Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know

by Colm Toibin

  On the evening of the second day, when they had sufficiently studied the ancient monuments, William Wilde organized a banquet for the visitors within the walls of the pagan fortress of Dun Aengus, the most spectacular site on the island, which forms a semicircle on the edge of a high cliff with a sheer drop of almost a hundred meters to the Atlantic below. Among them were the poet Samuel Ferguson and the painter Frederick Burton.

  The writer Martin Haverty, who was also among the company, recalled: “This was our culminating point of interest—the chief end and object of our pilgrimage . . . This was the Acropolis of Aran . . . the venerable ruin which Dr. Petrie described as ‘the most magnificent barbaric monument now extant in Europe.’ ” Haverty described the unpacking of hampers, the sherry, the “abundant” dinner. “It was a glorious day,” he wrote, “the sun being almost too warm, notwithstanding the ocean breeze which fanned us, and groups of the islanders looked on from crumbling ruins around.” There were many speeches made—by the provost of Trinity College Dublin, by the French consul in French, by George Petrie, who proposed a toast to the local man who had been his host thirty-five years earlier when he was the first serious archaeologist to study the monuments of the island.

  In his speech, William Wilde appealed to the islanders to protect the fort, which had suffered since Petrie’s earlier visit:

  Remember, above all, that these were the works of your own kindred, long, long dead, that they tell a history of them which you should be proud of, that there is no other history of them than these walls, which are in your keeping. You have a great right to be proud of them; they are grand monuments of the brave men your forefathers were, and of how they laboured and how they fought to defend the land they left to you and your children. Do you defend them in peace as they defended them in war, and let your children’s children see strangers coming to honour them, as we have done today.

  Once the speeches were done, according to Haverty, “a musician, with bagpipes, played some merry tunes, and the banquet of Dun Aengus terminated with an Irish jig, in which the French consul joined, con amore.”

  Connecting with foreign scholars, as he did in Dublin and on the Aran Islands in 1857, was part of William Wilde’s daily work. In the early 1860s he was made an honorary member of the Antiquarian Society of Berlin, and received a diploma from a royal society at Uppsala and an honorary doctorate from Trinity College Dublin. The citation for his knighthood in 1864 read: “Mr. Wilde, I propose to confer upon you the honour of knighthood, not so much in recognition of your high professional reputation, which is European, and has been recognized by many countries in Europe, but to mark my sense of the services you have rendered to Statistical Science, especially in connection with the Irish Census.”

  At the knighthood ceremony in Dublin Castle, Jane Wilde wore, according to one of the newspapers, “a train and corsage of richest white satin, trimmed handsomely in scarlet velvet and gold cord, jupe, richest white, satin with bouillonnes of tulle, satin ruches and a magnificent tunic of real Brussels lace lappets: ornaments, diamonds.” William’s knighthood was, as Emer O’Sullivan emphasizes in her book, widely welcomed. The Freeman’s Journal, for example, wrote:

  A more popular exercise of the vice-regal prerogative, nor one more acceptable to all classes in Ireland, could not possibly have been made, for no one of the medical profession had been more prominently before the public for the last twenty-five years in all useful and patriotic labours than Doctor (now Sir William) Wilde . . . the fact that he established, and has recently endowed, one of the most useful hospitals of the metropolis will, we are sure, never be forgotten by the citizens of Dublin and the poor of Ireland.

  Months after the ceremony, in the summer of 1864, Lady Wilde wrote to a friend that “so many dinners and invitations followed on our receiving the title to congratulate us that we have lived in a while of dissipation—now we are quiet—all the world has left town—and I begin to think of reawakening my soul.”

  As these honors came, and all this dissipation, and as Sir William Wilde was at the height of his fame, and as Lady Wilde set about reawakening her soul, they were already being pursued by a woman called Mary Travers, who had been one of his patients. She was the daughter of Dr. Robert Travers, professor in medical jurisprudence at Trinity College Dublin. In July 1854, three months before Oscar Wilde was born, Mary, aged nineteen, accompanied by her mother, with whom she was seldom on speaking terms, came to William Wilde’s surgery saying that she had problems with her hearing. Wilde, because he knew her father, waived his fee.

