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

by Franny Moyle

  ‘Dear Heart,’ the actress Ellen Terry wrote in her large, loopy hand.

  Be of good cheer & when you can give me please a wee sign of you – I suppose I could be of no use to you or you wd have written? I could wish you were working hard – slaving – sweating – until a hard plank at night wd seem the softest bed – to hoe up turnips, or write verse, anything only to work – I hope yr little boys are ever so well. I send my dear love to you – if it can not serve you, it at least can do no harm. I don’t quite know what rubbish I’m talking I only want to send you my love. Dearest Constancy.3

  A Mrs Mundella, a woman not well known to Constance, also determined to write: ‘My impulse is too strong and so I act upon it and just send you a line to say how dearly sorry I am for you in your great trouble and how much sympathy I feel for you.’ The Church Army sent a ‘sympathetic word’, asking Constance to join them, noting, ‘No one shall know who you are.’ Ruth Waugh in Oxford, who admitted she did not have the ‘honour of your personal acquaintance’, nevertheless wrote offering her help to Constance, despite ‘my being at present a personal stranger to you’.4

  While Oscar’s close friends, Bosie and Robbie among them, moved fast to act on his behalf, Constance’s intimate circle surged into action the minute news about Oscar broke. Oscar’s and Constance’s associates were already forming into two distinct camps, factions that would eventually be fiercely at war with one another.

  One of the first of her closest friends to write to Constance was, of course, Lady Mount-Temple. On 5 April Georgina, who could only have received a telegram to alert her to the disastrous news, sent a note dictated by Mary Fawcett, who was at her bedside. ‘You are always to remember how welcome you will be at the Cliff if ever you feel the “strife of tongues” too much,’ she said.5

  On 6 April, while Oscar was incarcerated in Bow Street and Bosie and Robbie Ross were working hard to secure his release, another of Constance’s friends, Eva Roller, who lived at Clapham Common, wrote to Constance urging her that ‘if you are still ailing as when I last saw you, will you come to this quiet place and stay here till your dear boys come home from their holidays?’6

  The same day as Eva Roller’s thoughts flew to Constance, so did those of the Burne-Jones family. Georgie Burne-Jones and both her son and daughter, Phil and Margaret, all wrote separately offering their services.

  But for all those who instantly showed support and love there were almost certainly more who withdrew their association with Constance. Just as attendance at her ‘at home’ had fallen off in the prelude to the libel trial, now that Oscar was facing disgrace, many of those who had once called themselves her friends quickly distanced themselves. For many in society homosexuality was considered so vile that the wife of the man who was now confirmed in the minds of most as Britain’s, if not Europe’s, most notorious homosexual was also damned.

  Even Juliet, Lady Mount-Temple’s daughter, could not bear to have anything to do with Constance once the news broke. She announced as much in a letter to her mother. She may well have been encouraging her mother also to drop Constance. Juliet’s letter does not survive, but Georgina’s response does. She could not help but sympathize with Juliet’s position, although she “was determined to stand by her friend. ‘I do not think there could be a greater trial with such disgusting shame … one cannot bear even to allude to it,’ Georgina agreed with Juliet. ‘Can one touch pitch and not be defiled? You are quite right in keeping aloof – so would I if I did not feel called upon to shelter her.’7

  Constance, all too aware of the implications of the events unfurling around her, sprang into action too. Now that he had lost his libel trial, there is little indication that Constance was standing by her husband as he faced his own trial for indecency. In fact, her actions imply that, from the moment the libel trial was lost, Constance understood that her husband was doomed. She was not even waiting for further outcomes. From 5 April onwards her actions were entirely motivated by the need to protect her children’s future.

  As soon as the Queensberry libel trial got under way, Constance had taken the precaution of moving the boys out of their schools and sent Cyril to her family in Ireland. Letters from a relative, who signs herself simply as Susie, recount that, while elsewhere the world was having its full swing at his father’s private life, Cyril, staying at Floods Hotel in the village of Borris in Co. Carlow, was having stories read to him and playing in the local streams and woods.8 Vyvyan, meanwhile, stayed in London with his mother.

