Chapter Text
Letter, from Jonathan Harker to Miss Mina Murray
My Dearest Mina,
My mission to Purfleet has been a success, although I have another half dozen properties around London to examine before I see you again. I don’t know why the count wished to employ a solicitor stationed so far from London, but for my sake, I’m glad he did, and I’m so pleased that Mr. Hawkins trusted me to carry out this task. I don’t wish my employer ill, but if his gout continues, perhaps he’ll consent to sending me abroad in his stead? Can you imagine what it would mean to be entrusted with so important an assignment?
If I knew Lucy was home, I would call on her while passing through London, but I think she’s still traveling, and I’ll have to wait until she visits you to see her again. Perhaps I can look up these men she keeps writing about. Wasn’t that doctor she mentioned based somewhere in Essex? Do you recall his name? It hardly matters. I think we both know where her heart lies, even if I admit that I’ve never found Mr. Holmwood terribly interesting. Perhaps one has to have been raised in the lifestyle to go on so about hunting and fine wine.
Do I sound bitter? I truly don’t mean to. I suppose the new responsibility is weighing on me. It’s daunting to be running all over the country attempting to pick up where the count’s last solicitor left off. Speaking of which, today’s adventures led in a most unusual direction…
March 1890: Jonathan Harker
“There’s an asylum next door?” Jonathan asked as the housing agent unlocked the estate door.
The agent’s face flashed with distaste before smoothing into a schooled smile. “I assure you that the neighborhood is quite safe, and you’ll hardly be aware of any unique individuals nearby…”
“Mr. Wickens,” Jonathan interrupted with a conspiratorial grin. “My client is already aware of the neighborhood and very insistent that he approves of the property. The quality of the house is all that matters to him. I’m the one curious about the noise.”
The noise could hardly be denied. There’d been a face pressed against one of the barred windows screaming at them as they’d come up the pathway. Though the asylum was hidden now by trees and a high wall, Jonathan still felt tense for another outburst at any moment.
The agent hesitated, then spoke in a soft and hurried tone. “I wouldn’t want to stay here. You never know when one of the loonies will go off their heads. I’ve had to come here a couple times when one’s gotten over the wall.”
“That’s a pity. I’ve heard the treating of the infirmed has been improving.”
“Maybe,” Mr. Wickens agreed grudgingly. “I see some of the patients walking around the garden calm as you please. But I still wouldn’t raise a family this near one of those places.” He swung open the door and gestured Jonathan inside. “Probably why Carfax has been vacant so long.”
“Yes… about that. Have you ever heard anything from the last solicitor my client sent to look at Carfax?” Jonathan’s gaze swept around the entryway, admiring the aged woodwork and fine designs. He began making notes of the room’s features – good and ill.
The house had been unlived in for a long time and had received minimal upkeep. How much labor and money would it take to restore this place? And how many servants would be required to look after it?
Jonathan’s mouth twitched with a bit of distaste. It wasn’t that he had anything against the upper class. It was just that when one had to scramble up from the bottom, it was hard not to see a place like this as a drain of resources that could be spent in far better ways.
It would take a successful passing of his examinations, a promotion, and more clients of Count Dracula’s caliber for him to be able to afford a decent home for himself and Mina. A cook. Maybe a maid. How affluent would he have to become for gardener or valet or…
“No.” Mr. Wickens’ voice cut through his daydreams. “Had a few solicitors come to the office to ask about it, but once they saw the price and the location, their clients went after different properties instead.” He pushed open more doors, occasionally gesturing at a particularly fine feature as he talked. “That last solicitor your client sent was the only one who seemed interested enough to come back a second time. And I didn’t have much hope after that second visit. He… wasn’t right.”
“Yes, my client wanted me to ask about that. Do you have any idea what might have happened to him? He’s disappeared, and my client hoped I could track him down.”
Mr. Wickens shook his head. “He wasn’t right,” he repeated. “If I hadn’t already spoken to him once, I wouldn’t have let him in the office. He looked as if he’d been sleeping rough, if he’d been sleeping at all.” He shuddered. “Looked as if he belonged locked up next door.”
