The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

‘You will pardon me, sir, for making free with my knuckle, I am sure, sir,’ said the glittering figure in the hall. ‘But you are impatiently awaited, sir, and no wonder if I may say so.’

‘If you insist,’ said Bellgrove. ‘So be it.’

His remark meant nothing at all but it was the only thing he could think of to say.

‘And now, sir,’ continued the butler, lifting his voice into a higher register which gave quite a new expression to his face – ‘if you will be so gracious as to follow me, I will lead the way to madam.’

He moved to one side and cried out into the darkness.

‘Forward, gentlemen! if you please,’ and turning smartly on his heel he began to lead Bellgrove through the hall and down a number of short passageways until a wider space, at the foot of a flight of stairs, brought him and his followers to a halt.

‘I have no doubt, sir,’ the butler said, inclining himself reverentially as he spoke – and to Bellgrove’s way of thinking the man was speaking overmuch – ‘I have no doubt, sir, that you are familiar with the customary procedure.’

‘Of course, my man. Of course,’ said Bellgrove. ‘What is it?’

‘O sir!’ said the butler. ‘You are very humorous,’ and he began to titter – an unpleasant sound to come from the top of a cracker.

‘There are many “procedures”, my man. Which one were you referring to?’

‘To the one, sir, that pertains to the order in which the guests are announced – by name, of course, as they file through the doorway of the salon. It is all very cut and dried, sir.’

‘What is the order, my dear fellow, if it is not the order of seniority?’

‘And so it is, sir, in all respects, save that it is customary for the headmaster, which would be you, sir, to bring up the rear.’

‘The rear?’

‘Quite so sir. As a kind of shepherd, I suppose sir, driving his flock before him, as it were.’

There was a short silence during which Bellgrove began to realize that to be the last to present himself to his hostess, he would be the first to hold any kind of conversation with her.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘The tradition must, of course, remain inviolate. Ridiculous as it seems in the face of it, I shall, as you put it, bring up the rear. Meanwhile, it is getting late. There is no time to sort out the staff into age- groups, and so on. None of them are chickens. Come along now, gentlemen, come along; and if you will be so kind as to stop combing your hair before the door is opened, Cutflower, I would, as one who is responsible for his staff, be grateful. Thank you.’

Just then, the door which faced the staircase opened and a long rectangle of gold light fell across a section of the embattled masters. Their gowns flamed. Their faces shone like spectres. Turning almost simultaneously after a few minutes of dazzling blankness they shuffled into the surrounding shadow. Around the corner of the open door through which the light was pouring a large face peered out at them.

‘Name?’ it whispered thickly. An arm crept around the door and drew the nearest figure forwards and into the light by a fistful of wine-red linen.

‘Name?’ it whispered again.

‘The name is Cutflower, la!’ hissed the gentleman, ‘but take your great joint of clod’s fist off me, you stupid bastard.’ Cutflower, whose gusts of temper were rare and short-lived, was really angry at being pulled forward by his gown and in having it clenched so clumsily into a web of creases. ‘Let go!’ he repeated hotly. ‘By hell, I’ll have you whipped, la!’

The crude footman bent down and brought his lip to Cutflower’s ear. ‘I … will … kill … you …’ he whispered, but in such an abstracted way as to give Cutflower quite a turn. It was as though the fellow was passing on a scrap of inside information – casually (like a spy) but in confidence. Before Cutflower had recovered he found himself pushed forward, and he was suddenly alone in the long room. Alone, except for a line of servants along the right-hand wall, and away ahead of him, his host and hostess, very still, very upright in the glow of many candles.

Had Bellgrove worked out beforehand the order in which to have his staff announced, it is unlikely that he would have hit upon so happy an idea as that of choosing Cutflower from his pack, and leading off, as it were, with a card so lacking in the solid virtues.

But chance had seen to it that of all the gowns it was Cutflower’s that should have been within range of the groping hand. And Cutflower, the volatile and fatuous Cutflower, as he stepped lightly like a wagtail across the grey-green roods of carpet was, in spite of the shocking start he had been given, injecting the air, the cold expectant air, with something no other member of the staff possessed in the same way – a warmth or a gaiety of a kind, but not a human gaiety; rather, it was glass-like; a sparkling, twinkling quality.

It was as though Cutflower was so glad to be alive that he had never lived. Every moment was vivid, a coloured thing, a trill or a crackle of words in the air. Who could imagine, while Cutflower was around, that there were such vulgar monsters as death, birth, love, art and pain around the corner? It was too embarrassing to contemplate. If Cutflower knew of them he kept it secret. Over their gaping and sepulchral deeps he skimmed now here, now there, in his private canoe, changing his course with a flick of his paddle when death’s black whale, or the red squid of passion, lifted for a moment its body from the brine.

He was not more than a third of the way to his hosts, and the echo of the stentorian voice, which had flung his name across the room, was hardly dead, and yet (with his wagtail walk, his spruceness, his perky ductile features so ready to be amused and so ready to amuse as long as no one took life seriously) he had already broken the ice for the Prunesquallors. There was a certain charm in his fatuity, his perkiness. His toecaps shone like mirrors. His feet came down tap-tap-tap-tap in a way all their own.

The Professors craning their necks as they watched his progress breathed more freely. They knew now that they could never accomplish that long carpet-journey with anything like Cutflower’s air, but he reminded them at every footstep, every inclination of the head, that the whole point of life was to be happy.

And O, the charm of it! The artless charm of it! When Cutflower, with but a few feet to go, broke into a little