Chapter Text
Mina Harker’s journal, 27 November
Once we had concluded our sad and dreadful business in Transylvania – sad, for the loss of the fine Mr. Quincey Morris and the emptiness left within our party by his death, and dreadful for reasons that should need no explanation – I resolved to no more write of my worries and sorrows so, in a journal only for my own eyes. This decision I made for two reasons. First, because I wished instead to focus on the joys and fortunes that remained to me, lest my darker emotions sway me away from the gratitude which I feel and strive to practice every day that has been given to me upon this good and wonderful Earth; and second, because even if I had learned nothing else from those many terrible months, I had learned that all are stronger when they share of themselves with their friends, their joys and their doubts and their horrors alike. I am sure that we should never have triumphed as we did had not all in our brave party humbled themselves to share the innermost of their private thoughts and fears with one another, and neither would we have been able to trust one another deeply enough to sustain our faith and our very souls through those trying times.
Gone are the days when I shall seek to guard my worries, thinking them weakness! If I doubt in my mind, I seek council and comfort from my friends, and most of all from Jonathan. If I have fears, I confide in those whom I love so that together our shared wisdom and cunning may defeat them. I feel that this practice can do me only good, and I know that those who are entrusted with such thoughts and feelings are themselves emboldened and reassured in their own strength and worth by such a confidence. I have certainly felt that to be the case, and I know that Jonathan feels likewise. How fortunate we both are, and how blessed, that even from such terrible trials we have been granted the grace to emerge with strengthened love and trust between us! I wish never to take such blessed fortune for granted, and to remember to be grateful to God and to all whom I love that it has been so.
But what a preamble this has been, when this alone would have sufficed as introduction: ‘I did not think to return to the practice of confiding dark thoughts in a journal, but here I am again.’
The reason for this is simple – oh, but why must I justify it to my own self? Do I truly feel it so great a betrayal of conscience that I have broken my resolution? Perhaps I do, but that is something to think on at another time, for today I have been quite unable to distract myself from the worry growing in my mind and so have been driven to record it here, where I may reflect upon it without adding to the worries of him whose burden I would only ever seek to lighten. I speak, of course, of Jonathan.
Dear Jonathan, most beloved and wonderful man! To stand so staunch and steadfast at my side even when I had become a monster, even when necessity demanded he return – no, that is not the case, for that sounds more cold and soulless than it was; let me say instead that ‘when the cause to which he had pledged himself would ask him to return’ – to the darkest place he had ever known, and when the torments of his mind and memories promised to overwhelm him in their re-enacting. I know he thinks poorly of himself for the strains that he has suffered, and I suspect that some part of him still feels unmanned for having felt them so strongly, but none could have borne them more nobly or more bravely – even I, whom he holds as a shining example of what it is to endure; even I, whom he so praises for my strength and resilience (here I use his own words; I blush to apply them to myself, even indirectly and in private), even I would not have been nearly so strong had I not had his example to follow and his love and encouragement to lean upon.
I see I have once more strayed from the path of simplicity, but I wish this record to be as thorough as any other. I love Jonathan. I trust him and admire him. I look to him for examples of character and courage, even as he professes to look to me. I feel keenly his lingering pain, and I wish to assuage it in such a way that he knows – knows! beyond doubt or suspicion – that I do not think less of him for having suffered it. I wish to offer him comfort in the way that he has offered it to me, regardless of how it might be seen for a woman to comfort a man so, and I wish to shelter him the way that I have been sheltered, even if others might think it strange. But ever he fears to show weakness he may hide, and ever he hesitates to burden me with anything whose weight I have not explicitly offered to carry. And for all the wonderful honesty and openness we have shared with each other in the past half year, I fear that he is once more turning inward and keeping the rawer parts of himself tucked close where I may not see them.
He is ill, you see. Ill in a way that frightens me terribly, not because I fear a relapse of the brain fever that left him so devastated, but because it reminds me dreadfully of how poor Lucy grew ill.
I know the cause is not the same. I know it, because it cannot be. We have all of us made sure of that. But it is so similar I cannot help but fear. He is paler than he ought to be, for all that it is fast approaching winter and none of us has much seen the sun in recent weeks, and he tires too easily. He sleeps more often, and though it appears deep he never seems truly rested. He is asleep even as I write this – I have left him stretched upon the sofa in the sitting room and come here into the study to type – though it is only early afternoon. I have tried to speak with him of it, but he insists that he is quite well. I wish he would not lie to me so! Or rather, I wish he did not seem to feel that such an answer is the only one he is allowed to give. I do not believe he would lie to me, even to do me good. I do, however, believe he would not think such a response a lie even if he knew it to be untrue.
