Chapter Six
When I came downstairs for breakfast the following morning, there was a note awaiting.
‘It’s from Mr Stoker,’ said Alice.
‘You read my correspondence?’
‘You shouldn’t be such a lie-a-bed.’ She ran into the dining room before I could catch her.
Note in hand, I followed at a more leisurely pace. Sat around the table were Mother, Maude, Phil and Catherine. Father and the boys had gone for a walk with Captain Walton.
‘You made quite the impression on Mr Stoker,’ said Phil, nodding at the note.
‘Then he must be easy to impress.’ I sat down and reached for toast and jam.
‘When are you going to understand, Florence Anne Lemon Balcombe,’ began Mother in a tone that indicated a lecture. ‘You may not have a conventional dowry —’
‘Or any —’ muttered Phil.
‘But beauty, wit, style and —’
‘Wonderful sisters,’ added Alice.
‘Are priceless,’ Mother smiled. She waited a beat. ‘So, what does the estimable Mr Stoker write?’ She placed a cautionary hand on Alice.
With an indifference I by no means felt, I unfolded the note. ‘He’s invited me to go to the theatre with him tomorrow night. It’s hard to tell, his writing is almost illegible.’
‘Will you go?’ asked Catherine, glancing at Mother.
‘I’ll have to make sure it doesn’t clash with all my other engagements,’ I said wryly.
‘You could do worse than a Stoker,’ said Mother.
‘Mother! It’s an invitation, not a proposal.’
‘She could do better too,’ added Phil, giving me that look. One I knew cautioned against falling for another man so soon after a broken heart.
The grandfather clock in the hallway chose that moment to chime. Time was ticking; marriage was the only way to guarantee myself a life, a future, and a man to share it with.
I glanced down at the note again. Mr Stoker’s handwriting was truly terrible.
It was hard not to stare as we settled into our seats at the Gaiety Theatre. Though I’d been before, I’d only ever sat in the stalls. Mr Stoker had procured tickets for the balcony, which gave a completely fresh aspect. Phil and Catherine, who’d accompanied us, were seated a row behind.
‘It’s huge,’ I said, admiring the baroque features, the lavishly painted ceiling. I glanced over my shoulder at my sisters. Phil was grinning approvingly.
‘It can seat over two thousand people,’ said Mr Stoker.
‘Has any actor filled it to capacity?’ I asked, noting quite a few empty seats.
Still, for a Wednesday, it was a respectable crowd.
Women dressed in the latest fashions, glittering with jewels, moved between rows searching for their seats.
Across from where we were sat, the elegant boxes were being filled.
I recognised politicians, a gentleman I’d met at the Wildes’, a lord and a woman I assumed was his wife. The gentleman caught my eye and nodded.
‘Only the one I told you about,’ replied Mr Stoker. For a moment I forgot my question.
‘Mr Henry Irving,’ I said.
Mr Stoker turned slightly. ‘You were listening.’
‘Sometimes I do.’ I beamed. ‘Will he be performing tonight?’
‘Alas, no. He’s touring England, but when he returns to Dublin, I’ll make sure you witness his brilliance.’
‘I’ll look forward to it,’ I said. Mr Stoker was staring off into the distance and, for just a moment, I had the sense I’d lost him.
‘Thank you for inviting me,’ I said, regaining his attention. ‘And for such splendid seats; Phil and Catherine’s too.’
Mr Stoker chuckled and patted my hand. ‘I wish I could take credit, but they were given to me in the hope I’d review the play.’
‘Oh. So, you’re working.’
‘It’s not work when I’m with you, Miss Balcombe.’
‘I should hope not, Mr Stoker. That would be a very poor start to our … friendship.’
‘Friendship? I like the sound of that,’ said Mr Stoker. ‘Friendships can evolve, can they not?’
‘I like to think all relationships can, otherwise what does one have but something predictable and thus dull?’
‘I doubt you’d ever be predictable or dull, Miss Balcombe.’
‘Heaven forbid!’ A thought occurred. ‘Though, it would depend, would it not?’
‘On what?’
‘With whom one forms a relationship.’
Before we could continue, the conductor tapped his baton, the music commenced, and the gas lights dimmed. The audience hushed and Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew started.
