A Pretty Mouth

by Molly Tanzer

  “I hope they don’t raise our rent now that there’s only two of us in here,” said Maximilian, crossing his arms over his chest. He stood in front of the window, a shadow made darker by bright sunlight and disapproval.

  “Oh, surely they’ll find someone to bunk with you!” Henry was enjoying how his cheeriness was perceptibly blackening the moods of his former dorm-mates. “Buck up! I’m sure, in time, you’ll learn not to miss me.”

  One of the two boys shouted something after Henry as he shut the door behind him, but he couldn’t make out exactly what it was. Probably for the best. Such jealousy from his former comrades! He hadn’t expected his departure to so unsettle them, though he had, admittedly, hoped it would.

  It was with a spring in his step and a smile on his face that he approached St John’s door—no, their door—and knocked with a flourish. By Jove, things were really looking up for Henry Milliner! He imagined himself after a year or two of St John’s tutelage, how nobly he would be able to present himself, the kinds of connections he would have made …

  St John poked his head out of the door, startling Henry out of his reverie. He was squinting at him through a pair of large gold-rimmed spectacles. The glass in them was so dark and shimmery it looked like quicksilver.

  “What?” he snapped.

  “What?” said Henry, flustered.

  “What?”

  “What?”

  St John looked really annoyed. “What is it that you want?”

  “To—to …” Henry hefted his books. “You told me to come today …”

  “Oh!” St John frowned. “Wait a mo’.” And after pulling his head back inside, he slammed the door.

  As Henry stood alone in the corridor for several long minutes his spirits fell like a murderer from a gibbet. If St John had changed his mind—to go back to Maximilian and Bruce—he’d rather quit school!

  Thankfully, that didn’t seem to be a necessary course. Soon enough the door flew open and there was St John. He looked a tad rattled, and was no longer wearing his spectacles.

  “Sorry about that,” he said, holding the door for Henry. “Got wrapped up in something, lost track of time. Welcome, welcome, and all that.”

  Henry stepped inside and looked around. He was surprised—the room was fully as large as he anticipated, having had the so-called privilege of attending Lord Rochester in his chambers more than once, but it was far neater than any student’s room he had ever seen, despite the fact that it was cluttered with … for lack of a better way to describe it, “strange things.”

  There were apparatuses Henry assumed were philosophical or alchemical in nature sitting out on an enormous wooden work-table that took up most of the front room: Glass phials and pipettes and decanters covered the surface, some with odd-colored fires blazing underneath. Fumes wafted from their tops as the contents bubbled and fizzed. There was a large crank-powered tub with more philosophic glassware inside; Henry had no idea what its function might be. Against the tub lay a bellows made of gold and glass and rich buttery russet-colored leather of higher quality than Henry had ever had for his shoes.

  Across the room, in front of the window stood a table covered in green growing things. Henry started to see a rose-plant blooming—he had seen roses before, of course, but none that had blossoms so very like a tulip. There was a philodendron, too, that had been trained around a miniature pomegranate tree, and he was hard-pressed to ascertain where one began and the other left off, Baucis and Philemon in miniature. Both seemed to sprout the other’s leaves, though that was of course impossible—and yet, it did seem that the vine was producing tiny red trumpet-bell blooms upon it, and provided more support to the tree than the reverse. Shaking his head in wonder, Henry noticed a little nozzle hung above the table. It was connected to a tube that dipped into something that looked like a cross between a bellows and a barrel. As he stared at the contraption, there was a rattle that sounded like clockwork, a clicking sound, and then the nozzle released a mist that rained down upon the plants.

  The sudden spray was followed by a sharp yipping bark. Henry jumped at the sound.

  “That’s just Lady Franco, my cat,” said St John, with a quiet laugh. “She’s just about to birth her kittens, so she’s rather excitable.”

  Henry looked where St John pointed, and saw a calico face poking out from behind a screen. The cat looked at him with dull curiosity, then withdrew again.

