A Pretty Mouth Read online

  I know this account is longer than many of my others in this book, but it does contain the foibles of not one, but two gentlemen who might at some point require a valet. The purpose of this tome is to educate and warn, so I feel being more specific rather than less is the right thing to do. But, out of consideration for my peers, I will try to be brief in my recounting the conclusion of this affair.

  Lady Alethea and the Lord Calipash told me this tale about their initial encounter with the octopus: After receiving the telegram from Mr. Winthrop, they had sought him here only to be informed by Miss Cirrina Prideaux that he was not staying at the Vivarium. After they showed her the missive, however, she apparently conceded that he was indeed her guest, but was disinclined to see any visitors at this time. But would they like to see the reason for his summoning them?

  They agreed, and the young lady somewhat unexpectedly escorted them down into the basement of her hotel. There, she kicked open a grate and had them descend a ladder, whereupon they walked for a time down a tunnel. According to them, it was quite dark and damp—one of the pair of the Lord Calipash’s best brogues apparently suffered substantial water damage—but after persevering for a time, they perceived a dim light. Eventually they ascertained that it emanated from a strange, blue-spotted octopus kept in an elaborate tank that opened via grate or grill to the ocean proper, so the fellow’s water-supply was always fresh and clean I suppose.

  Though both Fitzroys expressed some curiosity over the iridescence of the creature, Cirrina Prideaux told them not to worry about it. She then began, according to the Fitzroys, to sing to the creature in a strange language. The octopus apparently responded with some enthusiasm, emitting a keening in a similar key, and then rose to the surface of the tank and extended an arm over the edge of the tank.

  As the Lord Calipash had some reservations over Miss Prideaux’s instruction to accept the tentacle orally and suckle at it, Lady Alethea stepped up and did so at Miss Prideaux’s urging. According to the lady, the effect was as potent as it was instantaneous; whatever coated the tentacle, venom or ink I cannot say, caused pleasant sensations of euphoria, deep tranquility, mild dizziness, and fearfully powerful suggestibility. It was at that point, reportedly, that Lady Alethea began to experience symptoms of her lunar transformation, though it was not her customary time. She and her brother raced back up to their rooms, whereupon she had submerged herself quickly in the tub (the ocean being unacceptable; Lady Alethea must have fresh-water rather than salt during her indisposition), leaving her brother to try to puzzle out how best to steal the creature for their own purposes and—discreetly—reverse his sister’s condition.

  “And what have you considered, m’lord?” I asked.

  “Best plan so far is kidnapping that bitch hotel-owner and forcing her at gun- or knifepoint or whatever to sing her ruddy song and get the blighter into a salt tank we would earlier poach from the hotel itself,” said the Lord Calipash. “I’ve retrieved a few. Then we kill her and make a run for it. Corker of a notion, I think, eh?” He looked at me. “What? You don’t think so?”

  “Only—m’lord—if you were to disappear so quickly after the death of the proprietress, there might be some questions on the part of the police of whether you were motivated by interest or eagerness to be away from the Viviarium. Suspicion might fall upon you and your sister.”

  “Well, what do you suggest?”

  “If I may, m’lord …”

  “Yes?”

  “How desperate are you to obtain this octopus?”

  “Totally committed.”

  “Would you be willing to commit acts of … self-sacrifice, m’lord?”

  “Steady on, Jeeves. How martyry are we talking? Hair shirt? Vulture at the liver every day?”

  There are moments in every valet’s career when he must decide whose happiness is more important, his or his employer’s. I speak now of Mr. Wooster, not the Lord Calipash, who did not employ me so much as manage me for a time. All the same, I had to take a moment to contemplate exactly how Mr. Wooster would wish me to acquit myself. Would he wish me to follow my heart and do what I thought was right, or would he wish me to follow any and all instructions given to me by the Lord Calipash? I quickly tallied points in favor of both options, factored in my employer’s temperament, moods, and inclinations, and made my decision.

  “I believe you would find the sacrifices of an easy, pleasant nature,” I said. “Both of you. If you leave the groundwork up to me, I think I can manage to successfully resolve everything in your favor.”

  “Really?” the Lord Calipash and Lady Alethea said, in unison.

  “Absolutely,” said I. “May I have m’lord’s permission to begin?”

  “Do it, then!” cried the Lord Calipash. Thus, I bowed, and left.

  The first thing I did was to seek Miss Cirrina Prideaux in her office. I needed to ascertain some things about her character that would be necessary for me to proceed. I found the young woman busily calculating something, using an abacus and biting the end of her pencil, but at my knock she looked up and smiled at me pleasantly.

  “Ah, Mr. Jeeves, is it? I thought you’d gone with Mr. Wooster.”

  “I stayed behind to settle a few matters for a friend of Mr. Wooster’s. May I have a moment of your time, Miss?”

  “How may I be of service, Mr. Jeeves? Please, sit.”

