by James Reese
“That, I fear, may be some while from now…. But alas, Mr. Stoker, out with it now: Speak!”
“Yes, yes,” said I, breathing deeply. “What…what do you know of possession?”
Speranza paused not a moment before saying, “I am Irish. I know only of dis possession.”
“Speranza, please. This is quite serious, and difficult for me.”
“Well, then, Mr. Stoker, though it be difficult for me, I shall stow my bons mots.” She reached for a scrap of paper and withdrew her pen from its pot. “Do, though, let me write that last one down.” This she did, adding, “As-car will thank me for it.”
She sat up straight now. She laced her long fingers and settled her hands in her lap. She stared at me, her eyes wide. She was, in a word, serious. I might have cried then, for I feared losing a friend. What if Speranza deemed me insane? Oh, but blessed lady, blessed friend, she did not. Instead:-
“‘Possession,’ you say? Of the Popish sort?”
“More or less. Spirit possession, we may say. Demonic possession.”
“My word…. I see by your furrowed brow and bagged eyes that this is no idle enquiry, no research for a fiction.”
“No. There’s the British Library for that. What I need is wisdom, and so I came in search of a Wilde.”
“Well done, Mr. Stoker. Well done…. Now, I suppose there are particulars?”
“Oh, yes,” said I, “many.”
A half-hour passed, in the course of which I told Speranza all & everything. I left out Constance’s involvement in same, of course: a family matter, that. When I finished with talk of Tumblety’s charred and heartless canines, Speranza, who’d sat up in the course of my confession, fell back amidst her pillows, muttering, “I liked that man not at all, not at all.” And for a long while, she said nothing more, her eyes alternately wandering, finding no focus—I wondered if she heard voices, or leastways sought them—and then boring into my own as if to search for madness there. Evidently she found none; for she proceeded to pronounce:-
“Firstly, we speak of this to no-one, not yet. Stoker, Caine, and Speranza: We three shall keep our own counsel.”
“Agreed,” said I; for silence suits me fine at present.
“Secondly, return to me to-morrow at three. I’ve a friend in Rome sitting deeply in my debt. I shall wire him to-night and have him hasten his reply.”
“A priest?”
“Formerly, yes, and possessed of a fine mind. I shall tell him it is a question of my research, and he will advise accordingly, send useful books, et cetera…. To-morrow by three, I shall know more. And I shall summon my Irish poet as well.”
“Yeats?…To have from him substantiation of my claims?”
“Yes,” said Speranza, “as I’m sure you’d have me do. The boy-man bears all the signs of genius, but I shall test him, test the tethers tying him to a world larger than this. Let him prove himself, finally: magus or fraud.”
She was right: Yeats’s testimony—if she could cull it from his clap-trap—would be of benefit to both Speranza and myself, and maybe Constance, too.
“And we ought to learn more of this Order,” said Speranza. “When I put forth your name for membership, Bram, I’d no idea they dabbled so deeply in the spirit realm. I apologise if…” And I’d never before heard Lady Wilde leave a sentence unsaid to its end; but perhaps she was simply distracted, scrawling out a few lines to both Yeats and her Roman. These I would wire to poet and priest myself when later I wended my slow way home, listening in the streets for Sto-ker, Sto-ker.
As I stood to take my leave of Speranza, she surprised me by asking why it was I sought such answers. What was it I meant to do with—or rather to—this American? Save him? Exorcise him? “I should think,” said she, summarily, “that you and Mr. Caine would be happy enough to never see him again. Mr. Caine, especially so.”
“We would indeed,” said I; “but that, I’m afraid, is unlikely to eventuate.” What was it we meant to do? I thought a long moment before saying I had no idea, no idea at all—I hadn’t, and still don’t!—before adding that whatever we did, we’d have to do it alone: no authorities. Caine stands to lose too much.
I thanked Speranza. If earlier I’d feared what she would say, now I wondered how I’d ever doubted the woman.
“You are welcome,” said she, beckoning me nearer, lower. I bent, and she enveloped my face in her hands. She bussed my cheek. And, holding to my beard as a baby might, tugging at it, hard, she smiled as she said, “Bienvenue to the invisible world, Bram, that spins in the shadow of ours…. Sir William believed in you. He swore you’d see the shadows one day.”
