Page 108 of The Extraordinary Florence Stoker

‘No, dear,’ I said patiently. ‘It’s not anger. He’s just …’ I searched for an answer, but it eluded me.

Lizzie waited a moment, then grunted and collected the breakfast dishes. I remained by the window, a half-written letter to Matilda before me, wondering what Bram was shrieking. At whom? God? The supernatural spirits that abounded in his books? Himself? Or was it me?

I offered my own prayers to God, asking that Bram’s latest book, The Lair of the White Worm, and the article he’d written on Henry’s influence on damn stage lighting succeeded. My poor husband deserved that at the very least, didn’t he? One last chance at glory before he shuffled off this mortal coil.

‘Dear Lord,’ I muttered under my breath. ‘Please don’t let it be the article on Henry Irving that gives him renown.’ I couldn’t bear it. All I wanted was for Bram to achieve something in his own right. All his sacrifices, the endless devotion and hard work had to amount to something, didn’t it? Was I so very selfish that when all was said and done, I needed Bram to amount to something so all our years of marriage meant more than naught? Otherwise, what was I? Who was I, but the Wife?

Yet even as Bram had lain in bed, trying to regain his strength, dictating letters and such to me, he’d thought of Henry. Thought about him so much he’d put pen to paper. Again. He simply couldn’t let the man go.

Or perhaps it was the past he couldn’t relinquish, the past where he was somebody, where he was important, even if it was in service to another.

I reached for my handkerchief and blotted the tears that suddenly fell. Mother Mary! I was doing that a great deal of late. Weeping. I stared at the louring sky, the lumbering blue-grey clouds that heralded an approaching storm. Sprays of water rose from the rows of rocks that were only partially submerged at low tide.

This place, Whinnyfold – and Port Erroll, Cruden Bay, and all the other marvellous sites around them, the harbour, the Skreals, the Watter’s Mou’, Slains Castle, the roaring seas, the thick haar, the laden clouds, the hell-dark nights – had given Bram so much fodder for his stories. Perhaps they still did.

Just then, Bram fell onto one knee and toppled over onto the sand. I jumped up and pressed my hands against the window.

‘Bram,’ I gasped.

Before I could grab my coat, he rolled onto his side and clambered clumsily to his feet. He glanced about as he carelessly brushed the wet sand from his trousers, leaning heavily on his stick. Satisfied he hadn’t been seen, he raised his face to the cottage. I stepped back from the window and watched his slow progress across the sand. How he’d navigate the steep embankment, I wasn’t sure. He despised this new vulnerable version of himself; fought against it every single day. He would hate that I had witnessed his fall.

I gathered up my writing implements, the book I’d intended to read and scurried to my room. I’d pretend I hadn’t left it, that I was busy finishing the letter to Matilda and writing to Phil and Noel. At least that way he could maintain some dignity.

It was such an important thing when little else was left.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

London, 1912

I stared at the headline in the Daily Mirror in disbelief. Dated 15 April, it declared that the Titanic, the unsinkable ship, the largest ever to sail the ocean, the pride of the White Star Line, had struck an iceberg and sunk. A couple of years back, Bram had gone to the shipyard in Belfast to witness the hull being floated. Why, he’d reported on it, filled with excitement at the progress it represented, the cleverness of mankind. Now it was at the bottom of the ocean, taking hundreds of souls with it.

I rose, sat back down, and clasped the necklace at my throat. Once again, I was aboard the steamship Victoria, fighting to reach the lifeboats, choking on smoke, trying to keep hold of Noel. Praying to Almighty God to save us.

I resumed reading, this time from The Globe. The numbers of dead were too large to comprehend.

A commotion outside distracted me. I put the newspapers aside and went to the window. A veritable throng had gathered below. A couple of enterprising newspaper boys had wandered into the square and were doing a roaring trade.

‘The Titanic at the bottom of the ocean!’

‘Hundreds dead in freezing seas!’

Their high-pitched voices carried as men and women flocked to purchase the papers and discuss the catastrophe. Two women held each other, sobbing. A rather large lady with a huge feathered hat snatched a newspaper from the hands of a bespectacled gentleman and began to exclaim, beckoning others to her side. Another woman reeled and would have tumbled to the ground but was swiftly caught by a tradesman in an apron and carried to a nearby bench.

As Bram always said, ‘bad news sells’. This was the worst kind. I couldn’t remember feeling like this since Jack the Ripper stalked the streets.

I glanced at the clock, then scooped up the newspapers. Bram would want to know.

I burst into his dim bedroom. ‘Oh, Lord, Bram, you won’t believe what has happened.’ I dropped the newspapers on the end of the bed and dragged open the curtains.

Ever since we’d returned from Whinnyfold last summer, Bram had steadily declined. Not that his condition had prevented him from trying to work. With my help, he’d been selecting which of his short stories to include in a new collection. We’d managed to sort at least three editions for the publishers. There was also a novel he’d started years earlier called The Russian Professor. I doubted it would ever be finished.

It aggrieved me to see all that work, that imagination, for so little reward.

‘What is it, Florrie?’ Bram’s voice was cracked, as he made a feeble attempt to sit up, blinking against the grey light.

I rushed to help, holding his body forward while I plumped the pillows behind him. Then I heaved him upright. It wasn’t as hard as it used to be. Before my very eyes, Bram was diminishing, until I imagined him rising, mist-like, from the bed to join the fog that lurked outside the windows most mornings.

‘Do you need the bedpan, dear?’ I asked. He was badly in need of a wash. A rather sour smell surrounded him, an odour not even the most perfumed soaps could disguise. He didn’t like me bathing him and insisted on completing the task himself. Not very well, it seemed.