Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death

To
Merlin and Emma

Would
you like to know the great drama of my life?

It
is that I have put my genius into my life …

I
have put only my talent into my works.

Oscar
Wilde
(1854—1900)

PREFACE

My name is Robert Sherard
and I was a friend of Oscar Wilde. We met first in Paris in 1883. He was then
twenty-eight and already famous—as a writer, wit and raconteur, as the
pre-eminent ‘personality’ of his day. I was twenty-two, a would-be journalist,
an aspiring poet, and quite unknown. We met for the last time in 1900, again in
Paris, not long before his untimely death. During the seventeen years of our
friendship I kept a journal of our times together. We were not lovers, but I
knew Oscar well. Few, I believe, knew him better. In 1884, I was the first whom
Oscar entertained after his marriage to Constance Lloyd. In
1895,
I was
the first to visit him in Wandsworth Gaol following his imprisonment. In 1902,
I became his first biographer.

When I
wrote that first account of Oscar’s life I told his story as best I could. I
told the truth and nothing but the truth—but the whole truth I did not tell.
Not long before his death, I had confessed to Oscar that I planned to write of
him after he was gone. He said: ‘Don’t tell them everything—not yet! When you
write of me, don’t speak of murder. Leave that a while.’ I have left it—until
now. I am writing this in September 1939. I am old and the world is on the
brink of war once more. My time will soon be up, but before I go I have one
last task remaining—to tell everything that I know of Oscar Wilde, poet,
playwright, friend, detective …

In
De
Profundis,
my friend did me great honour. He described me as ‘the bravest
and most chivalrous of all brilliant beings’. Oscar Wilde was always good to me
and I ask you to believe me when I tell you that in the pages that follow I
have tried my utmost to be true to him.

RHS

Dieppe, France

September 1939

Regard
your good name as the richest jewel that you can possibly be possessed of—for
credit is like fire: when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it,
but if you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it
again. The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavour to be what you desire
to appear.

Socrates
(c.470—399 BC)

CHAPTER ONE

THE FORTUNE TELLER

It was Sunday 1 May 1892,
a cold day, though the sun was bright. I recall in particular the way in which
a brilliant shaft of afternoon sunlight filtered through the first-floor front
window of Number 16 Tite Street, Chelsea—the London home of Oscar and Constance
Wilde—and perfectly illuminated two figures sitting close together at a small
table, apparently holding hands.

I stood
alone, by the window, watching them. One was a woman, a widow, in her early
forties, with a pleasing figure, well-held, and a narrow, kindly face—a little
lined, but not care-worn—and large, knowing eyes. She was dressed all in black
silk and on her head, which she held high, she wore a turban of black velvet
featuring a single, startling, silver and turquoise peacock’s feather. The
colour of the feather matched the colour of her hair.

The
other figure seated at the table was quite as striking. He was a large man,
aged thirty-seven, tall, over-fleshed, with a fine head of thick deep-chestnut
hair, large, slightly drooping eyes, and full lips that opened to reveal a wide
mouth crowded with ungainly teeth. His skin was pale and pasty, blotched with
freckles. He was dressed in a sand-coloured linen suit of his own design. At
his neck, he sported a loose-fitting linen tie of Lincoln green and, in his
buttonhole, a fresh amaryllis, the colour of coral.

The
woman was Mrs Robinson, clairvoyant to the Prince of Wales among others. The
man was Oscar Wilde, poet and playwright, and literary sensation of the age.

Slowly,
with gloved fingers, Mrs Robinson caressed Oscar Wilde’s right hand.
Repeatedly, she brushed the side of her little finger across his palm. With her
right thumb and forefinger she took each of his fingers in turn and, gently,
pulled it straight. For a long while, she gazed intently at his open hand,
saying nothing. Eventually, she lifted his palm to her cheek and held it there.
She sighed and closed her eyes and murmured, ‘I see a sudden death in this
unhappy hand. A cruel death, unexpected and unnatural. Is it murder? Is it
suicide?’

‘Or is
it the palmist trying to earn her guinea by adding a touch of melodrama to her
reading?’ Oscar withdrew his hand from Mrs Robinson’s tender grasp and slapped
it on the table, with a barking laugh. ‘You go too far, dear lady,’ he
exclaimed. ‘This is a tea party and the Thane of Cawdor is not expected. There
are children present. You are here to entertain the guests, Mrs Robinson, not
terrify them.’

Mrs
Robinson tilted her bird-like head to one side and smiled. ‘I see what I see,’
she said, without rancour.

