‘Yer could faint anyway,’ said a voice from behind the curtain. ‘It’s 160 degrees.’
I followed the attendant’s advice and took my time. Beyond the vestibule, the building was as dark and dank and silent as a subterranean catacomb. In the first class changing room, where I undressed, there appeared to be no more than half a dozen other piles of discarded clothes. In the first of the steam chambers—it was heated by a brick flue, about three feet high and nine inches wide, that ran along three sides of the room—I found myself seated opposite a silver-bearded and obese old man (Sir John Falstaff, naked) whom I’d have taken for dead had it not been for his snoring; in the second chamber I sat alone, sweating heavily, breathing with difficulty, admiring the exquisite Craven Dunhill tiling all about me, but wondering how and why these curious—and not inexpensive—metropolitan hothouses had become so widespread and so popular so suddenly.
At last, I made my way into the final chamber. The heat in the ‘hot room’ was overwhelming and the steam so thick and sticky that it took me several moments to see that this is where they were: Oscar and his two companions, seated, close together, naked, on a porcelain slab, like Shadrach, Meshack and Abednego in the fiery furnace.
‘Is that you, Robert?’ whispered Oscar, faintly.
‘Enfin!’
‘I’m so sorry-‘ I began. He interrupted me. ‘Don’t apologise, Robert. We haven’t time. I’m wanting his lordship to confess before we all boil to death.’
Either side of Oscar Wilde sat Lord Alfred Douglas and Francis, Viscount Drumlanrig. Oscar lounged between them like a beached porpoise: his skin was grey, with odd patches of livid pink; his arms and shoulders were heavy; his chest and stomach were covered with unsightly fat. He had a towel draped across his knees. Oscar, aged thirty-seven, looked like an old tart en deshabillé as drawn by Toulouse-Lautrec. The young men beside him, aged 21 and 24, looked like statues sculpted by Michelangelo. Their skin was white and smooth as alabaster. They were not handsome: they were beautiful.
‘Why are we here?’ I asked, bemused.
‘Lord Drumlanrig is a director of the London and Provincial Turkish Bath Company. We are his guests, Robert. Apparently, this experience will do wonders for our health—cures the gout at a single sitting.’
‘I thought we had come to cross-examine a potential murderer,’ I said, sounding more irritable than I intended.
‘We have. We are. Drumlanrig acknowledges that he chose the late Lord Abergordon as his “victim”, but won’t tell me why—nor if he did it.’
‘Of course, I didn’t “do it”, Oscar,’ replied Drumlanrig, closing his eyes and resting his head against the tiles behind him. ‘And it’s not just the gout that benefits from a Turkish bath. Dyspepsia, dropsy, scarlatina, impetigo … you name it, we cure it.’
‘Why?’ persisted Oscar, ‘why did you choose Abergordon as your “victim”?’
‘Because he was an old booby.’
‘That’s not reason enough, Francis.’
Drumlanrig turned his head towards Oscar and opened his eyes. They were pale blue. ‘If you must know, Oscar …’
‘I must know.’
‘If you must know …’
‘My wife’s life may depend on it,’ said Oscar earnestly.
Drumlanrig’s brow furrowed. ‘I can’t see how that can be. I really cannot.’
‘Trust me.’
‘Trust him,’ said Bosie.
‘Very well,’ said Drumlanrig, sitting upright and covering himself with his towel. ‘I did not murder Andrew Abergordon, but I wished him dead and— God forgive me—I am truly glad that he is gone. He made my life a hell.’
‘I thought he was your godfather,’ said Oscar.
‘He was—and as my godfather he saw himself as the guardian of my moral welfare. He convinced himself that I had fallen into evil ways, “descended”, as he put it, “into the pit of degradation”.’
‘What did he mean?’ asked Oscar, wide-eyed.
‘He accused me of committing unnatural acts with other men. And he accused my friend and patron, Lord Rosebery, of being my corrupter. Lord Abergordon told my father—and God knows who else—that I had committed the act of sodomy with the Earl of Rosebery.’
‘With Primrose?’ said Oscar.
I laughed. I could not help myself. ‘Lord Rosebery is known as “Primrose”?’ I spluttered.
‘It is his family name,’ said Oscar, smiling. ‘Names, as you know, Robert, are everything.’ Oscar turned back to Francis Drumlanrig. ‘And were Lord Abergordon’s accusations justified? Is that why you wished to see him dead?’
