Letter
from Miss Mina Harker
to Miss Lucy WestenraLETTER MINA HARKER TO LUCY
WESTENRA (Unopened by her) 17 September My dearest Lucy, "It
seems an age since I heard from you, or indeed since I wrote. You will pardon
me, I know, for all my faults when you have read all my budget of news. Well,
I got my husband back all right. When we arrived at Exeter there was a carriage
waiting for us, and in it, though he had an attack of gout, Mr. Hawkins. He took
us to his house, where there were rooms for us all nice and comfortable, and we
dined together. After dinner Mr. Hawkins said, "'My dears, I want to
drink your health and prosperity, and may every blessing attend you both. I know
you both from children, and have, with love and pride, seen you grow up. Now I
want you to make your home here with me. I have left to me neither chick nor child.
All are gone, and in my will I have left you everything.' I cried, Lucy dear,
as Jonathan and the old man clasped hands. Our evening was a very, very happy
one. "So here we are, installed in this beautiful old house, and from
both my bedroom and the drawing room I can see the great elms of the cathedral
close, with their great black stems standing out against the old yellow stone
of the cathedral, and I can hear the rooks overhead cawing and cawing and chattering
and chattering and gossiping all day, after the manner of rooks--and humans. I
am busy, I need not tell you, arranging things and housekeeping. Jonathan and
Mr. Hawkins are busy all day, for now that Jonathan is a partner, Mr. Hawkins
wants to tell him all about the clients. "How is your dear mother getting
on? I wish I could run up to town for a day or two to see you, dear, but I dare
not go yet, with so much on my shoulders, and Jonathan wants looking after still.
He is beginning to put some flesh on his bones again, but he was terribly weakened
by the long illness. Even now he sometimes starts out of his sleep in a sudden
way and awakes all trembling until I can coax him back to his usual placidity.
However, thank God, these occasions grow less frequent as the days go on, and
they will in time pass away altogether, I trust. And now I have told you my news,
let me ask yours. When are you to be married, and where, and who is to perform
the ceremony, and what are you to wear, and is it to be a public or private wedding?
Tell me all about it, dear, tell me all about everything, for there is nothing
which interests you which will not be dear to me. Jonathan asks me to send his
'respectful duty', but I do not think that is good enough from the junior partner
of the important firm Hawkins & Harker. And so, as you love me, and he loves
me, and I love you with all the moods and tenses of the verb, I send you simply
his 'love' instead. Goodbye, my dearest Lucy, and blessings on you. "Yours, "Mina
Harker" |
