Forrest Leo - The Gentleman

I answer truthfully that I have never yet encountered anyone who doesn’t like her.

‘Well, I hope she likes me. Why didn’t you tell me you married Vivien Lancaster? Why didn’t you tell me you got married?’

The fact of the matter is, I don’t know why I didn’t tell her. Even when I believed myself happy I considered telling Lizzie but always put it off for some reason. Someday I’ll have to contemplate it. I haven’t the time now. I avoid her gaze and mumble, ‘I’m sure I must have mentioned it in one of my letters.’

‘You didn’t,’ she says. ‘I would have remembered if you had said you were married. You didn’t. I think it very bad manners of you not to have told me. Why are your wife’s things in my room?’

I am suddenly on very treacherous ground. Unfortunately, I am not quick-witted in such situations.

‘It doesn’t make sense,’ says Lizzie. ‘Why don’t you share a room? If I ever get married I’ll want to sleep next to my beloved every night of my life.’

‘… Yes,’ I say. I am aware that there can be no stay in execution, and that in very short order Lizzie will know my entire secret and think less of me. But I am doing my best to put off the inevitable if even for another too brief few moments. Though I am six years older than she, Lizzie is the dearest friend that I have — and to lose her friendship would be more than I could bear.

‘Does she just store her things in my room?’

‘No. No, she lives in your room.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s difficult to explain.’

‘Does it have to do with the physical act of love?’ Lizzie asks. If I were not so low already this would certainly sink me. Were there a cliff nearby I should throw myself off it. ‘Because if it does,’ carries on my baby sister, ‘you don’t have to tiptoe around it, Lionel. I know all about sex, as I believe is evidenced by my very presence in this room. In fact, I am quite well versed — do you know, the dean’s son said that behind closed doors I could almost be French.’*

I had forgot about the dean’s damned son. It is too much. ‘LIZZIE!’

‘What?’

‘Discovering that my little sister is a skilled harlot at sixteen does not improve my outlook on life!’

‘I’m not a harlot! If I were a man you would be congratulating me on my virility and very likely teasing me for having gone so many years without knowing the pleasures of— Oh my God. You don’t love her.’

There it is, alas. She has found me out, and if I am ever to be of my former stature in her eyes I shall be very much surprised. I wish to upbraid her for her sluttish ways, but I cannot even do that, for I am fully occupied in defence of my own callous ones.

‘You don’t love her, do you? You don’t! That’s why you have separate bedrooms. Oh no. Oh, Nellie, what have you done? This is awful! You’ve married yourself to the richest and most interesting family in Britain and you don’t love her. How could you be so hateful?’

I knew it would come, but I am all the same unprepared for it. To lose the respect of one’s sibling is a most dreadful thing, and for me it is doubly dreadful for the reason I have already mentioned. All the same, though, there is a part of me that is defiant to the last. ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about!’

‘Of course I do! You seduced a young girl who fell in love with you because you’re a famous poet and you married her just for her money and you don’t actually love her and I can’t believe we’re related and I hate you and I wish I’d never been born.’

Even in my despair I marvel at her grasp of the world — she is indeed changed. She has quite found me out. I tell her so, and add gloomily, ‘And now my vapid wife hates me almost as much as I hate her.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ she says. ‘Is she really vapid?’

‘Painfully so.’

‘Is that true, Simmons?’

Simmons is once again the soul of discretion. ‘In matters of love, miss, you know I hold my tongue.’

‘I don’t think she can truly be vapid.’

‘She is,’ I say, weary of the conversation but also somehow glad to be speaking of what I do not speak to anyone. ‘We never talk about anything. And timid. And sickly and pale and prone to inexplicable weeping. And when she isn’t snivelling she’s throwing parties. It’s awful. I want to die. And I can’t write.’ I hadn’t meant for all of that to come spilling out, but it has done so and I feel better for it. It is like the letting of bad blood. (I recall that leeching has long since been proven not only ineffective, but actually detrimental to good health. Alas.)

‘What do you mean you can’t write?’ demands my indefatigable sister. ‘When was the last time you wrote a poem?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

Lizzie is peering at me again in an unsettlingly maternal way. ‘Lionel, I’m worried about you. You really don’t seem well at all. I’m going to call a doctor.’

‘I don’t want a doctor.’ I find myself rallying. Speaking my sorrow aloud has mitigated it somewhat, or at least held it briefly at bay. ‘Lizzie,’ I say, ‘we need to talk about school. You can’t just run around uneducated—’

‘I am not uneducated,’ she cries hotly.

‘All the same, you must go back.’

‘I can’t, silly — I’ve been kicked out.’

‘I know that, Lizzie,’ I say with vast and I think impressive patience. ‘We need to find you another school.’

‘That sounds dreadful,’ she complains. ‘They haven’t anything new to teach me, any of them.’

‘Now Lizzie,’ say I.

‘Don’t “now Lizzie” me!’ She is becoming rather angry. ‘YOU try going to one of those dreadful places!’

‘I have done,’ say I, ‘and I’m better for it.’ She rolls her eyes and is very near to stamping her foot. I press my advantage. ‘I don’t care if you don’t like learning—’

For the first time in my life, Lizzie strikes me. I put a hand to my stinging face, too shocked to do anything else. We blink at each other. Then Lizzie begins speaking in a torrent, furious and indignant and near to tears. ‘The minute I walked into this house I suspected something was dreadfully wrong, and now my suspicion is quite confirmed. As if it is not bad enough to tell your little sister you have gone off and gotten married without her permission, you seem to believe it is also necessary to insult her in the worst possible way. You don’t care if I don’t like learning ? God! Do you remember that you used to read Shakespeare aloud to me before I knew how? And that you taught me Latin? And that you used to love ideas almost as much as you loved me? That was the brother I came home to see, but you seem to have murdered the poor dear — and if you really are as senseless as you are pretending to be right now and if you really have forgotten in the midst of your marital self-pity that I was put on this earth to follow knowledge like a sinking star beyond the utmost bound of human thought,* then we have nothing more to discuss and don’t bother helping me to unpack because I’ll be on the next train to the Hesperides.’

Before I can think of a response, we hear the front door open. ‘My wife is home,’ I say.

If you’ll excuse me, sir,’ Simmons says, ‘I’ll help her prepare for the guests.’

He leaves.

‘Oh God, the guests,’ I say, remembering all at once that there is to be a party tonight. I cannot face them. It is enough to face my sister and inevitably my wife. Guests are simply too much. (I have said already that I do not like callers.) I decide that I shan’t attend the party. ‘Lizzie, you must stay here and help me hide.’