And as I descended towards her front door, blinking back tears, already Speranza was calling down behind me for her Betty, calling for certain of her books to be brought to her in bed, “pronto!”
LETTER, BRAM STOKER TO HALL CAINE
Saturday, 16 June ’88
Dearest Caine,
Events of the week want recounting, surely, but I have had to wait till now, for which I apologise. It is, however, as well that I waited; for I have more, much more to report at present—2.35 a.m.—as I have just returned home from a long walk with Henry through your haunts of old, Whitechapel & its surrounds. And I use the word “haunts” advisedly; for there, to-night, I saw…No. I’ll get to that, to him him him, in due course.
For now let me simply say where things stand, or seem to. Real things. For I fear that imagination runs riot with me now. Oh, forgive me, friend. I am not well at present, and if ever I was adept at the narrative art…alas; but art plays no part in such news as I have to impart.
First, as regards Lady Wilde:
Blessedly, I am believed. Broad is her mind, broader still her spirit. Moreover: She has had confirmation from an Irish poet who was present at the Setian event. Rather, as she wrote in her note:
“My Poet declines to come to me at present; and so I wrote him again, chidingly. I have here his reply, which is tripartite. Says he, 1. Something passed, yes; 2. He knows not what, precisely; and, 3. He asks that I never speak to him on the subject again. Rather more forthcoming was the Roman. Come round at once for more. Speranza.” Of course I went at once.
The referenced Roman is a priestly friend of Lady Wilde’s. She has had word from him re: possession; of which more anon, but first…Oh, Caine, I am fractured! Let these pages reflect the disorder of late days.
Forgive me, friend, for failing to wire you re: the horrid incident that attended me upon my return. I waited to do so in the hope of having more facts; but still facts are few, and these are they:
Someone—doubtless it was he—roasted his two hounds on the suspended grill of the Beefsteak Club, having first removed from them their hearts. Horrid, indeed! Worse: Henry has brought down upon us the watchful eye of an Inspector from the Yard, one F. G. Abberline, whose watch was once Wh’chapel &c. If you know anything of the man, wire it at once. Fear not, Caine: I have kept your name from Abberline, if not Speranza. Again, fear not: She is a woman well versed in the ways of the world and spares her scorn for simpletons. Artistes are to her antinomian; and as no laws apply to them, none may be broken.
Oh, how I wish you were here, Caine! I fear that these out-moded means of communication may prove inadequate as the days draw on. Install a telephone machine, won’t you, please? And set a packed bag by your door, for it is likely you shall soon be summoned to London—let us hope it is by me and not Inspector Abberline!—and doubtless the notice will be short. And when you are summoned, Caine, come! You must. Lady Wilde and I shall want you here to complete our trinity. For he will show again. Indeed, he already has, this very night.
Oh, but first, as regards the Roman:
He posed to Speranza this question: Did she enquire as to perfect or imperfect possession? I shall assume your ignorance re: the difference—as the Roman assumed Speranza’s, and she mine—and explain, so:
In instances of imperfect possession, the possessed fall prey to…to the invader
, let me say, yet still they remain themselves. The possessed body is shared, and so it is that struggle ensues and an exorcist may intervene, shifting the balance towards the possessed. In perfect possession—much the rarer, says the Roman—the possessed surrenders himself. He is willing, as it were. He is complicit. (And if ever a man courted the chthonic, the Infernal, surely Francis Tumblety is he!) And as the perfectly possessed surrenders his will, no struggle ensues, and without the struggle, exorcism is inefficacious—that is, NOTHING CAN BE DONE.4
If this be the case with Tumblety, he is become the truest of evils.
Caine, Caine, Caine, whatever shall we do? Something, surely; for we cannot hope to have heard the last of the man, nor of the demon within him. But alas, man and demon are one if he be perfectly possessed! So it is this we must ascertain. Conceive of it, Caine, if you can: We must find the fiend and determine whether he be imperfectly or perfectly possessed. If the former, the Church may hold out some exorcising hope—ritual may yet undo what ritual hath wrought. If the latter, and if Tumblety be perfectly possessed, then Evil is amongst us and…
And the Roman writes that murder is the sole means of dealing with such a man. Destroy the man and the demon must, perforce, depart.
