The Gentleman

by Forrest Leo

  PENGUIN PRESS

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  penguin.com

  Copyright © 2016 by Forrest Leo

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  ISBN 9780399562631

  EBOOK ISBN 9780399562648

  Illustrations by Mahendra Singh

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Editor’s Note.

  Epigraph

  One: In Which I Find Myself Destitute & Rectify Matters in a Drastic Way.

  Two: In Which My Sister Returns from School for Reasons Best Omitted, & I Am Forced to Deliver to Her a Previously Unmentioned Piece of Intelligence.

  Three: In Which My Wife Throws a Party & I Entertain a Mysterious Gentleman with Whom I Discuss Poetry, Friendship, & Marriage.

  Four: In Which I Write Dreadful Poetry & Discover Two Other Dreadful Things.

  Five: In Which I Meet an Adventurer Who Informs Me That Things Are Not at All How I Had Thought.

  Six: In Which I Visit the Grandest Shop in the World, Where I Meet a Very Poetical Person, After Which I Have an Earth-Shattering Epiphany.

  Seven: In Which I Very Nearly Fight a Duel.

  Eight: In Which Lancaster Discovers a Breach in Lizzie’s Defences for Which I Am Unjustly Held Responsible, & We Search for a Way to Hell.

  Nine: In Which We Are Helped by a Human Encyclopaedia.

  Ten: In Which We Visit an Extraordinary Place Which Turns Out to Be Rather More Dangerous Than We Had Supposed.

  Eleven: In Which We Find Something Marvellous on Hampstead Heath.

  Twelve: In Which I Witness Something I Wish I Hadn’t.

  Thirteen: In Which Repairs Are Made.

  Fourteen: In Which Scotland Yard Makes a Mistake & I Am Glad to See Whitley Pendergast.

  Fifteen: In Which Lizzie Commits an Indiscretion to Rival All the Rest, I Nearly Fight Another Duel, We Have Several Visitors, & Matters Come to a Head.

  Sixteen: In Which the Adventurers Depart.

  Acknowledgments

  To

  Dad,

  who’d have been proud,

  and

  Frank M. Robinson,

  who taught me how

  EDITOR’S NOTE.

  I have been charged with editing these pages and seeing them through to publication, but I do not like the task. I wish it on record that I think it better they had been burned.

  —Hubert Lancaster, Esq

  In one great gulp I drank my tea and gazed

  Upon the grim and gloomy world anew—

  And gasped at how my griping eye had lied.

  The rain still fell, the wind still blew, but now

  I thought it grand! I love the rain!

  Not rain nor cloud did cloud my eye—‘twas thirst!

  —LIONEL LUPUS SAVAGE, from ‘The Epiphany’*

  One

  In Which I Find Myself Destitute & Rectify Matters in a Drastic Way.

  My name is Lionel Savage, I am twenty-two years old, I am a poet, and I do not love my wife. I loved her once, not without cause—but I do not anymore. She is a vapid, timid, querulous creature, and I find after six months of married life that my position has become quite intolerable and I am resolved upon killing myself.

  Here is how my plight came about.

  Once upon a time about a year ago, I was very young and foolish, and Simmons informed me we hadn’t any money left. (Simmons is our butler.)

  ‘Simmons,’ I had said, ‘I would like to buy a boat so that I can sail the seven seas.’

  I hadn’t, I suppose, any real notion of actually sailing the seven seas—I am not an adventurous soul, and would relinquish my comfortable seat by the fire only with reluctance. But it seemed a romantic thing to own a boat in which one could sail the seven seas, should one suddenly discover he had a mind to.

  But Simmons (whose hair is grey like a thunderhead) said with some remonstrance, ‘I’m afraid you cannot afford a boat, sir.’

  ‘I can’t afford it? Nonsense, Simmons, a boat cannot cost much.’

  ‘Even if it cost next to nothing, sir, you still could not afford it.’