The rather dark comedy about the courtship of the cantankerous and intolerant Petruchio and the spoiled and ill-tempered Katherina might have seemed an unusual choice for a first outing, yet with Mr Stoker laughing beside me, leaning over to whisper snippets of information such as ‘See the young man playing Lucentio? He’s destined for great things, mark my words,’ or ‘Watch the way the background changes in this scene, it’s remarkably innovative,’ I was captivated.
During intermission, Phil and Catherine joined us, and we were introduced to acquaintances of Mr Stoker, including an old Trinity professor and his wife.
‘What a handsome couple you make,’ said the woman, whose name I didn’t catch. She had very crooked teeth and a warm smile. ‘You’re turning heads everywhere.’
People were whispering and pointing. A journalist who worked for the same paper Mr Stoker reviewed for, and even the politician Mr Charles Parnell, who continued to fight for Home Rule, something Mr Stoker was also passionate about, came over to greet us.
‘That’s a fine man you have there, Miss Balcombe,’ said Mr Parnell, after we’d been introduced. ‘Hang on to him.’
‘As I would a reticule?’ I asked.
Phil snorted and Catherine reddened. Mr Stoker choked back a laugh. Mr Parnell was not so successful. ‘I like her, Bram. I like her very much,’ he chuckled.
The bell rang announcing the play was about to recommence.
‘We’d best return to our seats,’ said Mr Stoker.
‘Misses Balcombe?’ He offered an arm each to Catherine and me, inviting Phil to proceed us.
‘What an enchanting evening. Three lovely ladies all to myself. I’m becoming quite insatiable.
’ He lowered his head. ‘Especially for your company,’ he added for my ears alone.
His grey eyes were soft, warm and filled with something I didn’t want to name. My heart became an acrobat.
We didn’t speak again until we were seated.
‘What do you think of the play thus far?’ he asked, watching as those around us fussed and chattered. He raised his hand to acknowledge another friend.
‘I’m thoroughly enjoying it, though I’m not persuaded that Petruchio’s methods for taming Katherina are sound.’
‘Oh? And why is that?’
‘I would think punishment might weaken a person’s defences, but in the long run, kindness and tolerance are far more persuasive tools for changing behaviour, don’t you think?’
Mr Stoker considered my words. I liked that he did, frowning, rubbing his beard.
‘In usual circumstances, I’d agree they’d have a better long-term outcome.
But this is essentially a battle, with only one victor.
It’s an interesting way to observe marriage, don’t you think? As if there’s an enemy to defeat and …’
The music started again. Mr Stoker put a finger to his lips ruefully. ‘Later,’ he whispered. I also liked that unlike other patrons who continued to converse, he respected the players.
It wasn’t until we were heading home that we resumed our conversation.
It was a mild night and Mr Stoker suggested we walk along the Liffey.
Tactfully, Phil and Catherine remained a distance behind us.
Stars shone, the river reflecting their sparkle and the moon’s beams. Others took advantage of the pleasant evening, strolling arm in arm.
We even passed a couple locked in an embrace.
‘Ah, young love,’ sighed Mr Stoker.
‘You say that as if you’re not young yourself, Mr Stoker.’
‘There are many who would argue I’m not, at almost thirty-one years old.’
He had eleven years on me. ‘Some say youth is as much a state of mind as a physical reality.’
We paused by the railing, facing the river, shoulder to shoulder. Phil and Catherine stopped, pretending to be distracted by something on the water. There were shouts in the distance, the whistle of a policeman.
‘How others treat you can also affect how old you feel; even how others perceive you,’ he said.
‘Much like being a woman then. How others see and behave towards us, how they judge us, determines how we’re allowed to be in society – and within families.’
He turned to regard me. ‘There’s a lot goes on in that lovely head of yours, isn’t there, Miss Florence Balcombe?’
I raised my chin and met his steady gaze. My body thrummed. Was he going to kiss me? Did I want him to? Yes, I did.
‘You have no idea,’ I said, ever so softly. ‘It’s uncharted territory.’
‘Then, let me be the first to explore it,’ he said, and captured my mouth with his.
Over the next few months, I saw a great deal of Mr Stoker, or Bram, as I came to call him.
I was introduced properly to his family, and he was made welcome at Marino Court.
When he went to London to help his friend, the actor Henry Irving, who was becoming famous, he wrote to me three times, though he was only gone a week.
Bram even invited me to accompany him to his sister Margaret’s quiet wedding at the beginning of summer.
I tried not to contrast Bram and Oscar, but since my experience with men was so limited, I’d no other point of comparison.