  Wadham students were not allowed to keep pets.

  “I trust you’ll say nothing to anyone about my pussy?”

  Henry almost choked. “What?”

  “My cat.”

  “Oh. No, of course not.”

  Yet all this was not the half of the weirdness. There was a mirror that did not show a reflection for either Henry or St John when they walked in front of it, a cauldron set up on a tripod with some sort of bubbling, shining, mercury-like substance inside, and sundry awful-looking medical devices too, including a vacuum pump. The walls were covered in tacked-up posters of famous natural philosophers—Henry did not recognize them all, but noted Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle (looking especially winsome), and William Harvey among their numbers. There was a shelf of jars that were completely empty, yet all were meticulously labeled in a clear, even script. Henry did not inspect them to see what they said. Instead, he turned back to the work-table. Scattered among the glassware were a lined book filled with handwritten notes, a Galilean “micro-scope,” the spectacles St John had earlier worn, and a phial of some dark substance that looked uncomfortably like blood.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Henry.

  “An experiment,” said St John. “I was looking at Lady Franco’s blood with my micro-scope.”

  Henry laughed, but St John didn’t. He was serious.

  “Really?” said Henry. “Whatever for?”

  “To see her blood, of course.”

  “Yes … but why should you want to do that?”

  “To make a study of it.” St John hesitated, then shrugged and said, “I took a sample of her blood a week ago, and I am comparing the two. To see if there were any changes.”

  “What changes should there be?”

  St John canted his head to the side and looked at Henry keenly. “Things aren’t always as they should be, are they? Lady Franco is pregnant, for example. That could account for changes, could it not?”

  “Er … I suppose?”

  “Take nothing as given, Henry. If you want to be a natural philosopher, you’ll have to start being curious about the natural world.” St John poked him in the stomach. “Perhaps you are full of cat’s blood. How can you be sure, if you never check?”

  “I don’t meow.”

  “Is it cat’s blood that makes cats meow?” St John smiled. “I suppose it’s possible. The Hebrews believed the soul resided in the blood, and I believe they were closer to the truth than Galen—who thought the soul lived in the liver—or later Christian philosophers who believed the soul resides in the brain. I think the brain theory became popular only because so much blood circulates through the brain constantly. The brain uses nearly twenty percent of our blood, did you know that? So if the soul resided in the blood, if those Christian philosophers were using a psychoscope—a soul-viewer—that might account for their mistake. A much more advanced theory than that idiot Descartes put forward, don’t you think, though it’s centuries older?”

  “What?” Henry was still on ‘psychoscope.’ Did such a device exist? Was what St John suggested so casually even possible? It seemed vaguely heretical, but then again, much natural philosophy did. Dissecting corpses, blood transfusions, other nasty things like that—Henry wasn’t particularly devout, but he had his limits.

  “Descartes believed animals were soulless, that they could not feel pain or pleasure, which is nonsense, of course,” said St John patiently. “Then again, he believed the human soul used the pineal gland as a resonator to communicate with the body.”

  “And—it doesn’t?” />
  St John laughed. “I don’t think so, no. Animals have pineal glands.”

  “And no souls?”

  “Aristotle believed they had ‘sensitive souls’ that allowed them to have emotions and feelings and experience sensations.”

  Henry’s head was beginning to spin. “If Aristotle has so much to do with modern natural philosophy, I suppose I really must get better at Greek.”

  This delighted St John. “Indeed,” he said. “Well, enough of that. You are here! Are you happy with your new lodgings so far?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Henry. “I see you are tidy. I hope I won’t bother you, I am not as—”

  “Tidiness is a habit you must cultivate,” said St John. “You must be neat if you wish to live with me. I must occasionally utilize my garret for my philosophic researches— you won’t be disturbed by my overflow up there, I trust?”

  Henry wasn’t exactly thrilled by this new information, but he nodded. “I shall endeavor to be as unobtrusive as possible.”

