by Mervyn Peake
But the Earl will not look at her. He is sitting huddled in the centre of the broad carven mantelpiece, his head below the level of his shoulders. Fuchsia, standing below him with her hands shaking as they grip the marble of the mantel, tilts herself towards him. Her strong back is hollowed, her head is thrown back and her throat taut. Yet she dare not touch him. The austerity of the many years that lay behind them – the chill of the mutual reserve they had always shown to one another, is like a wall between them even now. It seemed as though that wall were crumbling and that their frozen love was beginning to thaw and percolate through the crevices, but now, when it is most needed and most felt, the wall has closed again and Fuchsia dares not touch him. Nor dare she admit to herself that her father has become possessed.
He makes no answer, and Fuchsia, sinking to her knees, begins to cry, but there are no tears. Her body heaves as she crouches below Lord Sepulchrave as he squats on the mantelpiece, and her throat croaks, but no tears relieve her. It is dry anguish and she becomes older during these long moments, older than many a man or woman could ever understand.
Flay, clenching his hands, moves into the room, the hair standing out rigidly like little wires all over his scanty flesh. Something had crumpled up inside him. His undeviating loyalty to the House of Groan and to his Lordship is fighting with the horror of what he sees. Something of the same feeling must have been going on inside Swelter for as he and Flay gaze at the Earl there is upon their faces the same emotion translated, as it were, into two very different languages.
His Lordship is dressed in black. His knees are drawn up almost to his chin. His long, fine white hands are curled slightly inwards as they hang over his knees, between which, and his supported chin, the wrists are wedged. But it is the eyes which strike a chill to the centre of those who watch, for they have become circular. The smile which played across his lips when Fuchsia had been with him in the pine wood is gone forever. His mouth is entirely expressionless.
Suddenly a voice comes from the mouth. It is very quiet:
‘Chef.’
‘Your Lordship?’ says Swelter trembling.
‘How many traps have you in the Great Kitchen?’
Swelter’s eyes shift to left and right and his mouth opens, but he can make no sound.
‘Come, Chef, you must know how many traps are set every night – or have you become slovenly?’
Swelter holds his podgy hands together. They tremble before him as he works his fingers between one another.
‘Sir,’ says Swelter … ‘there must be forty traps in the Great Kitchen … forty traps, your gracious Lordship.’
‘How many were found in the traps at five o’clock today? Answer me.’
‘They were all full, your Lordship – all except one, sir.’
‘Have the cats had them?’
‘The … the cats, your –’
‘I said, have the cats had them?’ repeats Lord Sepulchrave sadly.
‘Not yet,’ says the Chef. ‘Not yet.’
‘Then bring me one … bring me a plump one … immediately. What are you waiting for, Mr Chef? … What are you waiting for?’
Swelter’s lips move wetly. ‘A plump one,’ he says. ‘Yes, my Lord … a … plump … one.’
As soon as he has disappeared the voice goes on: ‘Some twigs, Mr Flay, some twigs at once. Twigs of all sizes, do you understand? From small branches downwards in size – every kind of shape, Flay, every kind of shape, for I shall study each in turn and understand the twigs I build with, for I must be as clever as the others with my twigs, though we are careless workmen. What are you waiting for, Mr Flay? …’
Flay looks up. He has been unable to keep his eyes on the transformed aspect of his master, but now he lifts them again. He can recognize no expression. The mouth might as well not be there. The fine aquiline nose appears to be more forceful and the saucer-like shape of the eyes hold within either sky a vacant moon.
With a sudden awkward movement Flay plucks Fuchsia from the floor and flings her high over his shoulder and, turning, he staggers to the door and is soon among the passages.
‘I must go back, I must go back to him!’ Fuschia gasps.
Flay only makes a noise in his throat and strides on.
At first Fuschia begins to struggle, but she has no strength left for the dreadful scene has unnerved her and she subsides over his shoulder, not knowing where she is being taken. Nor does Flay know where he is taking her. They have reached the east quadrangle and have come out into the early morning when Fuchsia lifts her head.
‘Flay,’ she says, ‘we must find Doctor Prune at once. I can walk, please, now. Thank you. Flay, but be quick. Be quick, put me down.’
