Cheating Death

by April White

  Laughter erupted, and it was lovely to hear Ringo and Tom chuckling next to me. When the speaker finally turned to face our side of the room, I realized why I knew his words. It was Oscar Wilde, younger than most of the images I’d seen of him, but definitely him.

  I wanted to meet him. Sometimes I actually loved being a Clocker.

  Tom made a move to push off the wall and leave, but I grabbed his arm. “Wait,” I said quietly. Tom pulled his arm out of my hand, and I turned in surprise to find him scowling at me. He quickly schooled his expression to something more neutral, but I’d seen that Ringo was absolutely right in his assessment of Tom’s feelings. I caught his eye and didn’t let go until he looked away, kind of like an alpha would with her pack. And then I smiled, just because I wanted to growl.

  “That’s Oscar Wilde,” I said under my breath.

  Tom looked over at the man in surprise. “How do you know?”

  “He was reading from The Picture of Dorian Gray. I read it my sophomore year.”

  I moved forward past some of the people who were leaving, and Tom fell into step behind me. I studied Wilde as people shook his hand and said a few words to him. He looked tired and vaguely bored, and I didn’t think he was quite famous enough yet to have the disdain that comes with celebrity, which probably just meant he thought most people were idiots. I was beginning to regret my impulse to meet the man.

  Interestingly, every person to whom he spoke came away with a happy smile on their face, as if they’d just had their socks charmed off. The last of the people shook Wilde’s hand and left, and then a person who must have been Father Lockhart came up, exchanged a few words with him, and began shooing the stragglers toward a door at the back of the room.

  Oscar Wilde had gathered his papers from the lectern before he finally noticed us. His eyes landed on me first, maybe because I was tallest, then Tom, then Ringo, who had joined us. And then he smiled.

  “Well, aren’t you three pretty,” he said, his eyes brushing each of us again before landing on Tom.

  I stepped forward and held out my hand to shake his. “It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Wilde.”

  His eyes widened in surprise. He must have thought I was male until he heard my voice. “And quite unexpected to meet you, Miss …”

  “Saira. Saira Elian,” I said as I shook his hand. He held my hand longer than a standard handshake and studied me.

  “Very unexpected, Miss Elian. A rare pleasure, I believe, considering your Family’s propensity for losing themselves.” His eyes were sparkling, and I narrowed my eyes at him teasingly.

  “Of course, you can See.”

  He met my smirk with one of his own. “Only people, my dear. It is perhaps why I am so cynical. Although, according to my father, a cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, so perhaps the word doesn’t apply.”

  I laughed and shook my head. “You, sir, are trouble.”

  “Of the most interesting kind.” His eyes flicked back to Tom, though he still held my hand. “Introduce me to your friends, my dear. I find I’m suddenly in need of new acquaintances.”

  For the first time in a long time, I felt like teasing. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Mr. Wilde—”

  “Oh, Oscar, please. Mr. Wilde is my father. And it’s an excellent idea.”

  I bit back the smile. “Your reputation precedes you. You might have to make do with only my acquaintance.”

  Oscar laughed and lifted the back of my hand to his lips. “My dear, for you I shall endeavor to be on my best behavior so as not to offend any whose constitution isn’t on par with your wit.”

  Ringo’s expression was openly intrigued, similar to the look he got when he discovered a new bit of technology. Tom was guardedly fascinated, and some of the hostility had slipped from his face.

  “Then I will introduce you. Oscar Wilde, this is Ringo, and this is Tom.”

  He finally released my hand to shake Ringo’s first, which he did with an open smile, and then Tom’s, which he held longer than necessary as he studied his face. Tom didn’t flinch under the scrutiny, and I was glad to see him study Oscar right back.

  The men still hadn’t broken eye contact when Oscar finally spoke a little breathlessly, “I do believe I’ve found my Dorian.”

  Oscar Wilde

  Oscar Wilde finally tore his eyes from Tom and turned to me. “Miss Elian, would you and your friends join me for a drink?”