  Constance was attempting to protect Cyril not only from public scrutiny but also from the truth. She would not explain to her sons the subsequent charges raised against Oscar. But Cyril was no fool. Later he would write to his brother and reveal that he had seen the newspaper placards and had persisted until someone, somewhere, explained to him what was going on. ‘I never rested until I found out.’9

  Constance swiftly explored options for her sons’ futures. Even before Oscar’s own trial had begun, she was formulating new futures for her children. She wrote to Bedales to secure references for Cyril, to which his schoolmaster responded with the pledge ‘to do anything in my power for Cyril’. On 11 April a friend wrote to her from Admiralty House in response to her inquiries about the navy as a suitable career for her elder son.

  ‘In reply to your letter of 9th,’ the letter begins, ‘I think that I shall be able to get a nomination for your boy Cyril when his age will allow of his going up for examination which will not be until he is thirteen years of age.’10

  Constance was writing through tears. On 9 April, Laura Hope confided to her diary: ‘to the Napiers where I sat with poor Constance, the most miserable woman in London, I should think’. Vyvyan remembered an image of his betrayed, humiliated mother during this period ‘in tears, poring over masses of press cuttings, mostly from Continental newspapers’.11

  Amid her grief, Constance was also being besieged by Oscar’s creditors. With Oscar now incarcerated, the creditors who had been pursuing him were now writing to his wife with demands that their bills be paid. Constance had a private income, but it could not match the demands being made on it.

  One man who proved of significant assistance to Constance during the terrible days of April 1895 was Philip Burne-Jones, the son of the elderly painter. Constance had clearly taken up his offer of service, and he now came to her aid. By 11 April – less than a week after Oscar’s libel case had collapsed – Philip had run several errands on Constance’s part.

  For a start, he had been to see Sir George Lewis. If Lewis had failed to help the husband, he was at least prepared to help the wife. Philip reported to Constance that he had ‘asked him all the questions you mentioned yesterday. As to any letters to you referencing Oscar’s debts you can ignore them all – you have nothing to do with any debts incurred by him.’12

  It was not just the tobacco sellers, florists and hoteliers who were baying for their dues: so too was the landlord who owned the freehold on the Wildes’ family home in Tite Street. The ground rent had not been paid. ‘If the landlord means to distrain for rent – let him – don’t think about the house in Tite Street again – simply leave it – for the landlord to enter and distrain if he wishes,’ Philip Burne-Jones told Constance.13

  Burne-Jones knew that Constance must be thinking longer-term and continued with yet more dramatic news:

  Sir George was most anxious that as soon as ever the result of the trial is known, you should sue for a judicial separation … not only for the sake of yourself and your family but for the children’s sake – the children must be made wards in Chancery and you could apply for the custody of them, & Oscar could never reach them or interfere with them. Something you should certainly do before Oscar is liberated – for he will be sure to come for money to you (who he knows has a settled income) & you should protect yourself from this … You cannot go on labelled as the wife of this man. I would urge you to change your name & that of the children as soon as ever you have got this separation … reme
mber you owe it to them to start them in life with a clean record – and if they bear their father’s name this can never be. Also if anything were to happen to yourself, dear Constance – (which God forbid) Oscar could claim a life interest in your money, & might leave the children stranded – with nothing to support them at all. There would be nothing to prevent him spending all the money on himself.14

  Philip’s letter reached Constance in Torquay, where she had fled the day before, to her friend Lady Mount-Temple. He wrote to her again there three days later, assuring her that ‘you are not intended to suffer always, as you have suffered. These dark days will pass away as some hideous nightmare.’

  Despite practicalities and professional counsel, Constance, leaving no stone unturned, also sought advice from alternative sources. Ten days later, the day on which Oscar was committed for trial, Constance wrote to the same fortune-teller who had been so encouraging to Oscar and Bosie just weeks earlier. ‘My Dear Mrs Robinson, What is to become of my husband who has so betrayed & deceived me & ruined the lives of my darling boys?’ she wrote.

