Private Journal of Florence Thornley

I have forgotten so much of my childhood. It is strange the things we remember as we grow old and the things that fade. I can barely recall my mother’s face, but my memories of the Count still burn bright.

September 1887. A month from my seventh birthday. My governess, Miss Penhaligan, was a formidable lady. She made me paint pictures of red and brown oak leaves. All summer I painted wildflowers, sand and pebble beaches, the dark sea and clouds dotting the sky.

I saw him first in the street, a day before we boarded the train to London. We were lost in the narrow higgledy-piggledy streets of York, the relics of the medieval Shambles. He stepped from a hansom cab, down to the cobbled street. Dressed in a dark wool suit and a pair of shiny handmade shoes. He was taller than my father, gaunt, black hair, a neat black moustache and beard, and skin as white as snow.

He saw me staring up at him, wide eyed. He swept about, meeting my gaze. There was a spot of blood on his face. I blinked, my breath catching in my throat. He smudged the blood away with a silk handkerchief. Disappeared into the crowds.

Wednesday dawned dreary. The sky was murky, and the rain spattered mud on my petticoats. My hair was black as raven feathers, woven in a French braid, damp from the drizzle.

‘Your carriage, ma’am.’ The porter heaved our luggage up onto the train.

Miss Penhaligan smiled politely as he held the carriage door open and doffed his hat.

First Class. Four doors. Six wheels. Twelve windows. I knew how to count to a hundred. This was before corridors on train carriages. There was no dining car. No way to walk from one carriage to the next.

A nervous young man sat in our coach. He stood awkwardly, snatched his hat off his head and wished Miss Penhaligan a good afternoon. The train followed what would become the East Coast Rail Line, from Edinburgh to London. It stopped at York, giving passengers enough time to disembark and lunch at the station restaurant. I stared out the window. The gigantic steel arches of the train station looked like the vaulted roof of a cathedral.

Whistles blew along the platform. The monstrous locomotive blasted steam. And there he was, a shadow at the window. The carriage door tore open, and the Count loomed in the doorway. The door slammed shut as the train juddered forward. He stared down at me for a moment, taking a seat by the window. He unfolded a newspaper, the Yorkshire Gazette, raising it high. Hidden behind its pages.

The Count was dressed immaculately, a sharp crease in the trousers, polished Oxford brogues, a tweed herringbone waistcoat and jacket. His nails were neatly manicured, but his skin was unnaturally white. It was mottled with bruises and threads of purple veins.

The city’s factories and chimneys gave way to fields and hedgerows. I stared out the window. Miss Penhaligan busied herself at her embroidery, stitching a snowdrop in a hoop. Emerald green threads weaving in and out, needle stabbing as she drew it through the cloth.

‘Is that a book of fairies?’ I asked.

The young gentleman startled, blinking, falling over his words. He was reading a small book, yellow as a sunflower.

‘Ah, um,’ he fidgeted in his seat, uncomfortably, choosing his words carefully. ‘I’m afraid not. I doubt that you’d like it.’

I tilted my head so I could see the book cover: ‘The Yellow Book, An Illustrated Quarterly. Price 5/- Net.’

‘I like the picture.’ I stared at the engraving of a lady with black hair, standing by a bookcase.

‘Mister Aubrey Beardsley,’ the young gentleman whispered. ‘I have a copy of Wilde’s ‘Salomé’ with Beardsley’s pictures.’

Miss Penhaligan tutted.

‘Florence,’ she said disapprovingly.

The young gentleman smiled conspiratorially.

‘My favourite book is the Red Fairy Book by Andrew Lang.’ I said. ‘I’ve got the Red Fairy Book, the Blue Fairy Book, and the Green Fairy Book. I think there may be a Yellow Fairy Book someday.’

‘Ow!’ Miss Penhaligan jagged the needle into her finger.

She stuck her finger in her mouth, smearing a spot of blood on her lips.

The Count folded his newspaper carefully, never taking his eyes off Miss Penhaligan.

‘Pardon me,’ the young gentleman stood and offered Miss Penhaligan his handkerchief.

