Dracula Unbound Page 13

  Larry woke in a fright. He sat up groaning, clutching his head, and looked round the darkened room. “Mother?”

  He was alone.

  The glorious summer’s day bathed the facade of Bram Stoker’s residence. A row of newly planted copper beeches shielding the house from the lane gleamed in the early morning sunshine as if they were copper indeed, newly polished by the housemaid.

  The carriage, with its two chestnut horses, stood in the drive before the front door. Stoker emerged, resplendent in top hat, chatting happily. He was followed by Joe Bodenland, walking slowly and saying nothing. His face was lifeless and ashen. Stoker helped him into the carriage.

  Mrs. Stoker was standing by the herbaceous border, talking to Spinks, the young gardener. She too was dressed in all her finery and, after a minute, came over to the carriage and was assisted aboard by James, the driver.

  “Spinks is worried about the blackspot on the roses,” she said. “And so am I.”

  The wheels of the carriage crackled over the gravel as they drove off.

  “The blue flowers in the border are pretty, dear. What are they?”

  “Yes, they’re doing better this year. Lobelia syphilitica. Such a funny name.”

  When they turned out of the drive and headed down the hill, the spires and towers of London became visible. The great occasion made both Stoker and his wife nervous. They spent the journey primping each other, brushing away imaginary dust from one another’s clothes, and adjusting their hair. They worried about what they would do while the investiture was taking place. Bodenland sat in his place, somewhat shrunken, speaking only when addressed.

  The carriage took them to the resplendent rail terminal of Paddington Station, built by one of the Queen’s more ingenious subjects, Isambard Kingdom Brunei. The stationmaster came forward and installed Stoker’s party in a first-class carriage.

  Stoker sat back, tilted his topper at a rakish angle, and lit a large cigar.

  At Windsor, bunting decorated the station and a silver band played. They were met by an equerry of the Queen and escorted in style to the castle, over which the Union Jack flew lazily in the sun.

  When their brougham rolled into the yard of the castle, a clock was chiming a quarter after eleven. They were in good time for the investiture at noon. A platoon of household guards was on parade, and a regimental band played lively airs. Mrs. Stoker clapped her gloved hands in pleasure.

  “Capital chaps,” agreed Stoker, nodding toward the uniformed bandsmen. “Pity your pater isn’t here to see them, Flo.”

  Crowds stared in at the gates, while children waved small paper Union Jacks.

  They were assisted ceremoniously from the carriage. Their company was escorted to a reception room, where other celebrated names lounged about in nonchalant attitudes and medals, smoking if possible. Irving himself joined them in a few minutes, and Bodenland was introduced.

  Henry Irving walked with a long stride, perhaps to make himself look taller than he was. He had the appearance of a great famished wolf. The hair on his magnificent head was liberally streaked with white, long, and raggedly cut, lending something bohemian to his person. He swung his famous brow toward the assembled company to make sure he was recognized, then turned all his attention to Stoker and his companions.

  “I’m friendly with your compatriot, Mark Twain,” Irving said. “I met him when we were doing our recent tour of America. Very amusing man.”

  He sat down next to them and drummed his fingers on his top hat.

  “No chance of a drink here, Henry,” Stoker said.

  But coffee was served in porcelain cups which Mrs. Stoker greatly admired. She persevered in admiring everything in sight.

  In due time, they were shown into a splendid scarlet reception room. The furnishings consisted of stiff-backed chairs at one end and a plain throne on a dais at the other. Apart from this, a few lavishly framed oils of battle scenes hanging on the walls were the only decoration. In an adjoining room, light music was being played by a quartet.

  Queen Victoria was escorted into the room at the far end. She seated herself on the throne without ostentation. She was a small, dumpy woman, dressed in black with a blue sash running over one shoulder. She dispensed half a dozen knighthoods with a ceremonial sword, displaying nothing that could be interpreted as intense interest in the proceedings. As etiquette decreed, she made no conversation with her newly honored subjects as they rose from their knees.

  It was Irving’s turn. He ascended the three shallow steps and knelt before his Queen. She tapped him on both shoulders with the sword.

