Читать книгу Dracula: The Un-Dead - Ian Holt, Dacre Stoker - Страница 18

Quid verum atque decens was the Stoker family motto: “Whatever is true and honorable.” Bram Stoker’s father had imposed it upon all seven of his children, but it was a sentiment that Bram was finding exceedingly difficult to embrace these days.

“T’anam an Diabhal,” cursed Bram Stoker in his native Gaelic under his breath. He had been waiting for that whip of a boy, Quincey Harker, to leave before emerging from his office. Much to his dismay, he overheard the boy leaving with Hamilton Deane. Heading off to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, Deane’s favorite watering hole, to discuss Basarab, no doubt. It would seem Deane was not going to drop this matter as Stoker had hoped. Stoker was always meticulous in life, even when it seemed to everyone that he was changing careers erratically. His every action was part of a bigger, well-thought-out plan. Having an unpredictable variable like Quincey Harker in the mix was unsettling.

Dracula was Bram Stoker’s last chance. One last chance to prove himself as a writer; one last chance to live his dream; one last chance to keep his theatre. Now that his son was grown and had left the house, Stoker had nothing waiting at home. Even his beautiful wife made him feel quite unwelcome, and it no longer mattered to Bram if his bed was loveless. The Lyceum had been his true home for decades, and he would die before he allowed anyone like Hamilton Deane to take over.

Stoker hobbled onto the stage deck. So many shows, so many memories in this great auditorium, and yet so much had changed. Gone was that glorious domed ceiling that he had loved so much. Two extra rows of seats cramped the orchestra. He despised how Deane was turning his beloved classic theatre into some sort of playhouse. While Stoker was not opposed to the new industrial age, he believed that a theatre was hallowed ground. Would one modernize the great Gothic cathedrals of Venice? He laughed to himself. Perhaps Deane would. Deane was obsessed with the latest modern gadgetry and he had marred Stoker’s theatre with it. He had installed Marconi’s private wireless station with the excuse that it would prevent actors from constantly running off to retrieve messages. There was Edison’s new “concentrated filament” spotlight. Deane even brought in famed theatre architect Bertie Crewe to redesign the interior of the theatre for “better acoustics.” Though Stoker detested Deane’s love for the “new and modern,” Stoker understood that it was this same love that allowed Deane to see value in innovative ideas. Deane saw potential in Stoker’s novel. He could see that horror stories, which had once been relegated to penny dreadfuls and pulp novellas, were finally finding a wider audience. Staging Dracula to compete with the successful adaptations of Frankenstein and Jekyll and Hyde could make a small fortune. Stoker had the theatre, and Deane had the money: a perfect combination. But Stoker had been in the entertainment business long enough to know the Golden Rule: He who has the gold crafts the rules. Deane refused to listen to Stoker. And why should he? If Stoker knew so much, why was his theatre failing?

Bram had always had aspirations of becoming an author. In order to honor his parents and stay true to himself, in his youth he had studied law in college, but he had never stopped writing. He had hoped his teachers would recognize his talent. Then he could persuade his parents to allow him to change his vocation. Unfortunately, this was not to be, for he had been overshadowed by his friend and classmate, Oscar Wilde. Bram’s rivalry with Wilde even carried into romance. From afar, Bram loved Florence Balcombe, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Yet it was Wilde, courting her with gilded poems of love, who swept her off her feet.

Perhaps Florence had an inkling that Oscar preferred the company of young men, for their relationship eventually ended, and she came to accept Bram’s company. But as time passed, Bram realized that Florence’s choice had been motivated more by financial security than by love. He had been hired to clerk in a law firm, and Florence did not want to eke out an existence with a vagabond artist. She yearned to be a part of London’s high society. Stoker shook his head. Although Oscar might have lost the lady, Bram continued to covet Wilde’s literary status. In order to keep his sanity, Bram kept one foot in the literary world. He wrote theatre reviews for the Dublin Mail for no pay. And after he had written a lustrous review of Henry Irving’s Hamlet, he had been invited into that great Shakespearean actor’s circle of high society friends in London.

