Part 12 (1/2)

'Tell me, Miss Elena . .. have you ever walked in your sleep?''Not to my knowledge.' I gave him a hard look and turned away.

'You must forgive me,' he said, soft but determined. 'My questions seem impertinent, but are in an essential cause. It is not true, then, that the Szekely farmers, with whom you stayed, saw you walking in the orchard and fields at night, accompanied by a white wolf? That you vanished for two days at a time, yet could not say where you had been? Vanished again on the very night of your father's death?'

I was facing away from him as he spoke, otherwise he would have seen my face drain to white. How does he know these things? Has he written to the farmers, asking them about my behaviour? Perhaps he saw a tightening of my shoulders; but I composed myself at once and turned round, displaying all the innocent, wounded sorrow I could muster.

'There was a sick wolf, Professor. It had been shot but not killed, and I wanted to help it, out of pity. I - I tried to feed it. I know I should not have done so, that wolves are the farmers' enemies, but I felt so sorry for it! I went out to search for it, and got lost. My behaviour was foolish, I know, but I acted only out of compa.s.sion for a creature in pain. As for my father, I was so distraught at his death that I could not help but flee. I acted in haste because I was not in my right mind; I beg you, out of pity if not understanding, not to judge me too harshly. Whatever my reasons for acting as I did, they are mine alone to know. But tell me, what have I done to deserve someone, who professes himself a friend of my uncle and therefore of his niece, to spy upon me?' I wept; Van Helsing looked fittingly ashamed.

'Forgive me, Miss Elena. I ask these questions only out of concern for your welfare. I would not intrude upon your grief and privacy without good cause. You look pale; has your sleep been disturbed at all?'

'No, Professor! I have a slight cold, that is all.'

'But you will tell me at once if you experience . .. strange dreams, any feelings of illness? I ask only in order to help you. As a friend of your uncle, I ask you to trust me; you will keep your window firmly shut at all times, will you not? And invite no strangers into the house.'

I frowned. 'Of course - but why do you ask this?'

'I will explain in time, but for now I cannot. Only take me at my word. I wish you good-day and a most pleasant journey.' With that he inclined his head to me, and left.

I think I have allayed his doubts for now, but there is no question that he suspects me! I am so afraid he may guess -if he has not already. He is a very clever man; more clever than I realized. I must talk to my beloved - but how? We are to leave for this wretched day at the seaside at any moment. There is no possibility of seeing him before tonight. I must think of something, we must act swiftly.

Mina is calling. No time.

JONATHAN BARKER'S JOURNAL.

(Dictated by him and entered by Abraham Van Helsing)

11 November, evening I can barely bring myself to record this. How much more of this nightmare can we endure? Is there any more the monster can do to us? The answer to that is yes, yes and yes. It has only just begun.

Seward and G.o.dalming are with us in the parlour as we make this record. Mina is on the couch by the fire, sleeping; she does not wish to be alone in her room, for which I do not blame her.

Now I look back I can see that there were signs all day. All morning, on the train and at the coast, Elena doted constantly on Quincey, sometimes to the point of smothering him; she was forever kissing him, ruffling his hair, stroking his cheeks or picking him up. It was almost as if Elena were taking over the role of mother. Mina could barely come near him without Elena intervening, whisking him away to look at some new object of fascination to a small boy. Mina seemed not to mind, for she is too good and gracious ever to make a scene, but in her heart she must have been as discomforted as was I.

I did not like it. My dream of Elena hung on me, and it concerned me to see the woman who last night leaned over me with great snake fangs cossetting our boy. I dismissed the feeling, for it seemed so unfair to Elena. How I wish now that I had heeded it!

The sea was very wild, leaping and breaking on the cliffs in great fans of spray. The sky was wonderful, full of fast-moving clouds through which the sun blazed and faded at dizzying intervals; the cloud itself was many-layered, with bright, stately columns above and swift-flowing whorls of purple-grey below. The wind was so brisk it left us breathless. On a normal day it would have been exhilarating, but in our state it seemed only to aggravate our raw nerves.

