad as they can be;
and whatever may happen must have in it some element of hope or comfort. Go, my
husband! God can, if He wishes it, guard me as well alone as with any one
present.” So I started up crying out: “Then in God’s
name let us come at once, for we are losing time. The Count may come to
Piccadilly earlier than we think.”
“Not so!”
said Van Helsing, holding up his hand.
“But why?”
I asked.
“Do you
forget,” he said, with actually a smile, “that last night he banqueted heavily,
and will sleep late?”
Did I
forget! shall I ever—can I ever! Can any of us ever forget that terrible scene!
Mina struggled hard to keep her brave countenance; but the pain overmastered
her and she put her hands before her face, and shuddered whilst she moaned. Van
Helsing had not intended to recall her frightful experience. He had simply lost
sight of her and her part in the affair in his intellectual effort. When it
struck him what he said, he was horrified at his thoughtlessness and tried to
comfort her. “Oh, Madam Mina,” he said, “dear, dear Madam Mina, alas! that I of
all who so reverence you should have said anything so forgetful. These stupid
old lips of mine and this stupid old head do not deserve so; but you will
forget it, will you not?” He bent low beside her as he spoke; she took his
hand, and looking at him through her tears, said hoarsely:—
“No, I
shall not forget, for it is well that I remember; and with it I have so much in
memory of you that is sweet, that I take it all together. Now, you must all be
going soon. Breakfast is ready, and we must all eat that we may be strong.”
Breakfast
was a strange meal to us all. We tried to be cheerful and encourage each other,
and Mina was the brightest and most cheerful of us. When it was over, Van
Helsing stood up and said:—
“Now, my
dear friends, we go forth to our terrible enterprise. Are we all armed, as we
were on that night when first we visited our enemy’s lair; armed against
ghostly as well as carnal attack?” We all assured him. “Then it is well. Now,
Madam Mina, you are in any case quite safe here until the sunset; and
before then we shall return—if—— We shall return! But before we go let me see
you armed against personal attack. I have myself, since you came down, prepared
your chamber by the placing of things of which we know, so that He may not
enter. Now let me guard yourself. On your forehead I touch this piece of Sacred
Wafer in the name of the Father, the Son, and——”
There was
a fearful scream which almost froze our hearts to hear. As he had placed the
Wafer on Mina’s forehead, it had seared it—had burned into the flesh as though
it had been a piece of white-hot metal. My poor darling’s brain had told her
the significance of the fact as quickly as her nerves
received the pain of it; and the two so overwhelmed her that her overwrought
nature had its voice in that dreadful scream. But the words to her thought came
quickly; the echo of the scream had not ceased to ring on the air when there
came the reaction, and she sank on her knees on the floor in an agony of abasement.
Pulling her beautiful hair over her face, as the leper of old his mantle, she
wailed out:—
“Unclean!
Unclean! Even the Almighty shuns my polluted flesh! I must bear this mark of
shame upon my forehead until the Judgment Day.” They all paused. I had thrown
myself beside her in an agony of helpless grief, and putting my arms around
held her tight. For a few minutes our sorrowful hearts beat together, whilst
the friends around us turned away their eyes that ran tears silently. Then Van
Helsing turned and said gravely; so gravely that I could not help feeling that
he was in some way inspired, and was stating things outside himself:—
“It may be
that you may have to bear that mark till God himself see fit, as He most surely
shall, on the Judgment Day, to redress all wrongs of the earth and of His
children that He has placed thereon. And oh, Madam Mina, my dear, my dear, may
we who love you be there to see, when that red scar, the sign of God’s
knowledge of what has been, shall pass away, and leave your forehead as pure as
the heart we know. For so surely as we live, that scar shall pass away when God
sees right to lift the burden that is hard upon us. Till then we bear our
Cross, as His Son did in obedience to His Will. It may be that we are chosen
instruments of His good pleasure, and that we ascend to His bidding as that
other through stripes and shame; through tears and blood; through doubts and
fears, and all that makes the difference between God and man.”
There was
hope in his words, and comfort; and they made for resignation. Mina and I both
felt so, and simultaneously we each took one of the old man’s hands and bent
over and kissed it. Then without a word we all knelt down together, and, all
holding hands, swore to be true to each other. We men pledged ourselves to
raise the veil of sorrow from the head of her whom, each in his own way, we
loved; and we prayed for help and guidance in the terrible task which lay
before us.
It was
then time to start. So I said farewell to Mina, a parting which neither of us
shall forget to our dying day; and we set out.
To one
thing I have made up my mind: if we find out that Mina must be a vampire in the
end, then she shall not go into that unknown and terrible land alone. I suppose
it is thus that in old times one vampire meant many;
just as their hideous bodies could only rest in sacred earth, so the holiest
love was the recruiting sergeant for their ghastly ranks.
We entered
Carfax without trouble and found all things the same as on the first occasion.
It was hard to believe that amongst so prosaic surroundings of neglect and dust
and decay there was any ground for such fear as already we knew. Had not our
minds been made up, and had there not been terrible memories to spur us on, we
could hardly have proceeded with our task. We found no papers, or any sign of
use in the house; and in the old chapel the great boxes looked just as we had
seen them last. Dr. Van Helsing said to us solemnly as we stood before them:—
“And now,
my friends, we have a duty here to do. We must sterilise this earth, so sacred
of holy memories, that he has brought from a far distant land for such fell
use. He has chosen this earth because it has been holy. Thus we defeat him with
his own weapon, for we make it more holy still. It was sanctified to such use
of man, now we sanctify it to God.” As he spoke he took from his bag a
screwdriver and a wrench, and very soon the top of one of the cases was thrown
open. The earth smelled musty and close; but we did not somehow seem to mind,
for our attention was concentrated on the Professor. Taking from his box a
piece of the Sacred Wafer he laid it reverently on the earth, and then shutting
down the lid began to screw it home, we aiding him as he worked.
