The funeral was arranged for the next succeeding day, so that
Lucy and her mother might be buried together. I attended to all
the ghastly formalities, and the urbane undertaker proved that
his staff were afflicted—or blessed—with something of his own
obsequious suavity. Even the woman who performed the last
offices for the dead remarked to me, in a confidential, brother-
professional way, when she had come out from the death-
chamber:—
"She makes a very beautiful corpse, sir. It's quite a privilege to
attend on her. It's not too much to say that she will do credit to
our establishment!"
I noticed that Van Helsing never kept far away. This was
possible from the disordered state of things in the household.
There were no relatives at hand; and as Arthur had to be back
the next day to attend at his father's funeral, we were unable to
notify any one who should have been bidden. Under the
circumstances, Van Helsing and I took it upon ourselves to
examine papers, etc. He insisted upon looking over Lucy's
papers himself. I asked him why, for I feared that he, being a
foreigner, might not be quite aware of English legalrequirements, and so might in ignorance make some
unnecessary trouble. He answered me:—
"I know; I know. You forget that I am a lawyer as well as a
doctor. But this is not altogether for the law. You knew that,
when you avoided the coroner. I have more than him to avoid.
There may be papers more—such as this."
As he spoke he took from his pocket-book the memorandum
which had been in Lucy's breast, and which she had torn in her
sleep.
"When you find anything of the solicitor who is for the late Mrs.
Westenra, seal all her papers, and write him to-night. For me, I
watch here in the room and in Miss Lucy's old room all night,
and I myself search for what may be. It is not well that her very
thoughts go into the hands of strangers."
I went on with my part of the work, and in another half hour
had found the name and address of Mrs. Westenra's solicitor
and had written to him. All the poor lady's papers were in order;
explicit directions regarding the place of
burial were given. I had hardly sealed the letter, when, to my
surprise, Van Helsing walked into the room, saying:—
"Can I help you, friend John? I am free, and if I may, my
service is to you."
"Have you got what you looked for?" I asked, to which he
replied:—
"I did not look for any specific thing. I only hoped to find, and
find I have, all that there was—only some letters and a few
memoranda, and a diary new begun. But I have them here, and
we shall for the present say nothing of them. I shall see that
poor lad to-morrow evening, and, with his sanction, I shall use
some."
When we had finished the work in hand, he said to me:—
"And now, friend John, I think we may to bed. We want sleep,
both you and I, and rest to recuperate. To-morrow we shall
have much to do, but for the to-night there is no need of us.
Alas!"
Before turning in we went to look at poor Lucy. The undertaker
had certainly done his work well, for the room was turned into a
small chapelle ardente. There was a wilderness of beautiful
white flowers, and death was made as little repulsive as might
be. The end of the winding-sheet was laid over the face; when
the Professor bent over and turned it gently back, we both
started at the beauty before us, the tall wax candles showing a
sufficient light to note it well. All Lucy's loveliness had come
back to her in death, and the hours that had passed, instead of
leaving traces of "decay's effacing fingers," had but restored
the beauty of life, till positively I could not believe my eyes that
I was looking at a corpse.The Professor looked sternly grave. He had not loved her as I
had, and there was no need for tears in his eyes. He said to me:
"Remain till I return," and left the room. He came back with a
handful of wild garlic from the box waiting in the hall, but which
had not been opened, and placed the flowers amongst the
others on and around the bed. Then he took from his neck,
inside his collar, a little gold crucifix, and placed it over the
mouth. He restored the sheet to its place, and we came away.
I was undressing in my own room, when, with a premonitory tap
at the door, he entered, and at once began to speak:—
"To-morrow I want you to bring me, before night, a set of post-
mortem knives."
"Must we make an autopsy?" I asked.
"Yes and no. I want to operate, but not as you think. Let me tell
you now, but not a word to another. I want to cut off her head
and take out her heart. Ah!
you a surgeon, and so shocked! You, whom I have seen with no
tremble of hand or heart, do operations of life and death that
make the rest shudder. Oh, but I must not forget, my dear
friend John, that you loved her; and I have not forgotten it, for
it is I that shall operate, and you must only help. I would like to
do it to-night, but for Arthur I must not; he will be free after his
father's funeral to-morrow, and he will want to see her—to see
it. Then, when she is coffined ready for the next day, you and Ishall come when all sleep. We shall unscrew the coffin-lid, and
shall do our operation: and then replace all, so that none know,
save we alone."
"But why do it at all? The girl is dead. Why mutilate her poor
body without need? And if there is no necessity for a post-
mortem and nothing to gain by it—no good to her, to us, to
science, to human knowledge—why do it? Without such it is
monstrous."
