Page 66 of Lucy Undying (Dracula #1)
66
The Murder of Lucy Westenra
Once upon a time, there was a girl named Lucy.
She grew up in a large, cold house, filling herself with as much love as she could. But she was always pretending, because she had to lie about who she really loved: her governess, Mina.
Mina was the most important person in Lucy’s life, but there were other key figures. Her mother, a controlling, suspicious hypochondriac. Doctor Seward, director of a sanitarium making personal house calls to her mother. Arthur Holmwood, a dashing future lord courting Lucy. Quincey Morris, a bumbling but sweet American cowboy. Doctor Van Helsing, a Dutch acquaintance of Doctor Seward and expert in strange maladies.
And a monster cloaked in darkness and violence who crashed ashore at Whitby, where Lucy was staying with her mother and Mina.
The “truth” presented in Lucy’s journals, the accounts of the men, and all the carefully collected and organized documents saved by Mina, is that Lucy—beloved by all, about to wed Arthur—was tragically killed by that dark figure, despite valiant efforts to save her. When that predator then turned his attentions to Mina, they were able to at last drive him out of London and heroically kill him in the Transylvanian mountains of Romania.
But the story underneath that story, woven through all the documents, clear enough to see if you look for it? It’s still about murder. But there are no heroes.
Allow me to lay it out for you.
Mina was Lucy’s governess, as evidenced by references in Lucy’s journal. Lucy grew up with Mina as her most trusted confidante and companion, and Mina never hesitated to direct Lucy’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
In this letter to Lucy, kept among the many documents in the safe, Mina asks about Arthur Holmwood—aka Lord Goldaming—specifically. In Lucy’s journals (both the real and the fake one), Lucy notes that Mina repeatedly asks about Arthur. Mina makes certain Lucy is focused on him over any other suitors or distractions. When Lucy expresses doubts or reservations about getting married, Mina always chides her and redirects her to Arthur.
Though Mina claims not to know Arthur, Lucy witnesses them having a conversation, and later finds a letter in Arthur’s suit jacket pocket in Mina’s handwriting.
We’ll set Mina and Arthur’s connection aside for now.
At exactly the same time Arthur appears in Lucy’s life by introducing himself to her at the opera, Doctor Seward, his close friend and schoolmate, also begins visiting Lucy and her mother. There’s no indication in Lucy’s journals or in the safe documents that her mother sought out Doctor Seward or even paid him. He volunteered all his services, which coincided with a downward turn in Mrs. Westenra’s health.
In fact, as Lucy clearly notes, her mother is always doing better before Doctor Seward visits, at which point she can barely function and takes to her room. Doctor Seward also tries to force laudanum and other drugs on Lucy and is generally a creep, though that’s not evidence.
Putting a pin in Doctor Seward’s activities, we move on to Arthur’s courtship. According to Lucy’s journals, she never meets his father or visits Arthur’s home. Because Arthur introduced himself, rather than being introduced through other members of society who might have warned her, Lucy had no idea that the Goldaming estate was completely bankrupt. They were so deeply in debt that the family manor had been rented out. Fallis and Co. conveniently kept the rental documents, as well as Lord Goldaming’s death certificate, which revealed he was living in a cheap boardinghouse.
So, we have two longtime friends descending on a wealthy heiress’s life at the same time: a doctor who triggered a steep decline in Lucy’s mother’s health, and a bankrupt future lord presenting himself as a viable marriage candidate while keeping Lucy from discovering his dire financial straits.
Still circumstantial. Fortunately, Fallis and Co. is nothing if not fastidious about keeping documents. At the time of Lucy’s engagement and subsequent death, they were a newly licensed solicitor’s office with only two original clients: a penniless lord…and a governess from the lower classes, one Mina Murray. Why would Mina employ a solicitor at all, much less the same solicitor as a man she claimed not to know? More on Mina’s use of the solicitor after we go through the Westenra documents.
