Dracula's Ghost - Afterimage: Interlude II
The Letter
Interlude II
The Letter
But while we were still shaking hands, such a look of awful desolation came upon her face that I perceived she was one of those creatures that are not the playthings of Time. For her he had died only yesterday. And, by Jove! the impression was so powerful that for me, too, he seemed to have died only yesterday—nay, this very minute. I saw her and him in the same instant of time—his death and her sorrow—I saw her sorrow in the very moment of his death. Do you understand? I saw them together—I heard them together. She had said, with a deep catch of the breath, ‘I have survived’ while my strained ears seemed to hear distinctly, mingled with her tone of despairing regret, the summing up whisper of his eternal condemnation. I asked myself what I was doing there, with a sensation of panic in my heart as though I had blundered into a place of cruel and absurd mysteries not fit for a human being to behold.
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
August 1, 1916
Dear Mr. Harker,
Let me say at the beginning that I do not believe in signs and portents. Charlatans claim to pierce the veil between life and death, and traveling medicine men purport to read the future in a deck of cards, but for the whole of my life, I have found myself immune to their charms. I say this that you may understand the truth – I am no shrinking violet to be frightened by a bad dream. I will explain the dream itself in due course, and it is dreadful, but to ensure that you understand the nature of my request, I must tell you the whole story…
I.
Texas
1894
John Morris counted himself a lucky man, for the loss of a leg at Shiloh had ended his war early, and he had returned home to his wife and their year-old son. When Quincy was born the following year, he sat in the rocking chair with the baby, rubbing the stump that ended above his right knee and pondering what might have been. That Union bullet, paradoxically, had given him life, for he hobbled about with the aid of a crutch, but he was home with his family as others marched to their deaths at Gettysburg and Cold Harbor. A few cattle became a herd as he began the first steps toward a better future, and by 1881, John Morris was a rich man. He sent his sons north to Harvard and Yale, determined that the family would one day be represented in the statehouse in Austin, or on Capitol Hill. Hell, with a little luck, perhaps President Morris would one day roam the halls of the White House itself.
And then it all went wrong, he thought. I made a mistake when I brought that woman into the family. Charlotte Gibson was the daughter of a bankrupt Louisiana planter, and though his money would not have mattered in the old days – no planter would have given his daughter in marriage to the son of a cattleman, even a rich one – the war had upended fortunes both old and new. John Morris had savored the irony, for after the loss of his own leg, he had no patience for the old Confederacy’s pining for the lost cause. More importantly, he liked the girl, for she was bright and headstrong, and he had been certain that a good wife would keep Josiah out of the saloons and gambling houses. That was my first mistake, he thought. His own wife, always more clearheaded regarding their sons, had known better. “Josiah will break that girl’s heart – and yours.”
Their first child was born in 1891, and Charlotte named the boy after his grandfather. Not Josiah. And thank God, not Quincy. His younger son was already gone by that point, and according to his letters, Quincy did well – he bought cattle in Argentina and tea in India and turned a small stake into a fortune of his own.
When the letters stopped, John Morris waited for three months before contacting London.
II.
London
1894
The Pinkerton detectives arrived from Chicago, and if they had been working on familiar territory, or with a different suspect, they would have snatched their man off the street and sweated the truth out of him. In London, they were guests, and Arthur Holmwood was not someone to be beaten in a darkened room. Arthur’s butler served tea as they chatted in his parlor, their questions polite and measured. Lord Godalming was a pleasant host, though he appeared slightly haggard, like a man who had been sleeping poorly.
“Yes, Quincy stayed with me all summer. My fiancé was ill, and I don’t know how I would have gotten on without him.”
And his fiancé, the detectives asked, was doing better now?
“Sadly, no. Lucy passed away last fall.”
Gradually, the detectives introduced the matter at hand. John Morris was gravely concerned over the absence of his younger son. In fact, Quincy’s last letter to his father was sent in early September of 1893. Somewhere around the time that your fiancé died. Could he, Arthur, provide any information regarding Quincy’s whereabouts after that time?
“No, I’m afraid not. Quincy was prone to go off on adventures when it suited him, and sometimes I did not hear from him for months. I understand that he had some investments in South America, and he always talked of going to Africa. In all honesty, he could be sailing a steamer in the Congo by now.”
“He left without saying goodbye? Without even a note of thanks for your hospitality?” Lord Godalming freely admitted that his own thoughts had been mired in grief, and it was possible that Quincy had informed him of plans that he had simply forgotten. The detectives nodded and agreed that a state of deep melancholy could affect a man’s memory. They finished their tea and said their goodbyes, pausing at the door for a final question.
