with her mother, she had flirted with the famous lesbian Natalie Barney, going so far as to write Natalie a poem about how âLove walks with delicate feet afraid / âTwixt maid and maid.â Besotted, Natalie proposed that she (Natalie) ought to marry Bosie, after which the three of them could live together in a ménage à trois. Olive demurred. Later, in a letter, Natalie made the same proposal to Bosie, who also demurred.
Like his love affair with Laura, Bosieâs romance with Olive seems to have involved a certain amount of transvestitism, albeit in this case on Oliveâs part rather than his own. For instance, in a note to Olive written shortly before he embarked on a trip for Americaâwhere, he joked, he hoped to find a rich heiress to marryâBosie suggests that she dress as a boy and accompany him. In letters, Olive refers to herself as Bosieâs âlittle Pageâ: âWrite to me soon and tell me that you love your little Page, and that one day youwill come back to âhim,â my Prince, my Prince.â His princess Olive is not: â
She
will be very beautiful. But meanwhile love me a little please â¦â
On March 4, 1902, they marry; their son, Raymond, is born on November 17. The marriage does not go well, however, according to Bosie, because Olive loves only âthe feminine partâ of him: the âmore manlyâ he became, the less attractive he was to his wife. To make matters worse, Bosie and his father-in-law, Colonel Custance, took an instant dislike to each other. An upright Christian gentleman, the Colonelâeager for an heir, and unhappy with the way that his daughter and son-in-law (flighty and irresponsible poets both) were raising his grandsonâdecided that it was his duty to wrest custody of Raymond from them, toward which end he duped Olive into signing away her inheritance so that she would fall into a position of financial dependence upon her parents. Enraged, Bosie barraged the Colonel with vituperative letters, and when the Colonel stopped opening them, with postcards and telegramsâthe e-mail of his age. He called the Colonel âa despicable scoundrel and a thoroughly dishonest and dishonorable man,â and promised to send accusatory letters to his clubs, his bank, and the tenants of his estate. Later, after the Colonel threatened to cut her off without a penny if she did not hand Raymond over, Olive left Bosie for a time, and he added his wifeâs name to his list of enemies. âMy father is angry all the time because I love Bosie still,â she wrote to Lady Queensberry. âBut would it do Bosie any good if I am turned out to starve? I am helpless since I made those settlements ⦠I only wish I had the courage to kill myself!â
Custance was not the only person Bosie hated at this stage of his life. He also hated Mr. Asquith, the prime minister. He hated Asquithâs wife, Margot, and Winston Churchill. He hated Robert Ross, Wildeâs younger friend and literary executor, and hehated Rossâs solicitor, Sir George Lewis, son of the same Sir George Lewis who had been Wildeâs great advocate, and who in 1892, at Wildeâs behest, had extricated Bosie (then an Oxford undergraduate) from the intimidations of a blackmailer. The second Sir George (no coincidence, in Bosieâs view) numbered
both
Colonel Custance and Robbie Ross among his clients.
Where did all this hate come from? Wilde seemed to think it was linked to Bosieâs âterrible lack of imagination, the one really fatal defect of your character.â Hate, in Wildeâs words to Bosie, âgnawed at your nature, as the lichen bites at the root of some sallow plant.â
Hate, then, as disease; infection.
Wildeâs gravest errorâsome might say his fatal errorâwas that he chose Bosie instead of Robbie Ross to be his lover. In making such a decision, he allied himself decisively with risk,
Rebecca Hamilton, Conner Kressley