Franny Moyle (54 page)

29.
  Constance to Otho at Riposte Cottage, Lausanne, 26 July 1887. MSS collection of Merlin Holland.

30.
  Constance to Otho at Hotel Matanhoff, Interlaken, 27 Aug 1887. MSS collection of Merlin Holland.

31.
  Richard Ellman,
Oscar Wilde
(Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1988), p. 275.

32.
  The file relating to Oscar's bankruptcy reveals Oscar borrowed £500 from Otho, secured against a life policy. PRO B9 429.

33.
  Constance to Otho, 26 July 1887. MSS collection of Merlin Holland.

34.
 
Complete Letters
, p. 297.

Chapter 7: A literary couple

1.
 
Funny Folks
(14 April 1888).

2.
  Vyvyan Holland,
Son of Oscar Wilde
, p. 50.

3.
  BLEccles 81755.

4.
  Ibid.

5.
  Anna, Comtesse de Brémont,
Oscar Wilde and His Mother
(Everett & Co., London, 1911), pp. 87–8.

6.
 
Complete Letters
, p. 301. Later on Constance changed her ‘at homes' to Wednesdays.

7.
  BL Eccles 81755.

8.
  Weldon became known for successfully suing her husband. They sepa rated, and he attempted to have her committed to a lunatic asylum in order to avoid having to support her financially. She successfully fought her way out of the situation in the courts.

9.
  The
Preston Guardian
(December 1885) notes that Henriette Corkran was painting Constance's portrait in pastels. This picture is now lost.

10.
 
Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper
(27 Nov 1887).

11.
  Alice Corkran (ed.),
The Bairn's Annual 1887/88
(Leadenhall Press, London, 1887), pp. 65-74.

12.
  Constance to Otho, 9 Nov 1887. MSS collection of Merlin Holland.

13.
  J. H. Badley, the headmaster of Bedales, recalls being among the group of Cambridge students to whom Oscar told the story, while Mrs Claude Beddington passes on Harry Marillier's recollections in her memoir
All That I Have Met
, p. 35.

14.
  Beddington,
All That I Have Met
, p. 39.

15.
  ‘I am trying to read a Dutch review of
Salome
for Oscar. It seems to have been translated into Dutch without his leave, & I hope to get hold of a copy.
Lady Windermere's Fan
was translated into Dutch and
The Happy Prince
with a beautiful view of Nelson's Column supposed to represent the statue of the Prince. So you see, the Dutch like Oscar & probably recognised that his name is most likely corrupted from Van der Welde. But it is a horrid language & I don't get on with my translation of the review.' Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 16 Nov 1893. BR 57/47/I4-

16.
  Intriguingly, the bound volume was put together by the nth Marquess of Queensberry, the grandson of John Sholto Douglas and Bosie Douglas's nephew.

17.
  Oscar to George Kersley.
Complete Letters
, p. 352.

18.
 
Complete Letters
, p. 478.

19.
  Merlin Holland,
A Portrait of Oscar Wilde
(privately printed, Genoa, 2008), Chapter 4.

20.
  ‘Jottings on Dress, Fashion, Music, Drama, Literature, Fashionable Doings & c.',
Weekly Irish Times
(2 Feb 1889).

21.
  F. E. Weatherly, M. A. Hoyer, Mrs Glasgow, Mrs Molesworth, Emily Bennett, Frances Compton and others,
Cosy Corner Stories
(Ernest Nister, London, 1895).

22.
 
Complete Letters
, p. 317.

23.
 
The Woman's World
, issue 1 (Nov 1887), p. 7. BL Eccles 418.

24.
  The other article Constance wrote was on the history of the muff.

25.
 
Rational Dress Society Gazette
, 1 (April 1888).

26.
  Ibid., p. 6.

27.
 
Rational Dress Society Gazette
(April 1889), p. 6.

28.
  Ibid.

Chapter 8: ‘Not to kiss females'

1.
  Constance to Otho, March 1888. MSS collection of Merlin Holland.

2.
  Ibid.

3.
  ‘Baby's birthday was last Thursday and though he is small I think he is quite strong now. He is frightfully spoilt and very self willed and does not say one mortal word, still grows a greater darling every day,
but baby is his father's pet.' Constance to Otho, 9 Nov 1887. MSS collection of Merlin Holland.