Here, the original Westenra will. It leaves everything to Lucy, with the exception of a few pieces of land going to distant male cousins due to antiquated inheritance laws. But here, documented and signed by Fallis and Co., a new will naming Arthur Fucking Holmwood the sole beneficiary of the entire Westenra fortune.
Lucy died before they could wed. Engagements weren’t legally binding. He had no relation to the Westenras, no claim, however tenuous, on their fortune. But Mrs. Westenra signed the new will, leaving everything to him before the wedding.
Notice how Mrs. Westenra’s signature changes from the original will to the new will, drafted mere days before her death. What had been a fussy and elegant signature becomes practically illegible. The sad attempt of a dying woman…or a deeply drugged one.
Such a will was doubtless grounds for a legal fight, though. Who would believe Mrs. Westenra had consented to it? Contained within the safe as insurance were several written testimonies. Arthur Holmwood, John Seward, and Abraham Van Helsing all note in clear, precise detail that it was Mrs. Westenra’s dying wish that Arthur inherit everything so he could take care of Lucy. Nowhere in the safe is Mrs. Westenra’s written testimony to this same fact, nor Lucy’s.
According to both Lucy’s journals, when the new will was signed, she was in and out of consciousness. The men record that they were sedating her and performing transfusions and other procedures without her consent or knowledge in an effort to keep her alive.
Where was Lucy’s best friend and dearest companion, Mina, when all this was happening? She was hard at work.
While her fiancé, Jonathan Harker, was in Transylvania on a business trip, Mina was negotiating her own business. She convinced his employer, the much older, extremely wealthy Mister Hawkins, to let them move into his house upon her marriage to Jonathan. The understanding was that Mina would care for him and manage the household.
Mina found and wed Jonathan in Europe. They returned, moved in with Mister Hawkins, and not two weeks later, Mister Hawkins died.
One week before his death, he, too, signed a new will. Though Mina and Jonathan had no relation to him or claim on his fortune, he left everything to the Harkers and their heirs. And even though Mister Hawkins himself was a well-respected solicitor with an entire office of solicitors to help him, the will was executed by…Fallis and Co.
We haven’t forgotten about Doctor Seward, the sanitarium director so fond of making house calls to non-patients. Arthur and Doctor Seward both encouraged Lucy not to seek a second opinion on her mother’s health issues. When Mrs. Westenra visited Whitby and was therefore removed from Doctor Seward’s care, she improved dramatically. Only to slide back down as soon as Doctor Seward once again had access to her.
In Lucy’s journal, her mother’s special medicinal brandy is mentioned twice. On Doctor Seward’s recommendation, Lucy takes a little to calm herself after two proposals and instead finds herself spinning and scarcely able to stand—and extremely pliable to Arthur’s proposal.
Then, the night Mrs. Westenra dies, Lucy notes that the maids had gotten into the brandy. All three maids were unconscious on the floor, having consumed only a small amount of the liquid.
Whether Mrs. Westenra died of heart failure is impossible to determine. No one examined her other than Doctor Seward. This is something she had in common with several others, as indicated by this collection of death certificates declaring death by natural causes for her, the elder Lord Holmwood, Mister Hawkins, and Lucy herself. All signed by Doctor John Seward.
A collection of bodies tended to by Doctor Seward, a collection of inheritances legalized by Fallis and Co., and two clever con artists sitting atop both the bodies and the riches: Arthur and Mina.
They were quite the team. But they ran into an unexpected complication. While Mister Hawkins, the elder Lord Goldaming, and Mrs. Westenra were always going to die, Lucy wasn’t supposed to. Arthur and Mina had successfully pressured her into a short engagement and quick wedding because she was crucial to their plot. With Lucy on Arthur’s arm, no one would look twice at his taking charge of his young wife’s finances.
They can’t be blamed for not anticipating what happened next, all because Mina’s fiancé Jonathan had attracted the attention of a vampire.