Forrest Leo - The Gentleman

‘I don’t have time to explain! Lizzie is holding Ashley Lancaster at bay in my study, and they think I’m in my room, but I’m not, I’m here, and—’

‘Ashley Lancaster is back in England? I didn’t know that.’ There is self-reproach in his tone. Tompkins doesn’t like not knowing things. (It is from him that Lizzie got the trait. We spent a considerable portion of our childhood in Tompkins’s bookshop. He and Simmons are very old friends.)*

‘Yes! He’s hiding from his parents in my study! He wants to know where his sister is, but I couldn’t tell him, but I finally said she was abducted, but he wasn’t angry he was excited because the supernatural’s rather his area, and he—’

‘Breathe, boy,’ advises Tompkins.

‘I don’t have time to breathe! I don’t know what to do! There are letters, and he says she loves me!’

‘Who says who loves you?’

‘Lancaster says Vivien loves me! She told him so in a letter! And now I don’t know what to do!’

‘What are your options?’

‘I don’t have any options.’

‘Lionel Savage, one always has options. Let us begin at the beginning. First, sit down and please stop yelling. You are upsetting the books.’

I apologise and sit down. Boadicea promptly jumps into my lap and begins to purr. Tompkins hands me tea. I shove the animal onto the floor, then master myself and take a sip. ‘That’s better,’ he says. ‘Now. What precisely is your quandary?’

I stare at him, trying to put it into words. I realise I cannot. I mumble something about hating my wife.

‘Who you never have to think about again, for you have sold her to the Devil.’

‘Well, yes,’ I say, ‘I suppose so. But— But those letters to Lancaster!’

‘What about the letters?’

‘Is it possible she actually loved me?’ I loathe the wheedling, pathetic tone of my voice.

‘I know of nothing impossible when speaking of love.’

‘Don’t joke, Tompkins, it isn’t funny.’

‘I wasn’t being humorous.’

If I wondered in childhood whether Lizzie wasn’t somewhat magical, I knew it for certain of Tompkins. He has a way about him which is not of this world. To be in his company is to be put preternaturally at ease. I begin to feel my stomach unclench. My chest, though, is still doing odd things.

‘What would it mean if Vivien loved me?’ I ask.

‘It would mean you have been very selfish and very blind.’

‘But if she loved me, why didn’t she ever say anything?’

‘Perhaps she hadn’t the words.’

‘She did! She wrote poetry! Did you know that? Poetry that is lovely.’

‘Well,’ says Tompkins, ‘let’s ask Mr Kensington. He sometimes has an excellent grasp of these things. What do you think, lad?’

‘Maybe she hadn’t the heart,’ says a voice from the stacks. I look around in surprise — I hadn’t realised there was anyone else in the shop.

A person I do not know emerges from the gloom. He is very young, perhaps eighteen, but tall (not Lancaster tall, but a little taller than me) and pretty well built. He has bright green eyes which look older than the rest of him, and dark hair, and ears that stick out just a little bit too far. He looks too well bred for me to accuse him of eavesdropping, but he seems to have misplaced his eyebrows.

‘Hello,’ he says, extending a hand which I take and shake. ‘I’m Will.’

‘Savage,’ I say. ‘Lionel Savage.’

‘It’s a pleasure, sir,’ he says. He has a trace of a northern accent. ‘I have a brother who is a great admirer of your poetry.’ He looks awkward, and hastens to add, ‘Which isn’t to say that I am not — I am sure it is quite good as poetry goes, only, I do not know much about poetry and so cannot judge. Algernon, though, is a great scholar and says it is excellent, which is why I only say that he admires it.’

I cannot but smile at his open-faced sincerity. ‘No offence was taken,’ I assure him. Then I ask, on a notion, ‘You are not related to Kensington the inventor, are you? I believe he is from the North.’

He blushes and says, ‘I have been called inventor.’

‘You are he?’ I cry. ‘I have read of your experiments with the greatest delight!’

‘Have you indeed?’ he says, blushing deeper. ‘I am glad of it.’

‘But your name—?’ I say.

‘Fitzwilliam-Lewis is not a fit name for a young man,’ he replies. ‘It was a curse from a misguided grand-aunt. I much prefer Will.’

I smile again. ‘Well then, let it be Will Kensington,’ I say. ‘I am very happy to meet you.’

‘And I you,’ he says, returning my smile a little shyly.

‘You must tell me all about your experiments!’ I say, looking to distract myself from any consideration of my wife and the odd sensations in my chest.

‘Oh,’ says he, ‘I would not know what to say. I believe the press have misrepresented things.’

‘They have that habit,’ I say with a touch of ruefulness. I recall the many notices of praise my own work has received.

‘Indeed they have!’ he exclaims. ‘I feel as though I no sooner build something than there are a dozen articles hailing it as the future of British excellence and ingenuity, and all the while I am searching high and low for my poor eyebrows, which have vanished in a puff of smoke, and then there are articles of rival inventors and the ascendency of coal and the importance of our South African interests and so on and so forth and I have still not managed to regrow my eyebrows and certainly have not had time to devote toward making the invention that started the whole clamour in the first place actually work !’

‘I know exactly what you mean,’ I tell him, laughing. I like this Will Kensington very much — he reminds me of Lizzie. I must introduce them. ‘It’s just the same with poetry.’

‘Oh, I have no doubt!’ he says. ‘Algernon says that is the case. He is very wise about such things.’

‘But what are you doing in London?’ I ask.

He looks embarrassed. ‘Truthfully,’ he says, ‘I crashed.’

‘You crashed?’ I repeat, not sure I heard correctly. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I have been working on a flying machine for some time,’ he says reluctantly. I do not think he wants to talk about it, but he does so from politeness. It would be good form to change the subject, but I am interested and I am selfish and I am momentarily distracted from my own plight, which is a feeling I like immensely. Besides, this is almost inconceivably wonderful news.

I say, ‘A flying machine?’

‘Yes,’ says he. ‘Of sorts. Thomasina helped.’

‘Who is Thomasina?’

‘Oh! Thomasina is my sister.’*

‘I have a sister,’ I say.

‘Do you?’ says my young friend. ‘That’s splendid! I think sisters are excellent. Is she older or younger?’

‘Younger,’ I say. ‘By six years. Yours?’

‘Oh, older,’ he says. ‘I’m the baby of the family. I have another brother, too — Bernard. Have you any brothers?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Only Lizzie. But you were speaking of your flying machine…?’

‘Oh yes,’ says he. He seems more willing to talk about it, now that we are on intimate terms. ‘Well, Thomasina and I have been building it for ages. She taught me everything I know, you know.’

‘I didn’t know,’ I say.

‘Oh yes — the press never mentions her because she’s a girl, but that’s a crime — everything I’ve ever done I’ve done with her. It was she who first posited the usefulness of steam. She makes the most amazing clockwork gadgets you’ve ever seen!’

‘I have never seen a gadget,’ I say, unfamiliar with the word. I do not like to seem ignorant, but I am compelled to ask after an awkward pause, ‘What is a gadget, exactly?’