Page 131 of The Extraordinary Florence Stoker

My eyes alighted on the sketch Oscar had done of me all those years ago, propped up on my dresser. Though I could scarce make it out, I knew every line, every smudge. I’d been beautiful once upon a time, hadn’t I? My only currency back then, my looks had attracted admirers, earned me inches in the newspapers, a couple of portraits; led to being twice courted, once married. It had given Bram cause to puff out his chest. Noel, bless him, would say I was still lovely; a beauty dressed in a gown of baggy flesh replete with a swollen belly and a chassis of aches and pains. I inwardly laughed. I remembered that young art student who’d paid me a visit a while back, when I still had my health. A tall, debonair young man, he’d been so excited to meet me, not because of who I was, but because of Bram. Vincent. Vincent Price. I later discovered he’d said I was still beautiful and with such a spark … for a woman of eighty. Offended then, I could laugh now.

Eighty was beyond my reach, spark or no.

A month ago, I’d finalised my will. While I was to be cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, I asked that, instead of my ashes sharing Bram’s urn as we’d once agreed, they be scattered in the gardens there. I’d done my duty by Bram in life – in death, for reasons I didn’t disclose, I chose my own company.

Noel would take charge of the Stoker estate when I was gone. It gratified me I was leaving behind more than I inherited. On top of a tidy sum of money, books and paintings, I was bequeathing the bronze of Henry Irving’s hand that Bram had bought and which I’d accidentally left out of the auction, to the London Museum. Irrationally, I’d not got rid of it.

My hand fluttered above the bedclothes before resting on my chest. It was becoming more of an effort to fill my lungs. Painful too. My breath was loud, wet, as if the air was laden with dew. Or maybe it was thoughts of that man who made it difficult for me to breathe.

Henry Irving had dominated Bram’s life, and thus mine, for too many years. I’d once thought that Count Dracula was based on him and for a long time I believed Bram had his revenge by turning Henry into a malignant literary creation that wouldn’t die. I no longer thought that. Dead for thirty years now, Sir Henry Irving, the man who’d pack the theatres, had become a ghost, a mere shadow. It was a rich irony that few remembered who he was or what he’d done, and it was the name Bram Stoker that was repeated with respect. It was emblazoned on the reprints of his books, all of which were selling due to the success of Browning’s film and the exotic sophistication of Mr Lugosi.

Like his creation, Bram was refusing to die, spreading across the world, infecting audiences with fear and wonder, exciting them to heights Henry Irving’s portrayals never attained. That his employee had eclipsed him would be a stake in Henry’s heart.

In a very real sense, Bram was Dracula.

A shaft of pain lanced my side. I covered my stomach, hugely swollen and so very tender to touch. My own vanity, my own shame at what my body was doing, the incontinence, the blood, the agony of using the toilet, meant I left it too late. The doctor had been kind, avuncular really, though he was half my age.

‘I’m afraid you have bowel cancer, Mrs Stoker,’ he’d said, refusing to colour the condition with euphemism. I was grateful for that at least. He told me what to expect to happen to my body.

‘Naturally, I’ll do everything within my power to make sure you’re comfortable, that the pain is minimal. In the meantime, I suggest you notify anyone you feel you need to and attend to your affairs.’

There was nothing natural about the medicines I was given, which Winsome administered with patient care. In the beginning they worked well, though I disliked the way they made me feel; how my head became clouded, my thoughts jumbled. Memories merged and floated about the room. Oscar would come and sit with me, and we’d laugh and share stories of our youth. Gilbert, too, quoting swathes from his plays, singing a ditty, dancing a reel. Ellen would lounge by my side, and moan about Henry and his inability to share the stage. Genevieve would hover, whispering snippets of gossip. And Bram would visit, telling me about his latest work in progress and how he was certain it would be a success.

Invisible fingers twisted my innards, wringing them into coils of agony. A moan escaped. There was a warm rush between my legs. Damn, the bleeding had started again. I glanced at the laden tray beside my bed. Worried I’d barely eaten for the last week, Winsome had made chicken soup on the recommendation of our lovely new Jewish neighbours. I could scarce stomach it.

Waiting for the eruption of pain to subside, I reached for the bottle of laudanum, then paused. Noel would arrive any moment. I didn’t want to be befuddled. I wanted to be able to recall our conversation later, when night fell.

There was something I had to tell him … Oh, that’s right. It was to do with copyright. Ever since Mr Selznick had sold the rights for Bram’s short story ‘Dracula’s Guest’ to Universal instead of keeping them himself, citing concerns over copyright, I’d been perturbed. I’d thought the matter well and truly resolved once the Nosferatu problem was laid to rest and Mr Liveright was paid. Further investigation revealed that someone was causing mischief by claiming that Bram never fulfilled his copyright obligations for Dracula in America. These required he lodge two copies of his published work with the American Copyright Office on or before the day of publication. According to this same someone, this was never done, which meant that despite all the fuss I’d made, the legal wrangling, the contracts, and the money I’d been paid, Dracula had always been in the public domain.

