17

25 January 1890

When I met up with Oscar, as arranged, at twelve noon on 25 January 1890—the last Tuesday in the month—he was looking well. His large face was as pale and pasty as it ever was, but his eyes had an unaccustomed sparkle to them and, even before he was aware of my approach, I saw that he was smiling. His smile, when it flashed at you, could be disconcerting—his teeth were discoloured and slightly protuberant—but, on this occasion, there was nothing forced or fleeting or uncomfortable about it. It was the easy smile of a man in a contented frame of mind. Sometimes, I thought, a face tells us more than a mask.

“You are looking well, Oscar,” I said, shaking him warmly by the hand. He was wearing canary-yellow kid gloves and sporting the green coat with the astrakhan collar that I had seen him wearing in the cab in the Strand two days before. Tied around his neck, he had a yellow jabot fixed with a diamond tie-pin. Tucked under his arm was a slim black cane, like a swagger-stick.

“Is the cane new?” I asked.

“It is,” he said, with satisfaction, giving it a flourish. “It is a present to myself. I have mislaid your precious sword-stick, Robert. Constance is most displeased. It will turn up in due course, I’m sure. Meanwhile, I have acquired this black malacca cane to keep ruffians and vagabonds at bay.”

“It’ll certainly do that,” I said. He preened himself; he was in peacock mode. As I sensed that a further compliment was expected, I added: “You look quite the young buck about town.”

“I am pleased to hear it, Robert,” he said, tilting his head in acknowledgement of my bouquet, “and I agree, wholeheartedly! Thank you, my friend. I am well. I have rarely been better. I feel fully alive today. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all. What a waste! I was just telling Old Father Thames here how blessed he is to be a river. Oceans and seas—they come and go. Lakes and ponds—they stagnate. But a river flows, a river makes progress, a river is always on the move.”

As Big Ben struck the last of the hour, we turned from Westminster Bridge and began to walk past the Houses of Parliament towards Westminster Green. Oscar was leading the way. “How was Oxford?” I asked.

“Exquisite!” he replied, “Made the more so by the fact that my visit was cut short. John Gray is still there, distributing locks of my hair among the faithful. I returned to town on Sunday.”

“Business or pleasure?” I enquired, as casually as I could.

“Both,” he said. “I was summoned to see Henry Irving at the Lyceum. He is producing a new play based on The Bride of Lammermoor, Sir Walter Scott at his noblest…and most lugubrious.”

“And Irving wants your assistance?”

Oscar beamed at me. “I have made a contribution that I trust will lift the gloom of the proceedings a little. We shall go together to the opening night, Robert. Mr Irving is a great man and a good man, too.”

Irving—the great actor-manager of the Victorian age, the first of his profession to be honoured with a knighthood—was only sixteen years older than Oscar, but Oscar venerated him, almost as a father. I observed them together on several occasions (chiefly in the studio of Sir John Millais; Millais and Irving were old friends) and it was intriguing, because it was so unusual, to see Oscar-the-prince transformed into Oscar-the-courtier. As a rule, Oscar treated all men as his equal, regardless of age or distinction. With Irving it was different. Oscar was in awe of Irving. Irving was his hero. And I sensed that, as a consequence, Irving was a little uncomfortable in Oscar’s company.

We crossed Westminster Green and turned into Great College Street, “Perhaps I should have been an actor, Robert,” said Oscar, still smiling. “I should have liked to be a member of Irving’s company.”

“You are an actor, Oscar,” I said.

“Yes,” he replied, suddenly swirling his cane above his head, “but fated forever to play the same part. I envy Irving. One day he is Romeo, the next Mephistopheles. I am always Oscar Wilde.”

“Romeo touched with Mephistopheles,” I said. He roared with laughter, clearly liking my joke. I had rarely known him quite so merry.

We had reached Little College Street. “Where is number 22?” he asked. “I’m already feeling peckish. Bellotti lays on a good spread, as I recall.”

“There is number 22,” I said, indicating the narrow redbrick house immediately facing us. “It looks identical to 23 Cowley Street.”

“The work of the same builder, I suppose,” said Oscar, looking up at the house as we crossed the road. The curtains at the first-floor window were drawn shut. The window on the ground floor was shuttered from within. The house appeared deserted. The street itself was empty, too. Suddenly, simultaneously, we both noticed how loud our voices seemed.

“Do you have the key?” I asked.

