Sir John Seward’s personal diary
Friday, 16th January 1903
Littlemore Hospital, Oxfordshire
I have finally made my first examination of the mind of Lady Lowell. I wish I had been able to see her sooner but it’s been an extremely busy week here, with more than one emergency admission.
This morning Dr Knight tapped on my door at a quarter to ten, and we walked to the women’s wards together.
‘I’ve been thinking about our patient,’ Dr Knight said as we made our way through the corridors. ‘We hypothesized that her condition is due to external trauma, and even though we believe we may have located it, we must also consider that she suffers some internal disorder of the brain, with no external cause.’
‘Yes of course. We’ll explore all possibilities.’
Dr Knight had arranged for her ladyship to have a private room, which was where our interview would take place.
Nurse Bridges met us briefly before we went in.
‘Good morning, sir. The patient was a little agitated last night so we gave her a sedative. Otherwise, nothing unusual to report. I can confirm that she’s currently lucid.’
‘Excellent, thank you. Leave your notes on my desk and I’ll put them in the file.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Lady Lowell received us cordially. She had dressed, or had been dressed, in a collarless chemise and modest dressing gown with her hair simply braided. She is an elegant woman in her late thirties, though unlike her husband she looks rather younger. I would say she is above-average height for a woman, with a certain willowy grace. I found it hard to imagine her in such a fit as that of which we have photographic evidence.
After our introductions were made Lady Lowell asked us to please sit down, quite as if she were our hostess. Her voice is as refined as one would expect from a person of her social position, and she showed a remarkable level of self-awareness.
‘Thank you for accepting me at your establishment, Sir John,’ Lady Lowell began. ‘My husband tells me you are a renowned expert, and that you may be able to help me where others have not.’ Her composure was somewhat surprising. I have found that after being transferred to a new institution, incoming patients are usually either more volatile or catatonic.
‘I hope so, your ladyship. I apologize for not having been able to meet with you before now. I trust you are settling in well?’
‘Well enough. Your staff have made me as comfortable as I am ever able to be. I was a little uneasy last night but a nurse gave me something to help. I was happy to have it. I often have nightmares.’
She had my every sympathy there.
‘Would you like to tell us about them?’ I asked.
‘Not really as I find them very upsetting, but I imagine it’s necessary.’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. There are quite a few questions we need to ask, some of which you may have been asked before. As I told your husband, we need to make our own assessments.’
‘Very well. I understand.’
She took a deep breath, and appeared to be steeling herself for the task.
‘There is always screaming. Always. Often I awake to find that I am the one screaming, but sometimes not.’
‘What sort of screaming?’ Dr Knight asked. ‘Screaming as of violence.’
‘Not of pain?’
‘I’m not sure how I would tell the difference.’
‘Indeed. Forgive my interruption, your ladyship, please continue.’
‘My emotion is always terror, and the sound is always screaming. Sometimes there is also howling, and chanting of a religious nature. The twenty-third psalm to be precise.’
‘“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death”?’ I interjected.
Lady Lowell closed her eyes and swallowed hard. ‘Yes. May I please have some water?’
Dr Knight went to the door and requested some be brought. I did not continue until the orderly had returned and the patient had drunk her fill.
‘Thank you.’
‘You are welcome to ask for whatever you need,’ Dr Knight said kindly. Lady Lowell smiled at her, and my heart felt a twinge of pity. I might have to suppress it often but without that human feeling I could never be a good doctor.
‘Could you describe the visual component of the nightmares?’ I asked.
‘Yes. Often it’s complete darkness, with a feeling of a malevolent presence standing very close behind me. Close enough to touch.’
She twitched, as if she wished to turn around and look over her shoulder.
Those dreams are silent but are the more horrifying for it, as if I were waiting for something terrible to happen that I cannot avoid.‘At other times I see the night sky above me, a full-blown storm. More rarely I see the colour red. Blood red. Those dreams are silent but are the more horrifying for it, as if I were waiting for something terrible to happen that I cannot avoid. My nightmares do not much vary. It’s a rare night when I do not dream. I love those nights. I have trouble sleeping too, though I confess I often don’t try very hard to sleep, knowing what awaits me.’
‘Many would feel the same, I’m sure.’
We had read all of these details in the patient’s case notes, and I was glad to see that Lady Lowell’s own account tallied with what her doctors had recorded.
‘Are your hallucinations similar to the nightmares?’
I wanted to see if she acknowledged the hallucinations as such. ‘No.’
‘No?’
‘When I hallucinate, I see people. Shapes, figures. They mean me great harm.’
‘Like the presence in your nightmares?’
‘I suppose so, yes. I can see them, though vaguely, rather than simply
sensing them.’
