by Paul Butler
There is a murmur of approval from the audience. Florence feels the warmth of happiness but then slips away, falling from her seat once more and sinking upon her back. The silver and crystal have faded and she is lying in some dark and nameless place.
The bed jolts beneath her, clanking the headboard. She knows straightaway that her husband is next to her, crying. Her eyes are closed fast, her limbs unmoveable as lead. She knows Bram is long gone and that she cannot break through the wall of time. But this time, while the noise and rocking movement continue to assail her, it all suddenly makes sense; the tears are simply the other side of devotion, a relationship as natural and inevitable as the sky and earth joining at the horizon. It is the cost of love. All devotion has a price – the thorn piercing the scalp, the scourge on the back. The formula is written in the very air. Why did it ever seem unnatural? she asks herself in the enclosed blackness. And a new fear burns through her body that she herself has unpaid debts.
A fresh sensation merges with the rocking beneath her. Something wet is pressing itself into her forehead. Her vision returns and she sees a hovering dove descend at intervals, pushing its wet wings onto the skin below her hairline. The dove repeats this movement to the rhythm of her husband’s sobs which now begin to fade. Heat rises like glowing coals from within her and through the wavering light, beyond the hovering dove, she sees her husband step out of his portrait and stand over the side of the bed. Through her confusion she scans the lines on his face; they are exactly as they appeared in the painting, except in three dimensions. She knows this cannot be a dream, the details are too precise. She tries to moan out loud that this is the case. She urgently needs to tell Bram she knows he is real. She yearns for an acknowledged connection to weigh against the great columns of sadness. But the words will not form.
A stethoscope appears around his neck. Has he become a doctor? Florence asks herself, wondering what else she might have forgotten. Bram reaches out as the dove flies away and touches her forehead with the tips of his fingers. And as she feels the soft flesh against hers, a myriad of golden wavelets begin to wash over her, like the essence of candlelight from the Coronation dinner. She drinks in the soothing waves which seem to taste like syrup-wine.
And in a moment she is running, lifting up her long skirts so they do not drag upon the stairs as she ascends. Above her a wide doorway radiates generous undulating shafts of light. She swoops up quickly and flies through into a handsome, spacious room which is painted white and lemon yellow. A youthful, ruddy Bram in the centre spins to greet her. It has been so long since she has seen him look so dashing, she has to catch her breath for a second.
“These are the rooms I was talking to you about,” he says calmly, smiling at her. Now Florence remembers where she is, in their Chelsea home overlooking the Thames.
“Where’s the view?” she finds herself demanding. Her voice, like her movements, is almost girlishly young, in a whirl of vibrant excitement. She feels her cheeks burn with the energy.
Bram’s grey eyes twinkle amusement. She has forgotten how ardent he once seemed. “Curiously enough, my Florrie,” he answers slowly, “from the balcony.”
They both rush towards the rippling white-veil curtains hanging Turkish-fashion over the French windows. In a second they are looking over the balcony and upon the rolling, crystalgreen water of the Thames in June sunlight. Barges, sailboats, cargo and passenger steamers hardly move, and the panorama of church steeples, rooftops, gardens and smoking turrets seems like a great tapestry.
“Do we dare take it?” Florence gasps the question.
“Florrie,” Bram replies in rounded, comforting tones. “We can dare to take the world. Spices from India, tea from China, sugar from Jamaica.” He points out the vessels one by one, but Florence follows his words, rather than the information, excited by his confidence, protected by his masculinity. “Florrie, we have arrived,” he announces taking her arm. A new thrill runs through Florence. She is under the wing of a great eagle who means to take her through Arabian Nights adventures, into palaces of kings and lands of legends. “Before I finish,” he continues, “the whole globe will have heard of Henry Irving and the Lyceum.”
Florence is speechless for a moment. She gulps and feels the tears spill into her eyes. Something has overcome her – an emotion so strong it cannot be named until it begins to pass. It has come from all directions at once – from within her own thumping heart, from the blue sky and wisps of clouds, from the moving water and from the breeze wafting through her hair, touching the skin of her cheek and neck. Then she knows it. She has just felt the supreme, unassailable power of youth and the infinite possibilities it holds.