4.
  Vyvyan Holland,
Son of Oscar Wilde
, p. 53.

5.
  Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 13 Nov 1891. BR 57/12/12.

6.
  There is evidence in Constance's letters to Otho that the Lloyds had hoped that he would go into the law and then Parliament. However, after the break-up of his first marriage and his elopement it seems that Otho attempted to live off the income left him by his grandfather, using it to make a series of speculative investments. He pursued his interest in Classics, meanwhile, and in the twentieth century published a number of translations.

7.
  Gladstone signed Constance's autograph book on Easter eve in 1888.

8.
 
Pall Mall Gazette
(17 April 1888).

9.
  On a trip to Florence in 1893 Constance related: ‘I went to Dante's house again and into the little chapel where he married Gemma Donata. Poor wife, I pity her! Then lunch with Miss Cunninghame Graham and out to a lovely villa belonging to Mr Spenser Stanhope and to the Bello Sguardo to see Florence by the sunset-glow – such an exquisite picture'. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 11 Feb 1893. BR 57/46/15.

10.
 
Pall Mall Gazette
(17 April 1888).

11.
 
Northern Echo
(24 May 1889).

12.
 
Pall Mall Gazette
(24 May 1889).

13.
 
Birmingham Daily Post
(14 June 1889).

14.
  Bertha Vyver,
Memoirs of Marie Corelli
(Alston Rivers, London, 1930).

15.
  Sarasate signed Constance's autograph book in 1889, and Corelli the following year.

16.
  Corelli notes the shared popularity of Sarasate in her memoirs. In addi tion, in a letter to Lady Mount-Temple's daughter Juliet, Constance notes: ‘I went to Marie Corelli's and talked to Sarasate, rather an ordeal.' Constance to Juliet Latour Temple, I9june 1889. BR 57/11/1.

17.
  Marie Corelli,
The Silver Domino, or Side Whispers, Social and Literary
(Lamley & Co., London, 1892), p. 166.

18.
  Two women with whom Constance was acquainted, Annie Besant and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, had taken up this opportunity.

19.
 
The Standard
(18 Dec 1888).

20.
  Constance to Mrs Stopes, undated. BL Add. MS 58454, Stopes Papers.

21.
  BL Add. MS 58454.

22.
  Constance to Otho, March 1888. MSS collection of Merlin Holland.

23.
 
Complete Letters
, p. 365.

24.
  Oscar mentions his wife's ill health has taken her to Brighton. In a letter to Mrs Stopes on 13 March 1889 Constance revealed that ‘Mrs Charles Hancock is giving a drawing room meeting … I don't expect to be at it unless I am better.' BL Add. 58454.

25.
  Constance to Juliet Latour Temple, 19 June 1889. BR 57/11/1.

26.
  Ibid.

27.
  Ibid.

28.
 
Complete Letters
, p. 411.

29.
  Cyril inherited this tendency to over-reaction from Oscar, who was also known to be very sensitive and prone to tears. Lillie Langtry wit nessed this deep sensitivity in Oscar: ‘After a frank remark I made on one occasion, I happened to go to the theatre, and, as I sat in my box, I noticed a commotion in the stalls – it was Oscar who, having per ceived me suddenly, was being led away in tears.' Langtry,
The Days I Knew
, pp. 82–3.

30.
  Constance to Emily Thursfield, 1 Sept 1889. Clark Library.

31.
  Ibid.

32.
  Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 27 Nov 1890. BR 57/11/3. Russell Gurney, an eminent judge and Tory politician, and his wife, Emelia, were part of Lady Mount-Temple's set.

33.
  Constance lectured at the Somerville on 6 Nov 1888, on the topic: ‘Clothed in our right minds'.
Women's Penny Paper
, 17 Nov 1888.

34.
 
Man About Town
notes her involvement in its issue of 15 Nov 1890.

35.
 
Belfast Newsletter
(16 Aug 1892). The writer also notes that the pioneer ladies were wearing a big smile at the prospect of a Gladstone government.

36.
  Israel Zangwill,
The Old Maids' Club
(Tait & Co., New York, 1892).

Chapter 9: Qui patitur vincit

1.
 
Belfast Newsletter
(1 Nov 1888).

2.
 
The York Herald
(21 Dec 1888).