Murder, yes! But before you think me mad, Caine, let me say again that Tumblety has already come! Or was it I who went to him, drawn to do so? Regardless, I know now his haunt.
Prefatory to the tale, I must perforce report that Henry and I have had a rapprochement of sorts, owing in large part to the horror of the hounds. He cannot deny that this, coupled with Tumblety’s disappearance, casts the American in a new and decidedly less favourable light. Slowly he accedes to the common opinion of the man whilst yet refusing to admit he may have misjudged him. For my part, I have said only that it is hoped—by me, by you, by all but Inspector Abberline—that we have seen the last of Dr. Tumblety. To further assuage Henry and also to keep Abberline from darkening the Lyceum door, I have had to fire an innocent woman: Mrs. Lydia Quibbel, by name; but as the particulars bear upon this Record not at all, I spare you that tale of tears and say again that yes, Henry and I have had a rapprochement of sorts, and so it was that after to-night’s performance I joined him in his walk, as often I used to. Bedeviled by our cocky Bassanio, Henry’s ire was up; and so the walk would be both brisk and long, as indeed it was:
We went all the way to Whitechapel.
Henry is often keen to be seen by other slummers—once, whilst in his company, we happened upon the Prince of Wales—but not so this night; for still he seethed. And having left the Lyceum in haste, still he wore Shylock’s black cloak, the same which shows Antonio’s spittle so well.5 As he’d hardly un-made his face, his pallour drew such stares that I suggested he pull the cape’s collar high. This he did, but of course the cape and collar were of no avail when, at Henry’s insistence, we went into The Ten Bells for a tin, repairing to his preferred table in the corner to watch, or rather “to study the lesser of our species at their work.” Happily, Henry was not recognised.
As now the clock rounds onto 3.00 a.m., it was perhaps two hours ago—mere minutes it seems!—when we re-took to the streets. It was Henry’s wish to walk some more through the warren of Whitechapel. I, however, yet entertained some hope of sleep. I told Henry this, but he would not hear me. In such moods as he was in to-night, he wants company at all costs: it might be me, or it might be Jack the Monkey who so amuses the masses now at the Regent’s Park Zoo.
Compromising—rare enough an act with Henry Irving—we agreed to take a final pint at the nearest public house, whereupon we’d part, I to head home, Henry to do what he willed.
Soon we’d alighted at The Red Lion on Batty Street, east of Berner Street and just off the Commercial Road. Here Henry was recognised, and so his mood improved. We might have drunk all night had the both of us been so inclined. Instead only he was; I nursed my ale whilst I stared out the window, whilst I listened, and listened, and listened some more to Lyceum business. Then I saw Tumblety.
In fact, it was Henry who saw him first. “Stoker,” said he under his breath, “do I know that man?”
“What man? Where?”
“Right there. Staring in from the street.”
Tumblety had nearly pressed himself against the plate glass, but with the lamplight behind him being…; or perhaps it was the shadows that…; alas, I did not see him at first. But there he was. Staring. Staring, indeed. Now my blood ran cold. Here was Tumblety, returned; but worse: Henry did not know him!
“Why, Henry,” said I, “that is he! That is—”
“Who, Stoker? Do I know the man? Does he…matter? Ought we to wave him in?”
…that I may go invisible, so that every spirit created, and every soul of man and beast, and everything of sight and sense, and every spell and scourge of God, may see me not nor understand. Extraordinary, this.
“No!” said I. “You…you do not know him. No need to wave him in, Henry, no need at all.” Still Tumblety stood staring, staring at me though it was Henry who said, into a hand cupped to receive a false cough:-
“See how he stares at me, Stoker. I like it not a bit.”
“Nor I,” was all I said in response. Oh, but how could Henry see yet not see Tumblety? Had the Invisibility Ritual conferred upon him…powers of confusion, if not invisibility proper? Henry saw him not nor understood. Yet I saw him. I understood. And I heard him as well:-
Sto-ker, Sto-ker, came his call.
