LETTER, LUCY WESTENRA TO MINA HARKER.
Whitby, 30 August.
"My dearest Mina,
"Oceans of love and millions of kisses, and may you soon be in your own home with your husband. I wish you were coming home soon enough to stay with us here. The strong air would soon restore Jonathan. It has quite restored me. I have an appetite like a cormorant, am full of life, and sleep well. You will be glad to know that I have quite given up walking in my sleep. I think I have not stirred out of my bed for a week, that is when I once got into it at night. Arthur says I am getting fat. By the way, I forgot to tell you that Arthur is here. We have such walks and drives, and rides, and rowing, and tennis, and fishing together, and I love him more than ever. He tells me that he loves me more, but I doubt that, for at first he told me that he couldn't love me more than he did then. But this is nonsense. There he is, calling to me. So no more just at present from your loving,
"Lucy.
"P.S.--Mother sends her love. She seems better, poor dear.
"P.P.S.--We are to be married on 28 September."
The chronology is doubtful, here. As Leatherdale notes:
"This letter raises a host of contradictions that are not easily reconciled. Lucy says she is writing on 30 August from Whitby, and that she is full of life, but in the pages to come we find she is already back in London and desperately ill." (177 n31)
We also discussed this last year.
http://infocult.typepad.com/dracula/2005/08/whitby_30_augus.html
Posted by: Bryan Alexander | August 30, 2006 at 02:30 PM
I also used to question the chronology of Lucy's letter today to Mina. It didn't seem to fit with her previous diary entries where she was back in Hillingham and having those bad dreams again. However, when I gave it further thought, I began to wonder whether Stoker might have meant it exactly the way it was written, and I looked for a reason why. The answer: Lucy lied.
Why would Lucy lie? I came up with two reasons: (1) Lucy, the rich girl with three marriage proposals, couldn't bear to see Mina happily reunited with Jonathan and lied to upstage Mina's happiness with her own happiness at getting better and planning her marriage to Arthur, OR (2) Lucy, a true friend to Mina, lied to prevent Mina the additional pain of worrying about her, after all Mina had been through worrying about Jonathan.
Posted by: Baby Jinx | August 31, 2006 at 11:46 PM
P.S. Looking at it that way (that Lucy lied to Mina), the only question is why Lucy would lie about being in Whitby when, according to her previous diary entries, she was already home at Hillingham? [Did they use postmarks in 1893?] I wonder if THAT isn't where Stoker goofed (forgetting where Lucy was located), not in misdating Lucy's letters and diary entries?
Posted by: Baby Jinx | September 01, 2006 at 09:55 AM
Sneaky reading, B.J. What happens next might be seen as a punishment, then...?
Posted by: Bryan Alexander | September 08, 2006 at 09:33 PM