When I went to the station to meet Van Helsing I left the boys behind me.Poor Art seemed more cheerful than he has been since Lucy first took ill,and Quincey is more like his own bright self than he has been for many a long day.
Van Helsing stepped from the carriage with the eager nimbleness of a boy.He saw me at once, and rushed up to me, saying:--
“Ah, friend John, how goes all?Well?So!I have been busy, for I come here to stay if need be.All affairs are settled with me,and I have much to tell. Madam Mina is with you?Yes. And her so fine husband?And Arthur and my friend Quincey, they are with you, too?Good!”
As I drove to the house I told him of what had passed,and of how my own diary had come to be of some use through Mrs.Harker’s suggestion;at which the Professor interrupted me:--
“Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina!She has man’s brain--a brain that a man should have were he much gifted--and a woman’s heart. The good God fashioned her for a purpose, believe me, when He made that so good combination. Friend John, up to now fortune has made that woman of help to us; after to-night she must not have to do with this so terrible affair. It is not good that she run a risk so great. We men are determined--nay, are we not pledged?--to destroy this monster;but it is no part for a woman.Even if she be not harmed,her heart may fail her in so much and so many horrors;and hereafter she may suffer--both in waking,from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams. And,besides, she is young woman and not so long married;there may be other things to think of some time,if not now. You tell me she has wrote all,then she must consult with us;but to-morrow she say good-bye to this work,and we go alone.” I agreed heartily with him,and then I told him what we had found in his absence:that the house which Dracula had bought was the very next one to my own.He was amazed, and a great concern seemed to come on him.“Oh that we had known it before!” he said, “for then we might have reached him in time to save poor Lucy.However, ‘the milk that is spilt cries not out afterwards,’ as you say. We shall not think of that,but go on our way to the end.” Then he fell into a silence that lasted till we entered my own gateway.Before we went to prepare for dinner he said to Mrs. Harker:--
“I am told, Madam Mina,by my friend John that you and your husband have put up in exact order all things that have been, up to this moment.”
“Not up to this moment, Professor,” she said impulsively, “but up to this morning.”
“But why not up to now?We have seen hitherto how good light all the little things have made.We have told our secrets,and yet no one who has told is the worse for it.”
Mrs. Harker began to blush,and taking a paper from her pockets, she said:--
“Dr. Van Helsing, will you read this,and tell me if it must go in.It is my record of to-day.I too have seen the need of putting down at present everything,however trivial; but there is little in this except what is personal. Must it go in?” The Professor read it over gravely,and handed it back, saying:--
“It need not go in if you do not wish it;but I pray that it may.It can but make your husband love you the more,and all us, your friends,more honour you--as well as more esteem and love.” She took it back with another blush and a bright smile.
And so now, up to this very hour,all the records we have are complete and in order.The Professor took away one copy to study after dinner,and before our meeting,which is fixed for nine o’clock.The rest of us have already read everything;so when we meet in the study we shall all be informed as to facts,and can arrange our plan of battle with this terrible and mysterious enemy.
_Mina Harker’s Journal._
_30 September._--When we met in Dr.Seward’s study two hours after dinner,which had been at six o’clock,we unconsciously formed a sort of board or committee.Professor Van Helsing took the head of the table,to which Dr. Seward motioned him as he came into the room.He made me sit next to him on his right,and asked me to act as secretary;Jonathan sat next to me.Opposite us were Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, and Mr.Morris--Lord Godalming being next the Professor,and Dr. Seward in the centre. The Professor said:--
“I may, I suppose, take it that we are all acquainted with the facts that are in these papers.” We all expressed assent, and he went on:--
“Then it were, I think good that I tell you something of the kind of enemy with which we have to deal. I shall then make known to you something of the history of this man, which has been ascertained for me. So we then can discuss how we shall act, and can take our measure according.
“There are such beings as vampires;some of us have evidence that they exist.Even had we not the proof of our own unhappy experience,the teachings and the records of the past give proof enough for sane peoples.I admit that at the first I was sceptic.Were it not that through long years I have train myself to keep an open mind,I could not have believe until such time as that fact thunder on my ear. ‘See!see!I prove; I prove.’ Alas!Had I known at the first what now I know--nay,had I even guess at him--one so precious life had been spared to many of us who did love her. But that is gone; and we must so work, that other poor souls perish not, whilst we can save. The _nosferatu_ do not die like the bee when he sting once. He is only stronger; and being stronger, have yet more power to work evil. This vampire which is amongst us is of himself so strong in person as twenty men; he is of cunning more than mortal, for his cunning be the growth of ages; he have still the aids of necromancy, which is, as his etymology imply, the divination by the dead, and all the dead that he can come nigh to are for him at command; he is brute, and more than brute; he is devil in callous, and the heart of him is not; he can, within limitations, appear at will when, and where, and in any of the forms that are to him; he can, within his range, direct the elements; the storm, the fog, the thunder; he can command all the meaner things: the rat, and the owl, and the bat--the moth, and the fox, and the wolf; he can grow and become small; and he can at times vanish and come unknown. How then are we to begin our strike to destroy him?How shall we find his where; and having found it, how can we destroy?My friends, this is much;it is a terrible task that we undertake,and there may be consequence to make the brave shudder.For if we fail in this our fight he must surely win;and then where end we?Life is nothings; I heed him not. But to fail here,is not mere life or death. It is that we become as him;that we henceforward become foul things of the night like him--without heart or conscience, preying on the bodies and the souls of those we love best. To us for ever are the gates of heaven shut; for who shall open them to us again?We go on for all time abhorred by all;a blot on the face of God’s sunshine;an arrow in the side of Him who died for man.But we are face to face with duty;and in such case must we shrink?For me, I say, no; but then I am old, and life,with his sunshine, his fair places, his song of birds,his music and his love, lie far behind.You others are young. Some have seen sorrow;but there are fair days yet in store. What say you?”
Whilst he was speaking, Jonathan had taken my hand.I feared, oh so much,that the appalling nature of our danger was overcoming him when I saw his hand stretch out; but it was life to me to feel its touch--so strong, so self-reliant, so resolute. A brave man’s hand can speak for itself; it does not even need a woman’s love to hear its music.
When the Professor had done speaking my husband looked in my eyes,and I in his; there was no need for speaking between us.
“I answer for Mina and myself,” he said.
“Count me in, Professor,” said Mr. Quincey Morris,laconically as usual.