CHAPTER VI
MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL
_24 July. Whitby._--Lucy met me at the station, looking sweeter andlovelier than ever, and we drove up to the house at the Crescent inwhich they have rooms. This is a lovely place. The little river, theEsk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out as it comes near theharbour. A great viaduct runs across, with high piers, through which theview seems somehow further away than it really is. The valley isbeautifully green, and it is so steep that when you are on the high landon either side you look right across it, unless you are near enough tosee down. The houses of the old town--the side away from us--are allred-roofed, and seem piled up one over the other anyhow, like thepictures we see of Nuremberg. Right over the town is the ruin of WhitbyAbbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which is the scene of part ofMarmion, where the girl was built up in the wall. It is a most nobleruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits; there isa legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows. Between it andthe town there is another church, the parish one, round which is a biggraveyard, all full of tombstones. This is to my mind the nicest spot inWhitby, for it lies right over the town, and has a full view of theharbour and all up the bay to where the headland called Kettlenessstretches out into the sea. It descends so steeply over the harbour thatpart of the bank has fallen away, and some of the graves have beendestroyed. In one place part of the stonework of the graves stretchesout over the sandy pathway far below. There are walks, with seats besidethem, through the churchyard; and people go and sit there all day longlooking at the beautiful view and enjoying the breeze. I shall come andsit here very often myself and work. Indeed, I am writing now, with mybook on my knee, and listening to the talk of three old men who aresitting beside me. They seem to do nothing all day but sit up here andtalk.
The harbour lies below me, with, on the far side, one long granite wallstretching out into the sea, with a curve outwards at the end of it, inthe middle of which is a lighthouse. A heavy sea-wall runs along outsideof it. On the near side, the sea-wall makes an elbow crooked inversely,and its end too has a lighthouse. Between the two piers there is anarrow opening into the harbour, which then suddenly widens.
It is nice at high water; but when the tide is out it shoals away tonothing, and there is merely the stream of the Esk, running betweenbanks of sand, with rocks here and there. Outside the harbour on thisside there rises for about half a mile a great reef, the sharp edge ofwhich runs straight out from behind the south lighthouse. At the end ofit is a buoy with a bell, which swings in bad weather, and sends in amournful sound on the wind. They have a legend here that when a ship islost bells are heard out at sea. I must ask the old man about this; heis coming this way....
He is a funny old man. He must be awfully old, for his face is allgnarled and twisted like the bark of a tree. He tells me that he isnearly a hundred, and that he was a sailor in the Greenland fishingfleet when Waterloo was fought. He is, I am afraid, a very scepticalperson, for when I asked him about the bells at sea and the White Ladyat the abbey he said very brusquely:--
I wouldn't fash masel' about them, miss. Them things be all wore out.Mind, I don't say that they never was, but I do say that they wasn't inmy time. They be all very well for comers and trippers, an' the like,but not for a nice young lady like you. Them feet-folks from York andLeeds that be always eatin' cured herrin's an' drinkin' tea an' lookin'out to buy cheap jet would creed aught. I wonder masel' who'd bebothered tellin' lies to them--even the newspapers, which is full offool-talk. I thought he would be a good person to learn interestingthings from, so I asked him if he would mind telling me something aboutthe whale-fishing in the old days. He was just settling himself to beginwhen the clock struck six, whereupon he laboured to get up, and said:--
I must gang ageeanwards home now, miss. My grand-daughter doesn't liketo be kept waitin' when the tea is ready, for it takes me time tocrammle aboon the grees, for there be a many of 'em; an', miss, I lackbelly-timber sairly by the clock.
He hobbled away, and I could see him hurrying, as well as he could, downthe steps. The steps are a great feature on the place. They lead fromthe town up to the church, there are hundreds of them--I do not know howmany--and they wind up in a delicate curve; the slope is so gentle thata horse could easily walk up and down them. I think they must originallyhave had something to do with the abbey. I shall go home too. Lucy wentout visiting with her mother, and as they were only duty calls, I didnot go. They will be home by this.
