by James Reese
The roses I did find, albeit at famine prices: $5 a bloom! Extortionary! And damned I am if I didn’t tell the florist so! As for the poor horse, well…
Taking a tip from one of the local carpenters in our employ, I hied to a marketplace none too distant from Madison Square. There, tethered to carts of commerce, I found a selection of beasts of burden hardly worthy of the word “horse.” I was quite saddened by the sight, in fact; but still I paid a devilish drayman $25 for his helpmate. But as I led the pitiable nag back to the Star by its reins—I dared not mount her, lest my girth be the reason she finally give up the ghost!—I found that I was being followed. In short order I was accosted by one, then two persons, who strewed at my feet, like so much manure, accusations of my having abused a beast that had been mine but for a quarter-hour! Their cries drew a crowd. Hisses were heard.
My protestations were in vain, and I escaped a dire fate—a constable came, and “jail” was not the worst of the words bandied about—only when someone in the ever-constricting crowd heard me say, nay holler the name Henry Irving. (No sense in hoarding a currency like fame, Caine, as no doubt you know.) As this fellow had seen our Faust when last we played it in New York, he asseverated, much to my relief, that the play did indeed call for a horse that already had its forelegs in the grave.
Thusly did I escape the scene; but as for the ol’ bone bag—who’d have done quite well in the role, I must say, and would have lived out her last days in luxury—she was requisitioned from me by the constable. Indeed, I was made to trade the reins for a citation, and the accompanying fine was twice what I’d paid for the pitiable creature! Such that the tally of the day’s tasks was $25 for five red roses and $75 more for a near-dead horse I had lost. Brilliant, that.
Of course, it all made for a fine story once I’d returned to the Star, spun some Irish round the reality, and recounted it to the assembled cast and crew. Even H.I. had a laugh. “Oh well, Stoker,” said he, happy to hear of my late humiliation. “At least you’ve come back to us and are accounted for.” He even clapped me upon the shoulder as he exited upstage right, calling out to Harker that he had better touch up the prop horse in our possession, as “our real one has lately gone to glue.” So it is I know that Henry has forgiven me; and just when I’d come to hope he’d let me go.
Alas, must, must close & post this letter, as the longer it lingers the less inclined I am to sign/seal & send it, showing myself as low as I’ve lately been. (I am better now by a bit—blessed be Walt Whitman—so worry not!) But if I cannot confess such things to you, Caine, then to whom can I—
Damn him! Here comes Henry calling my name. And so now I close for true.
Sto.
TELEGRAM, BRAM STOKER TO FLORENCE STOKER
23 March 1888.—The countdown begins! 33 Fausts remain. Homeward 1st May, due at Liverpool 8th. S.S. Germanic. Do not bother to come. Will train home with Henry.
BRAM STOKER’S JOURNAL
3 May [1888]—aboard S.S. Germanic to Liverpool, whence London; seas rude.
2 days seaborne, with 6 more to go. Have been too long gone, but many worries arise re: finances, the Lyceum, the new life, No. 1731 &c.; but I hold to the belief that changes for the better are aborning. They must be.
As ever I do, I have been sleeping well at sea—a blessing, this, and doubtless attributable to the fact that Irving & Co. are, perforce, at present, still. There is much talk, but not much to do. Save for poor Harker, of course, who has his orders for Henry’s newly-decreed Macb., such that he sketches non-stop, joking all the while that he might as well surrender his London rooms and move in to the scenarists’ shop upon our return, for there he’ll surely be from debarkation through to Macb.’s debut. (Q.: Is Henry’s hope of going-up by year’s end realistic? Mem.: Check that no else is planning to mount a Macb. w/in a half-year of ours.)
It is our great & good fortune to find ourselves sailing in the company of Cowboys, for Captain, nay Colonel Cody32 takes his Wild West spectacle to London’s West End. So it is that the hold of the Germanic, were she to go down in this red weather, would loose upon the sea floor such a collection of props & costumes & animals, &c.—theirs & ours combined—as to stun Neptune himself.
