Page 120 of The Extraordinary Florence Stoker

‘I don’t think that’s entirely fair, Mrs Stoker —’

It was my turn to scoff. ‘We’ll beg to differ then. Look,’ I said in a conciliatory tone, ‘if I don’t continue to pursue them for monies owed, Mr Thring, what’s to prevent some other unscrupulous producer swooping in and making a film from a book without buying the rights? Nothing. They’ll view what’s happened with Prana and Dracula as consent – unless we stop this right now.’

There was a beat. ‘Well, there’s always the solution we’ve discussed previously, Mrs Stoker …’

I shut my eyes briefly. ‘And, as I told you then, I’m not in favour of doing that. It’s so drastic … so final.’

‘Final may be the only language Prana understand.’ Mr Thring’s tone was conciliatory. ‘The Society, Mr Bang, even your friends have been telling you all along to go down this route …’

‘What do you think I should do?’

‘It’s not up to me to tell you what to do, Mrs Stoker.’

I resisted the urge to shout, What good are you then?

‘You’re the executor of Mr Stoker’s estate,’ wheedled Mr Thring. ‘The person who holds the rights. Only you can order this.’

I sighed. ‘I really thought Prana would pay me. I thought they’d want to make their film legitimate. I was wrong.’ I rubbed my forehead. A headache was building.

‘Maybe this will help you reach a decision,’ added Mr Thring. ‘While Nosferatu exists, and continues to be screened anywhere, I doubt anyone else would be interested in making a movie of Dracula, and there are good deals to be made in the burgeoning motion picture industry. Hollywood is growing in America. But if there’s any legal question hanging over a book, it’s unlikely to ever be picked up.’

There was a long silence, filled with static and crackles.

‘You’re saying this is my last option.’

‘In light of what’s gone before,’ said Mr Thring carefully, ‘I think it’s your only option.’

This was a decision I’d resisted making. But what else could I do if I wanted to protect the book? Assert my rights?

‘Why don’t I leave you to think about it?’ Mr Thring was always eager to end our conversations.

‘I don’t need to. Not anymore.’ I straightened my spine, Boudicca about to go into battle. ‘This film has bedevilled my life for three years. I ask that you waste not a moment more but contact the Society’s lawyers and tell them this: I want every single extant copy of Nosferatu – both the positive prints and the negatives – destroyed. Immediately.’

‘You’re sure.’

Was I?

‘I am.’

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

London, late 1924

‘Honestly, Lemon, I don’t understand why you’re making such a fuss.’

Ellen sat across from me in the drawing room. Though we wrote regularly, it had been two years since I’d seen her as she’d been living down in Kent. I confess, I was shocked at how much she’d changed. Older, she took up a great deal more space than she once had. I found it hard not to stare at her broadened face, the pouched eyes, the lines on her forehead, the ones that pulled at her mouth, the silver hair. Why, the woman Bram once described as a ray of sunshine was more akin to a heavy shower. But while there were only traces of her former comeliness, she was still the same Ellen, ready with a smile and eager to charm. It was hard not to fall under her spell again.

As she chattered away about her life abroad, the plays she’d seen, the places she’d visited, the people she’d dined with, throwing the occasional question in my direction, I couldn’t help but wonder, how did she see me? She’d scarce looked since she arrived in a flurry of scent and silk. Did she know why I’d asked her to call today, despite her crammed London schedule? Busy selecting one of the little cakes Vera had hastily bought from a nearby tearoom, I couldn’t help noting that even her hands, once elegant and white, were now plump and dotted with liver spots. I quickly checked my own. Though thin and veined, they’d thus far been spared the unsightly marks.

Was I also unrecognisable as the woman I’d once been? The friend she’d been proud to accompany anywhere, who turned heads and captured hearts, even when I’d no wish for them? Had my vanity persuaded me that, like Oscar’s Dorian, I remained unchanged, even when rising every day with stiff limbs, an aching back and fading eyesight was a cruel reminder that I had?

Aware she was waiting for an answer, I gave an apologetic shrug. ‘As I explained to you on the phone and in my letter, it’s a great deal more than a fuss.’ I tried not to sound prim. I took a deep breath. ‘When you sent me the prospectus for this new Film Society and I saw you were a founding member, I was delighted – though I confess, I hadn’t realised cinema had already reached the stage of needing preserving, let alone a group dedicated to the task.’

Ellen flapped a hand. ‘It gives us credibility. Mind you, there’ll come a time when it will require maintaining. Everything does,’ she said, touching her face self-consciously.

‘But when I read the list of the films you intended to show at your very first screening,’ I continued, determined not to change the subject, ‘I was, to say the least, appalled to see Nosferatu was one of them.’

‘Really?’ said Ellen disingenuously. ‘If you object, dear, you need only talk to Ivor Montague – the Film Society’s organiser —’