Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death (25 page)

What
tin I had I’d spent in Maiden Lane. ‘I believe I’m expected,’ I mumbled, not
knowing what else to say. ‘I’m joining Mr Wilde.’

The
attendant grunted. ‘Ah, so you’s the “guest”, is you?’ His accent spoke more of
the Old Kent Road than Old Baghdad. From a reed basket in the corner of the
vestibule, he produced a linen towel and handed it to me. ‘They’ll be in the
hot room by now. Down the stairs, fourth chamber on the left. Take yer time to
get there or yer’ll faint.’ He laughed a little devil’s laugh.

‘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 walked 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.’