by J. S. Barnes
‘Caroline,’ I said authoritatively. ‘You need to go back to bed. You need to rest and recuperate and be yourself again.’
She shook her head, and when she spoke her voice was so flat that I found myself wondering, at least at first, if she was not, after all, a somnambulist.
‘There is a shadow,’ she said. ‘A shadow from the East.’
‘What do you mean? I have to say, I think you’re worrying unduly.’
‘It is moving closer,’ she breathed. ‘It brings such contamination.’ She held out her arms as if to implore me, cutting a weird figure against the flames. ‘The world that is approaching is no place for a child. Or, at least, for no child of mine.’
‘Please.’ I rose from my bed. ‘Please, we need to get you back to—’
She held up her hand to command me to stop my speech, more forceful and decisive than ever I had seen her before. ‘And so,’ she said, ‘the child is being taken from me. It is being stifled in the womb. It is being ripped away.’
The fire seethed, hissed and crackled behind her, and a smile of madness appeared upon her lips.
It was only then that I finally understood what was occurring. I saw upon the front of Carrie’s nightgown, in the space between her legs, the awful shape of spreading blood. Blood billowing from her, blood and more blood, turning her gown to crimson.
‘The shadow,’ said Caroline. ‘The shadow has fallen. The shadow which means to claim us all.’
But I could scarcely hear her words over the sound of that single, shrill and heartfelt scream which has been building within me for days.
* There is here an intriguing quirk in the manuscript. The name ‘Carrie’ is a replacement for another which my mother originally wrote before scoring it out: ‘Lucy’.
FROM LA CROIX*
20 December
A CURIOUS DISTURBANCE ON RUE DE L’ANGIER
The gendarmerie were called last evening to a boarding house on rue de L’Angier following reports from the landlady, as well as from concerned fellow guests and passers-by, of a disturbance of the most bizarre sort. A great, shrieking ruckus was heard to come from a room which had been lately let to an Englishman, one who had claimed to be a commercial traveller on his way home to London.
The shrill cries were said to be utterly horrible. A crowd of neighbours soon gathered and knocked vigorously upon the door, demanding that the occupant of the chamber emerge and explain himself immediately.
No answer came, save for the uncanny wailing from within, and so concern grew. The landlady fetched the key to the room but discovered that her tenant had somehow succeeded in barring it from the inside, making any egress impossible.
When the police arrived, they had no choice but to force the door down and to push aside those heavy boxes which the guest had placed against it to buttress his sanctuary.
What they found was startling – the Englishman in a deep swoon upon the bed and, by his side, a barred crate in which was to be found an enormous, red-eyed black bat, the source of the horrible uproar, its wings thrashing wildly.
The visitor was brought around and, although groggy, was full of apologies. He explained that he was a naturalist, freshly returned from an expedition to the Carpathian Mountains, and that he was bringing back to England a singular specimen. He said that he had fallen into an unusually deep sleep and that the creature had grown hungry. He was markedly generous in his financial recompense to the landlady and to several of her followers.
With reluctance, the police departed, after receiving a firm assurance that the gentleman would leave in the morning and go back across the Channel.
Rue de L’Angier – indeed the whole of Paris – will no doubt be grateful that he and his questionable pet are shortly to be the concern only of the English nation.
* This translation, from the French, is my own. Please forgive its inexact and halting style.
MINA HARKER’S JOURNAL
21 December. A terrible few days at the Godalming estate.
Poor, dear Caroline is so very distressed. Even now Arthur has yet to return home, being much preoccupied with affairs of state and with his Council in particular. I find this abandonment rather a poor show, though I do not doubt that he is grieving also.
Yet I wonder if something greater might not lie behind our recent misfortunes, this horrible agglomeration of events. The timing of the piece in the Gazette concerning the personal histories of our friends (of which Carrie herself is mercifully ignorant) seemed to me most pointed and odd. And then there is something else also.
I write these words upon the train from London to Shore Green. Already the soot-covered city has been left behind and we are sprinting through the Oxfordshire countryside. What was once a scene of comfort and reassurance (and, to Jonathan, one of happy and secluded isolation) strikes me now as a great deal more sinister in aspect.
This is not, I believe, only the nature of the season – for winter has turned the fields to promontories, the hedgerows to sparse delineations and the trees to blasted sentinels – but also a phenomenon that is indicative of my own state of mind.
Is there something behind our recent travails and those of our closest companions? Something which stands outside?
I must set down the truth of it before the keenness of the experience leaves my mind.
* * *
I had left the estate, seen off not by Carrie, who remained bedridden within, but by Mr Amory, that stoical manservant whose acquaintance I had made in the most troubling of circumstances. I can admit here without qualm that I was glad to leave. The house has about it a dreadful atmosphere which quite saps the spirit. I am also, of course, looking forward to being reunited before long with my husband, although perhaps, if truth be told, not quite as much as one might ideally wish.
It was with some relief that I found myself aboard the express, several miles from the station at Godalming and steaming back towards the metropolis. The landscape there was a little prettier than that which is being unfurled before me now. Specks of snow were falling. Falling but not settling.