‘I see.’
Dr Knight was writing at speed. I could hear her pen scratch-ing even as I maintained eye contact with the patient.
‘And what of your more physical symptoms?’
‘Those come and go, doctor. I get chills fairly often, and I seem to catch all manner of minor illnesses. I often feel nauseated, and have aches in my head and my neck.’ She rubbed at her throat and I recognized it as a gesture intended to soothe herself, likely performed unconsciously.
‘We can certainly manage those symptoms, which will give you some relief.’
‘Thank you. I dislike feeling my own physical weakness.’ ‘Is that so?’ Dr Knight said mildly.
‘Yes, of course. I wish to be strong.’
‘What do you mean by strong, precisely?’
I sat silently, giving Dr Knight space to follow her line of thought.
‘Full of life.’
Lady Lowell’s eyes were beginning to take on a slightly glassy look and I readied myself in case she became violent.
‘Is that why you consumed the ants?’
‘Yes. They’re strong, are they not? I needed their strength.’
Those suffering delusions always reason well within their own scope, as I have seen so many times before.
‘Why did you need their strength?’
‘I have been so weak. Weakness is dangerous. The most dangerous thing.’
Lady Lowell began to sway, colour draining from her face. ‘Why? Why is weakness so dangerous?’
It was too late. Lady Lowell fainted dead away and slumped onto the floor.
LATER
‘I don’t know what to make of it all,’ Dr Knight said, shaking her head. ‘It seems our theory was wrong.’
It was just after five o’clock and already dark. We were seated in my parlour, the light of the lamps giving our surroundings a warm glow utterly unsuitable for the sombre tone of our conver-sation.
‘The content of her nightmares and hallucinations could correspond to a traumatic mental disturbance of some sort,’ I pointed out, ‘ just not to witnessing a fatal carriage accident.’
‘It could be another trauma of which we are as yet unaware, but it could also be some disease of the brain. Maybe it’s simply hysteria.’
I sighed rather heavily. ‘I suppose I wanted it to be a trauma, because then we would have a much better chance of treating her and returning her to her family.’
‘I feel much the same, but we must not lose sight of the fact that her symptoms could fit any number of diagnoses. Even though we have notes and records and papers galore, we simply don’t yet have enough information.’
‘You’re quite right. Us sitting here feeling sorry for ourselves will hardly help.’
‘I have some experience of hypnosis,’ Dr Knight said. ‘We could consider that?’
‘We could. I have seen it performed, but have never performed it myself. I know it can be useful but I would hesitate to rely on it. Are you a Freudian, Dr Knight?’
‘On occasion. As you’ve said, we must use all the tools at our disposal.’
As our talk turned to other patients and administrative matters, I continued to admire Dr Knight’s sharp, sensible mind. Even though we seem to have fallen at the first hurdle, she is determined we dust ourselves off and forge onwards. I find myself thanking Providence that my predecessor had the foresight to hire her.
It was after seven when she left, intending to take her evening meal in her rooms while getting through some paperwork.
‘May I take Lady Lowell’s records?’ she asked. ‘I’d like to read them again, when I’ve finished my other tasks. Perhaps something will leap out at me.’
‘Certainly. Would you mind leaving me the photographs?’
I wasn’t sure why I asked but I had what I can only describe as a feeling, a sense of something flickering, scratching at my brain, as when a word is on the tip of one’s tongue.
‘Of course.’
She plucked them from the file, and handed them to me.
‘Good evening, Sir John.’
‘Good evening, Dr Knight.’
I rang for fresh tea, and began to think.
When the clock on the mantelpiece struck midnight, I awoke to find my head on the table and the tea quite cold in the pot. Goodness knows what the poor housekeeper must think of me. I have sat in thought for some while longer but nothing has come of it. I am for bed.
EARLY NEXT MORNING
I must write this down as quickly as possible. My God, my God! It is a coincidence, but such a coincidence that it must be Fate at work!
At just after four o’clock I awoke with a start and shot out of bed. My brain had been working while I slept, and what work! I threw on my dressing gown and hurried down to my study. I opened every drawer in my desk before finding what I was looking for—a magnifying glass. I went back to the dining table where the photographs lay and feeling like a frenzied Sherlock Holmes, I sat down to see if this new notion so hot and fresh in my mind might be correct. I studied the early pictures and there! There on her throat! I took a deep breath, trying to caution myself against wild speculation and failing utterly. I needed the notes; I needed to see where on the Continent she had travelled, where exactly she had been on that ill-fated trip that ended in tragedy. I dashed upstairs and dressed so rapidly that it was mere good fortune I did so correctly. I ran out of the house and into the main building. I am not a young man, but the adrenaline spurred me onwards. It was not yet anywhere near dawn, and I am sure I caused great comment among the night staff as I ran through the corridors.
