by James Reese
Alas, domestic life has come to seem naught but a circle of anger and apology, a circle set to turning, day in and day out, by the silence of all that is left unsaid. It verily leeches the life-blood from me, and often, Caine, I have envied you both your Greeba, high on its hill, and your bachelor rooms in town—to which, as you have written, you hope soon to come. Glad I am to hear the news, too, as there is much between us that would be better said than read. Come at your earliest convenience, won’t you, please?
Meanwhile, tell me: How fare your Mary & Ralph? Are you happy at the head of your household now that your confession has come—I trust I may call it that, Caine, without offending—and all was set aright in Edinburgh? Can it be that those secret Scottish vows were spoken two years ago?4 Santo Cielo! as Speranza would say.
Apropos of Lady Wilde, I know she’d very much like to find you at one of her conversazioni. Might you be here Saturday week? If so, perhaps we three may proceed to Lady Wilde’s ensemble—I refer, of course, to your American friend, who has written me of his arrival and of rooms taken in Batty Street, and enclosed, too, an advert for his patented Pimple Banisher. I must say, Caine, my interest in the doctor is piqued. Quite unique, he seems. I hope he comes round to the Lyceum rather soon.
Later. I broke off from this letter before its close, Caine, and wisely so: I find now that a spot of tea has much improved my mood. And though my marriage bed has long been cold, I cannot let my heart assume a like chill as regards my wife. To do so would be caddish, unkind. So I shall do my best to keep our shared cage at No. 17 shining with gilt; and as for guilt of the other sort, arising from the lie, I shall somehow let go of it. Oh, but, Caine, a cage this house, this life does sometimes seem!
In closing I shall confide that I had hoped the much-insisted-upon move to this house from Cheyne Walk would renew things, would better them; but it seems that was rather too much to ask of four walls and a roof. This house holds what the other held, and if my wife was right in referring to our former home as haunted, she knew not that the haunt was her medal-hung husband and not the drowned man who died upon her dining table.5
Stoker
JOURNAL OF BRAM STOKER
16 May, Wed. [1888].—Theatre yesterday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. & 7 p.m. to 4 a.m.
Hired: Lydia—Lavinia? Lucia?—no, Lydia, Mrs. Lydia Quibbel; the widowed auntie of I Forget Who, sent round by same to see H.I. about employment.
“Stoker!” came the call, the same that chills every member of the Company.
I found the Guv’nor standing backstage, near the B. Street entrance.6
“Whatever is the matter, Henry?”
“Why, nothing, nothing at all.” Something was the matter, of course, and it took no great prescience to see that it had to do with the old woman standing at Henry’s side. “Stoker,” says he, “may I present Mrs….” But as he misremembered the name, the lady herself offered it:
“Quibbel, sir. Mrs. Lydia Quibbel. ’Ow d’y’do, sir?”
Henry resumed: “She is the mother—”
“The aunt, sir.”
“Yes, yes, the aunt of I.F.W. You know the man well, Stoker, do you not?” This last accompanied by the sly arching of a brow.
“I do. I do indeed,” said I, joining Henry in the lie. “A fine fellow, most fine.”
“Yes, yes. Now, Stoker, the nephew has sent Mrs…. Rather, this fine lady standing before us has come round to see if we mightn’t have some work for wages,” which words Mrs. Quibbel took as her cue to soliloquise upon her recent sorrows. It was some while later that Henry, having attained, imperceptibly, the Burleigh Street door, indeed having opened it to the street, interrupted the lady; so:
“Yes, yes, terribly sad, terribly. My sympathies are infinite, madam.” Whereupon his brow reshaped itself, betokening Thought. This could mean but one thing: I was soon to be assigned a task. And sure enough:-
“Stoker,” he asked, “haven’t we those many cats that want looking after?”
“We have, Henry, yes; but, as you’ll recall, the two women you had me hire last month are doing the looking-after at present.”
“Two tenders, you say?”
“Yes: two.”
Whereupon Henry, one booted foot having achieved the street beyond, said, “Well, there you have it, then. Let this good woman look after the two women looking after the cats. See to it, Stoker.” And the stage door slammed shut, leaving me in the dimness to shake the hand of the Lyceum Theatre’s new Tender of the Tenders of the Cats, whose salary, whose pounds & pence, I suppose I am to conjure, loaves-and-fishes like.
