Chapter Twenty-Six
I don’t know when the rumours about Oscar first reached me.
Maybe they were whispered long ago, back in Dublin, drifting about like a spring breeze, too gentle to be heeded.
Maybe I heard them at one of the Beefsteak dinners, swirling among the tobacco smoke and whisky fumes, evanescent and impossible to catch.
But when they became more than the background drone of busy bees buzzing first here, alighting there, transforming into dangerous words that found willing ears, they could no longer be ignored.
However, on my return from Dublin, I was initially too preoccupied with domestic matters to hear them. Whether it was the glow of homecoming or the success of the North American tour, when I suggested we move house again, Bram readily agreed.
‘It was time for a change,’ I said in answer to Ellen’s question, pouring tea and passing her a cup. She was my first visitor.
While I’d been very happy in Cheyne Walk to start with, so much had happened there, and returning after an almost six-month absence had made the unpleasant memories starker. It didn’t help that my first night back my nightmares returned. The drowned man rose from the grave to torment me once again.
‘Well, it’s lovely here,’ said Ellen, flopping onto the sofa. ‘I like the wallpaper you’ve hung. Is it William Morris?’
‘It is,’ I said, admiring it all over again.
‘Must have cost a pretty penny.’
‘Bram isn’t happy about the expense, even if we did manage to save a considerable sum while he was away.
Though that’s all gone now, what with the move, and having to hire new staff.
’ I’d employed Mrs Mary Dunhunter to cook, Maria Mitchell as our maid, and a young woman named Louisa Maiden as our char.
‘Don’t forget your fancy French nanny,’ said Ellen, blowing on her tea.
‘What is it about that accent that makes everything sound so exotic? I swear, whenever a Frenchman speaks to me, my knees turn to jelly. I should say French person, because it happened with your Yvette as well.’ Ellen gave a wicked grin.
‘And I could scarce believe it when I heard Irving chattering away in perfect Francais.’
‘He calls me La mère, and Bram, Le père. Bram doesn’t know what to make of it,’ I said quickly, relieved to be changing the subject.
Ellen had struck a nerve. Money had become a real concern.
Bram’s wage had to cover all our expenses now as George no longer shared with us.
After a short romance, he’d wed a very nice woman, Agnes McGillicuddy.
For the first time since arriving in London, it was just us under the roof.
But I couldn’t manage a house this size without help. Bram conceded that at least.
‘I’ll find the money,’ he said.
The extra work he did as a slate of new productions were scheduled – Twelfth Night was the next – never meant extra wages. Bram worked just as hard for the same salary. Because of the success of the first American tour, a second one was already being planned and would include Canada.
‘Are you going to the next Beefsteak dinner?’ asked Ellen. Before I could answer, Maria appeared with a tray containing some lovely little sandwiches and delicate cream cakes. Mrs Daw had been an excellent cook, but Mrs Dunhunter was superb. Her creations were hard to resist.
‘I am,’ I said. ‘Bram tells me there’ll be some new faces – the writer Henry James and that explorer chap, what’s his name?’
‘Henry Morton Stanley.’
What neither of us mentioned was that it had been some time since Oscar had been invited to a Beefsteak dinner.
‘That’s him,’ I said. ‘Oh, and George Meredith. I also heard an up-and-coming publisher, William Heinemann, has been invited. I’m very keen to meet him.’
‘You’re collecting for your next salon, aren’t you?’
I laughed. ‘Like a philatelist.’ I swiftly explained to Ellen my scheme to try and help Bram.
‘I won’t rush it. These things take time.
Also, I don’t want Bram to know what I’m up to.
There’s nothing worse than setting expectations that may later be dashed.
But, if you can think of anyone who might …
encourage his writing, be useful in that regard … ?’
‘I’ll let you know. Anyway, it will be nice to expand our circle.’
‘It will,’ I smiled. ‘If there’s one thing Lady Jane taught me, it’s to introduce fresh faces as often as you can. Keeps it interesting.’
‘I hope I’m interesting enough!’ protested Ellen, playfully pouting.
‘Oh, you’re much better than that, Ellen. You’re fascinating.’
Meanwhile the rumours about Oscar continued to grow.
People were saying that he had a predilection for men.
Young men. The younger the better. One of his university cohort claimed to know this for a fact.
Because of the vicious tattle, his poetry and other works began to be read with altered eyes.
Those who once praised them now described them as ‘offensive filth’.
Oscar returned to London after months away, first, in America where he’d been doing a speaking tour and making a name for himself, then in Paris recuperating. His reception wasn’t always positive in America and the reviews of his addresses were quite mixed. Bram said it was because he was Irish.
‘He doesn’t sound Irish,’ I said. Oscar had worked hard to elide all traces of his background. ‘You do, and the Americans loved you.’
