I shall not remain alone with them; I shall try to scale the castlewall farther than I have yet attempted. I shall take some of the goldwith me, lest I want it later. I may find a way from this dreadfulplace.
And then away for home! away to the quickest and nearest train! awayfrom this cursed spot, from this cursed land, where the devil and hischildren still walk with earthly feet!
At least God's mercy is better than that of these monsters, and theprecipice is steep and high. At its foot a man may sleep--as a man.Good-bye, all! Mina!
CHAPTER V.
_Letter from Miss Mina Murray to Miss Lucy Westenra._
"_9 May._
"My dearest Lucy,--
"Forgive my long delay in writing, but I have been simply overwhelmedwith work. The life of an assistant schoolmistress is sometimestrying. I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we canwalk together freely and build our castles in the air. I have beenworking very hard lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan'sstudies, and I have been practising shorthand very assiduously. Whenwe are married I shall be able to be useful to Jonathan, and if I canstenograph well enough I can take down what he wants to say in thisway and write it out for him on the typewriter, at which I am alsopractising very hard. He and I sometimes write letters in shorthand,and he is keeping a stenographic journal of his travels abroad. When Iam with you I shall keep a diary in the same way. I don't mean one ofthose two-pages-to-the-week-with-Sunday-squeezed-in-a-corner diaries,but a sort of journal which I can write in whenever I feel inclined. Ido not suppose there will be much of interest to other people; but itis not intended for them. I may show it to Jonathan some day if thereis in it anything worth sharing, but it is really an exercise book.I shall try to do what I see lady journalists do: interviewing andwriting descriptions and trying to remember conversations. I am toldthat, with a little practice, one can remember all that goes on or thatone hears said during a day. However, we shall see. I shall tell youall my little plans when we meet. I have just had a few hurried linesfrom Jonathan from Transylvania. He is well, and will be returning inabout a week. I am longing to hear all his news. It must be so nice tosee strange countries, I wonder if we--I mean Jonathan and I--shallever see them together. There is the ten o'clock bell ringing. Goodbye.
"Your loving "/Mina./
"Tell me all the news when you write. You have not told me anythingfor a long time. I hear rumours, and especially of a tall, handsome,curly-haired man???"
_Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray._
"_17, Chatham Street,
"Wednesday._
"My dearest Mina,--
"I must say you tax me _very_ unfairly with being a bad correspondent.I wrote to you _twice_ since we parted, and your last letter was onlyyour _second_. Besides, I have nothing to tell you. There is reallynothing to interest you. Town is very pleasant just now, and we go agood deal to picture-galleries and for walks and rides in the park.As to the tall, curly-haired man, I suppose it was the one who waswith me at the last Pop. Some one has evidently been telling tales.That was Mr. Holmwood. He often comes to see us, and he and mammaget on very well together; they have so many things to talk about incommon. We met some time ago a man that would just _do for you_, ifyou were not already engaged to Jonathan. He is an excellent _parti_,being handsome, well off, and of good birth. He is a doctor and reallyclever. Just fancy! He is only nine-and-twenty, and he has an immenselunatic asylum all under his own care. Mr. Holmwood introduced him tome, and he called here to see us, and often comes now. I think he isone of the most resolute men I ever saw, and yet the most calm. Heseems absolutely imperturbable. I can fancy what a wonderful power hemust have over his patients. He has a curious habit of looking onestraight in the face, as if trying to read one's thoughts. He triesthis on very much with me, but I flatter myself he has got a toughnut to crack. I know that from my glass. Do you ever try to read yourown face? _I do_, and I can tell you it is not a bad study, and givesyou more trouble than you can well fancy if you have never tried it.He says that I afford him a curious psychological study, and I humblythink I do. I do not, as you know, take sufficient interest in dress tobe able to describe the new fashions. Dress is a bore. That is slangagain, but never mind; Arthur says that every day. There, it is allout. Mina, we have told all our secrets to each other since we were_children_; we have slept together and eaten together; and laughedand cried together; and now, though I have spoken, I would like tospeak more. Oh, Mina, couldn't you guess? I love him. I am blushingas I write, for although I _think_ he loves me, he has not told me soin words. But, oh, Mina, I love him; I love him; I love him! There,that does me good. I wish I were with you, dear, sitting by the fireundressing, as we used to sit; and I would try to tell you what I feel.I do not know how I am writing this even to you. I am afraid to stop,or I should tear up the letter, and I don't want to stop, for I _do so_want to tell you all. Let me hear from you _at once_, and tell me allthat you think about it. Mina, I must stop. Good-night. Bless me inyour prayers; and, Mina, pray for my happiness.
"/Lucy./
"P.S.--I need not tell you this is a secret. Good-night again.
"L."
_Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray._
"24 _May._
"My dearest Mina,--
"Thanks, and thanks, and thanks again for your sweet letter! It was sonice to be able to tell you and to have your sympathy.