  “I assumed as much. I have a lot of personal avenues of study which I explore during my free hours, you must understand.”

  “Free hours?” Henry laughed. “You must be the busiest man alive! Between homework and studying, your … whatever it is you do here … and the Blithe Company! And now you will be tutoring me in, well, in all sorts of things, too. Do you ever sleep?”

  St John shrugged and half-smiled. “When I can. There is always so much that seems to require my attention.”

  Henry opened his mouth, intending to remark that while he was grateful to be one of St John’s projects he hoped he wouldn’t be a burden, when he was suddenly overcome with the sensation that he was being watched. He looked about and quickly dismissed the thought. He could see nowhere in such a crowded space for anyone to hide.

  As he cast about, his gaze fell upon what must be St John’s desk. Another simple wooden table, it was distinguished from its fellows in two ways: It had mostly papers upon it, rather than anything bizarre or at the very least breakable, and it also had upon it twin gilt-framed portraits, held together in the center with a hinge.

  Henry saw one of the paintings was of St John and stepped over to look at it. It was a tolerable likeness, though Henry thought it didn’t quite do the Lord Calipash justice. The other visage was a woman’s. Though she was darker of hair, the two were much alike, and they had been painted, Henry noticed, in such a way that they appeared to be looking into one another’s eyes.

  “That is my sister,” said St John, noticing Henry’s interest.

  “What—er, may I enquire after her name?”

  “Honor. Miss Honor Clement. She is my twin. More than that, I should say—we are very similar in appearance, to be sure, but also in … other ways.” St John lifted the portrait and stroked his sister’s face with an elegant finger. “When we were children, we were very close. It is my one unhappiness here at Wadham that she cannot attend with me. She has a fine mind—finer than mine, truth be told, though there are many who think such a thing is impossible in a woman.” St John looked over at Henry. “Do you think so?”

  “I could not say, my lord. I suppose that I have never met a woman with as fine a mind as yours does not mean that she cannot exist. And truth be told, I have not met many women.”

  St John laughed and laughed. “That tongue of yours, Henry! I wonder if it is honest as well as elegant. Go, and put away your things—we will be wanted in class soon.”

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  “But mind you don’t stomp up the steps—Thomas’s room is below them.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  St John did not follow Henry up the stairs, but Henry was not unhappy to be alone the first time seeing his new lodgings. He was feeling slightly anxious about having agreed to the move without inspecting the room, especially after St John’s remark about “overflow,” but in the end, he had no complaints. The garret was a simple space, true, and crowded with furniture and equipment, but it was more than he’d had with Bruce and Maximilian, and it was private, too. There was only one small window, but it faced east and let in a decent amount of light, and the room had clearly been recently cleaned and readied for a boarder.

  A chest had been pushed against the far wall, opposite the window; an old, though serviceable desk lurked in the corner, clean save for a few more of the empty, labeled jars with cork stoppers. Henry picked one up, and the legend read “17 April 1660, 5th attempt. Partial Success.” Henry replaced it. He also noted an astrolabe, a collection of tuning forks, a hand-drawn herbal full of plants that looked to have been written by St John—it was in his handwriting—and of all things, a hurdy-gurdy on a stand. Everything had either been tucked out of the way or stacked neatly, so Henry decided to say nothing about their presence for now.

  He quickly stowed what he had brought with him, and descended into the chamber below. St John was not around, but Henry heard rustling from his bedroom.

  Not wishing to disturb his new chum, he looked around and tried not to break anything. Idly he looked at the plants again, marveling at their strangeness, and at the device that watered them. The equipment he did not touch, but he picked up St John’s spectacles that he’d left out on the table. Putting them on, he was surprised that his vision did not seem at all enhanced nor even dimmed by the hazy glass. Baffled, he looked around—and gasped.

  The empty jars were filled with … something!

  He walked closer, and noted they seemed to all contain some sort of gas, but not the same kind. Though the substances within them swirled like London fog churned up by carriage-horses, every jar held a slightly different color, gold and green and blue and pink and purple and even a burgundy-flecked one, though they were all variations on the same phosphorescent theme.

