Stokers Shadow

by Paul Butler

  … EVERYTHING IS DARK. A cymbal is crashing somewhere in his chest, reverberating through his head and body, shooting hot blood up his limbs. His arms and legs are still swaying, ducking down and rising up; he cannot distinguish one part of himself from another. He begins to hear the sound of his breathing. He can’t be under water; he has escaped somehow. There is someone beside him; who is it? This is not a beach or an island. The waves have turned into sheets beneath him. Slowly he remembers his other life, the one that exists beyond the swirling storm. It returns in a patchwork – fragmentary, jigsaw details come together slowly. The woman is Maud, his wife, he remembers.

  At this borderline moment, it seems ludicrous that what he has experienced will be described as a “dream” and dismissed as unimportant in a few hours. Yet he knows this is what will happen. It is happening already.

  He closes his eyes and waits for his heart to calm. Hammer blows soften to a wooden door banging in the wind, which calms in turn to a dull drumming.

  He looks over at the window. Pale light floods into the room. It is a full moon; he can see its perfect rim burning pale blue through the curtains which move gently in the breeze. His bedroom carries something over from the dream: the riches of night and the magic of late summer. Perhaps dreams draw in the flavour of their surroundings by osmosis. This season is like the defiant last stand of summer, the waning nights of faery revelry, when magic and imagination hold sway.

  Just for a second, he sees the shadow of wings silhouetted near the pane.

  William turns around in the bed, putting his feet onto the floor, checking his balance, making sure his head is no longer swaying. Once he is certain, he glances around at the outline of his wife. She is motionless. He can hear her slow breathing. He stands up and walks steadily to the window. He peels back a small section of the curtain and peers at the garden under moonlight. He sees the mature oak and cedar, the cloistering laurel bushes, and the heavy brick walls surrounding the garden. The outlines are distinct under the generous moonlight; only the colours have been replaced by a generic blue-grey. There is no sign of bird life. It must have been a swallow under the eaves, he thinks. He is about to turn back when he sees that there is a large man with a bowler hat and thick beard standing at the far end of the garden, unquestionably within its boundaries. He is quite alone, motionless, looking, apparently, at the house; his features are too obscured by the glass to tell this for certain. William wonders if he should alert the police. But it is a half-hearted impulse held back by several things. Firstly, the man is merely standing in the open, inviting discovery, not hiding or rushing under cover towards the house. Secondly, the stranger’s dress is undoubtedly respectable, not the disguise of a thief. But mostly it’s the nagging perception that – through the glass, in the moonlight, from a distance – the man looks like his dead father.

  William turns away for a moment, not exactly afraid, but trying to judge the implications of this last reason. He feels a rising pool of disquiet in his chest, and an odd little hammering sensation returns to his ears. Maud, still sleeping, moans. William peers through the window once more. The man has gone; only trees and bushes sway lightly in the breeze.

  CHAPTER IV

  William strikes a match, but the damp air claims it, choking the flame. He strikes another, shielding it this time from the wind, then takes a draw and exhales a white funnel into the street’s grey canyon.

  A middle-aged couple stop on the curb opposite; with their flapping map and umbrella they look like lost crows. Something about the woman – the dark fur of her collar and the hint of comfort it bestows – makes him think of Maud. A boulder turns within William’s chest at the thought of his wife – a great rock of sadness, affection and escape, irreconcilable movements pulling everywhere and nowhere.

  William continues around the corner. In another moment, the wrought iron statue of Henry Irving appears. Cool rain drips down his collar as he watches the gaunt features of the actor take shape in black. Footsteps clatter around the little square; the dampness amplifies everything. William stops in front of the black rail and looks up. The sculptor could not have known Irving. There is a dignity of bearing, an authenticity about the figure that William never saw in Irving’s living flesh. If only Queen Victoria had not had the poor judgment to knight him.

  “Sir Henry Irving,” the comic phrase rises like hot flame within him. Sir!

  A couple of young bohemians – an actor and actress, William guesses – are reading the plaque. They have admiring, fawnlike eyes. How dark his own must look.