For answer he put his hand on my shoulder, and said, with
infinite tenderness:—
"Friend John, I pity your poor bleeding heart; and I love you the
more because it does so bleed. If I could, I would take on
myself the burden that you do bear. But there are things that
you know not, but that you shall know, and bless me for
knowing, though they are not pleasant things. John, my child,
you have been my friend now many years, and yet did you ever
know me to do any without good cause? I may err—I am but
man; but I believe in all I do. Was it not for these causes that
you send for me when the great trouble came? Yes! Were you
not amazed, nay horrified, when I would not let Arthur kiss his
love
—though she was dying—and snatched him away by all my
strength? Yes! And yet you saw how she thanked me, with her
so beautiful dying eyes, her voice, too, so weak, and she kiss myrough old hand and bless me? Yes! And did you not hear me
swear promise to her, that so she closed her eyes grateful? Yes!
"Well, I have good reason now for all I want to do. You have for
many years trust me; you have believe me weeks past, when
there be things so strange that you might have well doubt.
Believe me yet a little, friend John. If you trust me not, then I
must tell what I think; and that is not perhaps well. And if I
work—as work I shall, no matter trust or no trust—without my
friend trust in me, I work with heavy heart and feel, oh! so lonely
when I want all help and courage that may be!" He paused a
moment and went on solemnly: "Friend John, there are strange
and terrible days before us. Let us not be two, but one, that so
we work to a good end. Will you not have faith in me?"
I took his hand, and promised him. I held my door open as he
went away, and watched him go into his room and close the
door. As I stood without moving, I saw one of the maids pass
silently along the passage—she had her
back towards me, so did not see me—and go into the room
where Lucy lay. The sight touched me. Devotion is so rare, and
we are so grateful to those who show it unasked to those we
love. Here was a poor girl putting aside the terrors which she
naturally had of death to go watch alone by the bier of the
mistress whom she loved, so that the poor clay might not be
lonely till laid to eternal rest....I must have slept long and soundly, for it was broad daylight
when Van Helsing waked me by coming into my room. He came
over to my bedside and said:—
"You need not trouble about the knives; we shall not do it."
"Why not?" I asked. For his solemnity of the night before had
greatly impressed me.
"Because," he said sternly, "it is too late—or too early. See!"
Here he held up the little golden crucifix. "This was stolen in the
night."
"How, stolen," I asked in wonder, "since you have it now?"
"Because I get it back from the worthless wretch who stole it,
from the woman who robbed the dead and the living. Her
punishment will surely come, but not through me; she knew not
altogether what she did and thus unknowing, she only stole.
Now we must wait."
He went away on the word, leaving me with a new mystery to
think of, a new puzzle to grapple with.
The forenoon was a dreary time, but at noon the solicitor came:
Mr. Marquand, of Wholeman, Sons, Marquand & Lidderdale. He
was very genial and very appreciative of what we had done,
and took off our hands all cares as to details. During lunch he
told us that Mrs. Westenra had for some time expected sudden
death from her heart, and had put her affairs in absolute order;
he informed us that, with the exception of a certain entailedproperty of Lucy's father's which now, in default of direct issue,
went back to a distant branch of the family, the whole estate,
real and personal, was left absolutely to Arthur Holmwood.
When he had told us so much he went on:—
"Frankly we did our best to prevent such a testamentary
disposition, and pointed out certain contingencies that might
leave her daughter either penniless or not so free as she should
be to act regarding a matrimonial alliance. Indeed, we pressed
the matter so far that we almost came into collision, for she
asked us if we were or were not prepared to carry out her
wishes. Of course, we had then no alternative but to accept. We
were right in principle, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred
we should have proved, by the logic of events, the accuracy of
our judgment. Frankly, however, I must
admit that in this case any other form of disposition would have
rendered impossible the carrying out of her wishes. For by her
predeceasing her daughter the latter would have come into
possession of the property, and, even had she only survived her
mother by five minutes, her property would, in case there were
no will—and a will was a practical impossibility in such a case—
have been treated at her decease as under intestacy. In which
case Lord Godalming, though so dear a friend, would have had
no claim in the world; and the inheritors, being remote, would
not be likely to abandon their just rights, for sentimentalreasons regarding an entire stranger. I assure you, my dear sirs,
I am rejoiced at the result, perfectly rejoiced."
He was a good fellow, but his rejoicing at the one little part—in
which he was officially interested—of so great a tragedy, was
an object-lesson in the limitations of sympathetic
understanding.
