Forrest Leo - The Gentleman

He looks suitably remorseful. ‘I am, sir. Frightfully ashamed. What about gassing yourself?’

‘Now you’re thinking, old boy! I believe you’re on the right track.’ I am immensely cheered. It seems not only a quick and a clean method, but also a romantic one. To die from the newly installed gas jet would be tantamount to being literally killed by Progress, which is one of the more poetical thoughts I have had in some time.* I am about to tell him so when the doorbell rings. Simmons excuses himself and leaves the room.

Alone, I consider the gas lamp flaring overhead. I do not care for it and never have. Gas seems to me a most monstrous thing, impure, foul-smelling, and expensive. I have read of a young inventor in the North who makes the most marvellous contraptions powered entirely by steam, which seems to me a much better thing. Steam comes from water which comes from rain which comes from the sky. I like the sky, and I like rain. Gas, on the other hand, comes from I know not where, so I cannot know whether or not I like its progenitor. It occurs to me even now that it is truly the progeny of humanity, which makes me feel all the more justified in my distaste for it. It is reassuring when one realises that one’s prejudices are not groundless.*

I hear Simmons open the door, and then the bottom drops from my stomach. An unmistakable voice squeals, ‘Simmons!’ and I hear luggage being dropped and even from here the sound of Simmons gasping for breath as Lizzie throws her arms around him.

For it is Lizzie. She enters my study in a whirlwind which proves it. My sister looks much as I do — her skin is pale, her hair is dark, her eyes are blue, and she is not a large person. I am biased, but I believe her to look quite well. She is dressed for travelling. Her cheeks are flushed with wind and happiness, her hair is tousled, and she hurls herself into me before I can rise. She smells of autumn and of Lizzie, which are my two favourite smells in the world. At any other time in my life I would be glad to see her.

‘Hello, little sister,’ I say as she crushes the air from my lungs. Though she be but little, she is fierce.

She at last releases me and stretches me at arm’s length. She studies me and it makes me nervous. It has been the better part of a year since she set eyes on me, and I fear her opinion. I do not fear the opinions of many men, but I do fear hers.

‘You look awful, Nellie,’ she says. ‘What’s happened to you?’

Simmons comes in before I can answer, straightening his tie and brushing a speck of dust from his immaculate uniform. ‘Simmons,’ Lizzie carries on imperiously, ‘what have you let him do to himself? He looks like death. We may need to fetch a priest.’ I wish Lizzie would not talk as though I am not present.

‘Yes,’ says Simmons. ‘I am afraid he may not be constitutionally suited to—’

He is about to say ‘marriage,’ and it occurs to me in a moment of panic that I entirely failed to mention to Lizzie that I am no longer a bachelor. I tried to include it in several letters, but the words never quite materialised. It is as I said — now that I am married, I can no longer write. Lizzie would never forgive me if she knew that I married without her permission. I hurry to interrupt Simmons before he can say the awful word.

‘Do you know,’ I cut in, ‘I met a priest this evening. I was walking home and he had tripped over a loose cobblestone and was cursing the Devil for putting it in his path, and I stopped and said to him, “Oh sir, for shame! Does not the poor Devil have enough to bear as it is? Besides which, you’re a priest! And I’m a poet! Without the Devil we’d both of us be out of a job!” I thought myself distinctly clever. The priest, though—’ And then something else occurs to me. I round on my sister and demand, ‘Why are you not at school?’

Lizzie’s eyes widen with a panic that is not, I believe, far removed from what I felt a moment before. I hope I was not so transparent. ‘It’s so good to see you both,’ she babbles, ‘but I must look a fright. Let me change and freshen up and I’ll be all yours and then you can tell me what’s happened to you.’

I glance at Simmons and see that she is an open book to him also. ‘Lizzie,’ I say sternly, ‘what are you doing home?’

Her eyes flash about looking for some means of deliverance. She finds none and decides to makes a run for it. ‘Got kicked out,’ she blurts. ‘Back in half a second!’ And she dashes from the room.

I call after her, but to no avail. When Lizzie decides she is going to do something she is infrequently denied. ‘This is your fault, Simmons,’ I say.

‘Very good, sir,’ says he.

I am becoming flustered. I am not brittle by nature, but I do not like it when I have set my mind on something (for instance, suppertime suicide), and something else (for instance, my beloved little sister) comes along to upset my plans. Which is not to say that I am not happy to see Lizzie, because I am, though I do worry about her being home — it was a good school she was at (I had better not say which one), and I know her to be an excellent student, which means that for her to have been kicked out she would have had to do something truly—

‘By the by, sir,’ says Simmons, interrupting my thoughts, which is not necessarily a bad thing as I have a tendency to let them run wild, ‘I anticipate a problem.’

I haven’t the slightest idea what he is talking about, and tell him so.

‘Her room, sir—’ he begins, and my heart sinks. I had forgot about her room.

‘NELLIE!’ Lizzie shrieks from upstairs.

‘Simmons,’ I say, ‘this dreadful day has gotten worse.’

Lizzie is a dainty person, but her feet as she storms down the stairs do not sound dainty. She bursts through the door in a towering fury.

‘What have you done to my room?’ she demands.

‘Well, Lizzie,’ I say in my most reasonable tone of voice, ‘it’s complicated.’

I pause to consider the best way to put matters, because they are indeed rather complicated. Before I can go on, she says, ‘Where are my things?’

‘In the attic.’

‘And who,’ she continues, as full of questions as ever, ‘is living in my room?’

I cannot lie to my only relation upon this earth, but I am not yet ready to tell her the whole truth if it can be avoided. I quickly formulate a plan. I believe I may be able to gloss over some facts and change the subject. If I do so smoothly enough, she may not notice what it is I have said; and if I follow the revelation with a strong enough remonstrance then she may become distracted.

‘My wife,’ I say. ‘Now, tell me immediately why you were kicked out of school.’

‘Your WIFE?’

‘The importance of a good education—’

But she is not to be thrown off the track, and interrupts me. ‘You got MARRIED?’

I ignore her, less now for the sake of the defunct plan than because I am warming to my subject. ‘Were you doing your work?’ I demand. ‘You weren’t, were you? I never figured you for a laggard, Lizzie. Laziness—’

‘I am not lazy! I got kicked out for a dalliance with the dean’s son.* When did you get married ?’

I match her fury. ‘A dalliance ? You had a DALLIANCE? You’re sixteen !’

‘Yes,’ says this creature I no longer know, ‘one wonders why I waited so long. WHY ARE YOU MARRIED?’

I find myself unhinged. To hear that one’s sister is kicked out is a blow, but to find that she is kicked out for dallying with a tallywhacker is something that would break even the hardest man. ‘I am married, Lizzie, because we ran out of money, and so to keep us clothed and keep our house and KEEP YOU IN SCHOOL, I sold myself to a rich woman, and now I can’t write and can’t even figure out how to take my own life in a way that isn’t horribly inconvenient for those I leave behind me, and FOR GOD’S SAKE YOU HAD A DALLIANCE ?’