“I have Bellotti’s key,” said Oscar, “but we shall knock. We are visitors on this occasion.” As he drummed a rat-tat on the door, he said, “See the knocker, Robert, how it gleams. We shall find a good woman in attendance here.”

We waited a moment in silence and then Oscar knocked again. “There is no one here,” I said.

“There is,” said Oscar. “She is coming down the stairs, holding a candle. Look.” He directed my gaze to the flecks of light dancing on the coloured glass above the front door. “And I think we know her…”

The door was opened by a stout lady of riper years dressed in a full-length dress of black crepe and taffeta. Around her waist was a white starched apron and on her head a curiously beribboned white linen mob cap that revealed a fringe of orange curls. I did not immediately recognise her, but Oscar did at once.

“Mrs O’Keefe,” he said, extending his hand towards her, as she bobbed down to genuflect before him, almost setting alight the ribbons of her mob cap in the process. “The pleasure was hoped for, but not expected. How are you?”

“I am well, sir, bless the Lord,” she said, getting to her feet again, “and you look well, too.” She held her candle up towards Oscar’s face. “I have been praying for you, as I promised.”

“To St Jude, I trust.”

“Not only him, but to St Cecilia too—come in, come in.” She stood back and beckoned us into the tiny darkened hallway. “And, of course, to our blessed St Helen of the Holy Cross. I’ve always found her most dependable.” She had shut the door to the street behind us and we were standing in a tight circle, huddled around the candle. She looked up at Oscar with loving eyes. “Tis good to see you, sir.”

A voice called from upstairs. “Are they here? Are they here? Bring them up, Mrs O!”

“That’s the canon, bless him. You’re expected. He’s not a Catholic, poor soul, but St Helen and I are working on that.” She turned to climb the stairs, plunging us—such was her bulk!—into virtual darkness. “Follow me, gentlemen. You’re in for a treat.” Over her shoulder she called to Oscar, “It is so good to see you again, sir. So good.”

When we reached the top of the stairs, whoever had called for us from the landing was no longer there. The door that faced us was shut. “You have to knock,” explained Mrs O’Keefe. “Club rules.” She looked at Oscar with shining eyes. “You’re a member, of course, I know that, but they tell me you haven’t been to any of the lunches for a while. Busy with your Mozart and your mind-reading, I imagine.”

Oscar gave her his most beatific smile and, with his cane, beat sharply on the door three times. After a moment’s pause, the door swung open and before us, with arms outstretched, stood a diminutive clergyman, aged about sixty, bald, with a face like a monkey, wreathed in smiles. “Hallelujah!” he cried, in a high-pitched, piping, happy voice. “The prodigal is returned!”

If Mrs O’Keefe, on first encounter, several months before, had put me in mind of the dame from a Drury Lane pantomime, the tiny cleric who now took Oscar in his arms was no more and no less than the ecclesiastical equivalent of the Lane’s mightiest comedian, the immortal Dan Leno—sometime clog-dancing champion of the world, celebrated (and rightly so) as ‘the funniest man on earth’. The clergyman was as small and spry as Leno and as delightful. His face was so amusing; his movements were so dainty; and his warmth so true that I would defy you to resist it.

When he had released Oscar from his embrace, he turned to me and with both hands—and the softest fingers—reached up and lightly pinched my cheeks. “Welcome!” he cried. “Welcome, young man, thrice welcome!”

“This is Robert Sherard,” said Oscar, presenting me.

“Sutton Courteney,” said the clergyman, shaking my right hand with both of his. “Canon Courteney—call me Canon, call me Sutton, call me anything you like. The boys all call me Can-Can—because I do!” Still holding my hand in both of his, gently he pulled me farther into the room. “Meet the boys!” He glanced towards the housekeeper. “Thank you, Mrs O’Keefe.” Beaming and bowing, with a final simper in Oscar’s direction, the good lady backed her way out onto the landing, closing the door as she went.

I looked about the room. It was an extraordinary sight, like a tableau at the waxworks of Madame Tussaud. There were seven figures, all seated or lounging on the floor, each with a lighted candle at his side, and each with, before him or in his hand, a plate of food and a silver wine-cup. They were having a picnic. Only one of the seven was seated on a chair: it was Bellotti, who sat apart, at a small table, in a corner by the window. The rest—four benevolent-looking men (one in his early thirties, the others much older), and two good-looking boys, aged fifteen or sixteen—were lying on rugs and coats spread out on the bare floorboards, resting on their elbows or leaning against one another, back to back. The men were dressed in everyday apparel, suitable to the time of year. The boys, incredibly, were dressed in bathing suits.