Of course, the Cowboys fancy themselves the more fortunate for having our company: they lined the gangway as we came aboard, welcoming us with war whoops, &c. The actors having been thusly flattered, it has been no great trick to get them to entertain; and so, after dinner, when normally the sexes would split—he to his port & cigars, she to her tea—we of the S.S. Germanic retire to the parlour ensemble, and there the hours fall away fast as we charade, recite, sing, joke, and otherwise amuse ourselves. It is a joy, truly, and—to the extent that I partake—a distraction most welcome to me at present. Indeed, I shall now set this pen in its stand and dress for dinner; for I am lead-bellied, and these heaving seas cannot deter me from such feasts as last night’s:
Oysters on the half shell to start, along with olives and salted almonds, whence we progressed through a soup of squash (w/ an excess of garlic), fish (genus: unknown), entrée (unremarkable), and a most excellent remove of Mallard Ducks w/ Currant Jelly. (Mem.: Get jelly recipe for Florence, or rather Mary.) The parade of desserts had at its fore a Plum Pudding w/ Brandy and Hard Sauce (exquisite!) but ended with a savoury that suited not at all: Herring Roe on Toast. Salt on Paste-board, more like. Yet we all attend the dinner bell impatiently—for the fare, yes, but also for all that follows—and there it is now: I hear it above the storm sounds.
Later. Returned from dinner. Indeed, the sea has come to a boil, and many amongst us are unwell. Those of the Wild West would no doubt fancy a return to the plains at present, and the Lyceum lot would opt to play the rag-taggiest, most rat-ridden of theatres as long as its boards were still. Only the meanest brute could fail to sympathise with the women aboard, some of whom refuse absolutely to return to their cabins. Having piled their pillows and rugs, they camp upon the parlour floor. “Safety there may be in numbers, ladies,” cautions our Captain, “but that old saw makes no mention of seasickness, I’m afraid”; but still the green-complected ladies refuse to decamp. Of course, Ellen is not amongst the sickly. She is quite well, in fact, but as she has already roiled the sorority somewhat—by being, simply, herself: the New Woman whom they both envy and deride33—she acts unwell whilst yet nursing the worst of the lot. That said, she could not refrain, at table, from telling me of a Cowboy’s wife—to call her a Cow Mistress seems unkind—who lately confided to E.T., with tears in her eyes, that “sea-sick is worse’n two acres of toothache.”
2 a.m.—I take to these pages a third time to-night, if only to confess that I am as unsteady as the sea; for E.T. and I have just been some hours in Henry’s company. Henry, who can talk of nothing nowadays but our distant Macbeth.
Indeed, he said he was in a quandary re: the staging of the weird sisters’ scenes—ought there to be music when Macbeth first meets the witches upon the heath? &c.—and he was hopeful of hashing these things out with us. And so, all but bursting with bonhomie and opining that hot toddies were surely in order on such a sea night as this, Henry asked if we three mightn’t repair to his cabin and order some up. Ellen and I were loath to leave the larger group, but Henry’s “asks” are, of course, commands, and he is not to be denied: when either inspiration or insomnia strikes, Henry Irving seeks and shall have company. So it was we three sat together some while. The balance of talk tallied, as ever, to Henry’s favor, and I left his cabin with a list of things Stoker will see to. Still I hear him, expounding, pontificating, playing.
It was hours ago that I began to long, long for solitude and the clarity that sometimes comes when I set pen to paper, as here. Yet there is no clarity now, none at all. Just whisky and words I dare not write—a sea of words on which my heart tosses as surely as does this ship.
Can it be that I’ve come to hate him? There, it is written.
LETTER, BRAM STOKER TO HALL CAINE
4 May 1888
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Dearest Caine,
I have just now received your letter dated 15 April and addressed to me c/o the Star, for the fools there “forgot” to give it to me upon its arrival. Glad I’ll be, friend, to return to the controlled surrounds of St. Leonard’s & the Lyceum—even though it is Flo. who controls the former and Henry the latter!
Briefly, as regards your letter, you owe me no apology for its brevity. To have met my epistle with one of equal length would have availed no-one—neither you, who would have been taken too long from your truer work, on which the world waits; nor I, who, were I to receive thirty-odd pages from your pen would be even more mortified at having written as many with mine. What’s more: No such obligations exist between those who sympathise. That is a lesson I have learned from Lady Wilde, who insists that friends should speak or write as they will, letting candour show their mutual concern.