  My heart sank. ‘Do you mean to tell me, Simmons, that we haven’t any money left?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, sir.’

  ‘Where on earth has it gone?’

  ‘I don’t mean to be critical, sir, but you tend toward profligacy.’

  ‘Nonsense, Simmons. I don’t buy anything except books. You cannot possibly tell me I’ve squandered my fortune upon books.’

  ‘Squander is not the word I would have used, sir. But it was the books that did it, I believe.’

  Well, there it was. We were paupers. Such is the fate of the upper classes in this modern world. I didn’t know what to do, and I dreaded telling Lizzie—she was in boarding school at the time, but even from a distance she can be quite fearsome. (Lizzie is my sister. She is sixteen.) Despite the popularity of my poetry, I was not making enough money at it to maintain our household at Pocklington Place. Another source of income was necessary.

  I set out to find one. Being a gentleman,* the trades were quite out of the question. Commerce is not a gentlemanly pursuit and sounds wretched besides. I considered physic or law, but lawyers turn my stomach and physicians are scoundrels all. I decided it must be marriage.

  Finding a suitable family to marry oneself off to might sound a bore, but turned out to be rather a lark. I sought out only families of enormous means, without bothering myself too much about social position. As such, I had a few truly unpleasant experiences—but no dull ones.

  The Babingtons were every bit as eccentric as one reads in the papers and proved entirely unsuitable. (Not that I object to eccentricity; but it is not a quality one searches for in a wife.) Sir Francis Babington and I are old friends, he having once savaged* a collection of my poetry.

  ‘Frank,’ I said one evening, having contrived to run into him while taking a turn about the Park,* ‘I suppose it’s about time I came over for dinner.’ (I abhor taking turns about the Park. I only do so when I have ulterior motives.)

  ‘Looking for a wife, Savage?’ said he.

  ‘Certainly not,’ I replied coldly. I was thrown off. I had not thought myself so transparent. I groped for a new subject but was not quick enough.

  ‘Never fear, lad, you’ll find no judgment here.’ He was laughing. Sir Francis is a ruddy and a rotund man, and his laugh is well matched to his person. ‘Been looking to unload Agnes for a while now, as a matter of fact. Helen and I ain’t particular as far as who to, and you’ll do just fine. Why don’t you come round Tuesday evening?’

  This sort of impropriety I would ordinarily celebrate, but not when auditioning fathers-in-law. I declined.

  The Pembrok
es I enjoyed greatly, but the prospect of a half-dozen sisters-in-law was untenable. (One sister is quite enough.) I made it as far as a dinner, which was proceeding reasonably well, when the littlest one (Mary? Martha?) decided to be Mr Hyde. She jumped up on the table, thumped her chest with her tiny fists, and heaved a roasted pheasant at my head. That was that.

  The Hammersmiths could have been the ticket, but their daughter was, I believe, replaced at infancy with a horse.

  I could carry on and mention the Wellingtons, Blooms, and Chapmans—but my native discretion forbids it. Suffice it to say that the field was quickly emptied of players, and my options began to run low.

  At the end of the day, in fact, the only real possibility was the Lancasters. They were rich, they were respectable and respected, and their daughter was beautiful. I will say that, whatever else I may lament—Vivien is very beautiful. Her hair is beaten gold, her eyes are a meteorological blue, her figure is—well, you have heard about her figure. It was her beauty I fell in love with first.

  The dinner at which we met was unremarkable. It was not a private affair, but something of a party. I had contrived to procure myself an invitation on the grounds of my literary fame, and it seemed most of the guests had done the same. Whitley Pendergast was there, of course, as was Mr Collier, Mr Blakeney, Mr Morley, and Lord and Lady Whicher. (Whitley Pendergast is my rival and sworn enemy, and a terrible poet besides. The rest are literary personages of some reputation and indifferent talent. Benjamin Blakeney’s Barry the Bard I hope you have not read, and Edward Collier’s Penthesilea’s Progress I fear you have. I have forgotten what mangled offspring crawled from the pens of the others.) A few ministers of state rounded out the meal, but it would be in poor taste to mention them by name.*

  I was seated between Pendergast and Vivien.

