Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile

by Gyles Brandreth

  ‘Your mistress, sir,’ I might have answered, but I did not. I said nothing. I sensed that when Edmond La Grange asked a question, he did not necessarily expect a reply.

  He smiled at me and said, ‘You’re young. There’s no hurry. You’ve years ahead of you.’ He held out his arms once more. ‘My dressing gown, mon petit.’ I helped him into it and, following his instructions, at the back of the drawer with the Colt revolver and the silver hairbrushes, I found his velvet eye mask. He settled himself onto the chaise longue, put on the eye mask, lay back and folded his arms across his chest. ‘I look like a dead king upon a catafalque, do I not? Charles the Fair or Louis the Fat —what do you say?’

  I said nothing.

  ‘You are a quick learner, mon petit,’ he murmured. ‘I think I shall hang on to you. Wake me at seven o’clock.’

  I sat on his stool and watched him until he fell asleep. As he slept, he snored and, while he was snoring, I moved about the room as quietly as I could, picking up the debris from the dressing table, clearing the tea things, folding his discarded garments, restoring order. More than once I stood at the door to Traquair’s room, peering into the darkness within. I had not been in the presence of a dead body before. I was surprised that I did not find it more unsettling.

  At seven o’clock, the little carriage clock that stood on the sideboard struck the hour and, as it did so, without any prompting from me, Edmond La Grange sat bolt upright on the chaise longue. ‘Me voilà! Risen like one of Dr Ferrand’s dead bodies at the morgue.’ He got to his feet and lightly tossed his eye mask onto the dressing table. ‘Ferrand’s a good man,’ he said, smiling at me, ‘a poor card-player, but a good man.’ He threw off his dressing gown and stood naked before me once again. ‘And now,’ he announced, ‘Harpagon — L’Avare. Whatever they tell you, mon petit, comedy is infinitely more taxing than tragedy.’

  On that first occasion, dressing Edmond La Grange proved surprisingly uncomplicated. Traquair had left everything that was required inside the corner wardrobe, laundered and pressed and arranged in the order of its putting on. La Grange, as I helped him into his costume, talked without ceasing. For thirty minutes, as he pulled on stockings and trews, and fiddled with cuffs and collars, he talked of Frédéric Lemaître and Edmond Got, of Mounet-Sully and Talma and Réjane. He talked of La Grange, too: he talked much of the great La Grange heritage. ‘Either you can do it or you can’t do it, mon petit. It can’t be taught. It’s in the blood. You are too young to have seen the incomparable Rachel, of course. Your friend Wilde worships Bernhardt — and with reason. Rachel was a Jewess, like Sarah, but she was greater than Sarah, because she could play comedy as well as tragedy. She was utterly uneducated; she could neither read nor write. She did not know what she was saying, but how brilliantly she said it! It’s in the blood.’

  At half past seven there was a sharp knock on the door. It was the stage manager come to tell Monsieur that the stage was set and the house was open. ‘Viens, mon petit,’ commanded La Grange. He crooked a finger and beckoned me to follow him. Together, we walked from his dressing room into the wings and onto the dimly lit stage. Like a guard inspecting the moonlit battlements, the great actor-manager marched with even step to the four corners of his castle: upstage right, upstage left, downstage left, downstage right. In each corner, he lightly kissed his fingertips and touched a piece of the scenery. As we passed, stagehands and waiting players fell still and bowed towards him.

  The ritual done, we returned in silence to his dressing room. He sat once more on his stool facing his looking-glass. He peered intently at his own reflection. He picked up a stick of make-up and deepened the dark blue line he had drawn around each eye. ‘The eyes are everything,’ he said. ‘The people must be able to see your eyes from every corner of the house. If they don’t, they won’t know you and they won’t care.’

  At eight o’clock, the stage manager knocked once more on the dressing-room door. ‘Follow me,’ said La Grange. ‘During the performance I change in the wings — on the far side. There’ll be a table and chair waiting, and a looking-glass. And a candle to see by. Do you have everything?’

  Traquair had prepared the basket of costume changes. I held it in my arms: a nightshirt, nightcap and slippers, pantaloons and gaberdine, a skullcap, gloves and overshoes — all in the order in which they would be required.

