A Pretty Mouth (24 page)

Rochester’s face was so purple it looked like he’d fallen into a vat of dye. “I—
I’m not hungry
!” he cried, and ran off toward the dormitories, tears streaming down his face.

Chapter Eight: Not All Souls Beauty Know

Henry watched Rochester go with mixed feelings. Showing up the little rat hadn’t felt as good as he’d anticipated; he was surprised to find that he felt kind of rotten about it. Annoyed—at himself, and at Rochester—Henry shoved his hands inside his pockets, whereupon he discovered he still had St John’s curious spectacles. Putting them on, he saw Rochester was apparently filled up with an eggplant-purple mist.

So weird. He needed to ask St John about what the deuce he was up to with his philosophical researches. But that was for later—the Company awaited him, and upon entering the dining hall he forgot all of his troubles. Anthony Neville and Nicholas Jay waved him over, and he took his seat between them with enthusiastic dignity.

Meals were generally quiet affairs at Wadham. According to the statutes of the college, unless it were a feast day or some other special occasion, there was a strict rule against conversation during dinner or supper—unless it could be managed in a “useful” language like Latin. Given that it was difficult to spread gossip or discuss modern politics in such, the most that could usually be heard at table were the sounds of chewing and the occasional clipped whisper.

Henry was used to eating in silence, given his general lack of friends and poor language skills, but he was happy to be quiet that day. The mood among the Company boys was a thing to be savored. Most of them, upon catching his eye, smiled at him or raised their eyebrows conspiratorially; Lucas Jones, however, was sitting at the end, looking unhappy. For Henry, simply not to be an object of ridicule was a pleasure, and he gobbled his stew with more than his usual gusto.

“
Psst
,” hissed Fitzroy Lowell into his armpit closest to Henry. “We’ll mill about the lawn after, of course, but later—there’s going to be a fête, all right? Just don’t tell Jones.”

“I’m game,” whispered Henry, but that was all they could manage to communicate.

It was easier to chat after the meal’s conclusion. When the weather was fine, most students typically milled about the gravel quad for half an hour or so before withdrawing to study, and the weather was indeed fine that night. The torches had been lit, and everyone was out and about discussing whether or not the King was really on his way home and whether he would retake the throne on his birthday, the 29
^th
of May, or not. With General Monck’s support and the Convention Parliament’s declaration that Charles had been king since his father’s execution, it seemed, for those students with Royalist sympathies at any rate, a happy inevitability, but there was no way of predicting the timing.

The members of the Blithe Company kept to these topics exclusively, which frustrated Henry even though he understood the reason. Of course he wished for Charles II’s restoration as much as the next good Anglican, but he was not much in the mood for political discourse—he wanted to know the plan, and he could tell the rest of the Company were anxious to discuss it, too. But Jones, perhaps suspecting this, hung around them like a cat haunting a fishmonger’s—until a boy came running up to him with news of some urgent matter requiring his attention.

Not a minute after Jones had reluctantly departed, St John shimmered into their midst.

“Goodness me,” he said, smiling at them all, “if I could so easily bribe everyone with three shillings and a crumb of ginger-bread, I would rule all England, would I not?”

“Thought he might be acting on your orders,” giggled Rowan Zwarteslang. “Poor Jones.”

“What’s the plan, Calipash?” demanded Lowell.

“Yes, how shall we entertain ourselves tonight?” said Neville, keener than a scent-hound who’s sniffed a fox.

“Later tonight—eleven, say—let us convene in the Fellow’s Common Room and Library,” said St John, “and I will tell you all the details. Oh, and bring your cricketing bats—no, that’s all I shall say on the matter.” St John shook his head, raising his hand in a gesture that instantly dismissed all protests. “I have not had time to contemplate all which I wish to do to Lucas Jones, but I am in the mood for some
sport
.”

Henry laughed along with everyone else, a new experience for him, but as the party broke up to go about their respective businesses, St John held him back.

“Here is the key to my—our rooms,” he said. All of a sudden, Henry thought he looked out of spirits, but it might have just been a trick of the light. “I shall not return with you. There is … a matter which demands my attention.”

Henry was deeply disappointed. “Of course, my lord.”

St John cocked an eyebrow at him. “Is there something else?”

“Er, earlier … you had intimated we might study together this evening …”

“Oh, I
am
sorry, Henry,” said St John. “Here—I promise, if you read the text and make notes on what you find difficult or confusing, I’ll go over them with you early tomorrow, before our classes. And, for additional practice—” he smiled when Henry groaned, “I want you to translate the first ten lines of Plato’s
Apology
. Find the original Greek on my rear left bookshelf, it’s a slender, blue-bound edition.”

“All right. But before you go …”

“Yes?”

Henry withdrew the spectacles from his pocket. St John startled at the sight of them, and snatched them away rudely.

“Do
not
take my things!” he said, his voice higher and louder than Henry had yet heard.

“I didn’t mean to. I put them on, I’m sorry, I … what on earth are they?”

St John looked like he might strike Henry, but then he relaxed. “They … are a device of my own invention.”

“Oh?”

St John nodded. “Earlier I mentioned the psychoscope …”

“Yes?”

St John grinned. “I managed to construct my own from a set of diagrams designed by the philosopher Leonardo da Vinci, from materials, let us say
borrowed
from this university … and another. Psychology—the study of souls—is more advanced at Christ Church, given that the discipline originated from within the clergy.”

“And so those jars are full of … souls.” Where, Henry wondered, had he gotten all of them?

