Forrest Leo - The Gentleman

But what I find within my study brings me up quite short.

It is Simmons, standing stripped to the waist and fumbling with the buttons of his pants, apparently preparing to remove them as well. What is even worse than my butler playing Salome in the middle of my study is that my sister is watching the whole thing with an arch look on her face, and tapping her imperious little foot impatiently. She holds a paintbrush and one of those thin ovoid boards whose name I do not know but on which painters put paint,* and stands before a blank canvas on an easel. She spares me barely a glance and continues to regard the nudity being perpetrated. Simmons, by contrast, looks up at me in horror and throws himself behind the sofa.

‘Oh, hello, Lionel,’ says Lizzie casually. ‘Simmons is being a dear and has agreed to pose for me.’

‘What are you DOING?’ I cry.

‘I am learning about art, which is not necessarily what I would choose to be doing at the moment, but I was abandoned and at loose ends and so I took matters into my own hands. And now that I have explained myself, which is not a thing I was required to do but did only from some residual trace of the affection I once felt for you, you might return the favour and tell me where you’ve been all night.’

‘Lizzie, for God’s sake, display some propriety!’

‘Alas, you have from a very early age bred into me nothing but contempt for propriety.’

I flail for a rebuttal, but in vain — Lizzie is in the right. She begins idly dabbing paint onto the canvas. I turn from her in exasperation and am confronted with Simmons lying half-naked behind the sofa, no doubt hoping to be forgotten.

‘SIMMONS,’ I say.

He is facedown on the floor, and I have never in my life seen him less dignified. But he summons all the dignity he can muster and says, ‘Sir?’

‘What in heaven’s name are you doing ?’

‘I was to be her Homer, sir.’

‘Her Homer?’

‘Yes, sir. She cast about for a suitable artistic subject, and Homer came to mind. She asked me to pose as her Homer, and I saw no reason to deny her.’ He has adopted a manner which suggests his actions to be the most natural in the world, and a fellow mad to think otherwise.

‘YOU WERE GETTING NAKED!’

He pauses at that. ‘Yes,’ he finally admits. ‘That is the case. I did not understand that nakedness was to be part of it when she first approached me.’

‘Otherwise?’ I prompt.

‘Otherwise I never would have agreed, sir,’ he says in a tone that is meant to be conciliatory but isn’t, really. I do not know if he is lying or not. There is something of the gypsy buried deep within Simmons which reveals itself at very peculiar times — particularly in his nonchalance regarding certain aspects of the body.

The fault, then, is Lizzie’s. ‘Why,’ I demand, ‘did you ask Simmons to remove his clothes?’

‘Homer didn’t wear an English butler’s suit from the reign of Queen Victoria,’ she says without looking up from her canvas.

‘Nor did Adam and Eve wear fig leaves,’ I snap back. ‘But they are represented as doing so IN THE NAME OF DECENCY.’

‘Don’t talk to me of decency,’ says Lizzie. ‘You sold your wife to the Devil and then stayed out all night without so much as letting me know whether you were alive or dead. First I was angry and then I was hurt and then I was worried and then I felt the stirrings of ennui and so I found myself a diversion.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘But the evening turned out rather differently than we had anticipated. Now get dressed, we have to leave — Viv’s time may be running out.’

‘Differently? How so, differently?’ she demands. ‘An extra five minutes won’t hurt your wife, and I’m going nowhere until you tell me what’s happened and where you’ve been.’

‘We were mistaken for government spies and imprisoned in a dungeon beneath Pall Mall.’

She drops her paintbrush and rounds on me. (We will never remove the paint from the carpet, I am certain.) ‘Damn it!’ she cries. ‘You had an adventure with Ashley Lancaster and I missed it! Nellie, I shall never forgive you.’

‘Forgive me ? It was you who decided to come home!’

‘Only because you wouldn’t defend my honour! I wanted with every bone in my body to tackle that silly butler and dash into the club and join on the spot, but I couldn’t because I’m small and probably wouldn’t have been able to bring him down and just would have looked stupid, and because I’m a woman and being a woman in this horrid society of ours is awful, which you couldn’t possibly know so don’t presume to pass judgment!* So I did not tackle him: but then I saw that Lancaster was getting ready to hit him, and I really cannot have anyone doing violence on my behalf which I cannot do myself — it’s not right. So what else was I to do, Nellie? It broke my heart, but I saw no alternative. And now you’re yelling at me about it.’

I recognize how difficult it must have been for her not to be included, and I try to forgive her for being slatternly. Besides, we really do have to be going — and further argument will only prolong things. I take a breath and let it out. ‘I’m sorry, Lizzie.’

The apology seems to mollify her. (I had of course apologised once already; perhaps she did not think it sincere.)*

‘Well, I’m still dreadfully cast down,’ she says. ‘But I would consider forgiving you if you told me the entire story without leaving a single thing out. How did you escape?’

‘If Simmons WILL PUT HIS CLOTHES BACK ON, I’ll tell you.’

He does, and I do.

Lizzie is quite transported by the whole tale, and beside herself with excitement to meet the inventor and see his flying machine. Simmons is typically restrained, though something about his manner is queer — I chalk it up to his brush with nudity.

It is turning into a chilly, foggy November day. Simmons and Lizzie put on coats and we walk down the steps to the waiting hansom. The driver may think me lunatic, but he finds Lizzie beautiful and our money good. I dispatch them to the Heath, and go to locate a sailmaker.

Sailcloth, it turns out, is much heavier than I could have guessed.* My cabman lets me off at the edge of the Heath, and helps me to heave what cannot be less than several hundred pounds of canvas onto my back.* He looks concerned as I stagger under the load, and offers to help, but I decline. It doesn’t seem wise to bring strangers to our air-wharf. One never knows who might alert the press. (Good heavens, I am beginning to sound like Lancaster — do adventuring and fear of publicity go hand in hand?)

My journey bearing the sail across the Heath will surely be immortalised in the annals of love. If it does not sound as glorious as swimming the Hellespont, it is because you have never walked a half-mile across a heath carrying sailcloth.

As I struggle with the weight I think of Viv. She has come to consume my thoughts. (I understand that this is one of the risks of falling in love.) At each dreadful step I see her face before me, and press on with renewed vigour. I recall how once of an evening I asked her what she was reading and she replied, ‘A history of adventure,’ and spoke no more. At the time I thought her manner cold. As I look back, however, it is clear that she was overflowing with love for me and I was simply too blind to notice.

I round the bend and see the barn before me. When I call out, Lancaster bounds down the hill to help me with my burden. He lifts the folded cloth off my back and says approvingly, ‘This is rather heavy, Savage. We’ll make a man of you yet, by Christ!’ Then he puts it under one arm and trots back up the hill.