  —But I have forgotten to finish setting the scene! Easton Arms, which is the Lancasters’ place in town, is a large town house in Belgravia furnished in the best and most modern taste. They are a very modern family, though very old in name. The art on the walls was unremarkable not in execution but in choice. If you were to close your eyes and name the six artists respectable and cultured persons of no particular taste ought to have on their walls, then you will have a very good idea of what hung in Easton Arms.* I haven’t a clue as to their names, as I do not keep up with such things. But you take my meaning.

  Everything seemed gilt-edged. The mirrors, the frames of the paintings, the books on the shelves (I pulled several down and found the pages to be uncut)—even the curtains were trimmed with gold lace. The situation seemed promising. I prepared to be charming.

  I had a passing acquaintance with Lord Lancaster, who has a restless mind trapped by the constraints of domesticity and a portly person, but I had never met his wife. She turned out to be much as you imagine her to be from the papers, only rather shorter and even more terrible.

  The gentlemen of the party were enjoying cigars before dinner. I have no fondness for cigars, but I appreciate the ritual of girding up one’s loins in the fellowship of one’s own gender before mingling at table. Besides, Lord Lancaster’s smoking room is notably fine. The walls are decorated with intriguing memorabilia sent home by his son—a dozen tribal masks from a dozen countries, bits of colourful native costume, a gleaming blunderbuss—and the fireplace is large and the armchairs luxurious.

  We sprawled in that peculiarly insolent way of the male gentry, smoking expensive cigars and speaking of nothing in particular.

  Pendergast, a tragically short fellow with a peninsular nose, was attempting to be more pretentious than Collier, and was succeeding without too much effort. Every now and again he lobbed an insult my way, but I was not in the mood to test wits. I was too busy seducing Lancaster.

  ‘Are you a political man, Mr Savage?’

  ‘Not especially, my lord. I find that Politics and Art are rarely willing bedfellows; and when forced to it, Politics invariably takes Art’s virtue without so much as a by-your-leave.’

  He chuckled at that, but I did not. To never laugh at one’s own wit is a thing I learned from Pendergast. (In a nearby armchair, Pendergast at that moment answered a question I did not hear with, ‘Certainly not—I relegate such things to Mr Savage,’ and laughed loudly.)

  ‘Always wished I had time for art,’ said Lancaster. ‘Bought some paints, once, but Eleanor had ’em thrown out. Said it was an accident and blamed it on a maid, but you know how those things go. Probably for the best. Vivien, though—she inclines that way, you know.’

  ‘Does she?’ I murmured.

  ‘Certainly,’ said he. ‘You and she ought to have a talk sometime. Think you’d get on famously.’

  I was about to say something about how I should like that very much indeed, and to suggest future plans for such an acquaintance, when Lady Lancaster entered the room and curtly informed us that dinner was served and we were already late. I was nettled at the interruption. As it happened, though, I needn’t have been—for when we took our places at the table I was upon Vivien’s right.

  Of all the literati at that salon, I was perhaps the most famous. It was because of this, I am certain, that I was seated next to Vivien. Lady Lancaster has a fondness for fame. She does not court it herself, but courts those touched by it. (It is this, rather than any actual interest in the arts, which causes her to hold dinners like the one I am describing.) I was also perhaps the handsomest at the table. I mention it not out of vanity—I am not a vain man—but to emphasise the importance the Lancasters attach to appearances, and also in case you have never seen a likeness of me. I am neither tall nor short, and very slender. I have very pale skin, very dark hair which is unruly, and very blue eyes—not a blue like Vivien’s, but blue all the same. (The Lancaster blue is something akin to the sky at its bluest; the Savage blue is the sort of blue the sea turns when it is grey. If this does not make sense to you, you are not a poet.)*

  I couldn’t have known it at the time, but it was my good fortune that Vivien was approaching twenty-one and her mother felt it was past time she was married to someone in the public eye. Marriage is important to the Lancasters. It was and is a source of most acute pain to Lady Lancaster that her son is not yet domesticated. (He is at the moment in Siberia, I believe.)

