The Master (7 page)

Henry bowed.

‘I searched for you this morning,’ Webster said, ‘to tell you that I have a missive here from Mr Wilde, Mr Oscar Wilde, who sends his fond regards to you. At least he says he
does, one can never tell with him. He says that he wishes he were here, and of course he would be a great addition to things and he is a great favourite of her ladyship. His lordship, I understand,
draws the line before him. I don’t think he would have wanted Mr Wilde in his regiment.’

Webster stopped and moved to go down the stairs with Henry in front of him. Henry remained motionless.

‘Of course, Mr Wilde is very busy with the theatre. He tells me that a play of yours was taken off to make way for his second success of the season and he seems rather pleased with the
association. Yours was about a monk, he says. All the Irish are natural writers, my wife says, it comes naturally to them. She adores Mr Wilde.’

Henry remained silent. When Webster stopped as though to let him speak, he bowed again and motioned Webster to go down the stairs, but Webster did not move.

‘Mr Wilde says that he longs to see you in London. He has many friends. Do you know his friends?’

‘No, Mr Webster, I do not think that I have had the good fortune to meet his friends.’

‘Well, perhaps you know them and are not aware that they are his friends. Lady Wolseley came with us to the play about Ernest. You must join us for the next play. I shall inform Lady
Wolseley that you must.’

Webster was making a greater effort than usual to be amusing. He also managed somehow to make sure that there was no gap in the conversation so that Henry could take his leave. Clearly, he had
more to say.

‘Of course I think artists and politicians have one thing in common. We all pay the price, I think, unless we are lucky and struggle hard. Mr Wilde is having trouble with his wife.
It’s a difficult time for him, as I’m sure you understand. Lady Wolseley tells me that you have no wife. That might be one solution. As long as it doesn’t catch on, I
suppose.’

He turned and indicated to Henry that they could now walk down the stairs together.

‘But being a bachelor must leave you open to all sorts of … How shall I put it? All sorts of sympathy.’

T
HE
G
REAT
H
ALL
of the Royal Hospital basked in the glow of a thousand candles. There was music from a small orchestra, and waiters moved among the
guests offering champagne. The tables were set, as Lady Wolseley had told him, with silver which Lord Wolseley had recently inherited, shipped from London specially for the occasion. So far only
the men were present. He was informed that none of the ladies wanted to be the first to arrive, all of them were in their chambers waiting for news from their maids, who regularly spied down into
the hall from the stairwell. Lord Houghton was in his full regalia as the queen’s representative in Ireland and he took the view that Lord Wolseley would have to organize a cavalry charge to
force the ladies to appear. Lady Wolseley, it seemed, was the most recalcitrant of all and had sworn that she would be the last to arrive in the room.

Henry watched Webster; not for one moment was he unaware of Webster’s movements. He had had enough of him. Should Webster dart in his direction, he was ready to turn away abruptly. This
meant that he could not, under any circumstances, become involved in an engrossing conversation.

As Webster, indulging in constant laughter, moved across the hall, Henry followed him with his eyes and thus he noticed Hammond for the first time. Hammond was wearing a black suit and a white
shirt and a black bow tie. His dark hair seemed shinier and longer than before. He was freshly shaved and this gave his face a thin, pure beauty. As soon as Henry caught his eye, he knew that he
had been examining him too closely, that he had, in one flash, given more away than he had done all week. Hammond seemed unembarrassed and did not avert his eyes. He held a tray but did not move
from where he stood and managed, without any trace of emotion, to outstare Henry, who was standing in a group, half-listening to an anecdote. Henry returned his attention to the company. Once he
withdrew his gaze, he was careful not to look again.

Lord Wolseley had spoken to the orchestra and arranged a small fanfare, and negotiated with the maidservants that at the sound of the music each lady, including his own wife, would venture from
her chamber and present herself in the hall for much fussing and admiration. No one was allowed to stay behind. When the fanfare sounded, the gentlemen stood back and the doors were ceremoniously
opened. Two dozen ladies descended on the room, all of them wearing elaborate wigs and cakes of make-up and dresses fresh from the greatest paintings of Gainsborough, Reynolds and Romney. The
gentlemen applauded as the orchestra played the opening of a waltz.