All morning I felt we should find some way to explain about our enemy to Elena, the better to protect her by being wholly honest, but Quincey was always with her and the opportunity did not arise. At last Mina whispered to me, 'Never mind, we will tell her when we reach home and Quincey is in bed.'

The thought of going home and facing another night like the last appalled me. I felt a deep depression creep over me, and wished dearly that we could simply step on a train, perhaps to London or Paris, and leave all this anguish behind - but what would be the use? I know that Dracula would hunt us to ground wherever we went!

Quincey, of course, grew tired by midday and after lunch was sleepy. Mina wanted to take him home, but I was reluctant to go back so early. So when Elena suggested - nay, insisted - that she take him home on an earlier train while Mina and I stayed a little longer by the sea, we agreed all too readily. How she has repaid our trust! But I am to blame, for I had noticed the strange looks she gave Mina, and I chose to ignore them! We waved Elena off with our boy, and then spent a few hours more strolling along the front before we gathered ourselves to face the journey home.

When we reached home in the evening, we a.s.sumed that Elena had taken Quincey to the nursery for a nap. We met Van Helsing and the others in the parlour, where they were studying some ancient tome; in response to our enquiry, they said that they had heard no one come in, and had a.s.sumed Elena was still with us. We found the nursery and Elena's room empty; we searched the house; we asked Mary if Elena had come in and gone out again; but it was soon apparent that Elena had not been home. Once she left us at the seaside, she vanished.

Mina collapsed; we helped her to an armchair, where she sat trembling. We were all too shocked to act at once. 'What if they have had an accident?' said Mina. 'Elena cannot have taken him on purpose. Perhaps she got on the wrong train by mistake, or alighted at the wrong station; she is a foreigner, after all! Quincey will be so overtired by now, he will be ill again!'

Here Van Helsing gave me a grave, knowing look that Mina did not see. It roused my deepest suspicions. Van Helsing will always think the worst, but he is usually right. (And wishes he were not - Van H.) I brought Mina a gla.s.s of brandy; we spoke of calling the police, but Van Helsing said heavily, 'Not yet. Listen to me first. I am reluctant to call into doubt the character of a young woman who may yet be quite innocent. But given the dire circ.u.mstance in which we find ourselves, I can no longer keep my doubts to myself.

'I have thought long and hard about this, but always I come to the same conclusion; it may have been Elena who invited Dracula into the house. Indeed, it must have been she! Your Elena, pretty and gracious as she is, although the niece of my good friend, never rings quite true to me. Think, we left her in Transylvania, there by the Borgo Pa.s.s, a few miles only from Dracula's castle.

Then she comes to you so suddenly, her father mysteriously dead, her uncle vanished, yet so merry and serene in the face of these losses! When I write to the farmers, to enquire more of Emil's death, I receive at length a strange reply; that she was seen outside at night with a great pale wolf, that she once wandered from the farm and was gone for two days, yet could not explain her actions.

After her father was killed, she was never seen again. They said that they believed her to be bewitched. Was this mere superst.i.tion on their part? They are peasants, yes, but you met them, and know diem to be good, honest people.'

Mina protested, 'I cannot believe we could be so wrong about her! You must be mistaken!'

Van Helsing lifted his hand briefly and shook his head. 'I have met Elena many times in the past, though I never know her well.

But well enough to see that she is changed. There is a slyness in her that was not there before, a watchfulness. It may be yet that I do her a great injustice. I hope that I do; that this is all a misunderstanding and she may at any minute bring Quincey home with an innocent explanation. But we must be prepared for the worst.'

At this a memory came to me: that this morning, when I was left alone with Quincey for a few minutes, the boy said something strange. 'Papa, I read Elena's book this morning.'

'What book is that?' I had asked indulgently.

