Stoker's Wilde

by Steven Hopstaken

  I blanched, remembering the member of Parliament I had seen at the ceremony. How many other government officials might be in the Order?

  “You must run then,” I said. “Go to Europe or Canada, someplace they cannot find you.”

  He seized upon the idea. “Yes, yes, I will work my way across on a merchant ship if I have to. You will help me, Oscar, won’t you? You will hide me for the night?”

  I was assuring him that I would when suddenly the door burst open, the frame splintering as the lock was shattered. There stood Lord Wotton, flanked by Leech and Dripp!

  “He can’t come in unless you invite him,” Derrick cried.

  “I’m afraid I have purchased this entire block of apartments,” he said, stepping inside and removing his hat and gloves. “So, I need no invitation. Enter,” he commanded his two lackeys.

  “I believe you are all acquainted with Messrs. Leech and Dripp,” Wotton said. “They now work for the good of the Order, as will you, Derrick.”

  Frank appeared in the doorway to see what the commotion was.

  “Run, Frank!” I screamed.

  But in a flash, Dripp was upon him and had his hands around Frank’s throat.

  Just then, Ingrid’s voice called out from the studio. “Frank? I come tomorrow again?” My heart sank for the young woman whose fate, I feared, was now sealed.

  “You have company!” Lord Wotton exclaimed with a smile. “How rude of us to converse here without her. Let us all go and meet her.”

  Dripp sped off with Frank towards the sound of Ingrid’s voice, while Wotton pulled Derrick along and Leech seized me.

  Ingrid was dressed now and, though confused, knew things had taken a dangerous turn. She tried to make her exit but was stopped by Mr. Leech.

  “Please, sit,” Lord Wotton said. Dripp threw Frank, gasping for air, to the sofa. The rest of us sat, trembling with fear.

  Wotton began pontificating. “I am a patient man, even more so now that I have all of eternity. But what I cannot stand are people who do not know their place in society. The British Empire is a well-oiled machine because all the cogs and gears work together.” He intertwined his fingers to make the point. “Those of us who have the breeding and intelligence to run things, do. Those who are meant to serve and to entertain do that as well. Happiness is dependent on you doing what you were born to do.”

  “Go to hell!” Derrick said.

  “Been there and back,” Wotton said. “You will come with me now, Derrick. That is the way it is going to be.”

  “Never!” Derrick said. “The very sight of you makes me want to vomit.”

  “Why do you want to turn him if he is unwilling?” I asked. “Surely there are many who are eager to join your ranks.”

  “Because when I see something I want, I take it. The collector in me, I suppose. You will see, I am a fair sire, and in time you will come to thank me for the gift I give you.”

  He turned his attention to Ingrid.

  “Come,” he commanded. She stood as if in a trance and walked over to him. He took a penknife from his pocket and opened it. He handed it to her. “Feed me,” he commanded.

  To our horror, Ingrid slit her own throat. Blood spurted like a fountain. Lord Wotton pulled her close to him and her blood bathed his face as he clamped his mouth around the gaping wound and greedily drank his fill.

  “No!” I screamed, as Leech held Derrick and me back.

  “I’ll kill you, you monster!” Derrick screamed. “So help me God!”

  Frank was silent and catatonic at what he was seeing. No, more mesmerised. A stupid grin came to his face as if he were watching a play and none of this were real. I could hardly fault him for that; I too wished to retreat into my own mind to escape the horror I was witnessing.

  Wotton released Ingrid and she collapsed to the floor, blood still spurting from her throat.

  Wotton took out a handkerchief and tried to wipe the blood from his face, but there was so much of it he could not. He merely smeared it around, making him look like a horrific clown.

  Wotton’s lackeys tossed us aside and jumped on the body, lapping up the remaining blood like hungry rabid dogs.

  “Derrick, you will leave here as my servant or as my food. The choice is yours. Come with me willingly and I will let your friends live.”