"My dear, it never rains but it pours. How true the old proverbs are.Here am I, who will be twenty in September, and yet I never had aproposal till to-day, not a real proposal, and to-day I have had three.Just fancy! /Three/ proposals in one day! Isn't it awful! I feel sorry,really and truly sorry, for two of the poor fellows. Oh, Mina, I am sohappy that I don't know what to do with myself. And three proposals!But, for goodness' sake, don't tell any of the girls, or they would begetting all sorts of extravagant ideas and imagining themselves injuredand slighted if in their very first day at home they did not get six atleast. Some girls are so vain. You and I, Mina dear, who are engagedand are going to settle down soon soberly into old married women, candespise vanity. Well, I must tell you about the three, but you mustkeep it a secret, dear, from _every one_, except, of course, Jonathan.You will tell him, because I would, if I were in your place, certainlytell Arthur. A woman ought to tell her husband everything--don't youthink so, dear?--and I must be fair. Men like women, certainly theirwives, to be quite as fair as they are; and women, I am afraid, arenot always quite as fair as they should be. Well, my dear, numberone came just before lunch. I told you of him, Dr. John Seward, thelunatic-asylum man, with the strong jaw and the good forehead. He wasvery cool outwardly, but was nervous all the same. He had evidentlybeen schooling himself as to all sorts of little things, and rememberedthem; but he almost managed to sit down on his silk hat, which mendon't generally do when they are cool, and then when he wanted toappear at ease he kept playing with a lancet in a way that made menearly scream. He spoke to me, Mina, very straightforwardly. He toldme how dear I was to him, though he had known me so little, and whathis life would be with me to help and cheer him. He was going to tellme how unhappy he would be if I did not care for him, but when he sawme cry he said that he was a brute and would not add to my presenttrouble. Then he broke off and asked if I could love him in time; andwhen I shook my head his hands trembled, and then with some hesitationhe asked me if I cared already for any one else. He put it very nicely,saying that he did not want to wring my confidence from me, but only toknow, because if a woman's heart was free a man might have hope. Andthen, Mina, I felt it a sort of duty to tell him that there was someone. I only told him that much, and then he stood up, and he lookedvery strong and very grave as he took both my hands in his and said hehoped I would be happy, and that if I ever wanted a friend I must counthim one of my best. Oh, Mina dear, I can't help crying; and you mustexcuse this letter being all blotted. Being proposed to is all verynice and all that sort of thing, but it isn't at all a happy thing whenyou have to see a poor fellow, whom you know loves you honestly, goingaway and looking all broken-hearted, and to know that, no matter whathe may say at the moment, you are passing quite out of his life. Mydear, I must stop here at present, I feel so miserable, though I am sohappy.
"_Evening._
"Arthur has just gone, and I feel in better spirits than when I leftoff, so I can go on telling you about the day. Well, my dear, numbertwo came after lunch. He is such a nice fellow, an American from Texas,and he looks so young and so fresh that it se
ems almost impossible thathe has been to so many places and has had such adventures. I sympathisewith poor Desdemona when she had such a dangerous stream poured in herear, even by a black man. I suppose that we women are such cowardsthat we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him. I knownow what I would do if I were a man and wanted to make a girl loveme. No, I don't, for there was Mr. Morris telling us his stories, andArthur never told any, and yet----My dear, I am somewhat previous.Mr. Quincey P. Morris found me alone. It seems that a man always doesfind a girl alone. No, he doesn't, for Arthur tried twice to _make_a chance, and I helping him all I could; I am not ashamed to say itnow. I must tell you beforehand that Mr. Morris doesn't always speakslang--that is to say, he never does so to strangers or before them,for he is really well educated and has exquisite manners--but he foundout that it amused me to hear him talk American slang, and whenever Iwas present, and there was no one to be shocked, he said such funnythings. I am afraid, my dear, he has to invent it all, for it fitsexactly into whatever else he has to say. But this is a way slang has.I do not know myself if I shall ever speak slang; I do not know ifArthur likes it, as I have never heard him use any as yet. Well, Mr.Morris sat down beside me and looked as happy and jolly as he could,but I could see all the same that he was very nervous. He took my handin his, and said ever so sweetly:--
"'Miss Lucy, I know I ain't good enough to regulate the fixin's of yourlittle shoes, but I guess if you wait till you find a man that is youwill go join them seven young women with the lamps when you quit. Won'tyou just hitch up alongside of me and let us go down the long roadtogether driving in double harness?'
"Well, he did look so good-humoured and so jolly that it didn't seemhalf so hard to refuse him as it did poor Dr. Seward, so I said, aslightly as I could, that I did not know anything of hitching, and thatI wasn't broken to harness at all yet. Then he said that he had spokenin a light manner, and he hoped that if he had made a mistake in doingso on so grave, so momentous, an occasion for him, I would forgive him.He really did look serious when he was saying it, and I couldn't helpfeeling a bit serious, too--I know, Mina, you will think me a horridflirt--though I couldn't help feeling a sort of exultation that he wasnumber two in one day. And then, my dear, before I could say a word hebegan pouring out a perfect torrent of love-making, laying his veryheart and soul at my feet. He looked so earnest over it that I shallnever again think that a man must be playful always, and never earnest,because he is merry at times. I suppose he saw something in my facewhich checked him, for he suddenly stopped, and said with a sort ofmanly fervour that I could have loved him for if I had been free:--
"'Lucy, you are an honest-hearted girl, I know. I should not be herespeaking to you as I am now if I did not believe you clean grit, rightthrough to the very depths of your soul. Tell me, like one good fellowto another, is there any one else that you care for? And if there is,I'll never trouble you a hair's breadth again, but will be, if you willlet me, a very faithful friend.'
"My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthyof them? Here was I almost making fun of this great-hearted, truegentleman. I burst into tears--I am afraid, my dear, you will thinkthis is a very sloppy letter in more ways than one--and I really feltvery badly. Why can't they let a girl marry three men, or as many aswant her, and save all this trouble? But this is heresy, and I must notsay it. I am glad to say that, though I was crying, I was able to lookinto Mr. Morris's brave eyes, and I told him out straight:--