Edward Shelley was another casualty. He turned up at the Savoy lamenting that he had lost his place at the Bodley Head. Rumours of his relationship with Wilde – while provoking the ribald amusement of his fellow clerks, who took to calling him ‘Miss Oscar’ and ‘Mrs Wilde’ – had scandalized Elkin Mathews, and provoked his dismissal. He, too, was now determined to make a break with the past. But his visit to the Savoy did not go well. He quarrelled with Wilde – perhaps because Wilde made a pass at him. But then, only days later, when his father threw him out of the house (again over his friendship with Wilde), he wrote pleadingly to Wilde for money and help. Within the small world of literary London Wilde’s activities were a matter of common rumour, if not common knowledge. Both Le Gallienne and Lane – though they maintained their own apparently friendly relations with Wilde – urged Shelley to break with him.32
One other figure removed from the equation was Maurice Schwabe. He had been sent to Australia by his despairing parents at the beginning of March, in the hope that he would make a fresh start there. He had ideas of joining the church. Douglas was distraught to lose his ‘darling Pretty’, and sent several impassioned letters after him – along with a bangle (‘Please darling never take [it] off’). He was, though, soon consoled by a new and close friendship with Robbie Ross. Wilde brought them together and they at once established a bond based – it seems – on their shared predilection for handsome public school boys.33
Wilde now made scant effort to hide his own tastes or proclivities. He was growing rapidly reckless. One observer noted him at the Empire Music Hall, with Bosie ‘pressed against him’ in a most ‘improper’ fashion. Frank Harris was appalled to come across him one evening at the Café Royal, throned in a corner seat between two ‘quite common’ youths (‘in fact they looked like grooms’). He was informing them – ‘if you please!’ – about the ancient Olympic games. It was a bravura display of impassioned eloquence that made the sun-baked palestra shimmer into life – at least until one of the youths asked: ‘Did you sy they was nikid?’
‘Of course,’ Oscar replied. ‘Nude: clothed only in sunshine and beauty.’
As the lad giggled ‘Oh my’, Harris and his companion fled. It was no surprise that the Marquess of Queensberry had come to revise his good opinion of Wilde, and was once more demanding that Bosie break off the friendship. It was a demand that Bosie ignored.34
Wilde stayed on at the Savoy – to the growing dismay of the management – until 29 March.35 He was not back at Tite Street to welcome Constance when she returned from her Italian trip on 21 March. And, on leaving the Savoy, instead of going home, he moved to the Hotel Albemarle, to be on hand when rehearsals of his play began at the Haymarket the following week. Douglas came with him.36 Pierre Louÿs, over in London, was distressed by the scene one morning when Constance arrived in tears at Wilde’s rooms, bringing the post from Tite Street.37 To the suggestion that he might return home, he replied that he had been away so long that he had forgotten the number of the house.38
* ‘The ‘refreshingly original’ doings of the Douglas family were a frequent feature of the newspaper social columns. One of Queensberry’s sisters, Lady Gertrude, had married a baker, and lived with him above his ‘little shop in Shepherd’s Bush’; the other, Lady Florence Dixie, kept a pet jaguar, a souvenir of her travels across Patagonia; she claimed that it had saved her from attack by Fenians in Windsor Great Park. Of the Marquess’s brothers, Lord John (before his suicide in 1891) had often found himself in court – on one occasion for having described his wife, on the census return, as a ‘cross sweep’ and a ‘lunatic’. The other brother, Lord Archibald, in reaction to the marquess’s secularism, had converted to Catholicism and become a priest, running a boys’ home on the Harrow Road.
† Otho Lloyd was himself in difficulties: he had lost money in a financial speculation and was being pursued by creditors. He soon afterwards retreated to Switzerland and adopted his own middle name, Holland, as an alias.
‡ Wilde had strong views on toys. He was overheard in ‘a well-known toy-shop in Regent Street’, asking for ‘a Noah’s Ark… not one of your modern Noah’s Arks, but a good old-fashioned one, one in which Noah is the same size as the dove, and the dove the same size as the elephant.’ When something along those lines was produced, he asked whether he might check its suitability by sucking the painted figure of Noah, to see whether it tasted like the toy of his own childhood.
