A Pretty Mouth (5 page)

The Hour of the Tortoise

4 April 1887, early morning. Traveling.

I sat alone in my train-carriage watching the beech-copses and white sheep and mist-wreathed fields flashing by. I am sure this countryside could be anywhere in England, but these were the trees and fields of Devon, my home county! And I had not seen them from the time I was sent away to learn what I could at Miss Coote’s Academy for Young Women of Breeding and Promise.

More than a decade has passed, but the native beauty of this place remains ever-first in my heart. How could it not be but so? My happiest days were spent in Devonshire, when I was but a lass running hither and yon, and always by the side of my cousin Laurent. Two years my junior, he had been my constant childhood companion—but what of now? What sort of man has he grown into?

‘
Twas a kiss that separated us, a kiss seen by his mother, Lady Fanchone. That woman, whom some would call great, mistook our embrace for the blossoming of love rather than the affection shared by near-siblings, and would brook no explanations. Laurent became but a memory, and Devon, too—until now! For I am coming home …

***

Yes, that should do nicely, I think, for the introduction. A heroine at the end of her pupal stage, all grown up and ready to break through childhood’s chrysalis.

Christ above, save me from choking upon my own vomit.

I must find a way to add some spice directly lest I bore myself into an early grave, to say nothing of losing us the whole of our readership. Perhaps she (need name, floral in nature: Violet? Camilla? Camilla is nice) shall lose her maidenhead on the train. But to whom: the conductor? A handsome fellow-traveler? I must think on it.

No, I should delay the jimmying open of Love’s crimson gate slightly longer. She could be introduced to the art of prick-sucking by a gallant stranger … but then he leaves her unsatisfied?

Better better, and yet! While it’s true my editrix has never once given me poor counsel regarding my pornographies, I find Gothic fiction so very tiresome. I really cannot account for its popularity, but I am sure that is the reason Susan is so beside herself with excitement over this project. “Dearest Chelone, you shall write me
Jane Eyre
—but with lots and lots of fucking! It shall be our new serial and make us ever so much money!” Not exactly the response I anticipated when I told her I must take an extended leave of absence from
Milady’s Ruby Vase
so I might journey into the dreariest parish in Devon to sit by the side of my former guardian while he lies gasping out his last upon his deathbed.

To stay once again under the gabled roof of Calipash Manor, after being so unceremoniously chucked out a decade ago … I have mixed feelings about this journey, to say the least. I am certain Susan believes I am going to encounter a country house full of secret passages, drafty towers, mysterious mysteries, and handsome cousins. Well, that will happen in the pornography, of course, and to be fair, Calipash Manor
does
have a tower. And, I suppose, its share of silly rumors about the family. But the reality is far more boring: An old man in his tidy house, wasting away with few to comfort him, having alienated himself during his life from those who might have loved him unto death.

I suppose there is something rather
Wuthering Heights
about that, but not like any of the better parts, like when So-and-So threatens to cut off the boy’s ears or whatever it is that happens.

***

Later
—Funny, how I had thought to include a handsome stranger-
cum
-deflowerer in my story; I just met a rather natty fellow that will do nicely as a model! I should liked to have had some sport with him myself, except, it was so queer. He apologized for approaching me without a proper introduction, but asked if I was by chance related to the Calipash family. I told him I wasn’t—which isn’t strictly true, of course, but we illegitimate children of the noblesse are trained to be discreet—but he would not let the matter go. He shook his head and apologized, with the excuse that he was a native of Ivybridge, so knew “the Calipash look,” and said I had a serious case of it.

“The Calipash look!” I exclaimed, delighted. “Surely you must be referring to the Calipash Curse?”

“I suppose I am,” said he. I was surprised by how alarmed he seemed by my amusement. “You know of the curse, miss?”

“Of course I do, but I have not heard anybody mention it for nigh ten years!”

“You may smile,” he said, furrowing his brow at me as if his very life depended on it, “but we Ivybridge folk know nothing connected with that family is a laughing matter. Bad blood, they have—diabolists, deviants, and necromancers all!”

“I am acquainted with the Lord Calipash, and a better man I have rarely met.” Well, it was a true enough statement. I let him take it as he would.

“He’s a good sort, true enough, but they go bad easy. I’d be on the lookout, miss. You surely look like a Calipash, perhaps you were … well, I won’t curse you by suggesting you have a twin lurking somewhere—but best to stay out of the ponds, just the same!”

I told him I had every intention of staying out of ponds, lakes, rivers, streams, sloughs, and for that matter, lagoons. He seemed relieved, but the way such a dapper young man took notice of piffling country legends, well, it gave me pause.

Of course when I used to go into the village as a girl I heard tell of the Calipash family curse—when twins are born, the devil is their father, and something about taking to the sea, or to ponds, and something about frog people maybe, of all the outlandish claims! I may not be remembering it all correctly; as a girl once I came home enquiring about it, but Lizzie, the housekeeper, reprimanded me for repeating such twaddle and I never again mentioned it. I am glad I was taught at a young age to be skeptical of supernatural nonsense.

Really, what family that lives in a manor-house rather than a cottage doesn’t have some sort of rumor or another hanging over them like the sword of Damocles?

Rum analogy to use when going to see a dying man, perhaps.

Ooh—but we are slowing, and there is the whistle! I must ready myself.

***

Evening. In my old room—
The dolls I left behind are still here, and the white bedstead still has its rose-sprigged coverlet and pink frilly canopy. It is only how yellowed and worn everything appears that keeps me from thinking I have stepped back into another time. I feel fourteen years old in this room.

Ah well, why bother changing the décor? I was always made to maintain the illusion of juvenescence to please my guardian, so why not keep my chambers in a state of static girlishness, too?