  Without warning, a breeze stirs and a hundred pigeons feeding at the statue base take wing. They expand in a semicircle around Irving, forming a garland banner. It is as though they have obeyed some gesture from the lifeless monument.

  MR. THRING SITS on an embossed leather chair. His desk is heavy oak. A telephone perches at the edge, a large folder splayed in the centre. With his dark suit, spectacles and bald head, Mr. Thring is at one with the furnishings. William wonders if he is folded up at five o’clock and lodged into a sliding drawer in one of the room’s panels.

  But Mr. Thring brightens when he sees William and he seems suddenly more human. He stands up and shakes hands warmly, then gestures William to a chair.

  “I understand you are here on behalf of your mother, Mr. Stoker,” he says, settling down again behind the desk.

  “That’s right, Mr. Thring.”

  “Let me offer you a cigar,” Mr. Thring says unexpectedly, smiling again and opening a wooden case.

  “Um, no thank you,” William says.

  William’s head is aching from the previous night and he can feel sore pink rims around his eyelids. He is self-conscious, knowing this haggard look must be noticeable.

  “Well let’s get to business,” Mr. Thring says smiling sweetly again. “We understand and we acknowledge that there is a breach of copyright issue, Mr. Stoker. You can rest assured the Society of Authors will do everything that is reasonably within its scope to help your mother.”

  William weighs the words carefully, wondering what they mean in practical terms. “Well,” he asks after a pause, “what are the options?”

  “That’s really up to your mother, Mr. Stoker,” Mr. Thring replies tapping his pencil on the desk.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We need instructions.”

  “Instructions?”

  There is a silence.

  “The question, you see, is this.” The words emit from Mr. Thring, soft and quiet, like bubbles in a spring. His gentleness unnerves William.

  “How does your mother want to proceed? Does she want payment from the film company or does she want an injunction against further performance?” Mr. Thring’s dark eyes twinkle.

  “Oh. I see,” William replies carefully. “I don’t think we’ve quite decided the question.”

  “Well, that’s what we must know before we hand the matter to our continental lawyer.”

  William can feel another battle rising; he knows that he may have to persuade his mother not to throw away the chance of royalties.

  “I’ll have to ask her.”

  Mr. Thring smiles and rings a bell on his desk.

  “Now, Mr. Stoker. I must tell you I am an admirer of your late father’s work. The whole subject brings the magic of my childhood wafting back to me.” He smiles sentimentally.

  William feels the rims of his eyelids burn. “Me too,” he croaks.

  A young woman enters in answer to the bell.

  “Will you join me in some tea, Mr. Stoker? I do so long to reminisce with the son of one of the most frightening men of my youth.”

  William feels the boulder shift unhappily in his chest, but he tries to relax.

  He spends the next forty minutes listening to Mr. Thring’s memories of the Lyceum’s golden age: Irving playing Hamlet; Irving playing Shylock; Irving’s curtain calls; the magical performance as Matthias on the night of Edward’s coronation; Irving as Napoleon; Irving as the
Vicar of Wakefield; Irving as Mephistopheles.

  Slowly, William feels himself becoming twelve years old again. He clenches his jaw, and feels the growing glint in his eye. A black pool of masochism rises within him, and he begins chipping in details that Mr. Thring has forgotten, correcting dates, reminding him of names of supporting players. And then, finally, the conversation slips from the great man to William’s father. Mr. Thring remembers the “superstitious whirlpool” of the Carpathian Mountains as described in Dracula. He remembers how the characters in the story, once infected by the vampire, become mediumistic, their thoughts and dreams merging. “Such a fantastic idea!” Mr. Thring exclaims. And then he adds quite sincerely: “Your father’s imagination must have benefitted so much from being with such an inspired artist.”

  At first William does not understand. “An inspired artist?”

  “Sir Henry.”

  William looks at the Secretary in disbelief. His round face, bald head and glasses make him seem, for a moment, like a comic goblin. William tries to keep his composure, riding waves of anger and frustration. A few moments later he is gone, pleading lateness for an appointment. He wanders back to his office, passing the black statue of Irving on the way, barely resisting an urge to spit.

