A Pretty Mouth (2 page)

At the time, I thought the garishness must be the reason there were so few other patrons, and also the strange lassitude of those who were out and about. Now I know it simply contributed to that situation, but I do not like to get ahead of myself.

One of the reasons Mr. Wooster was so reluctant to join his aunt at Dolor-on-the-Downs is that, as I previously noted, Mrs. Gregson has often attempted to marry him to this girl or that. ‘Often’ is, perhaps, an understatement. She has for several years pursued this aim with as much vigor as a Continental monarch eager to expand his nation’s borders through wedding his son to an adjacent king’s daughter. It frustrates Mrs. Gregson to no end when Mr. Wooster refuses her help, however, so after her third unsuccessful attempt to lure my employer into a matrimonial state with the young ladies she had discovered among the local families of good breeding—including, unsurprisingly, Miss Cirrina Prideaux—Mrs. Gregson took her leave of us, and in rather high dudgeon. I am sorry to report that it was then that my troubles began.

Here I should mention that also staying at the Vivarium at that time was an old school acquaintance of Mr. Wooster’s (“chum” being perhaps too strong a word to use here), Alastair Fitzroy, the twenty-seventh Lord Calipash. I had never met the man before, but knew something of the Calipash family, of course—it is not for nothing that the good people at Burke’s contacted me when compiling their most recent edition of the
Peerage
—and suffice it to say I possessed less enthusiasm about this turn of events than my employer. The Calipash line, as I am sure all the other members of this club well know, is …
tainted
. Members of that family tend to be eccentric if not totally insane, and from their origins to the present day there have been reports of Calipashes engaging in such behaviors as voluntary demonic possession, murder, necromancy in the classical and modern sense of the word, black magics of all kinds, sexual perversion, cannibalism, and, perhaps counterintuitively, militant vegetarianism. I was therefore grateful we had not seen much of the Lord Calipash; only when he was eating alone in the dining room or drinking alone at the bar. He spoke to no one and looked, if I may be so bold, rather moth-eaten and out of spirits for someone of his rank. But as the rest of the noblesse who were staying at the Vivarium also appeared somewhat depressed, at the time I attributed it, as I said, to the décor.

Prior to Mrs. Gregson’s departure Mr. Wooster had not much time to idle at the bar; once she departed he headed there directly. As a courtesy he invited me to come along, which is how I came to make the observations that began this account.

“What-ho, Fizzy,” said Mr. Wooster, as I took a seat at the furthest end of the countertop, where I could observe both a tank full of exotic Caribbean fishes, and how my employer got on with the famously waspish Lord Calipash. “Care for some company? You look about as happy as a fox who’s eaten the last chicken. Which is to say, not at all.”

The Lord Calipash looked at my employer with some coolness.

“What?” he asked.

“You know,” said Mr. Wooster, undaunted, “because foxes are hungry little coves, aren’t they, and thus it seems likely they’d be prone to despondency when the bouillon’s been slurped. Let me buy you a drink?”

“What about a Corpse Reviver #2?” suggested the bartender. He was polishing a glass at the time, of course. “Just learned that one. My friend just came back from London with the recipe. Learned it from Mr. Harry Craddock himself.”

“Just the thing! Young Fizzy over here does have a rather
mortuary
look about him, what?”

As I idled over my glass of porter, the bartender mixed together Lillet, lemon juice, gin, and a few other ingredients, and the libation was consumed quickly by the two gentlemen. The drink did seem to revive the Lord Calipash, and he and Mr. Wooster consumed several more over the next hour.

“Well, Bertie. You certainly seem to be doing well for yourself,” said the Lord Calipash. “Natty suit, smile on your face. Plenty of cash to throw around as you like.”

“Can’t complain,” said my employer jovially. “Lots of days in a year and I live all of them more or less happily. But what about you, Fizzy? What’s got you all long in the face? Everyone staying here seems down in the mouth, but
you
—you look, if I may say so, awful.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” said the Lord Calipash, running his finger around the rim of his glass. “Rum bit of business. Too bally complicated to bother you with.”

