A Pretty Mouth by Molly Tanzer Read Free Book Online Page B

with your profuse ejaculations!”
    I am aware those not in my profession use that word without heed for its alternative definition, but I confess I giggled—which caused Mr. Vincent to blush very pink indeed, and sneer at me down his long narrow nose.
    “It is good to meet you at last,” said I, to cover the awkwardness I had caused. “I used to read your letters to the Lord Calipash. How was your journey from Rotterdam?”
    “Spare me this nonsense,” he snapped. “You must come, Lizzie—now—he gurgles and sweats out his very life, I think. You can understand him better than I, come and discover what it is he wants!”
    Lizzie looked appalled. “Mr. Vincent, you must not—”
    “I shall make love to the chit later if it please you—only come now and see to my father! Are you so silly that the health of your lord does not take precedence over your sense of decorum?”
    “Excuse me, Chelone,” said Lizzie. “I shall get you settled directly, but if you like, please go now to your old room. I know you know the way.”
    “Let me come with you,” I suggested. I had no wish to be left alone in this dreary, unremembered house! “Perhaps I can be of some help.”
    “You’ll be the most help if you shut your mouth and stop distracting us all! Why you have come now, at the eleventh hour, is a mystery to me!” Mr. Vincent turned on his heel and fairly ran away from us, taking the steps two at a time.
    I was, of course, concerned that he who had posted, and I had supposed, written the letter to me also had no notion of my coming, but I had no time to muse on this—Lizzie had followed after him, saying over her shoulder:
    “Come along, then. You always had a certain rapport with the Lord Calipash, perhaps the unexpected sight of you will restore him.”
    “I cannot account for this,” I said, as I followed her. “Why did he not tell anyone of his invitation to me, I wonder? And how did he get the letter into the post?” I laughed. “Perhaps it really was the Ghast!”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Oh, nothing—just, the woman at the post office said Mr. Vincent was very like the Ghast o’the Hills, you know, the ghost that—”
    “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” interrupted Lizzie. “Let us see what the Lord Calipash requires, yes?”
    During our trip upstairs to my guardian’s chambers I had noticed the same disrepair and neglect throughout Calipash Manor as had been evident in the foyer. The banisters were unpolished and slick with moisture; the carpet felt damp beneath my feet. Even the portrait-frames looked strangely aged. The gold leaf had flaked away and, curiously, the people in the pictures appeared older than I remembered them. The Calipash family has always been an attractive one, though just as the gentleman on the train mentioned, bizarrely alike in aspect, and with frequent incidences of twins. Long did I study their thin, aristocratic faces as a girl, making up silly stories about their lives—but today, instead of looking like an ancient and noble line, all seemed to carry in their eyes a hateful and sinister expression I had never before noticed. It made me shiver.
    Yet the dilapidation of the house was most evident when Lizzie turned the brass knob of the door into my lord’s chambers and pushed through the decaying portal into the interior. The horrible smell of warm putrefaction hit me first, and then, through the gloom—for the thick window-dressings blocked most of the already-dim light—I could see more of the awful dust that coated every surface. Soiled garments were piled upon the floor, and his desk was messy with papers and spilled candle-wax.
    This place had always been so fastidiously-kept when I was a child! Nauseated, shocked, I looked to my left and saw my guardian in his bed, the curtains of which were stained and the linens unclean. And then there was my lord himself … I remembered him as a vigorous older man, with thick white hair swept back from his