Chapter Thirty-Seven
Lurid green and black posters advertising the event were put up a mere hour before the reading was due to begin.
A cast had been assembled from those in the current production of Madame Sans-Gene, with other thespian friends taking on the minor roles.
Ellen’s daughter, Edith Craig, was playing the part of Mina.
The greatest change, which Bram had either failed to tell me or kept as a surprise, was the title. It was now called Dracula: The Un-Dead. Not exactly what I suggested, but a good compromise.
A whole guinea was charged for admittance, and I pondered who had set such a costly fee.
No wonder so few members of the public came.
Most of the audience was made up of the Lyceum company – including backstage crew, cleaners and friends.
Dear Mary Dunhunter, our cook, begged to attend.
We were like fallen leaves in winter, scattered across the huge auditorium.
The place had never felt so empty. Bram, who’d been nervously pacing the house before he left this morning, would be very disappointed.
I wished I could console him, but he was nowhere to be seen.
For the reading, the book had been divided up into five acts and many scenes.
Fifteen different actors would read the characters.
It’s hard to describe how I felt seeing Bram’s name, not only as acting manager on the program, but as the author.
It was only later I saw that, in a churlish gesture, someone had included a unique addendum on the back page.
Any complaints should be referred to the acting manager.
So much for mutual loyalty and support.
The reading started at ten o’clock and went for what seemed like hours (at least five). I didn’t linger after it finished, as Bram was surrounded by well-wishers. At least he’d looked pleased.
The following day, when I caught up with Ellen at Violet’s soiree, I learned that Henry, who I’d been surprised to see among the audience at the beginning of the reading, but not at its conclusion, had left before the second act was complete.
‘Afterwards, Ma was foolish enough to ask Henry what he thought of it,’ said Ellen, leaning back in a chair and shaking her head.
‘Oh no.’ My heart plunged. ‘What did he say?’ Bram had made no mention when I asked about feedback.
‘One word.’
‘Well, tell me,’ I urged.
‘Dreadful,’ she said, imitating Henry’s style of speech perfectly.
‘That was what he said?’
Ellen nodded. ‘’Fraid so, Lemon.’
I resisted the urge to swear. ‘Well, let us be thankful Henry isn’t the only one asked to judge Bram’s work.’
Eight days later, the book went on sale for six shillings, only this time, much to my satisfaction, the yellow cover bore a single word in bright red type: Dracula.
The publisher had buried The Un-Dead once and for all.
Was it childish that I was disheartened to see the novel was dedicated to Hall Caine?
Not that many would recognise it was him.
Bram opted to use Hall’s nickname, a derivation of his baptismal name, Thomas Henry Hall.
Called ‘little Tommy’, by his beloved grandmother, in his native Manx language it became ‘Hommy-Beg’.
Hall may have been Bram’s friend and mentor, but surely I’d earned some acknowledgement as well?
I’d been there from its inception, supported Bram’s literary hopes in all manner of ways – and not just with Dracula.
I swallowed hurt and waited with bated breath for reviews to appear. Bram pretended an indifference I knew he didn’t feel. Fortunately, far more of them agreed with my assessment of the novel than Henry Irving’s.
The Daily Telegraph described it as ‘eerie and gruesome’, The Pall Mall Gazette called it ‘a book to revel in … Its fascination is so great that it is impossible to lay aside.’ The following month, Punch magazine wrote that it was ‘the weirdest of weird tales’.
Bram revelled in the positive reviews, cutting them out and sharing them with friends. I was proud and pleased, and continued to pray that this strange, wicked and, yes, weird tale about a demon who drains the life out of others, would allow Bram to get his own life back.
For all the wonderful reviews the book received in England and later in America, there were two that meant the world to Bram.
The first was from Charlotte Stoker. His mammy wrote:
No book since Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or indeed any other at all has come near yours in originality, or terror – Poe is nowhere. In its terrible excitement it should make a widespread reputation and money for you.
Bram wept when he read it. Tears filled my eyes – not so much because of Charlotte’s pride, but Bram’s reaction. When I pointed out to him that Charlotte had done what he hoped, made his work the yardstick by which she measured others, he gave me a wry, watery smile.
‘It doesn’t count, Florrie.’
‘Why ever not?’ I asked, perplexed he’d reject something so fulsome and sincere.
‘Because she’s my mammy.’
The second was also special: a letter from Arthur Conan Doyle.
My dear Bram Stoker
I am sure you will not think it an impertinence if I write to tell you how very much I have enjoyed Dracula. I think it is the very best story of diablerie I have read for many years. It is so really wonderful how with so much exciting interest over so long a book there is never an anticlimax.
It holds you from the very start and grows more and more engrossing until it is painfully vivid. The old professor is most excellent and so are the two girls. I congratulate you with all my heart for having written so fine a book.
With the kindest remembrances to Mrs Bram Stoker and yourself.
Despite the sterling reviews, a second printing, and an American edition – and the royalties which allowed us to repay Hall the six hundred pounds we owed him – no-one came forward to produce a play.
Bram had fervently believed Henry would offer, taking on the role of the count himself.
Ellen pointed out that Dracula wasn’t on stage long enough for Henry to want to portray him.
Alas, the monies earned were never enough to free Bram from the shackles of the Lyceum and being under the thumb of his Chief.
The Chief I’d quietly come to refer to in my head as ‘the count’.
God knew, he drained the life out of me. Or would have, had I let him.
I began to think I should be more like Mina Harker, fight for my life, my husband’s, and slay the monster that would devour us both.