Several days later, Wilde, Conan Doyle, and Stoddart made good on their threat to request a guided tour of London from me. I relented on the condition that they surrender to my whims as a tour guide and let me plan the evening. When I told Charlie my intended route, she insisted she help to make it something they’d never forget, and together we hatched our plot.
The men met me outside Parliament, near enough to Stoddart’s rented flat in Pimlico that he could walk there without elaborate directions. From there we strolled up to the government buildings which had been constructed on the grounds of what was once Whitehall Palace.
“Gentlemen, I assume you know the history of Whitehall?” I said as we approached the façade to the banqueting house. Conan Doyle and Wilde did, so I gave a brief history for Stoddart’s benefit.
“Originally known as York Place when it was owned by the Archbishop of York in the thirteenth century, it was rebuilt in the fifteenth century, and then expanded so much by Cardinal Wolsey between 1514 and 1528 that it rivaled Lambeth Palace for opulence and greatness. In fact, it was so much grander than even the king’s London Westminster residence that in 1529, when Henry VIII removed Wolsey for failing to get the pope to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Henry decided to acquire York Place for his own. Henry married Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour at Whitehall Palace, and he built a bowling green, tennis court, a pit for cock-fighting, and a tilting yard for jousting on the grounds. By the time the palace burned to the ground in 1698, it had grown to fifteen hundred rooms – bigger than the Vatican and Versailles at the time.”
I pointed up at the elegant structure as we passed it. “The Banqueting House is the only remaining building of the Whitehall Palace complex, but there are other pieces that remain as well. The cock-fighting pit and tennis court survive, for example, and hidden under this—” we stood in front of the government Finance Building, which I knew would one day be rebuilt as the Ministry of Defense, “—is Henry VIII’s wine cellar.”
The three men listened with avid fascination, and a look of such delight danced across Oscar’s face that I couldn’t help my own answering grin. The government offices had been closed for several hours. Full dark had fallen, and there were no gaslights in this part of the government complex. With boldness I found intriguing, Conan Doyle tried the door and found it locked. “But how do we get in, man?” he asked urgently.
I brandished a key which Jess had lifted that day. “I know a guy,” I said cryptically, using words and a tone lifted straight out of twentieth century gangster movies. Wilde burst out in uproarious laughter, and I raised an eyebrow at him in my best imitation of parental disapproval until he quieted the volume. Finally, I unlocked the door.
“If you’ll just follow me please?”
When everyone was inside, I fastened the door behind us so as not to alert cautious night watchmen to our presence, and then led the men to a large storage room on the lower level of the building. In the space behind a shelving unit was a heavy door. I had taken the liberty of picking the old lock earlier, and the door swung open with a groan of weight and age.
The stairs down were old wood, as the door had been, and were cut from thick planks. The darkness into which they stretched was dispelled by strategically placed flickering candles.
“What’s this? Are we expected?” Conan Doyle’s Scottish burr was more pronounced than usual, perhaps a function of caution, but he stepped forward resolutely and descended the stairs.
Wilde followed directly, and Stoddart hesitated only a moment before he, too, went down the steps. I was last and closed the heavy door behind us.
Charlie waited in the middle of the spectacularly Gothic underground room, with soaring arches held aloft by sturdy columns, and an unbroken brick floor. She had a blanket set out on the floor, and an elaborate picnic supper spread upon it. Oscar gasped and clapped his hands like a schoolboy when he saw her rise to greet them.
“Mrs. Devereux, you astound me!”
“Welcome to King Henry’s wine cellar,” she said with a beautiful smile.
Introductions were made, glasses of port were poured, and hearty sandwiches were consumed as we all admired the architecture and fine brickwork of the room built by a cardinal and stolen by a king.
Oscar regaled the other men with descriptions of Charlie’s extraordinary art, which launched him into a lengthy discussion about Aestheticism in art versus political or social statement pieces. Oscar argued that there is great value in making art purely for the sake of beauty, a sentiment I remembered him expounding upon during our initial meeting the year before. It was an idea he would hold as gospel for the whole of his life, despite the undercurrents of political and social commentary that ran through his writing.
“But what is the point of creating something that has no meaning?” Stoddart argued.
“All art, my dear man, is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors,” Oscar said importantly.
Stoddart looked ready to argue when Charlie disarmed him with a smile.
“I draw things as I see them,” said my wife with the quiet confidence she had gained during the months she’d spent as the adopted daughter of a sixteenth-century noblewoman, “not as I declare them to be. What is true for me may hold no meaning for you, Mr. Stoddart, or you, Mr. Wilde. I believe we are all a product of our experiences, and as mine have been very different from yours, so too will be the meaning I give to a painting, a story, or a piece of music. Unlike my delightful friend, Oscar, I quite enjoy finding meaning in art, but I recognize it is mine to generate, regardless of the artist’s intentions for his or her audience.”
