Chapter Text
February 14, 1895, City of London, Greater London, Great Britain
Harvey Barnegat
London was booming with life and color too, rain left reflections of wet smudges on the streets as carriages and horses and horse-and-buggies came by. Harvey sat in a shared carriage, with Robbie sitting beside him, Max on Robbie’s other side, and Ada and Maudlin across from them.
Robbie, passing out lilies of the valley, says with a bit of a smirk, “same rules as last time apply, handsome gentlemen and lovely ladies. Make sure the flower is visible, and stay away from the marquess. Most attendees will be wearing flowers this time.”
“That’s a rule now? About the marquess? Shame.” Ada sighs, taking one and feeding it through a buttonhole. “He bought a ticket, he opened himself to having a pleasant chat with us.”
“Please, his son harasses us enough.” Harvey slips one into his own breast pocket. A chorus of laughter resounds at that remark. It’s mostly quite tipsy laughter, as they’d left from dinner at Maudlin and Henry’s estate and dinner with them always meant drinks.
“Besides,” Max mentions as he takes a flower, adjusting his collar as Maudlin takes the last and Robbie gently pats his own lily of the valley. “If they’d stayed apart in October we wouldn’t have to deal with Queensberry.”
They all look at Robbie, who rolls his eyes while saying, “do not remind me. If Bosie’s here I might throw a fit of my own.”
“You know he will be.” Maudlin laughs, fixing her own dark maroon taffeta dress as the coachman opens the door. “Undoubtedly with another pretentious straw hat, likely from Algeria.”
“Algeria,” Harvey sighs, stepping out of the carriage first and onto the steps up to St. James’ Theater in London. “Who goes to Algeria on holiday?”
The opening night of The Importance of Being Earnest goes wonderfully, despite the empty seat in one of the first rows of the theater that Robbie whispers down the row of playgoers in their group about. Apparently the Marquess of Queensberry’s ticket had been cancelled; he’d been plotting to throw a bouquet of rotten fruit during Oscar’s bow at the play’s conclusion.
Maudlin and Henry laugh particularly hard at this, trying to hide behind her fan.
But the audience is enthralled, Oscar wears a quite obviously proud face, and endless cheering ensues as the cast—and then Oscar—have their curtain bows. No fruit is thrown, yet it is found at the theatre doors, and the group’s endless chatter continues into their respective carriages. Harvey wistfully looks out the window, Henry and Maudlin were again hosting the party afterwards and he’d agreed to attend despite feeling strong urges to go home and paint.
“I thought it was brilliant!” Max praises, “sure I’d heard the premise but the actual execution was brilliant. Oscar was glowing!”
“Agreed,” Robbie says, leaning back and on Harvey. “It would’ve been a tragedy for his night to be overshadowed by rotten fruit. And really, rotten fruit? Who does Queensberry think he is?”
Ada fixes the brooch on her waistcoat, “I must tell Ernest he missed out severely, that was wonderful. And Maudlin, darling, you’re always so kind to host parties.”
Looking happy to accept the praise, Maudlin brushes off her skirt. “We’ve got the estate and the staff and the money, why not? It was Henry’s idea anyway. And Oscar’s a dear friend of his from Oxford, you know this. I heard him telling Bosie Queensberry was stalking outside St. James.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” says Max, twirling the now-wilting lily in his lap. “Probably was pacing around the entrance all night but damfino.”
“But surely he wouldn’t follow us to the Molly House,” Ada starts, and Maudlin hits her with her rather large feathered fan.
“You hush up, my estate is not a Molly House!”
“It kind of is,” Harvey laughs, running a hand through his dirty blond curls. They were slicked back nicely at the beginning of the evening, but he grew rather lax in his seat and started shaking out the gel. He too is hit in the face with the white-feathered fan, and Maudlin changes the conversation while Harvey stares out the window again with as much unreasonably dramatic melancholy as he can muster. It’s dark now, a clear mid-February night now that the rain from this afternoon let up.
He appreciates the scenery. How light from glowing streetlamps bounces off the street and buildings, the women dressed in their evening finery and men with top hats and cloaks, lots with fashionable canes and some of the women with long swing coats. February was cold without a doubt, but had not iced over. Wishing he could paint the scenery of an earlier-soaked London night, Harvey turns back to the conversation and draws the window curtain shut. His companions have drifted the conversation to Max’s newest caricatures and Ada’s anonymous work, respectively.
Hidden between them, Robbie finds Harvey’s hand.
Harvey accepts the hand, holding it in his own and giving a light squeeze. Robbie smiles in the direction of his lap, and then laughs at something Max said.
At the rather large Royspierre Estate, Henry welcomes guests by the door. He hobbles over to the carriage with his cane—the baron had taken a nasty fall a week ago on some ice—and helps Maudlin out and down first. While there was a bit of an age gap, Maudlin and Henry were quite the happy couple. She was gorgeous, a lithe figure with a downturned nose, fair skin, rosy cheeks and lips with scandalously heavy use of rouge, long curly hair always expertly pinned up with diamond brooches and the occasional hat. Her pride remained in her luxury dresses though, tonight’s had been a dark maroon taffeta with black lace detailing.
Henry’s black hair was pepper grey at the ends of loose curls, he had a neatly trimmed and short beard, and his mustache curled and smile lines were deep. His face was not yet pinkish red with drink. The baron carried himself with a certain pompous attitude, which tended to dissolve when in the company of friends. A shorter man with dress perhaps twenty years out of date, but a loyal and very wealthy friend.