Bram soon quit his job and became Irving’s business partner and theatrical manager. This was a great gift, for it allowed Bram to live out his own dreams vicariously through Irving’s stardom. Florence had felt sure that this would be another of Bram’s failures but, as the money came rolling in, she had had a change of heart. The Stokers hobnobbed with the likes of the painter James McNeill Whistler, the poet Frances Featherstone, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. They found themselves in the company of greatness, but Bram knew it was only by association with Irving that he was allowed into this elite circle. No matter how much he pleaded, Irving would never produce any of Stoker’s plays. Despite the fact that Stoker worked tirelessly to manage all of his affairs, even his trysts with women, Irving disparaged Bram’s writing and would help him not one whit.

At last, a chance came for Stoker to step into center stage. In 1890, Oscar Wilde, straying from his usual style, penned a gothic tale, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and it was an instant success. Then suddenly, Bram’s former friend and rival was arrested, and the result had been a highly publicized trial for charges of gross indecency. Hoping to cash in on the latest literary fashion, Stoker had drawn from Wilde’s example and that of Mary Shelley and John Polidori. During the summer of 1816, the famed poet Lord Byron had challenged himself and his houseguests to write a horror story. It was assumed that the two established authors present, Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, would be triumphant. No one expected that Percy’s wife, Mary Shelley, or Dr. John Polidori, would rise above the others. Both the novel Frankenstein and the short story The Vampyre were born that night, resulting in the two most inexperienced authors in the group writing two hugely successful books. Bram adored all of these gothic horror stories and began to search for the opportunity to match their accomplishment. That opportunity came when Wilde’s imprisonment left a literary void. Bram decided this was the time to step out of the shadow of Irving and Wilde. Bram wasn’t being opportunistic—he just believed that his hard work had to pay off sometime.

It came as no surprise to him that his editor and publisher did not share his newfound desire; after all, Bram had previously published successful biographical and reference titles. But he was taken aback by Florence’s total lack of support. She thought Bram was wasting his time trying to write horror, and she considered this newest endeavor beneath them. Stoker solemnly realized he was quite alone in his quest to become a successful novelist.

Reflecting on this, Stoker understood that he should have sought a different editor and a new publisher for his novel. He was certain they had wanted him to fail, in the hope that he would “return to his senses” and pen only factual material. The cretins had not only changed the novel’s title from The Un-Dead to Dracula but had also cut hundreds of vital pages from the book. Stoker wagered that Wilde had never been censored. Furthermore, his publisher had made no attempt to promote Dracula to Wilde’s literary followers. Of course the publisher blamed Bram alone for the unsurprising poor sales.

After all these years, Bram still felt overshadowed by his former friend. Even from prison, and later in death, Wilde was the greater success. Dorian Gray sold faster than it could be printed. Stoker had hoped that Irving might publicly praise Dracula. Instead, he proclaimed it “dreadful” and, with one word, killed Stoker’s hopes, for which Stoker never forgave Irving.

A few years later, Irving died before either man had a chance to apologize. To his surprise, Irving left the Lyceum Theatre to Stoker in his will. Stoker finally had full control of something in his life. But, without Henry Irving’s name attached to the productions, the audiences stayed home. Slowly, the best and brightest of his staff went to neighboring theatres. The Lyceum was hemorrhaging money, and the pressure was almost too much to bear. Stoker had a stroke.

Bram was aware that he was in the last act of his life and had one last chance to make his novel a success. He needed the theatrical version of Dracula to be a hit in order to drive the sales of the novel. If the play failed, he was sure that his failing health would never give him the opportunity for an encore. He did not want to be remembered as a faded footnote in Irving’s illustrious biography. He had to be the one to bring the successful ingredient to this production, not Hamilton Deane, or Quincey Harker.

Bram looked at the empty crimson seats of the Lyceum Theatre. He needed to be the one to fill them. He needed to bring Barrymore back and reestablish some modicum of control over his own play. He found it ironic that he could use Deane’s infernal wireless station to send a telegram to Southampton and beg Barrymore not to journey on to America. Barrymore was the star Bram wanted. He no longer had the desire or the time to compromise.