I have wasted enough time here, and I fear that even at a remove the clattering of the typewriter may have disturbed him. I will end this entry for now and leave the papers in an unlocked drawer, for even if he has heard me typing I fear he lacks the energy for curiosity at present. It is a sad thought, and a worrying one. I am off to see if there is aught I can do to remedy it.
Mina Harker’s journal, 28 November
It seems that my choice to commit my worries to paper has been rewarded, at least in one sense: no longer do I have the freedom to speculate on darker and mysterious causes, for quite soon after admitting my baseless fears was I given concrete evidence to the contrary. No, his illness is not vampiric in nature, as was Lucy’s. I knew this with what Van Helsing would perhaps call my ‘man’s brain,’ but my ‘child brain’ could not quite abandon its lingering doubt. Now, however, I am sure of it. Since my last writing, he – Jonathan, that is – has indeed developed a fever, and now I wonder if my other supposition, so flippantly introduced and then dismissed, ought perhaps to have been the greater fear.
Jonathan remembers very little of his illness before I joined him in Budapest, and by that time he had largely progressed through the symptoms, so I witnessed only the aftermath – weakness, fatigue, and a great deal of nervous anxiety. The good Sister who had tended to him declined to share with me anything that he had cried out in his delirium, and I find myself again wishing that her confidence was less. Perhaps then I might know if anything had pained him particularly, or if he had complained of any sensations that would now leave me with clues. As it is, I know only that he was diagnosed with brain fever some few months ago and that now, in addition to his pallor and exhaustion, he is suffering from headaches and a goodly fever.
Is it foolish to jump to conclusions? Perhaps. But foolishness in the service of preparedness I can forgive; less so the foolishness of naivete that would see me ignoring the signs of impending danger.
If the fever has not abated by the morning, I will send a telegram to Dr. Seward asking for his advice.
Mina Harker’s journal, 29 November
Early morning
I have just returned from the post office, where I did indeed dispatch a telegram to Dr. Seward. It seems foolish – again that word! – to rely on a doctor in London to attend a patient in Exeter, but there is none here that I would trust with this, at least not yet.
Oh, if only the professor were here! I have no doubt that he would make short work of this ailment, whatever it is. But alas, for today – and likely tomorrow, even if Dr. Seward extricates himself from his asylum as soon as he reasonably may – I am all that there is.
mem: once Jonathan is well again, should we speak about hiring a maid? It seems so frivolous to us, having grown up as we did, but perhaps it has its utility after all. If nothing else, having someone around to dash to the post office would be a considerable boon in times such as this.
Later
I left this page in the typewriter after the last entry and so will continue it here.
Jonathan is sleeping now, though perhaps ‘resting’ is the better word. He has not seemed fully aware since last evening before bed, and even in sleep he has often been ill at ease. And no wonder! His skin is so hot to the touch that it must surely be painful, or at the very least unpleasant, and he winces and whimpers at lights and sounds that I find quite ordinary. I have had to keep all the curtains drawn and tend to him as best I can by lamplight, which even then I must be careful to keep from falling too directly over his eyes, should they be open. I walk softly in our bedroom and have moved the typewriter back to the sitting room, which is not so close as the study.
I am now dreadfully certain that this is indeed a relapse of brain fever. Even if I did not know the early signs of it, I see in his current postures echoes of those weeks in Budapest. He is curled in on himself in much the same way, as though seeking comfort in his own arms, and he struggles even to sit up in bed. He has no appetite, but so far today has dutifully taken tea or water if I help him lift himself to drink it. I know not whether it is his clouded mind or his trust in my love and confidence that keeps him from the embarrassment I suspect he would otherwise feel – I should hope it is the latter, but I suspect instead the former.
The poor, dear man. He has never wanted anything but to do right by others, myself included, and it seems he has been cruelly punished for his efforts. Poor Mr. Hawkins suffered the same ill luck, I fear: in sending Jonathan to Transylvania he hoped only to set him on the path to success, and could not possibly have known where that path would truly lead. What a fantastical series of events it was! What a terrible and fantastical tale.
I wish he had never gone. I wish that the Count had never asked for a solicitor, and I wish that this kind and gentle man had not been the one sent to learn his whims and aid him in his dark vision. Then perhaps Lucy would still be alive! Alive, and happily married to Arthur, and Quincey and Jack would keep each other company in the good-natured regret of their failed suits, and Jonathan would not be so horribly ill and I would not be here weeping at my typewriter, crying like a child for the impossible gossamer goodness of a fairy-tale world.
I must pull myself together. I don’t know what’s come over me. This has gone from chronicling to wallowing so unforgivably quickly, perhaps I should give it up for good. I am doing no one any good like this.
