Atlas Nightshade

Day 53

"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 some one with you."

"Oh," he replied with a smile, "I was only entering my diary."

"Your diary?" I asked him in surprise.

"Yes," he answered. "I keep it in this." As he spoke he laid his 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," he replied with alacrity, and stood up to put it in train

for speaking. Then he paused, and a troubled look overspread his face.

"The fact is," he 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----" He stopped, and I tried to help him out of his

embarrassment:--

"You helped to attend dear Lucy at the end. Let me hear how she died;

for all that I know of her, I shall be very grateful. She was very, very

dear to me."

To my surprise, he answered, with a horrorstruck look in his face:--

"Tell you of her death? Not for the wide world!"

"Why not?" I asked, for some grave, terrible feeling was coming over me.

Again he paused, and I could see that he was trying to invent an excuse.

At length he stammered out:--

"You see, I do not know how to pick out any particular part of the

diary." Even while he was speaking an idea dawned upon him, and he said

with unconscious simplicity, in a different voice, and with the naïveté

of a child: "That's quite true, upon my honour. Honest Indian!" I could

not but smile, at which he grimaced. "I gave myself away that time!" he

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 Lucy 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." He grew to a positively deathly pallor as he 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. His eyes caught the look in mine, and, without his thinking,

followed their direction. As they saw the parcel he realised 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."

He is certainly a man of noble nature; poor dear Lucy was right about

him. He 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 Lucy told you of me; she 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." He carried the phonograph himself 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 Jonathan

Harker and that other of his wife that I let the time run on without

thinking. Mrs. Harker was not down when the maid came to announce

dinner, so I said: "She is possibly tired; let dinner wait an hour," and

I went on with my work. I had just finished Mrs. Harker's diary, when

she came in. She looked sweetly pretty, but very sad, and her 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 with 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," she 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. She

laid her 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 dear Lucy'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 Lucy was beset, and how her terrible doom was being wrought

out. Jonathan and I have been working day and night since Professor Van

Helsing saw us. He is gone to Whitby to get more information, and he

will be here to-morrow 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." She looked at me so appealingly, and at

the same time manifested such courage and resolution in her bearing,

that I gave in at once to her 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 travelled on the road to

poor Lucy'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."

_Mina Harker's Journal._

_29 September._--After dinner I came with Dr. Seward to his study. He

brought back the phonograph from my room, and I took my typewriter. He

placed me in a comfortable 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 he very thoughtfully took a chair, with his

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 Lucy's death, and--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 he jumped up with a

horrified exclamation, and hurriedly taking a case-bottle from a

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, dear Lucy

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 Jonathan'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 he comes. I have sent a telegram to Jonathan to come on here when

he arrives in London from Whitby. In this matter dates are everything,

and I think that if we get all our material ready, and have every item

put in chronological order, we shall have done much. You tell me that

Lord Godalming and Mr. Morris are coming too. Let us be able to tell him

when they come." He accordingly set the phonograph at a slow pace, and I

began to typewrite from the beginning of the seventh cylinder. I used

manifold, and so took three copies of the diary, just as I had done with

all the rest. It was late when I got through, but Dr. Seward went about

his work of going his round of the patients; when he had finished he

came back and sat near me, reading, so that I did not feel too lonely

whilst I worked. How good and thoughtful he is; the world seems full of

good men--even if there _are_ monsters in it. Before I left him I

remembered what Jonathan put in his diary of the Professor's

perturbation at reading something in an evening paper at the station at

Exeter; so, seeing that Dr. Seward keeps his 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, helped us to understand the

terrible events at Whitby when Count 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. He had got his

wife's wire just before starting. He is uncommonly clever, if one can

judge from his face, and full of energy. If this journal be true--and

judging by one's own wonderful experiences, it must be--he is also a man

of great nerve. That going down to the vault a second time was a

remarkable piece of daring. After reading his account of it I was

prepared to meet a good specimen of manhood, but hardly the quiet,

business-like gentleman who came here to-day.

* * * * *

_Later._--After lunch Harker and his wife 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. Mrs. 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. He is now reading his wife's

typescript of my diary. I wonder what they make out of it. Here it

is....