The marquess tossed his red curls in a bashful nod and gave the meagerest hint of a smile.
The prince went on: “But now we’re off to a party at the Gravistock family seat to celebrate his freedom.” A thought struck the prince. “Doctor Doyle, would you and your young lady friend care to join us?” He winked suggestively. “I promise an evening to remember.”
Miss Leckie gave Conan Doyle’s bicep an importuning squeeze, but he demurred, saying, “Thank you, but I must humbly decline. I need to ensure that the young lady returns home safely to her parents before the fog maroons us all.”
“Ah, I see. Pity.” The prince suddenly seemed to notice an absence and said, “But where is your friend, Mister Wilde? I wanted to congratulate him on the play. Funny stuff — what we saw of it. Where has the fellow got to?”
“I am afraid he is somewhat indisposed,” Conan Doyle lied. “He suffers from a rheumatic chest. The fog. You understand.”
The prince’s baffled expression revealed that he didn’t, but the answer seemed to placate him. “Well then, we must be off. Revels await. So pleasant to meet you again, Doctor Doyle”—he lusted after Miss Leckie with one last lecherous look—“and your exquisite young lady.”
The prince and countess moved away, but the marquess lingered a moment.
“I, too, had longed to meet Mister Wilde,” the youth said in his high-pitched, ethereal voice. His face was narrow, what Conan Doyle would have described as weasely. “I consider myself his greatest admirer. Do pass along my regards.”
“I most certainly shall,” agreed Conan Doyle. He bowed to the marquess, who turned and followed the retreating back of the Prince of Wales. At that instant it struck Conan Doyle that the young man had never once tossed the slightest glance the way of Miss Leckie, as if she, a beautiful and vivacious woman, were invisible. It was nothing he could verbalize but he felt a prickling in his guts. There was something… unsavory about the marquess, and Conan Doyle determined he would not say a word about the young man to Wilde.
“But where is your friend?” Miss Leckie asked. “I had so been looking forward to meeting the notorious Oscar Wilde.”
“Yes, where indeed?” Conan Doyle echoed. “He has snubbed the Prince of Wales in a most unforgivable fashion.” He linked arms with Miss Leckie. “Come, let us see if we can run the rapscallion to ground.”
Conan Doyle found Wilde sulking in a dressing room, slouched in a chair beside a battered dressing table, black tie unraveled about his neck, shoulders slumped. The bottle of Perrier-Jouët chilling in an ice bucket remained inexplicably unopened. Instead, a half-empty bottle of whiskey sat by Wilde’s elbow, and he was diligently working to pour the remainder down his gullet.
“Oscar! You’re drinking whiskey instead of your usual champagne?”
The Irishman raised a tumbler to his lips, quaffed deeply, and paused to catch his breath before remarking morosely, “Champagne is for a celebration. Whiskey is the appropriate libation for a wake.”
“Cheer up, old man. Nothing can be helped. It’s the fault of the fog.”
Wilde tossed back his whiskey, grimaced, and gurgled himself two fingers more. “Fog? I have seen London fogs before. This is not a normal fog — it is an amorphous beast possessed of an evil sentience. And for some reason it hates Oscar Wilde and is determined to ruin him.” He sighed fretfully, shaking his auburn waves. “The box office receipts are pitiful and now a royal performance reduced to a shambles. What worse can happen?”
“Don’t be so glum. You cannot control the weather. I’m sure the prince will return on a more clement day.”
“It’s not just the lost performances. Much as it pains me to be reduced to the role of a grubby accountant tallying piles of pounds and pennies, there are financial repercussions to consider. Do not forget, although the performances are canceled and the public refunded their money, actors and sceneshifters must still be paid. The theater rent ticks on. There are many outheld hands grasping to be paid and most of them are currently rifling through my pockets.”
Conan Doyle cleared his throat. “If you’re temporarily short of funds, I am doing quite well at the present time and would be happy to lend—”
Wilde raised a hand to silence his friend before he could say more. “Your kindness is noted and appreciated, Arthur, but I would sooner borrow money from my very worst enemy than from my very best friend. For nothing curdles a friendship faster than indebtedness. I might obtain the loan of lucre from any quarter, but where can I obtain friendship and loyalty?”
“You do live rather extravagantly. Perhaps if you tightened your purse strings.”
Wilde recoiled as if from a blow.
“Extravagant? Moi?” he said, pouring himself another glass of whiskey from the open bottle. Conan Doyle eyed the label — it was a top-drawer Scots whiskey he personally could not afford to drink.
“I am perfectly at ease with the notion of sacrifice, it’s giving things up that I cannot abide.”
Conan Doyle shifted his feet and said, “I, ah… I have an acquaintance with me. A friend. The young lady I told you of: Miss Jean Leckie. She is waiting outside. My friend had rather been hoping to meet the famous Oscar Wilde. However, if you are indisposed, I suppose I must disappoint her.”
Instantly, the scowling, fretting man vanished. The large Irishman rose from his chair. Shot his cuffs. Retied his tie. Then, like a cape, he drew upon his shoulders the persona of Oscar Wilde.
“Forgive my rudeness, Arthur.” He seized the champagne bottle, loosened the cork with a twist, and pulled it from the ice bucket. “Pray, bring your friend before me, and I shall give her an audience to be remembered.”
As Conan Doyle escorted Miss Jean Leckie into the room, Wilde fired the champagne cork with a flick of his thumb. Bubbly fountained and splashed upon the floor.
“Greetings and salutations, Miss Leckie.” Wilde bowed and threw her a salaam gesture with his free hand. “Would you do me the considerable honor of joining us in a libation?” He charged three waiting champagne flutes and presented one to her. “Friends of Arthur’s must always be greeted with a glass of bubbly, a bow, and kiss upon the cheek.” Wilde moved forward and kissed her lightly on both cheeks, in the continental style. Jean Leckie cooed with delight, eyes sparkling brighter than the bubbles effervescing in her champagne flute.
“I offer a toast,” Wilde said, raising his glass.
“A toast to what?” asked Conan Doyle.
The Irishman regarded him with a raised eyebrow, as if he were the slow child in the class. “Why, to Oscar Wilde, who else? The luckiest man I know.”
“Lucky? Two seconds ago, you were quite in the dumps.”
“Yes, but that was two seconds ago. What are you, Arthur, an historian? For Oscar Wilde, there is only the present moment. No, I give you a toast to the most fortunate fellow I know: Oscar Wilde, for a man who has such wonderful friends must always count himself lucky.”
The three chinked glasses and said together, “Cheers!”
CHAPTER 11
AN UNHOLY RESURRECTION
An underground cellar, windowless and dark. The cobblestone walls and arched brick ceiling hold the dank-earth chill of the subterranean. The space is bare apart from a huddle of tables strewn with beakers, surgical instruments, a bone doctor’s collection of amputation saws and scalpels. On a second table, glass flasks of colored liquids warm on alcohol burners, chemicals bubble in retorts. A third table holds a brassy scatter of mechanical gears, tiny pistons, flywheels. Dominating the space is a single piece of hideous furniture: a restraining chair built of huge timbers. A human figure sits pinioned in the chair.