Letter from Dr. John Seward to Professor Van Helsing, 1 December
Van Helsing,
I apologise for the brevity of this letter and for any less-than-cordial tone it may strike as a result, but if you find yourself with the time to do so, I entreat you to come to Exeter. Harker is very ill, and Mrs. Harker and I both fear it to be a relapse of the brain fever he suffered this past summer. She will not write to you herself, either out of a desire to avoid undue imposition or out of hesitance to imply lack of faith in my abilities, but I know both concerns to be baseless, and I believe she would be greatly comforted by your presence and advice, as would I. Indeed, even Harker would doubtless be pleased to see you again, once he is coherent enough to take note of his company. I do not think he has recognised me these past two days.
If you can, come as soon as you may.
Your friend and ever-attentive student,
John Seward
Dr. Seward’s diary, handwritten, 1 December
It occurs to me somewhat belatedly that I ought to keep a record of what has transpired here. It certainly has merit as a medical case study, and it would be good to chart the trajectory of what may turn out to be an episodic illness.
I first feel the need to apologise to any future readers (myself among them) for the atrocious state of my handwriting – I have grown over-dependent on my phonograph, it seems, and I have not Mrs. Harker’s affinity for the typewriter. While marvellous, the phonograph does have a few drawbacks. It is cumbersome, certainly, and there is also the question of finding particular records and events within the cylinders. They cannot be paged through as can a book or sheaf of papers, so quickly returning to a particular entry is nearly impossible. And although I find the practice comforting, I cannot deny that in some circumstances it is simply not appropriate to record one’s voice aloud. Mrs. Harker does not need to hear me expound at length about her husband’s illness in any clinical or disinterested fashion, though to tell the truth I would find it hard to reach such a remove. He’s become a dear friend, as has she, and the thought of speaking about him as I once did Renfield rather disturbs me. (Let this serve as a reminder that even the strangest of my patients are still men, first and foremost; they ought not to become case numbers or mindless figures in my consideration of them.)
How quickly my hand cramps from this unfamiliar practice! I fear to let the schoolmistress in the next room learn how badly this discipline has lapsed, though when I can scarcely hold a spoon at dinner I’m sure she will infer the cause. In the interest of brevity, then, let me get to the point:
I received a telegram from Mrs. Harker on the morning of the 29th of November, brought to my asylum by a runner boy. In it, she requested either my attendance or advice, whichever I could manage, on the case of her husband, Mr. Jonathan Harker, who had suddenly fallen very ill. Harker had also been ill over the summer, following his escape from the Transylvanian castle: he had made it to Budapest by unclear means and been taken in by a hospital there, whereupon he collapsed and was diagnosed with brain fever. Six weeks later, some of the hospital staff found a means to contact his then-fiancée, now wife, who travelled to meet him and continue caring for him. They returned to England together some weeks later, but the marks of his illness were apparent in his hair – prematurely grey, for he was and is still a young man – and in a lingering nervous weakness that was certainly not aided by the demands of the next few months. He bore up remarkably well, considering, but suffice it to say that I had more than one occasion to wonder if perhaps he, too, had been bitten and drained as poor Miss Westenra was.
Let that then serve as the history: nervous collapse and brain fever through July and August, followed by what would ideally have been a period of restful convalescence but which assuredly was not.
His recent symptoms, as mentioned in the telegram, were as follows: several days of growing pallor and lethargy, exhaustion untouched by frequent sleep, a diminished appetite, and a sort of mental withdrawal, and then a sharp decline characterised by high fever, intense pain in the head, and pronounced muscular weakness.
I left immediately and arrived in Exeter that afternoon, where I found things to be much the same as described. The only notable difference was that Harker had since developed a keen sensitivity to sensory stimuli, particularly sound and light, as that seemed to greatly exacerbate the pain in his head. This sensitivity has only grown over the past two days, and to such an extent that he very nearly cries out should sunlight chance upon him or a spoon clatter against a bowl. The headache is debilitating, and by yesterday morning had been joined by an apparently unrelenting nausea, yet what worries me most of all is the fever. It is intractable, and it is unsustainable in one who can take only the barest portions of water and no solid food.
Yesterday was miserable for all involved – certainly most of all for Harker, who cycled between chills, vomiting, and silent weeping with punishing regularity – and if today has been better, it is only because Harker has progressed beyond the point of sapience. His body is no longer so eager to purge itself, but neither is it welcoming of sustenance, and either he is too far gone to be aware of the pain or he has simply grown too weak to react to it. The greatest challenge has been keeping him from thirst: wetting his lips with dropper or rag is effective but painstaking, as the quantity necessary to support so beleaguered a body is prodigious and the manner of conveyance slow.
I sent Mrs. Harker – Madam Mina, as I have taken to calling her in my thoughts, but I should confer with her on her choice of address before committing to anything so familiar – to bed last night, as I do not believe she had slept much (if any) the past two nights, but I do not think she will be so biddable tonight. Her worry far outstrips her exhaustion, and she is steadfast in her resolutions. She has not said as much, but she surely fears that if she sleeps, she will wake to find herself a widow.