  ‘Eh bien,’ he said, bracing his shoulders and taking a deep breath as we stepped from his dressing room into the wings. ‘Enjoy the play, mon petit. And watch my eyes. It’s my eyes that will tell them when to laugh.’

  I watched his eyes. They were, indeed, extraordinary. Wide, protuberant and luminous, they darted here and there: they never stopped. He never stopped. For more than two hours, without pause, he ran and trotted, scampered, strutted, strode and paced about the stage. Even when he stood still, he burned with energy. ‘Je brûle, n’est-ce pas?’ he chuckled when, for the first of his costume changes, he joined me in the wings.

  When it was over — when the curtain had fallen for the fifteenth and final time — he spun slowly round on stage, his eyes still wide, and called to the cast and company:

  ‘Merci, messieurs dames! Bravo!’ By way of reply, the actors raised their hands before them and above their heads and applauded their leader. I stood in the wings, applauding too.

  He came straight towards me and put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed me hard. It was a ferocious squeeze, almost violent. ‘Monsieur Molière knows his business, n’est-ce pas?’

  ‘And you know yours, sir,’ I answered, disengaging myself and passing him the towel that I had found at the bottom of the basket. I picked up the candle from the table to lead us back across the stage to his dressing room.

  He pulled the candle towards his face. His skin glistened with sweat. ‘Now that’s how a dresser should address his master,’ he said softly. ‘Thank you, mon petit. Thank you very much.’

  He swept back into his dressing room and began to throw off his costume even as he stepped through the door. ‘I think a glass or two of champagne is in order,’ he declared. ‘You can join me. There’s a case in there —under the divan.’

  ‘In where?’ I asked, putting down the basket on the chaise longue.

  ‘In the dresser’s room,’ he said, ‘in your room, under the divan.’

  The door to the dresser’s room still stood ajar.

  ‘Go, go!’ ordered the old actor, laughing. ‘He’s dead. He won’t bite you.’

  Slowly, I pushed open the door to Traquair’s room. There was a faint trace of lily of the valley in the air. It was Oscar’s favourite fragrance. I felt a sudden longing for his company.

  ‘Well?’ barked La Grange from the other room. I held up the lighted candle and looked about Traquair’s tiny domain.

  ‘He’s gone,’ I said. ‘There’s no one here.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ said La Grange. ‘Bring out the champagne.’

  10

  Pharamond

  I did not see Oscar until noon the following day. I lingered with Edmond La Grange in his dressing room until gone midnight. It was an unreal experience. Between the two of us, we must have consumed three —or perhaps four — bottles of champagne. As we drank the sparkling yellow wine, the great La Grange talked — and talked! As he talked, I helped him to undress. I bathed him; I towelled him dry; I helped him to dress again. Under his instruction, I found, sorted and, within the wardrobe and in the basket, as appropriate, hung up and laid out the costumes for his next performance: Argan in Le Malade Imaginaire.

  ‘Molière was playing Argan when he died,’ La Grange whispered to me conspiratorially. ‘Some say it was tuberculosis. Some think it was murder. It was the night of the fourth performance: 17 February 1673.’ The old actor spun round on his stool, holding his glass of champagne high in the air. ‘What is the date today? The same: 17 February! The mighty Molière died two hundred and ten years ago tonight, mon petit, on that chaise longue.’ He began to laugh. ‘Or one very like
it!’ He laughed so much that he began to cry.

  At midnight, the carriage clock on the sideboard struck and the stage manager knocked once again on the dressing-room door. ‘To bed!’ cried La Grange. ‘Will there be time for cards? Perhaps.’ He was quite drunk. ‘Will Agnès tuck me up tonight? Or Gabrielle?’ He pulled on his overcoat. ‘Oh, spare me Maman!’ he breathed in mock alarm. He put his arm around my shoulder and let me lead him across the darkened stage to the stage door.

  Together we stepped out into the cobbled alley that ran along the back of the theatre. The cold night air hit us both hard. ‘I’m awake again,’ he rasped, ‘like one of Ferrand’s corpses!’ He rubbed his face roughly with both hands and ran his fingers through his thick white hair. ‘I’m hungry,’ he said. ‘I need some supper. Do you want some supper?’

