Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs. Oscar Wilde

by Franny Moyle

  Oscar’s late nights out ‘were causing noticeable rows and friction. One associate of the Wildes at the time, the opera diva Nellie Melba, recounted Oscar warning his boys one day that dreadful things happened to naughty boys who made mothers cry. One of them responded by asking what happened to naughty fathers, staying out until the early hours, who made their mother cry far more. Constance’s tears often turned to accusation and anger.

  Her own domestic problems came at a time when the wider Wilde and Lloyd families were also buckling under various stresses. Oscar’s brother Willie was still suffering financial difficulties. Still unmarried, and with drink problems, he was considered a drain on Speranza’s limited resources and a general liability. But it wasn’t just her brother-in-law who was a concern: Otho also continued to worry Constance. With his second family he had returned to London, where he had all but given up the notion of a career per se and was attempting to live off the income from John Horatio’s legacy. He had invested in a property development company called the Leasehold Investment Company. But rather than delivering a return, the LIC was running into difficulty.

  Constance was in desperate need of both good counsel and maternal affection amid all these troubles. ‘My mother sends me to-day an icy cold letter from Dublin,’ Constance wrote to Georgina. ‘Darling if you saw how she writes, you would not wonder that I turn to you for love, and claim a Mother’s love because I need it so desperately.’9

  The two women fell into a close routine that could involve daily visits to one another as well as church visits. They made a point of taking communion together, a ritual that they referred to in their own special code as a ‘tryst’. They embarked on literary projects together, reading Thomas á Kempis and the apocryphal Gospel of St Peter, which had been discovered just a few years earlier, in 1886. At a time when Oscar was arguing that art needed no moral basis, his wife and her friend began scouring Dante for moral lessons that they might apply in their day-to-day lives.

  Constance had experimented with the notion of an artistic life in the first couple of years of her marriage, and had become half of an intertwined literary couple in the later 1880s. But at the cusp of the 1890s she became intrigued by the idea of Utopian living, in which one could lead a good, moral, purposeful existence. Georgina told her stories about her friends Laurence and Alice Oliphant, British Victorians who had given up their all and moved to join the Utopian community founded in the United States by the American Thomas Lake Harris. Constance admitted that she would have joined such a community. But Georgina urged her that, rather than seek refuge from unsavoury realities within the walls of an idealistic commune, she should apply some muscular Christianity by going out and doing good deeds. And so Constance began to visit the underprivileged residents of Paradise Walk that, when they arrived in Tite Street, she and Oscar had concealed from view with latticework shutters. Within two or three years of knowing Georgina, the residents of that pitiful place were regularly knocking on Tite Street’s white front door, a fact that must have mortified Cyril and Vyvyan, who remained terrified of the urchins who lurked in the slums.10

  In the evenings when she wasn’t dining with Oscar or going to the theatre with him Constance would often dine with Georgina. Even when she did dine with Oscar, she could still find time to drop in on Georgina to read to her before bedtime. On days when they did not see one another, Georgina and Constance wrote to each other instead. Constance, now attending church every day without fail, often made a point of noting particular details of a sermon or service she had attended. Cyril was sometimes tasked with playing postman between the two Chelsea homes.

  For Oscar, Constance’s friendship with Georgina could not have been better timed, since it not only provided her with the spiritual and maternal sustenance she craved but also gave him more licence to pursue those social engagements at which his wife’s presence would have been inappropriate. But the extraordinary attention that Constance paid Georgina gave others cause for concern. The stockbroker Frank Sumner, a close friend of Lady Mount-Temple’s, had clearly said something to this effect.

  ‘Lest Mr Sumner imagine that I am neglecting Oscar, he is dining out!’ Constance told Georgina one day.