‘Thank you.’

‘Um,’ he sat on the edge of the seat. ‘I should introduce myself. Terribly rude. I’m Richard Hobden.’

‘This is Miss Penhaligan,’ I said, before she had a chance to object. ‘She’s my governess.’

‘And you…’

‘My name is Florence.’ I said, ‘Do you like toads?’

‘I… uh.’ Mister Hobden blinked. ‘I mean…I haven’t given toads much thought.’

The newspaper fell, pages scattering, as the Count lunged. His fist closed around Mister Hobden’s throat, dragging him out of his seat, pinning him against the windows. Hobden gasped, fighting for breath. The Count stabbed his right hand through Hobden’s belly, breaking ribs, spilling guts, claws tearing at his heart.

Miss Penhaligan’s embroidery fell to the floor.

The Count ripped Hobden’s throat open, tasted his blood.

He spat it out in disgust, painting the window red.

‘Morphine,’ the Count snarled.

He wrenched his fist from the corpse, his right hand dripping blood. The white cuff of his tailored shirt was stained red. He smashed Hobden’s body against the carriage door, cracking the window glass. Effortlessly, he raised the dead weight off the floor, shoved the carriage door open and pushed Hobden’s corpse out onto the train tracks.

The Count slammed the door shut.

Miss Penhaligan raised the Deringer pistol she had taken from her clutch purse.

I had seen dead bodies before. Consumption was particularly deadly to children. I saw friends wasting away, skin as white as snow, coughing blood. When it made its way into my home I never expected to be spared. But I had never seen someone die before, not like that.

The Count smiled and took a seat opposite Miss Penhaligan. Her hands barely wavered.

‘Who are you?’ she said.

‘My name? I am Dracula.’

His face was cruel, skin drawn across bones. Eyes dark. Lips red. Skin white. Teeth sharp as an animal.

‘Count Dracula,’ a smile flickered and died. ‘It seems you have me at a disadvantage.’

‘It seems you are a murderer.’

Dracula gave a little shrug, like it was barely worth noting. He reached across the seat and took Mister Hobden’s leather bag. He discarded papers and vials of opium, a fountain pen, and a diary. He pulled a crumpled silk scarf from the bag and began to wipe the blood from his hands.

‘Do you like dogs?’ He looked up, staring at me, ‘Florence?’

‘Yes.’ I mumbled.

‘Don’t you speak to her.’

Dracula closed his eyes.

‘A huge dog. A mastiff perhaps? No. An Irish wolfhound. Bounding along the beach, paws like dinner plates, in and out of the sea. Fur wet with salt water and tangled in seaweed.’

He stared at me intently. I didn’t tell him he was right. I didn’t need to; he could see it in my eyes.

‘I smell it on you. Like the scent of the King’s Evil that taints your blood.’

Dracula dropped the bloodstained scarf on the seat beside him.

‘Florence,’ he toyed with my name. ‘I doubt that you have ever heard of a vârcolac?’

I shook my head.

‘The vârcolac is the fiercest of all dogs. It is not tamed. It is savage. It does not lie meekly by the hearth, warming its paws. It is dog and wolf, from ages past. Woven by witches spinning yarn. The vârcolac run up their threads, up into the night stars to gnaw upon the moon.’

Dracula stared at my face, never blinking.

‘Tell me, Florence, did you ever see the moon turn red as blood?’

I nodded. My father owned a brass telescope. He showed me a lunar eclipse.

‘That was the vârcolac, devouring the moon.’

The train shuddered on the tracks, wheels screaming.

I made my bravest face, ‘I’m not afraid of wolves.’

A smile cut across Dracula’s face. He laughed, knitting his bloodied fingers together.

‘So, little one, what do you fear?’

I knew what I feared. It was less than a year since my mother and my father lay in their coffins. Tuberculosis. It gnawed away at them as it was gnawing at me. My skin was white as a ghost. I coughed blood. I was scared to be dead and buried in the earth at their side.

‘Nothing.’ I fixed my jaw.