  “We were much amused, Sir Henry,” she said, and smiled.

  “Ooh, she smiled,” Mrs. Stoker whispered in her husband’s ear.

  He nodded vigorously.

  The playing of the national anthem concluded the ceremony.

  Afterward, as they left the castle with Irving, the talk was all of the Queen’s smile. There was general agreement that it was wonderful, and that she looked extremely well for her age.

  Mrs. Stoker turned to Bodenland.

  “You’ve had little to say on this truly memorable occasion, sir. What did you make of it all? A fine tale you’ll have to take back to Mrs. Borderland. I warrant you have nothing so impressive in America.”

  “That may be so, madam. We have no royalty in our country, being a republic. All this display you see, this great castle—is it not paid for out of the pockets of the average Britisher? And your Queen—I mean no offense, but is it not the English poor who keep her in luxury?”

  “That’s plain silly, Joe,” said Stoker. “The Queen’s a very spartan lady. Eats almost nothing since the Prince Consort died.”

  “Are you telling us America has no poor?” said Florence.

  “I didn’t say that, Mrs. Stoker. Of course we have poor, but the poor have hope. They may—I use an old-fashioned phrase—raise themselves from log cabin to White House. Whereas I doubt if any of the English poor have ever raised themselves to the throne from Whitechapel.”

  “You look unwell, Mr. Borderland,” said Florence stiffly.

  The ceremony was followed by a grand late luncheon, held in the banqueting rooms off Whitehall in London, and attended by no less a figure than the Prime Minister, Lord Rosebery.

  As usual, Bram Stoker had to stay close to Irving, but he came over to his new friend’s side, to introduce him to Irving’s leading lady, Ellen Terry. Ellen Terry’s brother Fred, also an actor, was with her, but Bodenland was able to spare no glance for him.

  Ellen Terry was simply the most beautiful woman he had ever set eyes on. She wore a saffron silk dress with hand-woven designs consisting of many-colored threads and little jewels. The dress went with her striking coloring and eyes that—he could only feel it—looked at him and understood him. Bodenland was so overwhelmed by this sensation, entirely new to him, that he was unable to say anything sensible. He remembered afterward only a certain manner in which she held her head, as if at once proud and modest. He remembered the way her mouth—that delightful mouth—moved, but not what it said.

  Then she turned to speak to someone else. In a phrase Bram used later, Ellen Terry was like embodied sunshine.

  But her amiable brother Fred stayed a moment and pointed out some notables to Bodenland as they assembled round the table.

  “That feller with the green lapels to his jacket is a compatriot of yours, Edwin Abbey. Good artist, but, being American, won’t end up in the Abbey.” He laughed at his own joke, treating the whole affair like a kind of horserace. “See whom he’s shaking hands with? That’s the old warhorse, Alma Tadema—he’s pipped Henry at the post, he’s already a knight. Wonderful painter, he entirely redesigned the Roman toga for Henry’s Coriolanus … Ah, now, coming up on the straight—see that lady with the turban and the slightly too grand osprey feathers? That’s none other than Mrs. Perugini, daughter of the late lamented Charles Dickens, novelist. The serious-looking gent embracing Bram … that’s one of his best friends,
Hall Caine—another novelist, happily still with us.

  “Oh, here’s a treat!” Fred Terry exclaimed, as a wild-looking man with a great streaming head of hair burst into the room and flung his arms about Irving. “It’s the Polish musical genius of the age, Paderewski. They’re chums, as you can tell. Quite a romantic chappie, by all accounts.” Indeed, when the guests were all seated, and before the commencement of the meal, Paderewski was prevailed upon to position himself at the grand piano and play a minuet of his own composition, attacking the keys with as much spirit as if he did so on behalf of the whole Polish people.

  After wild applause, the new knight rose and made a speech, also wildly applauded, after which he gave his famous rendering of “The Bells,” the dramatic story of a man haunted by the undetected murder he committed. Tumultuous applause. Ellen Terry sat between Irving and Lord Rosebery, and smiled like an angel.

  Then the banquet began.

