Creatures of Will and Temper Read online

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Part One

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  Part Two

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  Part Three

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  Epilogue: One Year Later

  Acknowledgments

  Read More from John Joseph Adams Books

  About the Author

  Connect with HMH

  Copyright © 2017 by Molly Tanzer

  All rights reserved

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  www.hmhco.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 978-1-328-71026-0

  Cover illustration © Eduardo Recife

  eISBN 978-1-328-71036-9

  v1.1017

  For Nick

  Author’s Note

  In his preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde said, “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.” Readers disagreed—Dorian Gray was widely condemned; one critic even went so far as to say it would “taint every young mind that comes into contact with it.”

  It was the homosexuality in Dorian Gray that was of paramount concern at the time, a motif that Wilde elected to elide in later editions. But another reason critics expressed dismay was over the lack of “punishment” for the eponymous character. Dorian Gray may die at the end of Wilde’s novel, but he faces no retribution. Dorian’s death comes not at the hands of some righteous avenger, but rather by his own.

  Wilde also said, “The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.” To his mind, then, art’s purpose—its obligation—is to be good, even if the result is a work fundamentally at odds with the desires of the morality police when it comes to establishing (or maintaining) social order.

  The author of this book agrees that art ought to exist for its own purposes—that if there is any “ought” to art at all, it is that art’s primary motivator ought not to be pedagogy. For that reason, Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray was the perfect template upon which to base Creatures of Will and Temper. After all, Dorian Gray is fundamentally a moral novel. If it truly were amoral, as Wilde maintains, Dorian’s excesses would not corrupt his perfect painted image. Either that or the reader would feel no sympathy for the innocent victims of Dorian’s outrages.

  But what if Dorian had no victims? What if his quest for aesthetic experiences were not portrayed as a journey into a moral and spiritual underworld? As in life, matters would not be nearly so clear-cut, nor would they be so easily and neatly resolved.

  While this novel diverges in several significant ways from Wilde’s, the author intends for it to honor the spirit of the original, if not its content. Oscar Wilde once described Dorian Gray as a “fantastic variation” on Joris-Karl Huysmans’s amoral, decadent novel Against the Grain. In that tradition, Creatures of Will and Temper is a fantastic variation on The Picture of Dorian Gray—or at least one envisioned through a glass . . . not darkly, but brightly.

  —MT, 2017

  Prologue

  What love, violence, art, and sport are to many, diabolism is to few: simply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations.

  —On the Summoning of Demons

  The French doors stood open, letting in a breeze that stirred the plants on the veranda like playful fingers, but it remained stubbornly, oppressively hot in Basil Hallward’s studio. The heat intensified the odor of oil paints, canvas, and turpentine, as well as the heavy perfume of crushed flowers, but it was such a pleasure to look upon her friend as he painted that Lady Henrietta Wotton did not stir from the divan upon which she lay, a cigarette dangling between her fingers, the smoke of which carried the curiously potent odor of fresh ginger.

  Basil did not speak as he worked, as was his custom—and while it was hers to comment on matters of the day as he dabbed and daubed, today she only watched. She was content to simply hearken to the muffled rumblings of London that filtered faintly into the room from beyond the little oasis of Basil’s townhouse and patio garden.

  The reason for Lady Henry’s quietude was respect for her friend’s recent poor health, as well as for his subject matter. Basil was hard at work on a portrait—in fact, was very close to finishing it. It was a unique piece—Basil typically painted only from life, and yet, much to their mutual dismay, the subject of this picture was no longer counted among the living. Even so, the painting had the startling appearance of vitality; its colors were not those of grief, nor was its subject somber in his funereal portrait. The slender man was laughing, just as he had done in life, standing carelessly against a pillar with his hands in his pockets, his expensive suit as artfully rumpled as his fair hair. And though said hair had a touch of gray in it, he was consummately youthful in appearance, and seemed as untouched by sorrow as a boy half his age.

  Basil, however, looked years older than when he had begun to paint the piece, though it had only been a few months since he had applied gesso to the canvas.

  Lady Henry raised the fragrant cigarette to her lips and inhaled deeply. As the mingled essences of the tobacco and ginger hit her bloodstream, she felt the independent presence that always lurked at the back of her mind stir slightly, acknowledging what she saw—seeing for itself, but through Lady Henry’s eyes. A sense of appreciation and longing touched her consciousness as the colors intensified. The shapes became more shapely; the beauty, more beautiful.

  I miss him so much, she thought.

  The presence lovingly acknowledged but did not partake of her sorrow. She did not expect it to. The demon that had been her constant companion for over a decade could not feel regret. It was not a part of its nature. Currently, it was more concerned with the painting. It really was as perfect a reproduction of the man as was possible. Lady Henry would know, for she had known the subject all his life. He was—or rather, he had been—her brother. Her twin, in fact. The only person in the world who might have known him better was the one who painted him now—the dark, brooding Dionysus to the brilliant Apollo on the canvas. Now that there was more silver mixed in with the black of Basil’s hair, he was even more the night, if the man in the painting was the day.

