The Monster Trilogy. Brian Aldiss
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their brougham rolled into the yard of the Castle, a clock was chiming a quarter hour after eleven. They were in good time for the investiture at twelve noon. A platoon of household guards was on parade, and a band played lively airs. Mrs Stoker clapped her gloved hands in pleasure.
‘Capital chaps,’ agreed Stoker, nodding towards the uniformed bandsmen. ‘Pity your pater isn’t here to see them, Flo.’
Crowds stared in at the gates, while children waved small paper Union Jacks.
They were assisted ceremoniously from the carriage. Their company was escorted to a reception room, where other celebrated names lounged about in nonchalant attitudes and medals, smoking if possible. Irving himself joined them in a few minutes, and Bodenland was introduced.
Henry Irving walked with a long stride, perhaps to make himself look taller than he was. He had the appearance of a great famished wolf. The hair on his magnificent head was liberally streaked with white, long, and raggedly cut, lending something bohemian to his person. He swung his famous brow towards the assembled company to make sure he was recognized, then turned all his attention to Stoker and his companions.
‘I’m friendly with your compatriot, Mark Twain,’ Irving said. ‘I met him when we were doing our recent tour of America. Very amusing man.’
He sat down next to them and drummed his fingers on his top hat.
‘No chance of a drink here, Henry,’ Stoker said.
But coffee was served in porcelain cups which Mrs Stoker greatly admired. She persevered in admiring everything in sight.
In due time, they were shown into a splendid scarlet reception room. The furnishings consisted of stiff-backed chairs at one end and a plain throne on a dais at the other. Apart from this, a few lavishly framed oils of battle scenes hanging on the walls were the only decoration. In an adjoining room, light music was being played by a quartet.
Queen Victoria was escorted into the room at the far end. She seated herself on the throne without ostentation. She was a small dumpy woman, dressed in black with a blue sash running over one shoulder. She dispensed half-a-dozen knighthoods with a ceremonial sword, displaying nothing that could be interpreted as intense interest in the proceedings. As etiquette decreed, she made no conversation with her newly honoured subjects as they rose from their knees.
It was Irving’s turn. He ascended the three shallow steps and knelt before his Queen. She tapped him on both shoulders with the sword.
‘We were much amused, Sir Henry,’ she said, and smiled.
‘Ooh, she smiled,’ Mrs Stoker whispered in her husband’s ear.
He nodded vigorously.
The playing of the national anthem concluded the ceremony.
Afterwards, as they left the Castle with Irving, the talk was all of the Queen’s smile. There was general agreement that it was wonderful, and that she looked extremely well for her age.
Mrs Stoker turned to Bodenland.
‘You’ve had little to say on this truly memorable occasion, sir. What did you make of it all? A fine tale you’ll have to take back to Mrs Borderland. I warrant you have nothing so impressive in America.’
‘That may be so, madam. We have no royalty in our country, being a republic. All this display you see, this great castle – is it not paid for out of the pockets of the average Britisher? And your Queen – I mean no offence, but is it not the English poor who keep her in luxury?’
‘That’s plain silly, Joe,’ said Stoker. ‘The Queen’s a very spartan lady. Eats almost nothing since the Prince Consort died.’
‘Are you telling us America has no poor?’ said Florence.
‘I didn’t say that, Mrs Stoker. Of course we have poor, but the poor have hope. They may – I use an old-fashioned phrase – raise themselves from log cabin to White House. Whereas I doubt if any of the English poor have ever raised themselves to the throne from Whitechapel.’
‘You look unwell, Mr Borderland,’ said Florence, stiffly.
The ceremony was followed by a grand luncheon, held in the banqueting rooms off Whitehall, and attended by no less a figure than the Prime Minister, Lord Rosebery.
As usual, Bram Stoker had to stay close to Irving, but he came over to his new friend’s side once, to introduce him to Irving’s leading lady, Ellen Terry. Ellen Terry’s brother Fred, also an actor, was with her, but Bodenland was able to spare no glance for him.
Ellen Terry was simply the most beautiful woman he had ever set eyes on. She wore a saffron silk dress, with hand-woven designs consisting of many-coloured threads and little jewels. The dress went with her striking colouring and eyes that – he could only feel it – looked at him and understood him. Bodenland was so overwhelmed by this sensation, entirely new to him, that he was unable to say anything sensible. He remembered afterwards only a certain manner in which she held her head, as if at once proud and modest. He remembered the way her mouth – that delightful mouth – moved, but not what it said.
Then she turned to speak to someone else. In a phrase Bram Stoker used later, Ellen Terry was like embodied sunshine.
But her amiable brother Fred stayed a moment and pointed 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