‘Nothing at all?’ he raised an eyebrow.

‘Mathematics.’ I lied.

There was no warmth to Dracula’s laugh.

‘Numbers lurking beneath your bed?’ he nodded. ‘Does your governess teach you their secrets?’

‘Yes.’

Miss Penhaligan kept a steady aim.

‘Sir,’ I said. ‘Did you go to school?’

‘Please,’ he leaned forward an inch, ‘No such formalities between friends. Call me Dracula.’

‘Dracula.’

‘Good,’ Dracula said. ‘I was a student at the Solomonărie. It was a curious kind of school. In the ruins of a castle, jutting from a mountainside above Lake Hermannstadt. I too bent over books of numbers, scribbling their secrets with ink and a goose-feather pen. I grew a homunculus. Studied the works of Dr John Dee and Paracelsus, Zosimos of Panopolis and Hermes Trismegistus. Books of alchemy and Gnostic mysteries, books of necromancy and the Key of Solomon. De natura rerum, the Nature of Things.’

Train wheels screeched and thundered.

‘The school had a dragon,’ Dracula smiled. ‘It slept underwater in the lake, curled around a hoard of gold and bones. I never saw it, but I was told that sometimes a student would be chosen to ride the dragon across the skies, making rain fall from the clouds and raising storms.’

‘Picked by the Devil.’ Miss Penhaligan said. ‘The pupil that is to ride the dragon. It is the Devil himself that chooses them. I have heard of your school. It is the Scholomance.’

‘Yes,’ Dracula nodded slowly. ‘The Germans give it that name. Bavarians with their Perchta and their Dead Houses.’

I had heard of Bavaria from my books of fairy tales and seen Germany in my father’s atlas. I knew that Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter had married the Kaiser.

‘Is that where you’re from?’ I asked.

Dracula shook his head. ‘Far to the east. Transylvania. Dark forests and fierce castles. And so many stories. Strigoi and rusalka. Drekavaci. I believe you would love it, little one.’

‘I know your country,’ Miss Penhaligan said. ‘My mother served as a nurse in the Crimean War. I was born at the edge of the Black Sea, near Odessa. I know Transylvania. I know your stories, Count Dracula. You are a long way from home.’

‘Do not worry.’ Dracula smiled. ‘I sailed with fifty boxes of my native soil. Mister Billington saw my cargo from Whitby to the London train last night. But I have a fine new suit of clothes. Polished shoes and a hand-tailored shirt. It would be a pity to lie in the dirt and ruin them.’

‘Why did you kill Mister Hobden?’ I scowled.

Dracula smirked, ‘I did not eat luncheon at York.’

I wretched, coughing. It felt like knives cutting at my throat. Blood and phlegm spattered my hands.

Miss Penhaligan flinched. Fighting her instincts to help me, holding the gun steady.

‘It’s alright,’ I muttered.

‘Why do you travel to London?’ Dracula frowned. ‘There is scarlet fever in the city. Surely…’

‘Miss Thornley’s business is none of your concern.’

I rarely heard Miss Penhaligan use her sternest voice. She reserved it for the gravest of sins.

‘I have read that a Professor Roche has a pack of fifteen wild Russian wolves at the Royal Aquarium.’ Dracula smiled. ‘Perhaps, if Miss Thornley is not afraid, she may like to visit them.’

‘I know who you are,’ I said.

Dracula looked amused, ‘Do tell me who I am, child.’

‘The story I like best in the Red Fairy Book is the story of Snowdrop.’ I met his gaze. ‘She is taken out into the woods. And the wicked hag queen talks to her mirror, and she wants Snowdrop cut to pieces. Wants her lungs and liver.’

I’d played at being Snowdrop. After consumption took my mother and father, Miss Penhaligan took me to Scarborough to convalesce. I think she hoped the sea air and big blue sky would heal me. Scrub away the cobwebs and death we left behind in London.

‘Hair as black as ebony.’ I whispered. ‘Skin as white as snow. Lips, red as blood.’

Dracula stared at the smear of blood across my face.

