Part Twenty-three
Vespertine
Part Twenty-three
August 24, 1912
Dear Lord Greystoke,
I have been an unwitting victim of my own memories since I wrote you last. I had not anticipated that beginning to impart this tale would leave me quite so vulnerable to the flood of emotions that now overtake me. Everything is fresh again. Every loss, every joy.
I must, while the embers still burn hot within me, lay the ink to paper and set the rest of it down. I cannot lie to you, my dear Lord. I am still afraid of what you will think of me when you have read this, but you must, when all has been said, believe that none of this is fiction. These are the events as I lived them, and I rely on no second person save those directly involved.
I had been speaking of my husband yesterday, was I not?
He was, as I most surely remarked, as good a man as any woman may hope to dream for. He loved me absolutely, without compromise, and with a great deal more passion than most people believed of him. So it was in the name of that love, in the right proper service to his devotion, that he allowed his employers to... that he accepted an assignment with a Count in Transylvania.
Count Dracula.
The name, doubtless, means nothing to you. Less than nothing. His country, and his infamy, are thousands of miles and hundreds of years from where you are, and were it not for the cruel hand of fate that allowed him to intersect with our lives, I would have remained blissfully ignorant as well. Such was not to be, however, and the happy course of our lives, plodding along like a steady locomotive, was horribly and irreparably derailed. Even now, seeing it set down, the name sets my heart to racing, both in fear and, thought it may damn me to admit it, something far less pure.
I cannot say what prompted the Count to do what he did at first. I do not know what his intentions were when he first sought out my husband's law firm, but it has been made clear to me that when my dear-departed Jonathan showed him, or rather, allowed him to see a photograph of me that had been taken some months before, his tortured, ancient soul came painfully to life.
You must imagine, my dear friend, what it must be like to have been dead for so long in your heart, and then to suddenly, inexplicably, find a reason for that heart to beat again. I am told that I bore a striking resemblance to a long-dead love of his, and whether that was true or not makes no matter. He had, despite my engagement, fixed his sights on me and set about on a rather sinister plan to make me his own.
I received a letter from Jonathan some two weeks after his departure, telling me that the Count had insisted that he remain with him for, at the least, a month. You will remember, with some sharp clarity I'm sure, the length of time that a month may mean to a heady teenager. Why, it seemed an eternity. Our blood cools with age, and these paltry weeks and months trudge on like a trapper in the snow. But then... oh, then it seemed as if my whole life were ending.
Dracula came to London then, securing my betrothed in his dank and musty castle, chaining him to three demonic women who...
I'm sorry. I am not so ready as I thought to discuss that. Let me come back to it in a short while. My blood is not so cool in my age as I would have you think.
It was at this time that my childhood friend, Lucy, took suddenly ill. Her malady was such that no doctor of medicine could determine its cause, or its cure. She had become white as a ghost, and in the silent stillness of her bedchambers, the sounds of church mice seemed to her like the stampeding of elephants. She developed an unnatural sensitivity to sunlight, to garlic, and, though you may think it unrelated to so physical a list of symptoms, the presence of a crucifix became an anathema to her.
The source of this wretched sickness would elude us for some time, and it was not until the arrival of Doctor Van Helsing that we were able to conclude the mysterious cause.
I have avoided the truth of this for many years now, shying away from specifics and claiming that the details were too painful to recall. There is pain, yes, but I remember everything, every detail, as if it were happening again for me right now. I have demurred from all attempts to draw this out of me prior to now for the simple reason that the truth of it is too fantastic to be believed.
It is this: Lucy was the victim of a vampyre.
The word means as little to you, I'm sure, as the good Count's name, but if you will allow me to push the boundaries of your attention, and your imagination, I shall explain. My education in this is not entirely academic, you see.
As I said earlier, it was only with the arrival of Doctor Van Helsing that we knew the source of Lucy's illness. Sadly, we did not know enough. Not then. Poor Lucy paid the price for our ignorance and perished but a few days later.
In the midst of all this, I had made the acquaintance of a charming man, a foreigner, who, despite my protests, had managed to capture my fancy. I wrote to Jonathan every day, often twice a day, but no replies were forthcoming. Still... there was the handsome stranger. My prince.
You have no doubt guessed that this mysterious suitor was none other than Count Dracula. He who had all but imprisoned my fiancée. He who, I would later discover, was the cause of Lucy's death.