  I do a tolerable job of fitting into society.* I do not flaunt my native eccentricity, nor do I endeavour to seem any more mad than I am. The poetry published under my name displays vision, refinement, learning, wit, and taste—but not insanity. That I reserve for those offerings I distribute by secret means, under noms de plume.* My fame, as I have said, is not insignificant, and it was evident that Lady Lancaster, though dragonish in demeanour, was a dragon with a keen desire to impress. (It need not be pointed out that a mercenary dragon is far more dangerous than a work-a-day dragon.)

  And so I was seated next to Vivien, and I do not believe it was an accident. Pendergast was on my right, which was a nuisance; but at the time I remember thinking it a small price to pay to sit beside one so fair.

  The dining room at Easton Arms is very grand. The table is a mile or two long, and it was laid that evening with everything from venison to wild boar to caviar to quail eggs. There were sauces which defied description and puddings which boggled the mind. The serving trays were silver, but worked with the requisite gold filigree. I was not alone among the guests in my nervousness to take food from a platter worth more than I had ever owned. We were spared, however, the terror of actually holding one of those trays by the appearance of a flotilla of footmen who served us in frankly eerie silence, controlled apparently by minute signals of Lady Lancaster’s head.

  The dinner began, and though I stole many glances at my fair neighbour, I found myself for the only time in my memory unable to begin a conversation. I spent the first course searching for a subject and feeling a coward. I could not, try as I might, speak to Vivien. I once made it so far as to venture a remark upon the weather,
but Pendergast swooped in and intercepted it.

  ‘I’ve been considering a poem about the rain, you know,’ he said, as though my comment had been meant for him.

  ‘I trust the rain is magnanimous enough to forgive whatever offence you might give it,’ I replied.

  ‘You wrote a rain poem once, didn’t you, Savage?’ called Blakeney from across the table.*

  ‘I can’t recall,’ said I. ‘I might have, but it’s foggy in my memory.’

  ‘Foggy!’ exclaimed Lady Whicher rapturously. ‘Did you hear, Henry? He said his rain poem was foggy!’

  ‘A sloppy pun, Savage,’ declared Pendergast.

  ‘I’d have made a better, but I can’t hear myself think over the noise of your cravat.’

  ‘This cravat,’ he replied pompously, ‘was given me by a French countess who expressed an affinity for my verse.’

  ‘One hears at the club that the cravat wasn’t the only thing she gave you.’ A scandalised murmur went round the table and it seemed I had scored a hit—but Pendergast was a stauncher opponent than that.

  ‘No,’ he said without missing a beat, ‘she gave me also an annuity of two hundred pounds and a promise to bring out a uniform edition of my published works. I asked her to pay you the same compliment, but she said your output was too slim to bear the cost.’

  ‘Did she?’ I said, taking the bait. He was building to something, and it amused me to let him see it through.

  ‘She did, and very bad manners I thought it, too. So I said, “But madam, surely the sparsity of Mr Savage’s verse makes it the more precious, rather like ambergris?” To which she replied, “Much like ambergris, Mr Pendergast, I can only stomach Mr Savage’s poetry after it has been refined in the fire.”’

  The table applauded his thrust, but I remained unruffled. I have always enjoyed sparring with Pendergast, and that night it was also a means to delay converse with the divinity on my left. Besides, the key to success in a battle of wits is to maintain one’s equanimity at all times. While the company lauded his hit, I calmly considered a riposte. I had almost got one when Vivien spoke up.