‘Might I read to you a while?’ he asks. ‘If you could tolerate my Italian?’
‘That is kind of you, Bram. Maybe in a bit.’
‘I spoke gruffly earlier, Flo. I am sorry. Don’t be angry with me, will you?’
‘Not angry. A little afraid.’
‘Of what?’
‘Where do you go, Bram? When you remain out all night?’
‘I have told you, there are often important people to entertain at the theatre. It seems to go on and on like the Hundred Years ruddy War. Someone has to do it.’
‘Like the Hundred Years War.’
‘And then I – write for a while. In the attics. I have made a sort of workplace. It soothes me. And then, my head is so full that I need to walk.’
‘Might one ask where?’
‘About the city.’
‘But what is there to be gained from walking Oxford Street or Haymarket in the black-dark dead of night?’
‘That is what one gains – the stillness.’
‘You never feel in danger?’
‘Perhaps feeling a little in danger for once in one’s life is part of the experience.’
‘I am not up to riddles at the moment, Bram. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll to bed.’
She rises, goes to the bookshelves, runs a finger along the spines.
‘Flo,’ he says. ‘What is the matter? You sound as though you are not asking the question you wish to ask.’
‘Do you wish me to ask it?’
‘Do you?’
She gazes at the fire as though seeing it for the first time. Stop this now, say the flames. Leave the room. Dim the lights.
‘I have heard it whispered,’ she says, ‘that Irving and his wife have not lived together in some years.’
‘So I am told.’
‘Why is that?’
‘How should I know?’
‘The subject has never been mentioned between you?’
‘I haven’t regarded it as my business or had the effrontery to ask.’
‘You know what they are saying of Oscar Wilde?’
‘Flo, for pity’s sake.’
‘That he goes about with boys. That he flaunts what he is.’
‘A flamboyant man attracts rumours. People are lazy.’
‘He has been attracting them a long time. It must be very cruel for Constance and the children.’
‘I fail to see—’
‘Don’t humiliate me, Bram. That is all I ask.’
‘I am not that sort of man. As you surely must know.’
‘What I know is that there is a hidden part of you. That is where you live. I used to hope you might admit me, that we might live there together one day, we two and Nolly. But I have realised that we never shall.’
‘This melodramatic way you’re going on, it doesn’t become you, Flo. I am not a secretive person, no more than anyone else. If I have occasional need for an hour or two of solitude, that is hardly a criminal matter. Anyone listening to you would swear we didn’t live in the same house.’
‘We do not live in the same house, Bram, we make believe we do. For whose benefit or amusement I am not at all sure any more. We do not live in the same country most of the time. You emigrated years ago. To the Lyceum.’
A sob draws them towards the doorway. Their son is there, watching.
‘You promised you wouldn’t beastly quarrel again,’ he weeps.
‘We’re not, pet,’ says his mother. ‘Just playacting.’
— XVI —
In which a curious household is described and a star alights on the Lyceum
One night the following week, the post-show notes called by Miss Terry run late. Disagreement arises about schedules for fittings, figures that won’t tally, dates for a projected tour of Germany. By the time things are thrashed out, it is gone two in the morning. Irving suggests the three of them adjourn for a nightcap.
His private Sitting Room upstairs, a part of the old Costume Store, has been renovated, walls papered, good lamps brought in, thick carpets laid, seascapes and hunting prints hung.
Three respectable old sofas someone found in the cellars have been rescued and placed in U formation at the fireplace, broken legs propped up by small stacks of books. The wooden ceiling is low, as that of a ship’s cabin. The view from the little windows is of rooftops and stars. ‘A comfortable bachelor kip,’ Irving says, beckoning them in. ‘Nothing fancy. Now, a brandy I think.’
From the doorway, the fly-drops above the stage can be seen, eerie as a dinosaur’s skeleton. From the river the lonesome hooting of tugboats. He pulls a couple of rugs from an ancient-looking sideboard – black, Elizabethan, heavily carved – and, kneeling, stokes up the hearth. The stillness, the warmth of the fire, the heavy goblet of single malt, the low-ceilinged comfort, the exhaustion. All three fall into sleep, each sofa cradling its occupant, and the moon looks down on London’s lonely.