What is a vampyre, Lord Greystoke? You may check your books but I doubt you'll find any mention of them. They are creatures of the night, feeding on the blood of their victim to extend their life. They may be immensely old, on the order of several centuries, and when coupled with the maleficent intelligence of one such as Dracula, there can be no greater foe.
They have precious few weaknesses, those deadly blood-suckers, but we needed look only to Lucy for the catalogue. Sunlight. Holy water. Garlic. Crosses. A vampyre cannot abide such things, but to kill them, you must either drive a wooden stake through their heart or take their heads. Nothing else will do.
Can you hear the change in my tone, Lord Greystoke? Can you hear how clinical and detached I may be in this matter? It is because my passions once led me far afield of the woman I should have been. It because the most sinister ability that a vampyre has is to transform others in their image. Others... like Lucy.
She rose from her crypt, no longer one of the living, but now a demonic thing, one of the undead, and Van Helsing, with the help of some of Lucy's adoring suitors (so recently her pall bearers!), put her soul to rest at last.
God, there is so much more to this story. I do not know if I may finish it this evening. My time here is horribly limited and I sit here bleary-eyed, culling through these horrid batch of memories. Poor Lucy. Poor, poor Lucy. How I miss her, Charles. How I miss me, too.
The sun rises, my Lord. I must to bed. I cannot abide the sun these days.
I shall write again anon.
Yours, very truly,
Mrs. Mina Harker
* * *
September 8, 1912
Mrs. Harker,
I am, you may imagine, at something of a loss for words.
Are you mad? Has some Transylvanian sickness infected your blood and robbed you of your reason? Perhaps. But I think not. I have spoken to Lord Baltimore, who knew your husband but a little, and without revealing too much of your confidence in me, he has confirmed all that you have said.
He remembered Lucy, and Van Helsing. He remembered her tragic, sudden death, and the hard days that followed. The ones that took your husband.
I cannot promise that I can swallow this story whole, milady, but no doubt you have already written its final act. I shall await tomorrow's letter with great eagerness, and not some small trepidation.
Sincerely,
Charles, Earl of Greystoke
Part Twenty-three
August 24, 1912
Dear Lord Greystoke,
I have been an unwitting victim of my own memories since I wrote you last. I had not anticipated that beginning to impart this tale would leave me quite so vulnerable to the flood of emotions that now overtake me. Everything is fresh again. Every loss, every joy.
I must, while the embers still burn hot within me, lay the ink to paper and set the rest of it down. I cannot lie to you, my dear Lord. I am still afraid of what you will think of me when you have read this, but you must, when all has been said, believe that none of this is fiction. These are the events as I lived them, and I rely on no second person save those directly involved.
I had been speaking of my husband yesterday, was I not?
He was, as I most surely remarked, as good a man as any woman may hope to dream for. He loved me absolutely, without compromise, and with a great deal more passion than most people believed of him. So it was in the name of that love, in the right proper service to his devotion, that he allowed his employers to... that he accepted an assignment with a Count in Transylvania.
Count Dracula.
The name, doubtless, means nothing to you. Less than nothing. His country, and his infamy, are thousands of miles and hundreds of years from where you are, and were it not for the cruel hand of fate that allowed him to intersect with our lives, I would have remained blissfully ignorant as well. Such was not to be, however, and the happy course of our lives, plodding along like a steady locomotive, was horribly and irreparably derailed. Even now, seeing it set down, the name sets my heart to racing, both in fear and, thought it may damn me to admit it, something far less pure.
I cannot say what prompted the Count to do what he did at first. I do not know what his intentions were when he first sought out my husband's law firm, but it has been made clear to me that when my dear-departed Jonathan showed him, or rather, allowed him to see a photograph of me that had been taken some months before, his tortured, ancient soul came painfully to life.
You must imagine, my dear friend, what it must be like to have been dead for so long in your heart, and then to suddenly, inexplicably, find a reason for that heart to beat again. I am told that I bore a striking resemblance to a long-dead love of his, and whether that was true or not makes no matter. He had, despite my engagement, fixed his sights on me and set about on a rather sinister plan to make me his own.