Lady Wolseley had been right when she told them that her costume would triumph. A mixture of peacock blue and a deep red, her silk dress had an enormous sash, and was full of tucks and
flourishes and bulges. It was low-cut to a degree that none of the other ladies had risked. Lady Wolseley was not wearing a wig, merely her natural hair with ringlets added, the connection between
the real and the false hair seamless. Her face and eyes had been painted so expertly that it appeared as though she were wearing no make-up at all. Having asked the orchestra to stop playing, she
motioned her guests to stand back. Her husband did not seem to know who or what was on the other side. The doors closed and then began slowly to open again.

What they revealed was the child Mona as the Infanta from Velázquez, wearing a dress five times larger than she was. She came as far as the doorway and stood still, keeping her eyes on
the far distance, playing perfectly the part of the princess too noble to survey her subjects, abstracted by her great role and destiny, smiling softly as the guests applauded her and declared her
to be the success and surprise of the evening.

Immediately, Henry was disturbed by her, the flaunting of her female self, and her own poised alertness to her allure. He searched the faces of the other guests to see if anyone judged as he did
on the strange precocity of the child, the unsuitable nature of the attention. But they took their seats in a spirit of innocence and hilarity.

When Henry turned to speak to the lady on his left, he did not recognize her. She was wearing an outlandishly large red wig and a great deal of face paint, but perhaps more importantly, she had
not spoken. Once she did speak, he recognized her immediately as the lady who was staying at Dublin Castle, who had been ignored by the Wolseleys.

‘Mr James,’ she whispered, ‘do not ask me if I was invited because I will have to tell you that I was not. My husband is refusing to speak to me and he is sulking back in the
castle. But Lord Houghton, who dislikes rudeness, insisted that I come and he asked the other ladies to supervise my costume and render me unrecognizable.’

She glanced around her to see if anyone was listening.

‘My husband says you go where you are asked, but the entire purpose of fancy dress is that these rules don’t exist.’

He was concerned lest her neighbours should hear her and with his hand he cautioned her that she should lower her voice.

Mona was the focus of attention, the most honoured guest. Mr Webster, who was close to her, continually roared flattering remarks and ambiguous compliments at her; Lady Wolseley, sitting close
to her husband, was high with excitement.

Hammond moved with a bottle in his hand pouring drinks. He remained calm and unflustered no matter how busy he was. He had, Henry felt, the most beautiful temper in the hall that night.

Henry did not dance, but had he done so he would surely have had to dance with Mona, because all the gentlemen did. As each dance ended, a new partner awaited her. In flirting with her and
treating her as an adult, they succeeded, Henry thought, in mocking her. They paid no attention to the fact that she was a little girl who had dressed up and should be going to bed. Henry watched
Hammond watching her, understanding that he might be the only other person in the room who viewed Mona’s frolics with something less than complacency.

Most of the time Henry stood alone, or with another gentleman or pair of gentlemen, observing the dancing, the candles slowly burning down, the gowns and wigs increasingly tawdry in their
appearance, the cheeks of the dancers burning red and the orchestra clearly tired. It suddenly struck him that what he longed for now was an American, preferably someone from Boston, a compatriot
who would understand or at least appreciate, as nobody present seemed to, the strangeness here.

These were the English in Ireland. This building was an oasis with chaos and squalor all around. The Wolseleys had imported their silver as they had their guests and their manners. He liked Lord
Wolseley and did not wish to judge him harshly. Nonetheless, he wished for the view of an American brought up on ideals of freedom and equality and democracy. For the first time in years, he felt
the deep sadness of exile, knowing that he was alone here, an outsider, and too alert to the ironies, the niceties, the manners and, indeed, the morals to be able to participate.

As he woke from his reverie, he saw Hammond in front of him carrying still the deportment of high sympathy that he had exuded all evening. He seemed extraordinarily handsome. Henry took a glass
of water from the tray and smiled at him, but neither of them spoke. In all likelihood, Henry realized, they would not meet again.