I sat down to see if this new notion so hot and fresh in my mind might be correct. I studied the early pictures and there! There on her throat!I had not had any reason to visit Dr Knight’s rooms, and I realize now how my presence in the women’s staff quarters was wildly inappropriate. At the time I had no thought for such things. I found the door which featured her nameplate and knocked loudly, calling her with such urgency in my voice that she appeared rapidly despite the late hour.
‘Sir John! What is it?’
I saw her take in my agitation and my breathlessness. ‘The notes! I need the notes!’
She opened the door fully and stepped back, allowing me through into her small sitting room. The file I sought so desper-ately sat open on a low table before a neat little sofa. I flung myself towards it, flicking desperately through the papers.
‘What’s happened? What are you looking for?’
‘I know what’s wrong with her; at least, I think I do. I’m not yet sure—oh, confound these doctors and their appalling hand-writing!’
‘What do you need? Sir John, what is the meaning of all this?’ That brought me up short a little. I looked at her and realized she must have been quite completely asleep when I arrived. Her long red hair was loose, her eyes were puffy with sleep like a child’s, and she was wearing a nightgown with a robe thrown over the top. I became suddenly aware of how beautiful she was, and the sheer indecency of my presence.
‘Dr Knight, I beg you to forgive me. I am embarrassed by my conduct. It is highly improper of me to be here. I will leave at once.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said sternly. ‘There is clearly some emergency, which takes precedence over social niceties. Tell me at once.’
‘I need to know where Lady Lowell was when she witnessed the carriage accident.’
‘Where?’
‘Yes, the exact location is of vital importance. Have you read it somewhere, in all of this?’
If Dr Knight was confused by this line of questioning, she did not say so. ‘Yes, I have.’
My heart seemed to stop. ‘You have? In the records?’
‘Yes. Do you read German?’
‘Not well, not these days.’
‘Then it’s fortunate that I do. It was in that letter from the hospital where she was treated for possible pneumonia, written to her own doctor in London. Let me find it for you.’
She rifled through the papers on the coffee table, and handed me the incomprehensible document.
‘Can we make a translation?’
‘I have already done so; it’s on the next page.’
There—there amid the clean strokes of her precisely formed lettering, was the information I sought. Even though I had felt so strongly that it must be so, to see it confirmed in black and white was a dreadful shock. My knees buckled beneath me and I subsided onto the sofa. I tried to breathe, deliberately recalling how we put the hellish, monstrous Count to death and sent him to whatever Beyond awaited one such as he, reminding myself that all living things were now safe from him and all his kind. It is over, I said to myself with all the firmness I could muster. It is over.
‘Sir John, are you quite well?’
A glass of brandy appeared in my hand and I beheld Dr Knight before me with a medicinal bottle.
‘Yes. No. I’m not sure.’ I drank, and the alcohol burned down my throat. ‘Do you know the place?’
‘No, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of it. I looked it up in my atlas and it is quite remote. Do you?’
‘Yes,’ I said weakly, ‘I know Transylvania. I know the Borgo Pass. I have been there.’
‘You have?’
‘Yes, ten years ago, I—’
The memories of that terrible time rose before my eyes—not just the vampire’s final defeat, but all of it. The deaths of people I loved; the horror as we understood what was before us; the desperation; all that I had tried to bury and all that rose over and over as surely as the evil creature had done, until Jonathan Harker and Quincey Morris, may he rest in peace, ended the demon’s reign of terror.
‘Sir John, you’re evidently in the grip of some intense emotion. You’re shaking. Drink up and I’ll see you’re returned home. Let’s discuss this at a more reasonable hour when you’re yourself again.’
I wish I could say that the steadiness in her tone returned me to myself then and there. She rang the bell while I drank, and Burton came to take me home. I saw her hand him a banknote, I assume for his discretion. He walked beside me in silence all the way to my own front door. I made it to my bed but I am still awake, my mind whirling.
This is the truth of the matter, the stark unyielding truth as revealed by photography and confirmed by the letter from the Buda-Pest hospital. Lady Lowell’s throat once featured those same wounds as marred the throat of dear Mina Harker, and of her closest friend and my first love, poor Lucy Westenra. In the early photographs of Lady Lowell, these wounds, these bite marks, had scarred, suggesting what? Why, that her ladyship had escaped him, that monster that we put into the ground! She had been bitten, survived, and bitten no more! And where were the scars now? Healed, after the fiend’s final death, just as Mina’s were!
Lady Lowell’s trauma and madness can only have come from her suffering at the hands of . . . even after so long I shudder to write the name…none other than Count Dracula.
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