Oscar Wilde and the Nest of Vipers (18 page)

Before the church clock struck two, the show was over. It would seem there are no vampires buried in the churchyard of St Mary Magdalen, Mortlake.

The crowd accepted the disappointment with a good grace. When the demonstration was done, the priest dismissed us with a brief farewell and a final blessing. All at once, the gathering, suddenly conscious of its collective weariness and the chill of the night air, began to disperse. Whistles blew and the cry went up: within minutes the deserted country track appeared as crowded as Park Lane. Bicycles were pulled from the undergrowth; donkey carts, pony-traps and carriages arrived from nowhere.

Bram Stoker and Conan Doyle reclaimed their hackney cab and hurried to take their leave. They were among the first to depart. Doyle could fairly be described as fleeing the scene! Oscar chose to linger. I said I would wait with him.

I lit a cigarette and, from the church porch, through the milling throng, I stood and watched as the naked boy, now shivering, dismounted his horse. The prince was with him. He took off his cloak and wrapped it round the lad. We had all recognised the prince at once, of course. It was only Oscar who recognised the boy.

40
From the notebook of Inspector Hugh Boone of Scotland Yard, Monday, 17 March 1890

This sordid business grows more vicious by the hour. And more entangled. Will what did for us last year in Beaufort Street defeat us once again? The involvement of certain persons makes hammering home the nail near impossible.

Duke of Clarence

41
From the notebooks of Robert Sherard

‘You are Frank Watkins?’

‘That’s me.’

‘Page to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales?’

‘One of them.’

‘And friend to His Royal Highness Prince Albert Victor also, it seems.’

‘Friend and bum-boy.’

The lad laughed and immediately blushed at his own cheek. Prince Eddy leant across the table to box his ears. ‘Hold your tongue!’

The boy pulled back to avoid the blow. ‘Mr Wilde understands, don’t you, Mr Wilde?’

Oscar sat at the head of the table, complacently, his fingers intertwined and resting on his stomach, his eyes half closed, observing the scene as an Ottoman sultan might a catfight in his harem. He smiled, but said nothing.

‘Mr Wilde’s a man of the world,’ the boy continued, leaning back on his chair, balancing it precariously on its rear legs. He grinned and slowly, deliberately, ran his
fingers through his flop of copper-coloured hair. ‘I knows that.’

The prince got to his feet. With his right hand he managed to land a glancing blow to the boy’s left ear. ‘Hold your tongue!’

The boy – still dressed in the prince’s cloak – pushed back his chair and thrust his head up towards his assailant. ‘My tongue’s done you some service in its time!’ he jeered.

The prince grabbed the lad by the scruff of the neck and held him hard. ‘You are an impertinent whippersnapper.’

Frank Watkins looked up at the prince and snarled. The prince took the boy’s hair roughly in both hands and wrenched the lad’s head backward sharply. ‘You are an impertinent whippersnapper. Admit it.’ He pushed his own face down close to the boy’s. ‘
Admit it
.’

‘I am an impertinent whippersnapper.’ The boy grimaced.

‘You are a miserable and humble worm, unworthy even to tie my shoelaces.
Say it
.’

The prince tightened his grip on the lad’s head, making him flinch.

‘Say it!’

‘I am a miserable and humble worm, unworthy even to tie your shoelaces,’ whimpered the boy.

Prince Albert Victor let go of his victim and ran his hand roughly across the lad’s thick and tangled head of hair. ‘That’s better,’ he said. He started to caress the boy’s neck. ‘I’m happy, Frank, when you do my bidding.’

‘And your bedding?’

The lad looked up at the prince and grinned. His face was round and brown and freckled; his teeth were small and white, but uneven. And one tooth – a canine on his upper jaw – was missing. When he smiled, Frank Watkins had the look of a small boy.

‘He has a wonderful way with words,’ murmured Oscar.

‘And with horses,’ said Father Callaghan, coming to the table with another bottle of wine and fresh pot of hot coffee. ‘That’s a fine white stallion he found for us – the real thing. Not a grey masquerading.’

‘I’ve got to get him back to the barracks by eight,’ said the boy. ‘I promised the captain.’

It was now four o’clock in the morning and we were seated at table in the gas-lit parlour at the priest’s house on the edge of Mortlake village. It was a small house (two up, two down): modern, cramped and dark. We were there awaiting the arrival of dawn when, by daylight, the royal prince and the royal page could return to town on horseback. Father Callaghan had promised to drive Oscar and me to Chelsea in his pony and trap. The priest had offered us armchairs, a settee and his bed to sleep on, but Oscar had asked for bread and wine and conversation.

