"Please, permit me to introduce myself. I believe I can perform the ritual properly to your satisfaction. I am Prince Vladislaus of Szeklys."
"What an… unusual name."
"And what a meaningless title. I am sure your London is filled with princes, dukes, sheikhs, and counts. In fact I am your humble servant." Taking off his hat momentarily, Dracula used it in a sweeping bow.
"Wilhelmina Murray…" Almost dazedly, Mina began a curtsy. A grip on her elbow, gentle but rock solid, kept her from completing the movement.
He was shaking his head. "It is I who am honored, Madam Mina."
"Madam… ?"
"You mentioned a husband."
"Did I… ?"
Her hand—Elisabeth's hand!—was on his arm as the two of them strolled away into the London fog.
Great bells—there, booming below the others, was the one they called Big Ben—beat in his ears. The exuberant life of the great city, the great world, surrounded him. On this day of joy all things seemed possible, even, perhaps, an ultimate reconciliation with life itself…
Lucy was ill; and whatever the thing was that had infected her, it was beyond Jack Seward's power to diagnose. But it looked serious, damned serious in fact, all the more so because it had come upon the young woman so very suddenly.
Seward, summoned away from his interesting lunatics by a hastily written note from the worried Arthur Holmwood, could be sure of little more than that as he watched the woman to whom he had so recently proposed undergo a fitting of the dress in which she was soon to marry another man.
Though undeniably not well, Lucy seemed at the moment happy—with a kind of brittle excitement—and even energetic. Showing off the dress, she turned before a large mirror.
"Jack—brilliant Doctor Jack—do you like it?"
"Most elegant."
In fact, Lucy's visitor had hardly glanced at the dress, except to note that a worried-looking seamstress was having to take it in. Lucy's weight loss, just in the past few days, had been considerable. Her skin was now a chalky white, blotched with red at her lips and on her sunken cheeks. When she smiled, Seward could see how her gums had receded from the white teeth.
She swirled again. "So tell me, Doctor Jack—did Arthur put you up to this visit? Or did you just want me alone in my bed once before I'm married?"
He cleared his throat. "Lucy, Arthur is very worried about you. He has asked that I see you, as a physician. I realize this may be awkward for both of us, because there have been personal matters between us in the past. But that must not be allowed to… if I am to be your physician, I must have your complete trust."
Lucy was shaking her head, refusing, denying something—not necessarily what the doctor had just been saying. Suddenly weak and giddy, she dismissed the seamstress with a wave of her hand and sank down on a couch nearby, fingering the black velvet choker she was wearing around her neck.
"What is it, Lucy?"
"Help me, Jack—please, I don't know what's happening to me. I can't sleep at night. I have nightmares… I hear things I shouldn't be able to hear—"
That caught at Seward's professional curiosity. "What things?"
"It's idiotic." The patient tried to smile.
"Tell me anyway."
"I can hear servants whispering, clear away at the other end of the house. I hear mice way up in the attic—my mother's poor sick heart beating, in another room. And I can see things in the dark, Jack, as plain as day."
"Lucy…"
"And I'm—starving—but I cannot bear the sight of food—please, help me—"
Lucy gasped, bending forward, clutching at Seward, who in alarm had hastened to her side.
An hour later Seward's latest patient had been put to bed in her room, her ailing, worried mother comforted and deceived with some story about a slight indisposition. And now Seward, having concluded his preliminary examination, was walking in the great hall, conferring with Arthur Holmwood.
The prospective bridegroom, accompanied by Quincey Morris, had arrived at Hillingham a few minutes ago, both men in excellent spirits, wearing their hunting clothes. The good spirits did not last long. Holmwood in particular was naturally upset at the latest developments.
When he came out of Lucys room after a quick visit, he was even more upset. "Jack, what do you make of it? To me it's frightening."
The physician sighed. "There seems no functional disturbance, or any malady that I can recognize. At the same time I am not satisfied with her appearance."
"I should think not!"
