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Lady Wilde informed the company with all the impressiveness she had at command that she did not expect Oscar that afternoon; "he is so busy with his new poems, you know; they say there has been no such sensation since Byron," she added; "already everyone is talking of them." "Indeed, yes," sighed the green lily, "do you remember, dear Speranza, what he said about 'The Sphinx, that he read to us.
Then suddenly the situation became really worrying. We were facing a deep impassable trench. "Damn!" said Wilde angrily. "I was afraid this would happen." "I don't think we can be more than a couple of hundred yards from where we want to get," I answered. "It ought to be in that direction. Let's give 'em a hail." "They'll be down below they won't hear us," said Wilde gloomily.
"I am in an impossible position," I said to my opponent, who was the amateur chess player, Montagu Gattie. "Come along and let us have some dinner." With a nod to Oscar I left the place. On the way out Gattie said to me: "So that's the famous Oscar Wilde." "Yes," I replied, "that's Oscar, but I never saw him in such company before."
But no one who knows the facts will deny that these men are prodigiously influential in London in all artistic and literary matters, and it was their constant passionate support which lifted Oscar Wilde so quickly to eminence. From the beginning they fought for him. He was regarded as a leader among them when still at Oxford.
Felton and Charlotte Corday understood their business better; but even their preparations may be called elaborate, compared with those of this poor slave-girl. Captain Wilde returned late in the evening with the coveted coach; and the whole family, white and black, of course, turned out to admire that crowning addition to the family splendor.
Justice Charles, it was granted and Wilde was set free in his own recognizance of £2,500 with two other sureties for £1,250 each. It spoke volumes for the charm and fascination of the man that people were found to undertake this onerous responsibility. Their names deserve to be recorded; one was Lord Douglas of Hawick, the other a clergyman, the Rev. Stewart Headlam.
Moreover, when Lady Wilde was staying at Bray, Miss Travers sent boys to offer the pamphlet for sale to the servants in her house. In fine Miss Travers showed a keen feminine ingenuity and pertinacity in persecution worthy of a nobler motive. But the defence did not rely on such annoyance as sufficient provocation for Lady Wilde's libellous letter.
About this time one heard of a dinner which Oscar Wilde had given at a restaurant in Soho, which was said to have degenerated into a sort of Roman orgy. I was told of a man who tried to get money by blackmailing him in his own house.
He laid stress on the fact that Mr. Wilde had himself brought the charge against Lord Queensberry which had provoked the whole investigation: "on March 30th, Mr. Wilde," he said, "knew the catalogue of accusations"; and he asked: did the jury believe that, if he had been guilty, he would have stayed in England and brought about the first trial?
Still later Saltus tells me he met Oscar Wilde in London and the Irish poet asked him for news of the new editor. "He's quite well," answered Saltus. Wilde did not seem to be pleased: "When your story appeared the editor was removed; when mine appeared I supposed he would be hanged. Now you tell me he is quite well. It is most disheartening."
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