Page 86 of The Extraordinary Florence Stoker

I stiffened when I saw him reflected in the mirror, leaning casually against the wall in the far corner of my bedroom, staring boldly.

‘Are you alright, Mrs S?’ asked Maria in concern. ‘Did I stick you with a pin?’

‘No, Maria,’ I reassured, trying hard not to look in his direction. ‘It’s nothing.’

The red eyes still glowed with a furious heat, the grubby suit swagged off his large frame, the grey-tinged flesh was more cadaverous than I recalled. The cloak sat high on his shoulders and though there was no draught, it danced about his ankles as if directed by a ghostly breath. His flesh hung in folds from his cheeks, his skull bones were prominent on his forehead. He’d aged, decayed. Each time I saw him, he not only looked worse than I remembered, but as if he’d taken on the characteristics of the horrors happening in my own life.

I was reminded of Oscar’s Dorian Gray.

But did my spectre represent the decadent, convicted man or the portrait? What sins did he embody? Whose?

Mine, Oscar’s or Bram’s?

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

St Leonard’s Terrace, 1896

Christmas was almost upon us, the first in yet another house. A couple of months ago, just after returning from a visit to Dublin, we moved next door. While Number 17 St Leonard’s Terrace had served us very well these last years, when a lease became available at the bigger, brighter and airier Number 18, I convinced Bram to take it. He even borrowed a hefty sum from Hall so I could redecorate the place. I suspect some of those monies also made their way to pay off the men who’d backed Bram’s disastrous publishing venture with Mr Heinemann. Ellen and I had feared it was destined to flounder. I wish we’d been wrong.

It was a bitterly cold day, and I was on my way to meet Ellen, Lucy Gilbert and Violet Hunt at the tearooms in Fenchurch Street Station before we went to the Empire Theatre to see a demonstration of moving pictures. Bram had said we simply had to view them. Progress, he called it, and I supposed it was, but what were we progressing towards?

Snow had fallen continuously all morning, deepening the thick discoloured drifts mounded on the sides of the road by carriage wheels, horses’ hooves and the tyres of motor cars. The air pinched and bit as I paid the cab driver and ran into the station. I paused to brush flakes from my coat when I spied, in the nearby WH Smith stall, multiple copies of Herbert Wells’s novel The Time Machine and his latest, The Island of Dr Moreau. I’d only finished reading The Time Machine last night. A fanciful fiction about a scientist who travels eight hundred thousand years into the future, I’d found it engrossing. Everyone was talking about Mr Wells’s books, and deservedly so, but no-one was giving a thought to Bram’s. It was terribly heartbreaking.

Bram always claimed the very ordinary sales of his novels didn’t discourage him, but I couldn’t credit that. How could they not when around him his friends were so successful in the very field where he wished to excel? He’d had two published this past year. Set in Scotland’s Cruden Bay, The Watter’s Mou’ (Gaelic for ‘the water’s mouth’) was deemed tragic but worthy – damned with faint praise by any measure. Not that this stopped him setting another novel there. Sadly, The Shoulder of Shasta, though a marvellous romp, didn’t fare well with the critics at all. One claimed it wouldn’t appeal to many readers and accused Bram of putting the book together ‘roughly and carelessly’, even going so far as to declare that ‘Mr Stoker can probably do much better than this’.

I knew Bram could too.

I was still thinking about the effort Bram put into his writing – not just the books, but the articles he was commissioned to deliver for various newspapers – the research he did, the lengths he went to for accuracy. It was astonishing. I pushed him, praised his talent, his boundless imagination and skill; of course I did. At least when he was writing, it was in service to his ambitions. Hall, whose quiet Manx books sold well, was very supportive of his endeavours. But in the end, it didn’t matter what I thought, or the enthusiasm of his current publisher, Mr Constable, it was the reviewers and readers that counted.

‘Lemon!’ exclaimed Ellen, half-rising and waving as soon as I reached the top of the stairs. Sat near one of the large windows, Lucy and Violet were already there. I manoeuvred my way between the tables, most veiled in steam, nodding to the few women and couple of men I knew.

First kissing my friends and exchanging greetings, I collapsed into a chair. A waitress appeared and poured a cup of tea from the enormous pot that had been ordered. A slice of Victoria sponge was slid in front of me, oozing jam and cream.

‘So,’ said Lucy, once I’d settled and swallowed a mouthful of cake. ‘Tell us about Dublin. How was it?’

‘And the new house,’ added Violet, delicately licking her fork. ‘I can’t believe you went to all the trouble of shifting next door. Ellen says it’s impressive.’

‘It is,’ said Ellen. ‘Big.’

‘When are we getting an invitation?’ asked Violet.

‘Soon,’ I laughed. ‘Of course! As for Dublin —’

‘We read about you in the paper,’ blurted Lucy. ‘You caused quite the stir at the Dublin Drawing Room Ball.’

I felt my cheeks pinken. ‘You saw the article?’

‘Saw it?’ exclaimed Violet. ‘Ellen bought multiple copies and gave them to everyone.’

‘Not everyone,’ drawled Ellen, nudging Violet. ‘How could I not share when you were declared the loveliest lady present?’ She framed her face with her hands and tilted her head.

We laughed.

‘Bram must have been proud,’ said Lucy.

‘He was.’ I smiled at the recollection. Almost as proud as when the portrait Walter Osborne painted of me was exhibited at the Royal Academy last year. My triumph had been short-lived, overshadowed as it was by Oscar’s tribulations.

‘Enjoy it while you can, Lemon,’ said Ellen, directing her fork at me. ‘Compliments dry up once you reach forty!’