Page 105 of The Extraordinary Florence Stoker

In that moment, I believed we were truly blessed.

Two days later, I’d just returned from choosing flowers with Neelie, Violet and Lucy, and was busy removing my hat, when I heard a commotion coming from Bram’s study.

‘Is the master home?’ I asked Maria. I was certain Bram had an appointment at one of the gentlemen’s clubs he frequented to meet a publisher to discuss Hall’s work (and, he secretly hoped, his own).

‘Why yes, Mrs S,’ said Maria, lifting my hat free from my hair, the long pins carefully arranged in her hand. ‘He’s been in his study all morning. Said he didn’t feel up to the Garrick today.’

My heart began to quicken. I glanced at the clock. It was mid-afternoon. There was another thump.

I threw a look at Maria. ‘Something’s wrong.’

I took the steps two at a time, dragging myself up by the banister, Maria close on my heels.

I charged into the study and there, slumped in his chair, face whiter than the pages scattered across the floor, was Bram. His mouth hung wetly open, the left side of his face drooped strangely, as if it were a half-melted candle.

‘Florrie,’ he moaned. At least, I think that’s what he said. His voice was little more than a guttural expiration, the cry of a monster.

‘Bram!’ Oh, dear God, no.

I rushed to his side and heaved him upright. Maria helped by pushing his other side. He was a great lumpen weight. He’d wet his trousers; the smell of urine was pungent. His eyes flickered across our faces, the fear in them was shocking.

‘Florrie.’ My name was a wail. Tears welled in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks.

‘Maria,’ I said, inhaling all my terror, my shock. ‘Fetch George Stoker, please. At once.’

Maria raced out of the room as I tucked a cushion down the side of the chair, so Bram didn’t topple. There were calls and cries, the sound of doors slamming. More shouts, a peeler’s loud whistle. A carriage was hailed.

I knelt with my arms around Bram, my cheek pressed into his chest. ‘It will be alright, my dear. I’m here. I have you. Your brother is coming.’ I repeated the words like a mantra, aware of Bram’s body beginning to shake, of the effort it took to try and speak.

‘Hush, hush,’ I tried to soothe. I don’t know how long I stayed in that position, only that while I said one thing out loud, inside, I was praying with all my might to God above that He would look after my husband, make him whole again, bring him back to me.

I refused to show Bram my fear as I silently prayed: Dear Lord, don’t let him die.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

St George’s Square, 1910

When I married Bram all those years ago, I never thought I’d end up not only nursing the man once considered an athlete, an exemplar of muscular manhood, but, like my namesake Florence Nightingale, enjoying it. While George attended him in those immediate hours after we found him, Bram’s care was ceded to his personal physician Dr James Browne. (Of late, Bram had felt peculiar relying on his brother – I’d no such qualms when it came to emergencies.)

After Bram’s second stroke, his recovery was protracted. Able to attend Noel and Neelie’s wedding in June 1910, the physical effects were nonetheless still very apparent, though everyone was too polite to mention them.

We were forced to move again, to a small flat at 26 St George’s Square, across from St Saviour’s Church and not far from Lady Richie (not that I was inclined to visit her – well-intentioned as her offer was). It was much easier to manage, and Maria and Mary came with us, though I was forced to sell some of our possessions, as not all would fit. There was a lovely drawing room, Bram had a warm and elegant study, and the kitchen was well equipped. This house also had gas installed, which made cooking and lighting much less onerous, even if it was at times mercurial.

The traffic was noisier and the people walking past numerous, but I enjoyed the feeling of being in the centre of things again. Bram did too and when he wasn’t at his desk, he would sit in a large armchair by the window, a book and newspaper beside him, his magnifying glass at the ready, and gaze upon the world as I read to him, or we simply talked. Determined I should be sociable, he would bully me into accepting invitations. I was reluctant to leave him, especially as he seemed to grow frailer before my eyes, often retiring to his bedroom to rest. Upon my return, I’d seek him out. Sometimes, he was sound asleep, at other times, he’d be sitting upright or lying beneath the bedclothes, staring into space. What did he see, gazing so intently? Was he reliving happy memories? Or was he recalling his life with regret? Regret that a life which once held so much promise would only ever be recalled as one of mediocrity?

The very idea splintered my heart.

While he made every effort to continue as he once had, Bram was physically and, I suspect, mentally unable. I discovered an admission of his weaknesses accidentally one day when I went to his study to fetch a book he was after. There, on his desk, I found an incomplete letter to Thornley. A casual glance led me to read the entire thing. I told myself it was to ensure I didn’t repeat any information when I wrote to his brother.

I can now stand for a few seconds at a time on one leg, he’d written in his sloped and shaky hand, and better still I am able to work, the book is getting on (he was referring to Lair of the White Worm). Anyway, happy memories are all anyone can ask for.

Tears welled, and I brushed them away. What a sense of finality those words had. Was that what Bram relied upon now? Memories to motivate him to rise each day, to work and keep living?

Then, further down the page, I saw my name.

It is harder on poor Florence (who has been an angel) than on me. She had to do all the bookkeeping and find the money to live on – God only knows how she manages.

Overcome, I collapsed in Bram’s chair. He called me an angel. A person less like an angel it would be hard to find. Dear Lord. I ached for my husband in that moment, ached with an intensity that blistered my very core. I also ached for Thornley who, just like his brother, was declining.