  Can you tell me anything? You told me that after this terrible shock my life was to become easier, but will there be any happiness, or is that dead for me? And I had had so little. My life has all been cut to pieces as my hand is by its lines. As soon as this trial is over, I have to get my judicial separation or if possible my divorce in order to get the guardianship of the boys. What a tragedy for him who is so gifted! Do write to me, & tell me what you can.15

  The answer Mrs Robinson provided is intriguing. ‘My dear Mrs Wilde,’ she responded,

  I cannot tell you how much I am feeling for you in this terrible time. I said that there was a time of dreadful shock and sorrow coming to you, but I am certain that afterwards there is a bright time coming. You have your dear little boys and their lives cannot be really injured by this. They will both live to comfort you I am sure. On your hand there is infinitely more peace and happiness coming after this terrible time than you have had for 8 years.16

  Shortly after this communication Constance visited Speranza and broke the news to her that she intended to take Lewis’s advice, separate from her husband and change the names of the boys, as advised. Lady Wilde, so proud of her son and their name, was shattered. She scrawled a sad note to Constance on 22 April.

  ‘I am very poorly and utterly miserable,’ she revealed. ‘I do not like the idea of the boys changing their names – it would bring them much confusion. But at all events wait till the trial is quite over. Neither do I approve of the Navy for Vyvyan. I think it quite unfit as he is a born writer, made for literature alone.’17 Lady Wilde’s response, whether born from optimism or, by contrast, a reluctance to face facts, failed to grasp the reality that, whether Oscar was convicted or not, the Wilde name was already a byword for scandal rather than literary achievement.

  On 24 April, Oscar’s creditors moved in. There was an auction of the contents of Tite Street, attended – the press noted – by an unusually large number of cigarette merchants. Robbie Ross and Robert Sherard attempted to buy what they could of Oscar’s. But in the unpoliced scrum that ensued not only were things belonging to Oscar and Constance sold at knock-down prices, but many items were simply stolen. All Oscar’s first editions, with his personal inscriptions to Constance and the children, which Constance kept in her room, vanished, as did all Oscar’s letters to Constance, which she kept in a blue leather case. Constance had saved what she could, but she had not had time to collect the children’s effects, and all their toys were sold. ‘For months afterwards my brother and I kept asking for our soldiers, our trains and our toys, and we could not understand why it upset our mother,’ Vyvyan later remembered. ‘It was only when I saw the catalogue (of the sale), many years later, that I realised why my mother had been upset. The sale consisted of 246 lots; number 237 was “A large quantity of toys”; they realised thirty shillings.’18

  On 26 April, Oscar’s trial began at the Old Bailey. He stood trial alongside Alfred Taylor, who had also been arrested shortly after the Queensberry libel trial. Between them they faced twenty-five counts of gross indecency and conspiracy to procure the commission of acts of indecency. Bosie by this time had fled to France. Robbie Ross was also now abroad, at the behest of his mother. Within a week the trial had collapsed with the jury unable to agree a verdict and a second trial had been ordered.

  Cyril had stayed in Ireland with his relatives throughout April, but as May approached Constance was forced to find alternative arrangements for him as Susie was leaving for the mainland herself on 8 May. Constance determined that it was best to send the children abroad and get them completely away from the scandal.

  Constance’s friends and relatives had already made some provision for the boys. With Constance overdrawn at her bank, there was a whip-round to pay for a French governess who could care for the boys in an interim period and to cover their travel and living expenses abroad. Arthur Clifton, who had always been on good terms with Constance, was nominated as treasurer of the fund.19

  And so either at the end of April or in early May a Mademoiselle Schuwer was employed, and along with her new charges she headed off for Glion, a remote resort in the Swiss Alps, above Montreux. According to Vyvyan’s memoirs, Constance remained behind ‘to be what assistance she could’ to Oscar. But there is little evidence of a real effort on her part to secure her husband’s release. It was to her own affairs and future that she was attending.