Later. 3 p.m.—Tired to-day. The B.C. did not disband till nearly 4 a.m. last eve.7
Tea just ordered up to the office. Shall write till it arrives in the hopes of staving off sleep–could curl up in the safe at my side and sleep my life away; but alas.
Caine’s American doctor came by yesterday. Quite the oddity, but I think he might prove amusing. Certainly, Henry enjoyed studying him last evening for tics and habits of character, &c. Indeed, Henry and Dr. Tumblety kept on chatting long after the last of the guests were gone. E.T., however, seemed to loathe the man on sight, very unlike her. (Mem.: We were eight at table: me, Henry, Ellen, our scenarists Harker & Hawes Craven, Dr. T., Sarah Bernhardt, and Damala. Menu: Lamb cutlets, mushrooms in butter, lentil pudding, claret, & of course Bernhardt’s beloved Champagne.)8
Both Sarah and Dr. Tumblety were expected in the course of the week; that they both arrived on Tuesday was most fortuitous. Or so it initially seemed.
I had just met w/ Harker at the Guv’nor’s direction. I was to reiterate to him—unnecessarily, of course, as Harker is proving himself first-rate as both artist and employee—Henry’s initial thoughts re: the backdrops of Macb. Too, I was to suggest to the Scot that he make himself available for the research trip Henry hopes to take to E’burgh. And so he will, happily. (Mem.: When? Who else?) As such business was quickly seen to, I was surprised to hear the office door creak back upon its hinges a short while later to disclose Harker, seeming rather more stunned than otherwise.
“Harker,” said I, looking up from my ledger. “What is it?”
“Down in the painting room”—thusly does he refer to the sub-stage space in which he and Craven work their magic—“…there is a man come to see you, sir.”
“A man, you say? Come to see me?” Harker does not yet know me well enough to have heard my cynicism.
“Yes, sir. A man.” And—it being plain he wished to speak on—I waited. Nothing.
“Harker,” said I, “you are new to our little family here, and most welcome indeed; but let it fall to me to inform you that, innumerable times in the course of the day, any given day, men, women and…what-not arrive on these premises needful of seeing me, or so they all say. Twice as many beings come seeking the Guv’nor, though of course it is I who must meet them as well…. So, my good man, fear not to inform me that a man has come to see me. But may I ask, Mr. Harker: Has this particular man a name?”
“I did not ask it, sir.”
“I see,” said I, for it is fun to tease the handsome Harker. When rattled, he rouges and his Scottish r’s roll like rocks in a rail-box. “You’d be further in my favour if you had asked his name;…but tell me: Where is this nameless man at present?”
“Where I left him, sir; or so I suppose.” And there stood the humble Harker, still wanting to say more; the which I elicited with:-
“Now, Mr. Harker, if you have—”
“Mr. Stoker, sir,” said he, his courage summoned, “you may see scores of folks at your door in a week’s worth o’ days but I doubt you see many the match of this chap.”
“Come now, sir,” said I. “Speak plainly”; whereupon Harker came further into the XO9 and with paint-stained fingers passed me the card he’d been asked to present, upon which was writ:
Dr. Francis Tumblety, &c.
“Ah, the American. He is not unexpected.” I stood, returned the ledger and notes on last night’s take to
the safe—along with this very book—and quit the office, hopeful of handing over to a friend of a friend but one half-hour of my day, as I’d little more than that to spare. And down I went into the theatre’s depths, accompanied by Harker.
En route I discovered exactly how it is Mr. Joseph Harker has come to us. “So then,” I said, “you hail from Edinburgh proper. You’ll be a right tour guide for us when we go.”
“I do, sir,” said Harker. “And I will, sir.”
“You must call me Stoker, Harker. And you must not call me Uncle Brammy behind my back, as the others do. Understood?” In fact, the nickname does not bother me in the least: I simply find it fun to have at young Mr. Harker.
“Yes, sir,” said he. “Stoker it shall be, sir.”
“Ah, yes, well,” said I with a sigh, “that’s a start, I suppose.”