But I should not speak ill of Lord Calipash, or rather, he who was Lord Calipash until his death—his death that I fear I may have caused not an hour ago! And already there is a new lord under the manor-roof tonight …

Things are far stranger here at Calipash Manor than I anticipated. Perhaps there is something to the idea of a family curse—no! Stop that, Chelone. You are simply tired from your journey, and overwrought.

Here is what happened, the facts, I mean: I arrived at the Ivybridge station on time, but no one was waiting for me, to my distress. The skies promised rain, and it was miles to walk to Calipash Manor.

After waiting at the station for some time, I begged the use of a little wheeled cart for my trunk and went into Ivybridge proper, thinking I would visit the post office. It was from thence I had received the letter from my guardian summoning me hither. I thought perhaps I could, rather than sending a message by courier, ride with said courier (if the horse would bear us both) and come back later for my luggage.

The town looked the same, snug stone houses and muddy streets, the occasional chicken scurrying across the main thoroughfare. The post office was in the same dilapidated cottage, I was happy to discover, with what could have been the same geraniums blooming in the window-box as when I was a girl. I went inside and explained my situation.

“Quite a lot of traffic to and from the manor-house of late,” remarked the woman at the window, not answering my query of how I might get myself to Calipash Manor. “Telegraph yesterday, and was barely a week ago the prodigal son come in to send a letter. Queer fellow.”

“Mr. Vincent has come home, then?”

“Aye, for his father is soon for the grave, they say.”

“How is he queer?” I was madly curious about Orlando Vincent, the cousin I had never seen. I should remember later to ask him about Rotterdam, where he was educated. Might be able to write something for the
Vase
about Dutch schoolboys or something …

“Didn’t say nothing when he came in.” The woman’s frown would have shamed the devil himself. “Grunted his yeses and noes as if he had no human power of speech in him. Gave me a turn, he did. At first I thought he was the Ghast o’the Hills, come to take my soul. Mr. Vincent is very like the apparition, though of course his clothing is different.”

Her words made me laugh, which I could tell displeased her. As a child I heard tell of the ‘Ghast o’the Hills,’ some sort of spirit in a frock-coat that is said to haunt the parish of Ivybridge. Once I even thought I saw it … a childish fancy, of course. I am lucky that education—and, of course, living in London—has disabused me of such country superstitions.

“So you’ve seen the Ghast?” I asked, amused.

“You may laugh, miss, but around here, there’s precious few who haven’t seen the Ghast! He’s as real as you or I, and wanders at night moanin and groanin. It’s said he seeks a wife to keep him company.”

“And Mr. Vincent looks like him?”

“Well, he’s thin, tall, with that Calipash face. All thems what come from the Manor have a look, don’t they? In fact, you have it too, my girl. Are you related?”

I didn’t want to get into that. “I didn’t realize the Ghast was part of the Calipash Curse?”

“Well, that family’s queer, of course, so if this town had some sort of malign spirit, it’d come from thems what—”

“You hush your foolish old mouth, Hazel Smith! Telling ghost stories like a heathen. You ought to be ashamed!”

I turned ‘round, surprised, and was pleased to see Old Bill, the groundskeeper and jack-of-all for Calipash Manor, standing behind me.

“Bill!” I cried, and embraced him. “How are you? Oh, just look at you!”

“Let us be gone, Miss Burchell,” he said gruffly. “Waited for you at the station, but they said you’d traipsed hither for your own purposes. Hold your tongue, we can talk on the drive. Lord Calipash is not long for this world and I have no wish to follow him into the grave if this weather turns wet.”

At first I attributed his poor spirits to his age, for he must be closer to seventy than sixty these days, white-haired and gaunt as a skeleton. But he got my trunk onto his skinny back and into the cart quickly enough; indeed, by the time he had scrambled onto the seat, ready to leave, I had hardly finished saying hello and asking after my guardian.

“Things are quite dire,” was his reply. “‘Tis good you’ve come now, though you might’ve sent more notice of your arriving. Lizzie is beside herself getting your old room ready, not to mention the cooking for an extra person.”

“I telegraphed yesterday,” I replied, rather taken aback by this admonition. “And really, Lord Calipash himself invited me—bid me come with all possible haste!”

“As you say,” said Bill, looking at me askance as he chucked the reins.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Master’s not been able to lift a quill in some time,” he said with a shrug. “Before his son come home, I was writing all his letters for him.”

“You, Bill!”

“Aye. I went to the village school as a youth and learned to read, write, and cipher—no need to look so surprised, Miss! I do tolerable justice to my lord’s handwriting, he himself asked me to learn the trick of it when he was struck with arthritis. But now him that’s to be the next Lord Calipash has taken over the duty, so he says, but unless he posts the letters himself, nothing’s gone out in some time. Hasn’t asked me to go into the village since his arrival anyways.”

“But that woman said Mr. Vincent delivered the letter himself!”

“Did she now?”

“Yes … perhaps Mr. Vincent was the one who wrote to me. But, then, why disguise his writing? I should have come if he had extended the invitation to me, of course.”

“Couldn’t say, Miss. He’s a strange creature, full of notions and temper. Perhaps he thinks you are like him. I had to write to him in the Lord Calipash’s own hand, begging for his return, to get him to come! Ignored all the letters I wrote as myself.”

“Rotterdam is a very far distance to travel on short notice …”

“Aye, and the road to hell is a short and easy path! Honor thy father says the Bible.”

“Oh, Bill. I’ve missed you,” said I, shocked to find it was the truth, as I had always remembered him as the bane of my childhood. Somehow he knew when I was up to mischief and would foil my plans if he could, with a Bible verse ready to shame me for my willfulness.