Mr. Wooster smiled, and ordered another round from the bartender. “I forgive your coyness as we haven’t had a wheeze since Oxford, but you should know I’m a bit of a whiz-bang with rum businesses, Fizzy. Tell me of your troubles, and if I can’t aid you, then my valet will—the dark, tall fellow over there in the corner: Jeeves. He’s the brainiest man I’ve ever met! Solves five unsolvable quandaries before breakfast, you know, just to keep in practice.” Mr. Wooster, after relaying these flattering sentiments, leaned in to the Lord Calipash conspiratorially. “
It’s the fish
. Eats it all the time—were I that French Fancy who runs this flophouse, I’d be watching the tanks!”

“Really,” said the Lord Calipash, and though I am neither a whimsical man by nature, nor the heroine of a Gothic romance, I felt a chill as his eyes raked over me. “You know, come to think of it I’ve heard of this Jeeves of yours. Ran into young Tuppy Glossop last Christmas. Said Jeeves was the only reason he was still engaged to your cousin Angela.”

“Very likely the case.”

The Lord Calipash tipped the last of his drink down his throat. “Not a bad plan of yours, this. The drinks, I mean.”

“We Woosters have a knack for bucking up comrades in need,” agreed Mr. Wooster, who was listing slightly by then, his constitution having been depleted by several days of aunt-induced abstinence. “Pity you didn’t come and see me in London about your woes. I’m a dashed good mixer of cocktails myself.”

“Are you?”

“I am.”

An unpleasant light came into the Lord Calipash’s eye.

“If I recall correctly, when we were at Oxford you were always just the bloke for a little sport, weren’t you, Bertie?” he said. “How’s about it? Think you’re a better barman than our fine mister—what’s your name again?”

“My name is Marincola, m’lord.”

“So you think you’re better at drink-making than Mr. Marincola here?”

My spirits sank as I saw Mr. Wooster perk up.

“Indeed,” said he, slapping his hand on the countertop. “This Mr. Marincola’s as good as they come for the old what-and-mixer—really Mr. Marincola, you are to be commended—but me? I’m the real Tabasco.”

Now, I do not like to speak ill of any member of the aristocracy, but I suspect, given what transpired next, that the Lord Calipash proposed his wager out of interest rather than sportsmanship. I suspect this due entirely to the quickness with which the Lord Calipash proposed these very high stakes: If my employer won, it was decided the Lord Calipash would give him the use of his country seat in Devon, Calipash Manor, for a week-long retreat, expenses paid, guest list to be determined by Mr. Wooster. But if the Lord Calipash won, then my employer would be compelled to give him the use of his valet—
me
—in order to help the Lord with a delicate endeavor that needed prompt and insightful attention.

Though Mr. Wooster is deservedly proud of his ability with bar spoon and shaker, that day, owing I suspect to his being first a drinker of cocktails before a mixer of the same, he flubbed the proportions of his “Rob Roy” and produced a drink unworthy of the Highland cowherd for which the liquid refreshment receives its appellation. The libation’s reception by an impartial judge (Lord Tolbert of Holland Park, who was also staying at the Vivarium) was, unsurprisingly, not favorable. After shaking awake Lord Tolbert, who had fallen asleep in his chair, Mr. Wooster told him of the wager. Undeterred by the Lord Tolbert’s protestations that he was too indisposed to do anything as rigorous as taste one drink much less two, Mr. Wooster handed him the glass, he sipped—and spat. Feeling as though to get Lord Tolbert to sample Mr. Marincola’s cocktail would be adding insult to injury, the bet was peremptorily decided in the bartender’s favor, and it was with a dour air that my employer joined me, after the Lord Calipash staggered off to dress for dinner.

“Well, Jeeves,” said Mr. Wooster, “I’ve done you a mischief this day, I fear.”

“Is that so, sir?”

“Promised your services to that cove Fizzy, to help him with some sort of trouble. Said he would only discuss it with you.”

“I shall endeavor to assist him, sir.”

“Well you’ll be endeavoring by yourself. I’ll still return to London tomorrow, need to get back to it, what? The daily grind, all the matters requiring my attention.”

“I imagine your social club will have missed you sorely, sir.”