* * * * *
_1 August._--I came up here an hour ago with Lucy, and we had a mostinteresting talk with my old friend and the two others who always comeand join him. He is evidently the Sir Oracle of them, and I should thinkmust have been in his time a most dictatorial person. He will not admitanything, and downfaces everybody. If he can't out-argue them he bulliesthem, and then takes their silence for agreement with his views. Lucywas looking sweetly pretty in her white lawn frock; she has got abeautiful colour since she has been here. I noticed that the old men didnot lose any time in coming up and sitting near her when we sat down.She is so sweet with old people; I think they all fell in love with heron the spot. Even my old man succumbed and did not contradict her, butgave me double share instead. I got him on the subject of the legends,and he went off at once into a sort of sermon. I must try to remember itand put it down:--
It be all fool-talk, lock, stock, and barrel; that's what it be, an'nowt else. These bans an' wafts an' boh-ghosts an' barguests an' boglesan' all anent them is only fit to set bairns an' dizzy womena-belderin'. They be nowt but air-blebs. They, an' all grims an' signsan' warnin's, be all invented by parsons an' illsome beuk-bodies an'railway touters to skeer an' scunner hafflin's, an' to get folks to dosomethin' that they don't other incline to. It makes me ireful to thinko' them. Why, it's them that, not content with printin' lies on paperan' preachin' them out of pulpits, does want to be cuttin' them on thetombstones. Look here all around you in what airt ye will; all themsteans, holdin' up their heads as well as they can out of their pride,is acant--simply tumblin' down with the weight o' the lies wrote onthem, 'Here lies the body' or 'Sacred to the memory' wrote on all ofthem, an' yet in nigh half of them there bean't no bodies at all; an'the memories of them bean't cared a pinch of snuff about, much lesssacred. Lies all of them, nothin' but lies of one kind or another! Mygog, but it'll be a quare scowderment at the Day of Judgment when theycome tumblin' up in their death-sarks, all jouped together an' tryin' todrag their tombsteans with them to prove how good they was; some of themtrimmlin' and ditherin', with their hands that dozzened an' slippy fromlyin' in the sea that they can't even keep their grup o' them.
I could see from the old fellow's self-satisfied air and the way inwhich he looked round for the approval of his cronies that he wasshowing off, so I put in a word to keep him going:--
Oh, Mr. Swales, you can't be serious. Surely these tombstones are notall wrong?
Yabblins! There may be a poorish few not wrong, savin' where they makeout the people too good; for there be folk that do think a balm-bowl belike the sea, if only it be their own. The whole thing be only lies. Nowlook you here; you come here a stranger, an' you see this kirk-garth. Inodded, for I thought it better to assent, though I did not quiteunderstand his dialect. I knew it had something to do with the church.He went on: And you consate that all these steans be aboon folk that behapped here, snod an' snog? I assented again. Then that be just wherethe lie comes in. Why, there be scores of these lay-beds that be toom asold Dun's 'bacca-box on Friday night. He nudged one of his companions,and they all laughed. And my gog! how could they be otherwise? Look atthat one, the aftest abaft the bier-bank: read it! I went over andread:--
Edward Spencelagh, master mariner, murdered by pirates off the coast ofAndres, April, 1854, aet. 30. When I came back Mr. Swales went on:--
Who brought him home, I wonder, to hap him here? Murdered off the coastof Andres! an' you consated his body lay under! Why, I could name ye adozen whose bones lie in the Greenland seas above--he pointednorthwards--or where the currents may have drifted them. There be thesteans around ye. Ye can, with your young eyes, read the small-print ofthe lies from here. This Braithwaite Lowrey--I knew his father, lost inthe _Lively_ off Greenland in '20; or Andrew Woodhouse, drowned in thesame seas in 1777; or John Paxton, drowned off Cape Farewell a yearlater; or old John Rawlings, whose grandfather sailed with me, drownedin the Gulf of Finland in '50. Do ye think that all these men will haveto make a rush to Whitby when the trumpet sounds? I have me antherumsaboot it! I tell ye that when they got here they'd be jommlin' an'jostlin' one another that way that it 'ud be like a fight up on the icein the old days, when we'd be at one another from daylight to dark, an'tryin' to tie up our cuts by the light of the aurora borealis. This wasevidently local pleasantry, for the old man cackled over it, and hiscronies joined in with gusto.