Oscar positively beamed at Charlie, and Stoddart seemed to consider her words thoughtfully. “You have given me much to absorb, Mrs. Devereux. I thank you for your insight.”
When we had finished our evening’s sustenance, we packed up the blanket and baskets and helped Charlie gather the candles. I closed the heavy wooden door of the Whitehall wine cellar softly behind us as Wilde continued his sermon on art in his usual boisterous tones.
“Oscar, if you would be so good as to remain silent until we’re out of the building, it would aid us greatly in the avoidance of undue attention,” I said quietly. Three sets of startled eyes turned on me when they realized I was serious, and Stoddart appeared about to start sputtering in indignation at the idea that he’d be party to anything which required hiding. I held up a hand for silence. A watchman’s light shone in through a window, then continued on down the row of glass until the night outside became dark again.
I finally nodded, and everyone seemed to take a breath before falling into line as we slipped out through the door. I could see the tension in their shoulders, and wondered if I hadn’t miscalculated their desire for adventure. I locked the door behind me and pocketed the key, then led Charlie to the side street where a hackney waited. The men remained silent and somewhat tense as Jess stepped out of the small carriage that she’d held for us, and I helped Charlie inside.
“Don’t wait up,” I said to Charlie as I slipped Jess the key and she seated herself next to my wife.
“Don’t let them get you into trouble,” she answered, then narrowed her eyes playfully at Oscar. Her tone seemed to lighten something in the mood of the men, and I felt myself relax. “You have the most wonderful voice for oration I’ve ever heard, Oscar, but you’re an abysmal sneak. Take some lessons from my husband on the proper deportment of a thief, at least for tonight,” she said.
His look of astonishment made her giggle. “Off you go,” I said as I slapped the hackney, and the driver snapped the reins.
I finally turned to face the men and their judgement. “We’re not going to steal anything tonight, are we?” Conan Doyle said in low tones that hinted at concern.
I said gravely, “There will be no theft, deliberate or otherwise. I am a reformed thief, however, which grants me certain skills of which we will have need on our tour.”
The surprise on Oscar’s face was replaced by a creeping smile. “You’ve been telling the truth all along, haven’t you? A reformed thief indeed,” he snorted. “Well, it’s clear that a little breaking and entering never hurt anyone. Come, gentlemen, this game is most definitely afoot.”
Conan Doyle’s groan was laced with good humor, and Stoddart just looked mildly bewildered as we made our way up the street.
My walking tour of London was less of the “this building was built in 1842 by so and so architect,” and more of the “there is a secret door in that attic which affords direct access to the library” variety. I regaled them with my discovery of an old operating theatre in the garret of St. Thomas’s Church in Southwark which had been forgotten for nearly thirty years, and a plague pit under St. Bride’s Church that was closed up and hidden after a cholera epidemic in 1854. I pulled Stoddart away from a shop window before he could become the victim of an opportunistic pickpocket, and then chased away a gang of street rats who tried to surround him when he stopped to tie his shoe. By the time we arrived at the Grosvenor Gallery, I had shown my companions the entrances to several secret tunnels, and taken them into a hidden garden built on a burial ground. In the garden, I jumped up onto the wall and cat-walked across the top of it, then climbed an apple tree and plucked four ripe apples that I threw down to the men. Then, as we ate our apples, I explained a common getaway path – from the wall, up a tree, across two roofs, and down a series of drainpipes to an access into the Tyburn River tunnel. The shocked expressions on their faces at both my display of acrobatics and my intimate knowledge of the escape routes of criminals might have been entertaining if I had been convinced that the men wouldn’t actually call the constables on me. As we continued our tour, however, I was reassured by the speculative look on Oscar’s face that led me to believe he had accepted the truth of my past profession and hadn’t judged me too harshly for it.
I wasn’t sure exactly why I had decided to be so open about my past, except that the months of hiding in my own city had left a sour taste in my mouth. Frankly, I’d been bored, and any young child knew that an instant cure for boredom was the rush of adrenaline that a little danger brought with it.
“As you may know, the Grosvenor Gallery closed down this year, and its walls are now empty of the art that hung here for nearly fifteen years,” I said as we arrived at 135 New Bond Street.
“I reviewed the gallery when it first opened, and then again for another show two years later,” said Wilde in a subdued yet enthusiastic voice. “It was a remarkable place, and truly dedicated to advancing the ideals of Aestheticism.”
The padlock on the side gate was one of those substantial ones intended to look menacing. To me and my lock picks it just meant that the tumblers were bigger and more easily accessed. “Wilde, will you please use your considerable size to shield me from casual view of the street for a few moments? And Stoddart, if you wouldn’t mind holding a candle just here?”
