The Fall of the House of Wilde (19 page)

The details of William are as offensive as the whole; the brutality of the piece is there at the heart and on the surface. Mary had a thousand copies printed and sent them to William's relatives, friends and patients. This was only the first episode of what proved to be a protracted smear campaign. Over the winter months of 1863, Mary widened distribution of the pamphlet. Friends alerted the Wildes: one had received a copy by hand from Mary, others saw them dropped on Rathmines Road, and a steady stream arrived through the letterbox in Merrion Square. In Jane's words, reported by
Freeman's Journal
on 16 December 1864, ‘we were deluged with them'.
⁹
The pamphlets followed them to unexpected places and made their lives insufferable. It was in the thick of this storm that William and Jane withdrew Willie from school in Dublin and in February 1864 both boys were sent to school in Enniskillen.

Mary had presented William as an outrage to professional ethics and decent conduct. This pillorying of his reputation took place in the months coming up to the formal ceremony of his knighthood in January 1864. Surprisingly, Mary did not choose that occasion to capsize him. That said, it looks as if the acclaim he received incensed her more, for after the ceremony she upped the ante on the threats, and demanded £20, warning him, ‘you will see what will happen if you are not so prompt as usual'. She followed up with a piece of doggerel addressed to William, a verse of gibberish pivoting on her obsessive theme of morality, and in this instance, illegitimacy.

Your progeny is a pest,

To those who hate such critters;

Some sport I'll have or I am blest,

I'll fry the
Wilde breed in the west
,

When you call them
fritters.

The name is not equivocal,

They dare not by their mother's call,

Nor by their father, tho' he's a Sir,

A gouty knight, a mangy cur, He dare not even call them Fritz.

How much he'd wish that I'd say quits!
¹⁰

She then bided her time until April 1864 when William was due to give a public lecture at 8 p.m. in the Metropolitan Hall entitled ‘Ireland, Past and Present, the Land and the People'. The topic and the eminence of the speaker attracted the attention of Dublin's great and good. As the audience gathered, they were met with newspaper boys ringing an auctioneer's bell and holding up placards plastered with the words ‘SIR WILLIAM WILDE AND SPERANZA'. On offer were ‘Sir William Wilde's letters and the pamphlet,
Florence Boyle Price; or A Warning
, by Speranza', all for a penny. On flyers were a series of extracts from seventeen of William's notes to Mary, selected to tell the story from her side. She had hired five newsboys to distribute the flyers and pamphlets, and a cab so she could watch and replenish the pamphlets when needed. The Wilde carriage arrived at Metropolitan Hall to this commotion.

It appears that nothing would satisfy Mary other than a scandal. She could not have picked a better time to challenge William's standing, for the press devoted more space to the pamphlet and the letters than to the lecture on the country's future. Jane and William arrived home that evening carrying ‘a parcel of the tracts' that had been seized by a friend.
¹¹

14

Love, Hatred and Revenge: The ‘Great Libel Case'
¹

By using the press to wreak revenge, Mary left the Wildes nowhere to hide. She fuelled speculation by sending the following goading enquiry to
Saunders's News-letter
: ‘A number of boys were selling a pamphlet and through curiosity I purchased one in which the knight's name most disreputably figured. Can it be possible the occurrence therein related took place? If untrue, the knight ought to take action and publish the offender. The pamphlet is six months in circulation and its accuracy has not been questioned.'
²
Mary kept up the flow of pamphlets, sending more to Merrion Square, with a warning of increased circulation. ‘Sold at the Music Hall last Wednesday, the proceeds to pay the expenses for a further edition.' Meanwhile she continued her tirade by producing thinly disguised events as doggerel. Worse, she published drivel in the
Irish Weekly Advertiser
on 2 and 9 March 1864 and signed it ‘Speranza'.
³

Jane went to Bray with the children; Mary followed. There she organised newspaper boys to distribute pamphlets. They delivered a copy to all the houses on the street, and paraded with their placards up and down outside the Wilde home in Bray. When a boy called at the Wilde door with a placard, Jane boiled over. She seized the placard from the boy's hands and refused to pay the penny demanded. Mary went to the police station and pressed charges against Jane for larceny of property.

Jane responded by writing a letter to Mary's father, Robert Travers, condemning his daughter's behaviour. The letter is dated 6 May 1864.