  With a heavy sigh, Basil set down his brush and stepped back.

  “Are you finished?” asked Lady Henry.

  “I’ve done as much as I can today without risking muddying it,” he replied.

  “Well then, let’s step outside and have a cocktail,” she suggested. “Or champagne? I don’t think it’s too early to celebrate your triumph. It’s your best work yet.” She paused. “Though before I get excited, I suppose I should ask if you have any decent champagne in the house?”

  “By whose standards—yours, or mine?” It made her heart glad to hear him chuckle, even if it was only an echo of his former hearty laugh. “Decent enough to mix with absinthe, I’d imagine.”

  “Lovely,” said Lady Henry. “Let’s do that.”

  She rose as Basil rang the bell, and in a cacopho
ny of crackling joints, stretched her arms, back, and legs. Lady Henry was wiry and fair, like her brother had been—youthful, but clearly in her middle years—and she, too, cut a dashing figure in her sack coat and trousers. Even before her brother’s death Lady Henry Wotton had scandalized London society by wearing men’s clothing in public, but while she and her twin had been built along the same lines, Oliver’s suits had been too large in the shoulder and too tight in the hips. She knew, for she’d tried them all on in hopes of pinching them.

  After his death, she had had his wardrobe tailored to her own measurements, and not just because Oliver’s taste had been impeccable. She missed her brother every day, and it comforted her to wear his clothes.

  A maid appeared without a sound, bearing a chilled bottle in a bucket filled with ice, and then departed just as silently as Basil uncorked it with a faint hiss. After splashing absinthe in two coupes, he topped them off with the champagne and handed one over to Lady Henry.

  “To your finest work yet,” said Henry, toasting her friend as she admired the painting from afar. “I do hope when you’re finished you’ll bring it round and show it off to our—or rather my—colleagues? Give us the first look, before you send it anywhere?”

  “I don’t think I shall send it anywhere . . . at least, not for some time,” answered Basil, his back to the painting. Henry wondered if he was trying not to look at it.

  “Why on earth not?”

  “Don’t laugh at me, but it is too personal. The wound is too fresh. I cannot have it judged by anyone, or remarked upon by common people. Or uncommon people, for that matter . . . save for you.”

  Henry gave him a playful smile. “Really? Only me?”

  Basil looked a bit uncomfortable. “Yes, though I know, of course, that you are never truly alone.”

  The demon stirred again in Henry’s mind, hearing itself referred to, though obliquely.

  “Neither was Oliver,” said Henry gently.

  “I know, I know, but neither does that mean I am eager to show off this canvas to my former social circle.”

  Henry almost choked on a swallow of champagne. “Former! But surely you do not mean your absence at my gatherings to be a permanent one?”

  Basil did not answer; instead, he wandered onto the veranda. Henry followed him. She had designed the garden herself, and was pleased to see that enough light came in through the fronds and branches to keep the patio bright, while still creating the illusion that they were in a country garden rather than the heart of Chelsea.

  “Baz,” she said, now as serious as she had moments ago been playful, “tell me truly. Do you mean to leave us forever?”

  “And what if I did? Would you compel me to return?”

  “Never,” she said. “It is not our way.” The presence in her mind heartily agreed, but she did not tell Basil this. “But . . .”

  “But?”

  “But I will miss you! We all would. Your absence has been noticed, and not just by us.”

  “Do not speak to me of that thing!” Basil hissed, whirling around, spilling his drink all over his hand. He cursed, and hastily sucked his fingers dry. “My apologies, Harry,” he said, his voice low lest they be overheard, “but surely you must see why it is impossible. Really, I’m astonished you remain in contact with it after Oliver—after he, after they . . .”

  Henry put her hand on her friend’s shoulder and squeezed gently. “My dearest Basil, if there is one person in this world who regrets Oliver’s death more than you do, it is I. I was only his sister; the two of you, well, calling you lovers seems like an insult, given the depth of your connection. Oliver and I shared a womb, but the two of you shared a life.”

  She wandered away from Basil and set her drink down on a low table in order to withdraw another cigarette from the silver case in her breast pocket. She did not offer Basil one, and though he did not as a rule mind smoke, he wrinkled his nose when she lit it. Out of courtesy, when she exhaled, she blew away from him.

  “That said,” she continued, “he and I did share something, something that made us closer than siblings. When we decided to summon it, to invite it into our lives, our bodies, our minds, we knew what we were doing. And when Oliver did what he did . . . perhaps it does not comfort you, knowing he chose his fate, but he did choose it. You know as well as I that unlike others of its type our demon is not the sort to require that sort of sacrifice. Thus, I choose to remain a hierophant of that which has let so much beauty into my life. Beauty, after all, is the only thing that matters.”