He did not remain long, but said he would look in later in the
day and see Lord Godalming. His coming, however, had been a
certain comfort to us, since it assured us that we should not
have to dread hostile criticism as to any of our acts. Arthur was
expected at five o'clock, so a little before that time we visited
the death-chamber. It was so in very truth, for now both mother
and daughter lay in it. The undertaker, true to his craft, had
made the best display he could of his goods, and there was a
mortuary air about the place that lowered our spirits at once.
Van Helsing ordered the former arrangement to be adhered to,
explaining that, as Lord Godalming was coming very soon, it
would be less harrowing to his feelings to see all that was left of
his fiancée quite alone. The undertaker seemed shocked at his
own stupidity and exerted himself to restore things to the
condition in which we left them the night before, so that when
Arthur came such shocks to his feelings as we could avoid were
saved.
Poor fellow! He looked desperately sad and broken; even his
stalwart manhood seemed to have shrunk somewhat under the
strain of his much-tried emotions. He had, I knew, been verygenuinely and devotedly attached to his father; and to lose him,
and at such a time, was a bitter blow to him. With me he was
warm as ever, and to Van Helsing he was sweetly courteous; but
I could not help seeing that there was some constraint with him.
The Professor noticed it, too, and motioned me to bring him
upstairs. I did so, and left him at the door of the room, as I felt
he would like to be quite alone with her, but he took my arm and
led me in, saying huskily:—
"You loved her too, old fellow; she told me all about it, and there
was no friend had a closer place in her heart than you. I don't
know how to thank you for all you have done for her. I can't
think yet "
Here he suddenly broke down, and threw his arms round my
shoulders and
laid his head on my breast, crying:—
"Oh, Jack! Jack! What shall I do! The whole of life seems gone
from me all at once, and there is nothing in the wide world for
me to live for."
I comforted him as well as I could. In such cases men do not
need much expression. A grip of the hand, the tightening of an
arm over the shoulder, a sob in unison, are expressions of
sympathy dear to a man's heart. I stood still and silent till his
sobs died away, and then I said softly to him:—"Come and look at her."
Together we moved over to the bed, and I lifted the lawn from
her face. God! how beautiful she was. Every hour seemed to be
enhancing her loveliness. It frightened and amazed me
somewhat; and as for Arthur, he fell a-trembling, and finally was
shaken with doubt as with an ague. At last, after a long pause,
he said to me in a faint whisper:—
"Jack, is she really dead?"
I assured him sadly that it was so, and went on to suggest—for
I felt that such a horrible doubt should not have life for a
moment longer than I could help—that it often happened that
after death faces became softened and even resolved into their
youthful beauty; that this was especially so when death had
been preceded by any acute or prolonged suffering. It seemed
to quite do away with any doubt, and, after kneeling beside the
couch for a while and looking at her lovingly and long, he turned
aside. I told him that that must be good-bye, as the coffin had
to be prepared; so he went back and took her dead hand in his
and kissed it, and bent over and kissed her forehead. He came
away, fondly looking back over his shoulder at her as he came.
I left him in the drawing-room, and told Van Helsing that he had
said good- bye; so the latter went to the kitchen to tell the
undertaker's men to proceed with the preparations and to
screw up the coffin. When he came out of the room again I told
him of Arthur's question, and he replied:—"I am not surprised. Just now I doubted for a moment myself!"
We all dined together, and I could see that poor Art was trying
to make the best of things. Van Helsing had been silent all
dinner-time; but when we had lit our cigars he said—
"Lord——"; but Arthur interrupted him:—
"No, no, not that, for God's sake! not yet at any rate. Forgive
me, sir: I did not mean to speak offensively; it is only because
my loss is so recent."
The Professor answered very sweetly:—
"I only used that name because I was in doubt. I must not call
you 'Mr.,'
and I have grown to love you—yes, my dear boy, to love you—
as Arthur." Arthur held out his hand, and took the old man's
warmly.
"Call me what you will," he said. "I hope I may always have the
title of a friend. And let me say that I am at a loss for words to
thank you for your goodness to my poor dear." He paused a
moment, and went on: "I know that she understood your
goodness even better than I do; and if I was rude or in any way
wanting at that time you acted so—you remember"—the
Professor nodded—"you must forgive me."
He answered with a grave kindness:—"I know it was hard for you to quite trust me then, for to trust
such violence needs to understand; and I take it that you do
not—that you cannot— trust me now, for you do not yet
understand. And there may be more times when I shall want
you to trust when you cannot—and may not—and must not yet
understand. But the time will come when your trust shall be
whole and complete in me, and when you shall understand as
though the sunlight himself shone through. Then you shall bless
me from first to last for your own sake, and for the sake of
others and for her dear sake to whom I swore to protect."