“Quincy wrote his father last year about a woman, seemed quite smitten by her. Do you have any idea who she might have been?” For the first time, Arthur Holmwood appeared shaken.
“No. None at all, I’m afraid.”
The detectives continued to dig. They already had the name of Quincy’s lady friend, none other than Arthur Holmwood’s deceased fiancé, and such a rivalry could surely lead to violence between the two men. Still, the timeline was puzzling, for if Arthur had killed Quincy Morris in a jealous rage, he had taken his time – hotel receipts in London proved that Quincy Morris had been alive for an entire month after Lucy’s death. A locksmith revealed that the two men had, along with one or more unknown accomplices, perpetrated an apparent burglary. Bloody odd, seeing a proper English Lord with an American cowboy. The locksmith directed them to a house in Piccadilly, where Holmwood, Morris, and one or more unknown associates had forced the front door. Smelled like a charnel house inside, like someone had popped off in the front parlor. The detectives visited the house and found only cobwebs and dust. Holmwood’s solicitor, Jonathan Harker, was sympathetic to elder Morris’s plight but provided no useful information. Lord Godalming was his client, and as such, his private business – with Lucy Westenra or old houses in Piccadilly – was none of their concern. The Pinkertons were at an impasse, for they were reasonably certain that Quincy had died at the hand of Arthur Holmwood, but they had no evidence to deliver to the Metropolitan Police, and even under a lesser burden of proof – for the right price, they could ensure that the lawbreaker faced justice without the hinderance of police or courts – there was little that they could do.
After three months, they caught a lucky break.
A groundskeeper at Holmwood’s estate let it be known that he might have additional information on Lord Godalming’s whereabouts. They met for drinks in a dingy pub, and following an exchange of banknotes, the groundskeeper informed the detectives that Lord Godalming had traveled to Varna for an extended period the previous October. Holmwood had been accompanied by a sizeable retinue, including Quincy Morris and Jonathan Harker, the tight-lipped solicitor. “The fourth man was Abraham Van Helsing, a queer old Dutchman that saw to Lord Godalming’s lady friend.” The groundskeeper passed along a calling card with an address in Amsterdam, and the Pinkertons wired their office in Chicago.
In the sweltering Texas heat, John Morris received the report. The nosebleed, an early sign of the disease that would kill him, was acting up again, and as he read, a few drops of blood spattered the paper. Quincy, what kind of trouble did you get yourself into?
III.
London
1894
“No.” Mina Harker’s face flushed a deep red. “Don’t even think of something so foolish.”
“All right,” Jonathan said. “Then what would you have me do?”
What should we do? The letter from Texas had lain dormant in his desk as Jonathan agonized over a response. For God’s sake, we shouldn’t do anything! It was an easy answer, a rational solution over which there should have been no argument, yet Mina shared her husband’s anguish. They had expected to hear from Scotland Yard or the American Embassy, but this letter, a plaintive request from a dying father, left her vulnerable. Of all our failures, Mina thought, this is our most egregious. They had overlooked the simple humanity of Quincy Morris – he had a family that deeply mourned his absence.
How could we have done otherwise? She had gone forth from London in the certainty of her own death – and of something far worse, her mind interjected – and none of them had considered the possibility that in the end, they might survive to return to London. Their dreadful game had played out until that final sunset, but through divine providence or blind fate, all but one of them had escaped with their lives. She read through the letter again.
“If my son is dead, then tell me plainly so that I can mourn his loss. Tell me where he is buried, and I will send men to bring him home. My own life is drawing to a close, and I find it unbearable to go to my grave not knowing the truth. It is a small kindness, but one for which I would be forever grateful.”
He died saving your life, an accusing voice whispered in her ear. He died so that Lucy could have a small measure of justice for her murder. And for that, you leave him in some forgotten grave. Another voice, Jonathan’s own, answered in reply.
“It is an evil place that needs to vanish, along with the fiends who haunted it. If anyone discovered the truth, they might seek out the old castle, and God only knows what they might find there.” Until now, Jonathan had never wavered in his certainty.
Then lend him strength. Mina tossed the letter onto the table.
“I’m sorry, John, but the Morrises are on their own.” She placed both arms around his waist and nestled her head on his shoulder, speaking softly. “You still have the money. You can send it to her when things settle down and we are not under so much pressure.”
IV.
Amsterdam
January 1895
Hanna Van Helsing died as the old year yielded to the new, and there was a light snowfall as he proceeded to the cemetery. Now I am alone, Abraham Van Helsing thought. She would be interred next to their son, the handsome blonde boy who had passed at eighteen, and whose death had brought about the ruin of his mother. Hanna had been fifty-five, but the disease that destroyed her mind had eaten away her body as well, and the shriveled corpse that lay in the coffin could have passed for a centenarian.
