Forrest Leo - The Gentleman

I gasp for breath, inhaling the musty air of my bedroom in great, gulping mouthfuls.

Good God, I think to myself, as the awful realisation strikes me with its full weight. There can be no other explanation but that*

I LOVE HER!’ I have flown down the stairs, crashed through my study door, and hurled myself into the room. ‘LIZZIE! SIMMONS! ASHLEY! I LOVE MY WIFE!’

‘Oh God,’ says Lizzie. Lancaster is not there. I do not know where he is. I do not care where he is, but if he were present I should embrace him as a brother and beg him to share in my joy.

‘Lizzie, this is extraordinary!’ I cry. ‘I was lying on my bed, trying to figure out the peculiar thing happening in my chest. I thought I was dying. I thought, “Oh dear, twenty-two and it’s all over.” But the longer I lay there not dying, I began considering alternate possibilities, and finally I realised. I love her! It’s the only possible explanation! And do you know what’s awful? I think I’ve got quite a bad case of it! I think I love her more than anything in the world. I don’t know how this could have happened. How could I never have noticed? My God. This is—’

I am cut off by Lancaster’s voice. It breaks like thunder and rolls from the foyer down the hall and through the study door. ‘SAVAGE!’ he bellows. His person follows upon the heels of his voice. He is carrying an intricately carved wooden box. I do not know what it contains. I do not care. I am transported.

‘Ashley!’ I exclaim, ready to fling my arms around him.

‘Mr Savage,’ he says stiffly, ‘as a brother and an Englishman—’

‘Ashley!’ I say again. I care not for brothers or Englishmen. ‘I’ve just made the most spectacular discovery! It turns out I’m in love with your sister!’

‘Would you hold these?’ he asks Lizzie, handing the box to her. He is not smiling, which I find peculiar. How is it possible that anyone should not smile on this great day?

‘Isn’t that marvellous?’ I continue. ‘I’ve only just realised, but I think—’

Lancaster punches me in the face. It hurts. I fall down.

‘Oh God!’ cries Lizzie.

‘Sorry,’ Lancaster says to her.

‘Carry on,’ replies the traitoress.

‘Bully!’ he says.

I’ve never been in a fight before. I have often had cause, but never inclination. It has occurred to me more than once that I am not physically suited to it. My legs are the size of most men’s arms, and my arms flail like ropes in a breeze.

‘Get up,’ says Lancaster, standing over me. He really is a tremendously large person. It’s like looking up at the chap from Rhodes.

‘Not really able to, old boy,’ I tell him. I have no idea why he has hit me, but my face hurts prodigiously. I believe it will bruise. My jaw seems to work, though, which is something. Not even unprovoked physical abuse can dampen my spirits. I am in love! I feel startling goodwill toward all men — even this angry one.

‘You sold my sister,’ he says with menace, peering down at me spitefully. I now understand why I am lying on the floor. I suppose Lizzie must have told him the truth of my exchange with the Gentleman while I was with Tompkins. That was bold of her, and not altogether sisterly. Someday I will discuss the matter with her.

‘You sold my sister,’ Lancaster says again.

‘Well, yes,’ I admit, ‘in a manner of speaking. But—’

‘You sold my sister — to the Devil !’

‘Now wait just a minute!’ I wish I could make him understand what a ghastly mistake the whole thing was. I feel like Romeo talking to Tybalt. I say, ‘Things have changed significantly in the last quarter hour or so. Help me up and I’ll explain everything.’

‘By all means,’ he says, and offers me his hand. I am gratified that he will listen to reason after all. He helps me to my feet. I have scarcely begun to mention the virtues of civilised converse when he hits me again. This time it’s one of those instances where his right fist hooks around from behind his head and whistles with the speed of its approach.

I renew my acquaintance with the floor. Lizzie is watching with one eyebrow raised, but does not intervene. She seems amused. Her eyes twinkle. She is amused, damn her.

‘You lied to me,’ says Lancaster. ‘You said you were happy.’

‘ She lied to you!’ I protest. I grow weary of looking up at him from below. (Of course, even when I’m on my feet I must still look upward; never mind.) ‘ She said we were happy! All I did was fail to deny it.’

‘You said she was stolen . Abducted. Taken. Not bloody sold . Get up.’

‘Why?’ I demand. ‘So you can hit me again?’ I do not respond to the obvious truth of his accusation. That was an atrocity committed in a time of war; but it was long ago, and things are much different now!

‘I can’t hit a man when he’s down, it’s not sporting,’ Lancaster complains. ‘Get up.’

‘No! I’m sorry, but dash it all, I’m a POET. If I wanted to be punched I’d have been a boxer.* Stop hitting me and let me explain.’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Lancaster. ‘Damn it, man, I’m not a violent sort of chap by inclination, but see here. You’ve impugned my sister’s honour, lied to me, and generally been a blackguard of the highest order. Now GET UP.’ It is true. I cannot deny it. But that’s not the point . The point is that I’ve had an epiphany!

He helps me up again, then punches me again. Surprisingly, I do not fall. Even more surprising to us both, I hit him, and knock him down. I would not have thought it possible. When he lands, the entire house trembles.

‘There we go, by Christ!’ he exclaims from his back. ‘Now you’re showing some spirit! I could like you yet. I demand satisfaction.’

My hand hurts tremendously,* and I am not sure I heard him correctly. ‘Excuse me?’

‘For the offences you have done me and my family, I demand satisfaction.’ He says it with a feral grin which two hours ago I would have thought him quite incapable of. The laughing-eyed sun god is gone, replaced by something altogether more fearsome. I had thought his divinity Grecian — I see now that it is Norse.

‘Are you—’ I break off. My hand hurts like the Dev’l, but I am strangely elated. ‘Are you challenging me to a duel ?’ To fall in love and within ten minutes have an opportunity to fight a duel for it is more than any poet could ask for.

‘No, I’m inviting you out for oysters. What the deuce do you think I’m doing?’

‘I’ve always wanted to fight a duel!’ I say. ‘Never thought I’d get the chance!’ As a boy I engaged in magical duels with rival magicians I concocted out of dreams and dust motes, but I have never actually duelled a real person. I always half-supposed that sooner or later Pendergast or I would say something truly dreadful to one another and a duel would be required, but I never seriously considered it. It was more the sort of happy sleepythought that brings a smile to one’s face as one drifts off at night. The closest we ever came to an altercation was at Lady Whicher’s dinner party when I threw his review into the fire and he responded by throwing my most recent book in after it. I tried to challenge him on the spot, but a piece of ham was lodged in my throat.

Lancaster has taken the wooden box from Lizzie and laid it on my desk. He now opens the lid. Within lies a matched set of duelling pistols. My heart begins to beat with excitement. They are exquisite objets d’art, entwined with gold filigreed vines and each bearing upon its hilt, if that is the word for the handle of a gun, which it probably isn’t, a lion proudly rampant.