22 BRAM STOKER

London was more of a madhouse than it had been before. The power of steam had industrialized all aspects of society. Along both sides of the Thames, where scores of wooden ships with hundreds of rigged masts had lain, massive iron behemoths lay in silence until fierce columns of black smoke belched from their stacks.

They would pose as a couple returning to mother England, and Jonathan would assume the identity of his former self’s son. The “elder” St Croix had run off to America, and his son, disenchanted with America, returned home. As his wife, Evelyn would be a young lady from Savannah, Georgia. That would help account for her accent, as she lost her native sound and spoke with a Portuguese inflection. She could attribute it to ‘her imaginary mother,’ an English woman who had lived in Cuba.    

Their new home was in a fashionable area of Chelsea, midway up the eastern course of Royal Avenue. Many theatre people lived in the area.

The Aldwych, the Strand, the Lyceum, and other theatres were all in one area of the city, known as ‘the West End’. This included the Duchess and the Royal Theatre on Drury Lane, which was exceptionally close to the law offices of Baxter, Narrows, and Tyrol.

From their home to the theatre district, if one could fly in a line like a Tower raven, it would be less than three miles. Still, to take a carriage from one place to the other, it was almost five miles, as to the size of St James Garden and the Residence of the Queen, Buckingham Palace, situated almost directly between the two points.

St Croix was momentarily terrified when he looked at a list of theatre managers and noticed that Abraham “Bram” Stoker was the business manager at the Lyceum. He was more shocked to find out that Stoker lived on St Leonard’s Terrace, not a two-minute walk, a mere 150 yards from his residence. He was relieved to hear that the elder Stoker had died 12 years earlier.

Through the theatre business and mutual friends, they became friends themselves.

St Croix could regale the younger Stoker with tales about his late father, saying that his father had been quite impressed with the elder Irishman.

One mutual friend was the essayist and playwright Oscar Wilde. Wilde was obsessed with his looks, worrying about every small line or blemish that appeared. He asked Jonathan why summer never changed his countenance or colour and why he rarely, if ever, looked tired or drawn, even at the peak of the theatre season with its extended hours. St Croix replied, “I have a magic mirror in the attic of my home that bears witness to all my life troubles, woes, and maladies.” 

Two years later, Wilde published a fantastic novel about a young man who purchases an eternally youthful appearance at the expense of his soul. In his home, he has an ever-changing portrait that bears every sin and transgression he commits.

Wilde also knew Stoker, as Stoker married Florence Balcombe. A beautiful young woman from Marino Cresent. One of her former suitors was Wilde. Stoker and Wilde also attended University together.

Stoker had travelled extensively but had never been to the newly independent state of Romania. He had read volumes on the folkloric stories of the regions and had become fascinated with the myths of vampiric lore.

He was delighted to hear that Jonathan had been to the lands between the Adriatic and the Black Seas and wished Jonathan would tell him all he knew about the lands. St Croix and his wife were invited to vacation with them in Cruden Bay, Scotland, in the summer of 1895. For a week during his month-long holidays to the Aberdeenshire coastal village, which had always given him time to write many of his books, now he spent many hours talking with St Croix about his new novel, which he called ‘Un-Dead.’

Over evening dinner, Stoker mentioned using many of the folklore rumours of vampires from the Carpathian legends, from an aversion to garlic and staking to kill them. However, he wanted more individual characteristics. On the following sunny afternoon, as the two men were walking the ground of the very recognizable octagonal-shaped Slain Castle. Stoker asked Jonathan if he had any ideas to layer into the complexities of the lives of undead blood-suckers.

“Bram, you invited me here to share your time and energies, but I would not be here if you had not invited me. So how do these undead approach people?”

“Yes, I invited you here to discuss and explore new ideas for my novel… Wait, I see what you are getting at. You would not be here if I had not invited you, so if you were a vampire, I would have had to ask you in to be close enough to harm me. Brilliant. They must be invited into homes.

Yes, that is good. Thank you.”

“But what about where they are from? You should incorporate some tie or a connection to the European mountains. A unique and unusual character trait or possession would help the righteous hunt these monsters down.”

“When you returned from America again to England, had your father taken anything from England when he emigrated? A flag, a picture of the Queen? Most people bring something as a memento. Perhaps you are right; these monsters need an attachment to their homeland. Flasks of water or timber from trees, rocks, jewellery or vials of ‘local blood.’ Something connecting them to their homeland.”

“You said that these undead were the antithesis of all that is good and holy and that they sleep in coffins. Well, we put coffins in the ground, so what if they needed a connection to the earth of their homeland?”

“Yes, wonderful. I could have them travel with a coffin full of Romanian earth! Jonathan. that is another brilliant idea. I should mention you in the book and name a main character after you.” 

“Name the undead monster after me?”

“No, he will need a foreign name, so his adversary will be named Jonathan. It is a good, solid English name. Thank you, St Croix.

“I would be honoured to give your character my name.”

“Your name is St Croix, French for cross, is it not?”

“Yes, it is, but you knew that.”

“Yes, yes, I did. So, what if they cannot face or be near a holy relic? Or enter a church and can be wounded by holy water or a cross? Yes, and when our fathers met, your father was a gold merchant. So, the undead can be repelled by gold crosses.”

“But Bram, not everyone has a golden cross or crucifix, perhaps pewter or silver? Or just the sight of a cross will stop their attack.”

They stopped on a small bridge to discuss the virtues of gold versus silver. Two ducks flew in over their heads and landed on a pond.

St Croix said, “Ducks and wildlife, I tried my hand at many artistic past-times, including outdoor watercolours, but I could never get the reflections of trees and buildings in the water correct. I would even have a hard time painting the reflections of those ducks.”

“Reflections? Jonathan, what is on the back of the mirrors we use in the theatres?”

“It used to be mercury until about forty or fifty years ago, but now I believe it is silver nitrate. Why?”

Stoker laughed, “Silver it is, silver crosses and not only crosses but all manner of silver. With silver on mirrors, the undead have no reflection.”

“Yes, and that is because they have no souls!”