'But is Constance understanding? Is she not just docile and rather ignorant?'

Well, dear readers, the Blog is lingering in the 1890s because this week we've had another anniversary: Oscar Wilde's birthday, 16th October. He's famous for his witty plays and stories, his Aesthetic lifestyle, and (of course) has become a gay icon and martyr. Sometimes people forget he had a wife and two sons. 

                                    

His spouse, Constance has often been sidelined by Wilde's biographers as a dull 'mumsy' figure to be pitied or disdained. Our own Rohase Piercy's The Coward Does It With A Kiss challenges this view with a fascinating, insightful fictional 'autobiography'. We discover not only that Mrs Wilde was far more than a dutiful wife and mother but also, perhaps, what she really knew about her husband.

It's 1891. Let us join Constance as she passes by the drawing room in the Wildes' exquisite House Beautiful and accidentally eavesdrops on Oscar and his friends.

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And now let me test your memory, Oscar. Let me see whether I cannot conjure up your past for you better than you can yourself. Voices in the drawing room – Lionel Johnson’s, Robbie’s, John Gray’s, and yours; June sunlight in the passageway outside; tinkling glasses, laughter, and the smell of Alexandrian tobacco.

‘Oh! No, Oscar, this is too much. How, after Dorian – it will be going from the sublime to the ridiculous. Besides, you cannot base a whole play upon the unrequited lust of an Israelite princess, not in this day and age.’

‘Why ever not? The West End Theatre, my dear Lionel, thrives on unrequited lust. Look at any play you care to mention, and you will find that lust is the very pivot upon which the action turns!’

‘Yes, but a Biblical theme …’

‘Oh, lust is a very Biblical theme! And anyway, I intend to make her Persian rather than Israelite. Poetic licence, my dear, the prerogative of Genius. The Israelites had no appreciation of sin.’

‘No, they quite disapproved of it, I’m told -‘

‘Whereas the Persians toasted the delights of the flesh in sugared wine, offered in chalices of jade and silver by sloe-eyed boys with dusky skin and rose-leaf lips …’

‘Robbie, what utter drivel. What do you know of Persia?’

‘As much as you, I dare say, Dorian. I was merely offering a humble tribute to the exquisite style and taste

of our host here.’

‘A very poor imitation then. And please don’t call me Dorian.’

‘Mr Gray then, if we must be formal …’

‘Oh Oscar really, can’t you stop him?’

‘Stop him? But why? He is so charming with vine leaves in his hair. At least he had the foresight to arrive suitably arrayed in leafy clusters, whereas you and Lionel are both constrained to borrow from me.’

‘At half past eleven in the morning?’

‘It is gone noon, I assure you. Let us toast the glorious noon with some more of this golden nectar. Lionel?’

‘Oscar, how can I refuse you?’

‘Never try. John?’

‘It is just gone half past eleven. I looked at my watch not five minutes ago.’

‘I will not have to do with guests who consult their watches in my presence. But if you insist, let us look

at mine – there, you see – the bawdy hand of the dial is e’en now upon the prick of noon.’

‘Oh, really!’

‘The Immortal Bard’s words, not mine! And am I not right? You see how time flies when you are listening

to me? And now, are you going to drink some more of my sherry?

‘Oh, very well …’

‘There’s no need to be so ungracious about it dear, just because I was right and you were wrong. Petulance does sometimes become you, but not today. Today, let all be sweetness and light! Robbie, my sweet goblin, what have you been doing this morning? How came you thus to anticipate us? Robert, it is too tiresome when you giggle like that instead of replying to my questions. How can I discuss with you the delicious wantonness of Salome when you sit there gurgling like an overflowing waste pipe? I shall be forced to conclude that you need the services of a plumber … oh really, what a vulgar sense of humour. Do try and pull yourself together dear, and let us converse about serious matters. What were we just discussing?’

‘Lust, Oscar.’

‘Oh, surely not!’

‘Persia. The West End Theatre.’

‘The sins of both are the same …’

‘Hic sunt poma Sodomorum – your words, I believe Lionel – ah, the Cities of the Plain! Yes, it was just such a cradle that rocked Salome …’

‘I really don’t see why. Dorian, perhaps, but a Persian princess?’

‘There is a little of the Persian princess in most of us, don’t you think?’

‘Oh Oscar, how perceptive of you! I’ve been trying to keep it a secret!’

‘Not in you, Robbie. A Persian princess would have more dignity. She certainly would not sit huddled at one end of a divan smirking tipsily to herself at half past – whatever it is in the morning. And you have never answered my question. Where have you been?’

‘Nowhere! I arose from my downy couch and came straight here to you. Last night, however -‘

‘Ah, no, I don’t want to hear it. Never refer to the night before! That should be a golden rule amongst all who take pleasure seriously.’