  Agreement flooded her, body and soul, as she spoke these words. She and the demon were well suited; they were literally of one mind about most things.

  “I know he chose, Henry—I just don’t understand why.”

  “No one understands anything, not really. We only think we do. I have nothing but respect for scientists and doctors and others who study the world, but even the most rigorous among them are only looking through a keyhole of what truly is.”

  “Be that as it may, I could not bear to lose you too,” said Basil. “Oh, Harry, if you . . .”

  “You will not lose me, but try to understand that you have not lost Oliver, not really. Death is an illusion, just like anything else—like distance, for example, or time, or the separateness of one thing from another. The whole universe is only matter forming and re-forming itself, endlessly, beautifully. Nothing is ever really lost. Oliver is still with us, even if—” She saw tears standing in Basil’s eyes, and amended her speech. “Oh, Baz. I meant to speak comfort to you, but I see I’ve made you miserable. Just, know this: Oliver and I may have looked the same, and shared similar interests, but I did not condone his choice, not when he first expressed his desire to me, nor when he followed through with it. How I argued with him! But he was always so damned stubborn.”

  The presence in Henry’s mind neither agreed nor disagreed with her; it accepted what was, what had been, and what would come to pass without judgment—only with eternal, unwavering interest. She picked up her drink again, taking a delicate sip before continuing.

  “The thing is, Oliver was also less of a sensualist than I. I love this life and its pleasures too much to abandon it a moment earlier than I must. But let us leave off with this conversation. This is to be a celebration, not a wake! Even if we are celebrating the completion of a memorial.”

  Basil nodded, dashing the tears from his eyes with an unsteady hand. “When are you going to the country?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

  “My aunt will likely require me within a fortnight,” said Henry languidly, her casual tone hiding her eagerness to be done with their previous conversation. She wandered under the boughs of a potted laburnum. Its blossoms brushed over her hair and shoulders, gilding her with their pollen. “What a shame I have no excuse to put her off! I don’t like leaving my greenhouse during the growing season, or the patios of my friends. None of you really appreciate the hard work I put into cultivating these little London landscapes; it all goes to seed while I’m away. Can’t be helped, I suppose.”

  “A fortnight . . . too bad. You’ll miss my niece arriving,” said Basil. “Ah well, I assume you’ll be back before I pack her off again.”

  “Which niece? The younger or the elder?”

  Basil gave Lady Henry a stern look. “Perhaps you should stay away. I won’t have you corrupting innocents I’ve promised to protect.”

  “I’ve never in my life corrupted an innocent,” said Henry, her eyebrows quirked up nearly to her graying hairline. “That is a common thing to do, and I am not a common sort of person. And even more importantly, it’s impossible.”

  “How is that?”

  “True innocents are incorruptible. It’s only people who pretend to be innocent who have that chink in their armor that let wicked people like me inside.”

  “You are not to become familiar with my niece’s armor, thank you very much,” said Basil. “She’s only seventeen, and I have no desire to find out if she’s truly innocent, or sim
ply a pretender.”

  “Seventeen! Oh, you have nothing to worry about.” Henry shook her head, and finishing her cigarette, tossed it into the brazen Turkish bathing bowl Basil used as an ashtray. “Women under the age of twenty are all unspeakably boring—and I thought that even when I was under twenty myself, a lifetime ago. No, the wee duckling is quite safe from me, no matter what dirty-minded old men like you might think. I was hoping the one closer to thirty was coming to visit you. She’s still unmarried, isn’t she?” Henry leered at her friend.

  “I will thank you not to make lecherous remarks about either of my nieces,” said Basil primly.

  “Come now—I never objected to you pursuing my brother, did I?”

  “I knew your brother before I knew you!”

  “Ah, but you’d never have known he felt the same about you without my intervention, would you?”

  Basil blushed. “Perhaps not. Still, Dorina Gray is off limits, Henry. Completely. Do you understand me?”

  “Gray? She’s not a Hallward, like you?” Henry lit another cigarette, ignoring Basil’s rebuke just to annoy him. “I wonder if she’s as pretty as her name?”

  “I know you are only baiting me because it pleases you to do so,” said Basil. “You are the sort of woman who is ashamed of your own virtue. You pretend to be utterly without morals, but I’ve yet to see you do anything immoral, not really.”

  “The artists of today! Why, I’m astonished you’re not driven out of the city with scourges. Claiming a diabolist has never done anything immoral! Your ilk are truly beyond the pale.”

  “Hush!” he shushed her. “Don’t say that word aloud! Not out here. You can hear everything,” said Basil, looking about furtively. “Trust me, I know—a young married couple has moved in, and it’s most inconvenient.”

  “I apologize,” said Henry. “Well, so your niece is coming to town. How nice. She’s staying with you the whole time?”