A Pretty Mouth (14 page)

“You!” cried Mr. Villein in alarm. “How
dare
you? How
can
you? They said the navy would keep you at least a decade in the service of this country!”

“
They
?” demanded Rosemary. “Who?”

“The press gang!” blustered Mr. Villein. “For the sum I paid them, I’ll have them—”

But the Infernal Twins never discovered what Mr. Villein’s intentions were regarding the unsatisfactory press gang, for Rosemary, overcome with grief and rage, snatched the flintlock pistol out of Basil’s grasp and shot Mr. Villein through the throat. A fountain of blood gushed forth from just above Mr. Villein’s cravat-pin, soaking his waistcoat and then the carpet as he gasped his surprise and fell down dead upon the ground.

“Basil,” she said. “Basil, I’m so—I didn’t—”

“You
married
him?”

“It was all Mother’s doing,” said Rosemary, rather hurt by his tone.

“But—”

“You were gone,” she snapped, “and lest Mr. Villein marry some common slut and turn Mother and myself out of our house …”

Even with such reasonable excuses, it was some time before Rosemary could adequately cajole Basil out of his peevish humor; indeed, only when Rosemary asked if Basil had lived as a monk during the years of their estrangement did he glower at her as he had used to do and embraced her. They sat companionably together then, and Basil gave her a truer account of his absence from Calipash Manor:

“The carven ivory head which our loathsome former tutor bequeathed unto me on the sixteenth anniversary of my birth was the instrument, strangely, of both my undoing and my salvation,” said Basil. “Mr. Villein lied to me that I was the manifestation of the old god which it represents—indeed, I believe now that his intention was take me away from you so that he might have you for his own; that I, like my father before me, would be driven to suicide by the whispered secrets of that divine entity. Little did he know that while I am not some sort of fleshly incarnation of that deity, I was born with the capacity to understand His whispered will, and walk along the sacred paths that were more often trod when His worship was better known to our race.

“I believe once Mr. Villein saw that I was only mildly troubled by these new visions, he concocted a plot to be rid of me in a less arcane manner. The night before you discovered my absence, he let himself into my chambers and put a spell upon me while I slept that made me subject to his diabolical will. I awoke a prisoner of his desire, and he bade me rise and do as he wished. Dearest sister, I tell you now that you did not detect a forgery in my note, for it was written by none other than myself. After I had penned the false missive, Mr. Villein bade me follow him down to Ivybridge, whereupon he put a pint of ale before me and compelled me, via his fell hold upon me, to act in the manner of a drunken commoner, brawling with the local boys until the constable was called and I was thrown in jail. Not recognizing me, due to my long isolation, my sentence was as I told you—that of forced conscription into the navy.

“To a certain point, my tale as I told it to you whilst in the character of the scoundrel Valentine was true—I suffered much on my voyage to Jamaica, and was subsequently sold as a slave. What I did not tell you was the astonishing manner of my escape from that abominable plantation. My master hated me, likely because he instinctively sensed his inferiority to my person. My manners mark me as a noble individual, even when clad in rags, and being that he was a low sort who was considered a gentleman due to his profession rather than his birth, my master gave to me the most dangerous and disgusting tasks. One of his favorite degradations was to station me at the small dock where the little coracles were tied up, so that I could be given the catches of fish to clean them, constantly subjected to wasp stings and cuts and other indignities of that sort.

“Yet it was this task that liberated me, for one afternoon I arrived at the dock to see the fishermen in a tizzy, as one had the good fortune of catching a dolphin. The creature was still alive, incredibly, and I heard its voice in my mind as clearly as I heard their celebration.
Save me, and I shall save you
, it said unto me in that language that has always marked me as bacchant to the god of which I earlier spoke. I picked up a large stick to use as a cudgel and beat the fisherfolk away from their catch, telling them to get back to work as the cetacean was of no use to our master, he should want snapper or jackfish for his dinner rather than oily porpoise-flesh. They heeded me, for they were a little afraid of me—often, as you might imagine, dear sister, bad things would happen to those who chose to cross me in some way—and I heaved the dolphin back into the sea. At first I thought it swam away and that it had merely been sun-madness that had earlier made me hear its voice, but then, after the fishermen had paddled out of sight, the dolphin surfaced with a bulging leather satchel clutched in its beak. It contained gold and jewels that my new friend told me were gathered from shipwrecks on the ocean floor, and that I should use this wealth to outfit myself as a gentleman and buy passage back to England. The creature’s only caveat was that upon my arrival I must once again visit the sea, and return to one of its kin the ivory head, as our tutor had not, as it turns out, been given the object. Rather, it seems that Mr. Villein defiled an ancient holy place near Delphi during his travels in Greece by stealing the artifact away from its proper alcove.

“I agreed to these terms and, after waiting at the docks for a little longer so I might poison the fish it was my duty to clean, and thus enact a paltry revenge upon my tyrannical master, hastened back to Devonshire, as I knew nothing of your situation, but feared much. Upon returning home I assumed the persona of Valentine as a way of ascertaining if, in my absence, your sentiments had changed toward your long-absent brother and the manner in which we were accustomed to living with one another. Seeing your heart go out to such a picaroon assured me of your constancy, and I regret very much that I earlier so impugned your honor. But sister, now that you know of my distresses, you must tell me of yours—pray, how did you come to be married to Mr. Villein and so afflicted by the disease that I see nibbles away at your perfect flesh?”

