Page 14 of The Extraordinary Florence Stoker

We planned the wedding for December the following year and the girls and I lost ourselves in designing the dress and assembling some kind of trousseau, while Father and Mother were grateful they’d time to put aside money for the ceremony.

Basking in the approval of my parents, the well-wishes of neighbours and everyone who said what a grand couple Bram and I made, I tried hard not to think about what life as Mrs Stoker might entail. I was to be a wife, at last, but what if we never left Dublin? What if Bram couldn’t fulfil his ambition to be a writer? To go to London? Jesus wept. I’d be stranded here forever, in the same house, a brood of kids, maybe a holiday in county Cork, never moving beyond an ever-shrinking circle.

Bram, with all the thespians he knew, with Mr Irving as his closest friend, wouldn’t settle for that, would he? Anyhow, it was too late to back out. I had the proposal, the ring, and a future to plan.

Just when I’d reconciled myself to what being Mrs Bram Stoker entailed, even relishing the notion (my own household!), Oscar spoiled everything.

He came home.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The first I knew that Oscar was back in Dublin was a letter. It was buried under others on the salver in the hall, but I recognised the handwriting immediately. My treacherous heart began to beat faster. I didn’t open it then and there, but tucked it away to read later, in private.

A part of me dared to think (to hope?) he’d written to beg me not to marry, to return to him. The other part dreaded he had. I lacked the courage to examine my ambivalence.

What was it Oscar always said? I like men who have a future, and women who have a past. He was in mine now. Bram was my future.

After lunch, I escaped upstairs. Scrawled across two pages, Oscar claimed he’d been taken aback to learn of my engagement. Really? What did he expect? I was a woman of marriageable age. A woman whose family expected, needed me to marry. He hadn’t asked me to wait for him; he hadn’t asked me anything. He’d played with my feelings, then ignored – or, worse, forgotten – my existence.

Towards the end of the letter, he asked that I return the gold cross. I still wore it, beneath my dress. I lifted it out, my fingers closing around it.

I wish to carry it with me at all times as a memento of two sweet years – the sweetest of all the years of my youth.

I stared at the words, incredulous; fury began to lick my ribs.

I at least cannot be indifferent to your welfare, the currents of our lives flowed too long beside one another for that.

He dared to accuse me of indifference? The man who’d led me – and others – to believe I meant something to him and then didn’t write a word for months? Was he so blind to his part in this? It was all I could do not to screw the damn letter up. Instead, I read it again, shifting between indignation and guilt. He’d had two whole years to propose and hadn’t. What choice did a woman in my situation have but to accept who she could, while she could? After all, another offer wasn’t forthcoming.

When Phil found me later, I wordlessly passed the letter over.

‘He calls you Florence.’ She quirked a brow. ‘Not Florrie.’

‘Seems he finally decided to make it formal between us.’

Phil harrumphed and kept reading. ‘He’s clearly hurting.’

‘Least he deserves,’ I said unkindly, wishing I believed it. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. Not even Oscar.

‘What are you going to do?’ Phil sat beside me on the window seat, our backs to the world.

‘What else but give the necklace back.’ I gazed vacantly around the room. ‘But not here. I can’t bear the thought of him coming here. I’ll pick somewhere else, somewhere there’s no history between us.’

‘Oh, Florrie. Are you sure about this?’

‘Of course, I must return it.’

‘You know that’s not what I mean.’

I rose. My knees began to shake. I sat down again and buried my face in my hands. Phil rubbed my back. ‘No, no, I’m not.’

Outside, there was the clop of horses, the rise and fall of people passing. A dog barked; church bells rang. The faint tread of footsteps in the hallway below reached us. Catherine called for Mother.

‘Oh, Kitten,’ sighed Phil finally. ‘I did ask you not to marry the first man who came along.’

I raised my head. ‘How can you say that to me? Now of all times. And about Bram. He may have been the first, but he’s also the right …’ I paused.

‘The right one?’