  I looked at Ringo and Tom, neither of whom seemed ready to answer. “None of us really drinks, but I have the feeling a conversation with you would be memorable.”

  His smile was a sly, creeping thing that began with a shine in his eyes and promised laughter in its wake. “Anything less than memorable is hardly worth our time.” Wilde shot Tom another look, then tucked my arm under his solicitously and patted my hand. “Miss Elian, I do believe we should be friends. There is something quite extraordinary about a woman who is quite completely herself. I find that being oneself is an excellent choice, as everyone else is already taken.”

  He began walking us toward the back of the church, and Ringo and Tom fell into bemused step behind us. Wilde called out in a jovial voice, tinged with the hint of an Irish accent. “Father Lockhart, a favor if you will.”

  Father Lockhart came to the door with a smile as we approached. “I’ll do what I can, Mr. Wilde.”

  “Would you happen to have a corner with rugs, pillows, a divan, or merely a bench that we could pull up and occupy for the span it takes to tell a story, hear one, shed a tear, and laugh at something ridiculous?”

  Father Lockhart looked at the four of us with amusement. “I’ll do you one better, Mr. Wilde. You may use the crypt for your stories as long as you ignore the Lockhart-sized fly on the wall and you let me make you lot a cup of tea.”

  Wilde held out his hand to shake the priest’s with a grin. “You have a deal, Father.” The priest ushered us downstairs into the gothic-style crypt. It was a beautifully eerie space lit by the lanterns he and Wilde carried, with small stained-glass windows that echoed the spectacular one upstairs. Most of the space was empty except for the pillars that held up the floor above, but there were low divans in one corner, and I had the thought that people might sleep there occasionally. Father Lockhart saw us seated on the divans and bustled off upstairs to put a kettle on to boil.

  “How is it that you and a Catholic priest are such good friends?” I asked Wilde. He grinned and stretched his long arms across the back of the cushions.

  “The good father and I are in agreement about the aesthetics of this fine church in which we find ourselves. He is responsible for its restoration, you see, and quite possibly for the fact that it remains standing at all.”

  I looked at Ringo, and he gave me a quick smile. We were like kids who recognized the beginnings of a long-winded tale and had settled in for the inevitable. And, from the way he looked around at us in anticipation, it seemed Oscar Wilde enjoyed having an audience.

  “Many a night Father Lockhart and I have sat here, debating the finer points of my Anglican upbringing versus his Catholic conversion, my classical education versus his theological one, my beliefs versus his faith. Indeed, the night I stumbled into this church to debate the merits of organized religion with Bernard, whom Father Lockhart had invited to read from his latest monstrosity, was the night I met a kindred soul. It is a rare and confident man who can appreciate both the wit and the wisdom of one such as myself, who walked in here that night with the firm belief that religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn’t there … and finding it.”

  Father Lockhart returned with a teapot and a tray of cups. “Ah, but Mr. Wilde, you are neglecting the commonalities in our backgrounds.” He met our eyes as I took the teapot from him. “Our Oxford educations could be enough to bind us to each other, but an interest in Catholicism despite an Anglican upbringing virtually guarantees kinship.”

  I poured the tea into the simple mu
gs he set out, and his eyes sparkled as he whispered dramatically to me. “Mr. Wilde would like to think he’s the most shocking speaker we’ve ever had at one of our salons, but honestly, Mr. Shaw was far more so.”

  Wilde scoffed. “You can’t compare Bernard’s eugenics nonsense to the horror your parishioners experience at my belief that art need not teach, instruct, preach, or for God’s sake, moralize.”

  Father Lockhart smiled fondly at Wilde. “You have complimented my renovation of St. Etheldreda’s on more than one occasion. What is art for the sake of sheer beauty more than the staining of glass, or the decorative carving of wood? You are not nearly so shocking as you would like to believe, my friend, though you delight in being the subject of the horrified whispers of bored matrons.”

