Oscar Wilde and the Murders at Reading Gaol: A Mystery (25 page)

‘Get out!’ he cried, beating his tiny fists on the bed. ‘Let me die in peace.’

I retreated at once, pulling the cell door to after me. Warder Stokes, working his way along the gantry with the skilly, laughed. ‘He’s a little devil at times, isn’t he? We’ve not managed to beat it out of him. You’ll get a warmer welcome from the Indian princess. She seems to be expecting you.’

I pushed open the door to cell C.3.2. Except for the few nights that I had spent in the prison infirmary and in the darkness of the punishment cells, I had spoken with Private A. A. Luck on each and every morning of my incarceration. I knew his curious voice so well. I also knew his particular way of walking. Every day we trudged, one before the other, five paces apart, in single file, on our way to morning chapel and to afternoon exercise. Luck was not tall – he was of average height – but, unlike so many of the inmates of Reading Gaol, he did not shuffle as he moved along: he walked with an easy step, without stooping, and always held his head up high. I knew the grace of his gait and the quaintness of his way of speaking, but I had not seen his face before. The moment that I did, I understood everything.

He stood at the far end of his cell, beneath his window – as if he were posing there, awaiting my arrival. There was no light from the window, of course (it was early evening at the end of January), but in the flickering glow of the gas jets on the wall I could see well enough. Private Luck turned his face towards me as I entered: his cheeks were daubed with rouge; his lips were painted scarlet; his eyelids were coloured green as emeralds.

‘We will draw the curtain and show you the picture,’ he said, throwing the cap that he was holding onto the bed and tossing his head coquettishly. ‘Look you, sir,’ he giggled, ‘such a one I was this present. Is’t not well done?’

‘Excellently done, if God did all,’ I answered.

‘’Tis in grain, sir; ’twill endure wind and weather . . .’ He turned his head to one side to show off his profile. He giggled some more. ‘I played Olivia when Sir Richard Burton produced
Twelfth Night
at the embassy in Trieste,’ he explained in his fluting voice. ‘He played the Count Orsino. He was far too old for the part, but he was still handsome. He was a swordsman to the last. In every sense.’ He stifled more laughter, holding his hands up to his face.

I stepped towards him. ‘Your hands are brown,’ I said, ‘but your neck is white, your
skin
is white . . .’

‘All our hands are brown here,’ he replied, looking at them in disgust. ‘It is the wind and the rain. And the work they make us do.’ He turned his gaze on me and fluttered his emerald eyelids. ‘But, yes, my skin is white and smooth as alabaster.’ He pulled up the sleeve of his shirt to reveal a slim wrist and a pale forearm. ‘I am only half Indian.’

‘Your mother was Indian?’ I asked.

‘Yes, my lovely mother was Indian. My father was British. Very much so. And a bugger, like you, Mr Oscar Wilde.’ He laughed. I said nothing. What could I say? ‘Warder Stokes told me that you were coming to see me today.’

‘Good,’ I answered.

‘Have you brought me my IOU? It is one hundred pounds that you owe me – and more if I am to keep all your secrets.’

‘I cannot pay you one hundred pounds,’ I said. ‘You must know that.’

‘Not now, I know, but in five months – when we are released. We are released at the same time, you know. You will pay me then, Mr Wilde.’

‘I cannot.’

‘If I am to keep your secrets, then you must. The boy may not talk, but I will. I would have my bond. Have you brought the IOU?’

‘I have brought you some books,’ I said, showing him the handful of volumes that I was holding.

‘I cannot read,’ he said, petulantly.

‘But you told me that you read the
Daily Chronicle
.’

‘Warder Braddle brought me the
Daily Chronicle
. He read to me from it.’ Luck twisted his head away from me sharply. ‘I cannot read,’ he repeated.

‘But you know Shakespeare,’ I protested. ‘And you know the
Kama Sutra
!’