I cannot say I do not fear the same.
I sent a letter to Van Helsing this morning, once Madam Mrs. Harker had awoken and could sit vigil for a short while, but God alone knows if he will come in time. God alone knows if he will come at all, for I confess I do not know his exact location at the moment. I can only hope that a letter sent to his usual address will reach him. If it does, I have no doubt that he will hurry to England with the utmost haste; my doubt is whether his presence will be enough to
Dr. Seward’s diary, handwritten, 2 December
My last entry was cut short by Madam Mina’s cry.
Harker had an epileptic fit. I can only hope that it was febrile, and not a sign of some irreversible bedevilment of the brain. It was short in duration, no more than twenty seconds, but terrifying nonetheless.
That was in the afternoon, and the chair I left in such a hurry was still overturned when I re-entered the sitting room just now, the following day, at a little past six in the morning.
I will not bother to complete my unfinished thought, morbid as it was. It does not need completion.
After the seizure, we poured all our resources into assuaging the fever in the hopes of preventing another one. So far we seem to have been successful, though of course the fever still persists. Mina and I slept in shifts, and for that I am peculiarly grateful: perhaps it should have been she to whom Jonathan spoke in a fleeting moment of clarity, but had he turned to her with that look upon his face, childlike confusion mingled with the dread of judgement and the grief of deep injustice, I do not think she could have borne up beneath it. I almost did not, and I will certainly remember it forever.
Mina was asleep on the sofa she and I had carried into their bedroom, that Jonathan might not be left alone, and I was sitting at the bedside, doing what I could to fight the fever and ensure he took enough water to last. Whether as a result of our earlier efforts or from some natural cycling of consciousness, he opened his eyes and looked at me – truly looked at me, for the first time since my arrival – and I could see in his gaze a terrible awareness, like that of a dying animal who knows its time is near but knows not how to fight it. My God, I shall see those eyes in my dreams if I live a hundred years! “Jack,” he said softly, voice too weak to even be rightly called a whisper. “Why?”
I don’t know what he meant to ask. Why was I there, sitting at his side in place of his wife? Why did he feel so ill, and so weak? Why had this happened to him? I had no answer for any of those questions, nor for the one he so plaintively asked. I simply held his hand and bent to kiss his forehead. “It will be all right,” I told him, even as the heat of his skin and the weakness of his limbs clamoured to the contrary. “All will be well. Just rest.”
God forgive me if I lied to him, but how could I say otherwise? He fell asleep soon afterward and has remained unconscious to this point, but still he draws breath. He is holding on. He is fighting.
He is so unassuming a fellow that it is easy to forget that he has already accomplished such incredible feats. He scaled a bare stone wall above a dizzying drop not once, but twice, and did so first to find information on and then to escape from the inhuman fiend who had imprisoned him. Once escaped, he fled on foot through dangerous and largely uncharted terrain which he had only passed through once before, and though he suffered greatly in the effort he was at the last successful. He reached safety, or so he thought, but then returned to danger when it threatened others for whom he cared. There is within this gentle and soft-spoken man a hero of mythic proportions, and I know that he will not leave his beloved without fighting tooth and claw to remain by her side.
We should all be so lucky to find such a love as theirs.
May God protect them both. I will not have Harker become another Lucy.
Mina Harker’s journal, 3 December
The days have all been so long, yet blurred together as one unending nightmare so that I can scarcely recall what occurred today or yesterday or the day before. I am already imagining what has yet to happen, and those are the worst recollections of all.
Jack has been a God-send. I surely should not have managed this long by myself, and having two caretakers present has allowed each of us to achieve at least the bare minimum of sleep and sustenance.
Poor Jonathan is still so sick. He seems to have moved into some catatonic state – he no longer appears to mind any pain, but he does not respond to words or touch, or even the to light that bothered him so much a few days ago. His eyes are now open more often than not, but only ever half-lidded and glassy, and he does not track movement or shy away from brightness. Jack has not mentioned anything of the sort, but a part of me is afraid that Jonathan may have lost his sight entirely. Is such a thing possible? I have heard of infants and young children losing their hearing following a dreadful fever, but I have never heard of adults losing their sight in such a manner. Oh, I hope this is another of my foolish fancies. I ought not even to write it, lest through some dark magic or fate I bring it into being.
I have had a few moments to write, and once more all I have done is review the worst of my thoughts. Surely my time can be spent in better ways, but I am so tired. It is like a fog has filled my mind: if I am not caught up in some panic or frenzy, my natural inclination is to sit quietly and stare blankly into space. That may be for the best, for clearly if given the freedom roam, my thoughts turn unerringly to darker things. I must resist the temptation of despair.