  “What the …” he muttered. A little discomfited, Henry reached up to take off his glasses, and gasped again.

  His hand was glowing, too! He could see his veins, they were silver-green, and flecked with off-white particles the color of fresh cream. On a whim, he decided to peek into St John’s room and see what he looked like.

  Peering around the corner, he saw St John was filled with a swirling tempest of black and gold. Henry, now more than a little creeped out, took off the spectacles, pocketed them, and coughed discreetly.

  St John paused in his straightening of his robes and his cap in front of a mirror. He looked perfect—like he was a part of the elegantly-furnished chamber. Henry, for his part, felt even more like a flabby malkintrash than he usually did—a disgrace; absurd, as Bruce had said. An impostor.

  “Yes?” St John looked Henry up and down. “Are you pleased with—I’m sorry, are you planning on attending class like that?”

  Henry looked down. His robes were dusty and wrinkled from moving, true, but did it really make a difference?

  “You do not look like someone with whom we would associate,” said St John matter-of-factly. “If you are going to chum with us, you must be as beautiful as we know you can be.”

  A sound escaped Henry, something in between a snort and a bark. “My lord, I hate to contradict you, but I fear I shall be a disappointment if you ever want me to be beautiful. I may learn to dress myself better, or act more elegant—or even get better at Greek—but even you cannot make me handsome. I am too fat, for one, and—”

  “You are not too fat,” interrupted St John. “Go you and lay down upon my bed.”

  “My lord, I—”

  “Do it.” St John’s tone was adamant.

  Henry meekly complied, and discovered another poster tacked to the ceiling above the mattress. It was of a young man’s face in profile, looking romantically into the middle distance. He wore no wig, and his shoulder-length golden hair fell in curls about his face, which Henry felt could charitably be called plump; uncharitably, porky.

  “My dear Mr. Cowley,” said St John soupily. “I think him very handsome. I feel positively inspired sleeping underneath him, though I am no poet myself, of course.”r />
  “I confess I am not much acquainted with his works,” said Henry.

  St John sighed happily, then reverently chanted:

  “She Loves, and she confesses too;

  There’s then at last, no more to do.

  The happy work’s entirely done;

  Enter the Town which thou’st won;

  The Fruits of Conquest now begin;

  Iô Triumph! Enter in.”

  Henry was musing on how if Rochester had thought his poem was dirty, then just wait until he heard this one, when a voice harsh as new spirits came from the bedroom doorway.

  “My lord.”

  Henry started up from where he lay, but relaxed when he saw it was only St John’s manservant.

  St John looked at the intruder evenly. “What is it?”

  “I believe it is near time for my lord’s afternoon class.”

  St John flushed. “We are well aware of that, Thomas, and shall be leaving soon.”

  Thomas remained in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest. Between his frown, dark, long hair, and thin moustache, he looked the spitting image of the cartoons of those wanted by the police on suspicion of being Cavaliers one still saw tacked to buildings occasionally, even now that Richard Cromwell was under house arrest and the Declaration of Breda had effectively pardoned the Royalists. All he needed was a lace ruffle at his throat and a long sword at his waist.

  St John mirrored his posture, crossing his arms over his robes. “Why are you still here? Have you nothing to occupy yourself? I am sure I could find something for you to do if you are bored.”

  “When my lord has gone to class I shall attend to repairing his evening dress, and washing his robes.”

  “Mr. Milliner.” St John’s tone curdled Henry’s blood; it was the quietness with which he perpetually spoke that made his angry intensity so goddamn spooky. “Thomas is conveniently doing laundry today. Go and change into clean robes, and bring the dirty set down. He will have them cleaned and pressed for you.”

  “My lord?” Thomas did not look particularly pleased by this. Henry rose but didn’t know what to do—to push past Thomas would be unspeakably rude; to stay would be to disobey St John’s order …