The Gentleman

by Forrest Leo

  ‘Out where?’

  ‘She’s throwing a party tonight. She’s picking up her costume.’

  Lizzie’s eyes light up. ‘A fancy dress party?’ It occurs to me that she has probably never been to one.

  ‘I recognise that may sound fun,’ I say, ‘but let me assure you it isn’t.’ My wife has a passion for fancy dress parties. It is a passion I do not understand. Everyone wears masks, so no one has any notion to whom one is speaking. She says she finds it exciting and that the masks return some mystery to life in an age when nearly all the mysteries have been or are being solved, but I say that does not make sense. Masks muddle things. I have not infrequently found a top hat or a cane or even a pair of men’s gloves left about after such parties. This is to me proof of the muddlement—society men only leave their things lying about when they are muddled or when they are embarked upon affairs of passion, and as no one lives at Pocklington Place save for myself and my wife and Simmons and some footmen and a few exceedingly plain maids and Mrs Davis the cook who frightens me to death, I doubt that gentlemen are having affairs of passion here.

  Lizzie ignores my remark. I am not sure she even heard me. She is already far away, somewhere in the Orient no doubt, dreaming of silks and turbans. She is distractible. ‘What’s she like?’ she asks.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your wife.’

  I am surprised by her single-mindedness. She is usually more lively of thought; I wonder if school has begun to soften her wits. I answer her honestly, all the same: ‘Rich.’

  She glares at me. ‘When I think that you make your living through your verbal prowess, it shocks me. What’s she like, Simmons?’

  I can see that Simmons is about to say something other than what he should—but as I believe I have stated before, Simmons is the best butler in Britain and perhaps the world: so he says instead, ‘Given the circumstances, miss, I think it best if I don’t answer that question.’

  Lizzie narrows her eyes, and it is quite plain that she has no intention of letting the matter lie. ‘What is going on?’ she demands. ‘What’s her name?’

  I tell her.

  ‘Vivien what?’ she asks.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What’s her last name?

  ‘Savage!’

  ‘What was her last name?’ she snaps back, and I realise what she meant but do not apologise. I am not in an apologetic mood. Lizzie is wearing on my nerves today in a manner she usually does not. I wonder if it is because she is older than when I last saw her (which thought makes me laugh to myself, for it occurs to me that every time one sees anyone, he is older than when one last saw him), but I am not sure if this is the reason. I try to remember myself at sixteen, but I cannot. I was doubtless very much the same.

  ‘Lancaster, Miss Elizabeth,’ says Simmons. ‘Her name was Lancaster.’

  ‘Lancaster,’ repeats Lizzie, tasting the former name of her sister-in-law. ‘Vivien Lancaster.’ Then her eyes light up again. ‘Wait,’ she says, as though I were going somewhere. ‘The Lancasters? You married into the Lancasters?’

  I had hoped that by some miracle she would be unfamiliar with the family. ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I say, but she carries on.

  ‘You married Ashley Lancaster’s little sister?’

  ‘Yes.’ I feared it would come to this. It always does when the Lancasters are brought up.

  ‘Ashley Lancaster is my— Is my brother-in-law. Oh my God. Oh my God.’

  ‘Don’t curse,’ I tell her.

  ‘I’ll curse if I damn well please! Have you met him?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Ashley!’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘He’s in Africa somewhere. Or South America. I forget. Where is he, Simmons?’

  ‘Tibet, I believe.’ says Simmons. ‘Or is it Pago Pago?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it,’ I say. I do not know if it really is it or not, and I do not care to know.* It is likely somewhere very cold or very warm, and likely all in all very unpleasant. I do not understand why a person would subject himself to such travails, and I understand still less why a country would follow with bated breath reports of said unpleasantries. I recall when he sent back dispatches from his time among the horsemen of central Mongolia—they were the talk of the town, and I found myself quite baffled why anyone should care.*

  Lizzie has stopped listening to Simmons and me, and is babbling again on a predictable path. ‘My brother-in-law is the greatest explorer who ever lived. Nellie, have I told you that I love you?’

