Oscar Wilde and the Nest of Vipers

by Gyles Brandreth

  She squealed with distress and let the shawl fall from her shoulders as she took me in her arms. ‘Of course,’ she cried, ‘in the fire. Your parents were killed, too. My poor, dear boy.’

  ‘It was a long time ago – twenty years.’

  ‘And Rex has risen phoenix-like from the ashes,’ said Oscar. ‘He’s an actor now – and an artist – and a vampire.’

  ‘By all that’s wonderful,’ cried Mrs Langtry, stepping back to gaze at me in rapture. ‘I shall marry him, too. To be a vampire’s bride: is that not every woman’s dream?’ She turned to Oscar. ‘Now, I’m glad you came, Oscar. I adore your friends. I want to marry them all.’

  Oscar looked about the little dressing room. ‘No tea? No scones?’

  ‘No Mrs Adler,’ said Mrs Langtry sadly. ‘My maid is not well. Matinée day and I’m having to make do and mend on my own. Sit, gentlemen, sit. I’ll brew the tea myself.’

  Side by side, Conan Doyle, Sherard and I perched ourselves along Mrs Langtry’s velvet-covered chaise longue while Oscar and the actress crouched down by the hearth and fussed over the kettle and the teapot.

  ‘Why are you here, Oscar?’ she asked. ‘To what do I owe the honour?’

  ‘We wanted to talk to you about the Prince of Wales,’ wheezed Oscar. (He was not comfortable on his haunches.)

  ‘Oh!’ cried Mrs Langtry with delight. ‘Is there gossip? Is there news? Has Daisy Brooke fallen from grace at last? You know everything, Oscar.’

  ‘I do not know the Prince of Wales so well as you, Lillie.’

  ‘Perhaps not.’ She snapped shut the malacca tea caddy and held it up for us to admire. ‘This was one of His Highness’s many gifts.’

  ‘He was generous.’

  ‘We were close.’

  ‘None closer.’

  Unsteadily, Oscar poured boiling water from the kettle into the teapot. The task done, he struggled to his feet and, motioning towards the chaise longue with his head, whispered hoarsely to his friend: ‘They know your secret, Lillie.’

  Mrs Langtry rocked on her heels with laughter. ‘Everyone knows my secret, Oscar. And I don’t care. I never did.’ Taking the teapot and rotating it gently, she stood up and came towards us. ‘We never did. The prince had a handsome house built for me in Bournemouth – the Red House, our house – and in the dining hall, below the minstrels’ gallery, in letters large as life, we had written along the wall: “They say – What say they? – Let them say.” We cared not a jot for what the world thought. We were so happy. We were so in love.’

  ‘Did you meet when the prince first came to Jersey?’ I asked.

  She looked quite puzzled. ‘When was that? The prince in Jersey? I don’t remember that.’

  ‘In January 1863.’

  ‘I was ten, Mr LaSalle! I did not meet the Prince of Wales in 1863.’

  She laughed, handed me a cup and saucer and poured me my tea.

  ‘We met years later, in London, when I was twenty-four – at least. And married to Mr Langtry. I was safe.’

  ‘But sensational,’ added Oscar. He was now at Mrs Langtry’s side, holding a jug of milk and a bowl of sugar. ‘Beauty – with brains.’

  ‘I’m not sure about that, Oscar, but I do know that I was fearless. I was not awed by the prince – in any way at all. I believe that’s what he most liked about me.’

  ‘And what did you most like about him?’ I asked.

  ‘Everything – except the stench of his cigars.’ She laughed. ‘He is a fine man, kind as well as generous. We are still friends, if not so close as once we were. I love him still.’

  She steadied her hand as she poured Conan Doyle his tea. ‘I hope you are not shocked by my chatter, Mr Doyle. You are very quiet.’

  ‘Arthur is the kind of fellow you want in the orchestra stalls, Lillie,’ said Oscar. ‘He is a perfect gentleman. He never speaks when the leading lady is in full flood and centre stage.’

  Conan Doyle smiled as Oscar dropped three lumps of sugar into his tea.

  ‘And Arthur,’ continued Oscar, ‘is both newly married and happily married and may find some of your story a little disconcerting.’

  ‘Oh!’ cried Mrs Langtry, returning the teapot to the hearth. ‘To be happily married is my life’s ambition. I shall keep on marrying until I am.’