  With Tite Street no longer in her possession, Constance was now living a nomadic life out of necessity rather than choice. After staying at Babbacombe Cliff, Constance also spent some time with her relatives the Harveys in Torquay before returning to London and residing at 22 Oxford Terrace, Hyde Park, as well as with the Napiers in Lower Seymour Street.

  With a degree of irony it was the Christian socialism to which his wife had lately been devoting herself that came to Oscar’s aid. On 7 May, Oscar got bail, posted for him by the Christian socialist the Revd Stewart Headlam. Hotels in London would not take him, and in the end he stayed with his friends Ada and Ernest Leverson, living in their children’s nursery and keeping out of the glare of the press as much as possible. According to Ada Leverson, Constance paid him a visit. ‘They were alone for two hours. I loved her very much and was grieved to see her leave in tears. I found afterwards that she had come with an urgent message from her lawyer imploring him to go away without fail before the next trial which would undoubtedly be his ruin.’20

  Constance was not the only person still begging Oscar to go abroad. Bosie, now in Paris, wrote in the full expectation that Oscar would join him there. ‘It seems too dreadful to be here without you,’ he wrote from the Hotel des Deux Mondes, ‘but I hope you will join me next week.’21

  But Oscar refused to flee, and so Constance had little choice but to continue to pursue the course laid out for her by George Lewis. She began to prepare for a new life overseas, under an assumed name, legally separated from her husband. She began to make inquiries of friends living abroad with whom she and the boys might stay in the first instance.

  Oscar’s second trial began on 20 May. By 25 May he had been found guilty of committing acts of indecency. The judge was without mercy in his summing up. The crime that Oscar had committed was ‘so bad that one has to put stern restraint upon one’s self from describing, in language which I would rather not use, the sentiments which must rise to the breast of any man of honour who has heard the details … People who can do these things must be dead to all sense of shame … it is the worst case I have ever tried.’22 Oscar was sentenced to two years’ hard labour. It was devastating but by now anticipated news.

  As the sentence was announced, Constance was ready to leave and had already written to most of her friends, including the BurneJoneses and George Frederic Watts and his wife, to organize farewell visits. And then Constance discovered the new terms of friendship under which she was required to operate. The identity of her hosts is unknown, however Con
stance’s letters suggest that at the last minute they seem to have imposed some kind of condition on her visit. Perhaps as the scale of the Wilde scandal dawned on them, they realized that having Constance and the boys to stay might prove just too controversial. Whatever this was, Constance was unable to accept it. She found herself writing to the Burne-Joneses again, apologizing for the fact that, despite her farewells, she still had not left the country.

  Georgie Burne-Jones sympathized with Constance; she saw Constance could not ‘go against’ the wishes of her host, ‘which probably represents the feelings of others also whom you would not like to vex. We both send love to you & quite understand you both in thinking of going & in deciding not to go!’23

  Oscar had spent his first two weeks of incarceration in Holloway prison. He was wearing the standard prison garb, with arrows printed on the rough cloth, and began his new diet of barely edible prison fare. On 9 June he was moved to Pentonville, where he began working on the treadmill for six hours daily, twenty minutes on and five minutes off. His bed was a plank.

  Constance, meanwhile, with her plans changing almost daily, took up Eva Roller’s offer of a room to stay. On 10 June she wrote to Georgina from Roller’s home in south London and updated her friend on her latest plans.

  I am staying with beautiful Mrs Roller whom you always admired so much … she has been to see the Watts drawing of you which is in the Academy this year. Mrs Roller and I went to call yesterday on the Lilleys and they are coming here to lunch on Friday … On Monday I am going up to town, and then I go abroad with the boys at Glion. I expect to be in England again at the end of the year when I have to give evidence in court. Do you know that I have to get a Divorce from Oscar? I meant to try & get a separation but I have no plea for that. I can either get a divorce or nothing and I have no choice … because if I died the boys would be penniless as matters stand now. I have been kept in town to sign affidavits, but if they are ready in a week I shall go over to Geneva and swear to them before the Consul there … I shall be here till Monday, then at Mrs Napiers & I go on Wednesday or Thursday to Hotel du Pare, Glion, Switzerland.24