Sir, You may not be aware of the disreputable conduct of your daughter at Bray, where she consorts with all the low newspaper boys in the place, employing them to disseminate offensive placards, in which my name is given, and also tracts in which she makes it appear that she has had an intrigue with Sir William Wilde. If she chooses to disgrace herself that is not my affair; but as her object in insulting me is the hope of extorting money, for which she has several times applied to Sir William Wilde, with threats of more annoyance if not given, I think it right to inform you that no threat or additional insult shall ever extort money for her from our hands. The wages of disgrace she has so basely treated for and demanded shall never be given to her.
⁴

Robert Travers's reaction is not known, but Mary found the letter and used it to bring the affair to a climax. She saw the letter was libellous and accused Jane of slandering her character and her chastity. Jane was served a writ by a Dublin solicitor, Robert H. Irvine, and asked to pay damages of £2,000. Jane's solicitors responded, pleading justification. William was inevitably enrolled in the action as co-defendant, since a husband was assumed legally responsible for any civil wrong committed by his wife. The Wildes could have settled out of court, although £2,000 was an enormous sum of money. But settling out of court would not necessarily have stopped Mary's rampage. All the signs up to that moment show Mary hell-bent on dishonouring the ‘knight' and his ‘Lady' wife. Still, opting for court, William and Jane must have known that certain details would be aired in public.

The Wildes had to wait almost six months for the trial to commence. It opened at the Four Courts on 12 December 1864, lasted six days, and generated reams of newsprint. Afterwards, on 19 December, the
Morning Post
declared, ‘a more remarkable case has never been tried here . . . it was alleged that when O'Connell was on trial there was not a more general anxiety evinced to be present than has been displayed this week to hear the “great libel case”'.
⁵

The excitement the case created may be better understood in the context not of politics but of theatre, and of the success enjoyed by contemporary boulevard theatre of the 1850s and 1860s. This type of drama portrayed the passions – hatred, love and revenge – but, typically, it was subject to the discipline of a moral writer, who censored the salacious aspects. The Travers vs Wilde case was the stuff of sensational theatre – the antagonists led double lives and harboured reprehensible secrets – save that their drama was presented uncensored. It had, however, a sleuth on hand to unravel the scene, to orientate the public's moral perception from inside the facts, and to give the spectators urbane analyses of the underworld. The sleuth in the Travers vs Wilde case was Isaac Butt – a long-standing friend of the Wildes. Mary hired Butt, reputed to be the deadliest cross-examiner in the country. Richard Armstrong also acted on Mary's behalf. Edward Sullivan, Mr Sidney and Mr Morris represented the Wildes.

Armstrong opened by telling the court Mary had been sent to Dr Wilde for treatment ten years ago. He cured her and took no fee. A friendship developed and from time to time Dr Wilde treated her illnesses. In October 1862, Mary went to see Dr Wilde about a burn-mark on her neck and Armstrong asked her to tell the court what happened that day. Mary proceeded.

He came over and took off my bonnet and then put his hand to pass over it [the burn] as he had often done before and in doing so he fastened his hand roughly between the ribbon that was on my neck and my throat and I in some way, I suppose, resisted; I believe I said, ‘Oh, you are suffocating me' and he said, ‘Yes I will, I will suffocate you, I cannot help it,' and then I do not recollect anything more until he was dashing water in my face . . .

I had lost consciousness before the water was flung in my face; I did not see him throwing the water, but I felt it on my face; he said to me to ‘look up,' because that if I did not rouse myself I would be his ruin and my own.
⁶

This incidence of alleged rape took place eight years into their acquaintance. With this revelation crowds gathered the next day to gain entry to the Four Courts. ‘The utmost anxiety was manifested to gain admittance,' reported the
Freeman's Journal
, ‘and the court became densely thronged in every part immediately after the doors were thrown open.'

On the second day Isaac Butt cross-examined the plaintiff. He followed a devious route, indulging his audience in the salacious aspects. Though the subject of the trial was one of libel, he asked Mary to repeat the incident of being rendered unconscious by chloroform in William's study. Butt pressed the issue of defilement.

Mr Butt: Are you now able to state from anything you have observed or know whether, in the interval of unconsciousness you have described, your person was violated?