"So I have taken the liberty of cabling Abraham Van Helsing."
Holmwood was vaguely impressed by this announcement, but uncertain. "You mean your old teacher, Jack, of whom you speak so often. The Dutch metaphysician-philosopher."
"Yes. The point is that he is also a physician, and that he knows more about obscure diseases than any other man in the world."
"Then do it, man, bring him here. Spare no expense."
Mina's planned return from town to Hillingham had been considerably delayed. Much against what would have been her better judgment—somehow the operation of that faculty seemed to have been suspended—she was on her way to attend the cinematograph with a man who had simply accosted her on the street. There was really no other word to describe the nature of their meeting.
Sunset over London was, as so often, filled with a wonderful smoky beauty, with its lurid lights and inky shadows and all the marvelous tints that come on foul clouds even as on foul water. As the red disk sank, the beauty it had produced faded into the late-coming darkness of spring. And Mina, clinging to the arm of her new escort, almost blindly, almost helplessly, had allowed him to bring her to an early, primitive motion-picture theater, the cinematograph.
The silent, black-and-white images currently on the screen, scratchy and jumpy, depicted a great gray wolf, which leaped repeatedly at the bars of its cage. Evidently the animal was being encouraged or tormented by some man who stood just out of the camera's range; at intervals his arm and hand appeared on screen, caught at the termination of some violent gesture. The small audience included well-to-do folk, mingling with the lower classes, even as they might on the street. The theater's customers stood or sat in a few rows of chairs, watching spellbound.
Dracula stood for some time with Mina at one side of the room, observing the images intently, as in the flick of an eyelash the gray wavering image of the wolf was succeeded by the silent onrush of a locomotive.
Impressed, Mina's companion commented: "Astounding. There are no limits to science."
"Is this science? I think it can hardly be compared with the work of Madame Curie." The screen had been unable to hold Mina's attention for more than a few seconds. She was becoming increasingly nervous. "I shouldn't have come here. I must go…"
"Not yet."
"But—"
His finger on her lips commanded her to silence. Then, with a firm hand on her arm, he guided her toward the rear of the little theater, through a set of heavy curtains, across a shabby little hallway, into a dark area almost immediately behind the large suspended screen. All during their progress to this isolated place Mina attempted to pull back, to protest.
"No, I can't—" To her own astonishment, she seemed unable to raise her voice above a whisper. "Please, stop this—who are you?"
When it seemed that Mina, throwing reserve and caution to the winds, might have cried out, Dracula's gloved hand came up to gently cover her mouth.
His voice compelled. It almost hypnotized. "You are as safe with me as you will ever be."
The gigantic black-and-white shadows of the images projected on the other side loomed over them. Here came Queen Victoria, first small and then enormous in a royal carriage, part of a silent procession celebrating Her Majesty's diamond jubilee.
The audience, invisible on the front side of the screen, offered Her Majesty respectful applause.
Carefully Dracula let his companion go. Her eyes were closed, her lips moved, but
almost silently. He realized that she was praying.
He whispered softly: "You are she, the love of my life. The one I have lost and found again."
And even as he spoke the words, he felt the blood-lust, the raw hunger, rising, the fangs in his own jaw extending like erectile tissue—but not with Elisabeth! NO!
In dismay, astonishment at this spontaneous rebellion of his own nature, he turned his countenance away. Fiercely he exerted his will for a long moment. Before he turned back to his beloved, his face, his mouth were human once again.
Mina, though he felt sure she could not have seen the brief transformation, was trembling in fear. "My God—who are you?'
He, too, was quivering with emotion. "For you, I am only good."
Frightened, bewitched, confused, she could only stare at him, not understanding. Not even beginning to understand.
And at that moment, fearful of discovery, afraid of her own nature, looking over the shoulder of the incredible, inexplicable man who held her, Mina Murray found herself gazing into the bright blue eyes of a real wolf.