“Welcome to our Déjeuner sur l’herbe!” cried Canon Courteney. The members of the party looked up towards us and offered assorted greetings. The canon produced two wine-cups for us and filled them with champagne. “Now, whom do you know?” he asked. “Mr Bellotti, of course.” He nodded towards Bellotti in the corner, who waved a lobster’s claw in our direction. “And Aston Upthorpe is an old friend of yours, Oscar, is he not?” Mr Upthorpe, apparently the oldest member of the group, began to struggle to his feet.

“Pray, don’t move,” said Oscar. “We will join you. You can see he is a fine artist, Robert. He wears a fine beret.” Upthorpe, his mouth full of ham and mustard, rumbled genially and offered me his hand. Oscar put down his cane, removed his gloves and took off his coat, laying it on the floor, adjacent to the wall. Taking one arm each, the canon and I helped lower him gingerly to the ground, where he sat, resting against the wall, like a beached porpoise leaning against a rock, “Dear Lord,” he wheezed, “such exertion. I’ll be playing a round of golf with Conan Doyle next.”

“Aston, of course, knew poor Billy Wood best,” continued the canon. “Billy worked for him. He was his special friend. Of course, Billy was special to us all.”

Oscar had recovered his breath. “Was everyone who is here today also here at that last lunch—Billy’s last lunch, I mean?”

“Yes, indeed, Oscar,” said the canon solicitously. “Mr Bellotti told me that was what you wanted.”

“Mrs O’Keefe was not your housekeeper on that occasion?”

“Alas, no,” said the canon. “We had no housekeeper that day. O’Donovan & Brown let us down. Most unlike them. We had to fend for ourselves. Mrs O’Keefe only joined us in September. We like her. She has proved completely reliable.”

“And Mr Bellotti’s dwarf?” said Oscar. “Was he not in attendance that day?”

“Mr Bellotti’s dwarf?” repeated the canon, bemused.

Gerard Bellotti looked up from his table in the corner. “He is my son, Mr Wilde.”

“I am sorry,” said Oscar, confused. “I did not know.”

“Why should you?” answered Bellotti. “He’s an ugly wretch, with an evil temper. But he was not with me that day. He is never with me on a Tuesday. It is the day when he goes to Rochester. To the asylum. To visit his mother. She is feeble-minded. She dotes on him.”

An awkward silence fell. “I did not know,” Oscar said again.

“It matters not,” said Bellotti, sucking a shrimp from its shell.

Canon Courteney cleared his throat by way of helping to clear the air. “Let me complete the introductions, Oscar,” he said, “and then the stage is yours.” Oscar nodded to him, gratefully. “The lads you remember, of course—Harry and Fred. Don’t ask me which is which. I do know, but I pretend not to.” The two boys in bathing suits waved in Oscar’s direction. The canon continued: “The other gentlemen are all newcomers since your time, I think. They joined us when we moved from Cowley Street. Mr Stoke Talmage, Mr Berrick Prior, Mr Aston Tirrold.” The three men raised their glasses first to Oscar, then to me.

“Yes, another Aston,” said Mr Tirrold, the youngest of the group, the only one with a moustache. “It can cause confusion, but I believe Can-Can likes a bit of that.” The canon tiptoed past Tirrold, on his way to the picnic hamper, ruffling the young man’s thick fair hair as he went.

“What wonderful names you all have,” said Oscar, quietly. “Names fascinate me terribly.”

The canon was piling a plate high with good things for Oscar. “You don’t do so badly yourself, Mr Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde.”

“Are those really your names?” asked one of the boys in a bathing suit.

“Indeed,” said Oscar.

“I like Oscar best,” said the other boy.

“I do, too,” answered Oscar, raising his wine-cup to the lad.

The canon was tiptoeing back towards Oscar with his lunch. “Mr Wilde is Irish,” he explained to the boys as he went, “and Oscar was the favourite son of Ossian, the fabled Irish warrior-bard. Oscar was killed at the battle of Gabhra in single combat with King Cairbre. It was a terrible day, even by third-century standards. Our Oscar, needless to say, follows in the bardic rather than the battling Irish tradition.”