But, I said, surely you are not quite correct, for you start on theassumption that all the poor people, or their spirits, will have totake their tombstones with them on the Day of Judgment. Do you thinkthat will be really necessary?
Well, what else be they tombstones for? Answer me that, miss!
To please their relatives, I suppose.
To please their relatives, you suppose! This he said with intensescorn. How will it pleasure their relatives to know that lies is wroteover them, and that everybody in the place knows that they be lies? Hepointed to a stone at our feet which had been laid down as a slab, onwhich the seat was rested, close to the edge of the cliff. Read thelies on that thruff-stean, he said. The letters were upside down to mefrom where I sat, but Lucy was more opposite to them, so she leant overand read:--
Sacred to the memory of George Canon, who died, in the hope of aglorious resurrection, on July, 29, 1873, falling from the rocks atKettleness. This tomb was erected by his sorrowing mother to her dearlybeloved son. 'He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.'Really, Mr. Swales, I don't see anything very funny in that! She spokeher comment very gravely and somewhat severely.
Ye don't see aught funny! Ha! ha! But that's because ye don't gawm thesorrowin' mother was a hell-cat that hated him because he wasacrewk'd--a regular lamiter he was--an' he hated her so that hecommitted suicide in order that she mightn't get an insurance she put onhis life. He blew nigh the top of his head off with an old musket thatthey had for scarin' the crows with. 'Twarn't for crows then, for itbrought the clegs and the dowps to him. That's the way he fell off therocks. And, as to hopes of a glorious resurrection, I've often heard himsay masel' that he hoped he'd go to hell, for his mother was so piousthat she'd be sure to go to heaven, an' he didn't want to addle whereshe was. Now isn't that stean at any rate--he hammered it with hisstick as he spoke--a pack of lies? and won't it make Gabriel kecklewhen Geordie comes pantin' up the grees with the tombstean balanced onhis hump, and asks it to be took as evidence!
I did not know what to say, but Lucy turned the conversation as shesaid, rising up:--
Oh, why did you tell us of this? It is my favourite seat, and I cannotleave it; and now I find I must go on sitting over the grave of asuicide.
That won't harm ye, my pretty; an' it may make poor Geordie gladsome tohave so trim a lass sittin' on his lap. That won't hurt ye. Why, I'vesat here off an' on for nigh twenty years past, an' it hasn't done meno harm. Don't ye fash about them as lies under ye, or that doesn' liethere either! It'll be time for ye to be getting scart when ye see thetombsteans all run away with, and the place as bare as a stubble-field.There's the clock, an' I must gang. My service to ye, ladies! And offhe hobbled.
Lucy and I sat awhile, and it was all so beautiful before us that wetook hands as we sat; and she told me all over again about Arthur andtheir coming marriage. That made me just a little heart-sick, for Ihaven't heard from Jonathan for a whole month.
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_The same day._ I came up here alone, for I am very sad. There was noletter for me. I hope there cannot be anything the matter with Jonathan.The clock has just struck nine. I see the lights scattered all over thetown, sometimes in rows where the streets are, and sometimes singly;they run right up the Esk and die away in the curve of the valley. To myleft the view is cut off by a black line of roof of the old house nextthe abbey. The sheep and lambs are bleating in the fields away behindme, and there is a clatter of a donkey's hoofs up the paved road below.The band on the pier is playing a harsh waltz in good time, and furtheralong the quay there is a Salvation Army meeting in a back street.Neither of the bands hears the other, but up here I hear and see themboth. I wonder where Jonathan is and if he is thinking of me! I wish hewere here.
_Dr. Seward's Diary._
_5 June._--The case of Renfield grows more interesting the more I get tounderstand the man. He has certain qualities very largely developed;selfishness, secrecy, and purpose. I wish I could get at what is theobject of the latter. He seems to have some settled scheme of his own,but what it is I do not yet know. His redeeming quality is a love ofanimals, though, indeed, he has such curious turns in it that Isometimes imagine he is only abnormally cruel. His pets are of oddsorts. Just now his hobby is catching flies. He has at present such aquantity that I have had myself to expostulate. To my astonishment, hedid not break out into a fury, as I expected, but took the matter insimple seriousness. He thought for a moment, and then said: May I havethree days? I shall clear them away. Of course, I said that would do. Imust watch him.
