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not to go to sleep. Presently the door opened, and mother looked in;
seeing by my moving that I was not asleep, came in, and sat by me. She
said to me even more sweetly and softly than her wont:--
"I was uneasy about you, darling, and came in to see that you were all
right."
I feared she might catch cold sitting there, and asked her to come in
and sleep with me, so she came into bed, and lay down beside me; she did
not take off her dressing gown, for she said she would only stay a while
and then go back to her own bed. As she lay there in my arms, and I in
hers, the flapping and buffeting came to the window again. She was
startled and a little frightened, and cried out: "What is that?" I tried
to pacify her, and at last succeeded, and she lay quiet; but I could
hear her poor dear heart still beating terribly. After a while there was
the low howl again out in the shrubbery, and shortly after there was a
crash at the window, and a lot of broken glass was hurled on the floor.
The window blind blew back with the wind that rushed in, and in the
aperture of the broken panes there was the head of a great, gaunt grey
wolf. Mother cried out in a fright, and struggled up into a sitting
posture, and clutched wildly at anything that would help her. Amongst
other things, she clutched the wreath of flowers that Dr. Van Helsing
insisted on my wearing round my neck, and tore it away from me. For a
second or two she sat up, pointing at the wolf, and there was a strange
and horrible gurgling in her throat; then she fell over--as if struck
with lightning, and her head hit my forehead and made me dizzy for a
moment or two. The room and all round seemed to spin round. I kept my
eyes fixed on the window, but the wolf drew his head back, and a whole
myriad of little specks seemed to come blowing in through the broken
window, and wheeling and circling round like the pillar of dust that
travellers describe when there is a simoon in the desert. I tried to
stir, but there was some spell upon me, and dear mother's poor body,
which seemed to grow cold already--for her dear heart had ceased to
beat--weighed me down; and I remembered no more for a while.
The time did not seem long, but very, very awful, till I recovered
consciousness again. Somewhere near, a passing bell was tolling; the
dogs all round the neighbourhood were howling; and in our shrubbery,
seemingly just outside, a nightingale was singing. I was dazed and
stupid with pain and terror and weakness, but the sound of the
nightingale seemed like the voice of my dead mother come back to comfort
me. The sounds seemed to have awakened the maids, too, for I could hear
their bare feet pattering outside my door. I called to them, and they
came in, and when they saw what had happened, and what it was that lay
over me on the bed, they screamed out. The wind rushed in through the
broken window, and the door slammed to. They lifted off the body of my
dear mother, and laid her, covered up with a sheet, on the bed after I
had got up. They were all so frightened and nervous that I directed them
to go to the dining-room and have each a glass of wine. The door flew
open for an instant and closed again. The maids shrieked, and then went
in a body to the dining-room; and I laid what flowers I had on my dear
mother's breast. When they were there I remembered what Dr. Van Helsing
had told me, but I didn't like to remove them, and, besides, I would
have some of the servants to sit up with me now. I was surprised that
the maids did not come back. I called them, but got no answer, so I went
to the dining-room to look for them.
My heart sank when I saw what had happened. They all four lay helpless
on the floor, breathing heavily. The decanter of sherry was on the table
half full, but there was a queer, acrid smell about. I was suspicious,
and examined the decanter. It smelt of laudanum, and looking on the
sideboard, I found that the bottle which mother's doctor uses for
her--oh! did use--was empty. What am I to do? what am I to do? I am back
in the room with mother. I cannot leave her, and I am alone, save for
the sleeping servants, whom some one has drugged. Alone with the dead! I
dare not go out, for I can hear the low howl of the wolf through the
broken window.
The air seems full of specks, floating and circling in the draught from
the window, and the lights burn blue and dim. What am I to do? God
shield me from harm this night! I shall hide this paper in my breast,
where they shall find it when they come to lay me out. My dear mother
gone! It is time that I go too. Good-bye, dear Arthur, if I should not
survive this night. God keep you, dear, and God help me!
CHAPTER XII
DR. SEWARD'S DIARY
_18 September._--I drove at once to Hillingham and arrived early.
Keeping my cab at the gate, I went up the avenue alone. I knocked gently
and rang as quietly as possible, for I feared to disturb Lucy or her
mother, and hoped to only bring a servant to the door. After a while,
finding no response, I knocked and rang again; still no answer. I cursed
the laziness of the servants that they should lie abed at such an
hour--for it was now ten o'clock--and so rang and knocked again, but
more impatiently, but still without response. Hitherto I had blamed only
the servants, but now a terrible fear began to assail me. Was this
desolation but another link in the chain of doom which seemed drawing
tight around us? Was it indeed a house of death to which I had come, too
late? I knew that minutes, even seconds of delay, might mean hours of
danger to Lucy, if she had had again one of those frightful relapses;
and I went round the house to try if I could find by chance an entry
anywhere.
I could find no means of ingress. Every window and door was fastened and