Harker’s story surprised me not at all. It seems that long ago his father—Harker the elder—then somehow affiliated with Edinburgh’s Royal Theatre, extended a kindness of some sort to a young Henry Irving. Henry had despatched the debt with the late hiring of Harker the younger, who is, blessedly, talented. His case is quite unlike that of Mrs. Quibbel; who, I fear—even if she proves suited to serve as an extra, puffing out a party scene in Much Ado or coming on as a commoner at the start of J.C.—shall sup on the Lyceum teat till the end of her days.10
…Tea has come, and gone. Naught refreshes like a sandwich made of early cucumbers. I resume:
I found the scene shop uncommonly quiet. Typically, there are children at play amidst the scattered, half-achieved bits of stagecraft.11 Yesterday there were no children. In a corner, two carpenters finished repairs to the beams of Portia’s Belmont, which bore the brunt of the sea’s having heaved the Germanic so. This gladdened me: the Guv’nor is unbearable when made to “make do” with scenery &/or props that are in any way imperfect; and so I was eager to inform him that the newly perfected beams of the castle would be upright, onstage, that very evening, as indeed they were; but first:-
“Wherever is he?” I asked this of Harker; for, though the workshop was reasonably well lit, I saw no stranger within it.
“There, sir,” said Harker. In his tone I heard regret, regret that he’d not pronounced further upon the stranger in the course of our coming downstairs. But now he’d no need to: Following Harker’s finger toward a far corner of the room, I saw step from the shadows a most remarkable man.
“Thank you, Mr. Harker,” said I, words at which the scenarist happily took his leave of me, of the shop…of the American.
Surely, Tumblety ought to have crossed the room toward me. Propriety dictated he do so. I, of course, would have played my part, so that we, meeting for the first time, would do so in a spirit of…neutrality, as it were. But there the man stood. Worse: Though merely standing, he seemed somehow to preen. Harker rose higher in my estimation: He’d been right: I’d rarely seen the like of this Dr. Tumblety.
Sensing keenly my duty to Caine, I crossed the room to meet the man where he stood; but my progress was arrested when there came from behind him a snarling, bone-toned, knee-high hound. A miniature, or Italian, greyhound. Beribboned in black at the neck. I was as thankful that I’d worn my horn-hard boots—I’d have punted the pet to Timbuktu—as I was to hear its master call the hound back, with apologies. Said Tumblety, then:-
“Your Mr. Harker seems a well-made man”—how very odd an opening gambit—“and quite capable as a craftsman. Is that so, Mr. Stoker?”
“It is, sir; though it might well be argued that he is more artist than craftsman.”
“I meant no offence,” said Dr. Tumblety.
“Then—on Mr. Harker’s behalf—I take none.” Whereupon, whilst holding still to Dr. T.’s proffered hand—too warm, too moist, too recently come from its glove—I asked, “Are you a connoisseur of stage-craft, sir?” This, though, was not my foremost question. It was a far greater wonderment that the American—and with a dog, no less!—had made his way down to Harker’s den unannounced.
Said Tumblety in American tones, now inflected, now flat, “A connoisseur? I am afraid not, Mr. Stoker. I do, however, very much admire such dissemblers as yourself, able to…to suborn reality with your talents.”
“Ah, there I fear you misspeak, sir: I am not to be included in talk of the talented.”
“Not at all,” said Dr. T., dismissively. “Our Thomas tells me otherwise. He has long spoken highly of you.”
Thomas? Surely he meant to refer to Caine; but if so, he used the more formal name our friend has long disdained. Thusly was I led to ask:
“How long have you known…our Thomas?”
By now our rapprochement had been effected: I’d gone the greater distance, hand outstretched, but Tumblety had come a step or two from the shadows to take my hand in his; and in the course of his doing so, I’d heard the clack and spin of…spurs, large spurs which now I saw were affixed to the heels of his boots. I’ve never seen the like, leastways not in London. Then again, of Dr. Tumblety, in his entirety, I’ve never seen the like anywhere.
Before me stood a man of middling height, perhaps a head shorter than myself, who seemed my senior by ten years or so.12 He was well complected, healthful, hale—handsome, even. His eyes of jet were deep-set beneath black brows. His moustache was of the blacking-brush sort, full and perhaps overly tended, tapering to its well-waxed ends. Such a moustache would seem rather excessive were it not for the rest of Dr. T.’s…excess. Indeed, Tumblety looked as though he’d already had the run of our costume shop, save that the Lyceum stores cannot lay claim to such an ensemble as he wore yesterday, and which made him seem equal parts sportsman, soldier, and harlequin.