§ Campbell Dodgson, in a letter to Lionel Johnson, gave a vivid account of their flight from Douglas’s mother’s house at Salisbury: ‘Our departure was dramatic; Bosie was as usual in a whirl: he had no boots, no money, no cigarettes, and had omitted to send many telegrams of the first importance. Then, with a minimum of minutes in which to catch our train, we were required to overload a small pony chaise with a vast amount of trunks, while I was charged with a fox terrier and a scarlet morocco dispatch box, a gorgeous and beautiful gift from Oscar. After hurried farewells to the ladies, we started on a wild career, Bosie driving. I expected only to drag my shattered limbs to the Salisbury Infirmary, but we arrived at the station. When we had been gone an hour or so it occurred to Bosie that he never told Oscar we were coming, so a vast telegram was dispatched from Exeter.’
2
Feasting with Panthers
Mrs Allonby: ‘Have you tried a good reputation?’
Lord Illingworth: ‘It is one of the many annoyances to which I have never been subjected.’
oscar wilde, a woman of no importance
Wilde buried his own heartlessness amid the preparations for A Woman of No Importance. He was a constant presence at the theatre over the next three weeks. When Tree was asked if the play was being rehearsed ‘with the assistance of Wilde’, he replied, ‘with the interference of Wilde’. There certainly were moments of tension. But there was also much useful collaboration. Wilde consented to numerous suggested cuts, and made several telling additions to the text. Tree was amazed at the way he would retire ‘into a corner of the theatre and shortly emerg[e] with a completely new scene bristling with wit and epigram’. He also added to the fun. When, one morning, the rehearsal was interrupted by a terrific crash, Wilde responded to the moment by announcing that the crash was merely some of A. H. Jones’s dialogue that ‘had fallen flat’.
It was a convivial time. Wilde often joined the generous-spirited Tree and the other actors for lunch at the Continental Hotel on Lower Regent Street. Among his friends in the cast was ‘Bernie’ Beere, who was playing Mrs Arbuthnot. Tree was relishing his role as Lord Illingworth. Having begun his career imitating Wilde in Where’s the Cat? he could now give an even richer account of Wilde’s manner, as the witty and cynical peer. His performance was inclined to extend beyond the stage. He would jot down Wilde’s impromptu witticisms in his notebook for later use, and even began coining his own variations upon them. ‘Ah,’ Wilde declared, ‘every day dear Herbert becomes de plus en plus Oscarisé; it is a wonderful case of Nature imitating Art.’
Perhaps the imitation needed to go further. When the actor-manager Squire Bancroft inquired whether Tree would be good in the part, Wilde disloyally replied: ‘Good? No.’ ‘Surely not bad?’ Bancroft countered. ‘Bad? No.’ ‘Indifferent, then?’ ‘No, not indifferent.’ ‘Then what on earth will he be?’ ‘In the strictest confidence… but you will not repeat this?’ ‘Not a word.’ ‘Then I will whisper in your deaf ear. Tree will be… we must face it manfully… he will be Tree.’1
The opening night on 19 April quite matched the glamour of Lady Windermere’s Fan. As it was a Wednesday parliament was not sitting, so many leading political ‘notabilities’ were able to be there. Setting aside all differences on the Irish question, Balfour was in Wilde’s own box, together with George Wyndham and the Countess of Grosvenor. Cyril Flower – recently ennobled as Lord Battersea – sat opposite. George Lewis, Burne-Jones, Alma-Tadema, Mrs Jopling, Conan Doyle, Le Gallienne and even Swinburne swelled the ranks of talent. Willie, too, was in attendanc
e.
