#except probably not

So what's the order of the end of August in the book?

The time period we're looking at spans Chapters 8-9.

Here's the original order of entries:

Chapter 8

(I think this chapter is mostly, if not entirely, fine date-wise. You can pretty much trust these dates, but this is provided for context of what happens before Chapter 9, which is the one with the weird dates.)

Chapter 8 begins at 11pm on 11th August. You may remember that it was later that night that Lucy sleepwalked to the churchyard and was fed on by Dracula for the first time. I won't list all the dates, but the first half of Chapter 8 consists of Mina's diary entries about Dracula trying to get to Lucy to drink her blood (and sometimes succeeding). Then:

17th August: Mina's diary. She writes, "No news from Jonathan, and Lucy seems to be growing weaker [...]"

Also 17th August: The letter from Samuel F. Billington & Sons saying that the boxes will leave Whitby by the 4:30pm train (on the 17th) and arrive in London tomorrow (18th). There are stern instructions to deliver them that night (18th) to Carfax, near Purfleet (East London).

21st August: Confirmation from Carter, Paterson & Co that "Goods are delivered in exact accordance with instructions" (i.e. on the evening of the 18th).

18th August: Mina's diary. A jump back in time, to resume Mina's diary where we left off. We read this entry in the context of firmly knowing that Dracula left Whitby on the afternoon of the 17th. So when Mina says, "Lucy is ever so much better. Last night she slept well all night, and did not disturb me once," and that, "all the morbid reticence seems to have passed from her, "we know it is because Dracula is no longer in Whitby. However, she notes that Lucy "is still sadly pale and wan-looking".

19th August: Mina's diary. "Joy, joy, joy!" Mina has had news of Jonathan and will begin the journey to join him tomorrow morning (20th).

12th August: A jump back in time to Sister Agatha's letter, included in the place it was received by Mina (19th) rather than the date it was written.

ALSO 19th August: Dr Seward's diary. "Strange and sudden change in Renfield last night." Renfield is being uncharacteristically rude to the staff and no longer cares for spiders. 'Last night' was the 18th, the same night where Lucy, up in Whitby, slept undisturbed; the same night we know Dracula and his boxes arrived at their destination. On the night of the 19th, Renfield escapes, and Dr Seward follows him over the wall "which seperates our grounds from the grounds of the deserted house", which we find out in the next paragraph is called Carfax - the same place we know from earlier this chapter the boxes were delivered to. Renfield speaks of/to a "Master", and is restrained and put in a padded room.

So: at the end of Chapter 8, Lucy is still in Whitby, and is returning to normal. It is now Renfield, who Dracula has just moved next door to, who is acting outside of his usual patterns of behaviour (which we've had time to learn over previous chapters).

Chapter 9:

This is where I suggest you mainly ignore the dates and pay attention to the order.

24 August (maybe): Mina's letter announcing her and Jonathan's marriage. She seals up Jonathan's journal. We worry about the consequences of locking this knowledge away but:

30 August (supposedly - unlikely to be this date): Lucy's letter to Mina, written from Whitby. So the time of writing the letter, Lucy has not yet left Whitby (i.e. she just hasn't left; it's not that she goes away and then returns later). This letter is almost certainly written after Mina's letter to Lucy, as she makes mention of "[Mina's] husband". While she knew Mina was intending to marry Jonathan abroad, I doubt she would have been confident enough of Jonathan's survival to write about Mina's husband before she knew for sure that he lived long enough. As for Lucy, at some point since Mina left in the morning of 20th August, she has finally been joined by Arthur, as he was always intending to do. When he arrived, Lucy was probably still looking ill following Dracula's departure. However, he's now been up there with her long enough that they've done a whole bunch of activities and she says she is "quite restored" ("quite" here meaning "completely" not "slightly"). She talks about her recovered appetite, her vibrancy, and her quality of sleep and the fact that she hasn't sleepwalked recently. It is immediately after this that she mentions Arthur's "getting fat" comment. She therefore doesn't say this out of the blue; it is yet another symptom of her returning health. Readers know that this is because Dracula is still far away.

20th August (supposedly - unlikely to be this date): Dr Seward's diary saying "For the first week after his attack [Renfield] was perpetually violent". 'One night' (approx 26th) about a week after 19th, Renfield grows quiet for the first time, and remains so until just before dawn. This happened for 3 nights in a row (say 26th-28th). Dr Seward plans to help Renfield escape "tonight" (probably 28th or 29th).

23rd August (supposedly - unlikely to be this date): Dr Seward's diary. This is the one where he initially was hoping Renfield would escape, but he didn't, and then Renfield escaped later in the night (of the 29th?), and they saw a bat heading west "as if it knew where it was bound". What's to the West? Well:

24th August (supposedly - unlikely to be this date - however, it does and should be the next day from Dr Seward's supposed-23rd August entry): Lucy's first diary entry, written from Hillingham, in North London. She talks about "last night" (the same night the bat flew west from Carfax which is in East London; possibly 29th?) when she "seemed to be dreaming again just as I was at Whitby. Perhaps it is the change of the air, or getting home again." So it seems that Lucy only got home yesterday and immediately got preyed on by Dracula again. She is today (probably not the 24th - maybe the 30th?) unhappy and scared, and when Arthur saw her, he immediately clocked that something was wrong. Lucy resolves to try to "sleep in mother's room tonight".

25th August (supposedly - unlikely to be this date - however, it does and should be the next day from Lucy's last entry): Lucy's diary. She was not able to sleep in her mother's room last night and so had "another bad night", where she heard "scratching or flapping at the window" and then had more bad dreams. She wakes up very ill indeed. This entry likely takes place near / at the very end of the month, which brings us to:

31st August

I won't say what happens on 31st August as that's spoilers for Dracula Daily. But I think the 31st August entry definitely follows on a lot better from the supposed-25th August entry than the supposed-30th August entry.

So the beginning of Chapter 9 sees both Mina and Lucy happy, in Buda-Pesth and Whitby respectively. The only person who is majorly unhappy is Renfield, who is aware of Dracula's proximity but can't get near him for a long time. When Lucy returns to London, her health and happiness take a sudden and drastic turn for the worse as she is again preyed upon by Count Dracula.