Chapter Fifty #2
‘Yes. Yes. He did. He was,’ said George, losing patience.
‘But the ulcerated sores, the strokes … well, they can also be a symptom of —’ He indicated the certificate, reluctant to pick it up again.
‘He was also losing his eyesight, had difficulty with his balance. In the last couple of years, he struggled to walk normally.’
An image of Bram stamping on the sands at Whinnyfold, shouting at the ocean, bloomed. Not eccentric after all. Syphilitic.
‘These are all signs of … the other underlying condition. So was his moodiness, his sometimes strange behaviour.’ George ran his fingers through his hair.
Despite the chill the fire couldn’t keep at bay, he was sweating.
‘Do you recall when he started handing out oranges at the king’s coronation?
He was like a lunatic street vendor, passing them to all and sundry.
People didn’t know what to make of it, this gentleman pushing fruit into their hands. ’
I did remember. We laughed it off that day. Decided Bram was caught up in the splendour of the king’s formal ascension to the throne after the drawn-out mourning for the queen.
‘I didn’t know …’ My voice faltered.
George’s expression softened. He regarded me kindly. ‘Most don’t.’
As if the Thames had burst its banks, memories rushed into my head.
I recalled how, especially in later years, whenever he was writing a novel, Bram would have trouble divorcing the story from reality.
He’d start talking about smugglers as if they were in the next room.
On one occasion, he draped garlic around his bedroom window and asked if he could borrow a rosary to wrap around his wrist while he slept.
He’d even take on some of the characteristics of his protagonists.
When he was writing The Mystery of the Sea, he left coded notes for me to decipher and spoke in an American accent.
Then there was the time he bought strange Egyptian artefacts from an antiquities dealer near St Paul’s, and started going to meetings of some occult group, despite being a sceptic.
There were other instances. I’d put them down to enthusiasm, to research, to anything but sickness.
George released my hand and downed a whisky. ‘It’s evident he was suffering from it when he died.’ He glanced at me. ‘Bram always did love women.’ George gave an apologetic chuckle. ‘Beautiful ones especially.’
‘Loved women …’ The words were hollow in my mouth.
My husband the womaniser. I prayed that was all they called him, that no-one else knew his …
proclivities. He’d promised me … And in return, I’d promised to honour and obey, to maintain the edifice of our marriage, even if I couldn’t love.
But I had loved. In the end. A deep, abiding platonic love.
Now, I didn’t know what I felt. It was hard not to feel revulsion.
‘Is it … is it catching?’ I asked George in a small voice.
‘Only if you’ve …’ His hands twirled aimlessly.
‘Been intimate,’ I finished.
He nodded.
Be thankful for small mercies.
‘If you’re concerned at all,’ said George, clearly uncomfortable, ‘I can recommend some —’
I lifted my palm. ‘Please, George. Enough.’
We sat in silence a moment, broken only by the pitter-patter of rain, the rumble of an omnibus in the distance. I glanced at where the certificate sat on the table, illuminated by the lamp. ‘Who needs to see that?’
George followed my gaze. ‘No-one, Florrie. Except the coroner. Not if you don’t want them to.’
I stood quickly and swept it off the table, stuffed it back in the envelope and clutched it to my chest. ‘We can keep this to ourselves, can’t we, George? You’ll not tell anyone, will you?’
‘Of course not,’ he said, rising, wiping his hands down the front of his trousers. ‘I took the Hippocratic oath. Just as Bram’s consultations with me were private, everything between us tonight is confidential.’
Ah. He wasn’t telling me everything then.
‘Anyhow, Florrie,’ he added. ‘You’re family. We look out for each other. What I’ll do is put it about that Bram died from kidney disease.’
‘And exhaustion,’ I added. ‘Don’t forget that.’ It wouldn’t surprise anyone, especially those who remembered how he’d run around after Henry Irving.
After George left and I’d sent Maria to bed, I sat in the drawing room, my chest aching, my mind working furiously.
I watched the dawn approach, and skylarks take wing, though I was deaf to their sweet song.
Fog curled around the street, muffling the sounds of folk going about their daily business.
Still, I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I was weighed by anger, disgust, and such a sense of betrayal.
How was putting himself into a situation where he contracted syphilis being prudent?
Who had infected him? Had he infected anyone else?
Imagine if word should escape, how would people view him? View me? Our marriage? No matter the awful truth, they’d assume I was diseased as well. I would become a social outcast.
It was all I could do not to fling open the window and scream at the heavens, You bloody fool, Bram; you inconsiderate, immoral fool!
This was yet another albatross to hang about my neck, another secret I’d take to my grave. Shame washed over me. Shame, resentment and confusion, a virulent mix.
‘Curse you, Bram Stoker.’ I bowed my head and wept. ‘Curse the day I married you.’