  MARY ENTERS, FEELING slightly nervous.

  As usual, the old lady does not look up although she knows Mary is there – a mannerism that confused the girl for the first two weeks of her stay. Instead, Mrs. Stoker places a bookmark carefully between the pages of The Moonstone. Then she looks down in a studied fashion, apparently thinking.

  “Mary,” she says suddenly.

  “Yes, Mrs. Stoker.”

  Now she looks up.

  “Mrs. Davis has informed me that you have moved your chair and dressing table so that they face an open window.”

  Mrs. Stoker’s gaze remains on her as though expecting a reply.

  “Yes Ma’am,” Mary eventually says.

  “This may not be a total evil in itself during the day when the outside is brighter than your room … do you follow me?”

  Mary thinks she has missed something. She goes back over the sentence trying to find it, getting agitated. “I’m sure I need not continue,” adds Mrs. Stoker after a pause.

  And that appears to be it. Mrs. Stoker’s gaze is still on her but there is something resigned and conclusive about it, as though she is about to let her eyes drop to her book again.

  “I’m afraid I’m lost, Ma’am,” Mary says.

  Florence sighs. “Yes, my dear, indeed you are. This is not the place from whence you came, Mary. This is London. There are certain delicacies to consider, certain precautions to maintain.” Now Mrs. Stoker seems tired and Mary starts to feel guilty at her obtuseness. Florence fingers her book. “Let me warn you of something, Mary. It is very fashionable these days to question the advice of your elders, to believe that the young have something new and better with which to replace the old order. But you must remember that rules came into existence not through some whim or a wish to keep anyone down. Order and custom exist for a very good reason. The wisdom of ages is found in the most commonplace of rules which it is now so fashionable to deride.”

  Mary thinks for a moment. Does Mrs. Stoker think I am trying to deride her? she wonders.

  Then it seems Mrs. Stoker must have read the confusion on her face; she sighs and lowers her voice. “In the evening, Mary, with your bedroom light on, you can be seen from the outside.”

  “From the back garden?” Mary says, believing that Mrs. Stoker has simply made a mistake about the geography of her house.

  “Precisely,” Mrs. Stoker answers to her surprise.

  “But there is no one there Ma’am; just a wall and trees.”

  “If it is dark how can you possibly know there is no one there?”

  There is a silence. Mary wants to humour the old lady. “I hadn’t thought of that Mrs. Stoker,” she merely blurts, half ashamed of her lie.

  “Now,” Mrs. Stoker says, looking more cheerful. “How are you enjoying London?”

  “I love it,” Mary responds quickly.

  “We must make more of an effort to get out. In the meantime,” Mrs. Stoker continues, “did you get a book for yourself at the library? You must not neglect your mind.”

  Mary immediately colours. “Yes Ma’am,” she says overtaken with shyness; she does not know why she can’t tell Mrs. Stoker what she is reading, but the information is stuck as surely as liquid in a sealed bottle.

  “I hope it is something respectable,” Mrs. Stoker responds, perhaps sensing something in her reaction.

  “Oh yes, Mrs. Stoker.” She almost says the title, but again halts – ashamed of stopping, ashamed she did not tell her before, and now ashamed she has created an unnecessary secret.

  “Well I suppose it’s all very new to you,” the old lady responds.

  Mary feels a sting, a fire on her cheek and then a sinking feeling. Mrs. Stoker thinks she is unlearned, she suddenly realizes. Blinking hard, she pushes down her pride to get past the moment.

  “Yes Ma’am,” she says meekly, “it is.”

  THE BREEZE STIRS in the afternoon sending flocks of birds spiralling into migration routes. A storm is brewing – a mass of living grey sliding and swelling above the city’s spires and domes. Leaves and waste paper dance scattering circles in the gutters. Through his office window, William watches their frantic movements. Then he drags himself into a standing position. He has no appointments and needs to update his mother.

