Bram Stoker's HANNIBAL

Chapter 41: Be a Hope and a Home

Chapter 41: Be a Hope and a Home

24 August, Whitby

Dear Frederick,

Forgive a dot of jam here and there – I am writing over breakfast. Thank you for your fascinating letters! Your patient, Mr. Tier, sounds like a poor lost soul in need of your care. I'm very interested in hearing how you plan to treat and rehabilitate a person living under these kinds of delusions. He is lucky to have been placed under your supervision, and thus has a hope of emerging from his mind's darkness.

Thank you, also, for inquiring after Will. He is well, so much stronger and fitter than when I found him in Budapest; we are already making preparations to return to London, and I look forward to seeing you at his coming-home party once we have our plans finalized and can fix a date for the event. Please know I have thought of you often during our separation, and thank you ever so much for visiting my mother to keep her company in my long absence.

That being said, I wanted to confirm with you one more time that Will is ready to leave his convalescence. We've had a strange turn of events here and I thought I ought to write and wait for your response before we finish packing our bags.

Last night, we experienced one of the greatest and suddenest storms on record, with results both strange and unique. The weather had been somewhat sultry, but not to any degree uncommon in the month of August. Saturday evening was as fine as was ever known, and the great body of holiday-makers laid out yesterday for visits to Mulgrave Woods, Robin Hood's Bay, Rig Mill, Runswick, Staithes, and the various trips in the neighborhood of Whitby. The steamers Emma and Scarborough made trips up and down the coast, and there was an unusual amount of "tripping" both to and from Whitby.

The day was unusually fine till the afternoon. Will and I had walked up to our favorite seat on the cliffs when some of the old sailors who frequent the East Cliff churchyard, and from that commanding eminence watch the wide sweep of sea visible to the north and east, called attention to a sudden show of "mares'-tails" high in the sky to the north-west. One old fisherman, our prickly Mr. Wells, who for more than half a century has kept watch on weather signs from the East Cliff, foretold in an emphatic manner the coming of a sudden storm.

The approach of sunset was so very beautiful, so grand in its masses of splendidly-coloured clouds, that there was quite an assemblage on the walk along the cliff in the old churchyard to enjoy the beauty, and Will and I explored the ruins of the abbey while we enjoyed the rich colors that saturated the sky.

Before the sun dipped below the black mass of Kettleness, standing boldly athwart the western sky, its downward way was marked by myriad clouds of every sunset-color—flame, purple, pink, green, violet, and all the tints of gold; with here and there masses not large, but of seemingly absolute blackness, in all sorts of shapes, as well outlined as colossal silhouettes. Will pointed out that many of the ships were hurrying home to the harbor, and that was a sure sign of bad weather to come.

I thought we ought to get home, then, and it was suppertime besides, but Will did not want to leave. He lingered in the ruins of the abbey looking out over the sea in a state of excited distraction, barely responding to my entreaties that we should go home. With a strange suddenness, the wind fell away entirely. In its wake was a dead calm, a sultry heat, and that prevailing intensity which, on the approach of thunder, affects persons of a sensitive nature.

Will was thrilled by it. I could see his eyes shining, the color rising in his cheeks. Closer and closer he went to the cliff, giving me quite a start, though when I caught up to him he was still a safe distance from the edge. There were but few lights in sight at sea, for even the coasting steamers, which usually "hug" the shore so closely, kept well to seaward, and but few fishing-boats were in sight.