There was a half-open door, a real and shabby wooden door, just behind the wolf, and with part of her mind Mina realized that this must be the escaped animal from the zoo, and that it must have made its way through the city by mews and alleys and byways, and come stalking into the rear of the theater through some door or window that had accidentally been left open.
Her escort had now become aware of what stood behind him. He let go of Mina and turned to look at the beast.
At that moment Mina, stricken by sudden panic, deprived of the support his hands and his gaze had given her, turned to run.
The wolf, more in fright than in ferocity, sprang after her.
Dracula's voice, a whipcrack syllable or two in some tongue that Mina had never heard before, stopped the animal almost in midleap.
It cowered, almost whimpering, as if it not only understood but was somehow compelled to obey.
Meanwhile in the background the gigantic images continued their silent dance on the reversed screen, their lights and shadows flickering over the beast and the two people.
Dracula, calm and matter-of-fact, crouched and beckoned gently to the wolf. Head down, obedient, the animal came to him.
He cradled Berserker's head in his white gloves, rubbing the beast's ears, stroking its great back.
Then the man raised his eyes to those of his human companion. "Come here, Mina. I tell you to have no fear."
Mina resisted at first, shaking her head wildly.
Dracula arose. Quietly he took her by the hand, pulling her easily and steadily to the wolf, which at her first approach put back its ears like a great cat. But then the animal relaxed.
Petting the wolf, safely, her fingers meeting those of her companion in the animal's thick fur, she found herself intoxicated, enchanted, full of trust.
Two hours later, a hired coach deposited a shaken and transformed Mina at the front portico of Hillingham.
No words had been exchanged during the last five minutes of ride. As soon as her companion—her new lover—had helped her to alight, Mina, without allowing time for any speech, turned her back on man and coach and literally ran toward the house.
When she had almost reached the door, an irresistible impulse stopped her, and she turned back for one more yearning, agonizing look. But the coach and the man who had ridden in it with her were already gone.
10
The lights at Hillingham were once more burning into the morning hours. In one of the upstairs rooms of the huge house Dr. Seward was still keeping watch at Lucy's bedside.
Seward took his patient's pulse yet again, shook his head unhappily, and quietly left the sickroom to stretch his legs a little in the hall; to try to keep awake, and try to think.
At that moment a hired cab pulled up at the main entrance of Hillingham. The man who alighted from the vehicle was well into middle age, and of good stature, a figure of solid dignity. He was carrying a good-sized medical bag—after a hurried journey from Amsterdam across the Channel, he had left most of his luggage at the Berkeley Hotel in central London.
Having paid and dismissed his transportation, Abraham Van Helsing stood for a moment blinking, considering the great house as if its few lighted windows, all on upper floors, might be able to tell him something meaningful about its occupants.
With the departure of Dr. Seward from her room, Lucy was for the moment left quite alone.
But only for a moment. Somehow becoming aware of a silent, shadowy, and ominous presence hovering on the terrace, just outside the French doors, the young woman suddenly awakened. Gone was the extreme debility and weariness that Seward had noted in her sleeping countenance only a few minutes ago; now Lucy looked energetic, even joyful.
Her eyes brightened. Smiling wantonly at the entity that was only vaguely visible beyond the glass, she provocatively drew back the bedclothes.
Seward, alerted by a sleepy servant to the fact of Van Helsing's arrival, came hurrying downstairs to find his old mentor just shedding his hat, gloves, and overcoat in the front hall.
The younger man, vastly relieved, almost ran forward, both hands extended in greeting. "Professor, how good of you to come!"
"I come to my friend in need when he calls!" And the visitor prolonged the handclasp, studying Seward carefully. In a moment Van Helsing's own expression had become grave; he could see easily enough that social niceties and reminiscences had better be postponed.
Without preliminary he demanded: "Jack, tell me everything about your case."
Running weary fingers through his hair, Seward tersely recited a preliminary list of Lucy's symptoms and the tests he had already performed.
He concluded: "She has all the usual physical anemic signs. Her blood analyzes normal—and yet it is not. She manifests continued blood loss—but I cannot trace the cause."