  Derrick hesitated a moment and Wotton took a step towards Frank.

  “No,” Derrick said. “I’ll go with you.”

  I gazed at him in despair. I wanted to stop him, started to open my mouth to protest, but found I could not. For I took Wotton fully at his word: if Derrick resisted all three of us would die as poor Ingrid had. There was nothing to be gained by foolish courage when rational cowardice might leave me alive to fight another day.

  “It’s all right, Oscar,” Derrick said, understanding all without a word from me. “It’s my mess. You have done all you can for me. Just…remember me. As I was, not as I shall become.”

  “Of course, dear boy,” I said, my voice breaking. “Always.”

  “A very moving departure,” Wotton said, his voice dripping with malice. “Now come.”

  As Wotton left with his servants and Derrick, he stopped to say, “You might want to get rid of that body. It would be hard to explain to your cleaning woman in the morning.” It was then he noticed Derrick’s portrait hanging above my mantle. He looked quite annoyed. “Bring the painting,” he said to Derrick, who took it down with shaking hands.

  They left and I was alone with Frank and a corpse. I was paralysed for several moments, and when I regained my wits I ran out onto the street. They had already got into Wotton’s cab and were off.

  I ran after them for a block or two, thinking that if I could alert a policeman perhaps the day still could be saved. But the only people about were a startled elderly couple who hurried up their front walk as I passed. I quickly realised I could do nothing. Dejected, I returned to the apartment.

  To my horror, Frank was at his easel painting as if nothing in the world were wrong.

  He had flipped Ingrid over and slit her belly open, and her entrails spilt out as if she were one of the pigeons he had dissected to capture ‘their inner nature’.

  Her lifeless eyes were open and black now, like the glass eyes of a doll.

  “I think I was worrying too much about colour,” he said cheerfully. “I can capture her true essence if I use only one.”

  “Frank,” I said. “We must dispose of the body. The police will never believe we did not do this.”

  I came around the easel to see that he was painting her in red, then gasped when I realised it was her own blood!

  “I don’t know why I never thought about cutting them open before,” he said, dipping his brush on his palette of blood and returning it to the canvas. “Who knew it would be so simple? This, this will be the masterpiece I was meant to paint.”

  I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him angrily. “Ingrid is dead! Don’t you understand that?”

  He shook me off and returned to his painting. “It’s all right, Oscar. Don’t you see? She will live forever in my painting.”

  I poured him a large glass of laudanum and persuaded him to drink it. When he passed out, I went to work.

  I rolled up Ingrid in the rug and dragged it down the stairs to the cellar, where I buried her.

  It took many more hours to clean the blood from the floor and furniture. The upholstery was ruined from the borax but that would be easy to explain to the cleaning lady come Monday. Spilt some wine, tried to clean it, or something like that.

  After I burned Frank’s painting of Ingrid in the fireplace, I collapsed in exhaustion and cried for Ingrid and Frank and Derrick. I cried for a more innocent time when I knew not of supernatural evil.

  After my own dose of laudanum, I awoke late the next morning and for a moment thought it a
ll a bad dream.

  I found Frank at his easel, working on a new painting. He had a dead cat on the table and was again painting in his new medium of blood.

  I took Frank to Bedlam hospital. He happily told the doctors of his new painting technique, and after a fanciful tale about vampires visiting him in the night, he was committed.

  In the course of one night, I have lost Frank, Derrick and what was left of my innocence.

  How I wish Richard Burton would write back to me! However, I cannot let this deter me. I will rescue Derrick and make that monster Wotton pay for his crimes, even if I have to beg Stoker to help me.

  Letter from Dr. Mueller to Lord Alfred Sundry, 11th of December 1879

  Dear Lord Sundry,

  Success!

  At last, I can make up for the werewolf Captain Burton killed.

  Such elusive creatures, werewolves. Most only show themselves when they can’t help it, under the light of a full moon, making them difficult to detect, let alone capture.