Across the hall, Mona was sitting on Webster’s knee. He was holding her hands, rocking her up and down. Henry smiled at the thought of his imaginary American friend coming into the room
now and witnessing this less than edifying scene. As he watched them, Webster caught his eye and shrugged carelessly.

It was late now and Hammond had joined the servants taking away glasses and cleaning the wax which had fallen from the candles onto the tables and the floor. Already he missed the glow of
pleasure which Hammond’s calm face had given him. Soon, it would be lost to him, and this made him feel that he was a great stranger, with nothing to match his own longings, a man away from
his own country, observing the world as a mere watcher from a window. Abruptly, he left the Hall and walked briskly back to his own quarters.

CHAPTER THREE

O
VER THE YEARS HE HAD
learned something about the English which he had quietly and firmly adapted to his own uses. He had watched how men in England
generally respected their own habits until those around them learned to follow suit. He knew men who did not rise until noon, or who slept in a chair each afternoon, or who ate beef for breakfast,
and he noticed how these customs became part of the household routine and were scarcely commented on. His habits, of course, were sociable and, in the main, easy; his inclinations were civil and
his idiosyncrasies mild. Thus it had become convenient to himself, and simple to explain to others, that he should turn down invitations, confess himself busy, overworked, engaged both day and
night in his art. His time as an inveterate dinner guest in the great London houses had, he hoped, come to an end.

He loved the glorious silence a morning brought, knowing that he had no appointments that afternoon and no engagements that evening. He had grown fat on solitude, he thought, and had learned to
expect nothing from the day but at best a dull contentment. Sometimes the dullness came to the fore with a strange and insistent ache which he would entertain briefly, but learn to keep at bay.
Mostly, however, it was the contentment he entertained; the slow ease and the silence could, once night had fallen, fill him with a happiness that nothing, no society nor the company of any
individual, no glamour or glitter, could equal.

In these days after his opening night and his return from Ireland he discovered that he could control the sadness which certain memories brought with them. When sorrows and fears and terrors
came to him in the time after he woke, or in the night, they were like servants come to light a lamp or take away a tray. Carefully trained over years, they would soon disappear of their own
accord, knowing not to linger.

Nonetheless, he remembered the shock and the shame of the opening night of
Guy Domville
. He told himself that the memory would fade, and with that admonition he tried to put all thoughts
of his failure out of his mind.

Instead, he thought about money, going over amounts he had received and amounts due; he thought of travel, where he would go and when. He thought of work, ideas and characters, moments of
clarity. He controlled these thoughts, he knew that they were like candles leading him through the dark. They could easily, if he did not concentrate, be snuffed out and he would again be pondering
defeats and disappointments, which if not managed could lead to thoughts that left him desperate and afraid.

He woke early sometimes and when such thoughts took over he knew that he had no choice but to rise. By operating decisively, as though he were rushing somewhere, as though the train were on time
and he was late, he believed that he could banish them.

Nonetheless, he knew that he had to allow his mind its freedoms. He lived on the randomness of the mind’s workings, and, now, as the day began, he found himself involved in a new set of
musings and imaginings. He wondered how an idea could so easily change shape and appear fresh in a new guise; he did not know how close to the surface this story had been lurking. It was a simple
tale, made simpler still by his friend Benson’s father, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had tried to entertain him one evening after the failure of his play. He had hesitated too much and
stopped too often as he attempted to tell a ghost story, knowing neither the middle nor the end and unsure even of the contours of the beginning.

Henry had set it down as soon as he arrived home. He wrote in his notebook:

Note here the ghost story told me at Addington (evening of Thursday 10th), by the Archbishop of Canterbury: the mere vague, undetailed, faint sketch of it: the story of the young
children (indefinite number and age), left to the care of servants in an old country house, through the death, presumably, of parents. The servants, wicked and depraved, corrupt and deprave the
children: the children are bad, full of evil to a sinister degree. The servants die (the story vague about the way of it) and their apparitions return to haunt the house and children.