Therefore, within the borders of the United States, anyone – Hollywood studios, a theatre impresario – was entitled to produce whatever version of Dracula they wished, without gaining permission or paying me a damn cent.

Well, I called complete bollocks on that. The moment I learned what was being said from Miss Fassett, I was straight on to Mr Thring. I dictated copies of letters to all and sundry, even though, as I confessed to Miss Fassett, Winsome had turned over the gallery upstairs and couldn’t find a shred of proof that Bram had lodged copyright.

‘Look harder,’ I urged Miss Fassett. ‘It will be there.’

It had to be. How anyone could even consider that my husband, Bram Stoker, a man who’d been a barrister and used those skills to run a major theatre company as well as manage his literary works, would overlook protecting his American copyright, was laughable. Miss Fassett and, indeed, Mr Thring agreed, and both promised to keep a close eye on anyone who tried to subvert my rights – rights that would soon be Noel’s, then Ann’s – to exercise.

Ah! I remembered what it was I had to tell Noel. Someone must search the records of the Library of Congress, the Law Library, too, if need be. If Bram’s official lodgement would be anywhere, it would be there. I clearly recalled him telling me he’d sent copies himself. If it was the last thing I did, I’d ensure those rights were secure.

My jaw clenched and my body spasmed as those phantom digits cruelly tore at my insides. My world turned from pale grey to black as my ability to remain in the present wavered. My lungs were like deflated bellows and I’d not the strength to fill them. I wheezed and panted worse than Miss Fassett. My heart was a timpani of explosions in my ears, building to a climax. The room grew dim.

‘No, no,’ I whimpered. It was not my time. Not yet. Please, God. Bluebells, peonies and violets had only just begun to appear; it would not be fair if I couldn’t bid summer welcome one last time.

I lay fighting for breath as the tearing subsided, leaving me bathed in sweat. I should call Winsome, ask her to summon Noel. I glanced at the clock. It was afternoon. What was the date? Ah, that’s right, Monday, the twenty-fifth of May. Father O’Malley had come, hadn’t he? Or was that yesterday?

Finally able to lean over and grab the bottle of laudanum, I opened it and took a long swig. God, the taste was awful. I took another, then another, and screwed the lid back on and tucked it beside me for later.

As I waited for the swoon-like state to embrace me, for the pain to dissipate, I thought about Noel, the quiet considered man he’d become. Like his father in so many ways, but also not. He was a proper husband and father, wasn’t he? Neelie doted on him. Ann did, too.

I’d once asked God if Bram died when he did as punishment for his sins. Was that what my cancer was? Punishment for accepting the kind of marriage no Christian person should? But I’d been a good woman, a good wife, hadn’t I? Bram and I, we’d not hurt anyone through our choices, had we? Except Oscar … We’d deliberately denied him our help. May God forgive me.

I think, in the end, my fight for Dracula’s rights, for my dues as Bram’s widow, was as much a fight for my right to be myself: a woman who would no longer be governed by men’s choices – the dead and the living. For years after Oscar’s death, I’d wondered if he’d never asked me to marry him because he loved me too much to cause me the pain that became Constance’s. But no. He’d loved her too, in his own way. That was one thing I had in common with sweet Constance – we’d both wed men who couldn’t return our love – not in the way society expected. She was punished far more harshly than me, living in exile for the rest of her short life. And Bram? His stubborn loyalty to Henry Irving reduced him in every way possible – as husband, writer, father, and as a man. As for the disease that ultimately killed him – and the choices that led to it – surely that was punishment enough, secular and divine. I sent a prayer to heaven for him, and for Poor O and Constance. Then there were the men who lived: Mr Thring, Mr Deane, Liveright, Balderston, Bang, the many publishers and film producers – all had tried to force me into decisions that were in their best interests while pretending they were in mine.

But I’d resisted them.

The truth was, Dracula had transformed me, turned me into something different and, I liked to think, better, stronger. I had Bram to thank for that, and I did. With all my heart.

The laudanum had me in its grip now. I could hear the soft strains of a hymn, the faint rumble of thunder. A raven sat on the end of my bed, pecking at the bedcovers. A bat flew in the window and alighted on the mantel, folded its wings and hung upside down. More followed, draping themselves like bunting along the picture rail, their little furry heads twisted, their pebble eyes staring at me. A thick mist drifted in the window and began to fill the room, curling sinuously about the bed. From within its billows a bald man in a shabby suit, a cape swirling about his thighs, appeared. With brazen familiarity he glided across the room. His eyes glowed that cursed ruby shade, his teeth, sharp and crowded in his mouth, gleamed as he smiled.