  Enormous amounts of food were supplied by bustling waiters, bearing with aplomb the loaded dishes in and the emptied dishes out. Wine rose in such a tide in cut-glass goblets that men in their dinner jackets grew apoplectic, with cheeks as scarlet as the Bordeaux.

  Slightly awed by the gargantuan consumption, Bodenland picked at his food and sipped at his claret. Florence Stoker, seated next to him, regaled him with tales of the Balcombe family.

  Evidently she found him unresponsive.

  “Are you one of those men who regard a woman’s conversation as inconsequential?” she asked, as a towering confection resembling a Mont Blanc built of sponge, brandy, and icing sugar was set before them.

  “On the contrary, ma’am. I wish it were otherwise.”

  He could not stop glancing at Ellen Terry; she altered his whole feeling toward the nineteenth century.

  When finally they staggered out into the light of the London day, with dim sunlight slanting through the plane trees, it was to be met by a throng of beggars, importuning for food or money.

  Taking Bodenland’s elbow, Stoker steered him through the outstretched hands. Bodenland looked with pity on the cadaverous faces, pale but lit with burning eyes, the rags they wore like cerements. He wondered if Stoker had drawn his picture of the Un-Dead from this melancholy company, which swarmed in its thousands through the underworld of London.

  Seeing his interest, Stoker stopped and accosted one small lad, bare of legs and feet, who held out a bony hand to them. Picking a coin from his pocket, Stoker asked the boy what he did for a living.

  “I was a pure-finder, guv, following me father’s trade. But times is hard, owing to competition from over the other side. Spare a copper, guv, bless you.”

  He got the copper, and made off fast down a side street.

  “What’s a pure-finder?” Bodenland asked, as they climbed into their carriage.

  “Pure’s dog shit,” said Stoker, shielding the word from his wife with his topper. “The urchin probably works for the tanners over Bermondsey way. They use the shit for tanning leather. I hear it’s a profitable occupation.”

  “The boy was starving.”

  “You can’t go by looks.”

  They arrived home in the evening. Lights were already on in the house as James led the horses away to the stable.

  A great to-do went on in the hall with the removal of outer garments and the fussing of van Helsing, who was anxious to see that the outing had inflicted no harm on his charge. He had managed to circumnavigate Stoker twice by the time the latter entered the drawing room and flung himself down in an armchair under the Bronzino.

  Stoker tugged vigorously at the bellrope for wine.

  “What a day, to be sure,” he said. “It’s a day of great honor to the whole of the acting profession, no less. Wouldn’t you agree, Joe?”

  Joe had gone over to the window to look at the daylight lingering in the garden.

  “How beautiful Ellen Terry is,” he said dreamily.

  While the manservant was pouring wine, van Helsing ran over to Stoker’s chair and sank down beside it on one knee, somewhat in the attitude Irving had assumed a few hours previously. He rolled up Stoker’s sleeve and administered an injection from a large silver syringe.

  Stoker made a face.

  “It’s my friend here who needs your ministry, Van,” said Stoker. Getting up, he went over to where Bodenland was standing, looking out toward the woods. As Bodenland turned, Stoker saw the two telltale bite marks at his throat, and understood.

  “Better get some iodine, Van. Mr. Bodenland cut himself shaving.” He led Bodenland over to a comfortable chair and made him sit down. After standing looking compassionately down at him, he snapped his fingers. “I know what you need.”

  In a minute, after probing in the wine cabinet, he brought forth a wineglass full of a red liquid and gave it to Joe.

  “What’s this? Wine?”

  “Laudanum. Do you a power of good and all.”

  “My god … Well, it is 1896 …” He sipped it slowly and felt some of the lassitude leave him.

  “You should get out of here at once, Joe. You’re a marked man. I know I’ve helped to delay you, but I see now you should make for home on the morrow, sure as eggs are eggs.”

  Bodenland stood up, a little shakily. He took a deep breath.

  “I’m okay, or near enough. Allow me to make you a small speech, since you’ve both been so kind and hospitable. Despite my experiences on the way to England—and I’ve hardly dared tell you of the full strangeness of that journey—I have fought with myself to deny the reality of … of vampires. To be honest, I thought they were a fiction invented for the novel you are about to finish. Even when you talked about them, I kind of reckoned you mad. Now I know you’re not mad.”