  I sat across from Miss Prideaux. She was an attractive young woman, with dark hair styled in a French fashion and a pleasant smile. Her eyes were widely set, with brilliant blue irises, and her complexion, while tanned by the sun, was smooth and bespoke health. While I may have expressed reservations over whether she would be a suitable partner for Mr. Wooster, I found her charming when my employer was trying to avoid getting engaged to her, and I found her charming in that moment, too.

  “I was curious, Miss, if you might do me a very great favor.”

  “If it is within my power.”

  “I am currently in the employ of the Lord Calipash, and he mentioned in passing that you had a lovely specimen of the Greater Blue-Ringed Octopus here at the Vivarium. I am, I confess, something of an amateur teuthologist and would very much like to see the creature if it is possible?”

  Miss Prideaux put down her pencil. “I’m afraid I must disappoint you, Mr. Jeeves. I do not have a Greater Blue-Ringed Octopus here at the Vivarium.”

  “What a pity. It sounded from the description the Lord Calipash gave that you had one, somewhere below the hotel, in a rather ingenious tank—one that allows the open sea to clean and maintain the creature’s habitat naturally.”

  I perceived some discomfort in Miss Prideaux’s expressions and actions, but she eventually ceased to fidget.

  “I do have a species of octopus in such a tank … but it is not a Greater Blue-Ringed Octopus. It is a different species, one not yet named by the Academy.”

  “I should be even keener to see it then, Miss Prideaux.”

  “Would you? Would you also swear to secrecy regarding its existence?”

  “Of course, Miss Prideaux.”

  “Come, then, Mr. Jeeves.”

  In silence, Miss Prideaux took me through the hotel, down through the kitchens, into one of the root cellars, and then, just as described by the Lord Calipash, kicked open a drainage grate and descended into an abyssal pit. I followed with not a little trepidation, but, perhaps sensing this, she called up to me that it was quite all right.

  “Are you a nervous man, Mr. Jeeves?” she asked, as we walked down the stone-walled tunnel. “I know the Lady Alethea said she was; I believe she found the remedy produced by my little friend … helpful.”

  “She reported the experience was most beneficial to her spirits,” said I. “But I confess I am not nervous by nature; merely curious about the natural world.”

  “A pity. Many of our wealthier clientele have come to treat this hotel as a … sanatorium, perhaps, and stay here for extended periods of time when they feel stressed or anxious. My pet helps them forget
their cares, drift for a time in pleasantness.”

  “An admirable service. Are all of your guests aware of this available remedy?”

  “Surely not, only the wealthier ones. The ones who can afford the fee.”

  “Fee, Miss Prideaux?”

  “I look upon this hotel as something more than just an establishment where holidaying ladies and gentlemen may enjoy themselves in peace. I see it as a … zoological park, a valuable menagerie. A collection, for posterity. Did you know, Mr. Jeeves, that the recent advances in refrigeration have increased the demands on sea-fishermen to the point that they are allying themselves with one another and forming companies to supply inland diners? But often this leads to overfishing … in ten, twenty, seventy years, what will the oceans look like, Mr. Jeeves? Will they still be troves of nigh-unlimited species diversity? Or barren wastelands, wet deserts if you will?” She sighed, and as we walked, I began to perceive that faint glow I had been told of. “I hope to keep safe the fishes of the world, and if I take in extra funds by providing a unique service to the very wealthy, why should I not?”

  “I cannot see a reason, except, I wonder …”

  “What?”

  “Have you had any men or women with medical training look at whatever it is that is produced by your octopus? Are you aware of what exactly it does to the human body? For example, is it … addictive?”

  “If it is, then so much the better, Mr. Jeeves. If they keep coming back for more, well, more money in the till.”

  We had come at last to the octopus—or at least, what the Lord Calipash and Lady Alethea thought was an octopus. Looking at the tentacled creature, I myself was not so sure it was a member of the family octopoda, though I am not, as I presented myself to Miss Prideaux, actually a scholar of malacology.

  The animal had only six sucker-covered arms, and was covered in bright blue spots. Its eyes—all three of them—looked distinctly human, with blue irises much like Miss Prideaux’s. It—I hesitate to write this, though if you, my fellow valets, have believed me thus far, I suppose you will continue to do so—was playing at something like marbles, using the small stones at the bottom of its open-sea cage at the bars that comprised the open-sea grate at the rear of its cage. I say something like, as it had, perhaps owing to the wave action’s effect on sand, created a circle of larger stones and was tossing smaller stones at the circle, trying to get them inside the ring. I have heard, of course, that octopuses are quite intelligent, but it was playing this game not with its more tentacle-like arms, but with two nauseatingly human hands that emanated from where, in a usual specimen, the creature’s ‘beak’ should be. The appendages had four fingers and a thumb and seemed quite dexterous, but, upsettingly, they adorned arms that looked far more like birds’ legs than arms, human or cephalopodan.