He turned back and looked into my eyes. ‘By heart. I learnt what I know by heart. Sir Richard taught me the words. I repeated them for him.’

I put down my books on his table. ‘I see you what you are,’ I said. ‘I should have guessed at once – when you told me your names.’

‘What do you mean?’ He narrowed his eyes, but kept them turned towards me.

‘Achindra Acala – they are Sanskrit names, are they not?’

‘Yes.’

‘And they are unusual because they are names that can be given to girls as well as to boys.’

‘Yes.’

I smiled at Private A. A. Luck, late of the Bombay Grenadiers. ‘You are a
hijra
, are you not?’

He returned my smile and brought his hands together in front of his chin. ‘Yes, Mr Wilde, I am a eunuch.’ He bobbed a curtsy.

‘I should have guessed before,’ I said.

‘My mother had me castrated when I was just a baby. She thought it best.’

I looked at this absurd figure, with his crudely painted face, posturing before me in his prison garb stamped with black arrows. ‘Was she right?’ I asked.

‘She knew what you British men really like.’ He giggled again and clapped his hands together coyly. ‘She gave me a way of life. She gave me a means to earn my living. It was a happy way of life. It was a good living.’

‘While it lasted,’ I said.

‘It would have lasted longer, much longer. Sir Richard Burton loved me very much.’

‘But Lady Burton did not?’

‘She did not understand. She was stupid – and vile. When Sir Richard died, she found a Catholic priest to give him the last rites. But Sir Richard was already dead! He died in my arms. And he was not a Catholic. Sir Richard Burton was very much not a Catholic, I promise you.’

‘But he was Lady Burton’s husband and she loved him.’

‘That woman is the devil. She does not know what love means. She burnt all his papers – his journal, his beautiful book all about me, his new translation of
The Perfumed Garden
. . . She was offered six thousand guineas for his manuscripts – six thousand guineas! And she burnt them all. She said it was his spirit that had instructed her. She was a mad woman. I am glad she is dead.’

‘She is dead? When did she die?’

‘A year ago. Warder Braddle brought me the good news. It was in all the papers.’ Private Luck suddenly raised his arms above his head as if adopting the pose of Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth in Sargent’s celebrated portrait. ‘If she had not died, I vow I would have killed her.’

I did not laugh: the man seemed so much in earnest. ‘It is because of Lady Burton that you are here?’ I asked.

He lowered his arms and looked at me intently. ‘Yes, Mr Oscar Wilde. I am like you – in prison for what I am. I helped Lady Burton bring Sir Richard’s body back to England from Trieste. I organised it – coffin and all. Very complicated. And then, as soon as we had arrived in London, she threw me out of the house and betrayed me to the police.’

‘Why? What provoked her?’

‘She did not want me at his funeral.’

‘But why did she go to the police?’

‘Revenge!’ he cried dramatically, adopting his Lady Macbeth pose once more.

‘I understand,’ I said gently. ‘But what was the precise nature of your alleged offence?’

‘I loved her husband and he loved me.’

‘Is that what Lady Burton told the police?’

Private Luck put his hands on his hips and laughed. ‘No, no. Of course not. She never mentioned her husband to the police. She did not need to. She simply told the police that I am
hijra
.’

‘And that is a crime?’

‘Yes, according to the the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871. Did you not know?’

‘I fear that the Criminal Tribes Act is a piece of legislation that passed me by. I was only seventeen in 1871 and politics was never my
forte
.’

‘This is no laughing matter, Mr Oscar Wilde,’ said Luck reprovingly. ‘According to this Act of Parliament, we are outlaws.’

‘I did not know that.’

‘Oh yes, because we
hijra
dress as ladies it is a breach of public decency. The Governor-General of India wanted to stop the rot. He called us “the third sex” and accused us of corrupting every Englishman in India with our filthy habits. He insisted on this law.’

‘Ah.’ I smiled. ‘You were bringing the British Empire to its knees.’