The audience, it was clear, loved the play. At the end there were calls for the author – although when Wilde appeared to take his bow, some ‘hoots and hisses’ mingled with the cheers. The reasons for this were not given: it has been suggested that Hester Worsley’s line about ‘English society’ lying ‘like a leper in purple… a dead thing smeared with gold’, might have offended the patriotic sensibilities of the pit. There were calls from the ‘gods’ for Wilde to return and speak. But, mindful of his ‘mixed reception,’ he declined. It was left to Tree – having declared his own pride in being connected with ‘such a work of art’ – to report that Wilde had already departed the auditorium.2
Backstage Wilde congratulated the cast, and they congratulated him. He enthused to Tree, ‘I shall always regard you as the best critic of my plays.’ ‘But,’ Tree said, ‘I have never criticized your plays.’ ‘That’s why,’ Oscar answered complacently. The press response was, again, wilfully ungenerous. As one friend noted, ‘How the critics attack gentle Oscar.’ With the exceptions of William Archer in the World and A. B. Walkley in the Speaker ‘the rest have scarcely tried to write about the play at all. They have simply abused Oscar.’ But even hostile critics had to allow that the play would prove popular. And its prospects were further enhanced when the Prince of Wales attended the second night. He was reported to have told Wilde not to alter ‘a single line’, drawing the reply, ‘Sire, your wish is my command’ – and the later observation: ‘What a splendid country where princes understand poets.’3 Wilde, it was clear, had been able to repeat the magic of Lady Windermere’s Fan. With full houses and an advantageous royalty arrangement, Wilde could look forward to earning as much as £200 a week – substantially more than he had taken even from his first success.4
But the euphoria of the moment was immediately punctured. On the day after the opening night, Tree passed Wilde a piece of paper. It had been handed to him in the street – headed, ‘Kindly give this letter to Mr Oscar Wilde and oblige yours [signature illegible].’ Tree noted that the sentiments expressed might be open to misconstruction. The missive was a copy of Wilde’s ‘madness of kisses’ letter. To Tree’s suggestion that it could be ‘dangerous’, Wilde affected a laughing unconcern, claiming that the letter was a ‘prose poem’ and ‘if put into verse might be printed in such a respectable anthology as the Golden Treasury’. ‘Yes,’ Tree replied, ‘But it is not in verse.’ ‘That no doubt explains why it is not in the Golden Treasury,’ Wilde replied. Such insouciance, however, was put on. A demand for money, Wilde knew, was sure to follow. And soon enough he was approached in the street by a man who said he wanted to speak about a letter in his possession. Wilde claimed he was too busy with the play to be bothered with such matters. He needed time.5
Following the line that he had taken with Tree, he and Douglas devised a plan. The letter – with its references to Hyacinthus and Apollo – was indeed so effusive as to be more like a work of literature than a regular communication. Its artistic excess could be turned to advantage. Pierre Louÿs was asked to transform the text into a sonnet – a French poetic version of Wilde’s ‘prose poem’. It could then be published, if not in the Golden Treasury, in The Spirit Lamp. By making the letter public, they sought to destroy its power. No one had been blackmailed over a published poem. Louÿs – despite his growing misgivings about Wilde’s relationship with Douglas – agreed to undertake the task. His translation would appear, barely two weeks later, in The Spirit Lamp’s May number, under the heading, ‘A letter written in prose poetry by Mr Oscar Wilde to a friend and translated in the rhymed poetry by a poet of no importance.’
Wilde was so far prepared when, some days later, he received a caller at Tite Street (to which he had finally returned). At about quarter to eight in the evening, shortly before dinner, Wilde’s servant announced that a Mr Allen was in the hall, wishing to see him ‘on particular business’. Wilde went down to meet the caller. As he later told Frank Harris, something in the man’s manner told him that here was ‘the real enemy’. Mr Allen informed him that he was in possession of a letter of Wilde’s that he might want to have back. ‘I suppose you mean my beautiful letter to Lord Alfred Douglas,’ Wilde said. ‘If you had not been so foolish as to send a copy of it to Mr Beerbohm Tree, I should have been glad to have paid you a large sum for it, as I consider it to be a work of art.’ The bravado was impressive; as Wilde later admitted, throughout the encounter, ‘my body seemed empty with fear’. ‘A very curious construction could be put on that letter,’ Allen said. ‘No doubt, no doubt,’ Wilde replied lightly, ‘Art is rarely intelligible to the criminal classes.’ ‘A man has offered me £60 for it,’ Allen countered defiantly. ‘You should take the offer,’ Wilde said. ‘£60 is a great price. I myself have never received such a large sum for any prose work of that length. But I am glad to find that there is someone in England who will pay such a large sum for a letter of mine.’ Allen replied weakly that the man was ‘out of town’. Pressing home what seemed to be his advantage, Wilde said, ‘He will no doubt return, and I don’t care for the letter at all.’ As Wilde sought to terminate the interview, Allen changed tack, and began to plead that he was very poor, and had been put to considerable expense in trying to track Wilde down. Wilde presented Allen with half a sovereign to relieve his ‘distress’, while assuring him that he really had no interest in the letter – which was, indeed, soon to be published in ‘a delightful magazine’. ‘I will,’ he added, ‘send you a copy.’