  As a man, the werewolf has his full wits about him. He has all his morals intact. Yet the transformation to wolf strips him of all this; he sheds his human conscience like he sheds his human skin.

  If God exists, why would he allow such a thing? Furthermore, why would a bite from a werewolf pass on the curse to one who has not sinned? Thank goodness most werewolf attacks are fatal, or the world would soon be overrun by them.

  But back to the matter at hand. As promised, I have acquired a werewolf in the allotted time.

  Once I found one and ascertained his nature, I befriended him. I learned he does not wish to kill and so I have helped chain him up during the change, earning his gratitude.

  He has handed himself over to me fully. I shall bring him to Salisbury and present him to the Bishop. He is eager to help in any way he can.

  I hope that he can aid the Bishop with his important mission. If there is anything left of the creature after the procedure I should be glad for the opportunity to study the remains. It would undoubtedly prove a fascinating avenue of research.

  This concludes our business. Upon our arrival in Salisbury, please provide the requested materials to me as stated in our agreement.

  Sincerely,

  Dr. Mueller

  From the Journal of Florence Stoker, 3rd of January 1880

  The old year has died, as has the old me. Gone is Florrie, the carefree, vivacious ingénue. It is now the year of our Lord 1880. The new decade will see the rise of a far more matronly Florence. The child that was within me emerged yesterday and I am a mother now, to Irving Noel Thornley Stoker.

  The birth was the stuff of nightmares. Indeed, there were times I thought I was dreaming, so closely did it resemble the lurid crimson terrors that have plagued my sleep recently.

  Bram was at the Lyceum, of course, when it became apparent that the time had come. I dispatched Emma to send a message to him and to fetch Dr. Ward. The wait for the doctor’s arrival – surely no more than an hour, according to Miss Jarrald, the nurse we have engaged for the infant’s care – felt like anxious days. Back home we would have sent for a midwife, but I am told in London it has become fashionable for a doctor to attend, especially at first births where more things tend to go wrong and require the hands of a surgeon.

  At last he arrived and we prepared for the work that lay ahead of us. Dr. Ward is an efficient, skilful physician and he came highly recommended by several in our social circle. Nevertheless, I found myself wishing for Dr. Cullen, back in Dublin. He is a kindly man, inclined to jokes and hearty laughter and reassuring words. Dr. Ward always makes a point to smile at the end of every visit and tell you that everything is going along just fine and you shouldn’t worry, but one gets the feeling that these are rehearsed words and actions, items to be ticked off on a list of things he does when seeing patients, right before closing his bag and gathering his coat and hat.

  Yesterday afternoon, as he came to my bedside, I am certain the terror I felt was reflected in my eyes, for Dr. Ward said, “Now, now, Mrs. Stoker, you mustn’t worry. After all, you are not the first woman to ever give birth, you know.”

  “Nor would I be the first woman to die in the process,” I spat back. Mother would be appalled at my manners, but you simply cannot expect a woman to hold her tongue in such a situation. Well, I cannot, in any case.

  Dr. Ward’s eyes widened. “My, what a thing to say,” was all he was able to manage, then he busied himself with preparations. After carefully removing his coat and rolling up his sleeves and donning a smock (a fine precaution as far as it went, but as things turned out perhaps he wishes he had brought a butcher’s apron) he positioned me on my back with my knees raised and parted. Such humiliation! And yet an image sprang momentarily to mind of Lucy as I had seen her in the garden that night months ago with her legs spread and the man at her….

  Then pain took me and I cried out an anguished, banshee wail. “Some chloroform, I think,” I heard Dr. Ward murmur, and he took a bottle and a clean white handkerchief from his bag. He moistened the cloth and handed it to Nurse Jarrald, who held it to my face. I writhed away – if I were to die, I wanted to cling to every moment of consciousness I had left, painful though they may be. Jarrald did not persist, bless her, but I must have breathed in some of the drug for I found myself slipping in and out of awareness.