Jonathan frowned. “Maybe I should start hunting for him in the charity hospitals in that case.”
“Is it really any business of yours?”
“Count Dracula asked my employer to locate him. I thought it was a strange charge, but Mr. Hawkins says it’s not the strangest task a client has given him. So…” Jonathan spread his hands. “…I’m charged with searching for the missing.”
Mr. Wickens muttered his own doubts, and the tour continued with Jonathan dutifully examining every room and writing down anything he thought might be important. It wasn’t the first home he’d assessed, and he hoped he was properly documenting the points of interest.
They toured through the chapel, the stable, and the grounds – still mostly drab from the recently concluded winter.
“If I were your client,” Mr. Wickens said, “I’d plant that whole wall with roses. The sort with big thorns. Something to deter the crazies from going over the wall.”
Jonathan grimaced. It hardly sounded neighborly. Or sympathetic.
But he couldn’t entirely disagree with the impulse to build a larger barrier between himself and… whatever went on inside an asylum.
What did go on in there? They didn’t keep the mad in chains all the time anymore. The Quakers and their notions of treatment through kindness had seen to that.
Certainly for the best. Much kinder to treat the insane as people than animals.
But still… one wouldn’t want to live too close.
They finished with Carfax soon after. Jonathan promised to contact Mr. Wickens again soon and not simply vanish like the last solicitor.
“Can I offer you a ride back to town?” Mr. Wickens asked as they started down the walk.
Jonathan hesitated, an idea forming in his mind. “I think… I’ll call in at the asylum first.”
They said their goodbyes, leaving Jonathan to hurry along the road and step up to the front gates.
A conversation with an orderly… and then two more orderlies… eventually brought him into the office of the superintendent.
“Mr. Harker,” the doctor said, greeting him with a firm handshake and an offered chair on the opposite side of a cluttered desk. “I’m Doctor Seward. How can I help you?”
“Well, I’m not sure that you can. And I’m afraid this is probably a fool’s errand and a waste of your time. But I wasn’t sure how else to begin and hoped you could advise me.”
“You’re off to an intriguing start,” the doctor replied with a small smile. “Do please explain yourself.”
Jonathan leaned forward in his chair. “I’m a solicitor’s clerk acting in the interest of a foreign count by the name of Dracula. He’s planning a forthcoming move to England. He’ll likely be moving into Carfax, as it happens.”
Dr. Seward nodded pleasantly. “I hope we’ll be tolerable neighbors.”
Jonathan smiled to himself and resisted relating any of the housing agent’s thoughts on the asylum. “I hope so as well. But that isn’t why I’ve come. Although, I was just touring Carfax, which was what gave me the idea. You see, my office is the second one my client has employed. The first solicitor… something seems to have happened to him.”
“Oh?” Dr. Seward looked mildly interested.
“Yes… As I understand it, he was directed to buy multiple properties throughout London and the surrounding country. He’d been at the work for some time when… the count says his letters became… concerning.”
“Concerning?”
“Erratic. Poorly written. Misspelled. Signs that made the count concerned that the solicitor was unwell. As far as I know, Carfax was the last estate he examined. The housing agent said he looked extremely unwell and… his mind may not have been functioning properly. He wandered off from there and has not been in contact with the count or anyone else in months. I fear he may have been afflicted with an illness or…” Jonathan trailed off, uncertain what the polite term was while speaking to a doctor.
“Madness?” Seward guessed with a smile.
Jonathan grinned back with a touch of embarrassment. “Yes, I’m afraid so. Count Dracula has asked my employer to try and locate him, and I’m afraid I don’t have the slightest idea how to start. I don’t know where he was staying or if he has any family. As I understand it, he was working independently for the count, not through any office, so I don’t have anyone I could contact. But it occurred to me that if he was found wandering in a delirious or infirmed state, he might have been brought to a hospital. I thought perhaps… you might know where I could begin to look?” He gave the doctor a hopeful smile.