He lingered briefly at his son’s grave (Isaak Van Helsing, 1863-1881) then began the walk home, declining the offer of a carriage. The temperature dropped as a cold front from Russia moved westward, and if the frigid air lingered until morning, there would be ice in the canals. Van Helsing shivered and pulled the coat about his shoulders to shut out the wind. I haven’t been so cold since our journey to Transylvania. He preferred not to recall that journey, but there were good memories as well, and in the weeks between Mina’s attack and their final victory, he had shared their company with genuine pleasure. On the eastbound train, he had shared a berth with Quincy Morris, and Abraham Van Helsing had opened up to the younger man in a rare discussion of his son’s death.
“A hunting accident. They were shooting hares, and his cousin claims that Isaak stepped in front of the gun.” His tone is neutral, almost clinical, when he discusses his son’s death, but Quincy Morris catches something – a downward turn of the mouth, a hardening of the eyes.
“But you don’t believe him?”
Who could be certain? Van Helsing knew only that a good young man, one with near-limitless potential, had been lost in the flower of his youth. But the answer to your question, Herr Morris, is no – I believe that my son was murdered. The truth had tempted him, for Quincy Morris traveled with a brace of pistols, and after their shared suffering, the younger man would have readily avenged his loss. The right word, the right look, and –
Abraham Van Helsing stopped short at the front door. God damn it. Amsterdam was a polite city, clean and orderly and nothing like the crime-ridden slums of London. That someone would force the door – and while a man was at his wife’s funeral, for God’s sake… He wandered through each room, searching for missing valuables, but nothing appeared out of place. The only oddity was a metal film canister in the hallway, and Van Helsing puzzled briefly over the debris. Why would someone take photographs inside of my home? He dismissed the idea but kept the canister – he intended to make a full report with the police, and perhaps the culprit left behind a fingerprint.
In the end, Abraham Van Helsing received no satisfaction from the police. A fingerprint on the canister matched none of the city’s known criminals, and the truth would have served no one, for the thief was long gone. In Brussels, the detective wired the Pinkerton office in Chicago, and they arranged to send another man, a recent immigrant from the old country, to follow the trail into the Carpathians.
V.
From Bucharest to Texas
September 1895
The flophouse was a bare step above sleeping in the street, but it mattered little, for his money was nearly gone, and the detective had no further need of comfort. His untrimmed hair hung almost to his collar, and his mustache and sideburns, neatly sculpted at the start of his journey, had been swallowed up by the long beard. He bought no razor and avoided the mirror, perhaps fearful of what its reflection might reveal. His very survival was a dark miracle of sorts, but he felt no gratitude for his continued existence.
The detective began to write, and his letter grew from five pages to ten, and then to twenty. He worked quickly as the remaining flesh withered from his bones, fearful that his half-rotted mind would fail before he accomplished his final duty. When the letter was complete, he placed the pages into an envelope and delivered the package to the American Embassy. It did not concern him that the woman behind the desk could not meet his eyes or bear his smell, for John Morris had an arrangement with the Embassy’s diplomatic courier, and the final testament would be delivered without regard to his hygiene or sanity. His task complete, the detective returned to the comfort of his shabby room.
Twelve hours later, his body was found next to the pistol used to take his life.
A half-world away and some weeks later, Charlotte Morris signed for a package before retreating to the interior of the great house. Her father-in-law was dying, but John Morris had invested a good ten thousand dollars in the search for his son, and perhaps the receipt of the Pinkertons’ report would ease his final hours. If he is lucid enough to understand, she thought. They had barely spoken in the first year after little John’s birth, but as the months passed with no word from Quincy, his grief mingled with her own, and they became partners in a conspiracy that neither overtly acknowledged. An odd, slightly offensive, odor emanated from the yellowed pages as she opened the package and began to read.
For God’s sake, is this what he paid for? Charlotte’s face flushed as she pored over the words. To his credit, the madman did not scrawl or write in his own blood. Indeed, the letters were neatly written, the sentences carefully constructed with documentation of names, places, and dates. It would have been an excellent piece of work had its contents not been such utter hogwash. She crumpled the pages in her hand, determined that John Morris’s final hours would not be tormented by such… blasphemous tales of his younger son. Halfway to the fireplace, a phrase caught her eye.
A desert saloon in California. Quincy had described such a place to her during a long horseback ride on the llanos. A special place to him – a magical place. How many others knew that simple fact? And what did that say about the madman’s letter? She retreated from the fireplace and folded the crumpled pages before placing the letter at the bottom of a bureau drawer.