  Maybe that’s what gave the day such a surreal quality. I remember pain, though I didn’t mind it so much anymore. I remember Jarrald holding my hand and stroking my brow and I remember fixating upon her face for a long time. I remember other times when I looked down past my bent knees at Dr. Ward, his gaze steadfastly and modestly focused on my face. I remember his smock, the part of it that I could see above the sheet that blocked my view of the birth, becoming stained with blood. (Surely this wasn’t normal? The man would need a new smock every time he delivered a baby!) And I remember when he had to finally disregard modesty and look down at what was happening below the sheet, at the part of me that even I have not seen. At my child, who was painfully emerging. At my life’s blood, that was pouring from me at an alarming rate.

  “Doctor, is this normal?” Emma asked, frantically handing him towels.

  “Get her out of here,” he commanded Jarrald. Emma was quickly rushed out.

  Even in my haze, I could see the doctor was panicking.

  Jarrald returned as I felt the baby free itself from its nine-month prison.

  I drifted in and out and with each awakening more pain.

  “Florence,” I heard Bram call to me. I opened my eyes and was happy to see him.

  “The baby?” I asked.

  “He is fine. A beautiful boy. We need to attend to you now.”

  I was so weak.

  There were others gathered around me, though I could not make out faces.

  I heard the doctor whispering to someone, “There is nothing more I can do for her.”

  “Out!” I heard an enraged voice shout. It was Henry Irving’s voice! I remember thinking I should feel surprised at this but had not strength enough even for that.

  “Help her, Henry, help her,” Bram pleaded. “Save her like you saved me!”

  Henry took my hand and suddenly the pain stopped.

  “Drink,” I remember him saying, but I do not remember drinking anything.

  I lost consciousness completely then, though whether from more chloroform or from the loss of blood I cannot say.

  I awoke two days later. Although I am sound in body, a melancholy has overcome me. I am so stricken with it I am almost unable to get out of bed and dress and feed myself, let alone feed the baby. Bram has hired a wet nurse. I feel ashamed the baby must take to another woman’s breast.

  I am told Henry saved my life. I had no idea midwifery was among his many talents, but even the doctor tells me it was Henry who stopped my headlong rush towards death. How could he be a vile cre
ature when he saved my life?

  I call the baby Noel, though he is named in honour of my saviour. He is a fretful child, and though I love him – I do – I feel he looks at me accusingly, as though I have already failed him in some crucial way. Perhaps his birth was as terrifying for him as for me. Will I ever be able to make it up to him, this bloody beginning? I must try.

  And so, my new life begins.

  From the Journal of Bram Stoker, 4th of January 1880

  Thank God Florence and the baby are all right. There was so much blood and pain. I should have recoiled at it, yet I am ashamed to say it was all I could do to not become aroused by it. Am I becoming one of those creatures? Was Irving’s ‘cure’ just taking decades to turn me into a vampire?

  I must put such thoughts out of my head. I owe Henry Irving a debt that can never be repaid. And to think I had almost killed him. He has earned my respect and loyalty. If I can help him regain his humanity, I will.

  He assures me that the small amount of his blood he gave Florence will not turn her into a vampire. Whether it will give her the second sight that has cursed me so we do not know, though Henry doesn’t think so. The prophecy referred to giving the blood to a child. I did not even think of such a thing in the heat of the moment; I only wanted her life saved.

  I held Noel today and forgot about all the evil in the world. He is so small and innocent. Looking into his eyes I feel grateful to be his father, and a sense of responsibility like I have never known. I will protect him from the dark forces that swirl around me.

  Letter from Dr. Neil Seward to Dr. William Gull, Royal Physician, 12th of January 1880

  Dear Dr. Gull,

  I am afraid to report there has been very little progress in the prince’s condition, and he may, in fact, be getting worse.

  As of late, he is suffering from new delusions that he is to be rescued from this ‘prison’ and be installed on the throne. He claims he will rule over heaven and hell and bring a new world order.