Miss T: Yes.

Mr Butt: Was it?

Miss T: Yes.

The court was then told the story of the relationship by Mary, as William did not give evidence. And, lest we forget, we do not have the original letters, only cuttings from letters William sent to Mary, quoted in court and reported by the press. The following is most of what the court heard.

From what the court were told, the affair very soon became tumultuous. William writes to Mary from the Baltic a letter full of excitement at the thought of sharing with her ‘all manner of adventures, all of which I will tell you when we meet'. In another letter, William chats about mutual friends, offers advice on social issues, and discusses contemporary novels. William's affectionate banter is all very gentle; he tells Mary he wants to see her: ‘I want to do [?] the windmill and bring Willie. What times are you usually there?' He plans to meet Mary on Saturday and bring ‘baby Isola' along. William looks for ways to involve Mary in his circle of acquaintances. He interposes Jane in the invitation to supper, and needs to coax Mary to accept it. ‘Mrs Wilde and I hope you will come in at nine o'clock tomorrow evening, Friday. Do this to please me.' He voices his fear of her temperament, of her being too rash, too impetuous, much like himself. Piqued after some quarrel, he pleads, ‘don't throw over your truest friend, one you may never meet again; don't be as rash in one way as he is in the other'.

The extracts show Mary's capacity to reduce William to a servile position. ‘Yes, you hate and despise. I was wrong to flatter myself to the contrary. Nevertheless, if it is farewell for personal intercourse, say how I can serve you. You would not look back after putting in the letter. God forgive you.' Mary clinches their estrangement with a snub to his sister, as a way of airing her grievances against him: ‘So you cut my sister in Sackville Street.' Mary's wrath explodes again and William writes: ‘You were so angry too when writing last time I had difficulty in reading it. Don't write such a cross letter.'

If Mary had been satisfied to remain William's mistress, perhaps the relationship would have lasted longer. She was bothered by his disregard for proprieties. She explained to the court the meaning of one note she wrote to William: ‘It refers to my telling him not to be speaking in an incautious manner . . . [before] the servants in the hall.' She starts on a course of detachment, and returns his money. Undeterred, William persists in wooing her, claiming ‘the money returned was too much – more than was sent', and wonders whether her father would like to sup at Merrion Square. ‘Would Robert [Mary's father] come dine, if asked? Would he like to be asked? Have you a season railway ticket? This is terrible weather, so get warm clothes and a panjams. Have you a muff?' In November 1862, that is, one month after the alleged rape – William buys Mary a dress they had seen together. ‘Bought the dress, dark grey, with brown velvet trimmings. Shall I send it to Sheridan's?' She sends it back. They cross paths on the street and William follows up with a note: ‘Don't look so cross and so red. Don't refuse a friend's hand in the street. Come and see me to-day at a quarter to three. What am I to [do] with the dress?' Mary resolves to go to Australia. She wants her letters back. But William sends only a selection, and sends them to Sheridan's. Mary told the court, ‘I got some of the letters back but not all of them; I got a copy of the doggerel lines he complained of, and some letters of mine which he said “bit” him. But he refused to part with the remainder.'

William sees Mary in Westmoreland Street on 8 December 1862 and his heart remains loving enough to quiver at the sight of her. He wrote to her: ‘Love and hatred – Westmoreland Street – bright smiles, joy and cheerfulness . . . – sorrow, gloom, pain.' Mary told the court of the meaning of the letter: ‘I was speaking to some friends in the street, and I looked quite pleased and happy; he passed and I took no notice of him.' But Mary is still open to being wooed, and comes to Merrion Square when invited. ‘Do call Monday or Tuesday, for after this week God knows when.' For a man who allowed few disturbances to his workday, he made an exception for Mary. William wanted to see Mary before Jane and the children returned to town the following week. This provokes an outburst from Mary, and she scolds him for concealing her from Jane: ‘You don't want me to come when Mrs Wilde is here; I don't understand that sort of conduct, and I think it much better for me to go out of the country where I am insulted in such a manner.' Mary resorts to threats. She would leave for Australia and set matters straight with Jane: ‘I will see Mrs Wilde, and ask her whether it was that she objects to my acquaintance with you or that you want to carry on a clandestine acquaintance with me . . .'