Oscar Wilde and the Return of Jack the Ripper

by Gyles Brandreth

  ‘He certainly gave the impression of being pleased to see us.’

  ‘Giving a convincing impression is, of course, the actor’s stock-in-trade. But I agree. And he would have been pleased to see Willie. He likes Willie.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Willie is a critic – of sorts – and his notices of Mansfield’s work have always been generous to a fault. Unqualified praise is all an actor ever really wants.’

  There was a pause, and it was a comfortable one, so I asked the question that had long puzzled me: ‘What is your problem with your brother, Oscar?’

  His reply came without hesitation. ‘My problem with him is his problem with me. Willie envies me, Arthur, and envy is the ugliest of sins. It twists men’s mouths and tortures their souls. In Willie’s case, it also drives them to drink. He was a good-looking child. Look at him now. I have a horror of ugliness.’ He took a deep breath and contemplated the dying embers of his Turkish cigarette. ‘It is a beautiful day,’ he said, turning to look out of the window. We were now on the Chelsea Embankment, not far from our destination. ‘We should talk of beautiful things.’

  ‘Tell me about our hosts,’ I said.

  ‘Festing Fitzmaurice and Sir Frederick Bunbury? They’re hardly beautiful, but they are amusing and that’s the next best thing.’ Oscar looked directly at me and I saw the devil had entered his eye. He lit another cigarette and grinned as he extinguished his match with a small flourish. ‘You don’t know the story of Festing Fitzmaurice?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Festing Fitzmaurice was a courtier – long-serving and much loved, a particular favourite of the Princess of Wales until Oscar removed a speck of tobacco from his lip.

  ‘Until?’

  ‘Until he was caught buggering a goat.’

  ‘Good God,’ I spluttered. ‘Can this be true?’

  ‘All too true, alas.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Oh, eight, ten years ago.’

  ‘Couldn’t it have been hushed up?’

  ‘Not really. It was the Princess of Wales who caught him. She found him in flagrante in the royal stables at Windsor. Unfortunately, there were two ladies-in-waiting with her, an equerry and a stable lad. Even more unfortunately, it was a male goat and the regimental mascot of the Prince of Wales’s 3rd Dragoon Guards to boot – a descendant of one of the goats brought back from the regiment’s triumphant tour of India in the sixties. Come to think of it, the poor animal was probably a forebear of the goat that supplied the wool for my suit.’ Oscar burst out laughing. ‘I’m even more appropriately dressed for the picnic than I realised!’

  ‘What an extraordinary tale,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, too good not to retell. I’m sure Her Royal Highness never breathed a word, but ladies-in-waiting, equerries and stable lads all live by gossip. Festing knew that. He was a dreadful gossip himself. He fled at once – he had no choice. He withdrew immediately – first from the goat, then from the castle. He was gone within the hour. He paid a high price for his passion.’

  ‘It was a perversion, Oscar.’

  ‘To him, it was a passion – and it cost him his place, his position in the world, his grace and favour lodging, everything. One day he was sitting pretty at the court of Queen Victoria. The next he was an outcast, eking out an existence of sorts in a wretched room in a backwater in Chelsea.’ Oscar looked out of the carriage window once more. We had reached Fitzmaurice’s address. ‘Here we are. As you can see, the poor fellow lives above a pigsty.’

  Paradise Walk was a bleak thoroughfare, part city road, part country track, where ramshackle dwellings and outbuildings for livestock butted against one another, providing a community of sorts for the human flotsam that washes up on the shore of many a great metropolis. Lithuanians, Russians, Poles, latter-day Dick Whittingtons from all corners of the British Isles who had failed to find the streets of London paved with gold lived here in squalor, feeding off what food their animals provided and drinking whatever alcohol came their way. It was exactly parallel with Tite Street, where the Wildes and Melville Macnaghten had their fine houses, but there was nothing remotely appealing about Paradise Walk – other than its name. We stepped down from the two-wheeler onto muddy ground, littered with the detritus of poverty: dirty, sodden hay; broken bottles; filthy rags; strewn newspapers trampled into the ground. The stench of animal ordure filled our nostrils.

  ‘I call it “a wretched room”,’ Oscar continued, wincing at the stink that assailed us. ‘I’ve never been inside before. I just see Festing now and then in the street – and greet him for old times’ sake. I suppose that’s why we’re here now. To be friends to the fallen.’

