#'You're planning to go to England and you don't even know their secret code language? Pathetic.'

[see-arcane]

One last thing I’ve been poking at today regarding the issue of the letters. A small glimmer of something other than miserable to take away. 

It’s not a whole silver lining. A copper one at best, and barely there. But the fact of Jonathan’s cleverness with this attempt at sending out a message and the shorthand itself was a small victory.

The big spotlight is on all the defeats in this entry. The foiled attempt at sending private messages. The ruined hope that Jonathan can rely on his fellow human beings for help. The mockery and crushing of spirit in the burned letter to Mina along with being forced to reseal Hawkins’ now-pointless note and being locked in the room for misbehaving. It’s nothing but endless salt in too many wounds. Jonathan is in no state to harvest anything but despondency from the night’s display.

But.

There is something here that is worth noting. And that’s Dracula’s reaction to that shorthand note itself. What are the exact words? The exact actions?

“--one is from you, and to my friend Peter Hawkins; the other"—here he caught sight of the strange symbols as he opened the envelope, and the dark look came into his face, and his eyes blazed wickedly—"the other is a vile thing, an outrage upon friendship and hospitality! It is not signed. Well! so it cannot matter to us." And he calmly held letter and envelope in the flame of the lamp till they were consumed.

Now obviously, the whole show of waving the letters in Jonathan’s face was a sadistic power play. Just proof positive of his influence and Jonathan’s uninterrupted helplessness, plus an extra dash of renewed hopelessness. All good fun. Right up until he opens the shorthand letter and sees those strange symbols. He doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t feign being puzzled by a stranger’s letter--so it must be!--getting in with Jonathan’s letter to Hawkins.

Just like the moment with the mirror and the bloody cut, just like the surprise of the ladies moving in on Jonathan without permission, Dracula is confronted by something that makes a big ugly crack in the careful masquerade he’s been enjoying so far. He likes this game. He likes being literal king of the castle and playing the host and pulling Jonathan’s spirit apart like so many loose unhappy threads. Most importantly, he likes being the one holding all the cards. All the information. We’ll see later in the book just how well others’ ignorance is used as a cudgel to beat any of his would-be obstacles into paste.

But now, here’s the shorthand. A thing Jonathan knows and he does not.

And Dracula is trapped by the performance. The letter’s already assigned as a prop, a stranger’s note, it cannot matter to them, Jonathan’s letters are sacred to him, blah blah. But if the shorthand is a stranger’s, he can’t even wheedle Jonathan to divulge it for him. So it’s stuck as a surprise mystery. Small as it is, ultimately futile as it is, it’s still A Thing Dracula Did Not Plan. A Thing Dracula Does Not Know. A Card Dracula Does Not Hold.

And Count Dracula, as will be revealed, is many things in addition to being a monster: including an utter control freak. Classic gothic edition mastermind. Every t crossed, every i dotted, every detail and solicitor in their proper place. Now here’s his pet-guest-prisoner not only doing a no-no by trying to reach out to others behind his back, but flaunting some 19th century secret cipher right under his nose! The nerve! Granted, he did tear open the letter to snoop on it, but such trifles don’t matter here. 

What matters is Dracula’s reaction being one that briefly breaks through the guise of the game. A genuine sour note that nettles him into burning the letter outright with a sneer and then, happily, steering immediately back on track with Hawkins’ letter and Jonathan’s timeout. Again, it’s a small thing. A mere mote.

But I’d bet money that part of Dracula’s ‘many labors’ ahead of him now include an almost petulant scrounging through his books for any mention of those odd symbols so he can snap it up too. Research he must do alone, at a loss, because Jonathan unwittingly arranged his writing in such a way that it endangers the Count’s game if the latter has to admit the writing was Jonathan’s after all. So he’s left to huff and puff over it in private. Because all the information under this roof is supposed to be his, damn it. 

And Jonathan, trapped and cornered and bereft prisoner that he is, proved that it isn’t.