The canon presented Oscar with a wide dish piled high with oysters and dressed crab, smoked fish and cold cuts, scoops of savoury jellies, slices of game pie, pickles, mayonnaise, mustard, bread and cheese. Oscar smiled up at him and then, under the canon’s outstretched arm, in a stage whisper told the boys, “In fact I’m named for the late King Oscar of Sweden. He was my godfather. My own father was an eye-surgeon and performed an operation on King Oscar for the treatment of his cataract.”

“That’s what I need,” muttered Bellotti in his corner. “When you want the father, you get the son. Isn’t that just life?”

“It’s such a pity Drayton isn’t here,” said one of the other older men. Mr Talmage had a genial, drinker’s face, ruddy and worn by life, with rheumy eyes and unnaturally black lank hair. “Drayton is fascinated by surgery,” he added, by way of explanation. “You could have described the operation to him. He would have liked that.”

“Who is Drayton?” asked Oscar. “Is it Drayton St Leonard or Drayton Parslow, by any chance?”

“Drayton St Leonard,” answered the canon, now back at the hamper preparing a luncheon plate for me. “Do you know him, Oscar?”

“I know the name, that’s all.”

“We haven’t seen him for a while. He wasn’t with us in August, that last day with Billy, or I’d have made sure he was here today. It must be six months since we’ve seen him. You must meet him, Oscar. You’d like him. He’s young—and very handsome.”

“We’re all young and very handsome,” said the elderly gentleman with the drinker’s face. “That’s one of the club rules.”

When we had laughed at Mr Talmage’s joke (and one or two more that he had to offer in similar vein); and when the canon had given me my food and prepared a plate for himself; and after he had ordered the boys to make sure that everyone’s wine-cup was properly charged and that those who wished for second helpings had been satisfied; and once the company had settled once more, he clapped his hands and said, “Gentlemen, boys, Mr Bellotti, may I have your attention, please.” He had closed the hamper and perched himself on the top of it. In the flickering candlelight he looked like a holy hobgoblin seated on a toadstool at the centre of a fairy ring.

“We are gathered here together on a special day, the feast day of the blessed soldier saints, Juventinus and Maximinus, martyred together at Antioch under Julian the Apostate. As we shall recall later, during our service, neither was baptised until he came to manhood—but what a manhood it proved to be!”

The canon paused and in the silence that followed one of the boys in bathing suits suppressed a snigger.

“Hush, Harry!” said the Canon.

“It wasn’t me, Can-Can,” said the boy. “It was Fred.”

“Hush, both of you,” hissed the canon. He looked at the boys reprovingly. “Before we turn our attention to this afternoon’s service,” he said, “we have business to attend to. Mr Wilde and his friend are with us today for a purpose. They are investigating the tragic death of young Billy Wood, whom we all remember with such affection.”

A susurration of sympathy floated round the room. Aston Upthorpe said out loud, “Billy was wonderful.”

“They believe he was murdered on the afternoon of 31 August last,” continued the canon, “at 23 Cowley Street, not a stone’s throw from where we are all gathered today. They believe that we—we few, the eight of us in this room now—were perhaps the last people to see poor Billy alive, and they want us to tell them whatever we can remember of that fateful day.” He paused and looked about the room. “Have I got that right, Oscar?”

“You have, Sutton, thank you. Thank you very much. With your permission, my friend Mr Sherard will take notes. Perhaps each could say a word or two in turn?”

Aston Upthorpe spoke first—most eloquently and at greatest length—and what he had to say was echoed by all who spoke after him. Billy Wood was a dear boy, intelligent, honest, capable, devoted to his mother, determined to better himself and, in so doing, in due course, to be in a position to improve her lot as well as his own. He had plenty of friends and no known enemies. On the day that he met his death, he had been as he always was: cheerful. Had he been more cheerful than usual? asked Oscar. One or two of those present thought that possibly he had. He was undoubtedly in great good humour that day—cracking jokes and being playful—and when he announced that he was off to see his uncle he did so, apparently, with a certain swagger.

“He seemed quite pleased with himself,” said Aston Tirrold, “the little bugger.” He said it not unkindly. “He told us that he had shaved especially. We laughed at that.”

“He was wearing his Sunday best,” said young Fred.

“And he had your cigarette case with him, Mr Wilde,” said Harry. “Will you give me a cigarette case too?”

