The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

‘How do you mean?’ said Clarice, raising her eyes nervously.

Cora turned to the Doctor for the first time. ‘She’s ignorant,’ she said blankly. ‘She doesn’t understand figures of eight.’

Nannie could not resist correcting the Lady Cora, for the Doctor’s attention had infected her with an eagerness to go on talking. A little nervous smile appeared on her lips, however, when she said: ‘You don’t mean “figures of eight”, Lady Cora; you mean “figures of speech”.’

Nannie was so pleased at knowing the expression that the smile remained shuddering in the wrinkles of her lips until she realized that she was being stared at by the aunts.

‘Servant,’ said Cora. ‘Servant …’

‘Yes, my lady. Yes, yes, my lady,’ said Nannie Slagg, struggling to her feet.

‘Servant,’ echoed Clarice, who had rather enjoyed what had happened.

Cora turned to her sister. ‘There’s no need for you to say anything.’

‘Why not?’ said Clarice.

‘Because it wasn’t you that she was disobedient with, stupid.’

‘But I want to give her some punishment, too,’ said Clarice.

‘Why?’

‘Because I haven’t given any for such a long time … Have you?’

‘You’ve never given any at all,’ said Cora.

‘Oh yes, I have.’

‘Who to?’

‘It doesn’t matter who it was. I’ve given it, and that’s that.’

‘That’s what?’

‘That’s the punishment.’

‘Do you mean like our brother’s?’

‘I don’t know. But we mustn’t burn her, must we?’

Fuchsia had risen to her feet. To strike her aunts, or even to touch them, would have made her quite ill and it is difficult to know what she was about to do. Her hands were shaking at her sides.

The phrase, ‘But we mustn’t burn her, must we?’ had found itself a long shelf at the back of Doctor Prunesquallor’s brain that was nearly empty, and the ridiculous little phrase found squatting drowsily at one end was soon thrown out by the lanky newcomer, which stretched its body along the shelf from the ‘B’ of its head to the ‘e’ of its tail, and turning over had twenty-four winks (in defiance of the usual convention) – deciding upon one per letter and two over for luck; for there was not much time for slumber, the owner of this shelf – of the whole bone house, in fact – being liable to pluck from the most obscure of his grey-cell caves and crannies, let alone the shelves, the drowsy phrases at any odd moment. There was no real peace. Nannie Slagg, with her knuckles between her teeth, was trying to keep her tears back.

Irma was staring in the opposite direction. Ladies did not participate in ‘situations’. They did not apprehend them. She remembered that perfectly. It was Lesson Seven. She arched her nostrils until they were positively triumphal and convinced herself that she was not listening very hard.

Dr Prunesquallor, imagining the time to be ripe, leapt to his feet and, swaying like a willow wand that had been stuck in the ground and twanged at its so exquisitely peeled head – uttered a strangely bizarre cry, followed by a series of trills, which can only be stylized by the ‘Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha- ha-ha-ha’, of literary convention, and wound up with:

‘Titus! By all that’s infinitesimal. Lord-bless-my-soul, if he hasn’t been eaten by a shark!’

Which of the five heads turned itself the most rapidly would be difficult to assess. Possibly Nannie was a fraction of a second behind the others, for the double reason that the condition of her neck was far from plastic and because any ejaculation, however dramatic and however much it touched on her immediate concerns, took time to percolate to the correct area of her confused little brain.

However, the word ‘Titus’ was different in that it had before now discovered a short cut through the cells. Her heart had leapt more quickly than her brain and, obeying it involuntarily, before her body knew that it had received any orders through the usual channels, she was upon her feet and had begun to totter to the shore.

She did not trouble to consider whether there could possibly be a shark in the fresh water that stretched before her; nor whether the Doctor would have spoken so flippantly about the death of the only male heir; nor whether, if he had been swallowed she could do anything about it. All she knew was that she must run to where he used to be.

With her weak old eyes it was only after she had travelled half the distance that she saw him. But this in no way retarded what speed she had. He was still about to be eaten by a shark, if he hadn’t already been; and when at last she had him in her arms, Titus was subjected to a bath of tears.

Tottering with her burden, she cast a last apprehensive glance at the glittering reach of water, her heart pounding.

Prunesquallor had begun to take a few loping, toe-pointed paces after her, not having realized how shattering his little joke would be. He had stopped, however, reflecting that since there was to be a shark, it would be best for Mrs Slagg to frustrate its evil plans for the sake of her future satisfaction. His only anxiety was that her heart would not be overtaxed. What he had hoped to achieve by his fanciful outcry had materialized, namely the cessation of the ridiculous quarrel and the freeing of Nannie Slagg from further mortification.

The twins were quite at a loss for some while. ‘I saw it,’ said Cora.