  Mary was isolated. Her two brothers had emigrated to Australia and she did not have a close relationship with her father, who was separated from her mother. Once her treatment had ended, she continued to see William Wilde, who, with the agreement of her father, gave her manuscripts to correct and oversaw her informal education by recommending books to her. Soon, they began to write to each other. He took her to public events, helped her financially and included her in family outings. The Wildes saw a great deal of her over the next few years.

  Mrs. Wilde, he let her know, was keeping them under observation. This seems to have made Mary Travers uneasy, but William Wilde continued to write to her, offering evidence that there had been some falling-out between Mary and Jane Wilde and attempting to remain close to her. “If Mrs. Wilde asks you to dine,” he wrote to her, “won’t you come and be as good friends as ever?” Mary was invited to Christmas dinner with the Wildes in 1861.

  It was clear, however, that William was growing tired of her. In March 1862 he paid her fare to Australia, where she could join her brothers. She got as far as Liverpool, but did not board the ship to Australia. Two months later, she did the same again. In June 1862, while in the Wildes’ house on Merrion Square, Mary entered Jane’s bedroom unannounced. There was an argument between the two women, but it was not severe enough to prevent Mary planning to take the Wilde children on an outing a few days later. Jane later said, however, that Mary Travers did not dine with the Wildes again.

  Mary wrote to William:

  I have come to the conclusion that both you and Mrs. Wilde are of one mind with regard to me, and that is, to see which will insult me the most. As to you, you have treated me as I strictly deserved but to Mrs. Wilde I owe no money; therefore I am not obliged to gulp down her insults. My only regret is I allowed myself to be trampled on so long for the sake of Dr. Wilde’s condescension, which I shall remember with gratitude. The punishment has been severe but salutary . . . You will not be troubled by me again.

  She then sent William a photograph that Jane returned with a cold note: “Dear Miss Travers, Dr. Wilde returns your photograph. Yours very truly, Jane Wilde.”

  Mary continued to write to William. When she drank a bottle of laudanum, William went with her to an apothecary in Westland Row to get an antidote and made sure that she took it. At one stage in this period, he doctored a corn on her foot, causing her to write:

  Now, spiteful old lunatic, since you were to do something for me, please cut my corn that you did not do half before. I will keep your nose to the grinding stone while your wife is away, and when she returns, I will see her; so you had better not make a fool of me this time.

  In July 1863, Mary had a journalist friend produce a death notice for her as though it were actually a real cutting from a newspaper and sent it to Jane, who was staying in a house the Wildes owned on the seafront in Bray, south of Dublin. (Sir William built four houses there, renting out the other three.) When Jane returned to Merrion Square with the children, Mary appeared there again, confronting Jane and the children, demanding attention. She was not going to go away.

  Mary Travers then wrote a pamphlet called Florence Boyle Price; or, A Warning, using Jane’s pen name Speranza. It told the story of Dr. Quilp and his wife. Dr. Quilp had

  a decidedly animal and sinister expression about his mouth, which was coarse and vulgar in the extreme, while his under-lip hung and protruded most unpleasantly. The upper part of hi
s face did not redeem the lower part; his eyes were round and small—they were mean and prying and above all, they struck me as deficient in an expression I expected to find gracing a doctor’s countenance . . . Mrs. Quilp was an odd sort of undomestic woman. She spent the greater portion of her life in bed and except on state occasions, she was never visible to visitors.

  The pamphlet described an encounter between the doctor and a female patient, Florence, in which the young woman is given chloroform. She

  rushes to the door, but is interrupted by the detected Quilp, who, flinging himself on his knees, attempts a passionate outburst of love, despair and remorse; but the horror-stricken Florence implores to be liberated from this dangerous place. She dreads to give the alarm knowing the irreparable disgrace, the everlasting ruin it will entail on the friend of her youth, the old man who is tottering over the grave. She fears he is mad, she says so, and begs to escape.

