Page 109 of The Extraordinary Florence Stoker

Bram shook his head. ‘Not yet.’ He preferred to await the doctor, who, in the last weeks, had taken to calling twice daily. ‘There are some things a man doesn’t need his wife to see,’ he muttered.

He leaned against the pillows with a deep sigh, closing his eyes. I tucked the bedclothes around him. ‘What’s got you acting as if the house is afire?’ He opened one eye. ‘It’s not, is it? I’m not about to be cremated alive, am I?’

For all Bram was so very ill, he managed to keep his sense of humour.

‘No, Bram,’ I said solemnly. I perched beside him and reached for the papers. Some of his work slid onto the floor. I left it there.

‘Why, Florrie,’ he said, both eyes open now. ‘Have you been crying?’

I raised a hand to my cheek. ‘Yes, I have. I’m afraid I’ve some terrible news.’

I felt him stiffen, bracing himself.

‘Oh, no, dear, it’s not Thornley.’ Like Bram, his older brother’s health had worsened in the last months and he was mostly bedridden. The men had written the most plaintive letters to each other. I know because I wrote Bram’s and read Thornley’s to him.

I cupped his bearded cheek. It was so soft, the skin above so desiccated. Almost yellow-grey in colour, like aged porcelain. He leaned into my palm.

‘Then it can’t be very terrible.’

‘I’ll let you decide,’ I said and, inhaling, began to read from the Daily Mirror.

Bram sat breathing heavily. Every intake of air was an effort, as if his lungs were antique bellows that should have been retired long ago. I tried to ignore the painful sound, the monstrous wheeze, even as a racket grew outside. Within the house I could hear the women, hurried footsteps, doors opening and closing, agitated chatter drifting about the corridor. There was a series of knocks on the front door, rushed conversations as maids from neighbouring flats, workers, and a voice that was distinctively the postman’s, debated the sinking.

Bram remained motionless, his gaze fixed somewhere over my left shoulder. His frown deepened; his lips disappeared. A look of distress flashed across his face.

Before I could finish the reports in The Globe, Dr Browne arrived. I hovered briefly as he undertook his usual assessment, listening to Bram’s heart, looking into his mouth, prodding and poking. The entire time, he discussed the Titanic disaster. Bram grunted and nodded, tried to raise an arm in dismay, not that Dr Browne seemed to notice. When he began to move Bram out of bed so he might relieve himself, I repressed a gasp. The night clothes had ridden up his legs, and his shirt was mostly open. When had those sores appeared? When had he become so gaunt? I knew he’d lost weight, that his once burly body was naught but a memory, but my husband had become a hanger upon which a swathe of scabrous flesh draped.

I had to leave before he saw my face and the knowledge it now held.

Death awaited him.

A shadow shifted in the corner. A constant presence of late. His eyes glowed red, his cape rippled. He began to smile. Only, he no longer resembled the drowned man, or Oscar, or even Henry Irving. I risked another look.

The deathly spectre hovering in the darkness wore the face of Bram.

Sick to my stomach, I swiftly excused myself, shutting the door with unseemly haste and falling against it. My hands were shaking; I tried to catch my breath.

‘Are you alright, missus?’ Maria came out of the kitchen.

No, I’m not.

‘Dreadful news about the Titanic, isn’t it?’ Her ever-present duster glided across a demilune table as she waited for me to agree. She manoeuvred around a clock, a vase, a peculiar statuette that had been a gift from Sarah Bernhardt. Her neat white apron, the ridiculous thing she wore atop her head, her sensible shoes, which had dirt from the stoop upon them, brought me back.

‘Appalling,’ I answered. About to go to my bedroom to compose myself, I changed my mind. ‘Maria. Please see to it that warm water for bathing is brought to Mr Stoker’s bedroom. Add some fragrance to it; I don’t care what. Oh, and ask Mary to prepare Mr Stoker’s favourite broth. Serve it with bread and butter.’

‘Yes, Mrs Stoker,’ said Maria, and with a compassionate glance, went to the kitchen.

I crossed to the drawing room and scrawled a note to Noel.

Make certain you come to see your father today.

Love, Mother.

Noel had been dropping by the house more often of late. It was more important than ever he was here.

Five days after the sinking of the Titanic, Bram died. His death wasn’t peaceful, though I know that will be said. It wasn’t a kind death either, not in the sense most mean when they refer to someone dying at home surrounded by loved ones, because though Noel and I were there, Bram had been dying for weeks. A kind death, I’ve decided, is a quick one. Not brutal, like those poor women Jack the Ripper killed, or like Henry Irving, who was a spinning top careening everywhere before gradually slowing and toppling; nor what the victims of the Titanic suffered, drowning in a frigid sea. Rather, a kind death is one where one moment, you’re embracing life, planning your next adventure, what you’ll eat for dinner, who you’ll visit, what book to read next. Then, nothing.

Perhaps Bram was right. Gilbert had the best death. Not because he was a hero attempting to save someone, but because he didn’t know that the Grim Reaper was coming for him.