Of course, I second your motion that we see each other soon. Assuming I survive this crossing—a safe assumption, sayeth the Captain, as the worst of the weather lies behind us—and land at Liverpool the 8th instant, to espy your person upon the quay will please me no end. In that eventuality, I shall happily over-night in the city. If, as I suspect, you cannot come, St. Leonard’s or your city rooms in Victoria Street shall suit at your convenience, and I shall content myself with posting these pages from Liverpool in lieu of a proper embrace.34
Now let that be an end to “business.”
Your suggestion that I seek to leaven my mood and sort my thoughts by writing a memoir of another, happier time is one I have considered at some length; and I believe I shall start forthwith. “Writing maketh an exact man,” to quote Bacon, and exactitude is what I am wanting now, exactitude of heart and head. Purpose, in a word.
Yes indeed, I find I am eager to begin the project even though I have never been much of a diarist. I shall hold as my goal the posting of both this letter and an achieved aide-mémoire upon our arrival in Liverpool, assuming you cannot come to take personal possession of said pages and see proof of their prescriptive effect. (Hope dies hard as concerns any encounter with Hall Caine!) But before I begin, let me address, albeit cursorily, a few points raised in your letter:
Firstly, as regards the American friend you reference—and about whom, Caine, I must say, you are uncommonly reticent35—by all means send him round to the Lyceum at any time. He is a doctor, you say? And knows London well? Be assured, Caine, that I shall meet him as a friend, as of course any friend of T.H.H.C. is, perforce, a friend of mine.36
Secondly, as you are kind enough to enquire about my cut, I am pleased to inform you that it has closed and starts to scar; which scar, I fear, shall be worthy of Miss Shelley’s monster.37 Alas, it shall serve as a reminder, a sort of memento mori, warning me of what might have been. Blessedly, I have stepped back from that abyss. I am well, or leastways better; and mine will be a new life, henceforth. And so:
What better way to begin anew than to return to those days when you and I both were newcomers to London, steeds—ha!—reigned to the chariots of our chosen gods? And so the calendar recalls me to mid-August of 1881, for it was then I learned from Lady Wilde that Rossetti—whom we all knew to be Great yet still presumed sane—had taken on a new secretary: You.
Aide-mémoire
What follows is undertaken upon the command of a friend—Thomas Henry Hall Caine; and to him it is addressed.38
In late 1878, my wife, Florence, and I re-located to London from Dublin, letting, for £100, six unfurnished rooms in Southampton Street, very near the Lyceum Theatre; at which latter place I was bound by salary to Henry Irving. As finances seemed to allow it—salaried at £22/week, I bethought myself a veritable Midas amongst men—I brought into my own employ both a cook and a lady’s maid, meaning to spare my young wife the wider world just outside our door. However, it was not long before we, at my wife’s insistence suggestion, resituated ourselves.39
A lease was taken at No. 27 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, an area abounding in antiquities and the traces of great men. I, however, knew the neighborhood thanks to a great woman: the estimable “Speranza,” Lady Jane Wilde. She, along with her husband, Sir William Wilde, had been a second set of parents to me whilst I was living in Dublin yet longing for a London life; and glad I was, indeed, the day I had word from Lady Wilde that she, in consequence of Sir William’s decease, would be joining her sons, Oscar and Willie, in London.40 Specifically, she had recently arranged rooms for herself and Willie at 146 Oakley Street, very near Cheyne Walk, thereby doubling, nay trebling the appeal to me of No. 27 and leading me to lease it.
I had been somewhat out of touch with the Wildes of late, and was most eager to remedy that upon receipt of Lady Wilde’s announcement, implying, as it did, that there’d been no lasting rupture in her regard for me.41
And so it was that by 1881 I was resident in Chelsea with both an old friend returned to me, in Lady Wilde, and a new one about to be made, in you, Caine.42
Though Lady Jane and Willie would decamp to Grosvenor Square by year’s end, she revived her salon—her Saturday at-homes—whilst living on Oakley Street. This she did seeking only companions and like-minded converse, and those Londoners who cut her did so cruelly.43 Of course, others cut her these days, but for different reasons entirely, on which topics I shall say only this: Unlike her sons, Lady Wilde has ever been the very soul of discretion, a fact perhaps best illustrated by a story I alone can tell, a story that will bring you nearer the heart of Speranza than you have yet come, Caine, which is as I would have it; for, as I have earlier sworn that your friends, all, shall be mine, let the obverse be true, too: Take my friend for yours. And so:
It may be said that I was orphaned rather late in life. My parents took to the Continent in 1872, when I was twenty-six. With them went my two younger sisters. We five brothers stayed behind. Abraham, my father, had, over the course of fifty-odd years in the Civil Service, faithfully served four monarchs—the Georges III and IV, William IV, and Victoria—retiring with the gift of a gold pocket watch and a pension that fast proved insufficient. And though we had never been Castle society,44 we boys had had our educations seen to and were on our way, as it were, by the time my parents and sisters left Ireland, not as expatriates but rather as refugees needful of stretching a pension in Switzerland, where room and suitable board could be had for five francs/per day.