  Terence de Vere White wrote of the pamphlet: “There is no flattering description of Wilde to set against it, and even if we look at his picture our interpretation of it is influenced by Miss Travers’ devastating commentary. She knew him, and she came to hate him. The insight born of hatred is horribly penetrating.”

  Mary Travers had one thousand copies of the pamphlet printed and sent them to patients of William Wilde and to the Wildes’ friends. Later, Jane Wilde testified:

  In October, perhaps the end of September, 1863, these pamphlets first came under my notice; one was sent to me through the post anonymously, afterwards several came; some were dropped into my letter-box, others came by post, and others again were brought by friends; we were deluged with them; one came through the post simply folded, so that anyone could read it; this continued for many months; I heard that they were dropped on the Rathmines road . . .

  This was at a time when William Wilde’s public status had never been higher, but despite this—or perhaps spurred on by it—Mary Travers remained fully active in trying to embarrass him. She wrote to him demanding twenty pounds, adding: “You will see what will happen if you are not so prompt as usual.” In February 1864, Willie and Oscar Wilde, then aged eleven and nine respectively, were sent to Portora Royal School near Enniskillen in County Fermanagh. “They are rapidly growing into young men,” Jane wrote to a friend, “and are both clever and good.”

  In April, as Sir William was to give a lecture at the Metropolitan Hall in Dublin called “Ireland Past and Present: The Land and the People,” the audience was met with five newsboys holding large placards with the words: “Sir William Wilde and Speranza.” They were advertising the pamphlet with the help of a handbell from an auctioneer’s. Mary Travers sat in a cab close by watching proceedings. The boys shouted out: “Sir William Wilde’s letters,” and sold the pamphlets for a penny each. The fly sheet of the pamphlets declared that “the writer parades Sir W. Wilde’s cowardice before the public.” On other fly sheets there were extracts from seventeen of Sir William’s letters to Mary Travers, letters that suggested their relationship had moved beyond that normally associated with a doctor and his patient.

  That evening when the Wildes returned to Merrion Square they found that a further copy of the pamphlet had been delivered with a note: “Sold at the Music Hall on last Wednesday, the proceeds to pay the expenses of an extended edition.” The press the following day devoted more space to the events outside the hall than to the contents of Sir William’s lecture. When Jane fled to Bray, Mary Travers followed her there and had a boy deliver a copy of the pamphlet to every house in her street. The boy made things worse by calling at the Wildes’ house as well. He was sent away, but returned the next day with pamphlets and a placard with the names of Sir William Wilde and Speranza on it. Jane snatched a pamphlet and the placard. Mary retaliated by taking an action against Jane in a local court for larceny.

  Jane responded on May 6 by writing a letter to Mary’s father that read:

  Sir—You may not be aware of the disreputable conduct of your daughter in Bray, where she consorts with all the low newspaper boys in the place, employing them to disseminate offensive placards, in which my name is given, and also tracts, in which she makes it appear that she has had an intrigue with Sir William Wilde. If she chooses to disgrace herself that is not my affair; but as her object in insulting me is the hope of extorting money, for which she has several times applied to Sir William Wilde, with threats of more annoyance if not given, I think it right to inform you that no threat of additional insult shall ever extort money for her at our hands. The wages of disgrace she has so basely treated for and demanded shall never be given to her.

  When, three weeks later, Mary Travers saw this letter, she sued for libel, demanding £2,000 in damages, with Sir William Wilde as codefendant, since he was responsible in law for any civil wrong committed by his wife. The Wildes decided not to settle, and the case opened on December 12, 1864, lasted six days and was widely reported. Among the lawyers representing Mary Travers was the Wildes’ old friend, the formidable Isaac Butt, recently returned from London. While John B. Yeats quoted a lawyer who said: “Butt had more good feelings than any man I ever met, but he had no principle,” Terence de Vere White, who also wrote a biography of Isaac Butt, wrote:

  Wilde was not a universal favourite by any means, and Butt may not even have liked him. In any event, Butt would have regarded it as a lapse from professional standards, which he always upheld, to refuse aid to an injured party for personal reasons. He cannot have approved of his client’s conduct, but he was probably persuaded that Wilde had treated her badly and that her crazy behaviour was the consequence of that ill-treatment.

