Oscar Wilde and the Return of Jack the Ripper by Gyles Brandreth

Author:Gyles Brandreth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2018-12-18T16:00:00+00:00

It is hard for the general practitioner who sits among his patients both morning and evening, and sees them in their homes between, to steal time for one little daily breath of cleanly air. To win it he must slip early from his bed and walk out between shuttered shops when it is chill but very clear, and all things are sharply outlined, as in a frost. It is an hour that has a charm of its own . . .

I stopped. I reread the phrase: ‘It is an hour that has a charm of its own

I laid down my pen, I picked up my coat. Without pausing, I left my room, ran down the stairs and out into the street. On the rank outside the hotel, a two-wheeler was waiting.

I called up to the cabman: ‘John – do you know the way to Olympia?’

‘That’s not my name, sir. I’m Bill, but I knows the way to Olympia.’

‘Take me there, please, as fast as you can.’

It was not long after six. We reached the circus at a little before seven. I paid off the cab and, with a pounding heart I did not try to comprehend, pushed my way through the press of public arriving for the Friday-night performance. This was London’s alternative to the pantomime and the gathering crowd was in holiday mood. Children’s faces shone with anticipation. Fathers (proud and satisfied) held tickets aloft as they led their broods into the teeming entrance hall. Mothers (happy yet anxious) followed behind, clucking, scolding, praying the treat might work out as well as planned.

Inside the foyer the swirl of circus-goers moved hither and yon: finding and losing one another, seeking out the doorways leading to their seats, queuing for programmes, oranges and ices, gathering in clusters around the daises on which stood or lay assorted circus animals. At once, to my right, at the back of the foyer, I saw the bear cubs tied to their trivet and pushed my way towards them, but as I got close the sequined acrobat standing over them, hoop and whip in hand, turned towards me. It was not her.

Where was she? I had to find her! I stopped as the crowd churned about me. For a singular, queer moment I felt I was a man drowning in a whirlpool of heaving humanity. I rose up onto my toes and turned and turned about again – and then I saw her.

She was no more than ten feet away, standing on a stool at the foot of the main staircase. Her figure was an enchantment. She had the poise of a dancer and the vigour of an athlete. She was looking out over the heads of the crowd. Her shining dark hair was swept back and tied on top of her head in a bun. Her loveliness was not of the obvious kind. Her face had neither regularity of feature nor beauty of complexion, but her expression was sweet and amiable, and her large blue eyes were singularly spiritual and sympathetic.

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