‘In my experience,’ said Oscar, ‘a good priest can perform miracles with bread and wine – and a good conversation is what makes life on earth worthwhile. Words are what define us, after all. It is only language that differentiates us from the animals and those whose hands do trail upon the ground. It is only by language that we rise above the lower creatures – by language, which is the parent not the child of thought.’

‘I love to hear you talk, Mr Wilde,’ said the boy, looking at Oscar and smiling.

‘And I love to hear myself talk,’ said Oscar. ‘It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.’

He laughed and raised his cup of wine to the company. As he looked about the shadowy room, his brow darkened.

‘I have just realised something quite shocking,’ he said, sitting forward. ‘There are five of us here. Four of us are seated and one is standing – and the one who is standing is a prince of the royal blood. We have forgotten all protocol, gentlemen. The moon is full and the world’s gone topsy-turvy.’

‘It matters not,’ cried Prince Eddy. ‘It matters not a jot. Stay seated, please. I love the freedom here.’

‘Freedom is the only law that genius knows,’ said Oscar.

‘I know nothing about genius,’ said the prince, ‘but I know that in this room I can breathe. I can be myself.’ He turned and, leaning over the boy, kissed the top of the lad’s head tenderly. ‘I am free here, to be who I am, to say what I please.’

‘Yes,’ said Father Callaghan. ‘You may speak quite freely here. You may regard this room as your confessional. All your secrets are safe with me.’

‘Are we to hear secrets?’ cried Oscar. ‘I adore other people’s secrets,’ he said teasingly. ‘My own don’t interest me, of course. They lack the charm of novelty.’

The prince looked about the small parlour, found a stool by the window and, bringing it to the table, sat
down between the page and the priest. I was seated facing him. We were no more than two feet apart and, for a moment, consciously, I studied him. I tried to see beyond the pock-marked sallow skin, the black-rimmed eyes, the thin lips, the feeble chin, the villainous moustache – what Oscar calls the ‘look of corruption’ – but I failed. Appearances can be deceptive, but Prince Albert Victor has the face of a weak and vicious man.

As I studied him, he looked briefly into my eyes. As I gazed at him, he stared at me, then swung his gaze away, abruptly. Turning back to the page-boy, with a little show he lifted up the lad’s hand, brought it slowly to his mouth and kissed it.

‘Is our young friend your secret?’ asked Father Callaghan.

‘No,’ replied the prince, letting go of the boy, ‘my unhappiness is my secret. To the world I am the dissolute son of the Prince of Wales – irresponsible, totally spoilt, indulged beyond all understanding. I have everything that any man could want – everything that money and position can buy. Yet I have nothing – because I am not free.’

‘We are all free in our hearts,’ said Oscar.

‘No!’

‘Yes.’

‘No. My heart is not my own, Mr Wilde. I am not a free man. I cannot marry the woman I love.’

‘I thought you loved me,’ said Frank Watkins plaintively.

The prince laughed. ‘I do love you – but I cannot marry you. Men cannot marry men.’

‘Why not?’ asked the boy.

‘It is not Nature’s way,’ said the prince.

‘It’s our way,’ said the boy.

‘It is not natural. I must marry a woman. I must have children. But I cannot marry the woman I wish to marry.’

‘Why not?’ asked Oscar.

‘Because I am to be king! I am to be king of England one day. And Emperor of India. Therefore I must marry one of my German cousins. You see the logic?’ He laughed and shook his head.

‘It keeps it in the family,’ said Oscar.

‘Have you seen Margaret of Prussia, Mr Wilde? She has all the loveliness of a warthog.’

‘That is uncharitable,’ chided Father Callaghan.

‘It is the truth – pure and simple,’ cried Prince Eddy.

Oscar said nothing. The young prince turned once more to the page-boy and ran the back of his knuckles around the boy’s chin. Playfully, the lad caught the prince’s index finger between his teeth and held it tight.

‘Your Royal Highness appears to be living a life that is relatively unconstrained,’ said Oscar, looking at the prince over his cup of sacramental wine.

Prince Eddy pulled his hand away from the boy’s mouth. ‘I cannot live as I would wish to live.’

‘But you wander the woods by moonlight, with your white stallion and your catamite. You trawl graveyards for vampires …’

‘I take my pleasures where I can.’

‘I am pleased to hear it,’ said Oscar, bowing his head towards the prince. ‘Pleasure is the only thing one should live for.’

‘Is that true, Mr Wilde?’ asked the priest, getting to his
feet and moving round the table to serve more wine and coffee.

‘To realise oneself is the prime aim of life, and to realise oneself through pleasure is finer than to do so through pain. On that point I am entirely on the side of the ancients – the Greeks. It is a pagan idea. I apologise for raising it at your table, Father. I mean no disrespect.’