  Through the laughter, I heard myself asking: ‘Mrs Langtry, did you ever meet the Princess of Wales?’

  As I put the question I thought it shocking – uncalled for, unmannerly. Mrs Langtry, however, appeared not the least discomfited.

  ‘I know the Princess of Wales. I have met her. I like her very much. I admire her beauty greatly. And her good works.’

  ‘And her forbearance,’ added Oscar, stirring his tea.

  ‘The princess is a woman of the world. She is wise to the ways of men. She has a father. She has brothers. She knows what these creatures are. Men – they are all the same.’

  ‘All of them?’ asked Conan Doyle, breaking his silence.

  ‘In my experience,’ said Mrs Langtry. She went over to the doctor and gently ran the backs of her fingers down his cheek. ‘Perhaps you will be the one exception.’

  Doyle blushed. ‘I hope so,’ he murmured.

  ‘I hope so, too,’ said Mrs Langtry, kindly.

  ‘Did the princess know of your friendship with the prince?’ I asked.

  ‘You are very bold, Mr LaSalle, but yes. Yes, she did – and she looked the other way. She did not wish to cause a scandal. It is scandal, Mr LaSalle, that does the damage. Oscar’s father was brought low by scandal. So was mine. My father was driven out of Jersey because of all the talk.’

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  ‘I’m sure you do. People love to gossip. A hundred years from now, if people are still speaking of me it won’t be because of my Rosalind – it will be because I was once a prince’s paramour.’

  Oscar smiled. ‘There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about.’

  ‘As you say, Oscar,’ Mrs Langtry said, laughing, ‘so often. You are shameless in the way you repeat your own lines.’

  ‘I like to give the public what they want.’

  ‘And what do you want, Oscar? Why are you here?’

  Mrs Langtry put down her teacup among the combs, brushes and powder puffs on her crowded dressing table and, going over to her old friend, placed her arms about his neck. I reflected that I had never before encountered a woman so intent on seducing every man she met.

  ‘I am here to ask you a simple question. It is a serious question and I want you to think about it carefully before you give me your answer.’

  ‘Very well,’ she said, pulling his face close to hers and kissing him lightly on the lips. ‘What is your question, Oscar?’

  ‘It is this, Lillie. You know the Prince of Wales.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘You know him well.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Do you think there are any circumstances in which His Royal Highness – either alone or in concert with others – would be capable of murder?’

  She let her arms fall to her side and stepped back, looking at Oscar in amazement.

  ‘No, Oscar, no.’ She laughed. ‘The question is absurd. The notion is absurd.’

  ‘Think carefully, Lillie—’

  ‘I do not need to think. I know the man. He has his faults, God knows. He is vain, greedy, restless, short-tempered, wilful, spoilt. He is obsessed with his appearance. He is self-indulgent beyond belief. He stinks of cigar smoke. But he is not a murderer. He is not capable of murder. He hasn’t the courage.’

  ‘To eliminate an enemy—’

  ‘He would not think of anyone as his “enemy”. He is too self-regarding, too self-absorbed.’

  ‘To avoid a scandal—’

  ‘He is the Prince of Wales. He has no need to murder anyone to avoid a scandal. He can simply walk away. That’s what he does. When there’s trouble afoot, he simply walks away. The Prince of Wales
has not, will not, could not murder anyone.’

  Oscar took Mrs Langtry by the hand and kissed it. ‘I think you have made your point, Lillie dear.’

  She held Oscar’s palm against her cheek and added playfully: ‘Prince Albert Victor, on the other hand …’

  ‘What?’ asked Oscar, his brows suddenly furrowed. ‘What are you saying, you minx?’

  ‘I’m saying nothing – nothing at all.’

  ‘You are saying something of great moment,’ said Conan Doyle, getting up from the chaise longue.

  ‘No, I’m not. I don’t mean to be. I’m just remembering something. The Prince of Wales has a weakness for fortune-tellers – as I do … as Oscar does. And ten years ago, when our affaire was at its height, the prince and I visited a clairvoyant together. She lived in Mount Street, as I recall. She gazed into her crystal ball, she studied our palms, she felt the bumps upon our heads, and looked into our secret souls by means of tarot cards.’

  ‘And what did she foretell?’ asked Conan Doyle.

  ‘Nothing but good fortune and long life for both of us!’