3.
  Anna Kingsford to Speranza, 11 March 1884. BL Eccles 81731.

4.
  Anna Kingsford to Constance, 20 July 1884. Clark Library.

5.
  Molloy himself would become a member of the Golden Dawn, but not until 1893.

6.
  George Bernard Shaw,
The Diaries 1885–1897
, vols 1 and 2, ed. Stanley Weintraub (Pennsylvania State University Press, Philadelphia, 1986), p 303.

7.
  This description based on A. E. Waites's memoir in the
Occult Review
(April 1919).

8.
  Ellic Howe (ed.),
The Alchemist of the Golden Dawn: The Letters of the Revd W. A. Ayton to F. L. Gardner and Others, 1886-1905
(Aquarian Press, Wellingborough, 1985).

9.
  R. A. Gilbert,
The Golden Dawn Companion
(Aquarian Press, Wellingborough, 1986), pp. 43–4.

10.
  Ibid., p. 31.

11.
  Brémont,
Oscar Wilde and His Mother
, p. 13.

12.
  Ibid.

13.
  W. B. Yeats,
Autobiographies: Reveries over Childhood and Youth and the Trembling of the Veil
(Macmillan & Co., London, 1926), pp. 230–31.

14.
  In 1893 Constance was in Italy and wrote to Myers: ‘I am enjoying so thoroughly my first visit to Italy and just before your letter came I had been gazing at the Raphael fresco in the Vatican, of St Peter being led out of prison by the angel. Do you remember the photograph of it at Babbacombe, and how you said it was an allegory to us of the delivery of the soul from the bondage of materialism?' BL Eccles 8173. Constance's letters to Lady Mount-Temple indicate that she took her friends Sir Hugh and Lady Low to meet Myers at the Psychical Research Society.

15.
  Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, St Andrew's Day 1892. BR 57/17/6.

16.
 
Yeats, Autobiographies, p
. 135.

17.
  Constance to Juliet Deschamps, 8 June 1890. BR 57/11/12.

18.
 
The Sun
(17 Nov 1889).

19.
 
Complete Letters
, p. 426.

20.
  McKenna,
Secret Life of Oscar Wilde
, p. 123.

21.
  Amor,
Mrs Oscar Wilde
, p. 96.

22.
  Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 23 Jan 1891. BR/45/2.

Chapter 10: My own darling mother

1.
  Richard Le Gallienne,
The Romantic '90s
(Putnam & Co., London, 1951), p 103.

2.
  ‘I had a delightful dinner with the Lows last evening and our conversation was chiefly on spiritual matters … they … (have) a great belief in spirituality as a Dynamite Force in the world. I think her enlightenment came through Professor Drummond as did mine too.' Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 5 March 1891. BR 57/45/6.

3.
  Constance to Emily Thursfield, 2 Sept 1889. Clark Library.

4.
  Georgina's own diary indicates meetings with Oscar on at least two occasions during the course of the year – one imagines when she called on Constance at home.

5.
  Mr and Mrs Bowles, noted as talking at these Sunday lectures, were an apparently popular duo who also turned up in November 1889 talking to the Women's Liberal Association on ‘The Difficulties of the Peace Question', according to the
Women's Penny Paper
(23 Nov 1889). This seems to indicate an interactivity and overlap between the political and religious groups to which Constance belonged.

6.
  Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 26 Dec 1890. BR 57/11/4.

7.
  Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 27 Dec 1890. BR 57/11/6.

8.
  Le Gallienne,
Romantic '90s
, p. 165.

9.
  Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 2 Nov 1891. BR 57/12/4.

10.
  ‘I see a great deal now of Paradise Walk but I feel hopeless to do anything there. Still you begged me once to work there and they all come to me now to help them, so at any rate your part of the wish is fulfilled.' Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 23 Oct 1892. BR 57/48/13.

11.
  Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 23 Jan 1891. BR 57/45/3.

12.
 
Aberdeen Weekly Journal
(16 July 1890).

13.
  Clark Library.

14.
  Noted in Georgina's diary, June 1890.

15.
  Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 6 Feb 1891. BR 57/45/4.

16.
  Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, undated. BR 57/11/19.

17.
  ‘I do not attempt any explanation, that on each occasion the ancestral silver from my father's side of the family was left untouched.' V. Holland, Sow
of Oscar Wilde
, p. 42.