Work Text:
From a recording obtained October 14, 1977
I have, in a previous response, already addressed the fact that van Helsing did far more to hasten poor Lucy Westenra's demise than anything I did, with his attempts to do transfusions willy-nilly a bit more than 20 years before the discovery of blood types. As I have already established, Abraham van Helsing, behind the false bonhomie and the friends this and that, was first and foremost a quack, no more scientific than the leechmongers of my mortal days.
I have not, however, addressed the calumnies the Harkers, the most interested party in this whole affair, spread about me. They compiled their version of the events - and thus knew exactly what to retract from the record when they contacted Stoker - and much of that perspective comes from their own journals at a time of their lives which was obviously fraught.
They had already become experts at doing it around van Helsing, carefully making sure that he did not read too much into Jonathan's diaries, for example, as he did not realize his innermost feelings until well after they had departed.
I have no expectation that either of them will ever apologize for it.
I would, however, appreciate a little bit of gratitude.
It is not for a lack of boldness in what they disclosed. Why, many would rather believe I had romantic entanglements with the two ladies of this whole affair than admit what was published for all to see. I still believe that it was in no small part van Helsing's doing that even they believed as such, and I sincerely doubt even the Harkers would say they still believe these lies were they asked today.
Mina knew or at least suspected the vow he had made on october 3rd long before she had read Jonathan's diaries, as he had refused to swear he would kill her again and again, but neither saw fit to mention the contents of those diaries as they might have given reasons for concern. Of course, it would have been tremendously helpful for van Helsing if he had deployed as much scrutiny for the groom as for the bride but, in his obsession was Mina to the exclusion of all (and at that a rather diminished idea of Mina), he believed Jonathan was of lesser interest to me. Had he questioned either of them on their wedding, for example, he might have noted that they only held a small, essentially civil ceremony with a chaplain, no different from the mock funeral before they left England, which did not particularly hurt Mina then either - ah, but Jonathan was still ill, and did they ever set foot inside a church after? They did not, Carfax Abbey, not having been one for 450 years, obviously did not count as I can attest myself.
It was obvious, even in the observations of their peers, that Jonathan was slowly relapsing in some way but they never suspected the nature of it. The violent ideations, the rage which he felt in his delirium, his uncharacteristic aggression even as he'd secretly resolved to stay with her no matter what. Why he almost gave the game away as they approached the Hungarian border, revealing to everyone how vividly he remembered the kiss of my fangs on his neck, a man who by his own admissions only needed a glimpse of my hands and my neck to recognize me. The man was almost feral as he reached the castle, almost as feral as when he had been found near Budapest.
But no, even though Jonathan's physical recovery had been similar to Mina's at first, they could not bring themselves to question the groom as they did the bride even though I, and after my departure my brides, had months to prepare him. That the height of his violent fits was in a catholic hospital, surrounded by nuns, did not evoke the slightest suspicion in either van Helsing or the three men he had enlisted seems barely thinkable and yet. They might have noticed something.
Godalming, in allowing Jonathan to collapse from exhaustion rather than pushing him further, came closest to effectively depriving me of my second spy. I certainly doubt van Helsing knew when he split the groups, beyond the suspicion that it might be unwise to let them stay as a couple for the final push to the castle. Still their boat was sufficiently delayed in the end.
Admittedly, had they suspected the bride even a little bit more, van Helsing might have noticed how vividly she felt Jonathan's memories when crossing Borgo pass into Hungary. They might never have given them what little privacy they allowed them in the week before they split up, as it became obvious upon reading even what they had dared send to Stoker that they had likely tasted of each other in a moment of weakness, which might well explain the extremity of his relapse into fury by the end. They might have thought more of Jonathan's insistance that Mina also be armed even as he relented that she was paired off with the member of their group least likely to overpower her.
Not that I would have felt any guilt had van Helsing died then and there. His actions so wounded my household, would that he had died before. And maybe, were it not for his lies, we would be talking of the love Lord and Lady Godalming had for each other in the shadows as we do the truest love of their friends the Harkers, rather than of Arthur Holmwood, lord Godalming, dead before his time and eternally both bachelor and widower. I would have gladly counted them among my guests of honour and commensals.
I do not have a complete picture of the events from the 6th to the 20th of November, as I was an exhausted mist and, in my weakness, the bond I had with their minds was broken. That alone may have saved them from their companions, as Mina would soon have been deemed "too far gone" and the odds of Jonathan living much longer in her absence, one way or another, were quite low. However, I have a fairly good one, albeit from reports which I only read decades later. Instead of heading back to Varna, the group decided to make plans to head to Budapest, where the Harkers, having spent most of the journey alone together with van Helsing's blessing, convinced the rest of the group they would take advantage of their apparent recovery to honeymoon along the Danube. Even that small act, I doubt they would have considered without my influence in their lives. If they were not already fully vampires by the time they wounded me, had his stay at the hospital in Budapest somehow saved him rather than merely staved off the transformation by another month or two, they certainly seem to have both been when they split from their old comrades.
That is when, finally, van Helsing began to have doubts about the groom, about Mina, about his apparent solution's success. My sources say he followed them back to the castle, where they talked about wanting to retrace Jonathan's memories of the place without my lingering presence. The professor shadowed them to Belgrade, Sofia, Varna, and Constantinople, where he seemingly lost their tracks, maybe unable to follow a trail of dead in such a great city. This is where my servants, too, lost track as they were far more capable of following an elderly Dutchman than two newborn vampires. Still, finally the good professor realized that I would not merely turn the women, his weakness, the lie on which he convinced Godalming to mutilate his beloved. Why would I separate such a loving couple when both could have been of my household? I may be of the old martial nobility, some could say I am still a romantic. After all, were courtly manners not invented by the old martial nobility?
When I finally returned to the world of the undead, I correctly surmised they had returned to England, although I had not initially guessed they had taken over my properties there. I made myself known, and was greeted by the Harkers in Purrfleet. In equal amounts angelic and demonic, above all ageless, even though more than a generation had passed and their surviving friends were beginning to show signs of age. Rudely, they told me to leave and never return from properties which I had acquired in due form. Still, I remained magnanimous, they were but children.
They may resent me. They may blame me. They may claim to despise what I made them. And yet, thanks to me, their love remains one for the ages. I would be a fool to think they will one day personally thank me for the eternal love they now share, but I am certain they will always recognize that I gave them something far better than mutilation by a deranged old Dutch academic and a quack with no regard for his patients. Had they not fought things, had they returned as my guests, they might have been gently cared for when they joined the eternal night.