  ‘I know the woman,’ cried Oscar. ‘Mrs Mountjoy – the mountebank of Mount Street. She tells you only what you want to hear.’

  Mrs Langtry laughed. ‘Exactly so. When the prince expressed his amused surprise that our prospects should be so uniformly golden, the good lady agreed to look again and dig a little deeper. She shuffled her tarot cards and invited His Highness to turn over three more himself – which he did. The cards featured the Page of Swords, the Devil and the Hanged Man. “What do these mean?” asked the prince. “They mean a great deal,” said the clairvoyant. “They tell us that one day your eldest son may find himself in league with the devil and accused of murder.” We took it as a joke, of course.’

  Upper Swandam Lane

  64

  From the journal of Arthur Conan Doyle

  I am an odd fellow. I acknowledge it. I am a man divided. I am a qualified physician, with special interests in diseases of both the body (consumption) and the mind (hysteria) – a family doctor with a general practice that I need to nurture. I am also an aspiring writer with a yearning for adventure – a hunger for danger and a thirst for the unknown. I am quite torn in two.

  Part of me – the better part – wishes that, tonight, I was at home in Southsea, my little wife curled up in my arms, my darling daughter asleep in her crib at my side. The other part is grateful that I am where I am – in a dimly lit, smoke-filled, first-class compartment (which I cannot possibly afford), approaching the docks at Dover, on the night train to Paris, in the company of Oscar Wilde (dilettante, dandy, detective – and man of genius), his friend, Robert Sherard, and a complete stranger – an ugly individual with a twisted lip.

  Oscar is reading our fellow traveller’s evening newspaper; that gentleman is fast asleep – and snoring fitfully; Mr Sherard is sleeping too. I am wide awake and making these notes in my journal. I have determined to keep a full record of my adventures with Oscar: they will furnish plentiful material for future yarns concerning Sherlock Holmes.

  Tonight, for example, Oscar introduced me to the macabre delights of an opium den. Such places are unknown in Southsea. In East London, they abound. And Oscar, so at ease within the Marlborough House set and among the smooth club men of Pall Mall, appears equally at home amid the villains and ruffians of Limehouse – the East Indian sailors, the Lascars and the Chinamen who peddle opium and cocaine.

  When we left Mrs Langtry, it was half past six. Rex LaSalle – Oscar’s friend, the self-styled ‘vampire’ – took his leave of us. He had a sudden, throbbing pain in his temple, he said.

  ‘Where we are going now will clear your head most wonderfully,’ said Oscar.

  LaSalle would not be pressed: he said he was confident that a quiet walk in St James’s Park would be sufficient to do the trick.

  We bade LaSalle farewell at the corner of Duke Street and St James’s, then climbed aboard Oscar’s brougham.

  ‘Where are we going now?’ I asked.

  ‘To Paris by way of London Bridge.’

  ‘To Paris? Tonight? I thought we were to go to Paris tomorrow. That’s what I have told them at my hotel.’

  ‘Our plans have changed. There’s no time to be lost, Arthur. We need to get to the root of these mysterious deaths before another one occurs.’

  ‘If Mrs Langtry is to be believed,’ said Robert Sherard, ‘our first port of call should be the court of His Royal Highness the Prince Albert Victor.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Oscar, smiling slyly. ‘Hence our détour by way of London Bridge. We are on our way, gentlemen, to “The Bar of Gold”.’

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked. ‘A restaurant?’

  ‘Of a kind, Arthur. It’s a notorious den of iniquity where the only item on the menu is opium. According to Bram Stoker, Prince Eddy is one of the habitués. Bram told me so last night when we were at the Empire. If we get to the place between seven and eight Bram should be there with His Highness – they have Vampire Club business to discuss. Bram assures me that if we are to talk frankly with the prince, we will never have a better opportunity. At “The Bar of Gold” Prince Eddy is at his most unbuttoned.’ Oscar called up to our coachman: ‘Upper Swandam Lane, driver. Eastward ho!’

  It took almost an hour for our brougham to reach the address – a vile alley lurking behind the high wharves that line the north side of the river Thames to the east of London Bridge. Between a slop-shop and a gin-shop, approached by a steep flight of steps leading down to a black gap like the mouth of a cave, we found the den of which we were in search.