“It’s quite the story,” Seward agreed. “And it sounds like you have a difficult task ahead. But I can provide you with the names of some hospitals. Better still…” He extracted a pen and paper from the mess cluttering his desk. “If you’ll give me the man’s name, I can write on your behalf to some of my colleagues. That will speed your search along, although if your man is ill enough not to know his name, you might have to search yourself.”
“The count gave me a description,” Jonathan said eagerly. “Although I hope I won’t be required to hunt through morgues.”
“Don’t assume the worst immediately. Let’s start with a name. Do you have it?”
“Yes…” Jonathan rummaged belatedly through the documents he carried, at last locating the count’s most recent letter. “Here it is! Renfield. Robert Montague Renfield.”
Dr. Seward jumped and stared at him. “Is it really?”
“Do you know him?”
The doctor seemed reluctant to answer, but after a reaction like that, he could hardly deny it. “There… is a patient here by that name,” he admitted slowly. “But I don’t think he’s the man you’re looking for.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“Well, he claims to be Mr. Renfield, but I’ve located records for the man in question. He was a solicitor in London who went abroad some years ago and never returned.”
“That seems like it could be my man if he was employed abroad by Count Dracula. What makes you think he isn’t who he claims to be?”
“Because the Renfield whose records I’ve found would be nearly sixty. And this man…” He rose. “Perhaps it’s best you see for yourself.”
Jonathan followed the doctor through the asylum, shrinking nervously close to his host as they entered the patient’s wing.
The hall was lengthy and lined with doors – all locked with heavy bolts and set with barred observation windows. The grim-faced orderlies who passed them carried heavy batons at their waists and whistles around their necks. The patients they led along were thin and nervous specimens who darted quick glances at Dr. Seward and Jonathan, then looked hastily away.
“Here we are,” said the doctor, throwing open the bolts of one room without knocking or calling warning to the patient. “This is Mr. Renfield.”
Jonathan followed Seward into the small and mostly bare room. A man sat on a stool with his back to the door, his eyes fastened on the window.
“Renfield!” Dr. Seward called sharply. “This man is looking for you.”
The patient didn’t answer. If anything, his focus on the window intensified.
Dr. Seward sighed. “It’s one of those days. He gets into his sulks and won’t answer anyone. But as you can see-”
He was interrupted as an orderly hurried up to say that one of the asylum’s financial backers had arrived and wanted to speak urgently with him.
“I’m sorry,” he told Jonathan. “I need to go at once. Martin will show you out. Mr. Harker.” He shook Jonathan’s hand and departed.
Jonathan lingered another moment, studying the rigid back of the patient at the window.
“If you want him to talk, I can make him,” the orderly offered.
Jonathan didn’t like the look of eager malice in the man’s eyes and the way his hand strayed to his baton. “No, that’s quite alright,” he said quickly. “Mr. Renfield, I’m terribly sorry to have disturbed you. I’ll leave you alone now.” He started to follow the orderly out.
“You were in Carfax,” the patient said, his eyes still fastened on the window. “I saw you.”
Jonathan stopped and turned back. “That’s right.”
“Why?”
“My client is interested in purchasing the estate.”
The patient spun around and rose from the stool in a swift motion.
He was thin and pale, his eyes ringed and sunken behind a veil of unwashed dark hair and an unshaven beard. The grey clothes did nothing for his washed out and ill look.
Jonathan couldn’t begin to guess his age, but he certainly didn’t appear sixty or even close to those advanced years.
“It’s claimed already,” the patient said.
“What?”
“Carfax. It has a buyer already.”
“Yes, I-”
“You can’t have it! No one else can have it!” He advanced, his eyes rolling and his hands balled into fists.
Jonathan startled backwards, trying to muster an explanation as he did. Before he could speak, the orderly sprang forward, his baton raised in warning.
The fervor went out of Renfield immediately. He cowered, recoiling into a corner, his hands raised pleadingly as he mumbled a torrent of apologies.
“I’m sorry,” Jonathan said quickly, raising his voice to be heard over Renfield’s mumbles and the orderly’s threats. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I’ll be going. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”
He fled the asylum but not swift enough to miss Renfield’s pained screams.