His suit was sewn of a woolly plaid in which puce and sundry greens vied for supremacy, though the combating colors seemed now to be signatories to a most tenuous truce, each making the best of a worsted situation.13 This suit the doctor had seen fit to top with a hat both peaked and plumed and somewhat militaristic, though I’d have been hard put to guess what regiment it might have represented. The hat was balanced—if “balance” be the word—by boots of shining black leather that rose nearly to the knee. To these were attached the aforementioned spurs which had scraped the shop floor when finally Tumblety had moved to meet me.
His handshake was unpleasant, rather off-putting. These were not the hands of a man accustomed to main labor, clearly. Gloves, it would seem, yes, have long been the doctor’s custom; but these he’d removed to show long fingers the nails of which bore—like his boots—too high a sheen. When it seemed the doctor had held to my hand quite long enough, I withdrew it. At this, something flashed up from deep in his dark eyes: now he held my gaze as surely as he’d held my hand. For a moment it seemed he had hold of my will as well. (Q.: Might the doctor dabble in mesmerism? Must ask this of Caine.)
Wondering, whoever is this Tumblety? I began to question the man, but only as a new acquaintance would. “Have you been in London long, sir?” I realised the gaffe at once: Hadn’t the man already written me of his recent arrival?
“Days, merely,” said he. “I am brought here on business.”
“I see,” said I. Caine mentioned only that the doctor dealt in patent medicines, Tumblety’s Pimple Banisher being his prime decoction. Cuff links of hammered gold and inset stones bespoke success in the endeavour. On we spoke, our topics quite typical, till finally I, yet discomfited by the doctor’s dark gaze, asked if he cared to tour the theatre. He did care; and very much so, it seemed.
We set off; but time and again, as his hounds—two, there were: a second had come from the shadows, and Tumblety had allied the two dogs by a common lead such that they strode side by side—as his hounds and their master followed me through the labyrinth of the Lyceum, from the scene shop to and through its below-, back-, and forestage areas, I had the feeling they’d all three been in the theatre’s bowels before. I can offer no proof of this, and indeed the doctor said, twice, perhaps three times, that he had not explored the theatre a
t all before happening upon Harker at his work.14
Unhappily, our party happened upon Henry backstage. I made the mistake of mentioning our mutual friend, Caine, whereupon H.I. invited Dr. T. not only to last night’s Merchant—a common enough courtesy—but also to the supper in Bernhardt’s honour which was to follow. I’d rather he hadn’t, as I had now to phone Gunter’s to alter arrangements. Too, I found myself more and more disinclined towards Tumblety’s company. Odd, but there it is, writ. Still, I smiled through the Guv’nor’s invitation, and even smiled through its ending with the inevitable, “Stoker will see to it.”
(Mem.: Prompter has just come to inform me that last eve. the second-act curtain came down at 8.42, two minutes off pace. Odd of Henry not to have noticed. Must speed our strutting Bassanio from Act I, Scene I: “In Belmont is a lady richly left,” &c. See to it.)
Tumblety sat last night in the Guv’nor’s box, his hounds quite literally at heel, and was all compliments after the performance. At supper I sat him btw. E.T. and Damala, and for this Ellen shan’t soon forgive me. She, so typically at ease, was tense and teased her napkin all night long. At first I thought this might be owing to the presence of Miss Bernhardt; but no, it was Tumblety. Miss B. seemed to disdain him as well, sending few words his way. Tumblety seemed neither to notice nor mind. For my part, I sat marvelling at the dead-seeming Damala. Poor man. Opium, is it? Or has he simply faded from the Divine Sarah’s leeching away all his light? Regardless, his paleness, nay his opacity, is much to be remarked upon, and as now I have remarked upon it, why not close?
Will cable or write Caine—must; but first will see, must see, to this Bassanio business before H.I. hears of it.
LETTER, BRAM STOKER TO HALL CAINE15
Thursday, 17 May 1888
Caine, my recondite friend,
This to acknowledge your recent short note—too short, unless my cable asking What of this Tumblety? has been misdelivered.