Oscar Wilde And The Ring Of Death Part 11

'Here he comes,' announced an excited Mr Triggs.

'I think not,' said Oscar, now sounding concerned. 'Let us go backstage.'

As the applause from the auditorium evaporated, the stage curtain fell for the second time. Before it hit the ground-with a disconcerting clanking sound: its hem must have been lined with metal weights-we saw the feet of the actors beneath it breaking rank and moving swiftly off the stage.

'Come!' commanded Oscar.

'Stay!' countered Triggs, stepping to the front of the box and, with a trembling but proud hand, indicating the orchestra pit below. 'We're in the royal box-this is our moment,' he declared. As he pulled himself smartly to attention, the five elderly members of the Devons.h.i.+re Park Theatre's resident orchestra struck up the National Anthem. They played as though their hands all trembled as much as Triggs's. Oscar stopped in his tracks and stood, stock still, facing the auditorium, chest forward, head erect, face frozen. Though unbearded and thirteen years younger and five inches taller, nonetheless he gave a pa.s.sable impression of the Prince of Wales.

The moment the anthem was done, Oscar was galvanised. He turned to Sickert. 'We must find Pea.r.s.e,' he hissed.

'Of course,' said Mr Triggs, taking Oscar by the elbow, 'I hear you, but first ...' Beaming broadly, nodding happily, his face glistening with sweat, his eyes more bulbous than ever, the theatre manager indicated the orchestra pit once more. The conductor, his baton raised, looked up towards us and, graciously, inclined his head. As Oscar bowed back (a mite less graciously), the quintet of ripe virtuosi embarked on a selection of favourite melodies from the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan.

'Ah, Patience!' cried Oscar, closing his eyes.

'In your honour, Mr Wilde,' gurgled Mr Triggs, 'and they are raising the house lights for us so that you can appreciate our domed ceiling. The cherubs and caryatids are by Schmidt of Holloway. I know you will admire their finesse.'

'I do!' exclaimed Oscar, despairingly, gazing up towards the plasterwork. 'But I am also anxious about our friend, Bradford Pea.r.s.e.'

'Indeed,' nodded Triggs, still smiling but now moist-eyed. 'I understand.'

'Forgive me,' said Oscar.

'Follow me,' said Triggs. He waved from the box towards the orchestra pit. The selection from Gilbert and Sullivan ceased abruptly. 'Come, gentlemen. Let us find friend Pea.r.s.e. Most unlike him to miss his call, I agree.'

Moving lightly, though breathing heavily, like an asthmatic pixie, Mr Triggs led us out of the royal box and along a short curving corridor towards what he called 'the pa.s.s door'. 'This takes us directly to the dressing rooms,' he explained. 'We don't have any of your West End comforts here, Mr Wilde, but by provincial standards we don't do too badly.' As we pa.s.sed through the door, it was as if we had crossed a frontier. Instantly, we left behind the gilt and red-plush of the land of plenty and found ourselves in a dark and barren country: the walls were bare brick, the floors were bare boards, and the light so dim we could barely see the way ahead.

'Pea.r.s.e's room is the first on the right,' said Triggs. 'Allow me to go ahead.'

'Can you see?' asked Oscar.

Mr Triggs appeared to be feeling his way along the wall. He laughed somewhat nervously. 'It takes my eyes a moment to adjust,' he said. 'That's all.' In the gloom, I could see him peering at a name card fixed to the dressing-room door. 'Here we are,' he said. He knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again.

'Go in,' instructed Oscar.

'I fear the worst,' whispered Sickert.

Standen Triggs felt for the door handle, found it and turned it slowly. 'Visitors, Mr Pea.r.s.e,' he called as he pushed open the door.

We crowded around the doorway not knowing what to expect.

'Is he there?' asked Oscar.

'Bradford!' shouted Wat Sickert, stepping forward into the room. We followed him in. 'He's not here,' said Sickert, turning to Oscar. 'He's gone.'