I was alone in my compartment, snug and feeling grateful for those several hours of peace which lay ahead. I found that, without distraction or any immediate concern, my mind drifted back quite naturally towards elder days – the days, I suppose, of our youth when we were all first brought into contact. I pushed away such reminiscences, yet was my memory insistent. Certain images, most of which were decidedly unpleasant, pushed themselves to the forefront of my imagination. It was this unsought preoccupation that surely explains what happened next. Or, perhaps – and this is a thought which I find all but unbearable to entertain – perhaps it does not.
Our progress, in spite of the puffs of snow, had been smooth and unimpeded. For all the doomsayers who complain of national decline in this new century, the British railway service remains the envy of the world.
Yet all at once the carriage gave a great convulsive lurch. With the shrill and desperate keening sound of wrenching metal, the carriage rattled and shook and I was thrown forward violently onto the floor.
All this happened really very quickly indeed, so that I was scarcely aware of what had befallen me. I felt an instant’s pain and discomfort before I fell into a swoon.
As I lay in that undignified posture, insensible to my surroundings, I saw certain things in a dream which possessed the clarity of vision.
I was in some distant, ancient castle, far from civilised lands, a place made of cold stone. I found myself descending a steep circular staircase. In the distance, I heard a clock strike one.
I felt a great and urgent desire to go down those stairs, yet my descent seemed unending. For all my exertions, I seemed materially to progress not a whit. The spiral simply went on and on.
After a time, although I felt certain that an hour could not possibly have passed, I heard the clock strike two.
As the echo of it faded away, I glimpsed something ahead of me, at the very edge of my sight, moving before me down
the corkscrew. It was the figure of a woman, one I had not seen for many years. Struck by surprise, I hesitated and she who went before me vanished out of view. I hurried onwards, risking a fall in my haste.
After a minute, she came back into view and I saw more clearly her white form, clad in a silvery gown, and her cascade of sleek blonde hair. Joyfully, I called her name, forgetting in the dream that she had long been dead.
‘Lucy! Lucy, my dear!’
She did not seem to hear me and only hurried on.
‘Lucy!’ I called again, more desperately than before. ‘Lucy Westenra!’
At this, at last, she stopped and turned to face me. She was just as she had been all those years ago, in the days of the last century before the great darkness fell over all our lives.
She smiled to see me and there was in her expression all her old gaiety of manner. When she spoke, however, it was with an awful coldness of purpose.
‘You need to wake up, Mina, my dear,’ she said. ‘You need to open your eyes and see what is unfolding around you.’
‘Lucy,’ I said. ‘It is so wonderful to see you again.’
‘I cannot,’ she said, as implacably as before, ‘talk with you for long. It is not… permitted.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘See the pattern, Mina,’ she said, and the effort of speaking the words seemed to cost her. ‘See the pattern of events which surrounds you and draw the only conclusion that you can.’
I protested. ‘But Lucy. I do not understand.’
‘You do,’ she said, and her dear face creased into a smile, every bit as radiant as those of our youth. ‘My clever Mina, of course you do. The truth is before you even now.’
The dream soured. There came an intrusion of horror. A gout of blood emerged from the corners of my old friend’s mouth, first on the right side and then upon the left.
‘Lucy,’ I began, but it was already too late. A trickle became a stream and then a gush, a tide. Her features were covered in wet crimson.
I could not help myself but loosed a cry of terror and disgust, and it was this unseemly howl which, I believe, woke me.
I opened my eyes to find myself upon the floor of the carriage. There was a man standing over me, a ticket inspector dressed in the smart uniform of the railway. He had a kindly face.
‘Let me help you up, miss. Please accept my apologies for this most regrettable incident.’
‘What happened?’ I asked as, with propriety and courtesy, he helped me to my feet.
‘Something of a misfortune, miss. There was a trespasser upon the tracks. I fear we were not able to stop in time.’
‘How… awful.’ Upright once again, I felt a little faint. ‘What a terrible thing.’
‘If it’s any consolation, miss, it would have been over for him very fast. I’ve often thought that such a death is really something of a mercy in a way.’
He said more which I cannot now recall. He made certain that I was settled and was good enough to fetch me a cup of tea.
After a while, the train moved on. We left the accident behind us. I felt a mild restoration and the details of my dream began, at least to a small degree, to fade.
Yet much still remains.
I wonder about the warning that dear Lucy rendered unto me. I wonder about the pattern of which she spoke. I wonder about the exhortation that I should see the truth. If it be not mere fancy and delusion, I wonder what all of it means.
Can it be? Can it be that He is returning?
I must think. I must investigate. And I must speak to Jonathan.
JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL
22 December. Guilt is, for me, scarcely a novel emotion but at the time of writing it is present in my breast to an unusually predominant degree. I should first state that nothing in the least unorthodox or improper occurred between Miss Sarah-Ann Dowell and I. As to whether there is at least a part of me which wished for such a Rubicon to be crossed, I cannot say. It must suffice me to record that we only talked, as the Professor lay somnolent beside us, of many things, but in particular of love and of those strange places to which that brand of madness might lead.