Van Helsing had barely started to frame his next question when a wild orgasmic wail sounded from upstairs.
The two men looked at each other in surprise, then wordlessly ran for the stairs. Seward was in the lead, with Van Helsing, still carrying his medical bag, puffing somewhat to keep up. Even as they went pounding up the stairs Lucy's loud wanton moans continued, then broke off abruptly in a kind of climax.
Moments later the pair of physicians, Seward still leading the way, burst into her room.
Van Helsing, on entering, stopped in his tracks. "Gott in Himmel!"
The French window now stood open, the curtains blowing in the chill draft. Lucy, almost completely naked, lay sprawled on her back across the bed. A small pool of blood was caking on her pillow, and her bosom heaved as she struggled to draw breath.
Van Helsing moved immediately to the bedside, where he examined the patient's body for a bleeding wound. He took note especially of the throat, from which the black choker she wore had now been removed. The professor drew up the bedclothes to cover the young woman decently and warmly.
Then he turned to confront Seward, even as the younger man came back from closing the door to the terrace, making sure that it was latched securely and drawing the curtains back into place across it.
"There is no time to be lost," Van Helsing informed his colleague firmly. He looked as grimly determined as Seward had ever seen him. "There must be transfusion of blood at once."
Even as he spoke the professor was opening his medical bag, which he had already set down on the bed.
Seward, lighting one of several candles that were standing ready at the bedside, looked up, surprised at this proposal. "Transfusion? You've perfected the procedure?"
"Perfected?" Van Helsing shook his head. "No one has done that yet. I've only experimented, using Landsteiner's method. It is true that the risk is very great, but we have no choice. This woman will die tonight if we do nothing."
Belatedly commotion was building out in the hall. Alarm had spread among the servants, and a pair of maids carrying lamps now put their frightened faces into the bedroom.
<
br /> Swiftly Seward issued orders to the servants and sent them away with the additional warning not to awaken Lucy's mother. Meanwhile Van Helsing was pulling from his bag the implements required to perform the contemplated operation—some lengths of rubber tubing, so thin-walled as to be practically transparent; two heavy needles, some auxiliary equipment, including a small hand-operated pump.
The younger doctor, busily arranging a chair, tables, and lamps about the bed, observed this activity with continued surprise.
"You came prepared to perform a transfusion, Professor?"
His mentor nodded grimly. "Ja. From what you told me in your cable, I suspected. Now the need is certain."
New footsteps, these heavier and almost running, sounded in the hall. In another moment Arthur Holmwood, in his hat and topcoat, had appeared at the door of Lucy's bedroom.
Arthur—who, as Seward realized, must have just come from the bedside of his dying father, Lord God-aiming—took in the scene with shock and wonder. Lucy's betrothed stared without understanding at the two men in her room. He took in the pale, slight figure in the bed, the already bloodstained sheets and pillow. The multiple strains on Arthur's nerves threatened to overcome him.
"What the bloody hell?" Holmwood grated, pushing forward. "What are you doing to my Lucy?"
Seward hastily intervened. "Art, this is Van Helsing, the specialist. He's trying to save her, old chap." Quickly he performed a more formal introduction.
Van Helsing, fully occupied with the medical struggle he was about to undertake, only glanced up, nodding instead of offering to shake hands. His face looked grim and tough.
"Ah, the fiancé"," he grunted. "You've come in good time. This young lady is very ill. She wants blood, and blood she must have. Take off your coat." Arthur barely hesitated, but even an instant's delay was too much for Van Helsing. He barked again: "Take off your coat!"
The overcoat and hat came off at once. Holmwood was shaken now, apologetic. "Forgive me, sir. My life is hers. I would give my last drop of blood to save her."
Van Helsing showed his teeth in a kind of smile. "I do not ask as much as that—yet. But come! You are a man, and it is a man we want." With a fierce gesture he pointed to the chair at the bedside.
Bram Stoker's Dracula Page 10