  Wilde grumbled good-naturedly, and a phrase came to mind. I spoke without thinking. “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”

  Wilde sharpened his gaze on me. “My dear Clocker, I’ll thank you to keep your quotes from my unpublished work to yourself. It might give a man ideas about his future prospects for fame, or at the very least, his notoriety.”

  I blushed, completely horrified that I’d just quoted from The Picture of Dorian Gray, which obviously hadn’t been published yet. “Oh! I’m so sorry.”

  Wilde gave a wry smile. “Although I’ll admit to a certain satisfaction that my words have made any sort of lasting impression. In my experience, it becomes rather difficult to live in the moment when one spends too much time anticipating the future.”

  “Is it not the way of the hedonist to live only for the moment,” asked Father Lockhart, “as if the future matters not?”

  Wilde laughed, a deep, infectious laugh. “There are those in my Family who believe the future is the only thing that matters. But that’s not what I said. To live in the moment is vastly different than living for it. To be truly present as life unfolds around one is to take fullest advantage of being alive. Take young Dorian here,” Wilde indicated Tom, who sat on the floor and was using the divan as a backrest. Tom had been watching the exchange between Wilde and Lockhart through narrowed eyes, and Wilde’s sudden attention disconcerted him.

  Wilde knew exactly what his effect on Tom was, and seemed to deliberately poke at him. “He has made a bargain with the devil and now squanders the days as too numerous to be worthwhile. One could argue hedonism, and certainly fatalism, but neither would be accurate, would they, Dorian?”

  “I’m not Dorian,” said Tom through gritted teeth.

  “Of course you are.” Wilde’s jovial good nature was laser-sharp, and Tom was its focus. I held my breath and Ringo tensed beside me. “Except it isn’t a portrait that ages with the life you choose to live.”

  His pause was dramatic, and he waited for someone to ask the question, ‘what is?’ Tom just glared, and there was no way Ringo or I would step in that pile of poop. Finally, Wilde rolled his eyes and sighed, “Do none of you have a sense for the dramatic moment? Really, what good are you?”

  Tom stood up, still glowering. “I’m done here.”

  Oscar Wilde stood too, and his 6’3” frame towered over Tom. “You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you, Tom. You’d like to think that the stain on your soul will just spread and spread and spread until finally it consumes you. You believe that only then will you truly be yourself – the man you were born to become. Well, my darling Dorian, I have news for you. It is not your soul that wrinkles like ancient flesh with each act of self-hatred. Your soul is pure light and possibility, and it is the one thing that will resist every act of torture you commit on it.”

  Tom stood frozen. He faced Wilde with the whole empty crypt at his back, and yet he looked like a cornered, feral thing, ready to flee at the slightest move. “No,” Wilde continued softly, as if he could sense the frightened animal lurking beneath Tom’s glare. “Your story isn’t true just because you keep trying to prove it. It’s a story, a made up story; like Dorian exists in my mind, so does your idea of Tom in yours. It is something you told yourself to explain the disgust you feel when you look in the mirror. It is an invention of your imagination, which means no amount of horror will prove it, and the only things you’ve stained are your hands.”

  Tom’s hands flinched, and I didn’t know if it was from the instinct to check them for blood, or a desire to hit Oscar Wilde.

  I expected Tom to storm out. I think we all did. But he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and nodded his head once as if in acceptance. “You are certainly welcome to your opinion, Mr. Wilde.”

  We stared in astonishment as Tom returned with dignity to his seat on the floor. And then Wilde burst out laughing and clapped Tom on the shoulder. “I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself, eh, Tom?”

  The tension disappeared from the room, though it lingered around Tom’s eyes when our gazes met. Father Lockhart got up to make more tea, and Wilde directed our conversations across a vast landscape of topics, from the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829, which finally restored most of the civil rights of Catholics in Britain, to the value of an education rich in Greek classical humanistic theory.