  Her obsession with the man wearies me. This country’s obsession with him wearies me. I refuse to believe that he is truly the paragon the newspapers make him out to be. No one is so tall, so broad, so handsome, so generous of spirit, so full of life, so ready to do whatever must be done despite the danger and hardship and weather. I simply refuse to believe it. Lizzie is now discussing my wife.

  ‘Is she very much like him? She must be. Is she very tall? I’ll bet she is. And beautiful. I’m sure she’s beautiful. Is she very beautiful? I don’t have anything to wear. What am I going to wear? The Lancasters! That means we must be very rich, doesn’t it? Are we very rich?’

  ‘Yes, little sister,’ I tell her. ‘Whatever else we may be, we are now very, very rich.’

  ‘I don’t care about the money, of course,’ she goes on. ‘But it is nice to have, isn’t it? I’m so glad. She must be very intelligent. I hope she likes me. Will she like me, Nellie?’

  I answer truthfully that I have never yet encountered anyone who doesn’t like her.

  ‘Well, I hope she likes me. Why didn’t you tell me you married Vivien Lancaster? Why didn’t you tell me you got married?’

  The fact of the matter is, I don’t know why I didn’t tell her. Even when I believed myself happy I considered telling Lizzie but always put it off for some reason. Someday I’ll have to contemplate it. I haven’t the time now. I avoid her gaze and mumble, ‘I’m sure I must have mentioned it in one of my letters.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ she says. ‘I would have remembered if you had said you were married. You didn’t. I think it very bad manners of you not to have told me. Why are your wife’s things in my room?’

  I am suddenly on very treacherous ground. Unfortunately, I am not quick-witted in such situations.

  ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ says Lizzie. ‘Why don’t you share a room? If I ever get married I’ll want to sleep next to my beloved every night of my life.’

  ‘. . . Yes,’ I say. I am aware that there can be no stay in execution, and that in very short order Lizzie will know my entire secret and think less of me. But I am doing my best to put off the inevitable if even for another too brief few moments. Though I am six years older than she, Lizzie is the dearest friend that I have—and to lose her friendship would be more than I could bear.

  ‘Does she just store her things in my room?’

  ‘No. No, she lives in your room.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s difficult to explain.’

  ‘Does it have to do with the physical act of love?’ Lizzie asks. If I were not so low already this would certainly sink me. Were there a cliff nearby I should throw myself off it. ‘Because if it does,’ carries on my baby sister, ‘you don’t have to tiptoe around it, Lionel. I know all about sex, as I believe is evidenced by my very presence in this room. In fact, I am quite well versed—do you know, the dean’s son said that behind closed doors I could almost be French.’*

  I had forgot about the dean’s damned son. It is too much. ‘LIZZIE!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Discovering that my little sister is a skilled harlot at sixteen does not improve my outlook on life!’

  ‘I’m not a harlot! If I were a man you would be congratulating me on my virility and very likely teasing me for having gone so many years without knowing the pleasures of— Oh m
y God. You don’t love her.’

  There it is, alas. She has found me out, and if I am ever to be of my former stature in her eyes I shall be very much surprised. I wish to upbraid her for her sluttish ways, but I cannot even do that, for I am fully occupied in defence of my own callous ones.

  ‘You don’t love her, do you? You don’t! That’s why you have separate bedrooms. Oh no. Oh, Nellie, what have you done? This is awful! You’ve married yourself to the richest and most interesting family in Britain and you don’t love her. How could you be so hateful?’

  I knew it would come, but I am all the same unprepared for it. To lose the respect of one’s sibling is a most dreadful thing, and for me it is doubly dreadful for the reason I have already mentioned. All the same, though, there is a part of me that is defiant to the last. ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about!’

