Supping With Panthers

by Tom Holland

  What a wretched, sordid business! I cannot believe how thoughtless I have been. I should have known that George would take things the wrong way, he is so overworked and ill. And now I have lost the chance to treat him. Earlier this evening I visited his house. I was informed by the butler that Sir George was not receiving guests that night.

  Letter, Lady Mowberley to Dr John Eliot.

  2, Grosvenor Street.

  24 July.

  Dear Dr Eliot,

  I am afraid that I must request you not to call on my husband again. I do not know what quarrel you have had – George himself refuses to tell me, so I presume it to be serious – but whatever the cause, he is now quite implacable. I must repeat, therefore: do not call on him again.

  It is with the utmost regret that I pen such an instruction – I have so few friends in this city. I must shortly travel to Whitby to settle some family business there; and thinking as I have been about my childhood home, I am all the more reluctant to forgo the companionship of a man such as yourself, a man who makes me feel not altogether alone in this great wilderness of London. I hope and trust that you will appreciate this. Indeed I confess it quite readily, Dr Eliot, that I am almost tempted to remain in Whitby once my business has been concluded, and never return. I am quite at my wits’ end with George, so altered he seems. It is his illness, I am certain, which is responsible for this change in his character; either that, or the thought of the speech he must give when he concludes the business of his Bill next week. Perhaps once that is done and out of the way, he will become himself again. We must certainly hope so.

  Once again, then, Dr Eliot, yours in profound regret,

  ROSAMUND, LADY MOWBERLEY.

  Dr Eliot’s Diary.

  25 July. – High melodrama from George, in the form of a letter sent by his wife. Should be grateful, I suppose, that he has not challenged me to a duel. Clearly delusional; he must be very sick. He will not let me near him, though. There seems nothing I can do.

  A hard day in the ward, for which I was grateful. Late afternoon, resumed my study of Lord Ruthven’s blood sample. I am still floundering but equally reluctant to give up on the challenge yet. The leucocytes remain alive – that fact alone is a miracle. But no – the word ‘miracle’ will not do – and therein lies my problem. I am beyond the bounds of medical orthodoxy – I seem far beyond the bounds of science itself. In such a dimension, I am quite lost. And yet I am comforted by remembering an argument of Lilah’s, that there are many paths to the mysteries of nature. Repeating that now, I sound like the worst breed of crank – but when I was with Lilah that night in her conservatory, I believed it to be true. No – more than that – I saw how it was true. That mood, that spirit of mental exaltation … somehow, I have to recapture it. But still the problem: which path do I take?

  28 July. – Still no breakthrough, and the leucocytes continue to tantalise me. It is perfectly clear now, I think, that the samples I possess cannot be studied in isolation: for the purposes of my research, I must have reference to the organism from which the blood cells came. And yet I have cut myself off from Lord Ruthven; I can expect no further illumination from him.

  29 July. – It is useless. I can go no further. I have neither the resources, nor the experience, nor the wit to carry on.

  30 July. – The weight of my failure is still heavy. I cannot bear to admit to it, yet it is clear, I think, that I must. I have been deluding myself for far too long.

  Thank God for Stoker’s dinner party tonight. Would not have relished an evening spent alone.

  Bram Stoker’s Journal (continued).

  … I therefore looked forward to seeing Eliot with more than usual impatience, for I was hopeful, with the possible development of his investigation, that he might have been rendered more communicative. Indeed, I was informed that he had called on me one afternoon at the Lyceum, but I was engaged with Mr Irving at the time and hence unable to see him; I therefore resigned myself to waiting until the evening of my dinner party. I do not know what I expected or feared, but as I awaited the arrival of my guests, I increasingly found myself almost nervous, as though in expectation of what Eliot might have to reveal.

  Although not the last, he was very late. I was relieved to see him, for I had almost persuaded myself that he would not arrive, but as he stepped into the light my initial relief was transformed into dismay. For the period of a month had wrought a terrible change in his appearance. The flesh seemed barely to cling to his bones; he had a haggard and haunted look in his eyes. ‘Good Lord!’ I exclaimed, staring at his gaunt features. ‘What has become of you?’

  Eliot frowned. ‘My work,’ he muttered, ‘it has not been going well.’

