“Nonsense, sir, we must have done with this, I insist you come over and join Mr. Wilde and me!” He signaled a waiter and ordered fresh brandies. Nordhausen did not know what to do! Further hesitation would only cast more suspicion on his presence there. He had to move; he had to pass for the very thing that this man believed him to be—just a simple gentleman out for an evening’s entertainment. His legs were rubber as he stood up, moving timorously to join the group.
“Welcome, kind sir! I am William Gilbert, and this is Mr. Oscar Wilde, only lately let loose on London from academic shackles in Oxford, and already making old hands like me take notice of him.”
Gilbert offered his hand, which Nordhausen took by instinct. His mind was a blur now. He had just made physical contact with a Prime, something that was absolutely forbidden under Maeve’s hard charter. What was he doing? If she ever found out about this he would be flayed alive. But the man took hold of his hand with a vigorous shake and radiated so much conviviality that Nordhausen was entirely taken in. Wilde stood up and gracefully put out his own hand, which fully engulfed Nordhausen’s. The warmth of the other man’s palm on his own was electric.
“I… I am Mr. Robert Nordhausen, of San Francisco. It is… a great pleasure to meet you gentlemen, especially Mr. Wilde, of whom I have heard so much.” Nordhausen stammered a bit, but he was running on pure reflex now, trying to be as civil as he could to cover his obvious discomfiture.
Gilbert raised his eyebrows. “Oscar, your fame spans the globe, and you just fresh out of school.”
“Novelty flies like winged thought,” Wilde drawled. “It needs no submarine cables to girdle the sphere. I am the modern Ariel, although more fleshly.”
“Well, Mr. Nordhausen, what brings you to London?” Gilbert asked. “Have you been here long?”
Nordhausen spun out his lie about the stolen luggage, to general expressions of sympathy all round. He told them that he was in London to study at the British Museum.
“What do you read, Mr. Nordhausen?” Wilde inquired. “I have spent countless hours over the last several years drenched in the dusty miasma of that hall.”
“I… am a student of ancient Egypt…” Nordhausen proposed.
“Oh? How ancient, Mr. Nordhausen,” Wilde inquired. “I, myself, spent a term studying the Ptolemaic literature.”
Nordhausen certainly didn’t want to start up a discussion of Hellenistic Greek with Oscar Wilde! He had to keep his contact to the bare minimum. He had to divert attention away from himself and melt away into the anonymity of the crowd. The very notion that he was standing here with two Prime Movers was setting his heart thumping, and he was already sweating profusely.
“Uh, no, dynastic Egypt, before the Greek invasion.”
“Then you are a student of art as well! Gilbert, you have by chance selected the right man for this dispute,” he turned to Nordhausen, “for it is about Art… as what is not?”
Gilbert sat back and began to trim a cigar, while Wilde pondered for a moment how best to put his case.
“Gilbert was educated to the law,” he began, “So he disdains to call what he produces Art. As a practical writer, he sees all Art as he sees his own Art, a circumstantial product, created for the occasion.” He turned to face Gilbert, who by now was huffing on his cigar to light it. “That is the solipsistic fallacy, as you well know.” He rounded on Nordhausen. The surrounding group was focused hypnotically on the large young man with the bright, quick gray eyes. His face was alive as he spoke, his expression flashing to a different mood on almost every word.
“I, on the other hand, maintain that, like it or not, Mr. Gilbert is touched by the Muse. Several Muses no doubt, let me see, Erato, certainly Thalia, and no doubt you flirt with Terpsichore. Art is an attempt by us earthly men to limn the heaven that we know lies beyond. When we envision heaven, we create art.”
“A pretty sort of heaven it is, if one goes by my doggerel,” Gilbert scoffed, puffing great clouds of foul smelling smoke. “I churn out reams of nonsense, which Sullivan somehow ennobles and turns into opera. There is the suffering artist, if you will. This present jolly success of Pinafore was written by Sullivan line by line while he was suffering the most excruciating pain from his illness. There is a man lashed by the Muse… and for what? To set music to popular nonsense verse.” He paused. Nordhausen settled on a chair, his legs still weak, but he was on the edge of his seat.
“Poor Sullivan! Dean Dodgson has been pestering him to write some songs for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The Dean has no ear for music, but he has been told that Sullivan was the man to go to for nonsense. Sullivan cannot bring himself to respond with more than a broad hint that it shall never be, but the Dean has no ear for subtlety either, I fear.”
“Perhaps I shall set myself to comedy, now that I am free from the Classics,” Wilde mused. “We Irish boast a native humor which you English can only appreciate.”
“Perhaps I shall set myself to Aestheticism,” Gilbert returned. “I can make aesthetic doggerel as easily as patriotic sentiment or amatory…” he faded into thought, and suddenly brightened.
“Here, we shall have a contest. Mr. Nordhausen from America will judge it.”
He went on brightly, “Oscar, we shall each compose at this moment, a verse. You may pray to your Muse for inspiration, and create Art! I shall do what I do best, and crank out a quatrain impromptu. But!” he held up a finger. “You shall write a comic verse, and I shall write an aesthetic. And Mr. Nordhausen shall decide if either one of us is struck with fairy dust, or if we have simply churned out an occasional piece, on command. What do you say, Mr. Nordhausen?”
Both men looked to Nordhausen. What could he say, what should he do? “I… wouldn’t dream of judging either one of you gentlemen,” he began, trying to find a way out of his dilemma.
“Not a word of it, Mr. Nordhausen,” Wilde interjected. “You are our Everyman. After all, if my Art does not bring you to want to go to Heaven, I am a failed craftsman.” He looked at Gilbert. “The stakes?”
“The next round.”
“The terms?”
“Five minutes by Mr. Nordhausen’s watch. The first to recite, by coin toss.”
“Agreed.” Gilbert pulled out a large silver coin. “Your call, Mr. Wilde.”
“Heads, Mr. Gilbert, I am ever the optimist, and hope to see our beloved monarch’s face on every toss!”
Gilbert tossed, and caught the coin. “Heads it is, Mr. Wilde. Shall we retire to our corners for the bout? Mr. Nordhausen, this snifter shall be the bell.” He gave it a tap with his nail and it rang. “Five minutes, Mr. Wilde.”
“Have at you, Mr. Gilbert.”
“Geshundheit, Mr. Wilde.”
Nordhausen fumbled about in a near panic. He remembered the pocket watch he had purchased from a curio shop in preparation for this trip and managed to pull it from his coat pocket, relieved that he had the good sense to put it there when he changed into this rented evening wear. Still, he struggled to contain a slight tremor in his hand as he flipped it open and stared at the clock face. The magnitude of what he was doing continued to press itself upon him, cruelly now, as the time piece seemed to taunt him with every tick of the second hand.
God, Oh God… were the seconds all in order? Surely he was not here this evening on the night Wilde and Gilbert decided to have this little contest. He was not the one to judge it. With every tick he could almost hear the corresponding echo of a great hammer beating on the Meridian of Time. Every word he spoke, every movement and gesture he made, was altering the timeline now. His plan had already come unglued, and all history, from this moment forward, would bear the stain of his willful and headstrong folly. He was absolutely mortified, and he knew he deserved the hardest lash that fate could deliver upon him, though he hoped, with all his might, that these seemingly harmless moments would not wreak havoc in some future time.