The men did as I asked without comment, and Conan Doyle even stepped a little forward to act as lookout. The lock clicked open in less than a minute, and a few seconds later we were inside the yard that stretched behind the gallery.
Massive machines rose up from the cement like the standing stones of a druid ring, casting shadows around the yard that concealed cables and junctions. “Behold, one of London’s first private electric power substations,” I said quietly.
“A power station at an art gallery? But why?” whispered Stoddart.
“Sir Coutts Lindsey wanted electric lights,” said Wilde, looking around him in wonder. “I had no idea this was here, or that it was so very big.”
“The power they generated here was enough to sell to neighbors around them,” I said as I walked around the massive boilers that stood next to coal hoppers to feed the fires. “It’s filthy business though, burning the coal to make steam.” Coal dust covered every surface, and with a shudder, I recalled the photos I’d seen in a history book of the thick, pea-soup fog all this coal smoke would cause in the Great Smog of 1952.
“Technology generally is,” said Wilde. Not if I can help it, I thought as I considered the huge machines. Stoddart and Conan Doyle were happily examining the giant dynamo generators in the yard, exclaiming in delight over the ingenuity of the system. As impressive as it was, I knew I could do better than this, and I wouldn’t be using steam to generate the power for my house.
“Psst! Ringo,” Wilde whispered to me as he opened a door at the back of the gallery that he had found unlocked. I grinned at his brazen entry, and then followed him in.
The interior of the gallery was empty of course. The air was cold, and the gilt, silk-covered walls were bare of paintings, while the ceiling above was glass with iron bracework that looked like the skeleton of a great beast. Wilde contemplated the silk walls sadly. “So many Aesthetes exhibited here – Whistler … Frederick Leighton … did you know that nearly a quarter of the artists on display here were women? Can you imagine the Royal Academy of Arts being so avant garde?” Wilde scoffed quietly. “The public can forgive everything but genius, and in this place the genius abounded unforgivably.”
He wandered around the room a few more paces, and then his gaze held a spot on one wall. “Leighton’s Pavonia spoke the sort of magic that wends its way into men’s souls. Her eyes wove tales of bright laughter and deep loves, and one could hear the whispers of secrets from lips that never moved. Pavonia is a painting worthy of the meaning your lovely wife insists we all ascribe to the art that moves us. And yet Leighton himself—” Wilde made a dismissive gesture. “The only artists I have known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are.”
“I’ve seen some of Leighton’s work, but not Pavonia. You make it sound extraordinary.” I’d gone to a gallery show of Victorian artists with Charlie in the twenty-first century, just before we were married. She had admired Leighton’s work greatly, and although I didn’t lay any claim to understanding art, I knew that his paintings had impressed me.
Oscar turned to me and seemed to come back to himself. His eyes narrowed and an eyebrow arched up suggestively, making me wonder if he had somehow known that my own memories had been of a future time. “I happen to know that Leighton is in France at some conference or other. I would like to show you his Pavonia. If I take you to his house, would you help us get in?”
I scowled at him. “He certainly has staff at his house, and I have no interest in becoming overly friendly with Scotland Yard.”
He waved his hand. “He has a butler and a maid, and they live on the bottom floor, far from the studio. Come, all this talk of art and secrecy this evening has made me hungry for both, and a painting one must view in secret fits the bill perfectly.”
“Charlie told you not to get me into trouble,” I said sternly.
“It has become clear to me that you, my dear young man, are entirely capable of getting yourself both into and out of your own trouble. For one who lived such a colorful early life, your choice to hide in your lovely Grayson House is an interesting one. It is safe, yes, but I believe you are a man for whom safety is a straitjacket that binds your mind as well as your limbs.”
He gestured outside to the electrical generating plant. “I can see the blueprints for technology beginning to ink themselves in your brain. Now it’s time to light the fuse on your imagination with art you’ve risked something to experience.”
I sighed, but there was a smile hiding in it when I answered him. “Your power to compel is very nearly dangerous in its effectiveness.” I studied him with a critical eye. Oscar had worn a dark velvet coat for our night out, which would serve our purposes perfectly. I, on the other hand, would likely need a fist full of coal dust to accomplish the task at hand. My wife had begun a collection of all the things she found in my pockets, but I doubted she would be amused by the coal dust she’d find tomorrow if I didn’t remember to dump it before I got home.
I held the door for Wilde to exit the gallery. “I think we should bid goodnight to the two very upright gentlemen with us, as I don’t feel their morality can bend beyond empty government buildings and abandoned galleries.” I picked up a handful of coal dust from the yard with a smirk of amusement. “You, however, have the morals of a cat on the trail of a very tasty mouse.”