Page 30 of The Extraordinary Florence Stoker

‘I don’t know. I hope so,’ I admitted. ‘Unless he’s Frank’s.’ I harrumphed.

Phil made a strange noise deep in her throat. ‘What if he was, Kitten?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

I waited for Phil to offer a reassuring titter. Instead, she rolled towards me, a serious expression on her face. ‘Do you think we’re immoral for not condemning that kind of love? That Oscar is?’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t feel wrong.’

‘Me neither. Will God punish us, do you think?’

‘I don’t think so. I mean, the Bible tells us that God is love. How can He be only one kind of love and not … others? Perhaps that’s the point the story is trying to make, that Oscar’s making. God doesn’t condemn love, no matter who it’s directed towards. And if God doesn’t judge, then what right have we to?’

‘Amen,’ whispered Phil.

Love was again the subject when Ellen arrived for her sixth visit to the flat. She was in a peculiar mood, all rainclouds and mizzle.

‘Is anything wrong, Ellen?’ I asked after she’d spent more time gazing into the distance and sighing than chatting.

‘Everything,’ she moaned, and scootched up on the sofa, leaning heavily against me. It was hard to concentrate and not just because of all the claret we’d drunk.

‘Can you keep a secret, Lemon?’ When Ellen learned one of my middle names was Lemon, she’d adopted it immediately, telling me how much I resembled the fruit – sweet to look at with a tart bite.

‘I think so,’ I offered cautiously. If you didn’t count my sister Phil. There wasn’t much I didn’t disclose in my letters to her.

‘Well,’ she began, taking a healthy sip of wine. Her lips were stained cherry-red. ‘On the night Hamlet opened —’ She paused and drew closer, her breath hot on my ear. ‘Henry Irving and I became lovers.’

I recoiled in shock. ‘You didn’t.’

‘We did.’ She threw up her hands. ‘I don’t know what came over me, but I succumbed to his overtures faster than a Picadilly dollymop. Not even his ugly ear gave me pause.’

‘Ugly ear?’

‘Haven’t you noticed?’ She touched her own little shells. ‘It’s quite misshapen. Still, when I shut my eyes …’ She giggled and poured more wine. ‘I don’t think anyone knows yet. Well, maybe Bram —’

‘If he does, he hasn’t told me.’ Seems my husband was good at keeping confidences.

‘Really?’ Ellen expressed surprise, but I could tell she wasn’t. ‘I expect it will be common knowledge soon … Thing is, I’m worried how the players will react.’

‘If you were a chorus girl, they might not like it. But you’re the famous Ellen Terry, his leading lady.’ I gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. ‘You’ve just taken your onstage partnership offstage.’

Ellen bestowed a bright smile. ‘That’s true, isn’t it?’

‘Anyway, you’re not hurting anyone.’

Her smile dimmed. ‘No. I’m not. That’s Henry’s purview.’

Before I could ask how he was hurting her, she changed the subject.

It was hard to reconcile the relationship: the light-hearted, delightful Ellen, who was a joy to be around, and Mr Irving, the personification of a winter fog. Thank goodness he only visited the flat once. He much preferred Bram to come to him. Ellen explained that Mr Irving, for all his sociability when it was anything to do with the theatre, preferred his own company outside of it. This was offered as a salve lest I was offended he didn’t accept Bram’s invitations. I wasn’t. I was thankful.

The more I thought about the odd pairing of Ellen and Mr Irving (and I did a great deal), the more I became convinced Ellen was attracted not so much to Mr Irving as to his enormous talent and drive; the characters he played on stage, too. Perhaps it was the same with the baroness, Harry Loveday, and Mr Irving’s devoted valet, Walter Collinson, a strange little man, all of whom appeared to tolerate his rather shabby treatment. But didn’t we all? Fall in love with the parts people played?

I wondered what part I was playing. Or was it my husband who was playing a role?

If he was, it was one being written by Mr Irving.

Late that winter, Bram’s older sister, Matilda, came to live with us, squeezing into Mrs Daw’s sometime bedroom until she found lodgings of her own. She spent most of her days in the drawing room, sitting by the window, composing wonderful sketches of the street and the people who inhabited it. I’d been quite concerned how I’d manage living in a nest of Stokers, but as the weeks went by and spring arrived, bringing with it longer days and endless wet, Matilda turned out to be both a good friend and confidante. She loved Bram, but she wasn’t blind to his faults. When I inadvertently said something curt after Bram swept out of the house having received another scribbled note from the Chief, she smiled at me in the way slightly older women sometimes do, as if they’re privy to some vast secret you’ve yet to learn. It was a cross between a schoolteacher and grandmother.