Drumlanrig got suddenly to his feet and turned towards Oscar. ‘In no way were they justified. In no way whatsoever! They were vile calumnies-ruinous to my reputation.’ He covered his face with his hands.
‘And to that of Lord Rosebery,’ said Oscar quietly.
‘Indeed,’ muttered Drumlanrig, now picking up his towel and wrapping it about his waist. ‘Of course. Utterly ruinous—to us both. Abergordon was destroying our lives with his wretched lies-his vile calumnies, filthy falsehoods.’
‘Methinks you do protest too much, Frankie,’ whispered Bosie, his pretty head tilted to one side.
‘I must protest,’ cried Drumlanrig. ‘It’s all very well for you to talk about love among men, Bosie. You can apostrophise the virtues of Greek love for all you like—you want to be a poet! I want to be a politician. Lord Rosebery wants to be prime minister. Different rules apply.’ The young viscount turned back towards Oscar. ‘Yes, I wanted Abergordon silenced. I prayed that he might die. I wished it. I willed it. But I did not murder him.’
‘Why did you go to Eastbourne on Thursday?’ asked Oscar, sitting up and mopping his face with his towel.
‘To Eastbourne—on Thursday?’
‘To Eastbourne on Thursday.’
‘If you must know …’
‘I must know.’
‘I went to Eastbourne on Thursday,’ said Drumlanrig, ‘to see the Duke of Devonshire—to talk politics. He has a house there. He invited me to dine. I am Lord Rosebery’s secretary. By the autumn we shall have a Liberal government again. Mr Gladstone will be prime minister once more, no doubt. But even Mr Gladstone cannot go on for ever. When he goes, if the Duke of Devonshire does not succeed him, the Earl of Rosebery might.’
Oscar began to struggle to his feet. Bosie and I assisted him. He wrapped his towel around his waist and found another to throw across his shoulder. He beamed at us benevolently. ‘I look like Caesar, do I not?’ he asked. We laughed. He put a hand out and touched Francis Drumlanrig on the arm. ‘Primrose Rosebery is much older than you, I think?’
‘He is forty-five—forty-five today, as it happens. 7 May is his birthday.’
‘And you love him? And he loves you?’
‘I admire him above all other men. He is a great man. And he … he seems to value me. He is recently widowed. He is lonely. We spend much time together. We love one another as two men may.’
‘Bring him to the theatre tonight, will you? If he’s free, bring him to my play at the St James’s. It can be his birthday treat.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A FULL HOUSE
That Saturday night the St James’s Theatre was filled to capacity—as it had been on each and every night since 20 February 1892. My friend’s play was a triumph from the moment it opened.
I must have been to the theatre a thousand times during the course of my life, but, truly, I cannot recall an evening more memorable—more sensational—than the first night of Lady Windermere’s Fan. Indeed, I doubt that any one who was there on that occasion will have forgotten the experience: the humour and humanity of the play, the surprise of it (none of us had known what to expect), the glittering nature of the audience (le tout monde was in attendance), and the scandal—the outrage—caused by Oscar’s curtain speech. When the play ended and there were cries of ‘Author! ‘from the circle and the stalls, Oscar stepped lightly from the wings and walk
ed nonchalantly onto the stage. He stood behind the footlights and slowly surveyed the auditorium. In his buttonhole he wore a green carnation; in his mauve-gloved hand he held a lighted cigarette. The audience fell silent. Oscar held the moment. Languidly, he drew on his cigarette. Eventually, he spoke. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, it is perhaps not very proper of me to smoke in front of you, but … perhaps it is not very proper of you to disturb me when I am smoking! I have enjoyed this evening immensely. The actors have given us a charming rendering of a delightful play, and your appreciation has been most intelligent. I congratulate you on the great success of your performance, which persuades me that you think almost as highly of the play as I do myself.’
At that first performance Oscar had supplied several of us with green carnations to wear as buttonholes. He arranged for just one member of the cast to wear one as well. ‘What does it mean, Oscar?’ I asked. ‘What’s the significance of the green carnation?’