  ‘Of course I do! You seduced a young girl who fell in love with you because you’re a famous poet and you married her just for her money and you don’t actually love her and I can’t believe we’re related and I hate you and I wish I’d never been born.’

  Even in my despair I marvel at her grasp of the world—she is indeed changed. She has quite found me out. I tell her so, and add gloomily, ‘And now my vapid wife hates me almost as much as I hate her.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she says. ‘Is she really vapid?’

  ‘Painfully so.’

  ‘Is that true, Simmons?’

  Simmons is once again the soul of discretion. ‘In matters of love, miss, you know I hold my tongue.’

  ‘I don’t think she can truly be vapid.’

  ‘She is,’ I say, weary of the conversation but also somehow glad to be speaking of what I do not speak to anyone. ‘We never talk about anything. And timid. And sickly and pale and prone to inexplicable weeping. And when she isn’t snivelling she’s throwing parties. It’s awful. I want to die. And I can’t write.’ I hadn’t meant for all of that to come spilling out, but it has done so and I feel better for it. It is like the letting of bad blood. (I recall that leeching has long since been proven not only ineffective, but actually detrimental to good health. Alas.)

  ‘What do you mean you can’t write?’ demands my indefatigable sister. ‘When was the last time you wrote a poem?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  Lizzie is peering at me again in an unsettlingly maternal way. ‘Lionel, I’m worried about you. You really don’t seem well at all. I’m going to call a doctor.’

  ‘I don’t want a doctor.’ I find myself rallying. Speaking my sorrow aloud has mitigated it somewhat, or at least held it briefly at bay. ‘Lizzie,’ I say, ‘we need to talk about school. You can’t just run around uneducated—’

  ‘I am not uneducated,’ she cries hotly.

  ‘All the same, you must go back.’

  ‘I can’t, silly—I’ve been kicked out.’

  ‘I know that, Lizzie,’ I say with vast and I think impressive patience. ‘We need to find you another school.’

  ‘That sounds dreadful,’ she complains. ‘They haven’t anything new to teach me, any of them.’

  ‘Now Lizzie,’ say I.

  ‘Don’t “now Lizzie” me!’ She is becoming rather angry. ‘YOU try going to one of those dreadful places!’

  ‘I have done,’ say I, ‘and I’m better for it.’ She rolls her eyes and is very near to stamping her foot. I press my advantage. ‘I don’t care if you don’t like learning—’

  For the first time in my life, Lizzie strikes me. I put a hand to my stinging face, too shocked to do anything else. We blink at each other. Then Lizzie begins speaking in a torrent, furious and indignant and near to tears. ‘The minute I walked into this house I suspected something was dreadfully wrong, and now my suspicion is quite confirmed. As if it is not bad enough to tell your little sister you have gone off and gotten married without her permission, you seem to believe it is also necessary to insult her in the worst possible way. You don’t care if I don’t like learning? God! Do you remember that you used to read Shakespeare aloud to me before I knew how? And that you taught me Latin? And that you used to love ideas almost as much as you loved me? That was the brother I came home to see, but you seem to have murdered the poor dear—and if you really are as senseless as you are pretending to be right now and if you really have forgotten in the midst of your marital self-pity that I was put on this earth to follow knowledge like a sinking star beyond the utmost bound of human thought,* then we have nothing more to discuss and don’t bother helping me to unpack because I’ll be on the next train to the Hesperides.’

  Before I can think of a response, we hear the front door open. ‘My wife is home,’ I say.

  Three

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

  If you’ll excuse me, sir,’ Simmons says, ‘I’ll help her prepare for the guests.’

  He leaves.

  ‘Oh God, the guests,’ I say, remembering all at once that there is to be a party tonight. I cannot face them. It is enough to face my sister and inevitably my wife. Guests are simply too much. (I have said already that I do not like callers.) I decide that I shan’t attend the party. ‘Lizzie, you must stay here and help me hide.’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ she says, still flushed from her little speech.