'The book she writes.' I still remember his pale, serious face as he spoke, the wind-reddened spots in his cheeks! 'Her diary, like the one Mama keeps. I sat on her knee and watched as she wrote. She wrote of a strange man coming into the house, and of Professor Van Helsing asking her about wolves and dreams. I read every word!'

'But she would write in Hungarian, Quincey.'

'No, Papa, she writes in English. I could not have read Hungarian,' he explained patiently. At the time I thought he was being fanciful, making up what he thought he had read. But in the light of what Van Helsing was saying -1 leapt up, and repeated this conversation to the others.

Van Helsing groaned. 'It is true, I spoke to her this morning of such matters! I wanted to hear her story, to cast some light on my suspicions, in the hopes of laying them to rest! Instead - ah, my questions only upset her, and provoked her to take this action!'

'We don't know that,' said Mina, stroking his hand.

'Wait,' I said. I left the parlour and ran up to Elena's room. Improper as it was to pry in a lady's bedchamber in this way, I felt that Quincey's plight overruled older sensibilities.

How still and strange the room seemed; as if her presence lingered like a scent. I searched the writing-table first, but found only pens and ink there. There was a small gold cross on a chain lying on the carpet, as if it had been carelessly dropped; that was a sign, her contempt for Mina's gift. Then I went all around the room, looking in drawers, stirring her soft white garments in search of the diary. Finding nothing, I opened the wardrobe. As I carefully worked through the layers of dresses, s.h.i.+fts and nightdresses - thinking she might have left the book in a pocket - a fragrance wafted out. At first it was a delicious earthy warmth, but presently I caught a sour note mingled with it, which grew stronger and stronger. Seeking its source, I bent down, and in the base of the wardrobe I found an old shawl all bundled up. As I disturbed it, the stench became overwhelming. How familiar, how repellent was that odour of foul earth, mould and decay - for it was the odour of a vampire's grave.

In my revulsion, it was all I could do to touch the shawl again. As if I dealt with some monstrous spider, I s.n.a.t.c.hed it and dropped it quickly aside. Underneath lay a book, like the notebooks Mina and I use.I opened it at random and read a few pages. At once I knew that we had been betrayed. I could read no more -could only rush down and wordlessly give the journal to Van Helsing.

He a.s.sumed the burden of reading Elena's story aloud to us. The shame of reading a private journal doubled our misery, but it had to be done. We listened in .grim silence as she described how Dracula came to her in the shape of a wolf; how he lured her to the Castle, made her collect his ashes and his native earth and bring them to England, carrying his spirit inside her. How gloatingly she writes of her triumph in stealing Mina's blood - no remorse for the pain she caused! How sickening to read of her vigil by the tomb, as if she were waiting for her lover to come, not this repellent fiend!

'Then I was right,' Van Helsing said heavily. 'My questions this morning prompted her to flee. I am so sorry, I can never ask your forgiveness.'

'But she may have planned to do it anyway,' said Seward, who looked as grim as I have ever seen him. 'She is clearly hand-in- glove with Dracula!'

'I cannot believe it!' said Mina, ashen and distraught. 'I can't believe we were so wrong about her! Dracula has bewitched her, she is not acting of her own will!'

'Alas, I fear she is,' Van Helsing responded. 'Every line of this ghastly account emphasizes her willing collusion. Dracula found the perfect ally; one who actively wanted to help him. He only gave her the means to plunge into the depravity she admits that she always, secretly desired.'

'But he must have found her though us,' Mina said hoa.r.s.ely, clinging to my good hand. 'It was my presence that stirred him. My presence also mat clung in some degree to Elena, thus drawing him to her! I gave her that book as a present when we left Transylvania . ..'

'Do not begin to blame yourself,' Van Helsing said quickly. 'The fault lies not in your gift. On the contrary, it has enabled us to find out the truth. And think; now we know the exact location of Dracula's hiding-place - and we know that this time, instead of fifty graves, he has only one! As for Elena, there is hope. She is still human, not vampire, and there is still the chance we may save her soul.'