  ‘Why is Bunbury here?’

  ‘Freddie and Festing were close – and Freddie’s a decent fellow. The best of the Old School. Most of the court abandoned Festing altogether, but Freddie didn’t. They shared a special affection for the Princess of Wales’s eldest son. When he was a boy, they were charged with keeping an eye on young Prince Eddy.’

  ‘Perhaps they share a secret?’ I pondered, looking up at the grimy tenement building that loomed over us.

  ‘And if they do,’ said Oscar, bracing himself as he made to lead the way, ‘we shall uncover it.’ My friend looked at me and smiled grimly. ‘I need you on board for this, Arthur. I’m glad you’re here.’

  Using his cane, he pushed open the wooden gate that took us from the public path into the yard that led to the building itself. The pigsty – three stinking stalls covered with a dilapidated roof and containing a sad-looking swine asleep in its own mess – stood like a guardhouse alongside the front door. Oscar pushed at the door with his cane. It was unlatched and opened onto a dark and filthy stone stairwell. Together we stepped inside. ‘Festing’s room is on the first landing, I believe.’

  ‘It is indeed,’ called out a thin, fluting voice from above us. We looked up the stairway and there, just visible in the half-light, leaning over the iron banister, we saw the drooping figure of Sir Frederick Bunbury, Bt., his tortoise head nodding like a metronome.

  ‘Good to see you, Sir Freddie,’ cried Oscar amiably. He began to trudge up the steps. I followed. ‘Actually, I can only just see you in the gloom. But perhaps the gloom’s a blessing. Paradise Walk this may be, but the staircase to heaven this ain’t.’

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ drawled the baronet. He patted Oscar on the shoulder by way of welcome. He felt the quality of Oscar’s suiting with evident pleasure. ‘I’m glad you’ve dressed for the occasion. I have, too.’

  ‘So I see,’ exclaimed Oscar, stepping back in wonder.

  I shook the elderly courtier’s languid hand. He was costumed in full court attire: tail-coat, waistcoat, breeches, lace cuffs, lace jabot, silk stockings, buckled shoes, cocked hat, white gloves and sword. He noticed me noticing it. ‘It’s Prince Eddy’s sword,’ he said proudly. He gestured towards the open doorway leading to what I assumed were Festing Fitzmaurice’s quarters. The room was lit by candles. ‘Festing’s dressed for the occasion, also – as you can see.’

  We could indeed. Festing Fitzmaurice was standing in the middle of his room, holding a posy of paper flowers and wearing a full-length pink taffeta ball gown, once the property of HRH Princess Alexandra, Princess of Wales.

  ‘The jewellery’s paste, of course,’ drawled Sir Freddie, nodding happily, ‘but Festing’s the real thing, you must agree.’

  32

  A toast to Prince Eddy

  Oscar rose to the moment magnificently. He stepped into the room, spread his arms wide and, with a voice full of warmth and admiration, declared: ‘What a wonderful way to salute Prince Eddy on his birthday – as the mother he loved so well.’

  ‘You understand, Oscar,’ trilled Sir Freddie joyfully. ‘I knew you would. That’s why I wanted you to be here. And your friend, of course.’ He smiled at me with his hooded eyes. ‘We shall have fireworks later. I have saved some from Her Majesty’s golden jubilee. And we have costume
s for you both.’

  ‘Is it just us?’ enquired Oscar.

  ‘Just you,’ replied Sir Freddie. ‘You’ll have the pick of the wardrobe.’

  ‘Sadly, we can’t stay long,’ countered Oscar swiftly. ‘We won’t have time to change – alas.’

  ‘Pity,’ said Sir Freddie mournfully. At George R. Sims’ reception on Saturday night, he had reminded me of Lewis Carroll’s creation, the White Knight. Today he was Cervantes’ Don Quixote – the knight of the woeful countenance. He stroked his dangling moustaches and gazed sadly at the ground.

  ‘A great pity,’ echoed Oscar. ‘My friend Conan Doyle does a charming turn as Salome. His dance of the seven veils is something to be seen!’

  Sir Freddie rallied and winked as he looked up at me. ‘I can believe it.’ The old gentleman now fixed his gaze on me admiringly. ‘Did you ever serve in Africa, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘Tell him, Arthur,’ said Oscar, relishing my embarrassment.

  ‘Well . . .’ I hesitated. ‘I was a ship’s surgeon on the SS Mayumba during a voyage to the West African coast.’

