“Political independence is one thing; cultural independence, another,” intoned Henry. “We have much to learn from our European brothers, and we would be remiss to deny it.”
“We will have a native literature only when we do,” said Clemens.
“Then we will have a bad literature,” asserted Henry. “I count on my European ties to lend weight to my writing.”
“And your writing sinks under it,” murmured Clemens.
“Your meaning, sir?” Henry took this up sharply.
“My meaning is that your prose could use more native air.”
Henry sputtered. “And yours, sir, could use more art!”
Clemens paused, as the company waited for his rejoinder. “There is such a thing as too much art,” he finally said. “I fear that Mr. James’s novels suffer from that defect. When I put them down, I find myself incapable of picking them up again.”
There was considerable laughter, and it fleetingly occurred to Henry that he and Clemens were making spectacles of themselves in front of the Europeans, which was just what vulgar Americans were expected to do. Still, he could not stop himself and countered stridently, “Sir, no person of breeding would find your writing more than a burlesque diversion.”
“Breeding?” Clemens scoffed, looking around him with mock wonder. “Who are these persons of breeding? Are they men…or horses?”
The laughter had grown very loud. Clemens’s wit—if one could call it that—was being well received.
“I…resent that!” Henry declared lamely. He had gotten very red.
“Shall we have a duel?” demanded Wilde. “Shall I get out the sabers or the pistols?”
“Dueling is an old-world custom.” Clemens laughed. “In my country we would have a boxing match. Does Mr. James box?”
Henry felt vaguely panic-stricken. Clemens was baiting him, impugning his manliness, using vulgarity to place him at a disadvantage. What should he do? He felt ill-used and humiliated, and the prospect of being punched did not seem entirely outside the sphere of possibility. He had always had a horror of physical violence.
He looked with dismay at the company; all seemed to be paying close attention and smirking. Even the French had been roused from their Gallic indifference, eager to see what would happen next.
“I don’t think our American guests should fight,” a clear voice intruded in the background. “They are both indispensable to our cultural life by showing us the world from different angles, the high and the low. Our literature would be poorer for the lack of either of them.”
Everyone turned to the speaker, a fair young man with a square jaw and hard, glittery blue eyes. Henry felt a welling of gratitude.
“That settles it, then.” Wilde laughed. “We must not allow you Americans to hurt each other. Now sit.” He pulled at Clemens’s sleeve. “We will drink some more wine. Our wine at least is better than yours, which is reason enough to settle here.”
Henry dropped into his chair. As the wine was poured and the ices served, he pondered the episode that had just transpired. Who was it who had intervened? He looked to the front of the room and saw that the young man who had saved him had moved off to the side and was combing through a bag of what looked like costume apparel. Henry felt suddenly light-headed. Was that the face he had seen and remembered at the beginning of the evening? For weeks he had been trying to recall something from the dinner party at Gosse’s (if it had been Gosse’s). He believed this young man had been there. Indeed, he was certain he was. A memorable face. How had he forgotten it?
Once the ices had been cleared and the Madeira served, Wilde stood up and raised his glass. “To art and song,” he said. “I promised on a recent occasion that we would perform some musical hall turns. We have rehearsed something for this evening.” He motioned to the young man, whom James had been watching in the corner, who stepped forward. He was holding a wig and a piece of drapery. He placed the wig on his head and wrapped the drape around his shoulders, curtsied, and smiled. Even in this makeshift ironic garb, he had managed a transformation. There was now a pretty young girl in place of a handsome young man. A natural gift for mimicry, thought Henry admiringly.
“We shall perform ‘Oh, False One, You Have Deceived Me’ from Pirates of Penzance, by our friends Messieurs Gilbert and Sullivan,” announced Wilde.
There followed a lively rendition of the song, a call and response of the conventional farcical variety. Wilde sang with requisite brio, and the young man, with a sweetly coquettish lilt. Light musical numbers were not to Henry’s taste, but he granted that Oscar and the young man performed well. Especially the young man.
At the end, Wilde bowed low, and his partner curtsied and pulled off his wig. There was enthusiastic applause by the guests—even the blasé Frenchmen seemed to have been entertained.
Henry joined vigorously in the applause. It seemed the young man was looking directly at him. Perhaps he wanted a sign of thanks for having intervened in the encounter with Clemens. He nodded an acknowledgment, but the young man did not blink. Perhaps he was not looking at him at all. Still, Henry could not avert his own gaze. He was transfixed by the young man’s eyes, which were glacially blue. He felt a shiver pass through himself.
“Who is he?” he whispered to Sargent.
“Walter Sickert. An apprentice to Whistler.”
An artist! “Is he any good?”
“Talented but macabre.”
“How’s that?” asked Henry sharply.
“Dark palette. Tawdry subjects.”
Wilde motioned graciously to the young man. “My friend here is even more gifted as a painter than as a music hall performer. You must all go see his work. Buy it or write about it, and make him more famous than Whistler. Do your imitation of Jimmy’s laugh again, Walter.”
“‘Ha ha!’” said the young man.
“That’s Jimmy!” cried Wilde. “‘Ha ha.’ You do it better.”
Henry caught his breath. It came back to him in a rush. They had talked of Jack the Ripper at that dinner party the night of his ordeal. This Sickert had been present at that occasion and had noted that the “ha ha” in the letters put him in mind of Whistler. He had imitated Whistler’s laugh, then!
Sickert. The name was suggestive. Dickensian, if Henry wanted the name for a murderer. Not that he did. Indeed, a feeling of warmth for the young man competed with a feeling of dread.
It had been an extremely stressful evening, one Henry would not want to repeat, but he had learned something of importance, though he did not know what it was. If his logical faculties were weak, his instincts were strong. He had found a germ. He would have to bring it to Alice and see what she could make of it.
Chapter 24
At the same time that Henry was preparing for his dinner at the Albemarle Club, William was in a hansom cab heading to Mansell Street in Whitechapel. He had in hand the address of Benjamin Cohen that Abberline had gotten for him. It was unclear whether it was Cohen’s business establishment or his home—possibly it was both. From what he had discerned of the area, distinctions of home and work were not pronounced in the East End.
When William descended from the cab, he soon found that the address coincided with one of the small bookshops that cluttered the area and that he had wanted so much to peruse during his first visit to Whitechapel. But while most of the other shops were still open or just closing for the night, this one was shuttered and padlocked. When William gazed through the shutters, he saw that the shelves were bare, the fixtures removed from the walls, and the place apparently abandoned.
His first response was a lurch of panic. Had Benjamin Cohen been guilty after all and escaped justice due to William’s interference? A sense of dread began to rise in him, and he pulled himself back to reason by force of will, summoning to mind what had caused him to act in Cohen’s defense: the man’s intelligent and rational demeanor, the obvious scapegoating by Anderson, his own instinct regarding guilt and innocence.