  “Heaven be praised! It’s myself that’s always thinking I’m mad, or going that way.”

  “And I’m glad of your reassurance, Mr. Bodenland,” said Florence, getting his name right in gratitude.

  “Thanks. Let me finish my speech. Of course I still worry about my wife, Mina, and my family. I can’t resist the intuition that some dreadful thing may have happened to her. But—hell, Bram, after my experience last night I know it would be cowardice to just up and quit now, and go home as if nothing had happened. I let down my old buddy Bernard Clift. Well, I’m not about to let down my new buddy as well. I’m staying, and we’ll fight this foul thing together.”

  To his surprise, Stoker flung his arms about him.

  “You’re a dear feller, sure you are.” He shook Bodenland’s hand warmly. “It’s a brave decision you’ve made.”

  Mrs. Stoker ran up, casting her embroidery hoop on the carpet, and kissed him on the cheek.

  “I don’t want you getting my husband into trouble, now, but you spoke up like a man—like a soldier. We shall drink a sherry to toast you.”

  “And we’ll have a cigar,” said Stoker. “At least, I will.”

  This response excited Joe into a less lethargic state.

  “We won’t delay. I may be no Christian, but this is a kind of Christian quest.” As he spoke, he took a New Testament from a side table and waved it aloft as if in proof. “We start tomorrow.”

  “And we prepare tonight,” said Stoker, through his cigar.

  When Stoker was out of the room, his wife came to Bodenland’s side.

  “My dear father was full of wisdom—as befitted a man who was a lieutenant colonel and served in the Crimea. One thing he told me was that many impossible things happen. The important thing is to decide which impossible things to believe and which not to.”

  “Sound advice, ma’am.”

  “My father’s advice was always sound. I’m undecided as yet about your impossibilities, but I’d like to ask you, if I may—supposing it were somehow possible to venture into the future, as one ventures into London—would I be able to establish if dear Bram’s latest novel will be a success?” She laughed, as if thinking it was a silly question for a colonel’s daughter to ask.

  “Bram will call it Dracula
, as I advised, whatever it may be called now. It will be a great success, and translated into many languages. Maybe I could ask you a question in return, Mrs. Stoker?”

  “By all means.”

  “What do you think your husband’s novel is about?”

  “He assures me he hopes to reassert the proper womanly role of Christian English decency, matronly, angelic …”

  “Sexless?”

  “Please do not be coarse. We do not speak of such things.” She lifted a hand in delicate reproach.

  “I apologize, ma’am. Most readers regard Dracula as a horror tale, whatever Bram says. His own mother back in Ireland will write and tell him it is more frightening than Mary Shelley’s marvelous Frankenstein. The last time I saw my new daughter-in-law Kylie … well, perhaps the last time bar one … she was reading Bram’s novel. Everyone on the planet—in China, in the Amazon basin—probably knows the name of Dracula. Fame on an almost unprecedented scale, Mrs. Stoker.”

  “Well, I’m sorry about that villain Dracula’s fame, though glad about all the rest. Some names, like some bodies, are best buried and forgotten.”

  9

  It was growing dark in the woods below the house. Sunset was overcast. Spinks the gardener, assisted by the two men, was loading Stoker’s homemade bullets and some rifles on the time train.

  This remarkable vehicle had been inspected with many a whistle of admiration from Stoker and many a scratch of the head from Spinks. The latter was philosophical.

  “If it works, then it works, sir, and you needn’t worry. My stomach works, but I don’t need to know the whys and wherefores of it.”

  “A sensible approach,” Stoker agreed. “The less you know about your stomach, the better it works, no doubt. Light a storm lantern, Spinks, will you? It’s dark early this evening.”

  As the darkness encompassed the three men, as the Earth revolving moved into its own shadow, so the ancient forces of darkness began to emerge. Not being subject to life, they were tireless. While the time train was being loaded, Bella, who had once been alive, was descending some crumbling stairs leading down to a crypt.