  ‘Ah.’ Sir Freddie nodded, apparently satisfied. ‘A sailor. Rum, bum and the concertina, eh? If you’d brought your squeeze-box we could have had some music. Festing loves to dance.’

  ‘Does he not speak these days?’ enquired Oscar, appraising Mr Fitzmaurice who I realised now was standing like a statue within an arc of candles laid before him on the floor as footlights. He did not move – or make a sound – but his watery eyes sparkled in the candlelight and his rouged lips trembled gently.

  ‘Very little. Not at all, really. There’s nothing left to say. I think he still hears. I sing to him sometimes. He still sees – though he doesn’t read any more. We’re winding down, both of us. Gradually putting out the lights, shutting up shop. It’s over for us now. Time’s up. Business done.’

  ‘And done well?’ asked Oscar.

  ‘In the end, yes,’ said Sir Freddie solemnly. ‘I believe so.’ He smiled at Oscar. ‘We’re determined to go out with a bang, you know.’

  ‘And why not?’ said Oscar, returning the old man’s smile.

  I looked around the room. There were shutters over the window; the floorboards were uncarpeted; the walls were bare. There was a mantelpiece above the fire grate and on it three photographs in ornate frames. I recognised Queen Victoria and the Prince and Princess of Wales. I assumed the third portrait was of the Duke of Clarence and Avondale: there was a sprig of rosemary set by it.

  There was a curious odour in the atmosphere – not the foul stench of the street below, something sweeter. Was it rosemary or lavender? Or a fragrance that Festing Fitzmaurice used to disguise the stink of the neighbourhood? It was familiar, but I could not place it.

  I saw Oscar glance over towards the narrow single bed that stood in the corner of the room: there were no chairs that I could see, no sofa or divan. Draped over the end of the iron bedstead was an array of ladies’ clothes – dresses, undergarments, petticoats, coats, hats and shawls.

  ‘Does Festing have quite a selection from Her Royal Highness’s wardrobe?’ asked Oscar lightly.

  ‘Oh no, only cast-offs and hand-me-downs, nothing stolen – items given to him by the princess. And some servants’ garments as well – workaday dresses and suchlike. Something for all occasions. They’re mostly the worse for wear now, threadbare, moth-eaten. We’ve been clearing out the wardrobe, burning what pieces Festing can bare to be parted from. My dear wife used to mend and launder everything for him – until she lost her mind.’

  ‘I never knew her,’ murmured Oscar.

  ‘Few did,’ answered Sir Freddie. ‘She was not much at court. And I was away travelling with the prince so much. She stayed at home in Yorkshire. She was not one for the royal round. She was not nobly born – but she was a lady in my eyes. Always.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘So beautiful when young – a little like your wife, Oscar, if I may say so. Gamine. But pitiful at the end – when her mind went. You understand?’

  ‘I understand,’ said Oscar.

  Suddenly, Festing Fitzmaurice moved. In one movement, like the automated doll on a musical box, he twisted his whole body so that it faced the fireplace. With a separate jerk of his head, he fixed his eyes on the portrait of Prince Eddy.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ cried Sir Freddie. ‘It’ll soon be time for the toast.’ He looked about the room. ‘It’s definitely time for the picnic. I have it all prepared.’ With almost balletic steps, he moved to a darkened corner of the room and returned a moment later carrying a plate on which sat what appeared to be a trio of large and lumpen rotten oranges.

  ‘Nargisi kofta,’ he declared triumphantly, ‘Prince Eddy’s favourite – Narcissus meatballs!’

  ‘Ah,’ sighed Oscar, coming to the rescue once again. ‘Scotch eggs – Grecian style. Alas, we cannot. We must not. We’ve only recently become vegetarians and it’s too soon to break our vows.’ Widening his eyes, he looked directly at Sir Freddie: ‘But the toast we must share. Do you have any of Prince Eddy’s favourite wine?’

  ‘Of course,’ warbled Bunbury, stepping lightly back into the shadow and returning almost at once bearing a large tray on which stood, unsteadily, a dust-covered brown bottle and three green Hoch glasses. ‘Gewürztraminer,’ he announced, ‘and a good year, too.’

  ‘And opened already,’ said Oscar, raising a somewhat anxious eyebrow.

  ‘Fear not,’ chirruped Sir Freddie. ‘There’s a second bottle cooling in the bassinet.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Oscar. ‘Shall I pour?’

