Chapter Thirty-Five
It was a bitterly cold day, and I was on my way to meet Ellen, Lucy Gilbert and Violet Hunt at the tearooms in Fenchurch Street Station before we went to the Empire Theatre to see a demonstration of moving pictures.
Bram had said we simply had to view them.
Progress, he called it, and I supposed it was, but what were we progressing towards?
Snow had fallen continuously all morning, deepening the thick discoloured drifts mounded on the sides of the road by carriage wheels, horses’ hooves and the tyres of motor cars.
The air pinched and bit as I paid the cab driver and ran into the station.
I paused to brush flakes from my coat when I spied, in the nearby WH Smith stall, multiple copies of Herbert Wells’s novel The Time Machine and his latest, The Island of Dr Moreau.
I’d only finished reading The Time Machine last night.
A fanciful fiction about a scientist who travels eight hundred thousand years into the future, I’d found it engrossing.
Everyone was talking about Mr Wells’s books, and deservedly so, but no-one was giving a thought to Bram’s. It was terribly heartbreaking.
Bram always claimed the very ordinary sales of his novels didn’t discourage him, but I couldn’t credit that.
How could they not when around him his friends were so successful in the very field where he wished to excel?
He’d had two published this past year. Set in Scotland’s Cruden Bay, The Watter’s Mou’ (Gaelic for ‘the water’s mouth’) was deemed tragic but worthy – damned with faint praise by any measure.
Not that this stopped him setting another novel there.
Sadly, The Shoulder of Shasta, though a marvellous romp, didn’t fare well with the critics at all.
One claimed it wouldn’t appeal to many readers and accused Bram of putting the book together ‘roughly and carelessly’, even going so far as to declare that ‘Mr Stoker can probably do much better than this’.
I knew Bram could too.
I was still thinking about the effort Bram put into his writing – not just the books, but the articles he was commissioned to deliver for various newspapers – the research he did, the lengths he went to for accuracy.
It was astonishing. I pushed him, praised his talent, his boundless imagination and skill; of course I did.
At least when he was writing, it was in service to his ambitions.
Hall, whose quiet Manx books sold well, was very supportive of his endeavours.
But in the end, it didn’t matter what I thought, or the enthusiasm of his current publisher, Mr Constable, it was the reviewers and readers that counted.
‘Lemon!’ exclaimed Ellen, half-rising and waving as soon as I reached the top of the stairs. Sat near one of the large windows, Lucy and Violet were already there. I manoeuvred my way between the tables, most veiled in steam, nodding to the few women and couple of men I knew.
First kissing my friends and exchanging greetings, I collapsed into a chair. A waitress appeared and poured a cup of tea from the enormous pot that had been ordered. A slice of Victoria sponge was slid in front of me, oozing jam and cream.
‘So,’ said Lucy, once I’d settled and swallowed a mouthful of cake. ‘Tell us about Dublin. How was it?’
‘And the new house,’ added Violet, delicately licking her fork. ‘I can’t believe you went to all the trouble of shifting next door. Ellen says it’s impressive.’
‘It is,’ said Ellen. ‘Big.’
‘When are we getting an invitation?’ asked Violet.
‘Soon,’ I laughed. ‘Of course! As for Dublin —’
‘We read about you in the paper,’ blurted Lucy. ‘You caused quite the stir at the Dublin Drawing Room Ball.’
I felt my cheeks pinken. ‘You saw the article?’
‘Saw it?’ exclaimed Violet. ‘Ellen bought multiple copies and gave them to everyone.’
‘Not everyone,’ drawled Ellen, nudging Violet. ‘How could I not share when you were declared the loveliest lady present?’ She framed her face with her hands and tilted her head.
We laughed.
‘Bram must have been proud,’ said Lucy.
‘He was.’ I smiled at the recollection. Almost as proud as when the portrait Walter Osborne painted of me was exhibited at the Royal Academy last year. My triumph had been short-lived, overshadowed as it was by Oscar’s tribulations.
‘Enjoy it while you can, Lemon,’ said Ellen, directing her fork at me. ‘Compliments dry up once you reach forty!’
‘That’s two years away yet!’
They sniggered at my indignation. Ellen’s words simply confirmed what I’d quietly decided.
Once I turned forty, I’d no longer allow my picture to be captured whether in paint, by Kodak camera or one of those new-fangled Kinetoscope things.
If I was to be depicted for posterity, it would be before I became a bag full of wrinkles and liver spots.
Unlike Dorian Gray, I had no portrait in the attic to do the ageing for me.
Aware of three sets of eyes upon me, I started, teacup halfway to my mouth. ‘Sorry, what was that?’
‘I was asking after Noel,’ said Lucy gently.
‘I was away with the bog-fairies,’ I apologised. ‘He’s due home from Oxford tomorrow, just for a few days.’
‘Is he enjoying being there now?’ asked Ellen.
‘Depends on what you mean by “enjoy”,’ I admitted, swallowing some tea. The poor lad had been quite homesick when he first became a boarder. ‘He won’t distinguish himself the way his father did at school, but since when is ordinary a sin?’
The women nodded sagely.
‘Bram is already talking about him becoming an accountant and intends to raise the possibility when he’s home.’