“I will never forget this moment,” she says hoarsely. And she is aware that she stands on the very pinnacle of her life. She pauses, collects the strands of her emotions and continues more solemnly, realizing that she is etching words upon time that will not be erased. “I will never allow my thoughts to spiral into dullness, or let this feeling desert me even for a week.” She feels the gentle pressure of Bram’s arm squeezing hers in approval.
“You will be the bride of Lyceum,” he says with infinite gentleness and respect. She can feel the vibrations of his voice tingling her arm. “Your happiness will be our genie, our lantern carrying us all through difficult times. We are all in our way serving the same great cause.”
Florence feels a new joy rise in her chest, a sensation of duty and mission of which she has only ever read – something that until now had always seemed too elusive, too abstract for her sex. She breathes deeply. “I hereby promise to play my role,” she says, smiling at the rolling waters, feeling benign gods in the crystal sunlight and the perpetually changing breeze. “I will never be dull. At this moment, I can never even imagine being sad or growing old.” She finds herself laughing and leaning against Bram’s strong shoulder. “I don’t believe it is even possible.”
“For you, my dear Florrie,” Bram replies, “I can well believe it is not.”
MARY BRINGS THE white cloth down to Mrs. Stoker’s forehead again, but this time the old lady pushes it away. Her eyes stare at the ceiling as though transfixed. Mary cannot even imagine how she will survive. The colours of her skin are so unnatural, a kind of purple showing under her eyes. She seems so far from either sleep or ordinary waking. The doctor rattles away his stethoscope at the foot of the bed. Mary listens intently to his hushed tones as he talks to Mrs. Davis. “The temperature is our immediate concern. We must continue with the cool water and hope the fever burns itself out.” His quiet, even voice only accentuates alarm; it is obvious there are decades of practice behind his manner. It is there for a reason and the reason is grave.
Mrs. Davis slips out of the room to see the doctor out. If he is going, Mary thinks, it cannot be so serious, surely. But then she looks at Mrs. Stoker’s open eyes; they are as senseless to her surroundings as those of a fish at market. The hope fades. Mary feels that the very foundations of her life are being pulled from under her. She can almost feel the floorboards shake and wobble. It did not occur to her that Mrs. Stoker would die. Twin spears of guilt and fear twist inside her at the thought. How might I have prevented this? she thinks. And what will happen to me now? She sees herself with her packing case disappearing into the London fog, stray dogs following her progress, a shilling in her purse.
Of course Mr. Stoker will want to help her, and so will Mrs. Davis. But he will be caught up with grief and Mrs. Davis will be in need of help herself. Her own plight will seem less deserving among those with less selfish concerns. Death is too sacred and too precious. They will all be guiding Mrs. Stoker to heaven, touching her off on the silent barge. Mary’s worries will tumble to the bottom of the pile.
Suddenly, Mrs. Stoker says something. Half sigh, half gasp, it sounded like “He came back.”
“Don’t try to speak,” Mary says, hearing the tenderness of genuine worry in her voice. But then she jolts back. Mrs. Stoker’s hand suddenly grips the material of
her blouse around her neck. Her eyes are vividly alive and looking into hers, her pupils small like pinpricks. And then she laughs – not a delirious prelude to death, but a warm, intelligent, controlled laugh with focus. Crow’s feet wrinkle in the corners of her eyes and Mary thinks how out of place the scene looks; with this expression, Mrs. Stoker should be in her morning room with her Chinese tea set, not sick in bed gripping her maid’s collar.
Mary tries to haul her hand away, but the old lady’s fingers continue crumpling her blouse, twisting the material so it chafes under her arm. “I know he came back,” she whispers. Instinctively, Mary’s own fingers slip around the old lady’s grip, trying to find a secret pivot to draw it away without force. Eventually she succeeds, pushing her thumb into the fleshy part of Mrs. Stoker’s wrist. The grip eases and Mary guides her hand at last down to her side.
