The Monster Trilogy. Brian Aldiss

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СКАЧАТЬ out some notables to Bodenland as they assembled round the table.

      ‘That feller with the green lapels to his jacket is a compatriot of yours, Edwin Abbey. Good artist but, being American, won’t end up in the Abbey.’ He laughed at his own joke, treating the whole affair like a kind of horse-race. ‘See whom he’s shaking hands with? That’s the old war horse, Alma Tadema – he’s pipped Henry at the post, he’s already a knight. Wonderful painter, he entirely redesigned the Roman toga for Henry’s Coriolanus … Ah, now, coming up on the straight – see that lady with the turban and the slightly too grand osprey feathers? That’s none other than Mrs Perugini, daughter of the late lamented Charles Dickens, novelist. The serious-looking gent embracing Bram … that’s one of his best friends, Hall Caine – another novelist, happily still with us.

      ‘Oh, here’s a treat!’ Fred Terry exclaimed, as a wild-looking man with a great streaming head of hair burst into the room and flung his arms about Irving. ‘It’s the Polish musical genius of the age. Paderewski. They’re chums, as you can tell. Quite a romantic chappie, by all accounts.’ Indeed, when the guests were all seated, and before the commencement of the meal, Paderewski was prevailed upon to position himself at the grand piano and play a minuet of his own composition, attacking the keys with as much spirit as if he did so on behalf of the whole Polish people.

      After wild applause, the new knight rose and made a speech, also wildly applauded, after which he gave his famous rendering of ‘The Bells’, the dramatic story of a man haunted by the undetected murder he had committed. Tumultuous applause. Ellen Terry sat between Irving and Lord Rosebery, and smiled like an angel.

      Then the banquet began.

      Enormous amounts of food were supplied by bustling waiters, bearing with aplomb the loaded dishes in and the emptied dishes out. Wine rose in such a tide in cut-glass goblets that men in their dinner jackets grew apoplectic, with cheeks as scarlet as the Bordeaux.

      Slightly awed by the gargantuan consumption, Bodenland picked at his food and sipped at his claret. Florence Stoker, seated next to him, regaled him with tales of the Balcombe family.

      Evidently she found him unresponsive.

      ‘Are you one of those men who regards a woman’s conversation as inconsequential?’ she asked, as a towering confection resembling a Mont Blanc built of sponge, brandy, and icing sugar was set before them.

      ‘On the contrary, ma’am. I wish it were otherwise.’

      He could not stop glancing at Ellen Terry; she altered his whole feeling towards the nineteenth century.

      When finally they staggered out into the light of a London day, with dim sunlight slanting through the plane trees, it was to be met by a throng of beggars, importuning for food or money.

      Taking Bodenland’s elbow, Stoker steered him through the outstretched hands. Bodenland looked with pity on the cadaverous faces, pale but lit with burning eyes, the rags they wore like cerements. He wondered if Stoker had drawn his picture of the Undead from this melancholy company, which swarmed in its thousands through the underworld of London.

      Seeing his interest, Stoker stopped and accosted one small lad, bare of legs and feet, who held out a bony hand to them. Picking a coin from his pocket, Stoker asked the boy what he did for a living.

      ‘I was a pure-finder, guv, following me father’s trade. But times is hard, owing to competition from over the other side. Spare a copper, guv, bless you.’

      He got the copper, and made off fast down a side street.

      ‘What’s a pure-finder?’ Bodenland asked, as they climbed into their carriage.

      ‘Pure’s dog shit,’ said Stoker, shielding the word from his wife with his topper. ‘The urchin probably works for the tanners over Bermondsey way. They use the shit for tanning leather. I hear it’s a profitable occupation.’

      ‘The boy was starving.’

      ‘You can’t go by looks.’

      They returned home in the evening. Lights were already on in the house as James led the horses away to the stable.

      A great to-do went on in the hall with the removal of outer garments and the fussing of van Helsing, who was anxious to see that the outing had inflicted no harm on his charge. He managed to circumnavigate Stoker twice by the time the latter entered the drawing room and flung himself down in an armchair under the Bronzino.

      Stoker tugged vigorously at the bellrope for wine.

      ‘What a day, to be sure,’ he said. ‘It’s a day of great honour to the whole of the acting profession, no less. Wouldn’t you agree, Joe?’

      Joe had gone over to the window to look at the daylight lingering in the garden.

      ‘How beautiful Ellen Terry is,’ he said, dreamily.

      While the manservant was pouring wine, van Helsing ran over to Stoker’s chair and sank down beside it on one knee, somewhat in the attitude Irving had assumed a few hours previously. He rolled up Stoker’s sleeve and administered an injection from a large silver syringe.

      Stoker made a face.

      ‘It’s my friend here who needs your ministry, Van,’ said Stoker. Getting up, he went over to where Bodenland was standing, looking out towards the woods. As Bodenland turned, Stoker saw the two tell-tale marks at his throat, and understood.

      ‘Better get some iodine, Van. Mr Bodenland cut himself shaving.’ He led Bodenland over to a comfortable chair and made him sit down. After standing looking compassionately down at him, he snapped his fingers. ‘I know what you need.’

      In a minute, after probing in the wine cabinet, he brought forth a wine glass full of a red liquid and gave it to Joe.

      ‘What’s this? Wine?’

      ‘Laudanum. Do you a power of good and all.’

      ‘My god … Well, it is 1896 …’ He sipped it slowly and felt some of the lassitude leave him.

      ‘You should get out of here at once, Joe. You’re a marked man. I know I’ve helped to delay you, but I see now you should make for home on the morrow, sure as eggs are eggs.’

      Bodenland stood up, a little shakily. He took a deep breath.

      ‘I’m okay, or near enough. Allow me to make you a small speech, since you’ve both been so kind and hospitable. Despite my experiences on the way to England – and I’ve hardly dared tell you of the full strangeness of that journey – I have fought with myself to deny the reality of … of vampires. To be honest, I thought they were a fiction invented for the novel you are about to finish. Even when you talked about them, I kind of reckoned you mad. Now I know you’re not mad.’

      ‘Heaven be praised! It’s myself that’s always thinking I’m mad, or going that way.’

      ‘And I’m glad of your reassurance, Mr Bodenland,’ said Florence, getting his name right in gratitude.

      ‘Thanks. Let me finish my speech. Of course I still worry about my wife, Mina, and my family. I can’t resist the intuition that some dreadful thing may have happened to her. But – hell, Bram, after my experience last СКАЧАТЬ