  ‘No, thank you, monsieur, it’s been a long day.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, throwing back his head and shoulders and filling his lungs, ‘it’s been a lifetime.’

  We had reached the stone stairway that led up the outside of the building to the private entrance to his apartment. He was rummaging in the pocket of his overcoat to find his key. He brought out a heavy handful of silver and copper coins and, without looking at them, handed them to me. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Marais will sort out your wages. You can use the room.’

  ‘I have a room,’ I said. ‘It’s nearby.’ I took the money in both hands, gratefully. ‘Thank you, monsieur.’

  ‘It’s I who am indebted to you, mon petit,’ he replied, putting his fingers gently behind my neck and pulling me forward. ‘An actor needs a dresser he can trust.’ He kissed the top of my head. ‘Don’t betray me now,’ he whispered. ‘Goodnight.’

  I walked to the end of the alley. When I turned and looked back, he was standing in the doorway with his daughter, Agnès, at his side. In her long white nightdress she looked like an angel. She held her arms around her father’s neck. He waved to me and closed the door. I climbed the street to the boulevard du Temple and stood beneath the gas lamp on the corner. I opened my clenched fists and inspected the coins that the great La Grange had pressed into my hands. In loose change, he had given me more money than I had earned from my translation work in three months.

  I walked along the boulevard until a cab came by. Flush with funds, I hailed it and ordered it to take me to Oscar’s hotel down on the quai Voltaire. There, the night porter was genial but adamant: Monsieur Wilde’s key was on its hook, Monsieur Wilde was not at home. I stood in the street outside the hotel, uncertain what to do or where to go. Where was Oscar? I had no idea. I was already in Oscar’s thrall, but I knew him hardly at all. I felt that our friendship was profound and yet, in truth, we had been companions for no more than a matter of days — it was not two weeks since we had first met. I gazed across the deserted quai onto the River Seine. There was no moon: the water was black and still. The night was silent. I felt peculiarly alone. I ordered the cab to take me back to my rooming-house in the rue de Beauce.

  I dropped onto my narrow bed, expecting to fall asleep at once. Instead, I lay awake for hours, or so it seemed. I cannot recollect much about that night, except that the only way in which I could banish from my mind’s eye the haunting image of Traquair’s head and shoulders covered with La Grange’s towel was to conjure up for myself a vision of Gabrielle de la Tourbillon — smiling, naked and in my arms.

  The following morning I was woken by the cruel sound of the concierge relentlessly banging her broom handle on my door. I hid my aching head beneath the bolster, but the wretched woman’s brutal beating did not stop. I struggled to my feet, and found that I was still wearing my boots and overcoat from the night before. I unlocked my door and discovered the over-excited crone, grinning like a jackanapes, waving a piece of paper in her withered paw. It was a note from Oscar: ‘Your carriage awaits. Breakfast is served.’

  The concierge was impressed to see me being driven away from her grimy tenement in a carriage of any kind. I was impressed to find that I was being driven to Pharamond, named in honour of the fabled first King of France, on the rue de la Grande Truanderie. It was a restaurant of which Oscar had often spoken. ‘If Epicurus had come to Paris, Pharamond is where most he would have wished to dine.’

  I found my friend, all alone, seated in state at a large, round table at the very back of the dining room. He was wearing a worsted suit the colour of café au lait, with a sage-green silk scarf thrown about his neck. (Café au lait and sage green were his favourite colours in 1883.) He was looking strikingly youthful: fresh-faced and newly shaven. There was something absurd about his carefully arranged Neronian curls, but something magnificent about his bearing. He sat quite upright, gazing wistfully towards a lost horizon, with his elbows resting lightly on the table and his arms held out to left and right, like an overgrown boy king, posing for his portrait, with sceptre and orb in either hand. In fact, his left hand was holding a pocket watch and resting on what appeared to be a gaudily decorated biscuit tin. His right hand was clutching, simultaneously, a lighted cigarette and a glass of yellow wine.

  ‘Good morning, Oscar,’ I said, somewhat groggily. I had not spoken since the night before. ‘How are you? You look well rested.’