Mrs. Davis bustles into the room and Mary finds her face burning. She wonders if she should have removed Mrs. Stoker’s hand the way she did, and then is annoyed that she should be doubting herself. Have I been so drawn into Mrs. Stoker’s world of distinctions that I would let her hand grip onto me forever?
Mrs. Davis has drawn up close to her and is looking down upon her mistress. Mary senses she is excited. “She looks better,” Mrs. Davis gasps close to tears. “Oh, thank goodness the fever is passing.” She touches Mary on the back with her palm. Mary feels suddenly guilty that her own relief is not as unselfish.
Everything is too soiled for direct emotion. Mary’s fears for her own future, the way she had to remove the old lady’s hand – these things have twisted too much unrest in her heart. She watches Mrs. Davis take over the nursing with a fresh cloth and bowl, and she finds herself retreating to the foot of the bed. She feels as though a hundred invisible hands are clawing at her collar trying to push her in directions she does not want to go. She thinks of Mr. William Stoker’s sad grey eyes and that sudden admission about not being able to love. In some odd way, those words have become more and more important since. They have radiated in all directions at once – they are here in this very sickroom echoing from the walls; they are weaving in and out of her feelings of guilt at not feeling more sorry for the old lady. “There is too much in the way for love,” Mary says to herself, adding to the phrase. “How can you feel for someone who holds your fate in their hands?”
She watches Mrs. Davis stoop over her mistress, dabbing her forehead, caressing her with soft, reassuring words. Mary feels humbled for a moment. Mrs. Davis feels love, she thinks, despite her position. How inferior a creature she must be to need preconditions in order to happily serve another.
Mary takes herself off silently. She creaks up the stairs to her own room treading as carefully as she can, wanting to disappear for the rest of the evening. Entering her refuge, she is surprised to see the chair waiting for her beneath the black square of the window and the dressing table as she left it the previous night, half-dismantled to provide a window desk. Mary feels a bone-deep tiredness as she crosses automatically to repair her wayward action. She lays her hand on the wooden back of the chair and takes one last look into the night which is clearing. Wisps of steam rise vertically above distant rooftops and an azure tint shows beyond the stars which are beginning to pierce the sky.
She tips the chair backwards, preparing to scrape it away from the window. But things are changing. It is as though she has reached a summit without knowing and has begun to descend. The rhythms of her body become more fluid, less strained and she feels lighter. It suddenly occurs to her that she might be wiser than Mrs. Stoker. The idea feels, in a way, unnatural and runs in a counter-stream against all she has ever learned. But it brings with it an awesome responsibility. If Mrs. Stoker’s edicts are senseless, if the old woman’s vision is clouded by personal fear and griefs, if Mary can see many miles beyond her orders, then Mary would be the profoundest of cowards to follow them. She would be sinning against herself.
Mary reaches out and touches the window so that it squeaks a little more open on its hinges. She feels the dampness of a million dying leaves in the first draft of air, and is humbled by the stories they seem to witness in her mind. The flavour of this breeze is immortal, she feels. It tells of kingdoms rising and falling, centuries tumbling past like seasons. She hears the tramp of Roman legions, the snap of the Norman longbow, the crackle of burning churches. The only truth and permanence worth heeding, this heady feeling tells her, is in her own heart. And her own heart tells her the age of uncertainty is over.
She thinks of Mr. Stoker’s words again – not allowed to love in this country – and she feels suddenly sad and angry for the grey multitudes huddled in the walls beneath her, and for herself too, stuck in an attic staring down at them. She thinks of Dracula and the same mournful phrase seems to spin through its pages – through the descriptions of forbidding castles, through the passage of the young man Harker yearning for the vampire woman’s bite, through the mad chase eastward to catch the villain who has infected one of their own. Suddenly, it seems like the saddest of love stories; it is a story infused with the simplest and deepest of human wants, that of wanting to merge with another. It is a love story written for the loveless, for people who can relate to that want only through horror and fear.
