more of the same, and with each a sovereign in hand,
they made light of the attack, and swore that they
would encounter a worse madman any day for the pleasure
of meeting so ‘bloomin’ good a bloke’
as your correspondent. I took their names and
addresses, in case they might be needed. They
are as follows: Jack Smollet, of Dudding’s
Rents, King George’s Road, Great Walworth, and
Thomas Snelling, Peter Farley’s Row, Guide Court,
Bethnal Green. They are both in the employment
of Harris & Sons, Moving and Shipment Company, Orange
Master’s Yard, Soho.
“I shall report to you any matter of interest
occurring here, and shall wire you at once if there
is anything of importance.
“Believe me, dear Sir,
“Yours faithfully,
“Patrick Hennessey.”
LETTER, MINA HARKER TO LUCY WESTENRA (Unopened by her)
18 September
“My dearest Lucy,
“Such a sad blow has befallen us. Mr.
Hawkins has died very suddenly. Some may not
think it so sad for us, but we had both come to so
love him that it really seems as though we had lost
a father. I never knew either father or mother,
so that the dear old man’s death is a real blow
to me. Jonathan is greatly distressed.
It is not only that he feels sorrow, deep sorrow,
for the dear, good man who has befriended him all his
life, and now at the end has treated him like his own
son and left him a fortune which to people of our
modest bringing up is wealth beyond the dream of avarice,
but Jonathan feels it on another account. He
says the amount of responsibility which it puts upon
him makes him nervous. He begins to doubt himself.
I try to cheer him up, and my belief in him helps
him to have a belief in himself. But it is here
that the grave shock that he experienced tells upon
him the most. Oh, it is too hard that a sweet,
simple, noble, strong nature such as his, a nature
which enabled him by our dear, good friend’s
aid to rise from clerk to master in a few years, should
be so injured that the very essence of its strength
is gone. Forgive me, dear, if I worry you with
my troubles in the midst of your own happiness, but
Lucy dear, I must tell someone, for the strain of
keeping up a brave and cheerful appearance to Jonathan
tries me, and I have no one here that I can confide
in. I dread coming up to London, as we must
do that day after tomorrow, for poor Mr. Hawkins left
in his will that he was to be buried in the grave
with his father. As there are no relations at
all, Jonathan will have to be chief mourner.
I shall try to run over to see you, dearest, if only
for a few minutes. Forgive me for troubling
you. With all blessings,
“Your loving
“Mina Harker”
DR. SEWARD’S DIARY
20 September.—Only resolution and habit
can let me make an entry tonight. I am too miserable,
too low spirited, too sick of the world and all in
it, including life itself, that I would not care if
I heard this moment the flapping of the wings of the
angel of death. And he has been flapping those
grim wings to some purpose of late, Lucy’s mother
and Arthur’s father, and now . . . Let me
get on with my work.