  ‘I have not slept at all,’ he said amiably, turning his head towards me and drawing on his cigarette. ‘But, as you can see, I have shaved and a close shave always does me good. And I have changed and they say that a change is as good as a rest.’ He raised his glass towards me by way of salutation. ‘Welcome! I’m glad the driver found you.’

  I looked about the marbled dining room. A young waiter, polishing silver at the buffet, nodded to me and smiled. There were no other diners to be seen. ‘What are we doing here?’ I asked.

  Oscar put his glass on the table and extinguished his cigarette. He glanced at his pocket watch and laid it by the biscuit tin. With both hands he picked up a folded linen napkin, unfurled it with a flourish and placed it across his lap. ‘I’m on my way to the Gare du Nord. This is halfway. I stopped off for a bite to eat. You’ve come to join me.’

  ‘The Gard du Nord?’

  ‘I’m going to London.’

  ‘London?’ My head was aching. I rubbed my eyes. ‘London?’ I repeated. ‘Why, Oscar? What has happened?’

  ‘I have to arrange an assignation with an assassin.’

  ‘What?’ I said, bemused.

  ‘Or, at least, a would-be assassin. My friend George Palmer has promised to arrange for me to meet the man who tried to shoot Queen Victoria. I had a telegram from him yesterday. He’s gone to a lot of trouble to effect the introduction with the authorities and asks me to present myself in person so my moral fibre can be tested. I mustn’t disoblige him.’

  I had no idea what my friend was talking about. He waved towards the waiter. ‘Take off your coat, Robert. Sit down. When did you last eat? Yesterday morning, wasn’t it? You need reviving. Have some breakfast.’

  The waiter came and helped me to remove my overcoat. I sat down face to face with Oscar and, slowly, began to take in the feast that lay before us. It was extraordinary: half a dozen different dishes, ranged side by side. Oscar scanned the table and purred: ‘Terrine de queue de boeuf, l’os à moelle, filets de maquereau au yin blanc, les escargots de Bourgogne, les huîtres plates de Cancale, fried eggs à l’anglais.’

  ‘Is this breakfast?’ I asked, laughing.

  ‘This is breakfast and lunch combined — there’ll be a word for it one day. Help yourself. These are merely the entrées. I’ve taken the liberty of ordering La poulette de Racan rôtie entière for our main course. That should leave us room and time for a light dessert. You’ll want to try the madeleines chaudes à la confiture. No one who tries the madeleines forgets them.’

  ‘Oscar,’ I said. ‘This is absurd.’

  ‘No,’ he said seriously. ‘It is not absurd. It is as it should be. Thirteen years ago, during the siege of Paris in the cruel winter of 1870, there was famine in this city. A cat sold for twenty
francs, a rat for two. Those few who could afford it dined on cuts of bison, giraffe and zebra from the zoo.’

  I looked at my friend and smiled.

  He was not smiling: he was in deadly earnest. As he spoke, his eyes filled with tears. ‘Do you not recall how Castor and Pollux, the lumbering elephants from the Jardin des Plantes, who had spent their lives carrying the children of Paris on their backs, met their deaths that winter? Slaughtered to provide food for famished families.’ He picked up an oyster and considered it carefully. ‘There is nothing to be said for starvation, Robert. There is no virtue in pain. Life should be a banquet for all. Pleasure is the only thing one should live for.’ He swallowed the oyster and immediately took up another. ‘I have found that an inordinate passion for pleasure is the secret of remaining young.’ He mopped his mouth with his napkin and nodded to the waiter to pour me some wine. ‘Eat up, Robert. Drink up. We must raise our glasses to Washington Traquair. In his brief life, how much pleasure did he know?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said, raising my glass at once and leaning anxiously across the table. ‘We must drink to Traquair’s memory; and you must tell me what happened last night. Where is his body now? Did you go to the police?’

  Oscar glanced at the timepiece that he had laid face up next to the biscuit tin. ‘We have two hours before my train departs. I will tell you everything. But, first, tell me: how was your début as dresser to the great La Grange?’ I began to help myself to an assortment of the entrées laid before us. ‘A success, I think. He tipped me generously. He plied me with champagne. He seems to want me to continue.’