Grotesquerie for Ladies (Ebook)

“It is unfortunately true that Society, while amenable to one’s wearing as strange, as grotesque, as inaesthetic a creature as the most wayward soul could wish, remains perfectly inflexible as to the time of day at which the creature may be worn. To commit an outrage on artistry is allowed to be quite permissible, but to wear morning grotesquerie in the evening is to profane Society itself.”

From ‘Grotesquerie for Ladies: A Book of Modern Modes and Manners’, by Miss Demeanour.

The tail simply would not lie flat, no matter how she fussed at it. Emma had spent fully ten minutes in her dressing-room before coming downstairs, coaxing the little scaled appendage into precisely the curl to complement the curve of her shoulder, and the beaded shimmer of her gown—aware that, to let it slip was to invite censure the moment she appeared. The creature had dozed throughout, sleeping in a slumberous drape over her left shoulder; rather after the fashion of a log, inert, as it ought to be. Perfect, the tail excepted.

Her aunt, Lady Daviston, held court in the centre of the drawing-room, the queen of the gathering, as always. A statuesque presence, sere, but unbowed, her heavy golden gown and grotesquerie matched perfectly with the long drapes, the thick carpet, and half the ornaments in the room, as did Emma’s. Aunt Louisa would have it no other way. Her ladyship’s ornaments were impeccably arranged: a sinuous article curled in a loose, elegant wave about her thin neck, its snout just resting on the protuberance of a clavicle. A second dozed in her hair like a cluster of polished beads, admirably still—until, suddenly, it yawned, exposing a dark little maw and a mouthful of needle teeth.

The wayward tail flexed against Emma’s bosom, swished. It tickled, a sensation which distracted her, perilously, from the spectacle of her aunt; she twitched the rebellious appendage back into its designated spot with a fingertip, and jumped mightily when Aunt Louisa’s voice spoke at her elbow.

‘Really, Emma, this will not do. What on earth has got into your apparel?’

She spoke in a low hiss, the words fired through a congenial smile. They might have been discussing the weather (desultorily raining), or the quality of the dinner (excellent, especially the ratafia cream).

‘I really couldn’t say,’ answered Emma. ‘It was as docile as anything, before I came down.’

With a deft touch or two, a scowling Lady Daviston restored the artistic line of the grotesque’s errant tail to its ideal position, pressing it into Emma’s flesh with a firmness designed to weld it there. ‘Try not to move too much,’ she recommended. ‘It seems to be disturbed by it.’

Moving included breathing, Emma supposed, taking a shallow inhale. Her ladyship returned to her gaggle of enthralled ladies, leaving Emma in solitary splendour, holding her pose like a statue.

‘She’s hungry,’ said somebody else suddenly. ‘That’s why she’s twitchy.’

Emma turned her head, carefully. A woman near her own age stood in a corner, her draped rose-coloured gown clashing loudly with Lady Daviston’s amber-figured wallpaper. Her round face was solemn, but held a tracery of smile lines about the lips and eyes, which reassured Emma. At first, there seemed no sign of grotesquerie about her, but that could not be, not in this drawing-room. At length she spotted it: the glitter of dark scales wound into the coils of the lady’s hair.

‘How can it be hungry?’ Emma protested. ‘It was fed immediately before dinner.’ Something cool and smooth slid under her fingers: she’d unconsciously lifted a hand to stroke the spiralled curve of the tail. Oh dear, had she done so before? Is that what had dishevelled her apparel?

‘It’s a female,’ answered Emma’s new friend. ‘You can tell by the teeth—the females have longer incisors. Plus there’s a tendency among males to display ridged patterns along the spine, but this one doesn’t have that. See?’ This peculiar, but knowledgeable, person advanced, to point out the features in question. ‘And she has probably not been given any meat since she entered Lady Daviston’s household, so of course she’s hungry.’

Emma had never been obliged to feed any of the grotesques; Lady Daviston kept several carers among her staff. She knew, though, that they were carnivorous—the teeth alone were evidence of that—but that ladies preferred for them to be fed upon more refined dainties. Morsels of buttered bread, perhaps, or little chunks of marzipan. ‘I cannot imagine my aunt consenting to their being offered anything bloody,’ she sighed.

‘I believe it has something to do with their breath, or their waste. Perhaps both. A properly meat-nourished grotesque emits fetid air and malodorous substances.’

Emma regarded her interlocutor with mounting curiosity. One did not discuss such matters as the biological processes one’s grotesques regrettably went through. Even the feeding of them must be undertaken out of the ladies’ sight, except that on occasion they might be coaxed into consuming a crumb or two of cake, at the tea-table. Better, one might think, that they were ornaments in truth, as inanimate as a brooch or a necklace. But that would not do, as Aunt Louisa would say. There had once been a Mrs. Bradwell, whose grotesque had died in the night, leaving her with nothing to wear for an important ball. She had taken the most unwise measure of having the creature stuffed, by a taxidermist of some note, and had worn it anyway. Her position in society had never recovered.

‘I suppose,’ said Emma, ‘I had better have it taken to the carers.’ Better supplied than Mrs. Bradwell, she was not limited to only the one grotesque: Lady Daviston would ensure she was properly equipped with another in time for the next occasion (‘No niece of mine shall be seen in public without suitable accessories!’).

Her new friend’s manner turned chilly. ‘I daresay they will take excellent care of her,’ she said. ‘Especially once they are informed of her condition and needs.’

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