"And, indeed, indeed, sir," said Arthur warmly, "I shall in all ways
trust you. I know and believe you have a very noble heart, and
you are Jack's friend, and you were hers. You shall do what you
like."
The Professor cleared his throat a couple of times, as though
about to speak, and finally said:—
"May I ask you something now?" "Certainly."
"You know that Mrs. Westenra left you all her property?" "No,
poor dear; I never thought of it."
"And as it is all yours, you have a right to deal with it as you will.
I want you to give me permission to read all Miss Lucy's papers
and letters. Believe me, it is no idle curiosity. I have a motive of
which, be sure, she would have approved. I have them all here. I
took them before we knew that all was yours, so that no strange
hand might touch them—no strange eye look through wordsinto her soul. I shall keep them, if I may; even you may not see
them yet, but I shall keep them safe. No word shall be lost; and
in the good time I shall give them back to you. It's a hard thing
I ask, but you will do it, will you not, for Lucy's sake?"
Arthur spoke out heartily, like his old self:—
"Dr. Van Helsing, you may do what you will. I feel that in saying
this I am
doing what my dear one would have approved. I shall not
trouble you with questions till the time comes."
The old Professor stood up as he said solemnly:—
"And you are right. There will be pain for us all; but it will not be
all pain, nor will this pain be the last. We and you too—you most
of all, my dear boy— will have to pass through the bitter water
before we reach the sweet. But we must be brave of heart and
unselfish, and do our duty, and all will be well!"
I slept on a sofa in Arthur's room that night. Van Helsing did not
go to bed at all. He went to and fro, as if patrolling the house,
and was never out of sight of the room where Lucy lay in her
coffin, strewn with the wild garlic flowers, which sent, through
the odour of lily and rose, a heavy, overpowering smell into the
night.
Mina Harker's Journal.
22 September.—In the train to Exeter. Jonathan sleeping.It seems only yesterday that the last entry was made, and yet
how much between then, in Whitby and all the world before me,
Jonathan away and no news of him; and now, married to
Jonathan, Jonathan a solicitor, a partner, rich, master of his
business, Mr. Hawkins dead and buried, and Jonathan with
another attack that may harm him. Some day he may ask me
about it. Down it all goes. I am rusty in my shorthand—see what
unexpected prosperity does for us—so it may be as well to
freshen it up again with an exercise anyhow....
The service was very simple and very solemn. There were only
ourselves and the servants there, one or two old friends of his
from Exeter, his London agent, and a gentleman representing
Sir John Paxton, the President of the Incorporated Law Society.
Jonathan and I stood hand in hand, and we felt that our best
and dearest friend was gone from us....
We came back to town quietly, taking a 'bus to Hyde Park
Corner. Jonathan thought it would interest me to go into the
Row for a while, so we sat down; but there were very few people
there, and it was sad-looking and desolate to see so many
empty chairs. It made us think of the empty chair at home; so
we got up and walked down Piccadilly. Jonathan was holding
me by the arm, the way he used to in old days before I went to
school. I felt it very improper, for you can't go on for some
years teaching etiquette and decorum to other girls without the
pedantry of it biting into yourself a bit; but it was Jonathan,till it send back the blood from my cheek. My heart bleed for
that poor boy—that dear boy, so of the age of mine own boy
had I been so blessed that he live, and with his hair and eyes
the same. There, you know now why I love him so. And yet when
he say things that touch my husband-heart to the quick, and
make my father-heart yearn to him as to no other man—not
even to you, friend John, for we are more level in experiences
than father and son—yet even at such moment King Laugh he
come to me and shout and bellow in my ear, 'Here I am! here I
am!' till the blood come dance back and bring some of the
sunshine that he carry with him to my cheek. Oh, friend John, it
is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and
woes, and troubles; and yet when King Laugh come he make
them all dance to the tune he play. Bleeding hearts, and dry
bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall—all
dance together to the music that he make with that smileless
mouth of him. And believe me, friend John, that he is good to
come, and kind. Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn
tight with strain that pull us different ways. Then tears come;
and, like the rain on the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps
the strain become too great, and we break. But King Laugh he
come like the sunshine, and he ease off the strain again; and we
bear to go on with our labour, what it may be."