Mary presses her hand up to the glass, the skin of her palm tingling with the chill as it edges slightly more open. She feels that years have descended on her shoulders in the past day or so and that the remnants of her girlhood are about to leave her. All her tumbling, conflicting emotions have formed unexpectedly into a pattern, now streaming into a single channel. It is a wholesome, exciting feeling; it carries the promise of some life mission at present too dimly defined to name. Clues and details are scattered in the dark city beneath her. Some are words charged with action: liberalism, Bolshevism, pacifism. Some are in faces imbued with meaning: the features of a boy unnaturally aged under a checkered cap, pulling a cart, looking only downwards at the road; the white, twisted features of a young man on crutches, an empty folded trouser leg beneath him. Battered street corner signs claim her allegiance also. She hears the clink of sword and armour: the phrase, “a battle only half won,” comes into her imagination under the heading, “Suffragettes!”
She does not yet know for which of these worlds her adventure has been preparing her. But the process of sifting has begun. She looks out at the night and feels the infinity. Her first choice is simple. It is whether she should live; whether she should follow the stream she is on, let it direct her for good or for ill, regardless of punishments, hardships, embarrassments and humiliations. The alternative comes briefly in a single face: Mrs. Stoker’s.
Mary leans forward and pushes the window open wide.
FLORENCE WANTS TO say more to Dr. Harcourt as he puts his stethoscope away again. She wants to tell him about her experience, how it went beyond dreaming, how it submerged her in a golden life she had thought to have long ago withered and turned to dust. She wants to tell him that she carries that life in her once more, that it is pulsating and warm and real and that no one can take it away unless she lets them. She wants to tell him that her heart and soul are bulging with gratitude for everything, that she loves the whole of Creation just for being, and that, right now, it is all infused with the same golden light for her, regardless of place or circumstance.
“Thank you for dropping in again, Dr. Harcourt,” she merely says weakly. And the instant she hears herself she knows that the euphoria will not last forever and will soon begin sagging like an air balloon. Yet even while this disappointment arrives, her still buoyant optimism propels her into a new promise – that she will never again forget this golden feeling entirely while she lives.
“So where were you, Mrs. Stoker, when this attack came?” Dr. Harcourt says, fastening his bag and then standing up.
“A moving picture, Dr. Harcourt,” she replies, pulling the sheets up towards her mouth, feeling a touch of mischief that she should have such a secret.
“Perhaps it was
not to your taste,” the doctor replies with a hint of impatience. He seems annoyed that she is not more ill.
“Perhaps not,” Florence replies quietly.
The doctor leaves.
Florence is alone. The silence is warm and thick around her as though the air itself were a living organism. Bram’s features stand out vividly from the portrait to Florence’s right. He seems less sombre than usual in the muted light. The pools of silver in the irises are no longer the endemic tears of the wounded. They convey warmth and understated humour. Florence caresses the face with her gaze, adding touches of her own to the fine details – things only she might notice and love enough to want to see recreated – a stubborn permanent pimple above his left cheekbone, a faint scar on his forehead in the groove of a furrow.
Florence feels a profound reconciliation, like the shifting of a great stone into its proper crevice after many years of dislocation. Suddenly, her love seems to extend into infinity, as though it has been released after years by the realignment. She thinks of everyone she has ever known: Bram, Irving, Ellen and the whole Lyceum set. She thinks of people around her now: dear Mrs. Davis, so loyal and understanding; the poor girl, Mary – a good sort really; William and Maud – trudging though life as best they can with some unnatural burdens perhaps.
She feels guilty at the last thought, realizing that she herself is one of William’s unnatural burdens. She starts trying to make vague plans about how to disrupt this troubling pattern. But she gets stuck as a different self-reproach mushrooms on top of the first. She looks towards her husband’s portrait again, remembering that awe-inspiring friendship between him and Irving. She realizes that the golden light is especially magical and strong in this area; she can visualize a shining halo of light around the two men as they sit together, making plans. She links eyes with the portrait and finds herself mouthing the word, “Sorry.”