  ‘“The Bar of Gold”, gentlemen,’ announced Oscar, leading the way. ‘Will it live up to its promise, I wonder?’

  We passed down the steps, worn in the centre by the ceaseless tread of drunken feet. By the light of a flickering oil lamp above the door we found the latch and made our way into a long, low room, thick and heavy with brown opium smoke, and terraced with wooden berths, like the forecastle of an emigrant ship. Through the gloom one could dimly catch a glimpse of bodies lying in strange, fantastic poses, with bowed shoulders, bent knees, heads thrown back and chins pointing upward. Here and there a dark, lacklustre eye turned upon the newcomers. Out of the black shadows there glimmered little red circles of light, now bright, now faint, as the burning poison waxed or waned in the metal bowls of the opium pipes.

  Most of the denizens of “The Bar of Gold” lay silent, but some muttered to themselves, and others talked together in a strange, low, monotonous voice, their conversation coming in gushes, then suddenly tailing off into silence, each mumbling out his own thoughts and paying little heed to the words of his neighbour.

  ‘Have you been to this hell-hole before?’ I whispered to Oscar, as gradually our eyes began to accustom themselves to the gloom.

  ‘Once,’ he said, ‘under the misapprehension that it was a gateway to paradise. I was particularly disappointed in the opium-master. I had envisioned a magnificent Chinaman, richly costumed as a mandarin – a figure from Aladdin, an emperor of poppy fruit. Instead, I was welcomed by a sour-faced Malay in a filthy smock who handed me a pipe without ceremony and left me alone to suck upon it until the fumes overwhelmed me. It was not a beautiful experience. It cost half a crown but was not worth sixpence.’

  As he spoke, a sallow Malay attendant, exactly fitting Oscar’s description, hurried up to greet us. He said not a word, but bowed cursorily and beckoned us to follow him. Shuffling along in down-at-heel slippers, he led us between the dismal berths to the far end of the long room where stood a small brazier of burning charcoal. Seated around it on low wooden benches were three figures – each just recognisable in the low, reflected firelight: Bram Stoker, Prince Albert Victor and Frank Watkins, page to the Prince of Wales.

  None looked up as we bowed awkwardly towards the prince and crouched down to perch on the benches alongside them. The prince and the page were sharing a pipe. As we took our places, the prince claimed it from the yout
h and sucked on it slowly, his eyes closed, his head held back. We watched and said nothing. His Royal Highness sucked on until a faint gurgling in the pipe-stem announced that the opium in the bowl was spent.

  ‘More?’ muttered the Malay, leaning down by the prince’s ear.

  The prince opened his eyes and blinked. ‘No more,’ he murmured. ‘I will talk with my friends.’

  Handing the pipe to the page, he waved the Malay away.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, breathing deeply and closing his eyes once more, ‘good evening. Bram told me that you might drop by. Welcome to “The Bar of Gold”. Be not too proud to be here. It’s all part of the British Empire.’

  ‘Good evening, sir,’ said Oscar quietly.

  The prince opened his eyes and smiled. His pupils were dilated: he had the stare of a man possessed, but his way of speaking – his manner – was all courtesy and gentleness.

  ‘I am pleased to see you, Mr Wilde. You know some of my secrets and I trust you.’

  ‘You can trust me, sir.’

  ‘I am grateful. I am surrounded by those I cannot trust – and those who do not trust me. It makes a fellow feel quite lonely. And yet, wherever I go, I am never alone. There’s always a policeman lurking – watching me from the shadows. Did you see him at the door? Did you spot him?’

  ‘No,’ said Oscar. ‘I saw no one. Is he always there?’

  ‘Always. I imagine he is in my father’s pay – or the Home Secretary’s. I trust he’s well paid. He’s dogged, I’ll give him that. Day and night, he’s always there. I can never escape his watchful eye. The devil knows, I’ve tried.’

  He laughed and glanced down towards the pipe that the page was holding: a sixteen-inch length of black bamboo, as thick as a man’s finger, with, screwed to its end, a tiny iron bowl the shape of a pigeon’s egg.

  ‘The opium here is sweet. I can at least escape from my policeman in “The Bar of Gold”.’

  The page – Frank Watkins: a handsome youth with bright hazel eyes and copper-coloured hair – leant across and kissed the prince’s neck. The prince raised his right hand and buried his fingers in the boy’s hair, clasping the lad’s head close to him.