Flay eases her off his shoulder and she drops to the ground. Fuchsia has seen the Doctor’s house in the corner of the quadrangle and she cannot understand why she had not thought of him before. Fuchsia begins to run, and directly she is at the Doctor’s front door she beats it violently with the knocker. The sun is beginning to rise above the marshes and picks out a long gutter and a cornice of the Doctor’s house, and presently, after Fuchsia has slammed at the door again, it picks out the extraordinary headpiece of Prunesquallor himself as it emerges sleepily through a high window. He cannot see what is below him in the shadows, but calls out:
‘In the name of modesty and of all who slumber, go easy with that knocker! What in the world is it? … Answer me. What is it, I repeat? … Is it the plague that has descended on Gormenghast – or a forceps case? Is it a return of midnight mange, or merely flesh-death? Does the patient rave? … Is he fat or thin? … Is he drunk or mad? … Is he …’ The Doctor yawns and it is then that Fuchsia has her first chance to speak:
‘Yes, oh yes! Come quickly, Doctor Prune! Let me tell you. Oh, please, let me tell you!’
The high voice at the sill cries: ‘Fuchsia!’ as though to itself. ‘Fuchsia!’ And the window comes down with a crash.
Flay moves to the girl and almost before he has done so the front door is flung open and Doctor Prunesquallor in his flowered pyjamas is facing them.
Taking Fuchsia by the hand and motioning Flay to follow he minces rapidly to the living room.
‘Sit down, sit down, my frantic one!’ cries Prunesquallor. ‘What the devil is it? Tell the old Prune all about it.’
‘It’s father,’ says Fuchsia, the tears finding release at long last. ‘Father’s become wrong, Doctor Prune; Father’s become all wrong … Oh, Doctor Prune, he is a black owl now … Oh, Doctor, Help him! Help him!’
The Doctor does not speak. He turns his pink, over-sensitive, intelligent head sharply in the direction of Flay, who nods and comes forward a step, with the report of a knee-joint. Then he nods again, his jaw working. ‘Owl,’ he says. ‘Wants mice! … Wants twigs: on mantelpiece! Hooting! Lordship’s mad.’
‘No!’ shouts Fuchsia. ‘He’s ill, Doctor Prune. That’s all. His library’s been burned. His beautiful library; and he’s become ill. But he’s not mad. He talks so quietly. Oh, Doctor Prune, what are you going to do?’
‘Did you leave him in his room?’ says the Doctor, and it does not seem to be the same man speaking.
Fuchsia nods her tear-wet head.
‘Stay here,’ says the Doctor quietly; as he speaks he is away and within a few moments has returned in a lime-green dressing gown with lime-green slippers to match, and in his hand, a bag.
‘Fuchsia dear, send Steerpike to me, in your father’s room. He is quick-witted and may be of help. Flay, get about your duties. The Breakfast must proceed, as you know. Now then, my gipsy-child; death or glory.’ And with the highest and most irresponsible of trill he vanishes through the door.
A CHANGE OF COLOUR
The morning light is strengthening, and the hour of the Great Breakfast approaches. Flay, utterly distraught, is wandering up and down the candle-lit stone lanes where he knows he will be alone. He had gathered the twigs and he had flung them away in disgust only to re-gather them, for the very thought of
disobeying his master is almost as dreadful to him as the memory of the creature he has seen on the mantelpiece. Finally, and in despair, he has crunched the twigs between his own stick like fingers, the simultaneous crackling of the twigs and of his knuckles creating for a moment a miniature storm of brittle thunder in the shadow of the trees. Then, striding back to the Castle he has descended uneasily to the Stone Lanes. It is very cold, yet there are great pearls upon his forehead, and in each pearl is the reflection of a candle flame.
Mrs Slagg is in the bedroom of the Countess, who is piling her rust-coloured hair above her head as though she were building a castle. Every now and again Mrs Slagg peers furtively at the bulk before the mirror, but her attention is chiefly centred upon an object on the bed. It is wrapped in a length of lavender coloured velvet, and little porcelain bells are pinned here and there all over it. One end of a golden chain is attached to the velvet near the centre of what has become, through process of winding, a small velvet cylinder, or mummy, measuring some three and a half feet in length and with a diameter of about eighteen inches. At the other end of the chain and lying on the bed beside the lavender roll is a sword with a heavy blade of blue-black steel and a hilt embossed with the letter ‘G’. This sword is attached to the gold chain with a piece of string.
