Free Franny Moyle by Constance: The Tragic, Scandalous Life of Mrs. Oscar Wilde Page A

nightly to Tite Street, the novelty of domestic bliss quickly waned. He sensed that the venture he and Constance had so wholeheartedly and enthusiastically embarked on might not in fact be one that could fulfil him as he had originally hoped. He loved the company and companionship of his wife. But he also loved the attentions of young men. At a time when anything Greek was à la mode , Oscar was all too aware that Greek love, the attraction between men endorsed in Ancient Greek culture, was profoundly intriguing.
    Ada Leverson told a tale about Oscar. According to Leverson, Wilde was an attentive, courteous and dedicated husband who, not long after he was married, took Constance shopping.
    He waited for her outside Swan and Edgar’s while she made some long and tedious purchases. As he stood there full of careless good spirits, on a cold sunny May morning, a curious, very young, but hard-eyed creature appeared, looked at him, gave a sort of laugh, and passed on. He felt he said ‘as if an icy hand had clutched his heart’. He had a sudden presentiment. He saw a vision of folly, misery and ruin. 18
    Swan and Edgar’s was a famous department store that faced Piccadilly Circus. Elegant and suave, it nevertheless looked out on to one of the most notorious pick-up spots in the whole of the capital. Oscar, who so loved observing all walks of life, and with his particular fascination for vice, must have enjoyed watching the ‘renters’, or male prostitutes, who notoriously hung around this thoroughfare. That one of them could spot his predilection for young men almost before he himself had identified this sexual trait came as a shock.
    That Oscar openly enjoyed the friendship of younger men was no secret, and this was an aspect of her husband that Constance wasin fact proud of. Years later, in 1892, she wrote to Georgina Mount-Temple full of pride at the fact that
    Oscar had yesterday such a beautiful letter from the brother of a young man who has died lately in Australia. Beautiful to me I mean because it is so full of this boy’s love for Oscar. I will write a copy of it and send it to you, I should like you to see how good O’s influence is on young men, and the brother speaks of this young man as the purest soul he had ever known. 19
    In the early days of their marriage Constance was even party to Oscar’s cultivation of young men, just as she was very much a part of almost everything in Oscar’s life. One of the first visitors to the newly decorated Tite Street was none other than Constance’s friend Douglas Ainslie. The love-struck teenager who had got Constance into such trouble was now entering his twenties. Just days after they had moved into their new home he came to see it. To her delight Douglas Ainslie was showing decidedly Aesthetic tendencies. 20
    â€˜Douglas thinks our house the most charming he has ever been in,’ Constance informed Otho, ‘and could hardly tear himself away last night.’ 21 Not so long after Douglas Ainslie had been entertained in Tite Street, it was Oscar who was asking Harry Marillier, the Cambridge student who had contacted him about his performance of Eumenides , to join him and Constance in town. Marillier’s visit invigorated Oscar. ‘I have never learned anything except from people younger than myself,’ he declared, ‘and you are infinitely young.’ 22
    In November 1885 Constance and Oscar both went to Cambridge to visit the young Harry as well as other established friends they had there, including the poet Oscar Browning. On their return both the Wildes wrote thank-you notes to their hosts. Constance’s notes to both were plain, polite and to the point: she returned a letter from their mutual friend Walter Harris to Browning, and in her note to Marillier she reminded him to come and see them again in London. Oscar, by contrast, found himself deeply moved by the youthfulidealism he saw among Marillier and his