“Still ordinary, my dear. A mere observation of the obvious.” He leaned back against the Chinese cushions behind him, exhibiting his boredom.
“Do you really imagine Oscar would ever be obvious?” The first man’s high eyebrows rose even farther. “How unimaginative you are, and what a poor judge of character.”
“Well, it may not be obvious to you, dear boy, but it is to me,” his companion rejoined.
“Then tell me the ending!” he challenged.
“There is no ending. It is merely life.”
“That is where you are wrong!” He wagged his finger. “He remains as young and utterly beautiful as ever. Years and years go by. His face is unmarked by the squalor of his soul and the viciousness of his life-”
“Wishful thinking.”
“But the portrait is not! Week by week the face on the canvas grows more terrible-”
“What?” He sat suddenly upright, knocking off one of the voluptuous cushions. Emily suppressed her instinct to pick it up and replace it.
“The face on the canvas grows more terrible!” the man continued his tale. “All the sin and meanness, the disease of his soul, is stamped on it, till the very sight of it is enough to freeze the blood and make you lie awake at night for fear of sleeping and dreaming of it!”
He had his friend’s total attention.
“My God! Then what? What is the end?”
“He murders the artist, who has guessed his secret,” the man said triumphantly. “Then at last, terrified at the hideousness of his own soul which he sees in the painted face, he stabs it.”
Emily drew in her breath in a gasp, but neither of them heard her.
“And …?” the man demanded.
“It is himself he has killed! He is inextricably bound with the painting. He is it and it is he! He dies-and the body takes on the monstrosity of the portrait, which now becomes again as beautiful and as innocent as when it was first painted. But the story is full of marvelous wit and wonderful lines, as Oscar always is.” He shrugged and sat back, smiling. “Of course, there are those in the establishment who are furious, saying it is depraved, evil and so on. But what do you expect? A work of art accepted by everyone is damned from the start. There can hardly be a more explicit way of demonstrating that it has nothing whatsoever to say! If you don’t offend anyone at all, you might as well not bother to speak. You obviously have nothing to say.”
“I must get
“There is talk he may publish it in a book.”
“What is it called? I must know!”
“ ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey.’ ”
“Wonderful! I shall read it-probably several times.”
So shall I, Emily thought to herself, moving away as the two men started to discuss the deeper implications of the story. But I shall not tell Jack. He might not understand.
She was beginning to feel a little dizzy, and certainly very tired. She was not used to so much smoke in the air. In polite society gentlemen retired from the main apartments in order to smoke. There were rooms specifically set aside for it, so as not to offend those who did not, and special jackets worn, not to carry the smell back into the rest of the house.
She looked across and saw Tallulah. She was flirting with a languid young man in green, but it seemed more a thing of habit than of any real intent. Emily had no idea what time it was, but all intelligence said it must be very late indeed. She had no way of going home, except with Tallulah. She could not leave alone and wander the streets looking for a hansom at this hour of the morning. Any men around, any policemen, would take her for a prostitute. Since the uproar four years ago about prostitution generally, and the purge on pornography, all sorts of decent women had been arrested walking about in daylight in the wrong areas, let alone at this hour.
A fraction unsteadily, she made her way across the room, stopping by the chair and looking down at Tallulah.
“I think it is time we excused ourselves,” she said clearly, at least she meant it to be clear. “It has been delightful, but I should like to be home in time for breakfast.”
“Breakfast?” Tallulah blinked. “Oh!” She sat upright sharply. “Oh yes, the mundane world that eats breakfast. I suppose we must return.” She sighed. It seemed as if she had already forgotten the young man, and he did not seem disconcerted. His attention turned as easily to someone else.
They found Reggie quite quickly, and he was amiable enough to be willing to leave, wandering outside with Emily on one arm and Tallulah on the other. He woke his coachman and they all climbed into the carriage, half asleep, Reggie closing the door behind them with difficulty. There was already a pale fin of light in the east, and the earliest traffic on the roads.
No one had asked Emily where she lived, and as she sat jolting gently as they moved along the riverbank, then turned north, she looked at the sleeping figure of Reggie Howard in the light of the lamps they passed under, and hesitated to ask him to take her home first. They were going in the wrong direction. She would have to wait.
They stopped rather abruptly in Devonshire Street. Reggie woke with a start.
“Ah. Home,” he said, blinking. “Let me assist you.” He fumbled to open the door, but the footman was there before him, offering his hand to Tallulah, and then to Emily.
“You’d better stay with me tonight,” Tallulah said quickly. “You don’t want to arrive home at this hour.”
Emily hesitated only a moment. Perhaps this was also a polite way of allowing her to know that Reggie’s carriage was not available for her any further. It was quite true; it would be easier to explain to Jack that she spent the night with Tallulah than that she was out until four in the morning at a party in Chelsea with artists and writers of the highly fashionable decadent school.
“Thank you.” She scrambled out with more haste than grace. “That is most generous of you.” She also thanked Reggie, and the footman, and then as the carriage rumbled away, she followed Tallulah across the pavement, through the areaway doors and into the back yard, where the scullery entrance was apparently unlocked.
Tallulah stood in the kitchen. She looked surprisingly fragile in the first cold daylight, away from the gas lamps’ glow and the velvet hangings. She was framed instead by the wooden dresser with the rows of dishes, the copper pans hanging on the wall, and the flour bins, the black kitchen range to the left. Clean linen hung on the airing rack above, and there was a smell of dried herbs and strings of onions in the air.
It would not be long before the first maids were up to clear out the stove and black it and light it ready for Cook to begin breakfast.
The same would shortly be happening in Emily’s own home.
Tallulah took a deep breath and let it out soundlessly. She turned to lead the way up towards the stairs. Emily followed, tiptoeing, so as not to be heard by the early-waking servants.
On the landing Tallulah stopped outside a guest room door.
“I’ll lend you a gown,” she said very quietly. “And I’ll send my maid in the morning.” She winced. “At least about eight o’clock. Nobody’ll breakfast very early … I don’t think. Actually …” She looked at Emily with a sudden misery in her face. “Actually, it’s not a very good time, at the moment. Something rather wretched has happened.” Her voice was no more than a whisper. “A woman of the streets was murdered off the Whitechapel Road somewhere, and the police found an old club badge there that belonged to my brother. They actually came to the house asking questions.” She shuddered. “Of course he didn’t have anything to do with it, but I’m terrified they won’t believe him.” She stared at Emily, waiting for her to say something.
“I’m sorry,” Emily said sincerely. “It must be awful for you. Perhaps they’ll discover the real person quickly.” Then her habitual curiosity broke through. “Where did they find the badge?”
“In her room, where she was killed.” Tallulah bit her lip and her fear was naked in her face, accentuated in the sharp shadows cast by the faint light of a gas lamp glowing dimly at the stairhead and the daylight beginning to show through the landing windows.
“Oh.” There was nothing comforting Emily could say to that. She was not shocked that Tallulah’s brother should use a prostitute. She was worldly enough to have known such things for years. It was not even impossible that he had actually killed her. Somebody had. Perhaps he had not meant to. It could have been a quarrel over money. She might have attempted to rob him. Emily knew from Pitt that such things happened. It did not take a