Canon Courteney leant forward and clipped the boy sharply round the ear. He hit him hard. “Mind your manners,” he said and hit him a second time. The boy yelped and fell silent.

“Thank you,” said Oscar, looking round the room, “thank you all. That has been most helpful.”

“Is that all?” asked the canon, slipping nimbly off his perch.

“Oh, just one thing more,” said Oscar. “You say Billy Wood left here at two o’clock—”

“As the clock struck,” said the canon, “there’s no doubt about that. I believe he even said that it was two o’clock and that he had to go because two was the time of his appointment.” There were murmurs of agreement from around the room.

“Indeed?” said Oscar, raising an eyebrow. “And when he ‘went, did anyone go with him? Or follow him?”

“No,” said the canon.

“I went to the window,” said Aston Upthorpe, “and watched him go into the street. That was the last I saw of him.”

“And was he alone?”

“Quite alone. The street was empty.”

“And which way did he go? To the left? To the right?”

Upthorpe considered for a moment and then said, “To the left. He ran off, without a care in the world.”

“And no one followed him? No one left this room?”

“Not until four,” said the canon. “We all remained here until four. That’s when we break up the party. At four, that’s the rule. No one left until then—you have my word for it.”

“Thank you,” said Oscar, “thank you.” He glanced in my direction and indicated that I should put away my notebook.

“Well,” said the canon, cheerily, “if your business is done, if you have all you need to know, shall we move on? I will enrobe and we will proceed with the service. I trust you’ll both stay.”

“Alas, we cannot,” said Oscar, putting out his arms in the hope of being helped to his feet. “We have a train to catch.”

“Everybody seems in a hurry to catch a train nowadays,” muttered Bellotti from his corner.

“You are right,” said Oscar, giving himself over to the two boys in bathing suits who were easing him upwards, “it is a state of things that is not favourable to poetry or romance, but there you are.”

“Is it to be a special service?” I asked the canon, as he was being assisted into his surplice by two of the other older gentlemen. His moon-shaped monkey-face appeared through the neck-hole of the surplice and he grinned at me.

“It is to be a baptism,” he said. “This afternoon Fred and Harry are to follow in the footsteps of Juventinus and Maximinus. They are to be baptised! Today I really must remember which one is which.”

Messrs Prior and Talmage spoke together: “We are to be godparents.” Aston Tirrold added, “We all are—these two need all the spiritual guidance they can get.”

Canon Courteney kissed the embroidered crucifix on a white-and-gold silk stole and placed it carefully about his neck. “This is why the boys are dressed as they are. I hope you did not think they were in bathing suits for amusement’s sake. That would be perverse.”

I was bemused. “Is there a font?” I asked.

“There’s a champagne bucket,” said Bellotti from his corner.

“You see,” said the canon happily, “God has provided. I am sorry you cannot stay, truly sorry. Come next month—the twenty-second. It’s always the last Tuesday. It will be the feast of dear St Margaret of Cortona. We always do something very special for her. She was sorely tried, you know.”

Oscar had put on his gloves and coat, assisted by the boys, and retrieved his cane. Now he was passing around the room, stepping between candlesticks and wine-cups, to shake each of the club members by the hand. “Thank you,” he repeated to each of them. “Bless you.” He nodded to Bellotti and embraced the canon who, with a finger dipped in wine, anointed his forehead with a sign of the cross.

“Come, Robert,” he said to me, taking me by the arm and steering me towards the door. “We must leave our friends to their service. Today is a special day.” He looked at the two boys who were hovering close by him. “Don’t worry, gentlemen, I shan’t forget you. I shall send you both baptismal gifts. I know spoons are more customary, but I’ll make it cigarette cases, if you don’t mind—inscribed, of course. One for Fred, one for Harry. You can decide who should have which.”

By now everyone in the room—bar Bellotti—was standing to bid us farewell.

“Thank you once more for your assistance,” said Oscar, with his hand on the handle of the door. “Thank you, too, for remembering Billy with so much sympathy and affection. Is there anything that was left unsaid?”

As Oscar opened the door, a slight gust of cold air blew into the room and the candles flickered in unison. Aston Upthorpe, the elder of the Astons, the one in the artist’s beret, spoke up, quite clearly. “I think the boy was in love,” he said.

“In love?” repeated Oscar.

“Yes—for the first time in his life. In love. But not with me.”