  ‘By all means – and you may drink for Festing.’ The baronet lowered his voice: ‘He no longer eats and he doesn’t like to drink in company. Because of the dribbling.’

  Oscar filled our glasses to the brim. Sir Freddie handed me mine. ‘We introduced Prince Eddy to the Gewürztraminer when we first accompanied him to Heidelberg. Forever after, it was his wine of choice.’

  ‘I know Heidelberg,’ I said. ‘A fine university.’

  ‘We were with him at Heidelberg – and at Cambridge, of course. He was at Trinity. I know Oscar was at Oxford. Were you an Oxford man?’

  ‘Edinburgh,’ I said.

  ‘Never mind,’ murmured Sir Freddie consolingly. ‘You went to sea eventually – that’s what counts. We spent three years at sea with Prince Eddy – aboard HMS Bacchante. That was before he went to university. He was a midshipman and we were in attendance, along with Dalton, his tutor, who served as the ship’s chaplain. We toured the Empire – the Americas, the Falkland Islands, South Africa, Australia, the Far East, Ceylon, Aden, Egypt, the Holy Land, Greece.’

  ‘Ah, Greece,’ sighed Oscar, sipping the yellow-green wine. (It was crisp and refreshing, to my surprise.)

  ‘Yes,’ responded Sir Freddie brightly. ‘It was in Greece that Festing accepted his true nature. In the hills, outside Athens.’

  ‘Say no more,’ I murmured.

  Bunbury continued, unabashed: ‘I remember, Oscar, when I first met you, you were a young man then, and you told me your ambition was “to eat of the fruit of all the trees in the garden of the world”. That was our ambition, too. That’s what we wanted for Prince Eddy.’

  ‘And Dalton, the clergyman, the tutor?’

  ‘Dalton had other ideas, of course – but ours prevailed. Prince Eddy was our boy. He was Her Majesty’s eldest grandson, of course – named Albert Victor after her and her beloved Albert, destined to be sovereign himself one day – but he was always Eddy to his dear mamma and it was she who put him in our charge. From the age of sixteen, until the day he died, he was ours, all ours. We promised the princess we would look after him and we did.’

  ‘You indulged him,’ said Oscar, without prejudice.

  ‘We loved him. He was a wayward boy, as princes are, but he was our boy. We indulged him, yes. Whatever he wanted, we gave him. Elephants to ride, tigers to shoot – a Gaiety girl in Brighton, a geisha in Fukagawa, a goatherd in Thessalonica.’ He laugh
ed at the recollection.

  ‘Did you set no boundaries?’ I asked.

  ‘None at all. In Japan he wanted a tattoo. We had a moment’s doubt about that because we knew he would be marked for life – but he was determined, so we let him have his way, as ever, and, given where it was placed, we knew that his mother would never see it – though I fear, as she nursed him on his deathbed, she may have done so.’

  ‘He died very young,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sir Freddie. ‘Don’t believe any of the rumours, it was pneumonia. He was twenty-eight. He did indeed die very young, but while he was alive, he lived!’ He turned towards Oscar and raised his nodding tortoise’s head defiantly. ‘Yes, sir, we indulged him in everything, I’m proud to say. Whatever he wanted, if it was within our power to grant it, we did.’

  ‘Did you ever let him kill a man?’

  ‘He fought a duel in Heidelberg, but no one was hurt. He wasn’t much of a swordsman. He was a good shot.’

  ‘No, I meant kill a man for sport?’

  ‘They were hunting aboriginals for sport in Australia when we were there, but that didn’t interest Prince Eddy.’

  ‘Would you have given him the chance to commit murder if that is what he’d wanted?’

  ‘But he didn’t. He was a gentleman through and through. And a gentle man.’ The baronet bridled and narrowed his eyes. ‘I know what you’re getting at, Oscar. All that Jack the Ripper stuff. A vile calumny. Intolerable.’ His pale face flushed with anger. ‘Prince Eddy would never have harmed a woman. Not in a thousand years. People will always believe the worst of someone if they can – most particularly of a prince. The slur about Jack the Ripper has tarnished his memory, I know that. It’s been my life’s last ambition to clear his name. When the police came sniffing around again last year, when my poor wife was fading, I showed them the log books and the diaries. The prince was five hundred miles away when most of the Whitechapel murders occurred. And so were we.’