MINA HARKER’S JOURNAL

22 September.—­In the train to Exeter.  Jonathan sleeping.  It seems only yesterday that the last entry was made, and yet how much between then, in Whitby and all the world before me, Jonathan away and no news of him, and now, married to Jonathan, Jonathan a solicitor, a partner, rich, master of his business, Mr. Hawkins dead and buried, and Jonathan with another attack that may harm him.  Some day he may ask me about it.  Down it all goes.  I am rusty in my shorthand, see what unexpected prosperity does for us, so it may be as well to freshen it up again with an exercise anyhow.

The service was very simple and very solemn.  There were only ourselves and the servants there, one or two old friends of his from Exeter, his London agent, and a gentleman representing Sir John Paxton, the President of the Incorporated Law Society.  Jonathan and I stood hand in hand, and we felt that our best and dearest friend was gone from us.

We came back to town quietly, taking a bus to Hyde Park Corner.  Jonathan thought it would interest me to go into the Row for a while, so we sat down.  But there were very few people there, and it was sad-looking and desolate to see so many empty chairs.  It made us think of the empty chair at home.  So we got up and walked down Piccadilly.  Jonathan was holding me by the arm, the way he used to in the old days before I went to school.  I felt it very improper, for you can’t go on for some years teaching etiquette and decorum to other girls without the pedantry of it biting into yourself a bit.  But it was Jonathan, and he was my husband, and we didn’t know anybody who saw us, and we didn’t care if they did, so on we walked.  I was looking at a very beautiful girl, in a big cart-wheel hat, sitting in a victoria outside Guiliano’s, when I felt Jonathan clutch my arm so tight that he hurt me, and he said under his breath, “My God!”

I am always anxious about Jonathan, for I fear that some nervous fit may upset him again.  So I turned to him quickly, and asked him what it was that disturbed him.

He was very pale, and his eyes seemed bulging out as, half in terror and half in amazement, he gazed at a tall, thin man, with a beaky nose and black moustache and pointed beard, who was also observing the pretty girl.  He was looking at her so hard that he did not see either of us, and so I had a good view of him.  His face was not a good face.  It was hard, and cruel, and sensual, and big white teeth, that looked all the whiter because his lips were so red, were pointed like an animal’s.  Jonathan kept staring at him, till I was afraid he would notice.  I feared he might take it ill, he looked so fierce and nasty.  I asked Jonathan why he was disturbed, and he answered, evidently thinking that I knew as much about it as he did, “Do you see who it is?”

“No, dear,” I said.  “I don’t know him, who is it?” His answer seemed to shock and thrill me, for it was said as if he did not know that it was me, Mina, to whom he was speaking.  “It is the man himself!”