  Mary Travers’s most damaging allegation was that Sir William Wilde, while treating her for a burn mark on her neck in his surgery in October 1862, had given her chloroform and had raped her while she was unconscious. According to the report of the court proceedings:

  He removed her bonnet for the purposes of looking at her throat . . . He pressed against her very tightly, so forcibly that she said, “You are suffocating me.” “I will,” he said, “suffocate you—I can’t help it.” She told the court she lost consciousness and woke when water was flung in her face and was told that if she did not rouse herself it would be his ruin and hers as well.

  Mary was asked by Isaac Butt: “Are you now able to state from anything you have observed or know, whether, in the interval of unconsciousness you have described, your person was violated?” Mary answered: “Yes.” Butt asked: “Was it?” Mary again answered: “Yes.”

  Sections from the letters between Mary and Sir William were read out to the court in which they seemed to be regularly falling out and making up again. Evidence in the letters made clear that he sent her money and sometimes clothes.

  While Lady Wilde agreed to go into the witness box, Sir William did not. Butt cross-examined Jane for half a day, as she displayed indifference to the whole matter of her husband’s relationship to Mary Travers. Butt even tried to raise the matter of the immoral tone of a novel that Jane had translated, only to be stopped by the judge. Jane did not help her case by trying to make jokes. Referring to the mock death notice that Mary had sent her, she said: “I think I saw her next in August 1863—after her death.” As Terence de Vere White wrote: “For once she should have forgotten to be grand.”

  In his closing address, Isaac Butt spoke of Sir William Wilde’s refusal to take the stand:

  I could understand him coming into court and saying his wife wrote that letter under circumstances of strong irritation . . . I could understand that. It would have been a powerful appeal to the jury if that had been his course . . . Shall I call it—I must do—a cowardly plea by which he shelters himself behind his wife . . . I care not what honours may have been gathered around the name of Sir William Wilde . . . but the man who instructed his counsel to speak of the daughter of his friend, of the woman whom he outraged, as a perjurer . . . is not worthy of such consideration. It was not the part of a man. I am sorry an Irish gentleman should have acted s
o . . . if her story is true. If not why did Sir William Wilde not come to contradict it?

  Butt’s summing up was reported as follows:

  Don’t be led away, for remember this, for nearly ten years she had been the worshipper of Doctor Wilde. At nineteen years of age he had attracted her as a superior being. He had insinuated himself into a knowledge of her wants, her domestic grievances, and the poverty of her home, alienated her from her mother, and taught her to be dissatisfied with her clergyman.

  Butt spoke about the power Sir William had over Mary since their first meeting: “From that hour she became his slave as completely as Zelica became the slave of the Veiled Prophet . . . The plaintiff had done things which no man can justify, but who made her do so? She was a girl of nineteen when she was brought by her mother to him and submitted to his care.”

  He described Sir William as “a moral chloroform that stupefied her faculties, surprised her senses in the terrible scene, left her senseless and prostrate at the feet of her destroyer.”

  Butt said of Mary Travers:

  I believe that unconsciously she was in love with Sir William Wilde . . . It was hinted at the other side that she was his mistress, but that was not true, his letters showed it was untrue . . . She was driven away from the house of him whose secret she had kept—he, whose guilt she had concealed . . . the various acts and publications charged against her were but the utterances of a broken heart . . . Will you condemn her, while the man who asks you by your oaths to believe he is perjured, shrinks from coming in here and pledging his oaths to that to which he asks twelve Irish gentlemen to pledge theirs?

  The judge, in his summing up, said that the correspondence between Sir William and Mary Travers “was of a very extraordinary character to take place between a married man and a girl of her attractions.” He added that if her allegations of rape had been the subject of a criminal prosecution, they would have been thrown out of any court because of her failure to report them at the time and her continuing to correspond with Wilde and receive favors from him and be in his company.