By this time I had left Trinity College, Dublin, and joined the Civil Service myself. My sanity in the face of that sameness put forth by the Service was preserved by going to the theatre five nights out of ten. Thusly did I come to crave Art, to need it as the end cap to a day of drudgery. And though I had heard rumours, it was not until I accepted the invitation of a classmate—Willie Wilde—and accompanied him home at Christmas, that I learned that though some wonderful people made art, even more wondrous were those who lived it.
The Wildes were then resident in a large, darkly opulent and deeply draped manse of Georgian origin at No. 1 Merrion Square. It was a corner house with balconies beyond number and a staff of six. It was, at once, both mere miles and a world away from the cold Clontarf home of my childhood.
No. 1 featured a lofty entrance hall with a wide central stair—a carpeted stair, mind: I had never seen such opulence before. And I had time enough to take it in that day, for Willie, who’d headed off I knew not where, had told me to wait there. Off the foyer was a room, a library whose walls showed shelves bowed by the burden of leather-bound books, hundreds, nay thousands of books. Its floor was covered in carpets that told of faraway countries, and everywhere, everywhere, there was bric-a-brac to boggle the mind. The mantels, too, seemed to sag beneath the weight of astrolabes, candlesticks, ceramics, shells, &c. There were the requisite clocks as well, though the lot of them were unwound and stared out stupidly from beneath their bells of glass. Tiny tables were laden and ever at the tipping point; one would brush by them to one’s woe—over they would go, and down would come, with a crash, this or that collection of this or that
collectible thing. Flowers, dried, dying, and fresh. Fossils. Waxed fruit. Such a surfeit of things! No flat surface was spared, not even the huge desk sitting center-all: books lay there in disarray amidst inkwells of horn and heartwood and even bone—Sir William Wilde set his preferred pen, which he rarely let rest, into the eye socket of a small and seemingly mammalian skull, its tip sunk in a pot of ink that had been placed where once there’d been a tongue—and there were sheaves of paper showing scribble all the way round, scribble which appeared, from where I stood, as disordered as ants at a picnic, but was, doubtless, the work of one of the Wildes’ overly fine minds.
Yes, if Willie had told me to wait in the foyer, there I would wait. And wait I did, cursing my friend all the while. Then suddenly there came from upstairs the clap of a closing door. This was followed hard by a brace of ladies’ maids fluttering downstairs as if to escape a spray of shot. They were nothing if not birds roused from the reeds by the report I’d heard. They attempted to bow to me as they descended, heads down, daring not to break stride. When the one nearly tumbled ass over teakettle, as we Irish are wont to say, the other fell to laughing. Exeunt giggling, as it were, save that these maids were pursued not by a bear but by Lady Jane Wilde.45
There she stood at the top of the stairs, staring down and seeming to teeter. Never before had I seen such a…a mass of womanhood.
“And you are…?” From her tone I knew that the true answer was also the wrong one, but still I said:-
“Abraham, ma’am, or rather just Bram. Bram Stoker.”
“I see,” said she. “Well, Mr. Just Bram Stoker, I suppose you are aware that you are not the Swedish Ambassador. In that, the maid who announced you was much mistaken.”
“I am aware of that, ma’am, yes…. I’ve come with Willie, who—”
Lady Wilde met the utterance of her elder son’s name with the snap of a silver fan. “Say no more,” said she, whereupon she began her slow descent. Slow not for show, mind, but because it took some care to set into motion all that she was. Into play came sundry laws of physics and Society both, and I saw why it was she was displeased to waste the effort of her entrance on me, the Ambassador of Naught.