VI.
Texas
1916
“They said you were dead.”
Charlotte Morris woke screaming from the nightmare and stared about their darkened bedroom. Money had been tight for the last six months as they struggled to pay for labor, drilling equipment, mineral rights, and the last three wells had been dry holes. That is the problem, she told herself. The bills were coming faster than the money, and the strain was showing in her dreams.
John Morris had died in the fall of 1895, and after that, the trail of his missing son went completely cold. With his father gone, Josiah saw no point in spending money on private detectives or visits to London. “Quincy ain’t dead. He’s somewhere in China or South America, and when he takes a mind to come home, he’ll come back. Of course, he’s probably gone off and married a native woman.” The final words were always uttered with a leering wink, as if Charlotte Morris were not his wife but a drinking companion. Does he know the truth? It was difficult to be sure, for Josiah was kind enough to the boy, and his indifference never devolved into cruelty. Still, Josiah’s apathy wounded her deeply, as if he considered her no different from the endless stream of painted women with whom he passed time at the saloons. And in a way, perhaps he is right.
She sat up in the bed and breathed deeply until her racing heart began to slow. My God, what an awful dream, she thought, and the words sounded artificial, the uttering of a magic chant to banish the darkness. The normal fugue of her mind’s nocturnal wanderings had been utterly absent, and the nightmare had felt utterly real, as if something hideous had reached through the ether and stroked her hand. Charlotte recognized the voice well enough – she looks so much like Lucy – but her mind did not dare to remember the face.
She lit the kerosene lantern and removed the detective’s report from the bottom drawer of the dresser. The house was empty, for her son was chasing Pancho Villa in Mexico, and her husband was away, ostensibly on a business trip. It was just as well that she was alone, for Charlotte needed time and solace to compose her thoughts. A hundred times she had considered throwing the report, and the abominations described therein, into the fireplace, and each time, she had relented. Buried deep within the report was an address in London and a single sentence. Jonathan Harker knows everything.
Downstairs, there was a desk with an inkwell and a ream of heavy paper – supplies purchased to run the oil business that never materialized. As midnight yielded to morning, she contemplated the empty pages. How much do I tell him? After a long struggle, she opted for a full accounting of the truth, and as the sun rose over the prairie outside her window, Charlotte Morris began to write.
VII.
London
1916
Officially, the movements of the British Expeditionary Force were a closely guarded secret, but rumors of an offensive had been flying for weeks, and Jonathan Harker read the tea leaves of each morning newspaper with growing dread. John Quincy is there, he thought, waiting to go over the top with the rest of his unit. The first reports – German lines pushed back fifty miles – gave him hope, but Jonathan pushed those away. Since 1914, whole armies had been ground up along the Western Front, and good news was not to be trusted.
The knock at the door came shortly before eight o’clock, and Jonathan came running at the sound of Mina’s scream. John Quincy, the uniformed man in the hallway reassured him, had faithfully carried out his duty, but given the sheer number of casualties, it was unlikely that a citation for gallantry would be forthcoming. Jonathan Quincy Harker, killed in action, first of July, 1916. In the upstairs bedroom, Mina’s cries trailed off to an anguished moan. Is there no end to our troubles? His mind drifted to Arthur Holmwood, who had ended his own life twelve years ago, and for a terrible moment, the notion seemed perfectly reasonable, a logical answer to such unending pain. He lingered in the hallway, indecisive, as he contemplated his wife’s cries and the revolver in his study. It would be so easy now…
“Papa? Why is mama crying?”
Sarah Harker stood on the landing, her nightdress covered by the blanket draped about her shoulders. After the birth of John Quincy, there had been no more children for nine years, and her arrival had been an unexpected gift. Now, standing in the darkened hallway with the blanket over her shoulders, she appeared older, a grown woman foreshadowed in a twelve-year old girl.
“A man from the Army was just here. There was a battle, and…” Jonathan’s breath caught in his throat, and he folded her into a tight embrace, suddenly unable to continue.
“John Quincy is dead, isn’t he?”
The letter went unopened into his desk. Perhaps it would have made a difference, for Charlotte Morris laid out the facts – the detectives’ visit to London, the carefully photographed files of Abraham Van Helsing, the report from Bucharest, and her own dream – in a manner that could lead to only one conclusion. Perhaps it would have changed things, but Jonathan’s own grief was too raw, his heart unprepared for a new burden, and he would not know the truth until 1933. By then, it would be too late, and it would be left to his daughter – now laden with her own troubles – to read the final words of Charlotte Morris.
“If Quincy was your friend, then tell me the truth for the sake of his son.”