She spoke of her own paramour, a gentleman of dubious character named Thom Cawley, from whom, it seemed clear, she should disentangle herself at the earliest possible opportunity. We parted late in the evening but chastely, and as friends.
This unexpected encounter was as preface to the news which came the following morning – that poor Caroline’s reason is largely unseated and that her baby is lost. That I should have been engaged in conversation with Miss Dowell while my wife dealt single-handedly with this tragedy served only to sharpen and accentuate those emotions to which I was already subject.
I sent a telegram in reply to Mina’s,* pledging my aid in any way that she thought fit. Her cool, ordered response came in the afternoon. Go to London. Find Arthur and Jack Seward. And send them both to the Godalmings at once.
In all this, of course, I was immensely happy to oblige and, leaving Sarah-Ann in charge of the house and its contents, I departed without ceremony for the metropolis.
Yet my mission was altogether less clear cut than I had hoped. For it would seem very much as though Dr John Seward has disappeared.
There was no sign of him at his home. At his Harley Street clinic he has not been seen for six days, occasioning a great deal of cancellation and much disgruntlement and mild outrage on the part of Jack’s patients. His employees, staff and even friends (such as they are) have not received word from him and concern is, quite naturally, growing as to his whereabouts and wellbeing.
Eventually, and acting on my own initiative, I reported him missing to the police, arriving at Scotland Yard around dusk on the afternoon of the twenty-first. I queued for the attention of the duty sergeant, behind a stout restaurateur who seemed worried for the security of his premises. When my turn came, I explained the nature of the emergency, giving both my own name and that of the missing alienist.
At this, the sergeant – a rather grimy sort of sceptic – gave me the oddest look and bade me come with him. He left his post and escorted me to a small, whitewashed room, curiously monastic in atmosphere. I was left alone there for some minutes with nothing to do save examine the weft of the walls.
‘Someone will be with you presently, Mr Harker,’ the sergeant said, before closing the door behind him.
I do not care to be left alone in confined spaces and I had grown rather anxious by the time that the door was opened again and a different policeman strode in.
‘Sub-Divisional Inspector George Dickerson,’ he said, extending his hand. Somewhat to my surprise, he spoke with a pronounced American accent. ‘Sincere apologies, sir, for keeping you waiting.’
‘Not at all,’ I replied. ‘You must have much to occupy your time.’
‘There’s always a deal to do, sir. I understand you wished to report a man who’s gone missing. Party’s name is Seward?’
‘That is so.’
‘And your own moniker is…’ At this, he drew from his coat pocket a notebook in the consultation of which he proceeded to enact quite a pantomime before delivering my name. ‘Jonathan Harker?’
I nodded. In exchange he gave me a look, almost as if we had known one another a long time ago, as children perhaps, and he was endeavouring now to place my present appearance. He paused for a moment, seeming to consider the wisest course of action. ‘Sir, I’ll be plain. Fact is John Seward was here himself, not so very long ago.’
‘He was?’
‘Yes, sir. He was making, as I understand it, some independent enquiries of his own.’
‘Good Lord. About what, may I ask?’
‘About a colleague of mine, sir. A man called Chief Inspector Parlow.’
‘And what the deuce,’ I said carefully and quietly, ‘did Seward want with the chief inspector? He’s not, I trust, in any trouble?’
‘No criminal trouble, sir, no. But he did seem anxious. What he wanted with Parlow had t
o do, as I understand it, with Martin’s old partner, who’s been dead now for years. And there was something to do with a journal.’
‘Who was the partner?’ I asked, thoroughly bewildered.
Sub-Divisional Inspector Dickerson took a deep breath as though he were about to embark upon something unpleasant. He spoke then a name which will to me be forever freighted with the most insidious form of evil.
‘Why, it was Renfield, sir. It was the late and unlamented Detective Inspector R.M. Renfield.’
* * *
I left the Yard and the company of Dickerson in a fug of confusion and unease. My head sang with mournful images of sorrowful events upon the exclusion of which from my memory I have, in the past decade, expended considerable personal effort.
So absorbed was I that upon exiting the Yard and commencing a search for a hansom, I practically collided into the tall angular figure of a man whom, after a moment’s confusion, I recognised.
‘Arthur! My dear chap. Whatever has brought you here?’
On closer inspection, Lord Godalming looked rather paler and more haggard even than he had upon our last meeting.
‘It’s Jack…’ he said, a faltering quality to his voice which I had never heard there before, not even in those dark days. ‘Jack seems to have gone missing. Nobody’s seen him for days.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I know, and I am afraid that there may be a good deal more to the business than we understand at present. But, Arthur, look here – I am so awfully sorry, you know. Truly. For you and for Carrie. And for the baby.’
I offered him my hand and he shook it.
‘Thank you,’ he said at last, stiffly, looking very far away. ‘Your condolences are most appreciated.’
‘Not at all.’
‘I hear that your wife has been most generous and compassionate.’
‘I know,’ I said, and a further sad silence descended.