‘I don’t pretend to be what I’m not,’ said Bram, without a hint of irony. I almost choked on my tea. ‘They respect that.’
Lampooned or praised, Oscar didn’t care. He always said the only thing worse than being talked about, was not being talked about.
But this was different. Different and perilous.
Like Bram, Oscar had always maintained close friendships with other men.
When I heard muttering that Oscar had been indiscreet with a young man from Oxford, I fell into despair.
I cast my mind back to that Easter when Oscar hadn’t come home to Dublin, bedazzled by his ‘new friend’.
What if he had returned? Come and swept me off my feet?
Oscar, who, it was swiftly becoming apparent, preferred the company of men in a manner that didn’t bear thinking about.
Though I did think about it. Obsessively. I suspect Bram did too.
When Oscar started openly boasting that in America he’d kissed Walt Whitman, the poet Bram worshipped and others regarded as a corrupting influence, I kept my ears and eyes open whenever I encountered him.
I found myself studying Bram as well. Nothing I saw alarmed me greatly, he was being discreet as he promised, but neither did it reassure me entirely.
After all, I knew better than most that marriage didn’t mean much when it came to love or conjugal relations.
Did all men prefer the fellowship of their own sex?
Were women merely tolerated as painful necessities?
Were we simply there to reproduce, to provide the son men desperately desired?
I oft wondered why no-one pointed out that if women only produced male offspring, then humankind would rapidly cease to exist. Mostly, regardless of how kind or tolerant the man, we were treated, as Mary Wollstonecraft argued, akin to decorative objects, toys kept in pretty boxes to be taken out and played with when it suited the owner.
We were also like Henry Irving’s limelight, used to shine a spotlight on the man.
Though I begrudged being thought of as a plaything, or a bright light, being admired and living in a fine box wasn’t so objectionable.
But, if that was the case, why did I often feel so …
hollow? My worth was based on my appearance, something I’d no say in; it was a (happy) accident of birth.
A woman’s value was also largely dependent on whom she married, on the appraisal of men.
A valuation that, unlike a painting or piece of jewellery, declined with age. It was most vexing.
Then, unexpected news flew about town. Oscar Wilde was getting married.
Bram told me one night after a Beefsteak dinner. Laid low with an awful cold, I’d stayed home in bed.
‘Oscar? Oscar Wilde?’ I said, hauling myself off the pillow to blow my nose and level watery eyes at Bram. ‘Who? Who’s he marrying?’
Oscar. My Oscar was getting married.
A shaft of jealousy lanced my chest, a scalding heat followed by a frost so deep and hard, I feared I’d begin to crack if I moved. Bram perched on the bedcovers.
‘Constance Lloyd. You remember her.’ He took my limp hand in his. ‘We’ve met her on several occasions – at Du Maurier’s, the gallery opening. She was at Lady Jane’s last salon. Dresses very simply. You said she was stylish.’
‘Did I?’ I said faintly.
‘She’s the daughter of that Queen’s Counsel.’
I tried desperately to recall her. Then I remembered. Introduced as a long-time writer friend of his, Oscar had hovered over her solicitously. I thought her very pretty with lovely big eyes and a slender, almost boyish figure. Warm, friendly, she was also Irish and the same age as me.
She’d grasped my hands tightly and drawn me close.
‘Oscar has told me so much about you. I hope we’ll be great friends.’
I managed a smile and some form of agreement, but not before I’d shot Oscar an accusatory look. He may have told her about me, but I knew nothing of her.
‘Are you feeling any better, Florrie?’ asked Bram.
‘You really are very pallid. How about I mix a toddy? Mammy always swore by them.’ Before I could object, Bram leapt up, making a drink and recounting the night’s performance.
I barely listened. My head was filled with images of Constance and Oscar.
A persistent voice, high-pitched, like the steam from a kettle, whined, Why did he never ask for your hand?
What does Constance have that you lack? What changed?
Was it because Oscar was genuinely in love? Was it a matter of social status? Or was Constance his disguise, a costume he donned to move about safely in the world? Were both the important men in my life, the one who courted me and the one who married me, more attracted to their own sex?
It was too much to consider.
Arm in arm with Bram, on 29 May 1884 I attended the wedding of Oscar and Constance at St James’s Church in Paddington.
I could scarce take my eyes off them as they exchanged vows.
Oscar bestowed a lasting kiss on her lovely mouth, and then with shining eyes led her back down the aisle.
I worked hard not to imagine myself in her place.
With the rumours circulating, did I even want to be? I’d my own complex relationship to protect.
There was no doubt, Oscar and Bram liked men, and a great deal more than made me comfortable, but it was evident that they enjoyed the companionship of women as well.
Lucky for them both, Constance and I provided the cover society demanded.