‘I think Noel would do well in that occupation,’ said Lucy. ‘You know, where he wasn’t overwhelmed by large numbers of people.’
‘No, just large numbers,’ quipped Ellen.
‘I think you’re right, Lucy.’ I topped up my tea and stirred it distractedly. ‘I sometimes wonder if the kind of busy life Bram and I lead has made him disinclined to seek others. He’s ever been a boy – dear God, a young man!’
There were exclamations of mock horror.
‘Who’s quite content with his own company.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with that!’ exclaimed Violet.
We all began to laugh. Violet disliked being solitary and was always seeking out new friends, lovers and stimulating people. I was beyond flattered she included me among those she preferred.
‘And what’s Bram doing with himself now the theatre’s closed for a while?’ asked Ellen.
‘He’s busy finishing that book he’s been working on since – oh, since before we stayed in Whitby.’
‘That was years ago,’ said Ellen.
I nodded. ‘At least six.’
‘Six!’ exclaimed Lucy and Violet in unison.
‘A bit longer, really. He’s calling it The Un-Dead, though just between us, I think of it as The Book That Will Not Die.’
‘After that long, I’m not surprised,’ said Violet.
‘Is that the Count Dracula one?’ asked Lucy tentatively. She knew how important Bram’s work was to him – they all did and shared my disappointment in the lukewarm reception his books had thus far received.
I sipped my tea. ‘It is. He finished the first draft back in July when we stayed at the Kilmarnock Arms near Cruden Bay again. He loves it there. There’s something about the place that makes the ideas flourish and the words flow.
’ I paused, then leaned over, lowering my voice.
‘He tells me it will be full of the supernatural and all kinds of things that seem to be the rage these days.’
‘And vampires,’ said Violet ghoulishly, widening her eyes and gnashing her teeth.
We recoiled in faux horror before bursting into giggles.
‘Bram says he’s going to read the completed manuscript to me after Christmas.’
‘Well, I hope this book brings him the recognition he deserves,’ said Lucy.
‘So do I, Lucy. So do I,’ I sighed.
We finished our tea and began to rise. It was time to head to the New Empire Theatre.
As we made our way back downstairs and into the train station, I thought about the vampire book.
Bram was right to alter direction; so few were keen for his romances, sweet and dramatic as they were.
Ghostly tales and those featuring the inexplicable and strange had never really gone out of style.
As if to drive the point home, Lucy and Violet began to discuss the merits of the books on display in WH Smith as we made our way down to the train – Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque by Edgar Allan Poe, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, and Mr Wells’s works.
And there was our friend George Du Maurier’s Trilby, which had captured imaginations everywhere – including my own.
I read it the moment it was published and was astonished to discover it was about a young artist’s model, Trilby, who’s mesmerised by a wicked older musician, Svengali.
Hypnotised by him, she becomes a famous singer, despite being tone deaf, and conquers the world.
The story ends in defeat, death and shame.
Clearly, Mr Du Maurier remembered our exchange by the aviary that day at Violet’s.
Did he see me as a witless woman who fell under the spell of an older man?
Only, Bram was no Svengali … Or was Trilby a feminine version of Bram?
To me, Henry Irving was Svengali incarnate and I told Mr Du Maurier so the next time I saw him.
‘What can I say?’ he’d shrugged. ‘You inspired me, Mrs Stoker. But, any resemblance to an actual person is solely in your imagination. Trilby is nothing more than a work of fantasy …’ And then he winked.
I was still thinking about Mr Du Maurier and how much Bram had enjoyed his novel, even writing a congratulatory letter to him, as we boarded our compartment, fussing over who should sit where, taking the opportunity to brush our coats and repin our hats.
As we pulled out of the station in a bluster of smoke and screeching metal, it occurred to me that Mr Du Maurier had captured the contemporary mood with Trilby.
People paid enormous sums these days to be hypnotised and even crowded music halls to witness acts performing it – willingly surrendering their self-mastery to another.
There was also an increasing desire to seek affirmation of the spirit world, or something existing beyond.
It wasn’t just through stories like Dorian Gray, or Poe’s or Charlotte Riddell’s works.
Even Lady Jane (God rest her soul – there’s no doubt Oscar’s internment finished her) had often had a psychic visit and loved reading Tarot cards at her Saturday luncheons and such.
Poor O even consulted a woman claiming to be able to see the future before his trial.
Her predictions of his great triumph predictably inaccurate.
I hoped by embracing the supernatural, Bram’s new book would bring him the kind of success Mr Du Maurier and Mr Wells enjoyed.
We arrived at the New Empire Theatre just in time to admire the light blue and salmon pink stage boxes and the plum-coloured upholstery of the seats before the vast auditorium darkened.
On a huge screen in the centre of the stage, flickering black-and-white images appeared.
Spellbound, the audience swiftly hushed.
I flinched as a train sped towards me, horses galloped across dry ground, kicking up dust, faces loomed then dissolved, buildings, too.
Lights shimmered across my vision making my heart somersault and my breath catch.
Why, it was as if we were being mesmerised or, better still, being given a taste of what Wells’s intrepid time-traveller experienced – a glimpse of a possible future.
As the film ended and we sat in awed silence, I prayed it was a future where Bram attained the recognition he so deserved.