In coming times, long years and decades later, the oddness of what happened over those months will occur to them. Her children were in the countryside with their fathers; she did not like to be alone at night; it was understood that there was a man – several men, perhaps – to whose assistance she did not wish to resort.
Irving had experienced some difficulty in the wake of an incident at his lodgings – he was then living at the Albany, an apartment-building for gentlemen – and, while he had not been asked formally to leave, it had been made clear, in that English way that is so fluent with silences, that now might be the time.
For his own part, Stoker was in one of those snowdrifts that can be encountered at the crossroads of a life, the milestones obscured, kicked down. The fact that the obscuring has been done by the traveller himself is not much consolation. His wife was teaching dockers’ children in the slums of Liverpool, their son away at school in Winchester. The empty rooms of the house seemed haunted by loss, a settled sadness. Simply put, there was no one to go home for.
Winter came. He began to write poems. Graceless, clunking efforts but perhaps there was something in poetry that could help him resolve a conflict many people who married hurriedly have met, a rainstorm the vows don’t predict. Readers of a literary journal, Lippincott’s Monthly, in April 1888 were offered a curious rondeau, a fifteen-line verse, signed ‘Abraham Stokely’.
Eyes that laugh in leaps of light,
Lilting music, gay and bright
Like sunrise on a lonesome lake.
Ever changing. Ever free.
Never can I be with thee.
East to west, my changeling goes
Like moonlight on an English rose
Late at night in a London lane.
Evermore, my heart is slain.
Never can I be with thee
Even as I dream to be.
Lovers walk, lost hour by hour
Like actors in a lime-lit bower.
Evermore, I am not free.
Never could I be with thee.
Few of those readers would have noticed the maladroit poem’s secret: the name revealed when one read the first letter of each line downwards.
It became the trio’s habit to retire to Irving’s quarters every night. A dressing screen was fetched. They brought books, changes of clothing. The matter was never discussed, and anyway was understood to be temporary.
There they would go, up the steep, backstage stairs. He would open a bottle of claret, another of brandy, have breads and potted meats, a cheese, jugs of water. The fire would be lit, the gramophone wound. One might read to the other two, or tell a ghost story. After they had supped and played cards or sat in companionable silence, dazed by the blaze that can burn long in the wake of a show, sleep would come into that room.
In all his life, Stoker had never known such merciful sleep: deep, annihilating, peaceful. If dreams came, which happened rarely, they were of that sort in which women quietly sing. To stir and hear the comforting sputter of the logs, the rain. The pleasing heaviness of hefty old blankets.
In th
e mornings, they would breakfast together and walk to the Jermyn Street baths, returning to the theatre for noon, the commencement of rehearsals. It was a season of driven work, of inhabited silences. No one thought it would be the start of the end.
The conversation arose one morning in a café near the theatre.
‘It can be done,’ Stoker insisted. ‘All it takes is the will.’
Irving scoffed into his toasted muffin, wiped the butter from his lips. ‘Electricity? On the stage? You are living in a dreamworld.’
‘Isn’t that what we are paid to do?’ Miss Terry said.
‘Darling mine, there is electricity at the Lyceum already,’ said the Chief. ‘Its name is Henry Irving.’
‘Sweet Christ, the third person. Such self-effacing modesty.’
‘Modesty is for virgins, dear. You should give it a try.’
‘Shaw admires my modesty and says he wishes a place in my heart.’
‘What he wishes is a place in another part of you, dearie.’
Stoker pressed. ‘I have made a thorough study of the matter and I know how it is done. If we do not patent this effect, someone else will use it, mark my words.’
‘Let the vulgar do as they please. We are not cheapskates for the gaping.’
‘I have been told by a reliable informant that Shaw is interested,’ Miss Terry said slyly. ‘It would be agreeable to beat him to the pass. Petty of me, I know.’
The arrow struck its target.
