Page 98 of The Extraordinary Florence Stoker

I threw up my hands and looked purposely around the room, towards the door, at the empty chairs. ‘It’s been weeks, Hall. Someone is yet to proposition him.’

‘People are just allowing him space to grieve,’ replied Hall. ‘That’s all.’

‘Grief doesn’t pay the bills,’ I said wryly, paraphrasing Bram’s brother Tom.

Whereas I thought our life would be easier with Henry Irving gone, in the following months he became a burden we couldn’t shift. Bram spiralled into a black place, reliving the recent failures of the company he’d helped steer, instead of the years of joyous successes. I lost my husband to melancholy and didn’t know how to summon him back.

Then, as if a switch had been flicked, before we left for Dublin in December, he began to write another book.

At first, I was delighted. I wrote to Hall, ‘At last, my husband is shedding the pall of grief that enveloped him and is wielding his pen again.’

One night, Bram revealed to me what he was working on. We were in his study. That very day, he’d attended the auction of Henry Irving’s possessions. Denied anything in the will, he was determined to own something, even if it meant purchasing a memento. If this was what Bram needed, then so be it.

I stared at what he’d bid for – a portrait drawn by Bernard Partridge three months before Henry died. In it, Henry was smiling. There was also one of the great actor Edmund Kean that used to hang in the Beefsteak Room, and something resembling a cast of a face or body part. It was hard to see, covered as it was by some loose pages.

Uncharacteristically, the study was in disarray; Bram had pulled books and manuscripts from the shelves and stacked them on the desk and upon the floor. Atop a pile of his diaries, many with notes sticking out of the pages, was the magnifying glass he was starting to use as his eyesight began to deteriorate.

Bram himself looked … frayed. Frayed and timeworn. The lines of his face were emphasised in the dim light of the lamp. His hair needed a good brush, and I could see he’d been biting his nails. When had he commenced that frightful habit? There was a musty, stale smell in the air. At first, I attributed it to the purchased items, before it occurred to me that it arose from Bram.

‘As I was saying, I’m putting aside my current novel, Lady Athelyn, to work on a new project.’

‘Oh? What’s that?’

Bram gave a small smile of … triumph? Pride? ‘While other people, like that good-for-nothing Austin Brereton, have written biographies of Henry —’

My heart began to tilt precariously. We knew the awful Austin was writing a second book about Henry. There was still money to be made from the actor and those keen to exploit even the weakest of associations. The newspapers had been filled with anecdotes, poems, personal thoughts and more about the knight. Each one had galled Bram and contributed to his black mood.

‘No-one has my insight, the access I had to Henry’s thoughts, the impact he had not only on the people he met, but the places he went as well: the provinces, Ireland, America, Canada. The influence he had on British theatre.’

‘There are many who would say the same of you, dear,’ I managed as coolly as I could, even while my chest felt it was going to fly open and my heart fall out.

‘Maybe,’ conceded Bram. ‘But it’s what I’ll say about him in my book that will really count.’

‘You’re writing a book.’ My soul started to shrink. ‘About Henry.’

‘I’m going to call it Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving.’

I couldn’t move.

‘It will be my way of honouring a great man,’ continued Bram, completely unaware of the effect of this revelation. ‘A great friend.’ His voice began to break. ‘Showing a side of him the world never saw from the person who knew him best.’

Hot anger coursed through my chest and down my arms. I half expected to raise my palms and find imprints burned into the surface of the desk where they rested.

‘Have you nothing to say, Florrie?’ he asked gently.

Oh, I had plenty. I was furious that now, when Bram had the chance to break free of whatever damn spell that man had cast over him, he refused to try. I was livid that even in death, Henry Irving wouldn’t let Bram go. Let us go.

But mostly, I was furious with myself for not predicting this; that I hadn’t steered Bram in a different direction. Instead, I’d left him alone to mourn in his own way, knowing that when he emerged, I’d be there for him.

Bram looked so pleased with his decision, so ignorant of the storm brewing inside me. I should have known that Bram would always, always, serve Henry’s interests before his own.

I couldn’t bear to look at him; to be in the same room. I turned and wrenched the door open.

‘Florrie?’ cried Bram. ‘What is it? What have I done?’

I paused but didn’t turn around. I’d been right all along; my husband was incapable of change. ‘Nothing, Bram,’ I said steadily. ‘You haven’t done a single damn thing.’

Less than a year later, between giving speeches, soliciting interviews with other writers and politicians to be published in the newspapers, visiting the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast for an article about a large ocean liner they’d been commissioned to build, and a few weeks at Cruden Bay to go over the proofs, Bram’s Reminiscences was published in two volumes.