‘It means nothing, Robert, nothing whatsoever. And that’s just what nobody will guess …’
For the performance on 7 May, Oscar had reserved all fourteen of the theatre’s private boxes for his special guests. The evening was intended as a ‘thank you’ for those friends who had supported Constance’s fund-raiser on behalf of the Rational Dress Society and had promised to support Oscar’s in aid of the Earl’s Court Boys’ Club. Our host had arranged for green carnations to be left in each box for the gentlemen to wear. (Not all the gentlemen obliged. ‘Not really my style, old fellow,’ said Conan Doyle.) At the last minute, I was despatched by Oscar to Covent Garden market to buy small bunches of primroses to present to each of the ladies in honour of Lord Rosebery’s birthday. The ladies were charmed and Primrose Rosebery professed himself ‘sincerely touched by the gesture—candidly, a little overwhelmed’.
Lord Rosebery and Lord Drumlanrig sat with Oscar and Bosie in the royal box. In the box next door sat Charles and Margaret Brooke, the white Rajah and Ranee of Sarawak, with Constance and the ever-attentive Edward Heron-Allen. (‘Mrs Heron-Allen was invited, I assure you,’ said Oscar.
‘So was Mrs Conan Doyle. And Mrs Stoker. And Mrs Sickert, too. They are none of them coming. They are all indisposed. Whatever you do to make your fortune, Robert, don’t try inventing a cure for the headache. There’s no market for it.’)
I was seated—with Wat Sickert and Bram Stoker— on the other side of the auditorium, in the box directly facing Constance and her friends. I had never seen Constance looking lovelier. She wore the dress that she wore on each of the many evenings that she went to see Lady Windermere’s Fan. It was a talisman. She had worn it on that propitious first night and Constance was as superstitious as her husband. It was a dress of blue brocade, with slashed sleeves and a long bodice decorated with pearls and antique silk. The dress was grand, inspired, apparently, by the court dresses of the reign of Charles I, but Constance wore it with great simplicity. Sickert caught sight of me gazing longingly upon her and rounded on me.
‘You’re a fool to yourself, Sherard,’ he said. ‘The more you pine, the unhappier you’ll become. She has eyes for no one but Oscar. That idiot Heron-Allen fawns on her day and night and she won’t so much as let the back of her hand graze his. Look elsewhere, man—while you’ve still got your sanity.’ He handed me his opera glasses and invited me to scan the auditorium. ‘Tell me who you fancy,’ he said, ‘and I’ll give you the odds.’
Stung by his reproof, I took Wat’s opera glasses and used them to look about the theatre. Certainly, there were some handsome women on parade. There were some oddities, too. In one of the smaller boxes on the upper tier were Oscar’s friends, Miss Bradley and Miss Cooper, the Sapphic poetesses who wrote together under the name of ‘Michael Field’.
‘What on earth have they come as?’ I asked Sickert, handing him back the glasses.
The artist peered up at the eccentric ladies. ‘Tyrolean goatherds, I’m sorry to say … And they appear to be having a detrimental effect on the neighbourhood. It’s a full house and the most sought-after ticket in town, but the box next door to theirs is empty.’
The empty box was the box Oscar had reserved for David McMuirtree.
As the house lights dimmed and the orchestra struck up the overture (it was the overture to Mozart’s Il Seraglio), Sickert murmured to me: ‘No news today of Bradford Pearse?’
‘None that I’ve heard.’
‘Is it true then?’ whispered Stoker from the back of the box. ‘The word on the street is that he’s topped himself-jumped off Beachy Head. Driven to it by his creditors. When you saw him in Eastbourne, how was he?’
‘We saw the play. We didn’t see Pearse. He disappeared before we got to him.’
‘I can’t believe he’d kill himself,’ whispered Stoker. ‘Not Pearse. Do you think he could have been murdered, poor devil?’
The curtain of the St James’s Theatre rose on the sunlit morning room of Lord Windermere’s establishment in Carlton House Terrace. The setting was an elegant one (Mr H. P. Hall at his most deft) and provoked a nice round of appreciative applause.
During the interval, Oscar’s guests were bidden to join him for refreshments at one end of the crush room at the rear of the circle. The crowd was considerable. I pushed and shoved my way through it to reach my friend. I wanted to alert him to the fact of McMuirtree’s absence, but when I reached him, before I could speak, he silenced me.
‘I am aware of the situation,’ he said, handing me a saucer of champagne. ‘Rest easy, Robert. May I present the Earl of Rosebery? It’s his lordship’s birthday, you know.’