One by one
we treated in the same way each of the great boxes, and left them as we had
found them to all appearance; but in each was a portion of the Host.
When we
closed the door behind us, the Professor said solemnly:—
“So much
is already done. If it may be that with all the others we can be so successful,
then the sunset of this evening may shine on Madam Mina’s forehead all white as
ivory and with no stain!”
As we
passed across the lawn on our way to the station to catch our train we could
see the front of the asylum. I looked eagerly, and in the window of my own room
saw Mina. I waved my hand to her, and nodded to tell that our work there was
successfully accomplished. She nodded in reply to show that she understood. The
last I saw, she was waving her hand in farewell. It was with a heavy heart that
we sought the station and just caught the train, which was steaming in as we
reached the platform.
Piccadilly,
12:30 o’clock.—Just before we reached
Fenchurch Street Lord Godalming said to me:—
“Quincey
and I will find a locksmith. You had better not come with us in case there
should be any difficulty; for under the circumstances it wouldn’t seem so bad
for us to break into an empty house. But you are a solicitor and the
Incorporated Law Society might tell you that you should have known better.” I
demurred as to my not sharing any danger even of odium, but he went on:
“Besides, it will attract less attention if there are not too many of us. My
title will make it all right with the locksmith, and with any policeman that
may come along. You had better go with Jack and the Professor and stay in the
Green Park, somewhere in sight of the house; and when you see the door opened
and the smith has gone away, do you all come across. We shall be on the lookout
for you, and shall let you in.”
“The
advice is good!” said Van Helsing, so we said no more. Godalming and Morris
hurried off in a cab, we following in another. At the corner of Arlington
Street our contingent got out and strolled into the Green Park. My heart beat
as I saw the house on which so much of our hope was centred, looming up grim
and silent in its deserted condition amongst its more lively and spruce-looking
neighbours. We sat down on a bench within good view, and began to smoke cigars
so as to attract as little attention as possible. The minutes seemed to pass
with leaden feet as we waited for the coming of the others.
At length
we saw a four-wheeler drive up. Out of it, in leisurely fashion, got Lord
Godalming and Morris; and down from the box descended a thick-set working man
with his rush-woven basket of tools. Morris paid the cabman, who touched his
hat and drove away. Together the two ascended the steps, and Lord Godalming
pointed out what he wanted done. The workman took off his coat leisurely and
hung it on one of the spikes of the rail, saying something to a policeman who
just then sauntered along. The policeman nodded acquiescence, and the man
kneeling down placed his bag beside him. After searching through it, he took
out a selection of tools which he produced to lay beside him in orderly
fashion. Then he stood up, looked into the keyhole, blew into it, and turning
to his employers, made some remark. Lord Godalming smiled, and the man lifted a
good-sized bunch of keys; selecting one of them, he began to probe the lock, as
if feeling his way with it. After fumbling about for a bit he tried a second,
and then a third. All at once the door opened under a slight push from him, and
he and the two others entered the hall. We sat still; my
own cigar burnt furiously, but Van Helsing’s went cold altogether. We waited
patiently as we saw the workman come out and bring in his bag. Then he held the
door partly open, steadying it with his knees, whilst he fitted a key to the
lock. This he finally handed to Lord Godalming, who took out his purse and gave
him something. The man touched his hat, took his bag, put on his coat and
departed; not a soul took the slightest notice of the whole transaction.
When the
man had fairly gone, we three crossed the street and knocked at the door. It
was immediately opened by Quincey Morris, beside whom stood Lord Godalming
lighting a cigar.
“The place
smells so vilely,” said the latter as we came in. It did indeed smell
vilely—like the old chapel at Carfax—and with our previous experience it was
plain to us that the Count had been using the place pretty freely. We moved to
explore the house, all keeping together in case of attack; for we knew we had a
strong and wily enemy to deal with, and as yet we did not know whether the
Count might not be in the house. In the dining-room, which lay at the back of
the hall, we found eight boxes of earth. Eight boxes only out of the nine,
which we sought! Our work was not over, and would never be until we should have
found the missing box. First we opened the shutters of the window which looked
out across a narrow stone-flagged yard at the blank face of a stable, pointed
to look like the front of a miniature house. There were no windows in it, so we
were not afraid of being over-looked. We did not lose any time in examining the
chests. With the tools which we had brought with us we opened them, one by one,
and treated them as we had treated those others in the old chapel. It was
evident to us that the Count was not at present in the house, and we proceeded
to search for any of his effects.
After a
cursory glance at the rest of the rooms, from basement to attic, we came to the
conclusion that the dining-room contained any effects which might belong to the
Count; and so we proceeded to minutely examine them. They lay in a sort of
orderly disorder on the great dining-room table. There were title deeds of the
Piccadilly house in a great bundle; deeds of the purchase of the houses at Mile
End and Bermondsey; note-paper, envelopes, and pens and ink. All were covered
up in thin wrapping paper to keep them from the dust. There were also a clothes
brush, a brush and comb, and a jug and basin—the latter containing dirty water
which was reddened as if with blood. Last of all was a little heap of keys of
all sorts and sizes, probably those belonging to the other houses. When we had
examined this last find, Lord Godalming and Quincey
Morris taking accurate notes of the various addresses of the houses in the East
and the South, took with them the keys in a great bunch, and set out to destroy
the boxes in these places. The rest of us are, with what patience we can,
waiting their return—or the coming of the Count.
To be
continued
