the panels of her bedroom door awakened Lady Groan from her reverie.
Her eyes now took on the concentrated, loveless, cat-like look.
The birds coming to life at once, flapped simultaneously to the end rail of the bed, where they stood balancing in a long uneven line, each one on the alert, their heads turned towards the door.
‘Who’s that?’ said Lady Groan heavily.
‘It’s me, my lady,’ cried a quavering voice.
‘Who’s that hitting my door?’
‘It’s me with his lordship,’ replied the voice.
‘What?’ shouted Lady Groan. ‘What d’you want? What are you hitting my door for?’
Whoever it was raised her voice nervously and cried, ‘Nannie Slagg, it is. It’s me, my lady; Nannie Slagg.’
‘What d’you want?’ repeated her ladyship, settling herself more comfortably.
‘I’ve brought his Lordship for you to see,’ shouted Nannie Slagg, a little less nervously.
‘Oh, you have, have you? You’ve brought his lordship. So you want to come in, do you? With his lordship.’ There was a moment’s silence. ‘What for? What have you brought him to me for?’
‘For you to see, if you please, my lady,’ replied Nannie Slagg. ‘He’s had his bath.’
Lady Groan relaxed still further into the pillows. ‘Oh, you mean the
‘Can I come in?’ cried Nannie Slagg.
‘Hurry up then! Hurry up then! Stop scratching at my door. What are you waiting for?’
A rattling at the door handle froze the birds along the iron bed-rail and as the door opened they were all at once in the air, and were forcing their way, one after another through the bitter leaves of the small window.
A GOLD RING FOR TITUS
Nannie Slagg entered, bearing in her arms the heir to the miles of rambling stone and mortar; to the Tower of Flints and the stagnant moat; to the angular mountains and the lime-green river where twelve years later he would be angling for the hideous fishes of his inheritance.
She carried the child towards the bed and turned the little face to the mother, who gazed right through it and said:
‘Where’s that doctor? Where’s Prunesquallor? Put the child down and open the door.’
Mrs Slagg obeyed, and as her back was turned Lady Groan bent forward and peered at the child. The little eyes were glazed with sleep and the candlelight played upon the bald head, moulding the structure of the skull with shifting shade.
‘H’m,’ said Lady Groan, ‘what d’you want me to do with him?’
Nannie Slagg, who was very grey and old, with red rims around her eyes and whose intelligence was limited, gazed vacantly at her ladyship.
‘He’s had his bath,’ she said. ‘He’s just had his bath, bless his little lordship’s heart.’
‘What about it?’ said Lady Groan.
The old nurse picked the baby up dexterously and began to rock him gently by way of an answer.
‘Is Prunesquallor there?’ repeated Lady Groan.
‘Down,’ whispered Nannie, pointing a little wrinkled finger at the floor, ‘d-downstairs: oh yes, I think he is still downstairs taking punch in the Coldroom. Oh dear, yes, bless the little thing.’
Her last remark presumably referred to Titus and not to Doctor Prunesquallor. Lady Groan raised herself in bed and looking fiercely at the open door, bellowed in the deepest and loudest voice, ‘SQUALLOR!’
The word echoed along the corridors and down the stairs, and creeping under the door and along the black rug in the Coldroom, just managed, after climbing the doctor’s body, to find its way into both his ears simultaneously, in a peremptory if modified condition. Modified though it was, it brought Doctor Prunesquallor to his feet at once. His fish eyes swam all round his glasses before finishing at the top, where they gave him an expression of fantastic martyrdom. Running his long, exquisitely formed fingers through his mop of grey hair, he drained his glass of punch at a draught and started for the door, flicking small globules of the drink from his waistcoat.
Before he had reached her room he had begun a rehearsal of the conversation he expected, his insufferable laughter punctuating every other sentence whatever its gist.
‘My lady,’ he said, when he had reached her door and was showing the Countess and Mrs Slagg nothing except his head around the door-post in a decapitated manner, before entering. ‘My lady, ha, ha, he he. I heard your voice downstairs as I er – was –’
‘Tippling,’ said Lady Groan.
‘Ha, ha – how very right you are, how very very right you are, ha, ha, ha, he, as I was, as you so graphically put it, ha, ha, tippling. Down it came, ha, ha – down it came.’
‘What came?’ interrupted the Countess loudly.
‘Your voice,’ said Prunesquallor, raising his right hand and deliberately placing the tips of his thumb and little finger together, ‘your voice located me in the Coldroom. Oh yes, it did!’
The Countess stared at him heavily and then dug her elbows into the pillow.
Mrs Slagg had rocked the baby to sleep.
Doctor Prunesquallor was running a long tapering forefinger up and down a stalactite of wax and smiling