I did not like to wound him by pretending not to see his idea;
but, as I did not yet understand the cause of his laughter, Iasked him. As he answered me his face grew stern, and he said
in quite a different tone:—
"Oh, it was the grim irony of it all—this so lovely lady garlanded
with flowers, that looked so fair as life, till one by one we
wondered if she were truly dead; she laid in that so fine marble
house in that lonely churchyard, where rest so many of her kin,
laid there with the mother who loved her, and whom she loved;
and that sacred bell going 'Toll! toll! toll!' so sad and slow; and
those holy men, with the white garments of the angel,
pretending to read
books, and yet all the time their eyes never on the page; and all
of us with the bowed head. And all for what? She is dead; so! Is
it not?"
"Well, for the life of me, Professor," I said, "I can't see anything
to laugh at in all that. Why, your explanation makes it a harder
puzzle than before. But even if the burial service was comic,
what about poor Art and his trouble? Why, his heart was simply
breaking."
"Just so. Said he not that the transfusion of his blood to her
veins had made her truly his bride?"
"Yes, and it was a sweet and comforting idea for him."
"Quite so. But there was a difficulty, friend John. If so that, then
what about the others? Ho, ho! Then this so sweet maid is apolyandrist, and me, with my poor wife dead to me, but alive by
Church's law, though no wits, all gone—even I, who am faithful
husband to this now-no-wife, am bigamist."
"I don't see where the joke comes in there either!" I said; and I
did not feel particularly pleased with him for saying such things.
He laid his hand on my arm, and said:—
"Friend John, forgive me if I pain. I showed not my feeling to
others when it would wound, but only to you, my old friend,
whom I can trust. If you could have looked into my very heart
then when I want to laugh; if you could have done so when the
laugh arrived; if you could do so now, when King Laugh have
pack up his crown, and all that is to him—for he go far, far away
from me, and for a long, long time—maybe you would perhaps
pity me the most of all."
I was touched by the tenderness of his tone, and asked why.
"Because I know!"
And now we are all scattered; and for many a long day
loneliness will sit over our roofs with brooding wings. Lucy lies in
the tomb of her kin, a lordly death-house in a lonely churchyard,
away from teeming London; where the air is fresh, and the sun
rises over Hampstead Hill, and where wild flowers grow of their
own accord.
So I can finish this diary; and God only knows if I shall ever
begin another. If I do, or if I even open this again, it will be to
deal with different people and different themes; for here at theend, where the romance of my life is told, ere I go back to take
up the thread of my life-work, I say sadly and without hope,
"FINIS."
"The Westminster Gazette," 25 September. A HAMPSTEAD
MYSTERY.
The neighbourhood of Hampstead is just at present exercised
with a series of events which seem to run on lines parallel to
those of what was known to the writers of headlines as "The
Kensington Horror," or "The Stabbing Woman," or "The Woman
in Black." During the past two or three days several cases have
occurred of young children straying from home or neglecting to
return from their playing on the Heath. In all these cases the
children were too young to give any properly intelligible account
of themselves, but the consensus of their excuses is that they
had been with a "bloofer lady." It has always been late in the
evening when they have been missed, and on two occasions the
children have not been found until early in the following
morning. It is generally supposed in the neighbourhood that, as
the first child missed gave as his reason for being away that a
"bloofer lady" had asked him to come for a walk, the others had
picked up the phrase and used it as occasion served. This is the
more natural as the favourite game of the little ones at present
is luring each other away by wiles. A correspondent writes us
that to see some of the tiny tots pretending to be the "blooferlady" is supremely funny. Some of our caricaturists might, he
says, take a lesson in the irony of grotesque by comparing the
reality and the picture. It is only in accordance with general
principles of human nature that the "bloofer lady" should be the
popular rôle at these al fresco performances. Our
correspondent naïvely says that even Ellen Terry could not be so
winningly attractive as some of these grubby-faced little
children pretend—and even imagine themselves—to be.
There is, however, possibly a serious side to the question, for
some of the children, indeed all who have been missed at night,
have been slightly torn or wounded in the throat. The wounds
seem such as might be made by a rat or a small dog, and
although of not much importance individually, would tend to
show that whatever animal inflicts them has a system or
method of its own. The police of the division have been
instructed to keep a sharp look-out for straying children,
especially when very young, in and around Hampstead Heath,
and for any stray dog which may be about.
"The Westminster Gazette," 25 September. Extra Special.
THE HAMPSTEAD HORROR. ANOTHER CHILD INJURED.
The "Bloofer Lady."
We have just received intelligence that another child, missed
last night, was only discovered late in the morning under a furze
bush at the Shooter's Hill side of Hampstead Heath, which is,perhaps, less frequented than the other parts. It has the same
tiny wound in the throat as has been noticed in
other cases. It was terribly weak, and looked quite emaciated.
It too, when partially restored, had the common story to tell of
being lured away by the "bloofer lady."