Oscar
was smiling also. He turned from the table and looked beyond the pool of
sunlight to a young man of military bearing who was standing alone, like me, a
yard away, observing the scene. ‘Come to my rescue, Arthur,’ he called. ‘Mrs
Robinson has seen “a sudden death” in my “unhappy hand”. You’re a medical man.
I need a second opinion.’

Arthur
Conan Doyle was then three weeks away from his thirty-third birthday and
already something of a national hero. His
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
in
the
Strand
magazine were a sensation throughout the land. Doyle himself,
in appearance, was more Watson than Holmes. He was a handsome fellow, sturdy
and broad-shouldered, with a hearty handshake, beady eyes and a genial smile
that he kept hidden beneath a formidable walrus moustache. He was the best of
men, and a true friend to Oscar, in good times and bad.

‘I’m no
longer practising medicine, Oscar, as you know,’ he said, moving towards the
window table, ‘but if you want my honest opinion, you should steer well clear
of this kind of tomfoolery. It can be dangerous. It leads you know not where.’
He bowed a little stiffly towards Mrs Robinson. ‘No offence intended, Madam,’
he said.

‘None
taken,’ she replied, graciously. ‘The creator of Sherlock Holmes can do no
wrong in my eyes.

Doyle’s
cheeks turned scarlet. He blushed readily. ‘You are too kind,’ he mumbled
awkwardly.

‘You
are too ridiculous, Arthur. Pay no attention to him, Mrs R. He’s all over the
place. I’m not surprised. He’s moved to South Norwood— wherever that may be.’

‘It’s
not far,’ Doyle protested.

‘It’s a
world away, Arthur, and you know it. That’s why you were late.’

‘I was
late because I was completing something.’

‘Your
sculpture. Yes, I know. Sculpture is your new enthusiasm.’

Conan
Doyle stood back from the table. ‘How do you know that?’ he exclaimed. ‘I have
mentioned it to no one—to no one at all.’

‘Oh,
come now, Arthur,’ said Oscar, getting to his feet, smiling and inclining his
head to Mrs Robinson as he left the table. ‘I heard you telling my wife about
the spacious hut at the end of your new garden and the happy hours you are
intending to spend there, “in the cold and the damp”. Only a sculptor loves a
cold, damp room: it’s ideal for keeping his clay moist.’

‘You
amaze me, Oscar.’

‘Mrs
Robinson would have uncovered your secret too—by the simple expedient of
examining your fingernails. Look at them, Arthur. They give the whole game
away!’

‘You
are extraordinary, Oscar. I marvel at you. You know that I plan to include you
in one of my stories as Sherlock Holmes’s older brother?’

‘Yes,
you have told me—he is to be obese and indolent, as I recall. I’m flattered.’

Conan
Doyle laughed and slapped Oscar on the shoulder with disconcerting force. ‘I’m
glad I came to your party, my friend,’ he said, ‘despite the company you keep.’

‘It is
not my party, Arthur. It is Constance’s party. The guests are all alarmingly
respectable and the cause is undeniably just.’

The
party—for about forty guests, men, women and children—was a fund-raiser in aid
of one of Constance Wilde‘s favourite charities, the Rational Dress Society.
The organisation, inspired by the example of Amelia Bloomer in the United
States, was dedicated to promoting fashions for women that did not ‘deform the
body or endanger it’. The Society believed that no woman should be forced to
endure the discomfort and risk to health of overly tight-laced and restrictive
corsetry nor be obliged to wear, in total, more than seven pounds of
undergarments. Constance spoke poignantly of the plight of so many women—scores
of them each year: young and old, serving girls and ladies of rank—who were
either maimed or burnt to death when their voluminous skirts, petticoats and
underpinnings accidentally caught on a candle or brushed by a hearth and were
set alight.

Oscar
and Arthur stood together looking about the room. Conan Doyle leant forward,
resting his hands on the back of one of the Wildes’ black-and-white bamboo
chairs. ‘The cause is indeed a good one,’ he said. ‘Rest assured: I have
subscribed.’ He smiled at Oscar, adding, ‘I remain to be convinced, however,
about the complete respectability of the guests. For example, who are those
two?’ He nodded towards the piano.

‘Ah,’ said
Oscar, ‘Miss Bradley and Miss Cooper.’

‘They
look like chimney—sweeps.’

‘Yes,’
said Oscar, squinting at the ladies. ‘They do appear to have come
en
travestie.
I think the costumes are deliberate. They probably wanted to bring
us luck. They are not chimney-sweeps by trade. They are poetesses. Or, rather,
I should say, “they are a poet”. They write together, under a single name. They
call themselves “Michael Field”.’