  ‘Work?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he said impatiently, ‘a project of research, nothing that would possibly interest you. Now please, Stoker – are we to stand out here all evening, or will you introduce me to your guests?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I answered, somewhat abashed. I left him with Lucy and Oscar Wilde, trusting that his taciturnity would not survive die companionship of two such exuberant guests, yet nervous of his evident irritability. And indeed, when I rejoined them some minutes later it was to hear Wilde gushing on the subject of fashion, and Eliot suddenly asking him whether an interest in such a topic was not a waste of intelligence and time.

  Wilde laughed at this; but Lucy, fortunately, was there to interpose. ‘You must excuse him, Mr Wilde,’ she said, taking Eliot’s arm. ‘Jack thinks nothing is of value unless it is dead, and lying on a slab.’

  ‘A most commendable attitude,’ replied Wilde. ‘You are obviously acquainted with Lady Brackenbury. But not everyone is so displeasing to the soul and eye. What of those who are beautiful?’

  ‘Why? What of them?’

  ‘You have accused me of wasting my time, of not being serious. But is not the beauty of a young boy serious? Or indeed’ – he glanced at Lucy – ‘a girl?’

  ‘Serious?’ Eliot frowned. ‘No. What lies beneath the surface, in the mind, or the flow of blood through the veins – that is serious. But not beauty – I have seen the flesh and bone which constitute it.’

  ‘How charmingly gothic of you,’ murmured Wilde. ‘I should never look so far. I always judge by appearances. But in that, of course, I am merely a herald of the age – only the superficial is important now. It is that which makes the tying of a cravat so exquisitely serious, and beauty itself a form of genius and truth – higher, indeed, than either, as it needs no explanation. In that lies its reassurance – and, perhaps, its danger too.’

  ‘Well,’ Eliot said after a slight pause, ‘it is lucky, then, that I am not a designer of cravats.’

  Wilde laughed. ‘And lucky I am not a surgeon,’ he replied. ‘You see, Doctor, you are perfectly correct. It is just that I prefer to preserve my ignorance. It is such a delicate flower – the one touch of reality, and it loses its bloom. I doubt my views would survive the sight of too much blood.’

  Eliot smiled, but made no further answer, and the silence was filled by the dinner bell. ‘We are a little late,’ I apologised, ‘We have been waiting for our final guest. He has just arrived, however, so if you are ready we can sit down to eat.’ I then led the way into the dining room, and we all took our places. As we did so, our final guest joined us with a murmured apology for being late. I greeted Lord Ruthven warmly, then showed him to his place. Eliot, who was opposite him, appeared somewhat surprised, and indeed glanced at me almost reproachfully, I thought. I recalled that he could not have met Lord Ruthven since that first time in Lucy’s dressing room, and doubtless was unaware of his Lordship’s interest in his cousin’s career, and the oft-repeated marks of his concern and support. I could scarcely have failed to invite him to such a gathering; and yet Eliot continued to appear upset, and his reluctance to talk with Lord Ruthven was evident.

  Instead he busied himself with Edward Westcote, which surprised me, for Westcote – while a personable fellow and a worthy husband to his wife,
no doubt – had always struck me as an insipid conversationalist. Eliot, however, appeared quite animated with him; I made an effort to overhear what they were talking about, and caught Eliot discussing India. Specifically, he was discussing the myths of that area in which he had stayed, and some of its more intriguing superstitions. Lord Ruthven too had begun to listen, I observed, and soon the other guests were as well, pressing Eliot with queries of their own. Eliot himself appeared suddenly reluctant to continue; and when Lord Ruthven asked him to describe some myth of immortality current in the Himalayas, he simply shook his head and sat back in his chair.

  Wilde, however, was clearly intrigued by the turn of the conversation. ‘Immortality?’ he inquired. ‘You mean eternal youth? Why, what a charming idea. The ephemeral rendered perpetual. I can think of nothing more delightful.’ He paused. ‘But you do not agree, Dr Eliot?’

  Eliot gave him a sharp glance. ‘Perhaps,’ he replied, ‘it would make of beauty what you claim it to be – a serious matter.’

  ‘But not delightful?’ pressed Lord Ruthven, a faint smile on his lips.