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_18 June._--He has turned his mind now to spiders, and has got severalvery big fellows in a box. He keeps feeding them with his flies, andthe number of the latter is becoming sensibly diminished, although hehas used half his food in attracting more flies from outside to hisroom.
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_1 July._--His spiders are now becoming as great a nuisance as hisflies, and to-day I told him that he must get rid of them. He lookedvery sad at this, so I said that he must clear out some of them, at allevents. He cheerfully acquiesced in this, and I gave him the same timeas before for reduction. He disgusted me much while with him, for when ahorrid blow-fly, bloated with some carrion food, buzzed into the room,he caught it, held it exultantly for a few moments between his fingerand thumb, and, before I knew what he was going to do, put it in hismouth and ate it. I scolded him for it, but he argued quietly that itwas very good and very wholesome; that it was life, strong life, andgave life to him. This gave me an idea, or the rudiment of one. I mustwatch how he gets rid of his spiders. He has evidently some deep problemin his mind, for he keeps a little note-book in which he is alwaysjotting down something. Whole pages of it are filled with masses offigures, generally single numbers added up in batches, and then thetotals added in batches again, as though he were focussing someaccount, as the auditors put it.
* * * * *
_8 July._--There is a method in his madness, and the rudimentary idea inmy mind is growing. It will be a whole idea soon, and then, oh,unconscious cerebration! you will have to give the wall to yourconscious brother. I kept away from my friend for a few days, so that Imight notice if there were any change. Things remain as they were exceptthat he has parted with some of his pets and got a new one. He hasmanaged to get a sparrow, and has already partially tamed it. His meansof taming is simple, for already the spiders have diminished. Those thatdo remain, however, are well fed, for he still brings in the flies bytempting them with his food.
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_19 July._--We are progressing. My friend has now a whole colony ofsparrows, and his flies and spiders are almost obliterated. When I camein he ran to me and said he wanted to ask me a great favour--a very,very great favour; and as he spoke he fawned on me like a dog. I askedhim what it was, and he said, with a sort of rapture in his voice andbearing:--
A kitten, a nice little, sleek playful kitten, that I can play with,and teach, and feed--and feed--and feed! I was not unprepared for thisrequest, for I had noticed how his pets went on increasing in size andvivacity, but I did not care that his pretty family of tame sparrowsshould be wiped out in the same manner as the flies and the spiders; soI said I would see about it, and asked him if he would not rather have acat than a kitten. His eagerness betrayed him as he answered:--
Oh, yes, I would like a cat! I only asked for a kitten lest you shouldrefuse me a cat. No one would refuse me a kitten, would they? I shookmy head, and said that at present I feared it would not be possible, butthat I would see about it. His face fell, and I could see a warning ofdanger in it, for there was a sudden fierce, sidelong look which meantkilling. The man is an undeveloped homicidal maniac. I shall test himwith his present craving and see how it will work out; then I shall knowmore.
* * * * *
_10 p. m._--I have visited him again and found him sitting in a cornerbrooding. When I came in he threw himself on his knees before me andimplored me to let him have a cat; that his salvation depended upon it.I was firm, however, and told him that he could not have it, whereuponhe went without a word, and sat down, gnawing his fingers, in the cornerwhere I had found him. I shall see him in the morning early.
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_20 July._--Visited Renfield very early, before the attendant went hisrounds. Found him up and humming a tune. He was spreading out his sugar,which he had saved, in the window, and was manifestly beginning hisfly-catching again; and beginning it cheerfully and with a good grace. Ilooked around for his birds, and not seeing them, asked him where theywere. He replied, without turning round, that they had all flown away.There were a few feathers about the room and on his pillow a drop ofblood. I said nothing, but went and told the keeper to report to me ifthere were anything odd about him during the day.
* * * * *
_11 a. m._--The attendant has just been to me to say that Renfield hasbeen very sick and has disgorged a whole lot of feathers. My belief is,doctor, he said, that he has eaten his birds, and that he just tookand ate them raw!