‘How does it work, then?’ Irving asked. ‘If you’re so high and mighty about it.’
‘It is a system of batteries and of metal plates held in the hand. If you study this sketch I have made’ – Stoker slid it across the table – ‘you will see what I mean.’
‘Ballocks to your bloody sketches, come to the theatre and show me.’
Back at the Lyceum, Harker was seated in the wings, chalking sketches on the wall before her desk. The bricks seemed alive with butterflies, dragons, unicorns. She glanced up when she heard the trio approach.
‘Morning, Harks,’ Stoker said. ‘We might run that little experiment if you’ve a moment? The Chief here is ready to see the fruits of our scholarship.’
Harker nodded, reached into a drawer and removed two saucer-shaped plates of polished steel, handing one to each of the men on the stage. Consulting her textbook a moment, she stared up at the flies, as though making some last-minute calculation.
‘Get on with it, Harks,’ snapped Irving. ‘If you’re wasting my time, I’ll run you through.’
‘Chief,’ she said, ‘if you’d kindly pick up that sword over there. Mr Stoker, sir, perhaps you’d be so good as to fetch the other. This little plate thingamum you hold in your left fist. Like so?’
Doing as commanded, each took his position, raised his sword.
‘On guard, gentlemen,’ Harker called. ‘I am switching up the battery.’
‘Are we certain this is safe?’
‘Have at it.’
Stoker stepped forward, left hand on hip, épée held out before him. He had fenced for Trinity College, knew the classical positions, but was not entirely prepared for what was about to occur. Irving, less assured despite his thousands of performances with a stage-sword, was moving with the particular swagger of false confidence.
‘Get over here, you ruddy Fenian,’ he growled with a grin. ‘I’ll stick some English sense up your transom.’
As their swords touched, the fountain of sparks shot so high in the air that a workman up in the flies roared in fright. The zizz of clashing blades, the gush of silver and bronze stars made Irving fall to his knees. Miss Terry was clapping in delight. Harker cheered and hugged her.
‘Again,’ Stoker said. ‘Cross my sword.’
By now some of the players had come from the darkness of the wings and were gaping in awestruck wordlessness.
Irving rose slowly, wiping his eyes with the hem of his shirt.
‘Lead on, Macduff,’ he said.
The hilts clashed and parried, a geyser of crackling scarlet hailstones, spurts of cordite-scorched lightning tore the air.
‘Fight, Chief!’ yelled Harker. ‘Run him, Auntie,’ shouted the actresses. ‘The winner gets my colours,’ called Miss Terry with a laugh, but the joke seemed to stoke up the contest. Irving swung and blocked, sparks dancing from his blade, Stoker bobbed and ducked, now jabbing, now flailing, his back to the proscenium’s right pillar as though attempting to push it down, now fighting his way out, sweating, grunting, through the hissing great wreaths of copper-coloured smoke, the stench of iron filings in flame.
Within a week, they had begun using the effect in performance, in Hamlet first, then in Romeo and Juliet. The newspapers erupted in praise.
EXTRARDINARY SPECTACLE AT THE LYCEUM
‘HOW IS IT DONE?’
IRVING TRIUMPHS AGAIN
Queues for tickets started forming earlier, sometimes from dawn; teams of scalpers roamed Exeter Street and the arcades of Covent Garden, buying and selling passes. It was whispered that the queen herself wished to come and see the Lyceum’s miracle. She didn’t, but Irving was skilled in the art of making a denial seem a confirmation, and he winkingly sang up her non-attendance in every interview he gave. ‘No no, Her Majesty will absolutely not be coming. If she were, I could hardly tell you.’
He gave Stoker an instruction to have printed on the tickets that the ‘extraordinary electrical fighting’ was so violent and terrifying that ‘expectant ladies, the elderly, or those of nervous disposition’ should not attend. ‘Trained nurses are on the premises,’ announced special notices in the foyer. ‘Should you feel you are about to faint, call an usher.’ Seven thousand pounds’ worth of tickets was sold in one month. The quickest way to frighten people was to tell them they’d be frightened. The desire of an audience to obey.