As if anticipating this question, St John said, “The jars are full of plant souls, vegetative essences, as Aristotle would say. Do not worry.”

“I’m not, my lord. But—”

“Eh?”

“What do you
do
with them?”

St John looked frustrated. He blew his breath out through the side of his mouth, then quoted:

“Indeed I must confess,

When souls mix ‘tis an happiness;

But not complete till bodies too do combine,

And closely as our minds together join:

But half of heaven the souls in glory taste,

Till by love in heaven, at last,

Their bodies too are plac’d.”

Henry was unimpressed by St John’s love of quoting poetry instead of answering questions. “So you’re … combining essences?”

“Not … exactly, but—”

“Then what?”

“Whatever I am doing, I assure you, is my business alone,” said St John shortly. Henry took a step back, and St John relented. “I’m sorry, Henry—I have a lot on my mind. I promise I shall explain everything to you in time, but I must run—and you must, too. Your work will take several hours, I think, but shouldn’t be too difficult for you.”

Henry wasn’t so sure about that when he actually began on the task. Perhaps it was his curiosity over St John’s strange quotes and stranger jars full of ‘souls’ or ‘essences’ or whatever (he’d thrown a cloth over those on his desk; they gave him the heebie-jeebies now that he knew what they held), perhaps it was St John’s demand that he take notes on what he could not understand, but his homework took him far longer than he’d anticipated. He felt mentally exhausted when he opened the leather-bound
Apologia
. He yawned, the clock struck ten—

Chapter Nine: The Learned are the Least Devout

—and Henry heard it in the middle of striking quarter-till the hour when someone shook him awake.

“Come
on
, Henry,” St John was saying, as Henry groggily opened his eyes and hastily wiped a puddle of cold drool from his cheek.

“Mwhaa?”

“Oh, Henry. You are
such
a mess. We’re to meet in the Common Room at eleven, and here you are, napping.” St John looked mightily annoyed. “And
where
is your bat?”

“Haven’t got one,” said Henry, that fact having slipped his mind earlier.

St John sighed. “You’ll have to borrow Thomas’s. Thomas—go and get your cricketing bat. Mr. Milliner must have the use of it tonight.”

Thomas was hovering behind St John and with such an anxious, hangdog look on his face that Henry almost felt bad for the servant, even after his rudeness earlier that afternoon; with a bow, Thomas acknowledged his master’s request and scampered down the stairs. Sounds of thumping and scraping drifted up to the second story, as if someone were searching frantically for something.

“Thomas is an excellent cricketer,” commented St John, as Henry went over to his mirror, weaving in among the bulky instruments, and attempted to make himself more presentable. The hair on the left side of his head had flattened during his nap. When he was satisfied—and St John did not sneer when Henry turned round to face him, as he had the first two times—they descended and found Thomas awaiting them, cricket bat in hand.

“Let us away, then,” said St John grandly. “Mr. Jones is in need of a visit.”

“My Lord—” Thomas’s voice was halting, apologetic.

“What is it?”

“You told Mr. Fitzroy to meet you here, my lord.”

St John swore creatively. “I did, and Godfrey is
always
late—well, why don’t you go ahead, Thomas, and tell the boys we are delayed?”

Thomas bowed, but when he opened the door to obey, there was a person standing there, his hand raised, knuckles poised as if to rap them upon wood.

“Godfrey!” cried St John. “Welcome to our humble abode once again.”

“
Hush
,” said the stranger, tipping his hat at Thomas as he stepped inside. “Don’t shout my name so, I just made it over the wall. Had a deuce of a time coming up here without being seen. Everyone’s running hither and yon with wild rumors about the king.”

Henry was impressed—who was this man to speak to St John so? And St John seemed not to mind his teasing. Perhaps they had been childhood friends, or even relatives—Godfrey was of a similar height to St John, and he looked as though he had been built from the same plans. He was also slender, and had a narrow, almost effeminate face with lovely features, but there was a mischief about his eyes and mouth where St John usually seemed melancholic—or disturbingly feral, as was the case now.

“We were just leaving anyhow. Ready to have some fun?”

“Always.” Godfrey finally noticed Henry—and a look came into his eye that made Henry tremble, though he did not know why. “Ooh, who is
this
? You didn’t tell me you were opening a bakery, yet here you have as pretty a
petit four
as I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“This is our cousin, Godfrey Fitzroy,” said St John, stepping between Henry and Godfrey. “He is at school in Oxford, at Christ Church. Godfrey, meet Mr. Milliner, who has rented our garret.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” said Godfrey, taking off his cap to bow; upon rising, he eyed Henry up and down. “I live for this sort of thing, don’t you?”

“Well, I—”

“Education was all Father’s idea, he sent me hither after catching me doing good works with a footman and two of the stable-lads back at home in Devon. Perhaps he thought I should be well-suited to ministering to the masses.” Godfrey stuck out his very red tongue and licked his upper lip. “I had no objection. Far easier to do the Lord’s work among the better element when you’re all in such close quarters, don’t you think?”

Henry did not know what to say, and so just stood there, mouth slightly ajar. Not only was Godfrey alarming in his manners, Henry realized he might very possibly be the person he had seen taking that queer dog away from Wadham the night he and Rochester had come back from the meeting at the Horse and Hat. Henry remembered thinking the man had looked much like St John, and here was someone with dark hair and the same general appearance …

“The plump pretty one doesn’t speak much, does he?” giggled Godfrey. “Mr. Milliner, you’re silent as a glazed ham—and just as appetizing. Cat got your tongue?
Ooh
, that reminds me—how is Lady Franco?”