  For the first time Eliot met his eyes. ‘That, my Lord,’ he said at length, ‘would depend upon the price one has to pay.’

  ‘Price!’ exclaimed Wilde. ‘Really, Dr Eliot, it is most vulgar to talk like a stockbroker when you are not one at all.’

  ‘No,’ said Lord Ruthven, shaking his head, ‘on this issue at least, he is surely correct. It is the definition of a pleasure, is it not, that it must exact a due? Champagne, cigarettes, a lover’s promise – all perfectly delightful, but the pleasure they afford is momentary compared with the suffering we must then endure on their account. Imagine – just imagine! – die due that would be levied on eternal youth.’

  ‘What do you think it might be?’ Lucy asked, staring at him with rapt concentration. The whole table, I saw, was similarly transfixed, gazing at the beauty of Lord Ruthven’s pale face. Lit by the candle flame, it seemed touched by gold, a thing quite unearthly and not human at all.

  ‘My Lord,’ said Lucy again, prompting him, ‘you were talking of the due on eternal youth.’

  ‘Was I?’ asked Lord Ruthven. He lit a thin cigarette, then shrugged faintly. ‘It would have to be damnation, at the very least’

  ‘Oh, the very least,’ agreed Wilde.

  Lord Ruthven smiled, and blew out a wreath of blue smoke. He watched as it curled above the candle flames, then lowered his eyes to stare at Wilde across the table. ‘You think the loss of your soul a cheap price to pay?’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ replied Wilde. ‘Certainly I would prefer it to exercise, or respectable living. After all, when set against good looks, what is morality? – only a word we use to ennoble our own petty prejudices. It is better to be good than ugly – but it is better by far, my Lord, to be beautiful than good.’

  I saw how disturbed my dear wife was at the turn the conversation was taking. ‘No!’ I exclaimed with some violence. ‘You are being too flippant, Oscar. To be damned, and yet still be alive, for ever … It would be … too awful. That would be not life, but a … a …’ – the horror of the idea seemed suddenly to possess me – ‘a living death.’

  Lord Ruthven smiled faintly at this last phrase, and breathed out another plume of thin smoke. He glanced across at Wilde, who was staring at him with parted lips and a gleam in his eye. ‘How much would you be prepared to suffer, Mr Wilde?’ he drawled.

  ‘For eternal youth?’

  Lord Ruthven inclined his head. ‘Or indeed, for any youth.’

  ‘Youth,’ said Wilde, his expression suddenly solemn, ‘is the one tiling worth having. It is the wonder of wonders. The only true source of happiness.’

  ‘You truly think so?’ Lord Ruthven laughed.

  ‘You disagree, my Lord? But that is because you yourself are still beautiful. You will age, though. The pulse of your life will dim and grow sluggish. You will become lined, and loathsome, and sallow-cheeked. The light will fade from your dulling eyes. And then, my Lord, you will suffer terribly, remembering the passions and the delights that you once believed were your own by right. Youth, my Lord, youth! There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth!’

  Lord Ruthven stared into his wine. ‘The beauty you speak of, Mr Wilde, is an illusion. A face that did not age would be nothing but a mask. Beneath its show of eternal youth, the spirit would be withering, a hideous mess of corruption and evil. Mr Stoker is right. Beauty can conceal, but it cannot redeem.’

  Wilde stared at him, a slight frown on his brow. ‘You surprise me,’ he said. ‘You would not be tempted yourself, then?’

  Lord Ruthven stubbed out his cigarette. I observed how he glanced suddenly at Eliot, but otherwise he made no reply.

  Oscar Wilde laughed. ‘You are too honest for your own argument, my Lord. You are a hedonist, of course – with your beauty you could be nothing else – and hedonists always succumb to temptations. It is the only way to get rid of them, after all.’

  Lord Ruthven leaned back in his chair. ‘Yes,’ he nodded slowly, ‘you are probably correct.’

  ‘Of course I am,’ said Wilde. ‘For in the end, what is suffering when weighed against beauty? For beauty, anything may be forgiven. You, my Lord, you might be guilty of the most horrific sins, you might be damned for all eternity, but your beauty would still obtain forgiveness for you – your beauty, and the love it would inspire.’