Both were clever, lovers of literature and the arts, aficionados of the theatre, and both dreamed of being writers.
But there, the similarities ended … Or should have, I kept telling myself.
Bram and I shared books and discussed their merits, cut out pieces from the various newspapers and debated them.
He began to join my family for meals, and I was invited to share his home.
By late July, we were attending church together.
Unlike Oscar, after that first kiss, Bram never attempted to kiss me again.
Oh, he’d link arms or hold my hand when I alighted from a cab or help me over uneven ground on one of our many walks; occasionally, he’d throw an arm about my shoulders and squeeze, the way one might a sibling.
Sometimes, he’d kiss my cheek, my hand, even the top of my head.
But I wanted him to kiss my mouth. The more time we spent together, I longed for him to caress me the way Oscar had.
When we bade each other goodnight after he’d brought me home, I would lift my face expectantly, and he would gaze down at me with those twinkly eyes, and either press his lips to my hand, or stroke my face.
‘You’re ridiculously lovely, you know,’ he’d say.
‘Does that mean you don’t take me seriously?’ I’d ask playfully.
‘Beauty, Florrie, is a very serious thing. It’s truth, don’t you know?’ he’d chuckle, alluding to the line from Keats. Then he’d depart.
‘I think his intentions are serious,’ said Mother one day, hope creeping into her voice.
I didn’t answer. I knew all too well what it was like to have hope cruelly dashed.
When I accepted Bram’s proposal, everyone except Phil was both pleased and relieved.
‘A civil servant trumps a student any day,’ said Father. It was the first and last time he ever referred to the Oscar debacle.
It took a great deal to impress my father, a retired army officer who’d seen action in the Crimea.
He had very fixed ideas about men and women, husbands and wives, and though he never expressed it, he was always afraid I would do something foolish, like elope, or run away to London with a ne’er-do-well and ruin not only my reputation but the family name.
Father didn’t understand that was something I’d never do.
Bram met with his approval because he represented solidity, stability.
We were from the same stock. Bram would ground me, Father said, which really meant bestow his family name and keep me in Dublin.
Unbeknownst to Father or Mother, while Bram loved Dublin, he too longed to leave.
‘London is where I want to go. If one is serious about being a writer, it’s the only place to be,’ he told me the day we went to the library.
‘It’s the city where dreams can come true,’ I replied. Oscar had said that, and I’d no qualms repeating it. ‘It’s where I long to go as well.’
‘One day,’ whispered Bram, his whiskers tickling my ear, ‘we’ll both go.’
I think it was this conversation that changed the way I felt about Bram. Overnight, he went from being a well-liked suitor to a potential husband who shared my desire to escape. Shared my first choice of destination …
We celebrated our engagement with champagne and a small gathering of his family and mine.
Like me, Bram was a third child. His mother, Charlotte, was a widow and a highly regarded activist who championed women’s rights (though she was remarkably intolerant of her own daughters and other women in her sphere), and those of the poor and crippled.
His older brother, Thornley, was married to a vivacious woman named Emily.
His older sister, Matilda, an artist of growing repute, was a delight, as was his younger sister, Margaret.
But it was his brother George, a doctor like Thornley, who I liked the most. Hard-working but keen to enjoy life, when he found out Bram and I were engaged, he whooped and picked me up and twirled me around the room.
Tom, two years younger than Bram, and Richard (another doctor), four years younger, both worked in India.
We planned the wedding for December the following year and the girls and I lost ourselves in designing the dress and assembling some kind of trousseau, while Father and Mother were grateful they’d time to put aside money for the ceremony.
Basking in the approval of my parents, the well-wishes of neighbours and everyone who said what a grand couple Bram and I made, I tried hard not to think about what life as Mrs Stoker might entail.
I was to be a wife, at last, but what if we never left Dublin?
What if Bram couldn’t fulfil his ambition to be a writer?
To go to London? Jesus wept. I’d be stranded here forever, in the same house, a brood of kids, maybe a holiday in county Cork, never moving beyond an ever-shrinking circle.
Bram, with all the thespians he knew, with Mr Irving as his closest friend, wouldn’t settle for that, would he? Anyhow, it was too late to back out. I had the proposal, the ring, and a future to plan.
Just when I’d reconciled myself to what being Mrs Bram Stoker entailed, even relishing the notion (my own household!), Oscar spoiled everything.
He came home.