Despite this brave parting shot, the encounter left Wilde shaken and crowded with ‘vague apprehensions’. And his nerves were further unsettled, when, five minutes later, there was another knock on the door. It was a youth named Cliburn. He had come about ‘a letter of Allen’s’. ‘I cannot be bothered any more about that letter,’ Wilde told him. ‘I don’t care tuppence about it.’ To Wilde’s great surprise, Cliburn then produced the letter from his pocket, saying, ‘Allen has asked me to give it back to you.’ ‘Why does he give it back to me?’ Wilde asked carelessly. ‘He says you were kind to him and that it’s no use trying to “rent” you; you only laugh at us.’ Wilde made a show of inspecting the much-creased and soiled document, remarking, ‘I think it quite unpardonable that better care was not taken of an original manuscript of mine.’ Accepting Cliburn’s apologies, he presented him too with half a sovereign, saying, ‘I am afraid you are leading a wonderfully wicked life.’ ‘There is good and bad in every one of us, Mr Wilde,’ Cliburn stated. ‘You are a born philosopher,’ replied Wilde.6
The incident had been alarming, but Wilde seemed to have survived. And as it receded, he drew from it a sense of power, and even an erotic excitement: he had outfaced ‘the bold scheming enchanting’ panthers. Details of the encounter, however, began to leak out, fuelling the fire of gossip. The rumours about Wilde’s sexual tastes and sexual adventures were becoming increasingly widespread.7 There remained, though, always an element of doubt. There were many – both ‘friends and the friends of friends’ – who dismissed the tales, assuming they were merely part of his pose: that ‘It was only Oscar… He talks about it, but he does not do it.’ For others – rather more worldly – his sexual tastes were a matter for amused discussion, but no more. What he did in private was his own affair.8
If some old friends did begin to detach themselves, new ones hurried to replace them. There were young actors and recent graduates who surrounded Wilde with a chorus of approval and even adoration. But there were also artists and writers of the rising generation, who – besides admiration – offered something more challenging. William Rothenstein had returned to England, and to London. At rehearsals for A Woman of No Importance, Wilde came to know Tree’s diminutive half-brother, Max Beerbohm, then an undergraduate at Oxford. Beerbohm, an extraordinarily precocious talent as both a writer and caricaturist, had a sort of cult of Wilde, borrowing aspects of his style, his wit and his pose. But this admiration was always tinged with a subversive gloss. ‘Did I tell you about Oscar at the Restauran
t?’ he asked his friend Reggie Turner:
He ordered a watercress sandwich: which in due course was brought to him: not a thin, diaphanous green thing such as he had meant but a very stout satisfying article of food. This he ate with assumed disgust (but evident relish) and when he payed [sic] the waiter, he said, ‘Tell the cook of this restaurant with the compliments of Mr Oscar Wilde that these are the very worst sandwiches in the whole world and that, when I ask for a watercress sandwich, I do not mean a loaf of bread with a field in the middle of it.’
And it was not only food in which Wilde overindulged. ‘I am sorry to say that Oscar drinks far more than he ought,’ Beerbohm also reported. ‘Indeed the first time I saw him, after all that long period of distant adoration and reverence, he was in a hopeless sate of intoxication… I think he will die of apoplexy on the first night of the play.’ Something of this tone of ironic appraisal informed a spoof essay – ‘Oscar Wilde by An American’ – that Beerbohm produced for the Anglo-American Times. Wilde pronounced it ‘incomparably brilliant’ – even if he was stung by its lightly satiric touch.9
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