Mrs Slagg dabs a little powder upon something that moves in the shadow at one end of the roll, and then peers about her, for it is hard for her to see what she is doing, the shadows in the bedroom of the Countess are of so dark a breed. Between their red rims her eyes wander here and there before she bends over Titus and plucks at her underlip. Again her eyes peer up at the Countess, who seems to have grown tired of her hair, the edifice being left unfinished as though some fitful architect had died before the completion of a bizarre edifice which no one else knew how to complete. Mrs Slagg moves from the bedside in little half-running, half-walking steps, and from the table beneath the candelabra plucks a candle that is waxed to the wood among the birdseed, and, lighting it from a guttering torso of tallow that stands by, she returns to the lavender cylinder which has begun to twist and turn.
Her hand is unsteady as she lifts the wax above the head of Titus, and the wavering flame makes it leap. His eyes are very wide open. As he sees the light his mouth puckers and works, and the heart of the earth contracts with love as he totters at the wellhead of tears. His little body writhes in its dreadful bolster and one of the porcelain bells chimes sweetly.
‘Slagg,’ said the Countess in a voice of husk.
Nannie, who is as light as a feather, starts into the air an inch or two at the sudden sound, and comes to earth again with a painful jarring of her little arid ankles; but she does not cry out, for she is biting her lower lip while her eyes cloud over. She does not know what she has done wrong and she has done nothing wrong, but there is always a feeling of guilt about her when she shares a room with the Countess. This is partly due to the fact that she irritates the Countess, and the nurse can sense this all the while. So it is in a thin and tremulous voice that she stammers:
‘Yes, oh yes, Ladyship? Yes … yes, your Ladyship?’
The Countess does not turn her head to speak, but stares past herself in the cracked mirror, her elbows resting on the table, her head supported in the cups of her hands.
‘Is the child ready?’
‘Yes, yes, just ready, just ready. Ready now, your Ladyship, bless his little smallness … yes … yes …’
‘Is the sword fixed?’
‘Yes, yes, the sword, the –’
She is about to say ‘the horrid, black sword’, but she checks herself nervously, for who is she to express her feeling when ritual is involved? ‘But it’s so hot for him,’ she continues hurriedly, ‘so hot for his little body in all this velvet – though, of course,’ she adds, a stupid little smile working in and out of the wrinkles of her lips, ‘it’s very pretty.’
The Countess turns slowly in her chair. ‘Slagg,’ she says, ‘come over here, Slagg.’
The old woman, her heart beating wildly, patters her way around the bed and stands by the dressing-table. She clasps her hands together on her flat chest and her eyes are wide open.
‘Have you still no idea of how to answer even simple questions?’ asks the Countess very slowly.
Nannie shakes her head, but suddenly a red spot appears in either cheek. ‘I can answer questions, I can!’ she cries, startling herself with her own ineffectual vehemence.
The Countess does not seem to have heard her. ‘Try and answer this one,’ she murmurs.
Mrs Slagg cocks her head on one side and listens like a grey bird.
‘Are you attending, Slagg?’
Nannie nods her head as though suffering from palsy.
‘Where did you meet that youth?’ There is a moment’s silence.
‘That Steerpike?’ the Countess adds.
‘Long ago,’ says Nannie, and closed her eyes as she waits for the next question. She feels pleased with herself.
‘Where is what I said: where, not when,’ booms the voice.
Mrs Slagg tries to gather her thoughts together. Where? Oh, where was it? she wondered. It was long ago … And then she recalled how he had appeared with Fuchsia suddenly at the door of her room.
‘With Fuchsia … Oh, yis … yis, it was with my Fuchsia, your Ladyship.’
‘Where does he come from? Answer me, Slagg, and then finish my hair.’
‘I never do know … No, not ever … I have never been told. Oh, my poor heart, no. Where could the boy come from?’ She peers at the dark bulk above her.