  And in self-defence I must deny that I ever neglect him, or put him anywhere but first in my life-duties. Oscar has, I am sure, told you what he feels that you have been to me in my life, and he would not be a true husband if he were not grateful to you, and anxious that I should give you what I can, that can be of ever small interest to you … If I had a mother who cared for me, an earth mother, I should most certainly go and see her every day, and why therefore should I not come and see my spiritual mother?11

  Mr Sumner’s comments may also have been a disguised signal to Constance regarding not so much her own behaviour as her husband’s. Might he also have been suggesting that she should be keeping more of an eye on Oscar? Society has the habit of blaming wives for their husband’s deviations, and the nineteenth century was no exception.

  In 1890 The Picture of Dorian Gray had appeared in Lippincott’s Magazine. Just as ‘The Portrait of Mr W. H.’ had done, it drew both praise and harsh criticism. The novel tells the tale of Dorian Gray, a beautiful young man who is the subject of both a painting by, and an infatuation on the part of, the artist Basil Hallward. Dorian, meanwhile, is simultaneously enthralled by the hedonistic life of one of Basil’s older friends, Lord Henry Wotton. Dorian, enjoying the indulgences of his youth, wishes that his portrait might age rather than the real thing, and in doing so inadvertently casts a spell that realizes just this. So while Dorian plunges headlong into a life of debauchery and murder, remaining young and beautiful, his portrait becomes more and more disfigured.

  The novel’s focus on male beauty and the indulgence of the senses once again raised eyebrows. Oscar found himself engaging in bouts of public letter-writing to various newspaper and magazine editors whose publications had branded the work immoral. The criticism in the Aberdeen Weekly Journal sums up the general arguments offered against the piece. ‘Characters more fantastic and repulsive than those of Dorian Gray and Lord Henry Wotton were surely never drawn,’ it wrote. The Picture of Dorian Gray ‘leaves a bad taste in the mouth’.12

  But it was not so much the criticism as the very public nature of it that must have been difficult for the Wildes. The St James Gazette, as described by Oscar himself, ‘placarded the town with posters on which was printed in large letters: Mr Oscar Wilde’s Latest Advertisement; A Bad Case’. W. H. Smith refused to sell the book.

  Oscar may have been useless with money, but he had a nose for commercial success. The very controversial nature of the work provided it with free publicity. ‘Lippincott’s has had a phenomenal sale,’ Robbie Ross wrote to Oscar, congratulating him on the book. ‘80 copies were sold in one day at the Strand booksellers, the usual amount being about three a week in that part,’ he added, noting that ‘of course it is said to be very dangerous’.13

  Constance remained wilfully immune to the insinuations that were being made about her husband and his work, and continued an admiration for it that many noted as being close to idolatry. She had a terrific capacity to filter out the worrying comments being made about Oscar and instead to focus on the praise of him, which was in fact equally available. She was also perfectly capable of sifting through his work to find those elements in its complexity that appealed to her, and somehow discard the elements that others considered risqué or controversial. When Georgina read Dorian Gray in Lippincott’s in June 1890,14 one imagines it was Constance who proudly urged her to do so. A little later she delighted in recommending to her friend an excellent review of the novel by Walter Pater in The Bookman.

  In spite of her own not inconsiderable successes, and despite the fact that her interests were now diverging substantially from his, Constance never ceased to delight in her husband and remained his greatest fan. In February 1891 she and Oscar dined at the Houses of Parliament as the guests of Sir Hugh Low. Constance’s sense
of pride in her husband becomes clear:

  I enjoyed my dinner at the House so much – a dinner party in the private room, and Sir John Pope Hennessy & Sir Hugh Low spoke to me in the highest terms of praise of Oscar which is of course always delightful to me. I have never heard anything like the enthusiastic way in which they both of them spoke of his brilliance and charm, and a little reflected light fell also on me, which is not always the case. It is no wonder to me that Oscar likes going amongst people who treat him like this, and who are themselves delightful.15

  It was perhaps because of Constance’s continuing pride in him that Oscar took some heed of his wife’s complaints and tears and redoubled his efforts to play the devoted, if somewhat absent, husband. Much of this show of devotion took the form of letters that he began writing regularly to his wife when he was away from her, particularly during the autumn of 1891. The degree of attention Oscar paid to his wife in spite of his sexual adventures with young men is rarely acknowledged. But it is crucial to understanding the commitment that the couple continued to have to one another in the first years of the 1890s.