Rosemary then recounted what has already been recorded here, and she and Basil resolved upon a course of action that shall comprise the
denoument
of this chronicle. Both were determined that the gangrenous affliction should not claim Rosemary, but until Lady Calipash, wondering why her daughter did not come down to dinner, intruded into the parlor where the siblings colluded, they could not see how. The idea occurred to the Twins when Lady Calipash’s alarm at seeing Mr. Villein’s corpse upon the carpet was so tremendous that she began to scream. Basil, fearing they should be overheard and the murder discovered before they had concocted an adequate reason for his unfortunate death, caught Lady Calipash by the neck when she would not calm herself. As he wrapped his fingers about her throat, Basil noticed the softness of his mother’s skin, and, looking deeply into her fearful eyes, saw that she was still a handsome creature of not five-and-thirty.

“Sister,” he began, but Rosemary had already anticipated his mind, and agreed that she should immediately switch her consciousness with Lady Calipash’s by means of witchcraft she and Basil had long ago learned (and once utilized in their youthful lovemaking) from the donkey-headed eel-creature they had conjured, and henceforth inhabit her own mother’s skin. This was done directly, and after securely locking Rosemary’s former body (now occupied by their terrified mother) into the family crypt, along with Mr. Villein’s corpse, mother and prodigal son, rather than brother and sister, had the carriage made ready, and they drove to the head of the River Plym, whereupon Basil summoned one of the aquatic priests of his god, and handed over the relic that has figured so prominently in their narrative.

To conclude, the author hopes that readers of this History will find this account entirely mortifying and disgusting, and seek to avoid modeling any part of their behavior upon that of the Infernal Ivybridge Twins—though to be fair, it must be recorded that, for all the duration of their cacodemoniacal lives, the Twins preserved the tenderest affection for each other. Still, there has never been found anywhere in the world a less-worthy man or woman than they, and, until the moonless night when the Twins decided to join the ranks of the cetaceous worshipers of their unholy deity—Lord Calipash being called thence, his sister long-missing her former amphibious wanderings—there was not a neighbor, a tenant, or a servant who did not rue the day they came into the company of Basil and Rosemary.

A PRETTY MOUTH

Chapter One: Against Devotion

“They found another one this morning, did you hear?”

“You don’t say!”

“Yes, in the bins behind the buttery, in the unclean garbage. Buried—well, I don’t think you could really say
alive
, but …”

“Christ’s mercy. How did you hear?”

“Perkins’ study-chamber has a view of the yard. He heard the shouting and poked out his head. Thought it might be some news of what King Charles has been up to in Dover, but then—”

“Shhh—
ow!
” said a third boy, from behind the first two.

Henry Milliner scooted his ample bottom to the edge of the bench as the victim of his sharp kick sideways to the shins rubbed his leg. Sweeter than the scent of dinner was catching a whiff of juicy canard—and Henry smelled a feast in the younger boys’ whispers. Or at the very least, a substantial snack to get him through Master Fulkerson’s lecture on Plato’s
Symposium
. Given how exceptionally boring the lesson had been it was difficult to believe that the topic of the day was sexual intercourse, but what the Master was saying about it was—as was damn near everything the Master lectured on—rather beyond Henry’s ken. Ah, well. The information, Henry reasoned, would continue to waft hither and yon somewhere a few feet over his head whether he attempted to pay attention or not, so why bother?

From the whispers, Henry figured someone must have discovered another queer dog on campus, a topic much more relevant to his life than anything Plato or his friends had to say about lads buggering each other, which seemed to be what the
Symposium
was about. Those blighters had been dead for over a thousand years and were likely to stay so until the seventh trumpet sounded—which, Henry thought ruefully, would likely not happen before his next examination. Thus, for now, it would be more to his advantage to hearken to the youths in front of him. Once he got the measure of the gossip, Henry reckoned there would be just enough time after class to sidle up to the clique of popular natural philosophy majors—the Blithe Company, as they called themselves—and relate what he’d heard. Such an anomalous happening should interest them, being as it was some sort of unnatural occurrence in the natural world. What
ever
. The important thing was, if he played his cards right, Henry figured he might be asked to attend the by-invitation-only gathering rumored to be happening tonight at The Horse and Hat …

Henry glanced over to his left at the pack of handsome, immaculately-groomed Fellow Commoners, and he shivered a little when his eyes lighted upon the Blithe Company’s unofficial leader: St John Clement, the current Lord Calipash. In the center of the throng like a spider in her web, his long white quill pen was bobbing gracefully as he scribbled away, taking pages of notes on Master Fulkerson’s lecture. His unwavering interest was beautiful to behold; how he managed to use so much ink without ever getting a drop on himself, even his slender fingers …
that
was the most mesmerizing academic mystery Henry had yet encountered at Wadham College.

As he surreptitiously gazed at St John, Henry felt the familiar warm flutterings of what he deemed his “deep admiration” for the young lord in his guts, and a bit lower down, too. Hopefully this bit of tittle-tattle would provide Henry the opportunity he needed to get closer to St John, but that meant he’d do well to pay better attention to the gossiping boys!

“… surgery. Even when they beat it, it never made a sound.” The boy shuddered. “They smothered it out of mercy.”

Damnation! He’d let himself get distracted and had missed some crucial information. Well, he could fill in the details himself easily enough. Probably. All of this recent weirdness with dead-eyed, strangely lethargic dogs sounded awfully similar to the Wadham legend from a few years back, when that bloke Christopher Wren had injected opium and wine directly into a dog’s arteries to test the theory of circulation. The story went that he and a few of his chums had been forced to flog the poor creature all through the Grove garden until the drugs wore off to keep it from falling into a coma.

Dabbling in natural philosophy was considered quite fashionable these days; perhaps someone was trying to duplicate his results. Wren was lecturing in Oxford still, so it seemed entirely possible.

One of the two boys in front of Henry glanced down at the front of the auditorium, but Master Fulkerson had either failed to notice their inattention, or he didn’t care.

“Spooky, isn’t it?” he whispered to his companion. “Seems less like, you know, a philosophical experiment, and more like …”