The room was small and square, low-ceilinged, windowless and dank, like a prison cell. With four of us standing in it, there was scarcely room to move. It was lit by a solitary gas lamp fixed high up on the wall that faced the door. Below the lamp was a dressing table covered with a half-torn piece of towelling-cloth, littered with a.s.sorted sticks of theatrical make-up. On the floor, below the dressing table, was a narrow pallia.s.se that ran the length of the room, with a navy-blue sailor's blanket rolled up at one end to form a bolster. To the right of the table was a small deal wardrobe, its door hanging open. The wardrobe was quite empty. Thrown across the wooden chair that faced the dressing table was Pea.r.s.e's costume: a pair of breeches, a coat and the blood-soaked s.h.i.+rt he had worn in the final scene of the play. I noticed Oscar dipping his fingers into the blood and bringing them to his lips to taste.

'Look!' cried Wat Sickert with a start. To the left of the dressing table stood a cheval mirror, its amber-coloured gla.s.s mottled and pitted. Across the gla.s.s, at eye height, scrawled in greasepaint, in large capital letters though barely discernible in the gloom, was the single word: 'FAREWEL'.

Oscar peered at the looking gla.s.s and sniffed. 'Bradford Pea.r.s.e's spelling's as poor as his punctuation.' He turned sharply to the theatre manager. 'We must be on our way, Mr Triggs. Will you kindly escort us to the stage door?'

Perspiring and trembling, Standen Triggs stood gazing at the mirror. 'What is the meaning of this?' he asked.

'It means, I fear, that you should alert Mr Pea.r.s.e's understudy to the possibility that he may be called before the mast tomorrow night.'

'What do you think has occurred, Oscar?' asked Wat Sickert, his voice hoa.r.s.e with alarm. 'Do you think it's what we feared?'

'What you feared?' echoed Mr Triggs, now breathing more heavily than ever. 'What did you fear?' He looked at Oscar with his huge eyes full of tears. He seemed at once both desolate and exultant.

'Nothing, Mr Triggs,' said Oscar rea.s.suringly. 'We had hoped to see Mr Pea.r.s.e tonight and feared he might run off ... that's all. He worries about his creditors, you know. Come, we must go. We'll find him in one of the nearby public houses for sure.'

Mr Triggs escorted us from Pea.r.s.e's dressing room down a steep iron stairway to the stage door. It can have been no more than fifteen minutes since the melodrama ended and the curtain fell, but the theatre was already deserted. At the stage door we found the leading lady-Miss Dolly Justerini, 'another Eastbourne favourite'-handing in her dressing-room key to the lugubrious doorman. When Triggs presented us to her, she bobbed a cursory curtsy, but begged to be excused. Her 'walking gentleman' had promised her a large gla.s.s of port at The Devons.h.i.+re Arms, and the price of port and the nature of men being what they were, she was loath to keep either of them waiting.

Having congratulated her on her performance in wildly over-exuberant terms that she accepted entirely as her due, Oscar enquired: 'Are we likely to find Mr Bradford Pea.r.s.e at The Devons.h.i.+re Arms?'

'I doubt it,' trilled Miss Justerini, over her shoulder as she disappeared into the street. 'Brad spends most of his time in hiding these days. He ran off before the curtain call tonight. He's probably locked himself into his dressing room, naughty man. Goodnight, sweet princes. Goodnight, Harold.' As we voiced our goodnights, she was already gone. The stage doorkeeper belched softly but said nothing.

'Do you think Pea.r.s.e might still be somewhere in the theatre?' asked Wat Sickert.

For the first time, the doorman looked up from his newspaper. 'He scarpered twenty minutes ago,' he said. 'Maybe he knew you was coming.'

With a pencil Oscar was writing something on the back of one of his visiting cards. He looked towards Mr Triggs and smiled. 'Does Mr Pea.r.s.e have his own key to the stage door?' he asked.

'Yes,' said Standen Triggs, who appeared calmer and less heated now. 'But he can only get back into the building until midnight. That's when Harold,'- he nodded towards the doorkeeper without catching his eye-'turns in for the night. Mr Pea.r.s.e has a key to the main lock here, but at midnight Harold goes home and secures two further locks before he departs. From midnight until eight in the morning the building is impenetrable.'

'Indeed,' said Oscar.

'Indeed,' said Mr Triggs. He pulled open the stage door and let us out into the street. The moon was pale and high; the air was mild; in the distance, a church clock struck the hour; a seagull screeched in the darkness above us.

'If you see Bradford Pea.r.s.e before we do, Mr Triggs,' said Sickert, shaking the theatre manager by the hand, 'be sure to tell him that we called. Ask him to make contact as soon as may be.'