  Ringo was completely in his element, absorbing information he didn’t know, and contributing to the conversation about things on which he had opinions. He had become so much more confident since the days when Archer would regale us with the lessons of his university classes, and neither Wilde nor Father Lockhart spoke to him as anything other than an equal.

  Lockhart was passionate about the role of the church in service to the poor, and was very proud of the work St. Etheldreda’s parishioners had done in the slums of Holborn. Wilde’s conversations returned again and again to the theme that beauty should be celebrated in art, books, music, and plays for no other reason than its own sake. The way he spoke about books he’d read and things he had studied at Oxford, I had the sense he was two people. His flamboyantly-dressed, sarcastic, and witty public face was the mask, and a quiet, introspective reader with a deep love of learning lived behind it.

  Wilde caught me looking at him, and I could see him gearing up to say something clever or cutting, but I spoke first. “Your love of books and learning things reminds me of my husband.”

  The echo of my words seemed to fill the suddenly silent room. I had spoken without really considering what I said, and I blushed and dropped my eyes so I didn’t have to see the questions. Wilde lifted my chin so I’d look at him and said gently, “I should like to know a man with the good sense to choose a woman such as you.”

  I opened my mouth to ask whether he’d Seen anything about Archer, then closed it again. It didn’t matter. Wilde Saw me. He had Seen something in me that showed him loss and pain, and for a couple of hours he had distracted me from it with conversation and laughter.

  “Thank you,” I said simply. He smiled.

  “Now, let me tell you about the time I met the pope.”

  That shocked me out of my reminiscence. “Which pope?” The wheels began clicking in my head, and I could see Ringo beginning to follow my train of thought.

  Wilde looked curious. “Pius IX. Don’t tell me you’ve encountered him on your, shall I say, travels.”

  “When did he start being pope?” I demanded. It was a clumsy question, but I was digging through my memory banks for every bit of information I had.

  “Let’s see, I met him when I was twenty, and that was in 1876—” Wilde began, but Father Lockhart interrupted.

  “Pius IX was consecrated in 1846,” he said quietly.

  I turned to Father Lockhart. “Did you know the pope before him, the one from 1842?”

  He smiled gently. “I was just twenty-two then, and still an Anglican studying at Oxford. I believe that was Pope Gregory XVI.”

  “What do you know about him?” I dialed down the demanding tone to something that sounded like reasonable questions, but Wilde was studying me through narrowed eyes.

  “Not much, I’m afr
aid. I understand he was quite conservative and rigid in his views, and spoke out against technological innovations. Gas lighting and railways might increase the power of the bourgeoisie, he said, which could lead them to demand more liberal reforms from the Vatican. He did, however, write a letter condemning the slave trade, so apparently he had his moments.”

  I could sense Ringo’s growing tension, though the others were just intrigued by my sudden curiosity. “Have either of you been to the Vatican? I’ve always wondered what it’s like. Could you describe it?”

  Ringo made a noise of protest, but I ignored him. Sadly, both men were shaking their heads. “I met Pius IX when he was on tour, which is quite remarkable really, given that he died two years later,” said Wilde.

  “Do you have any paintings or drawings of the Vatican I could look at?” I asked Father Lockhart.

  “Saira,” said Ringo warningly.

  “I’m sorry, I have none here,” said Lockhart. “I imagine perhaps the Italian or Spanish embassies might have something, but I’ve never seen their collections.”

  “We are not running around London looking for paintings of the Vatican,” Ringo said with a growl in his voice.

  “Why 1842?” asked Tom, finally speaking up.

  I met his eyes squarely. “Later,” I said. “When there’s a deal.”

  He understood what I meant immediately, and nodded his head. Wilde watched our exchange with a thoughtful expression.

  “I have the sense there is a story to be told here, but as it is nearly dawn, perhaps now is not the time?” He eyed Tom meaningfully, and I thought that for all the things Oscar Wilde said, there were a thousand more he didn’t. “I should like to hear it one day, if we ever encounter each other again.” His eyes traveled around our faces and then returned to Tom.