#hence another reason for jonathan to be flinging himself all the harder into his work because if he fails to prove himself that will only

[vickyvicarious]

Oh No. You made me aware of the implications of Mina's words (when Mina says that some may say that this is a happy occasion for her and Jonathan) that she nay already be dealing with peoples' Whispering or subtle comments... from Hawkins' circle perhaps.

Yeah. :(

See, the thing is, there has been talk since last year of an outside perspective of all this with various degrees of apparent shadiness in different characters (I think I made a post about exactly that last year). But most of those takes I've seen deal with people suspecting our main characters of outright murder. Arthur, getting into Mrs. Westenra's will and then killing her and Lucy off with the help of his doctor friends to cover up for him. Or even just killing Lucy after her mother dies and leaves everything to him. Jonathan and Mina killing Mr. Hawkins in order to inherit everything he has, including Jonathan's big promotion shortly beforehand. It's all very sinister-sounding stuff.

But it doesn't have to be that bad, even in other peoples' minds. For Arthur, his father's illness seems like something that would have been well-known, and of course he was due to inherit everything from him anyway since they were quite close and he has no siblings. It sounds like there were rumors going around about him and Lucy, so their engagement wouldn't have been a surprise. Mrs. Westenra kept her illness secret from Lucy, but not really the other characters, and it's possible she would have allowed some other friends in on the secret too, so her death might not be a surprise either. Lucy's illness was abrupt and tragic, but having a friendly doctor consult/care for an invalid at home wouldn't have been anything too weird, so it's not necessarily ringing alarm bells. The weirdest part is the inheritance and the super-fast funeral, but in addition to Arthur getting potentially more leeway since he's so high-status, the knowledge of his father's death at about the same time might have led people to be more excusing of him even if they didn't like how he conducted the funeral. The inheritance is really weird though, and I could see even people who trust he wasn't responsible for any deaths believing that he maybe manipulated or pressured an ill woman to convince her to sign off Lucy's money to him when he knows she's likely to die much sooner than Mrs. Westenra thinks. And then he had them both buried as fast as possible and tried to move right past it. Not necessarily murder, but scummy. Even then though, I feel like most people wouldn't be saying this kind of thing openly even if it did run through their minds - and it would be less likely to occur to most in the first place since they know Arthur more already.

But while Arthur's status, both as a rich and presumably well-liked member of high-society, and someone who was known to be close to both the Westenras before they fell ill, serves to make people more forgiving of him... Jonathan and Mina don't have any of that.

Jonathan didn't already have money, to point to and say "he didn't need to inherit that wealth anyway." Jonathan didn't have his own property to make him getting that house less weird. He didn't already have his own staff, he didn't already have his own title/job even. He worked for Mr. Hawkins. He literally only just became a lawyer a couple of months ago, and he hasn't even been in the country let alone actively involved in the practice for most of the time since then. His meteoric rise is definitely weird, especially if you consider that his relationship with Mr. Hawkins, pre-trip, seems to have been pretty professional. Maybe he and his boss both secretly were more fond of one another than that, but I don't get the sense they expressed it very much.

So it's much easier to make the jump to the Harkers killing Mr. Hawkins. But there's a leap that's even easier than that and in some ways sadder. We know that Mr. Hawkins didn't have family, and apparently his funeral wasn't super well attended. His gout had been an ongoing issue, and while that alone isn't typically enough to kill someone it can go along with other illnesses. Jonathan had worked for him since he was a boy, and then his first business trip went wrong.

I think it could be quite easy for people to assume that Jonathan was ambitious, and deliberately played on the feelings of a lonely, sick old man. Perhaps he manipulated his guilt as a way to get 'in' with him past professional roles, and then started acting the part of a son in order to con Mr. Hawkins into giving him everything. Again, it doesn't have to be murder to still be mercenary and cold.

At the very least, if you're an old acquaintance of Mr. Hawkins, or someone who has worked with him for a while, the sudden appointment of his former clerk as his chief mourner, heir to all his wealth and his legal practice - it definitely seems odd enough to attribute to greed. Jonathan and Mina don't have any social status or wealth to protect them from that, and so I feel like they could get a lot more open suspicion or scorn or snubbing than Arthur ever would. No one ever has to say a word about it looking like murder; they could make 'jokes' about the Harkers 'lucking out' or at least 'landing on their feet' with a certain tone and that would be enough to be quite hurtful (and yeah, Mina's line suggests that at least she suspects some are saying that). They could easily not give accounts to them, or back out of existing contracts, and apologize by saying they were used to counting on Mr. Hawkins' many years of experience, but Mr. Harker is... newer to this. They could just fail to make any social offers, in a way that the Harker probably couldn't call anyone out on. And so on.

#dracula daily #mr. hawkins #jonathan harker #mina murray #arthur holmwood #burekstation #replies #it's not necessarily that bad but it could be much more easily than it could for arthur i think #without anyone to speak for them they are kinda stuck #hence another reason for jonathan to be flinging himself all the harder into his work because if he fails to prove himself that will only #seem like justification for any rumors