'Naturally,' said Triggs, 'I'll tell him you were here. But I'm sure you'll find him yourselves without difficulty. For a moment Mr Wilde alarmed me with his talk of understudies, but if Pea.r.s.e is not at The Devons.h.i.+re Arms, he'll be at The Cavalier or The Prince Albert-or the Lamb inn. You'll find him. I know you will.' He shook my hand warmly, though his fingers were cold as ice. He turned to Oscar and looked up at him in awe. 'Mr Wilde,' he said, his eyes glistening anew, 'it has been such a deep honour ...'

'The honour-and the pleasure-has been all ours,' said Oscar, bowing to our host and handing him a visiting card. 'Make use of that address, Mr Triggs,' he added, as he stepped away from the stage door, 'if you'd be so kind.'

Mr Triggs took Oscar's card and held it to his lips as if it had been a sacramental wafer. 'Goodnight, gentlemen!' he called to us as we moved off down the street. As we went we turned back and saw that the little man had produced a large white handkerchief from his coat pocket and was waving it above his head. He kept on waving until we reached the corner of the street and turned out of his sight into the main road.

'Standen Triggs is a good man, is he not?' said Oscar.

'An odd man,' said Sickert.

'You wrote something on the back of your card, Oscar,' I said. 'What was it?'

'The name of a physician, a specialist, a colleague of my late father's. I believe Mr Triggs suffers from a condition known as Graves' disease. He may not be aware of it, but he has all the symptoms, poor fellow-starting with the protuberant eyeb.a.l.l.s. I fear he is not long for this world.'

'I am sorry to hear it,' I said.

Wat Sickert stopped in his tracks. 'You are a phenomenon, Oscar Wilde! You appear to know everything.'

'Alas,' said Oscar, stopping also and putting an arm on Sickert's shoulder, 'I do not know the whereabouts of your friend, Bradford Pea.r.s.e.'

Sickert laughed. 'At least we know that he wasn't murdered in the last act. At least we know that he left the theatre alive.'

'Yes,' said Oscar, absently, 'so the doorman said.'

'Do you doubt it, Oscar? We'll find Pea.r.s.e in one of the local hostelries, for sure.'

'I think not,' said Oscar, feeling for his cigarette case. 'I doubt very much that we will find Bradford Pea.r.s.e tonight.'

'But we must search for him, must we not?' insisted Sickert.

Oscar lit a match and Wat's white face and piercing eyes were suddenly illuminated. We stood together in a small circle on the deserted roadway. Up the hill to the left were the lights of the town; down the hill to the right was the road to Beachy Head.

'What time is it?' asked Oscar.

'I heard a clock strike just now,' I said. 'It must be a little after eleven.'

Oscar turned to me and smiled and, narrowing his eyes, held my gaze in his. It was his way when he was about to ask a favour. 'Robert,' he said, 'if Wat and I trawl the taverns of the town, can you stand sentinel here? I'll give you cigarettes to smoke- you'll not be idle. Should Bradford Pea.r.s.e plan to lodge at the theatre tonight, he will return before midnight. If he turns up, which I doubt, bring him to The Lamb in the High Street. We'll take rooms there.'

'Are we going to The Devons.h.i.+re Arms first?' asked Sickert.

'Yes,' said Oscar, 'briefly, if the landlord will admit us at this hour. And to The Cavalier and The Prince Consort and whatever other inns we pa.s.s along the way. We'll do it, Wat, to ease your conscience-to help you to feel that "something is being done". But we'll not find Bradford Pea.r.s.e tonight-alive or dead.'

'Do you think he's dead?' asked Wat Sickert, suddenly alarmed.

'I know no more than you do, Wat. If he's alive, as I pray, he's in hiding-for reasons we do not yet know. If he's dead already, killed in the past half-hour, poor wretch, and lying in a ditch or in some dismal Eastbourne alley, it's too late-we're too late-and too dark by far for us to find him now. To please you, Wat, we'll stay on the case till midnight. And tomorrow, when it is light, we can resume the search in earnest.'