Private Luck clapped his hands delightedly ‘That is exactly Sir Richard Burton’s joke. That is exactly the words he used. You are very like him, Mr Wilde. And you have a wife, too.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I have a wife.’

‘And she will pay me to keep your secrets. I know she will.’

‘Did you ask Lady Burton for money?’

‘Of course,’ he said defiantly, ‘I must be paid. When Sir Richard was alive, he paid me. He looked after me. He protected me. He would have wanted Lady Burton to look after me when he died, but she would not do so. I asked her for a proper pension. She said no. She threw me out and she sent all my beautiful saris to the police – and photographs.’

‘Photographs?’

‘Lovely photographs of me that Sir Richard had taken with his camera.’

‘And the police arrested you?’

‘Of course.’

‘And you were sent for trial – accused of a breach of public decency under this Criminal Tribes Act?’

‘Yes.’

‘And blackmail? Were you also charged with attempted blackmail?’

Private Luck waved his hands about in the air. ‘They said all sorts of things – I do not remember.’ He paused and looked directly at me. His eyelids were green and gay, yet his eyes were brown and mournful. ‘But is it a crime to give pleasure, Mr Wilde? Is it a crime, if you are poor, to want to be paid for it?’

‘Is that what you told the court?’ I asked.

‘I told the court the truth.’

I smiled. ‘They must have found that quite disconcerting.’

‘They did not want to hear it. My barrister told me to plead guilty. He said that is what Sir Richard would have wanted. He said it would save everybody a lot of time.’

‘Given my own experience,’ I said, ‘I think perhaps your barrister was right. When the world is against you, it is sometimes best not to argue.’

‘That is true, Mr Wilde – and all’s well that ends well, as our good friend Shakespeare tells us. Lady Burton threw me out of the house, but a better lady took me in. Now it is Her Majesty the Queen who gives me my board and lodging.’

He looked around his bare cell with what seemed like unfeigned satisfaction. I glanced down at the cold dish of skilly that sat upon his table. ‘You are content here?’ I asked.

‘I have found friends in Reading Gaol,’ he said, lowering his eyelids demurely.

‘Warder Braddle was your special friend,’ suggested.

‘Yes,’ he said simply.

‘You pleased him – in your way. And he looked after you – in his.’

‘Until I had to kill him for you, Mr Wilde.’

I sighed and shook my head. He pushed his painted face towards me and hissed: ‘You must give me my IOU. I will have my money. Or I will tell everybody about you and the boy.’

‘I will deny it,’ I protested.

He stood back and laughed. ‘And who will they believe, Mr Oscar Wilde – you or me?’

20
Warder Martin

E
very morning, between breakfast and chapel muster, through the cracks around the hatches in the doors to our cells, I continued to have my daily ‘chinwag’ with Private Achindra Acala Luck, late of the Bombay Grenadiers. I could not break myself of the habit.

My feelings regarding Private Luck were mixed – decidedly so. He alarmed me: he made his demands for his wretched IOU on an almost daily basis and his accompanying threats became ever less charming and more lurid. I went on speaking with him in the belief that so long as we were in direct contact I could in some way contain him. He intrigued me: his stories of growing up among the
hijras
of Kakamuchee were fascinating. He had been given to the
hijra
community by his mother when he was a baby. The other boys had either been stolen from their families or abandoned by them. Luck insisted that his childhood had been a wholly happy one. ‘We were a band of brothers, who became sisters,’ he said. ‘I have always loved the eunuch’s life. I am a man who dresses as a lady, but is neither one nor the other. I like to be different. I like to be special. When I joined the Bombay Grenadiers I was one of a kind, believe you me.’ He amused me: he gave wonderful accounts of the
hijra
mastery of the mysteries of the arts of love. He told tales deliberately to arouse me. And, in Reading Gaol in the hard spring of 1897, I was grateful for that.