“Do I detect a sour note in the dulcet chord of your voice, Jeeves?”

“Oh, I hope not, sir.”

“Wouldn’t show the proper feudal spirit at all.”

“No, sir.”

“You understand … things are a bit, well,
dull
here, is all.”

I saw my employer looking out over the bar, where each and every patron dozed wanly in his chair, including Lord Tolbert, who had fallen back into his reverie the moment he was no longer needed as a judge; outside, on the deck, men and women alike napped in their lounge chairs, too.

“Things do seem strangely quiet at the Vivarium, sir.”

“
Too
quiet, if you ask me. Just—well, mind yourself, Jeeves, with this weird snoozy crew at Dolor-on-the-Downs, and keep a sharp lookout for Fizzy, too. Strange chap.” Mr. Wooster looked thoughtful for a moment. “Seem to recall something when we were at school, maybe about an alleged murder or two, nothing much. Oh, and some unpleasantness where he was found to be keeping a girl under his bed.”

“Sir?”

“No girls allowed in the rooms.”

“I should imagine not, sir.”

“But that wasn’t the real scandal. No, no. I saw the filly when the police came. Didn’t look well. Bony thing, pale. Needed to get more sun. But what can you do? Lads will be lads, what? And you know, old school chum and all that. You’ll be fine.”

“As you say, sir.”

“Just be happy his dreadful twin sister isn’t here on holiday with him. She’s a fright. We were thrown together a few times at mixers, she was at Girton and would come down from Cambridge sometimes. Never tried to get engaged to me, that’s the most I can say for her. She was one of those brassy, brazen, loud-talking, short-haired, tweed-wearing girls you find all too often in this lax post-war era. Yes,” said Mr. Wooster, shoving his hands into his pockets, “If Alethea were here, by Jove, you’d really have a problem.”

I am sorry to report that Alethea Fitzroy actually
was
staying at the Vivarium. I had seen her arrive with her brother a few days after we did, but not since. All I knew from below-stairs gossip was that she used quite a lot of bath-water and took all her meals in her rooms.

“Fizzy said he wouldn’t keep you for more than a few days. You should be back home in no time.”

“Let us hope so, sir. Shall I help you dress for dinner and pack up your things?”

“Excellent notion. Oh, and I’ll hop an early train tomorrow.”

“How early, sir?”

“Not before noon, I’d say. Need to be full of beans for when I’m back in the old metrop., you know.” Then Mr. Wooster lost all his color and began to twitch like a ferret.

“Sir, are you in need of—”

“Must run, Jeeves—there’s Cirrina, the odious manageress. She’s an
eel
, Jeeves—wrapped around me and began to squeeze the moment Aunt Agatha introduced us.”

“The behavior you describe is more akin to a python than an eel, sir.”

“Bother that, Jeeves. It was too close a shave—she’s a menace. Let us fly!”

So it was after the luncheon hour the next day that I knocked on the Lord Calipash’s door.

He flung it open, and for a moment we regarded one another in silence. I cannot say what the Lord Calipash was thinking, but I know for my part I was feeling ill at ease over the sartorial blindness of the Lord Calipash’s valet. I simply could not account for it. The gentleman was sandy-haired and pale, thus the lightness of the suit he wore gave him a sallow appearance, and he was wearing his trousers too low. And the trousers themselves! They had not been brushed or pressed properly for some time, and the material, though initially of good quality, was beginning to look worn and unbefitting someone of his station.

“Come in, Jeeves,” he said at last, “and tell me what you know about octopuses.”

I stepped inside and put my valise down beside the hall table. As I looked around, I began to wonder if the Lord Calipash had brought a valet with him—or employed one at all. First his clothing, and now, these chambers! The rooms were similar to Mr. Wooster’s, but with fewer windows and furnishings, and on a significantly lower floor. Though of an acceptable size the apartment seemed cramped, for it was strewn with shed clothing, cups with a quarter inch of wine in them, plates fouled with crumbs and bits of nibbled crust, and, I noted, several aquaria that I believe if I had enquired with the management, should have been elsewhere than the Lord Calipash’s private rooms.