* * * * *
_11 p. m._--I gave Renfield a strong opiate to-night, enough to makeeven him sleep, and took away his pocket-book to look at it. The thoughtthat has been buzzing about my brain lately is complete, and the theoryproved. My homicidal maniac is of a peculiar kind. I shall have toinvent a new classification for him, and call him a zooephagous(life-eating) maniac; what he desires is to absorb as many lives as hecan, and he has laid himself out to achieve it in a cumulative way. Hegave many flies to one spider and many spiders to one bird, and thenwanted a cat to eat the many birds. What would have been his latersteps? It would almost be worth while to complete the experiment. Itmight be done if there were only a sufficient cause. Men sneered atvivisection, and yet look at its results to-day! Why not advance sciencein its most difficult and vital aspect--the knowledge of the brain? HadI even the secret of one such mind--did I hold the key to the fancy ofeven one lunatic--I might advance my own branch of science to a pitchcompared with which Burdon-Sanderson's physiology or Ferrier'sbrain-knowledge would be as nothing. If only there were a sufficientcause! I must not think too much of this, or I may be tempted; a goodcause might turn the scale with me, for may not I too be of anexceptional brain, congenitally?
How well the man reasoned; lunatics always do within their own scope. Iwonder at how many lives he values a man, or if at only one. He hasclosed the account most accurately, and to-day begun a new record. Howmany of us begin a new record with each day of our lives?
To me it seems only yesterday that my whole life ended with my new hope,and that truly I began a new record. So it will be until the GreatRecorder sums me up and closes my ledger account with a balance toprofit or loss. Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot be angry with you, nor can I beangry with my friend whose happiness is yours; but I must only wait onhopeless and work. Work! work!
If I only could have as strong a cause as my poor mad friend there--agood, unselfish cause to make me work--that would be indeed happiness.
_Mina Murray's Journal._
_26 July._--I am anxious, and it soothes me to express myself here; itis like whispering to one's self and listening at the same time. Andthere is also something about the shorthand symbols that makes itdifferent from writing. I am unhappy about Lucy and about Jonathan. Ihad not heard from Jonathan for some time, and was very concerned; butyesterday dear Mr. Hawkins, who is always so kind, sent me a letter fromhim. I had written asking him if he had heard, and he said the enclosedhad just been received. It is only a line dated from Castle Dracula,and says that he is just starting for home. That is not like Jonathan;I do not understand it, and it makes me uneasy. Then, too, Lucy,although she is so well, has lately taken to her old habit of walking inher sleep. Her mother has spoken to me about it, and we have decidedthat I am to lock the door of our room every night. Mrs. Westenra hasgot an idea that sleep-walkers always go out on roofs of houses andalong the edges of cliffs and then get suddenly wakened and fall overwith a despairing cry that echoes all over the place. Poor dear, she isnaturally anxious about Lucy, and she tells me that her husband, Lucy'sfather, had the same habit; that he would get up in the night and dresshimself and go out, if he were not stopped. Lucy is to be married in theautumn, and she is already planning out her dresses and how her house isto be arranged. I sympathise with her, for I do the same, only Jonathanand I will start in life in a very simple way, and shall have to try tomake both ends meet. Mr. Holmwood--he is the Hon. Arthur Holmwood, onlyson of Lord Godalming--is coming up here very shortly--as soon as he canleave town, for his father is not very well, and I think dear Lucy iscounting the moments till he comes. She wants to take him up to the seaton the churchyard cliff and show him the beauty of Whitby. I daresay itis the waiting which disturbs her; she will be all right when hearrives.
* * * * *
_27 July._--No news from Jonathan. I am getting quite uneasy about him,though why I should I do not know; but I do wish that he would write, ifit were only a single line. Lucy walks more than ever, and each night Iam awakened by her moving about the room. Fortunately, the weather is sohot that she cannot get cold; but still the anxiety and the perpetuallybeing wakened is beginning to tell on me, and I am getting nervous andwakeful myself. Thank God, Lucy's health keeps up. Mr. Holmwood has beensuddenly called to Ring to see his father, who has been taken seriouslyill. Lucy frets at the postponement of seeing him, but it does not touchher looks; she is a trifle stouter, and her cheeks are a lovelyrose-pink. She has lost that anaemic look which she had. I pray it willall last.