If Henry spoke, I heard him not, for my every sense was tuned to Tumblety, standing there, behind the waved glass. His body beneath its concealing cloak seemed somehow to writhe, to gyrate, such that he appeared humpbacked. Simply, his body seemed not wholly his own. I wonder, Caine: Would you have known him? Or did the ritual confer some means of sight upon me and me alone as I knelt beside him, as Set ascended? It is a question, Caine, that I fear you will have occasion to answer, for it would seem our choice is to be this: haunt or be haunted, hunt or be hunted.
As I stared, as we—Tumblety and I—stared at each other, he incanted my name, Sto-ker, Sto-ker, though his lips were immobile till finally his face broke into a smile the likes of which…Alas, though I wanted desperately to look away, I could not, and so it was I saw the proof of his possession:
The skin of his face went taut as drum skin. Gone were wrinkles and all signs of wear, of age. And as he smiled wider, the skin of his left cheek split from the moustache up, just as it had in the Temple, and the same black, treacly substance seeped forth. The sudden back-rolling of his eyes to their whites seemed to be for show, for they rolled back fast to show the eye-fire. Sto-ker. Sto-ker. Amidst this strangeness, I heard Henry ask, “Why doesn’t he move on, then, Stoker? Are you sure I do not know the man, that I am not slighting someone of import?”
I could not answer. I wanted to answer, for to dissemble seemed the wisest course; but my voice was stopped in my throat. I could do nothing save sit and stare. And Henry was witness to none of it! Neither the hellish show happening on Batty Street nor the further proof of strangeness that came when I found upon the back of my hand a scorpion, two inches long and white as light. As I flinched from it, as I sought to flick it away, Henry chided me. “Whatever is the matter, man? You’re behaving as odd as our fellow out there on the street.” Now here was a second scorpion clinging to my palm till I succeeded in shaking it off. Things worsened as I went down onto a knee to search the filthy floor for the scorpions. They were, of course, nowhere to be seen. And neither was Tumblety still in the street when finally Henry pulled me to my feet, asking, “What the devil’s gotten into you, Stoker?” What the devil indeed.
“Where…? Where…?”
“The man has moved on, and finally. It takes all types to make a world, Stoker, does it not?…Have another? I rather think you should.” Already Henry was motioning towards the barman: two fingers raised in a circling gesture.
“Whisky,” I whispered. “Whisky, please.” And as Henry moved off to see
to our drinks, well…something there was that drew me to the door of The Red Lion and out onto Batty Street. Once out in the street, I saw no sign of Tumblety, and neither could I hear his intoning my name; but he’d been there! The air was redolent of violets. And on the sidewalk where he’d stood, there was blood. I bent and took it onto my fingertip. Blood, yes, and fresh. Was it his, or had he held a bleeding thing beneath his cloak?
Henry came out to where I stood and asked if I were well. I said I was. “Come now,” said he, taking my elbow. “A whisky will do you good.”
To this I assented, but as Henry led me back into The Red Lion, I saw something shimmering in the street, taking the lamplight just so. Stretched to a foot in length, furred—I knew on the instant what it was. I sent Henry into the pub, saying that perhaps I was not well after all and implying—hands fast to belly, back hunched—that I might in fact need to spill the contents of my stomach into the street.
Henry half watched with worry through the window, trying to afford me the privacy such sickness begs of a friend. Of course, I was not sick in the street, but rather I bent to the thing seen, spread wide the wings of my coat to conceal what I was doing when I drew my kerchief from my pocket and…and prodded the newly cut cat onto its stomach to see that yes, it had lately been slit and eviscerated. I’d no need to prod further to know it lay there absent its heart.
Stok-er, Sto-ker. The call came again, this time dissolving into laughter.
Back in The Red Lion, I downed the waiting whisky and ordered another. I bade adieu to Henry as best I could, hired the first passing hansom, and offered its driver double to deliver me home at speed. Now here I sit, about to sign this letter to you, Caine. In it I have detailed the strangeness of recent days, of recent hours. I shall now fold it, slip it into its envelope, seal and send it to you, retaining sense enough to say, SAVE THIS; for I am ever more certain that we write a Record that ought to be retained, let to stand as our testament—last or not—to the Evil we witness.