  ‘You would forgive me, then?’ The emphasis appeared strange to me and I noticed, as Lord Ruthven asked the question, how he glanced again at Eliot.

  ‘I forgive you?’ replied Wilde languidly. ‘I would not need to. Why, I prefer a beauty that is dangerous. I prefer to feast with panthers, my Lord.’

  ‘Say rather,’ murmured Eliot, ‘sup with the devil.’ He rose suddenly to his feet. ‘Stoker,’ he announced, ‘I am afraid I must depart.’ Everyone stared at him in surprise – everyone except Lord Ruthven, who smiled faintly and lit a cigarette – but Eliot, I observed, still avoided his eye. Instead, he turned and thanked my wife for the dinner, then hurried from the room; I joined him in the hall. I had expected to find him overwrought, but he seemed on the contrary almost cheerful in his manner. I pressed him to explain his sudden departure, but he would not, only thanking me instead for what he termed a ‘revelatory meal’.

  ‘Revealing what?’ I asked him; but again he shook his head.

  ‘I will see you shortly,’ he said, ‘and when I do, I may have some answers for you. In the meantime, though, Stoker, I must wish you a good night.’ And with that he was gone. I was left, if anything, even more perplexed than before.

  Eliot had been right, though. Shortly I was indeed to be given answers; and answers more terrible than I had ever dared imagine…

  Dr Eliot’s Diary.

  30 July. Late. – The breakthrough I had hoped for may now be very near. I met Lord Ruthven tonight – the last of Stoker’s guests to arrive. I had not even suspected he would be present. I sat opposite him at table, but made every effort not to engage in conversation and instead talked with Edward Westcote for much of the meal. Lucy had spoken to me earlier about him, in a low urgent voice as we repaired to the dining room. There are rumours, it appears, that Westcote’s sister is not dead, after all – reports from some subaltern have reached him, saying that an expedition had been sent into the hills. Lucy, not surprisingly, is very concerned that her husband will be disappointed; it seems that she half-expects some cruel hoax. I asked her why and she shrugged faintly. ‘The letters he has received,’ she replied, ‘they don’t seem quite right. Why, for instance, if his sister has truly been found, has Ned heard nothing from their father? He is out there in India too – yet he has not written at all, only ever this subaltern.’

  ‘But who would have an interest in practising such a cruel hoax?’

  ‘I don’t know. But please, Jack – I am certain that Ned will ask you about Kalikshutra, for he knows now that you have had some experience of that place yourself. Deal with him gently.
I cannot bear to think of his spirits being raised so high, only to be dashed again.’

  Indeed not. And yet in many ways, I hope that his sister is truly dead, for if she is not then I dread to contemplate what state she may be in. As Lucy had asked me to do, I attempted to lower Westcote’s sense of expectation; he bore it well, and I knew he did not entirely share my pessimism, for he continued to ask about Kalikshutra. Naturally, Lord Ruthven pricked up his ears at this, and I was reluctant to continue; but I knew I owed it to Westcote to tell him all I could. Inexorably, inevitably, I began to talk of the disease in the hills, and the fears and superstitions it had bred. This brought in Lord Ruthven; and soon all the other guests. A general conversation on the philosophy of death. Lord Ruthven’s contribution unsettling. He spoke with his customary grace and wit, so that the horror of what I knew to be self-analysis seemed almost charmed away. Almost, but not quite; for the horror remained, concealed beneath the beauty which Lord Ruthven himself chose to describe as a mask, laid over agony and rottenness. Occasionally, just occasionally, I would see this mask slip; I would glimpse what lay beneath; I would have no choice but to recognise the agony. Shaken by this, and lacking the social art necessary to disguise it, I determined to leave. I needed time to be alone, to prepare myself. For I knew that Lord Ruthven would follow me.

  I walked from Chelsea back along the Thames. Before Vauxhall Bridge, I heard the roll of a heavy carriage’s wheels. As I glanced round, the carriage began to slow down, then stopped by the pavement where I stood. The door swung open, I clambered in; Lord Ruthven rapped on the door with his silver-headed cane.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he whispered, ‘if you feel I intruded tonight.’

  I listened to the carriage as it began to rumble forward again.