I bowed to the great man who smiled at me with deeply hooded eyes. He was a practised politician: at once he made me feel that we were intimates. ‘Isn’t the play a joy?’ he said. ‘Everyone is loving it. And yet young Drumlanrig tells me the critics were divided.’
‘Yes,’ said Oscar, complacently. ‘When the critics divide, the public unites.’
‘Indeed, Mr Wilde,’ Lord Rosebery continued, chuckling and looking at the multitude around him. ‘It’s a wonderful turn-out. That’s what amazes me. The pit and the galleries are as full as the stalls and the boxes. Who are all these people?’
‘That’s easy,’ said Oscar. ‘They’re servants.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Rosebery.
‘What I say. Servants listen to conversations in drawing rooms and dining rooms. They hear people discussing my play; their curiosity is aroused; and so they fill the theatre. You can see they are servants by their perfect manners.’
‘You are a very funny man, Mr Wilde,’ said Lord Rosebery. ‘The play is to be published, I hope?’
‘In due course. My ideal edition is five hundred copies as birthday presents for particular friends, six for the general public and one for the American market.’
The bell rang to signal the commencement of the second act. I bowed once more to his lordship; he gave me once more his politician’s smile. As I took my leave, I whispered to Oscar as discreetly as I could: ‘You know that McMuirtree’s not here?’
Oscar answered, smiling, not lowering his voice at all: ‘I have my eye on him nonetheless. Enjoy the play, Robert. Let us meet after the performance at the stage door.’
When I got back to my box I found Sickert and Stoker still shaking their heads over the fate of poor Bradford Pearse, repeating—yet again!—that, of all men, Pearse was the one man without an enemy in the world.
‘Where have you been?’ asked Sickert. ‘Not chasing Mrs Wilde, I hope.’ He handed me his opera glasses. ‘Take a look in the gallery—at the far end on the left—the young mulatto with the sequins in her hair. Isn’t she just your type?’
To indulge him, I took Sickert’s glasses and inspected the girl. She was indeed most appealing:
Sickert had a practised eye.
‘And, see,’ added Sickert, ‘the Tyrolean goatherds are no longer alone. The neighbouring box has been filled.’
I turned the glasses in the direction of what had been th
e empty box and saw a tall man in evening dress standing to one side of it looking down into the auditorium. It was not McMuirtree. ‘I know him,’ I said.
Sickert and Stoker squinted up towards the gods. ‘We all know him,’ said Bram Stoker, waving towards the distant figure. ‘It’s Charles Brookfield.’
‘He’s not here as Oscar’s guest.’
‘Possibly not,’ said Stoker, ‘but he’s here all the same. He’s obsessed with Oscar. He’s obsessed with this play. He’s putting on his own parody of it, you know. It opens in a fortnight and I imagine we’re all invited.’
‘Now if someone had murdered Charles Brookfield,’ said Wat Sickert, as the house lights faded, ‘I shouldn’t have been at all surprised.’
When the performance was over, the ovation was extraordinary. Oscar had written a crowd-pleaser, no doubt about it. On this occasion, the author resisted the temptation to take a call from the stage, but, as the audience cheered on, he stood at the front of the royal box and, with a regal wave and head thrown back, silently acknowledged their approbation. And as the audience departed, he stood at the top of the theatre’s main staircase, leaning against the brass banister, receiving-as no more than his due—the plaudits of strangers and the thanks of friends.
‘Thank you! Thank you, Mr Wilde! I must have a birthday more often,’ called Lord Rosebery as he and the Douglas boys slipped past. ‘Bravo, Oscar! I’m running for my train,’ cried Conan Doyle, speeding on his way. ‘I’m sorry Touie missed it. More tomorrow, old man.’
Few lingered, because it was late and, in any event, most of Oscar’s friends who were guests that evening were also invited to the following afternoon’s fund-raiser.
‘There’s no such thing as a free four-acter, ‘chortled Charles Brooke, squeezing Oscar’s shoulder as he passed.
‘This is our Wilde weekend!’ chorused Miss Bradley and Miss Cooper blowing kisses towards their host across the crowd.
‘They really have come as Tyrolean goatherds,’ I whispered to Sickert.
‘At least they spared us the Lederhosen,’ he whispered back.
Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death Page 18