  Tite Street was now regularly empty. Constance was finding London life too busy and demanding, and the industrial smog was dreadful. With Oscar spending more time away from her, she herself got out of town whenever she could. Among what one imagines were many more visits, her letters reveal that in February she went to see the Cochranes in Windlesham while Oscar made a brief trip to Paris. In May she and Oscar were guests of the Grenfell family at Taplow Court. In July, Constance was in Salisbury with Lady Grosvenor. And then in early August she and Oscar were both guests at Wrest Park in Bedfordshire, the country home of Lord and Lady Spencer Cowper.

  During August and September 1891 Constance’s travels continued. She made trips to Reading to see her friend Mrs Jean Palmer, to Great Berkhamsted to visit her friend Emily Thursfield, and to Brighton, probably to see her mother. After the latter trip she began to crave a country retreat of her own: ‘I would give anything in the world to have a tiny cottage where I could take refuge from London at times when I feel overburdened, and when being 600 feet above the sea would refresh me.’16 And so it was not long before she went to Georgina’s clifftop retreat at Babbacombe, where it seems that she spent a fortnight in September.

  Constance would take the boys with her on her longer sojourns to the Palmers in Reading or to Georgina at Babbacombe, where perhaps she felt the children were particularly welcome. But many of the other house parties she attended without the children. Constance often used the Palmers’ ample home as a drop-off and pick-up point, spending a few days with them and then leaving the boys while she continued her country visits before returning to collect them some days later. Otherwise they remained in Tite Street in the care of nurses and governesses.

  Perhaps it is little surprise, given its frequent emptiness, that the house in Tite Street was burgled in August 1891, the first of two occasions on which the Wildes were broken into. Valuable items were removed from the glass cabinet in the dining room which held both Oscar’s and Cyril’s silver christening mugs, silver claret jugs that had belonged to Oscar’s father and it seems other heirlooms from Constance’s side of the family. Although extraordinarily Oscar’s family heirlooms were untouched, Constance and the boys lost prized possessions. Cyril’s christening mug had been given to him by his godfather, Walter Harris.17 Harris fortunately provided a replacement for his godson, but Constance lost everything else. Speranza noted at the time that her daughter-in-law looked ‘charming even without her jewels’.18

  The burglars were apprehended in November, and their stash, the product of some sixty-five housebreakings, displayed at King’s Cross. Constance dashed down to see if anything had been salvaged from the Wilde household but was dismayed when nothing of theirs had been recovered ‘in spite of the newspapers informing the world that we have recovered all our things’.19

  The break-in did not deter Constance from heading to Dorking in the second week of October, to another house party, which included esteemed literary guests such as the writer George Meredith, who lived at nearby Box Hill. Constance described him as talking agreeable nonsense and being ‘very pleasant and genial, though a strange being like all geniuses’.20

  She joined this social gathering only after having the distress of saying goodbye to Otho. He and his new, second, family were returning to the Continent, fleeing from mounting debts and various calls on him from the sinking Leasehold Investment Company. Perhaps all too aware of the distress that separation from her brother had caused her, Oscar made sure that he wrote to his wife almost as soon as she arrived on this particular jaunt. ‘I hear this morning from London Oscar that Willie Wilde is married in America to the rich widow who has been longing for ages to marry him!’ Constance reported to Georgina from Dorking. In a very un-Constance-like line, she may well have been quoting from Oscar when she continued: ‘The news has much the same effect upon me socially that poor Mr Parnell’s death has upon me politically – that is, that it is the best solution of a difficulty, and that things in both cases will now right themselves.’21

  Constance had forgotten, in relaying this latest news to Georgina, that her husband was not in fact in London while she was away, but was staying in Brighton. There was an arrangement that Oscar would join Constance and her party in time to celebrate his birthday on the 16th. Constance was excited at the prospect of seeing her husband but was disappointed that, after a night of storms over the south coast, he overslept, failed to catch the right train and discovered himself back in London instead.