I received a letter from Jonathan some two weeks after his departure, telling me that the Count had insisted that he remain with him for, at the least, a month. You will remember, with some sharp clarity I'm sure, the length of time that a month may mean to a heady teenager. Why, it seemed an eternity. Our blood cools with age, and these paltry weeks and months trudge on like a trapper in the snow. But then... oh, then it seemed as if my whole life were ending.
Dracula came to London then, securing my betrothed in his dank and musty castle, chaining him to three demonic women who...
I'm sorry. I am not so ready as I thought to discuss that. Let me come back to it in a short while. My blood is not so cool in my age as I would have you think.
It was at this time that my childhood friend, Lucy, took suddenly ill. Her malady was such that no doctor of medicine could determine its cause, or its cure. She had become white as a ghost, and in the silent stillness of her bedchambers, the sounds of church mice seemed to her like the stampeding of elephants. She developed an unnatural sensitivity to sunlight, to garlic, and, though you may think it unrelated to so physical a list of symptoms, the presence of a crucifix became an anathema to her.
The source of this wretched sickness would elude us for some time, and it was not until the arrival of Doctor Van Helsing that we were able to conclude the mysterious cause.
I have avoided the truth of this for many years now, shying away from specifics and claiming that the details were too painful to recall. There is pain, yes, but I remember everything, every detail, as if it were happening again for me right now. I have demurred from all attempts to draw this out of me prior to now for the simple reason that the truth of it is too fantastic to be believed.
It is this: Lucy was the victim of a vampyre.
The word means as little to you, I'm sure, as the good Count's name, but if you will allow me to push the boundaries of your attention, and your imagination, I shall explain. My education in this is not entirely academic, you see.
As I said earlier, it was only with the arrival of Doctor Van Helsing that we knew the source of Lucy's illness. Sadly, we did not know enough. Not then. Poor Lucy paid the price for our ignorance and perished but a few days later.
In the midst of all this, I had made the acquaintance of a charming man, a foreigner, who, despite my protests, had managed to capture my fancy. I wrote to Jonathan every day, often twice a day, but no replies were forthcoming. Still... there was the handsome stranger. My prince.
You have no doubt guessed that this mysterious suitor was none other than Count Dracula. He who had all but imprisoned my fiancée. He who, I would later discover, was the cause of Lucy's death.
What is a vampyre, Lord Greystoke? You may check your books but I doubt you'll find any mention of them. They are creatures of the night, feeding on the blood of their victim to extend their life. They may be immensely old, on the order of several centuries, and when coupled with the maleficent intelligence of one such as Dracula, there can be no greater foe.
They have precious few weaknesses, those deadly blood-suckers, but we needed look only to Lucy for the catalogue. Sunlight. Holy water. Garlic. Crosses. A vampyre cannot abide such things, but to kill them, you must either drive a wooden stake through their heart or take their heads. Nothing else will do.
Can you hear the change in my tone, Lord Greystoke? Can you hear how clinical and detached I may be in this matter? It is because my passions once led me far afield of the woman I should have been. It because the most sinister ability that a vampyre has is to transform others in their image. Others... like Lucy.
She rose from her crypt, no longer one of the living, but now a demonic thing, one of the undead, and Van Helsing, with the help of some of Lucy's adoring suitors (so recently her pall bearers!), put her soul to rest at last.
God, there is so much more to this story. I do not know if I may finish it this evening. My time here is horribly limited and I sit here bleary-eyed, culling through these horrid batch of memories. Poor Lucy. Poor, poor Lucy. How I miss her, Charles. How I miss me, too.
The sun rises, my Lord. I must to bed. I cannot abide the sun these days.
I shall write again anon.
Yours, very truly,
Mrs. Mina Harker
* * *
September 8, 1912
Mrs. Harker,
I am, you may imagine, at something of a loss for words.
Are you mad? Has some Transylvanian sickness infected your blood and robbed you of your reason? Perhaps. But I think not. I have spoken to Lord Baltimore, who knew your husband but a little, and without revealing too much of your confidence in me, he has confirmed all that you have said.
He remembered Lucy, and Van Helsing. He remembered her tragic, sudden death, and the hard days that followed. The ones that took your husband.
I cannot promise that I can swallow this story whole, milady, but no doubt you have already written its final act. I shall await tomorrow's letter with great eagerness, and not some small trepidation.
Sincerely,
Charles, Earl of Greystoke