One Saturday night in February, when the second house was stuffed to the rafters, Stoker got pleasantly drunk watching the show from backstage. Miss Terry as Lady Macbeth would have produced noisy adulation on her own; the addition of the sparks meant cacophonous applause every time they appeared, so loud that it drowned out the orchestra, to Stoker’s private disapproval, but the happiness of the house is prime. During one massed prolonged gasp, Lady Macbeth took advantage of the distraction to hurry over to him and whisper that she had noticed someone important in the third row. She was certain, she said. There was no mistaking his clothes.
‘Make sure he’s invited back afterwards. Send Harks out for fizz.’
‘Cunning rat bastard,’ Irving said. ‘Ruddy typical not to tell us he was coming. He’d love to catch us unawares. We’ll fix him.’
An hour later, show over, the company filled the stage, awaiting the special visitor. The finest champagne had been hurriedly commanded, flowers and a cold buffet for fifty from Claridge’s. Photographers were setting up downstage, getting in everyone’s way and attempting to appear knowledgeable and busy.
He came in blinking from the wings, as one rarely seeing the light, a fleshy whiteness about him, Irving leading him by the hand. The britches were dark-red velvet, the cape knee-length sable, his fingers adorned with many rings. He was a little too ample to stand very long, so a trio of stagehands fetched a settee from the prop store.
To Irving’s embarrassment, from time to time the guest addressed him as ‘Sally’, a nickname no one at the Lyceum had heard before.
‘Ah Bram,’ Irving said. ‘Here is a countryman of yours. You know my very dearest friend, Oscar Wilde.’
‘Good to see you again, Wilde. It has been a long time.’
‘Bram, my good covey. You are looking delicious.’ Here he turned to the Chief. ‘Your manager and I have a long connection. Of an intimate nature.’
‘Oh?’
‘Wilde and I attended Trinity College together,’ Stoker said. ‘It was a long time ago.’
‘Oh there is a little more than that to our story, old love. Shall you tell our guilty secret or shall I?’
‘It is n
o great matter but Wilde was a friend of my wife’s. When they were younger. In Dublin.’
‘Childhood sweethearts, one might say. Well, Flo was a sweetheart. We were briefly engaged to be married, if you can imagine such a marvel. But she left me for a better man, isn’t that right, Bram? One’s hair quite curled with grief.’
‘My wife speaks of you with warm fondness and is proud of your success.’
‘Yes these days they pelt one with compliments instead of rotten eggs. But one is always an optimist. They used to throw bricks.’
‘Perhaps you and Mrs Wilde would come to supper with my wife and me at the house one evening? She would find it most agreeable to see you again.’
‘Kind of you, darling, but I don’t think it would do. Best to let old flames burn down and putter out, don’t you think. Otherwise it can lead to bad blood.’
‘I say, Wilde,’ Irving said. ‘May I present Ellen Terry?’
‘Ah.’ Rising with formal courtesy, kissing her hand. ‘Our Lady of the Lyceum.’
‘You are too charming, Mr Wilde.’
‘That is why England shall strangle me, Miss Terry. In Ireland, having charm is seen as an accomplishment. Here, it is a shame on the family, like an idiot cousin.’
‘Pish, Oscar, old thing,’ said Irving, ‘you are a little too hard on us. We exported our language to you primitives, after all.’
‘Indeed you did, darling. Now we can say “starvation” in English.’
‘Now, Oscar, you are naughty, but there is a time and a place. Let us not waste the rare pleasure of your visit on a battle of wits.’
‘Yes, I shouldn’t like to fight a battle with an unarmed man.’
Around the stage arose the particular laughter of subordinates who are observing the cutting down of their employer and his inability to do anything about it.
‘Sally loves to fence,’ Wilde continued, smiling, lighting a cigarette in a long ivory holder. His teeth were stained almost black. ‘As we witnessed this evening. What a simply merveilleuse consolation for you, darling, all those manly sparks gushing about, it was Venetian, no Athenian. My dear, one was quite overcome.’
Shadowplay Page 20