Forrest Leo - The Gentleman

Simmons, damn him, has taken another poem from my desk and dashed my hopes. He reads it aloud: ‘“I said to her now please disrobe yourself / And she complied and said here’s to your—”’ He pauses painfully, then finishes, ‘“— health. ”’

‘IT’S WORDS ON THE PAGE!’ I yell like a cornered animal. ‘That’s the first step! When there are words on the page then one can revise them until they are good words! But until they’re there, there is nothing!’

They stare at me some more. Lizzie eventually says, ‘I cannot believe you sold your wife to the Devil.’

I consider pointing out that I didn’t actually sell her, but the difference is so slight I do not even bother. I am in a very peculiar, rather misty area in which I could become quite lost if I am not careful. And so I try to rationalise. ‘Lizzie,’ I say, ‘I had no choice. I have been unable to write since I married her — this was the only alternative to a life of misery and perhaps madness.’

‘But you still can’t write!’ says she. Which is true.

‘I’m working on it!’ say I. Which is also true, but rather pathetic.

She takes a matronly tone I do not like. ‘You’ve been wifeless almost a full day, Lionel. If you haven’t written anything in that time, you’re not going to.’

I protest automatically, but I grasp her point. Is it possible that my wife is not in fact the reason for my declining talents? I must think on it someday.

‘You have to tell them,’ says Lizzie.

‘Tell who what?’ How her mind hops about. Perhaps she is mad.

‘Tell her parents you sold their daughter to the Devil!’

‘Absolutely not,’ I say. It is clearly out of the question. I hate her parents as I hate her. Her father perhaps a trifle less; he is a kindly soul, just trapped. Lady Lancaster, though, is the awfullest human who ever lived. I am actually a little scared of her.*

‘You must,’ she says.

‘I wish you wouldn’t talk about my wife’s family.’ I do not know why Lizzie insists on bringing them up. There is nothing to be gained from talking about them. The Lancasters are society folks, emblematic of everything that I do not like about this age. That they are now my relations is an awkward truth I do not like to consider.

‘You have to tell them sooner or later.’

‘I don’t see why,’ I say. ‘The whole thing was a mistake. I certainly probably wouldn’t have done it if I’d been aware of what I was doing.’

‘You have to tell them,’ Lizzie says again. She is stubborn that way. It is an unattractive quality.

‘No.’

‘You have to.’

‘No.’

‘Yes.’

‘Absolutely not! Simmons understands — don’t you, Simmons?’

‘I am afraid, sir, that I have in this instance only a limited understanding.’

‘I cannot tell any woman’s parents, not even my wife’s, that I did what I did!’ I do not like saying what I did, even to my sister and Simmons, even in the privacy of my own study. It seems more terrible when spoken aloud. I wish we could just forget all about it and have tea.

‘Then tell her brother,’ Lizzie presses.

‘I can’t, he’s off conquering Borneo.* Besides,’ I say, ‘I’ve never met the man and now there’s no one to introduce us.’* I omit that I hate the very thought of him. I have heard far too much of his virtues to ever think him anything more than an utter fool.

‘Write him a letter.’

‘“Dear Mr Lancaster,”’ I say, ‘“I seem to have misplaced your sister. Satan may have been involved. Warmly, Lionel Savage.”’ (Actually, it would be an amusing letter to send. I said it only to annoy Lizzie, but I wonder if I oughtn’t to send it after all.)

Lizzie glares at me. ‘Did you do it because she’s a better poet than you?’

This is too much. ‘SHE IS NOT!’*

‘You know very well that’s a lie.’

I am apoplectic. ‘She writes without form! Her line breaks are arbitrary! She may as well be a — novelist!’

‘Now you’re just lying to yourself,’ Lizzie says. She appraises me unnervingly. ‘You look like you’re about to cry. I think you miss her.’

‘I do not miss her!’

She raises her eyebrows. ‘I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone so unhappy in my entire life. I love you, and I wish you’d let me help you. I’m bored and melancholy and sick at heart. I’m going to go lie down.’ And she leaves. I have never heard Lizzie to voice boredom or melancholia. I did not think her afflicted by them as other people are.

I hit my head against my desk several times, hoping it will clear my mind. It doesn’t.

‘SIMMONS!’ I call.

‘I’m right here, sir,’ he says at my elbow.

I start — I had forgotten he was in the room. Simmons is like that.

‘Simmons,’ I say, ‘do I seem unhappy to you?’

‘Of course, sir,’ he says.

It was a poorly phrased question. I am very obviously unhappy. I rephrase it. ‘But do I seem more unhappy since my wife left?’

‘Indeed, sir,’ he answers promptly.

‘Ah.’ That is queer — I had thought that as she was the primary source of my sorrows, her disappearance would immediately lift my spirits. That it has had the opposite effect is very odd. I had suspected it, and hearing Simmons’s confirmation I can but accept it as so.

After a moment, he says, ‘Will that be all, sir?’

‘Yes. Thank you, Simmons.’

‘Very good, sir.’

He starts to leave. My mind is spinning and my head hurts. I wish I hadn’t banged it against the desk. I call after him, ‘Simmons!’

‘Sir?’

‘Do you consider me morally reprehensible for inadvertently selling my wife to the Devil?’

‘I do, sir,’ he says. I had feared as much. I was feeling morally deficient, but wondered if that was only because of my weariness.

‘And do you consider me yet more reprehensible for refusing to notify her family?’

‘I do, sir.’

I sigh and slump forward. I press my cheek against the desktop. ‘Simmons,’ I say at length, ‘I believe I am miserable.’

‘That is just the word I would have used, sir.’

For the first time in a long time I do not think about anything. I simply lie there being miserable.

We remain in silence. Then I think of another question I am not sure I have the courage to have answered, but I ask it anyway. ‘Simmons?’

‘Sir?’

‘Is my wife a better poet than I am?’

‘I am compelled to tell you that she is, sir,’ says the man who raised me.

I am silent. What is there to say? Outside my window, I watch the little park. Rain is falling, which ordinarily pleases me, mist is rising, which ordinarily cheers me, and the trees all look like mysterious sculptures stolen from other worlds. But instead of finding the sight lovely and poetical, today it seems to signify imminent doom of some sort.

Then Simmons adds, ‘Considerably.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I said, “Considerably.” She is considerably better than you. The poems Miss Elizabeth found display an imagination and verbal dexterity that you have never shown even in your most inspired spells. And if you’ll forgive me, sir, you have not been in a truly inspired place since you were about sixteen.’*

‘Then you are implying,’ I say, reeling, ‘that my fame—’

‘Is based largely upon the ignorance and poor taste of the reading public at large.’*

‘Why have you never said these things before?’ I say, too defeated to move or think.

‘Because you never asked, sir.’

I sigh. I am worn out, overwhelmed, done. ‘You think I should tell the Lancasters.’

‘I do.’

‘Her parents won’t understand.’ It is a feeble protest. Not even a protest — I am too weary to protest, and I begin to suspect that he may be right.