Oscar's instinct was sure. Until gone midnight, I loitered on the corner of Compton Street and Hardwick Road, smoking Oscar's cigarettes and watching the stage door of the Devons.h.i.+re Park Theatre. A solitary dog-a limping c.o.c.ker spaniel- and two drunkards came shambling past, but I saw no sign of Bradford Pea.r.s.e. As the church clock began to strike twelve, I saw the stage door open and the stage doorkeeper emerge. He was taller than I had expected him to be-and fitter. To my surprise, he wheeled a bicycle out of the theatre with him and when he had turned back and attended to the locks on the stage door, and looked both ways down the street, he mounted his two-wheeler and rode briskly on his way.

I lingered outside the theatre for fifteen minutes more. No one came, no one went. Sensing my duty done, I made my way up the hill to the High Street. I found Oscar and Wat standing together, smoking, on the front steps of the Lamb inn.

'We've not found him either,' said Oscar. 'He's well-known to the local landlords, and well-liked by one and all it seems, but not a soul has seen hide nor hair of him tonight-they're all sure of that-and no one no one at all-has the least idea where he might be.'

'I am anxious,' said Wat. 'Pea.r.s.e is my friend.'

'We'll find him,' said Oscar, casting his cigarette into the gutter and gazing up into the blue-black sky, 'but not tonight.' He put a comforting arm around Wat Sickert's shoulders. 'The stars are weary and so are we. Let's to bed, mes amis.' He put his other arm through mine. 'We have rooms here, Robert-and, according to Wat, "they're clean and cheap and welcoming, like the best daughters of joy". And our landlord's wife, Mrs Fletcher, G.o.d bless her, is a saint. Leave out your linen and she promises she'll have it laundered and pressed by break of day. This is Eastbourne, gentlemen, where the age of miracles is not past.'

I did not sleep long, but I slept well, and I awoke at 6.30 a.m., surprisingly refreshed, to find our saintly landlady at my bedside with a kindly smile, clean linen, warm towels and a bowl br.i.m.m.i.n.g with boiling shaving water. Mrs Fletcher was indeed a paragon: when she had drawn back the curtains and opened the bedroom window, I saw that she was no more than my age and, though a little plump, as pretty as a Watteau milkmaid. I lifted my head from the pillow and said good morning. She simply bobbed a curtsy, said, 'Breakfast will be ready shortly-Mr Wilde has asked for goose eggs,' and went about her business. (Why had I gone to Paris and married a tiresome Polish blue-stocking like Marthe Lipska when I could have come to Eastbourne and found myself a wholesome English girl like Mrs Fletcher?) I got up and went to the window. Thursday 5 May 1892 offered as bright and fresh an English early summer's morning as you could wish for. The sky was pale blue and cloudless; the breeze was gentle and scented with wallflowers. I shaved and dressed and tied my tie with special attention, thinking of Mrs Fletcher and smiling at the recollection of one of Oscar's favourite axioms: 'A well-tied tie is the first serious step in life.'

Oscar and Wat had reached the breakfast table before me. They, too, looked remarkably refreshed. Oscar was in especially ebullient form. As I appeared, he rose to his feet, swept to the sideboard and began lifting the lids from the breakfast dishes like a magician producing bouquets of paper flowers or white rabbits from a hat. 'Let me serve you, Robert. You will not be disappointed. Mrs Fletcher has fresh herrings, local ham, devilled kidneys and mutton cutlets to offer you. She also has eggs. An egg is always an adventure, Robert-one is never certain what to expect. But a goose egg ...'

'I will have one of Mrs Fletcher's goose eggs, if I may,' I said, handing Oscar my plate.

My friend was clearly in a teasing frame of mind. He turned to Wat and whispered, 'Did you hear how Robert said her name? "Mrs Fletcher" ...' He rolled the words around his mouth as he ladled a fried goose egg onto my plate. He winked at me. 'Robert is in love again!' he declared. 'One day away from Constance and my dear wife is quite forgotten. He's a fickle one, this Robert Sherard ...'

I added a slice of Suss.e.x ham to my plate and took a crust of bread and sat at the table. 'Don't be absurd, Oscar. My affection for Constance, while profound, is entirely gentlemanly, as well you know.'

'Whereas that of Edward Heron-Allen ...' said Oscar, grinning wickedly.

'Don't mention that man's name,' I interrupted. 'In my opinion, his interest in Constance is unhealthy.'

Oscar laughed. 'He's harmless, Robert, I a.s.sure you. Constance is flattered by his attention and I'm grateful to him. Women give to men the very gold of their lives, but invariably they want it back in small change. Heron-Allen helps me out with the small change.'