Laughter. The chink of glasses as more sherry is poured. You are determined to keep centre stage, as always.

‘So now seriously, Oscar. You have delighted us all with your subtlety in two wonderful stories which no-one else would have had the audacity to write, let alone publish – I mean The Portait of Mr W. H. and Dorian, of course – and now you announce that you will fling aside the mask of double entrendre to reveal – what? A wanton girl and a reluctant prophet? Don’t you realise how you will have disappointed us all?'

‘I have no doubt that my Salome will be a great disappointment to the shallow-minded, to those concerned only with the particular and not with the delicious conglomeration of the universal.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning the sins of the flesh, dear boy! A veritable feast! The apples of Sodom and the apples of Eden, served at the same banquet! There is the rest of the human race to consider, after all.’

‘As to that, I really neither know nor care. That is an opinion on which we must part company, I think.’

‘So soon? My poor John, you have your whole life ahead of you, and you will find the world a hard, inhospitable place when they expel you from Eden.’

‘You think I am going to change? Or compromise my nature? Because I can assure you, Oscar – ‘

‘No, no, I am merely saying that an artist must take his material from the whole of human experience. Especially if he is to produce West End plays.’

‘Ah, there you have it. You compromise, in order to please the vulgar masses.’

‘Certainly I wish my talents to have universal acknowledgement. Genius cannot thrive in a backwater.’

‘A backwater! You disappoint me, Oscar.’

‘What! Because I am reluctant to leave my house, my family, my Art, and elope with you to some seedy little lair in Bayswater?’

‘There’s no need to refer to that. I take back any such proposal. I am disappointed because you mean to have your cake and eat it too.’

‘I most certainly do! I would consider it foolish and unimaginative not to!’

‘Oh! So you consider us all to be foolish, and unimaginative?’

‘Of course he does not, John, stop trying to provoke him. You are determined to create a deliberate misunderstanding …’

‘Am I?’

‘Yes, and don’t adopt that peevish tone with me. Life is a rich tapestry, and Oscar is the richer for bring blessed with children, and an understanding wife.’

‘Thank you Robbie. Your vine leaves become you. I do consider myself blessed.’

‘But is Constance understanding? Is she not just docile, and rather ignorant?’

‘Constance, docile? You would not say that if you knew her!’

There is a edge to your laughter; and I meanwhile am trembling with rage. Beneath that golden exterior, John Gray is every bit as ugly as his namesake’s hidden portrait. Docile and ignorant! And he so fawning and flattering to my face!

‘Oh, so she knows, does she, where you spend the nocturnal hours?’

‘I would consider it demeaning both to my wife and to myself to discuss such matters. We have an excellent understanding. She pursues her interests, and I pursue mine.’

‘Oh come on, Oscar. You mean that she consoles herself with good works in Whitechapel, and plays at Liberal politics with eccentric old women!’

‘John.’

‘It is all right, Robbie dear. It takes more than a little petulance to upset me. I am not Basil Hallward, and he is not Dorian, as he so rightly says. Now let us forget these petty quarrels and speak of Salome. I can promise you, you will not be disappointed, whatever you may think of the subject matter. It is to be written in French …’

‘In French! Ah, so this is the outcome of your sojourn in Paris!’

‘But of course! No artist can visit that delightful city without bathing in the spring of inspiration that bubbles up from its very foundations … ah, it is the cradle of Decadence. Salome was conceived in Paris, and I shall return thither to attend her birth.’

‘I thought you said she was rocked on the Cities of the Plain!’

‘And so she shall be, Lionel my dear. One generally rocks the baby after it is born .. at least, that is my experience. But as for the Cities of the Plain, surely Paris is one of them? Yes, I shall go back in the autumn.’

This is news to me. I had hoped your long absences were over for this year. The whole of February and March, and most of May – and you did not write very often.

And yes, I already harbour suspicions as to where you spend the ‘nocturnal hours’. They are not the suspicions I once harboured, and I have allowed myself to feel grateful for that; to feel fortunate, even, in comparison with other neglected wives … 

Docile, and ignorant! Only Robbie has any true respect for me … why can you not find another friend like him?

I have not been to Paris since our honeymoon.

I tread carefully on the stairs, past the half-open door, on my way to the sanctuary of my room. The sunlight has moved; a shadow steals across the upper landing. Just before I retreat from earshot, Lionel Johnson is saying –

‘Oh by the way Oscar, there is a young cousin of mine who would very much like to meet you. He’s just up at Oxford from Winchester, and he claims to have read Dorian nine times running! He’ll be in London for part of the Summer vacation …’