“Van Helsing.”

LETTER, DR. SEWARD TO HON.  ARTHUR HOLMWOOD

3 September

“My dear Art,

“Van Helsing has come and gone.  He came on with me to Hillingham, and found that, by Lucy’s discretion, her mother was lunching out, so that we were alone with her.

“Van Helsing made a very careful examination of the patient.  He is to report to me, and I shall advise you, for of course I was not present all the time.  He is, I fear, much concerned, but says he must think.  When I told him of our friendship and how you trust to me in the matter, he said, ’You must tell him all you think.  Tell him him what I think, if you can guess it, if you will.  Nay, I am not jesting.  This is no jest, but life and death, perhaps more.’  I asked what he meant by that, for he was very serious.  This was when we had come back to town, and he was having a cup of tea before starting on his return to Amsterdam.  He would not give me any further clue.  You must not be angry with me, Art, because his very reticence means that all his brains are working for her good.  He will speak plainly enough when the time comes, be sure.  So I told him I would simply write an account of our visit, just as if I were doing a descriptive special article for the daily telegraph.  He seemed not to notice, but remarked that the smuts of London were not quite so bad as they used to be when he was a student here.  I am to get his report tomorrow if he can possibly make it.  In any case I am to have a letter.

“Well, as to the visit, Lucy was more cheerful than on the day I first saw her, and certainly looked better.  She had lost something of the ghastly look that so upset you, and her breathing was normal.  She was very sweet to the Professor (as she always is), and tried to make him feel at ease, though I could see the poor girl was making a hard struggle for it.

“I believe Van Helsing saw it, too, for I saw the quick look under his bushy brows that I knew of old.  Then he began to chat of all things except ourselves and diseases and with such an infinite geniality that I could see poor Lucy’s pretense of animation merge into reality.  Then, without any seeming change, he brought the conversation gently round to his visit, and suavely said,

“’My dear young miss, I have the so great pleasure because you are so much beloved.  That is much, my dear, even were there that which I do not see.  They told me you were down in the spirit, and that you were of a ghastly pale.  To them I say “Pouf!"’ And he snapped his fingers at me and went on.  ’But you and I shall show them how wrong they are.  How can he,’ and he pointed at me with the same look and gesture as that with which he pointed me out in his class, on, or rather after, a particular occasion which he never fails to remind me of, ’know anything of a young ladies?  He has his madmen to play