  THE WIND RIPS like giant’s breath though Florence’s garden, thieving plump green leaves long before their withering time, hectoring them in zigzags around the indignant lawn. Florence likes the wind and settles down with the book on her chest. A storm is action; the promise of change in this weary, spirit-deflating age into which her life’s journey has had the misfortune to stretch. It is the old order reasserting itself, scorning the 1920s with its grey mediocrity and its grumbling for equality.

  Florence closes her eyes and feels the gentle burn on the inner side of her lids – tiredness due to reading. A luminous pattern – green, gold and turquoise like a peacock’s feather – greets her from the darkness. The arrangement grows to shimmer all over the wall she is facing. Gaslight lanterns flicker in claret glass holders. The sound of voices, faint at first, grows in substance to a happy, familiar clamour. Expectation floats and sparkles like champagne bubbles, and Bram stands tall like a young oak by her side.

  Florence is in the inner lobby of the Lyceum. The brightness of it, the beautiful walls, the perfumes of the ladies and black raven sheen of the men in their evening dress returns to her like the taste of favourite wine sliding over her tongue. She and Bram are at the top of the side stairs looking down, watching each group enter. They nod discreetly as people catch their eyes. Florence can feel the warmth of Bram’s forearm over hers.

  “Perhaps Mr. Gladstone won’t turn up,” Florence finds herself saying.

  “Don’t worry, Florrie,” Bram says in his gentle, rounded voice, full of soft vibrations. “The Prime Minister won’t miss Irving’s Shylock. But he must make his entrance when everyone is here to see.”

  Florence is overjoyed to feel and hear her husband again. She had a terrible nightmare lasting years, it seems, in which she was a loveless, bitter old woman living alone in Belgravia. It seemed so real but is now utterly dispelled by the warmth and familiarity surrounding her.

  She is surprised, but not worried, when she looks down at her dress and sees it has changed into a loose-leaf overlapping pattern: part muslin, part silk, after the fashion of the faery queen in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. “Let’s go outside,” she says, afraid her attire might seem immodest. “I want to see the carriages arrive.”

  Bram smiles and they float down the stairs and through the entrance doors.

  But as Florence crosses the threshold, something happens. The brightness dims. It is colder. Suddenly, Florence is alone, and not outside the porticoed entrance of
the Lyceum, not surrounded by the stone facades of The Strand, but rather in a thick, mature wooded area with overhanging blossoms and forest flowers in full bloom.

  As Florence walks, sunlight blinks at her, blocked and released by trunks and branches. This is gorgeous too, she thinks, but she wants her husband and she wants the Lyceum.

  “What happened?” she cries out, surprised by how lonely her voice sounds. “Bram, where are you?”

  A male voice answers from nowhere.

  “He had to leave. He’s with Sir Henry.”

  Florence is a little relieved that someone knows where he is, although she does not recognize the speaker.

  The light keeps blinking at her as she makes her way through the woods, touching ferns and grasses with her bare ankles.

  “What am I doing here?” she asks.

  “You’re holding the fort,” the voice answers.

  Florence thinks of Dracula. “What fort? Against whom?” she asks. “Is it a battle scene?”

  Florence snags the bottom of her dress. She frees herself with a tug that rips the material.

  “This is one of your husband’s stories,” the voice says. “You’re on your own. You must hold them all back.”

  An owl hoots and some other creature scurries around close to her feet. Florence snags her sleeve. Without warning, the forest dims into twilight.

  “Hold who back?” Florence demands.

  “Anarchists. The Empire is in danger.”

  Deep blue darkens to navy. It is night.

  A low, long howl emanates from somewhere far off. A winged creature shoots from one branch to another above her head. A whiplash movement and hiss is followed by stinging pain on her ankle. Florence screams and falls to her knees, holding the skin where she has been bitten.

  “Bram!” she cries missing his warm protectiveness. “Where are you?”

  “What’s the matter?” replies the unknown voice that she now begins to dislike.

  “I’ve been bitten by a snake.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s in the script.”