Wat Sickert tapped the side of his breakfast plate with his knife. 'Gentlemen, gentlemen,' he cried, 'Isn't it a bit early in the day for this amount of banter? I thought only dull people were supposed to be brilliant at breakfast.'

Oscar smiled. 'There are exceptions to every rule,' he murmured. He sipped his coffee and contemplated the table. 'But you are right, Wat. Let us concentrate on the feast Mrs Fletcher has laid before us.'

'I'm thinking about Pea.r.s.e,' said Wat.

Oscar put down his coffee cup and paused. 'I am, too,' he said eventually, taking his napkin and slowly wiping his lips. 'I care for you, Walter, I care for you deeply, so I care about Pea.r.s.e. He is your friend. And I do not forget: he was my guest. His life was threatened last Sunday-at my dining club, at my table, during the absurd game we played at my instigation. I am conscious of my responsibility.' He put down his napkin and looked at me. 'And have no doubt, Robert, that I care for Constance more than I do for my own life. I will let nothing harm her. Her life was threatened also. She, too, was named as a "victim". I'll not rest until we have unravelled this mystery.' He opened the palm of his left hand and ran his right forefinger over it. 'I see a sudden death in this unhappy hand,' he said. He looked at each of us in turn and smiled. 'Eat up, gentlemen. I have ordered our carriage. It will be here at eight.'

We ate up and we ate well. Sickert was especially delighted that Mrs Fletcher served us Keiller's Dundee marmalade. 'It's the only brand for artists,' he explained, spreading it lovingly onto his toast. 'Degas, when he is in England, will eat nothing else.'

'Degas is a great man,' said Oscar. 'I don't doubt it.'

Our 'carriage', when it arrived, turned out to be a small pony-and-trap. When Oscar had settled our account at The Lamb and we had bidden Mrs Fletcher a fond adieu, we climbed aboard. Oscar and Wat sat side by side within the trap. I perched up front with the young driver. The accommodation was not s.p.a.cious.

'Where are we going?' asked Sickert as our little party, somewhat unsteadily, set on its way.

'Down the hill,' said Oscar, 'to the edge of town, towards the west-to the headland.'

'To Beachy Head?'

'Yes, Wat. Prepare yourself. I fear the worst.'

CHAPTER TWELVE.

BEACHY HEAD.

We reached the headland within the hour.

I had been there once before, taken as a child by my mother. She was the granddaughter of the poet William Wordsworth (as she never forgot!) and she took me to Beachy Head when I was a small boy because my great-grandfather had taken her there when she was a little girl. She was eleven years of age at the time; he was seventy. He told her, so she told me, that with 'its great green sward, its high white cliffs and G.o.d's blue sky above, there is no prospect more majestic in all England than that of Beachy Head'.

It would certainly have taken a poet of my great-grandfather's ability to do justice to the stark beauty of the place that Thursday morning when Oscar Wilde, Walter Sickert and I were taken up onto the promontory in search of Bradford Pea.r.s.e. Our little open carriage climbed the long, steep, deserted approach path haltingly, stopping every fifty yards or so to allow our pony to regain her strength and us to admire the view. Oscar sat upright in the trap, wrapped in his crimson cape, surveying the scene.

'The name "Beachy" comes from the Old French for "beautiful",' he announced, as if he had been a tour guide escorting us through the side-streets of Florence. 'This beautiful headland has been so-called for nigh on a thousand years. Beauty is timeless. As we learn from life and art and nature, all beautiful things-these chalky cliffs, that azure sky, the frescoes of Giotto, the music of Mozart, the profile of the young man who is driving us so expertly this morning-belong to the same age ...'

Our young driver-he was Mrs Fletcher's nephew as it turned out-looked over his shoulder at Oscar and laughed. He brought the pony-and-trap to a halt. 'Rosie's come as far as she can,' he said. 'If you're going to the peak, you'll have to walk from here.'

'Walk?' exclaimed Oscar, affecting an attack of the vapours. 'If the horse cannot make it with four legs, do you imagine that I shall be able to do so with half as many?'

'It's not far,' said the boy, laughing once more, 'You're nearly there.' His laughter was kindly: it was clear that he found Oscar wonderfully droll. 'Don't worry. I'll wait here to take you down again.'