  The doorbell rings again. I am quite certain that there is something not right and probably supernatural about the doorbell at Pocklington Place. It rattles the nerves as ordinary doorbells do not. I have inspected it personally many times, and can see nothing amiss—it is a simple contraption which when pulled from without causes a small bell to jingle within. But somehow, I know beyond doubt, there is malice in the little thing. It jars me such that I cannot recall what I was thinking on before it rang.

  I listen. There are footsteps, the front door opens, there are voices, it shuts. More footsteps, by which I mean both that there are again footsteps and that there are more of them: I can hear that the number of the steppers is multiplied. Where only one set went toward the door—that of Simmons or a footman—several have returned.

  Guests.

  ‘Good heavens, they’re coming.’ I hear the desperation in my own voice. ‘This is awful.’

  ‘What’s so terrible about a party?’ Lizzie asks. I stare at her, aghast. She blinks at me bovinely. How can this person, so much more worldly than myself in certain deplorable ways, not know why society parties are terrible?

  The doorbell rings again, and my train of thought is derailed and several passengers are killed. I hope none of them were poetical. The door opens and shuts again. More guests. Many of them. At least a hundred. Perhaps a thousand.

  ‘Lizzie,’ I say, ‘have you ever been to a society party?’

  ‘Obviously not, because I was raised by you, the most boring man on the planet.’ I resent the allegation, but before I can reply, the infernal doorbell rings for a third time. This time the door is open for longer and is hardly shut before the bell rings yet again. I am becoming very agitated. I wish to crawl under my desk and put a pillow over my head. Lizzie, though, isn’t finished with me.

  ‘I have yet to meet your wife and I have nothing to wear and have been travelling all day and look a fright. This is a calamity.’ She fixes me with a glare that plainly implicates me in her troubles. When she has satisfied herself that I am feeling suitably remorseful (I’m not), she says, ‘I’m going to my room to put myself together.’

  With some trepidation, I say, ‘Your room—’

  She cuts me off. ‘Oh yes, my room is no longer my room. How could I have forgotten? Very well, I am going to your room. Have I mentioned that I hate you?’

  Then she sweeps out of the study without a backward glance. I know that she wants me to feel chastened, and it irks me that somehow I do. Lizzie has an unattr
active habit of making you feel precisely the way she intends.* I wonder if it is possible (I have wondered it often before) that she was not switched at birth with a fairy child.* It would make sense of many things I have never understood if she were a changeling.*

  My study, if I have not already mentioned it, has two doors on its lower level, one leading upstairs to the bedchambers by a back stairway and another opening into a corridor which leads to the foyer, from which one can choose either to go upstairs by the main staircase or into the rest of the house. If one were cruel and perverse, one could also go up the spiral staircase and pick one’s way through the armchairs on the balcony and out one of three doors upon the upper level; but I do not like the noise on the iron of feet that are not mine, and so I discourage that path. Members of my family, by which I mean Lizzie, for she is the only member of my family—I do not count my wife for obvious reasons, though I suppose the law would—often use this when they mean to annoy me. My wife often uses it as well, but I do not believe she knows it annoys me; she is neither intelligent nor observant enough.*

  Lizzie, though angry with me, has spared me the clamour of the iron spiral and gone up the back stairs. Through the other door drift the voices of a handful of party guests. The clock above the mantel tells me they are early. I do loathe people who are early to parties.*

  I have not yet decided what to do. Killing myself seems ill-considered with Lizzie newly arrived, and quite out of the question during a party. It wouldn’t do to gas an entire household of society folks. There is a certain wicked part of me which thinks it could be just the thing—‘Society Murdered by Poet,’ Pendergast could write, damn him—but I do not in earnest wish them dead.

  So I cannot kill myself yet, but neither can I face the guests. I am not mentally equipped at this time. Until further notice, I am resolved to hide in my study. I have a moment to consider what Lizzie said to me. It is true that I am not as carefree as I once was, but I do not believe I am quite as hopeless as she thinks.