  “What do you think, Mr. Jeeves. Is my specimen as unusual as you believed?”

  “Rather moreso, Miss Prideaux,” I said, struggling to retain my composure. “Wherever did you find him?”

  “Rock-diving with my parents off the coast of Australia,” she replied. “If you hold his hands, he can speak right into your mind, and when we told him of our hotel, he said he should like nothing more than to come home with us and share his delicious secretions with the world. He has a very large family, you see, and hopes that through small, regular doses of his mild venom, we should all live in harmony with one another. He and his family are very smart.”

  This horrifying piece of intelligence from Miss Prideaux gave me pause. I considered whether or not to move forward with my plan, knowing what I did. In the end you all may judge me for it, but due to my forthcoming description of how it all played out, you will know not to take your gentlemen within fifty miles of Dolor-on-the-Downs or The Marine Vivarium, and thank me for it.

  “Miss Prideaux,” I said, after a moment, “you are a marvel. May I ask you a few questions of a bold, personal nature?”

  “You may ask them, of course …”

  “Very fair. I was curious if you were still interested in, if I may be so bold, affairs matrimonial?”

  “That is bold,” said Miss Prideaux. “May I ask why? Have you come to offer me your hand, Mr. Jeeves?”

  “Regrettably no, Miss,” said I. “I ask on behalf of the curiosity of another.”

  “A pity,” said Miss Prideaux, giving me a calculating look. “I rather think you’d do for a husband, Mr. Jeeves. Just the sort of mind that would be useful for running this hotel and managing things.”

  “If I may, Miss, what I perceive you need is not another mind,” said I. “You are clearly a woman of intelligence and drive.”

  “Thank you, Jeeves.”

  “It is only the truth.”

  “Perhaps. What were your other questions?”

  “If you felt yourself in need of further inducements to bring potential guests to your hotel.”

  “Always.”

  “Excellent. And thirdly, do you already have a method of bottling your friend’s unique medicine?”

  “Yes, after the first visit, patrons may pay a premium to have me bring it to them. They almost always do.”

  I smiled. “Please, if I may impose on your time for only a few more moments, then let me propose something to you, Miss Prideaux …”

  Thankfully, Mr. Wooster has taught me something of mixology, and so it was with confidence, later that night, that I presented a complicated potation to the Lord Calipash before he went down to dinner. He drank it, and we discussed his future for a time afterwards. He seemed pleased with my solutions to his pecuniary troubles and his sister’s discomfort with her state and confinement, and thus I was able to return sooner than I thought to London—and to the side of my employer. Rather than boring you with further descriptions—and to save my poor hand, which is cramping after writing all this, I present to you two newspaper clippings of some interest to the general public, but perhaps of more interest to the private members of this Club, who shall appreciate what is not said in them even more than what is.

  FITZROY—PRIDEAUX—June 24, at St. Michael’s Church at Dolor-on-the-Downs, Dorset by the Rev. S. M. Grant, Alastair Fitzroy Lord Calipash of Devon to Cirrina Prideaux, only daughter of Mr. Gabriel Prideaux, proprietress of The Marine Viviarium, hotel and sanatorium.

  REAL LIVE MERMAID DISPLAYED AT HOTEL AT DOLOR-ON-THE-DOWNS!

  DORSET, August 12—After hearing gossip and rumor regarding such, this paper sent down our own Mr. B, investigative reporter on entertainment hoaxes, to Dorset to see if the “Real Live Mermaid” advertised by The Marine Vivarium, a seaside hotel at Dolor-on-the-Downs, was indeed real, live, and, well, a mermaid, or another carnivalesque deception. Shockingly, the creature seems not to be a hoax. Mr. B observed the creature in a freshwater tank labeled “Real English Mermaid” and there behind glass she floated, shockingly naked and ill-tempered. She makes rude gestures with thin, greenish webbed fingers at all those who pay sixpence to have the curtain lifted so they might observe her, and floats about, or sometimes sits cross-legged on a large rock inside her tank, or reads whatever book is set on a stand just outside her tank, ringing a bell whenever she wishes the page turned (NB: at the time this reporter saw her, she was reading Rafael Sabatini’s recently-published Scaramouche). When asked where this marvel was found, the proprietress, the recently-married Lady Cirrina Calipash (née Prideaux) claimed her husband caught her on a fishing trip, whereupon she begged to be educated and allowed to socialize with the better element as much as she could. That the Lord Calipash began to tear up at the recollection bespeaks the love and attention given to this freak of nature by her caretakers. For our readership, the author wishes to note that those looking for a tranquil, relaxed seaside holidaying venue could go further and fare fouler than The Marine Vivarium: Very few screaming children or even chit-chatting adults could be found, the entire hotel was quiet, almost silent, and all patrons, when asked, said they had the loveliest time at the Vivarium, and would live there permanently if given the choic
e.

  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?