Lady Gertrude wipes the palm of her hand slowly across her brow. ‘You are the same Slagg,’ she says, ‘the same brilliant Slagg.’
Nannie begins to cry, wishing desperately that she were clever.
‘No use crying,’ says the Countess. ‘No use. No use. My birds don’t cry. Not very often. Were you at the fire?’
The word ‘fire’ is terrible to Mrs Slagg. She clutches her hands together. Her bleary eyes grow wild. Her lips tremble, for in her imagination she can see the great flames rising about her.
‘Finish my hair, Nannie Slagg. Stand on a chair and do it.’
Nannie turns to find a chair. The room is like a shipwreck. The red walls glower in the candle-light. The old woman patters her way between stalactites of tallow, boxes and old sofas. The Countess whistles and a moment later the room is alive with wings. By the time Mrs Slagg has dragged a chair to the dressing-table and climbed upon it, the Countess is deep in conversation with a magpie. Nannie disapproves of birds altogether and cannot reconcile the habits of the Countess with the House of Groan, but she is used to such things, not being over seventy years old for nothing. Bending a little over her ladyship’s locks she works with difficulty to complete the hirsute cornice, for the light is bad.
‘Now then, darling, now then,’ says the heavy voice below her, and her old body thrills, for she has never known the Countess speak to her in such a way before; but glancing over the mountainous shoulder she sees that the Countess is talking to a bedraggled finch and Nannie Slagg is desolate.
‘So Fuchsia was the first to find him, was she?’ says the Countess, rubbing her finger along the finch’s throat.
Mrs Slagg, startled, as she always is when anyone speaks, fumbles with the red hank in her hand. ‘Who? Oh, who do you mean … your Ladyship? … Oh, she’s always a good girl, Fuchsia is, yis, yis, always.’
The Countess gets to her feet in a monumental way, brushing several objects from the dressing-table to the floor with her elbow. As she rises she hears the sound of sobbing and turns her head to the lavender roll. ‘Go away, Slagg – go away, and take him with you. Is Fuchsia dressed?’
‘Yis … oh, my poor heart, yis … Fuchsia is all ready, yis, quite ready, and waiting in her room. Oh yis, she is …’
‘His Breakfast will soon be beginning,’ says the Countess, turning her eyes from a brass clock to her infant son. ‘Very soon.’
Nannie, who has r
ecovered Titus from the fastnesses of the bed, stops at the door before pattering out into the dawn-lit corridor. Her eyes stare back almost triumphantly and a little pathetic smile works at the crinkled corners of her mouth, ‘His Breakfast,’ she whispers. ‘Oh, my weak heart, his first Breakfast.’
Steerpike has been found at last, Fuchsia colliding with him as he rounds a corner of the staircase on his way down from the aunts. He is very sprucely dressed, his high shoulders without a speck of dust upon them, his fingernails pared, his hair smoothed down over his pasty-coloured forehead. He is surprised to see Fuchsia, but he does not show it, merely raising his eyebrows in an expression both inquiring and deferential at the same time.
‘You are up very early, Lady Fuchsia.’
Fuchsia, her breast heaving from her long run up the stairs, cannot speak for a moment or two; then she says: ‘Doctor Prune wants you.’
‘Why me?’ says the youth to himself; but aloud he said: ‘Where is he?’
‘In my father’s room.’
Steerpike licks his lips slowly. ‘Is your father ill?’
‘Yes, oh yes, very ill.’
Steerpike turns his head away from Fuchsia, for the muscles of his face cry out to relax. He gives them a free rein and then, straightening his face and turning to Fuchsia, he says: ‘Everything I can do I will do.’ Suddenly, with the utmost nimbleness, he skips past her, jumping the first four steps together, and races down the stone flight on his way to the Earl’s bedroom.
He has not seen the Doctor for some time. Having left his service their relationship is a little strained, but this morning as he enters at the Earl’s door he can see there will be neither space nor time for reminiscences in his own or the Doctor’s brain.
Prunesquallor, in his lime-green dressing-gown, is pacing to and fro before the mantelpiece with the stealth of some kind of vertical cat. Not for a moment does he take his eyes off the Earl, who, still upon the mantelpiece, watches the physician with great eyes.