* * * * *
_3 August._--Another week gone, and no news from Jonathan, not even toMr. Hawkins, from whom I have heard. Oh, I do hope he is not ill. Hesurely would have written. I look at that last letter of his, butsomehow it does not satisfy me. It does not read like him, and yet it ishis writing. There is no mistake of that. Lucy has not walked much inher sleep the last week, but there is an odd concentration about herwhich I do not understand; even in her sleep she seems to be watchingme. She tries the door, and finding it locked, goes about the roomsearching for the key.
_6 August._--Another three days, and no news. This suspense is gettingdreadful. If I only knew where to write to or where to go to, I shouldfeel easier; but no one has heard a word of Jonathan since that lastletter. I must only pray to God for patience. Lucy is more excitablethan ever, but is otherwise well. Last night was very threatening, andthe fishermen say that we are in for a storm. I must try to watch it andlearn the weather signs. To-day is a grey day, and the sun as I write ishidden in thick clouds, high over Kettleness. Everything is grey--exceptthe green grass, which seems like emerald amongst it; grey earthy rock;grey clouds, tinged with the sunburst at the far edge, hang over thegrey sea, into which the sand-points stretch like grey fingers. The seais tumbling in over the shallows and the sandy flats with a roar,muffled in the sea-mists drifting inland. The horizon is lost in a greymist. All is vastness; the clouds are piled up like giant rocks, andthere is a brool over the sea that sounds like some presage of doom.Dark figures are on the beach here and there, sometimes half shrouded inthe mist, and seem men like trees walking. The fishing-boats areracing for home, and rise and dip in the ground swell as they sweep intothe harbour, bending to the scuppers. Here comes old Mr. Swales. He ismaking straight for me, and I can see, by the way he lifts his hat, thathe wants to talk....
I have been quite touched by the change in the poor old man. When he satdown beside me, he said in a very gentle way:--
I want to say something to you, miss. I could see he was not at ease,so I took his poor old wrinkled hand in mine and asked him to speakfully; so he said, leaving his hand in mine:--
I'm afraid, my deary, that I must have shocked you by all the wickedthings I've been sayin' about the dead, and such like, for weeks past;but I didn't mean them, and I want ye to remember that when I'm gone. Weaud folks that be daffled, and with one foot abaft the krok-hooal, don'taltogether like to think of it, and we don't want to feel scart of it;an' that's why I've took to makin' light of it, so that I'd cheer up myown heart a bit. But, Lord love ye, miss, I ain't afraid of dyin', not abit; only I don't want to die if I can help it. My time must be nigh athand now, for I be aud, and a hundred years is too much for any man toexpect; and I'm so nigh it that the Aud Man is already whettin' hisscythe. Ye see, I can't get out o' the habit of caffin' about it all atonce; the chafts will wag as they be used to. Some day soon the Angel ofDeath will sound his trumpet for me. But don't ye dooal an' greet, mydeary!--for he saw that I was crying--if he should come this verynight I'd not refuse to answer his call. For life be, after all, only awaitin' for somethin' else than what we're doin'; and death be all thatwe can rightly depend on. But I'm content, for it's comin' to me, mydeary, and comin' quick. It may be comin' while we be lookin' andwonderin'. Maybe it's in that wind out over the sea that's bringin' withit loss and wreck, and sore distress, and sad hearts. Look! look! hecried suddenly. There's something in that wind and in the hoast beyontthat sounds, and looks, and tastes, and smells like death. It's in theair; I feel it comin'. Lord, make me answer cheerful when my callcomes! He held up his arms devoutly, and raised his hat. His mouthmoved as though he were praying. After a few minutes' silence, he gotup, shook hands with me, and blessed me, and said good-bye, and hobbledoff. It all touched me, and upset me very much.
I was glad when the coastguard came along, with his spy-glass under hisarm. He stopped to talk with me, as he always does, but all the timekept looking at a strange ship.
I can't make her out, he said; she's a Russian, by the look of her;but she's knocking about in the queerest way. She doesn't know her minda bit; she seems to see the storm coming, but can't decide whether torun up north in the open, or to put in here. Look there again! She issteered mighty strangely, for she doesn't mind the hand on the wheel;changes about with every puff of wind. We'll hear more of her beforethis time to-morrow.