“The house is crowded,” he says in excitement, reaching to help Ada down but she picks up her skirts and helps herself with a snarky glare at him. Harvey is next, then Robbie who looks like he could use a nap, and then Max before Henry sends the driver to the stables and dismisses him for the night.
“Always a good sign,” Maudlin says as her husband delicately kisses her hand, “we were just talking about how long everyone clapped, and the wonderful actors. Oscar’s truly a genius.”
“You say that like you doubted him,” laughs Robbie, his steps slower up the stairs to the estate as Henry’s injury more or less holds their pace back.
“Speak of the devil,” Max says, taking a jog up to where Mr. Wilde himself stands with a drink in the doorway. Bosie is of course on his arm, wearing a shallow straw hat with a red and white ribbon around it. Oscar shakes his hand with a grin.
“Oh, you’re talking about me? One would think you a gossip, Max.” Oscar laughs, stepping inside to make way as Ada comes through the door, and they exchange a kiss on the cheek. Henry stubbornly tries to speed up his pace only for Maudlin to sigh and put a hand out to slow him down.
Harvey steps through the door, nodding to the shorter blond. “Is that a new hat, Bosie? It suits you.” He doesn’t conceal the sarcasm of his tone, but Bosie quite pretentiously fixes his collar.
“I quite agree, it is a nice sennet.” Robbie begins, only to be cut off snappishly.
“It is not a sennet, Ross, I bought it in Algeria. I am not part of the Navy!”
Ada snorts. “Correction, if I may. Oscar bought it.”
“Likely.” Max laughs.
The playwright in question hums, and tolerates a glare from Bosie as he says, “yes, yes I did.”
“I thought you said you invited Mr. Alexander?”
“I did.” Oscar responds to Reggie.
“Maybe he doesn’t like you.” Bosie suggests from his seat on the back of the couch. Oscar, sitting next to him but on the actual cushion, had lectured briefly that Bosie might fall and hit his head. He now has an arm wrapped around the younger man’s leg to prevent such an incident.
Oscar sighs in dismay, “he produced my play! We’re quite good friends.”
Harvey chuckles, and looks up to the chandeliers. The party is in full swing, he thinks he even saw Maudlin and Henry as one of the couples twirling around an open space despite the latter’s bad leg. The walls are lined with paintings, one of Maudlin that Harvey himself did, and drinks are flowing. Robbie, who has slumped against him and sits on the couch with Max sitting on a pouf on the floor to do some inking on a caricature on the coffee table, has abandoned his own glass of dark amber liquid. Reginald’s cigarette smoke drafts, but Reggie’s not the only one puffing. The world is dark outside; peaceful, save for the music and chatter and light that must be apparent a block away.
Reggie clears his throat again. “Harvey! Goodness boy, it’s not that loud in here. I was speaking to you.”
Snapping back to the conversation, Harvey turns to the other man. Bosie is swaying, laughing with his own drink. Oscar pulls him back down to the couch and to his side. “Yes, Reginald? My apologies.” Harvey blinks, coming back to the conversation.
“None of them, I’m joking. And call me Reggie, please, you’re the only one that doesn’t. How long has it been since we met? Five years now?”
Harvey laughs and nods, “it would seem so. You were asking me something?”
“Oh, yes,” Reggie affirms with a smile, his mustache quirking up, “where are you from again? You sound English by now but I know you’re American.”
“Vermont. It’s… northeast in the states, far right and up on a map, borders Canada,” Harvey pats Robbie’s head, starting to card through his hair. “It is very cold and I come from a tiny town called Bridgeton, where my father was the mayor and one of the founders.”
Reginald nods, “so you have family there? Is he still the mayor?”
With a bit of a wince, Harvey shakes his head. “He died in ‘87, a few months before I came here. There were some events that prompted me to leave and his death was one of them. Meant to come on holiday, decided to stay.”
“Long holidays are fun.” Max stretches his back out.
“Indeed. Sometimes one should start their life over, especially in a place like London.” Oscar smiles, raising his glass. “And my condolences.”
Harvey does appreciate the gesture, and lifts his own for a moment. “Thank you, Oscar, I suppose. I’m the oldest child, wasn’t really up to taking the spot at the head of the table. And yes, Reggie, I do still have family there. We fell out of touch, though. Two younger brothers and my mother, then my sister married an Austrian-Hungarian baron and moved to Vienna with him.”
Reginald nods, and Oscar mentions, “I remember quite a lot about America, but if I went to Vermont it must have slipped my mind.”
“You’re not forgetting much, it’s a lot of wilderness and trees.” Harvey says with a sigh, swirling the bit of drink left in his glass. He throws it back.
Max, with a bit of a look in his eye, asks, “so Oscar, after a wild success, pun intended, do you dare work on anything else?”
After the congregation of men laugh for a moment and Oscar thinks pretty hard, he comes to the conclusion of, “fairly, I’d like to, but the success of The Importance of Being Earnest is really what I’d like to focus on!” He says, preening, and there’s a series of glasses raised. Oscar takes a deep breath, “besides, with what went on with the marquess I can hope that he’ll finally decide to give it a break.”
“Meddling runs in their blood, he’s going to keep at it.” Harvey eyes the tall Irishman, and gestures with his drink to Bosie, who looks properly offended.
“Still, we can hope.” Max laughs, leaning back against the couch.
Oscar sighs, raising his glass once more. “Max, Reggie, Harvey, Robbie. Refill your glasses gentlemen. A toast to the wondrous years ahead!”