‘You would tear my heart out, wouldn’t you?’ I said. ‘Cut my lungs out of my body? Feed them to the queen?’

Wheels rattled; the carriage bumped.

‘Never,’ Dracula shook his head. ‘I would not give your heart to the queen. I would devour it myself. Like the vârcolac eating the moon.’

My eyes widened.

‘I took the sheep and cut their throats over the pit, and the dark blood ran forth.’ Dracula said. ‘Then there gathered from out of Erebus the spirits of those that are dead.’

Dracula sprung from his seat, plunging at Miss Penhaligan.

She pulled the trigger. The Sharps Deringer blazed. The pepper-box revolver had four tiny barrels. A .22 bullet thudded into Dracula’s chest.

The Count stared down at the bullet wound. He slid his hand into his waistcoat and stuck his finger out the bullet hole.

‘Do you have any idea how expensive this suit was?’ He snarled.

Miss Penhaligan barely had time to turn the firing pin when Dracula snatched her out of her seat. The gun tumbled from her grip. Dracula picked her up by a handful of her hair and smashed her head through the cracked window.

Glass splintered, falling to the floor, cutting into her face.

Dracula dragged her head sideways, slicing her jugular open on a shard of glass. She kicked, writhing as blood gushed from her neck. Dracula bit at her flesh, drinking her blood.

I heard Miss Penhaligan’s ribs snap as he knelt on her. Blood stained her petticoats. Her hands jolted.

My feet slid to the floor. I reached down and picked up the pepper-box revolver. It felt so heavy. I fought to lift it, to level it at the back of Dracula’s head. I squeezed the trigger as hard as I could. The revolver boomed like thunder, kicked back in my hands.

The bullet dug a hole in Dracula’s skull, buried itself deep in his brain. I didn’t see a speck of blood.

‘Florence,’ Dracula hissed.

I threw the gun down, putting all my weight on the handle of the carriage door. The brass handle didn’t want to turn, the rush of the train pushed the door tight shut.

Dracula growled, ‘Where are you going?’

The carriage door flew open, the handle dragging me with it. I put my foot against the edge of the doorway and threw myself from the train.

The embankment sloped away from the tracks. I hit rock, gravel and scraggily turf. Pain tore through my body. I broke my left leg and my collarbone. Almost severed my spine. I saw the train roar and rattle away. It sped out across a bridge. High above a dark river.

I saw something move along the side of the First Class carriage. Dracula crawled out of the coach, claws digging deep into the hard teak wood.

Nobody believed me.

I told the police all that I had seen. Told priests and alienists. They transcribed my words. Took notes. Asked questions. Made diagnoses.

I was an orphan. Six years old. Still mourning the loss of my family. I saw my governess murdered.

A young man, Richard Hobden joined our coach at York. He was a medical student, studying anatomy at the University of Edinburgh. The police found surgical knives in his leather bag and the vials of opium, stolen from the medical storerooms. Anatomists still carried the stench of graverobbing and body snatchers. Cutting open corpses, experimenting on the dead.

The police ignored my testament and made their own conclusions. Mister Hobden was a morphine addict, a decadent that read Oscar Wilde, Huysmans, Baudelaire, and Poe. He had attacked Miss Penhaligan. Cut open her throat. Twice she fired her Deringer and, in the struggle, Mister Hobden had fallen from the train. His remains were found on the tracks, hopelessly mangled under the wheels of a locomotive.

Miss Penhaligan had succumbed to the injuries she sustained and, facing a journey across England with the corpse of my governess, I had thrown myself from the train.

Over the years my story has not altered a jot. I am unwavering. I still see it play out vividly. Smell the shoe polish and damp tweed. Hear the glass splinter. See the needle drawing its threads. After the Great War, I travelled east by ship, train, and horse-drawn coach, to Transylvania. I needed to see for myself. To know the Count was gone.

I have tried to paint pictures of Dracula. Lamp black and crimson paint. Lead white mixed with linseed oil. I have never been able to capture his likeness. But I see his face whenever I close my eyes.