  Whether or not Oscar missed the train to Dorking accidentally on purpose, he made up for his failure to show with more loving letters. ‘He has been so dear in writing to me since I came here,’ Constance assured Georgina, ‘and I have written to him, as I found he did not at all like my not writing to him when I was away before!!’22

  The pattern of separation was set to continue into October. Oscar had been writing the play that would become Lady Windermere’s Fan since the beginning of the year. By October it had reduced him to a state of nervous exhaustion, and he was much in need of a break. He informed Constance that he was planning to go to Paris with a friend to recuperate. Quite who the friend was that Oscar was proposing to take with him to Paris is not noted. But it may well have been Oscar’s intention to take Lord Alfred Douglas with him.

  Oscar had met ‘Bosie’ Douglas in June that year, as had Constance. Slight, blond and clean-shaven, he was an Oxford student and a Wilde fanatic. A practising homosexual who was himself exploring homoerotic themes in his own writing, he had become passionate about The Picture of Dorian Gray. When he had the good fortune to meet the author of this work, his admiration for Oscar, combined with his stunning looks, presented Oscar with the ideal formula for a new acolyte and lover. Bosie, instinctively controversial, captivatingly attractive and a genuinely talented poet, was just the ticket.

  The poet Lionel Johnson made the introduction. The two young men had driven round to Tite Street after lunching with Lionel’s mother in Cadogan Place. ‘We had tea in his little writing room facing the street on the ground floor, and before I left, Oscar took me upstairs to the drawing room and introduced me to his wife,’ Bosie remembered.23

  Oscar was instantly smitten. Bosie, however, was not immediately attracted to such an older man. Nevertheless he met Oscar at the Lyric Club, where Oscar presented Bosie with a signed copy of Dorian Gray. Throughout the summer Oscar had continued to pursue Bosie, and the latter had continued to meet Oscar. It may well. have been that Oscar was hoping that the romantic and exciting Parisian scene would be the one that would finally convert this budding, intense, new friendship into something with a sexual dimension.

  Dutiful as ever, Constance left Dorking and returned to London in order to see her husband safely off. When she arrived at Tite Street on 22 October, plenty of news awaited her. To her dismay the doctor was recommending that Oscar take a six-week rest cure for his case of bad
nerves. On the positive side, however, Oscar had finished his play and sold it to George Alexander at the St James’s Theatre. ‘This is a great pleasure to temper the sorrow at the separation,’ Constance noted.24

  Constance’s return to London was brief. Practical as ever, she quickly fitted out the boys with winter clothing. She also made some moves to replace some of the valuables that had been stolen. With £10 from her insurers she bought a George IV silver teapot and sugar tongs. Her friends rallied round too. A Mrs Macpherson contributed a silver cream jug from the same period, and Jean Palmer promised to give Constance teaspoons.

  On 23 October Constance took Cyril to wave his father off from Victoria station and was delighted that Oscar left her a copy of his new play to read. There is no mention of ‘the friend’ accompanying him. Perhaps Oscar had dropped his plans to take a companion at the last moment. Perhaps he had overlooked the fact that Bosie would be going back to Oxford for his Michaelmas term.

  If Constance and Oscar acknowledged each other’s right to pursue different lifestyles, accepting separation from one another, Constance still missed her husband. In that late October, when Oscar was in Paris and Lady Mount-Temple had not yet returned to London from Babbacombe, Constance began to surfer from depression. Although Constance was not technically alone – after all, she had both her children at home and refers to visits from friends, including the neighbouring Hopes – it was intimacy that she particularly craved. For Constance, Oscar and Georgina were the sole sources of this. With both of them away simultaneously, she felt adrift. ‘I wish you would come back to Cheyne. London is unnatural without you, and I want you dreadfully now Oscar is away too … I can’t live in the quiet by myself, and I am much more dependent than I was on fellowship and sympathy,’ she explained to Georgina.25 Constance’s susceptibility to the blues would plague her for the rest of her life.26