clear of the moisture that filmed them.
Fuchsia, in spite of knowing that she should remain where she was, had joined Nannie Slagg. She had been irritated by an attempt that Clarice had made to nudge her in a furtive way whenever she thought that no one was watching.
‘You never come to see me although you’re a relation, but that’s because I don’t want you to come and never ask you,’ her aunt had said, and had then peered round to see whether she was being watched, and noticing that Gertrude was in a kind of enormous trance, she continued:
‘You see, my poor child, I and my sister Cora are a good deal older than you and we both had convulsions when we were about your age. You may have noticed that our left arms are rather stiff and our left legs, too. That’s not our fault.’
Her sister’s voice came from the other side of the semi-circle of figures in a hoarse flat whisper, as though it was trying to reach the ears of Fuchsia without making contact with the row of ears that lay between. ‘Not our fault at all,’ she said, ‘not a bit our fault. Not any of it.’
‘The epileptic fits, my poor child,’ continued Cora, after nodding at her sister’s interruption, ‘have left us practically starved all down the right side. Practically starved. We had these fits you see.’
‘When we were about your age,’ came the empty echo.
‘Yes, just about your age,’ said Cora, ‘and being practically starved all down the right side we have to do our embroidered tapestries with one hand.’
‘Only one hand,’ said Clarice. ‘It’s very clever of us. But no one sees us.’
She leaned forward as she wedged in this remark, forcing it upon Fuchsia as though the whole future of Gormenghast hung upon it.
Fuchsia fiddled and wound her hair round her fingers savagely.
‘Don’t do that,’ said Cora. ‘Your hair is too black. Don’t do that.’
‘Much too black,’ came the flat echo.
‘Especially when your dress is so white.’
Cora bent forward from her hips so that her face was within a foot of Fuchsia’s. Then with only her eyes turned away, but her face broadside on to her niece, ‘We don’t
Fuchsia was startled. Then she heard the same voice from the other side, ‘That’s true,’ said the voice, ‘we don’t.’
Fuchsia turned suddenly, swinging her inky bulk of hair. Cora had disobeyed all the rules and unable to be so far from the conversation had moved like a sleep-walker round the back of the group, keeping an eye on the black- velvet mass of the Countess.
But she was doomed to disappointment, for as soon as she arrived, Fuchsia, glancing around wildly, caught sight of Mrs Slagg and she mooched away from her cousins and watched the ceremony at the table where Sourdust held her brother in the leaves of the book. As soon as Nannie was unburdened of Titus Fuchsia went to her side, and held her thin green-satin arm. Sourdust had reached the table with Lord Sepulchrave behind him. He re-instated himself. But his pleasure at the way things were proceeding was suddenly disrupted when his eyes, having cleared themselves of the haze, encountered no ceremonial curve of the select, but a room of scattered individuals. He was shocked. The only persons in alignment were the Countess, who through no sense of obedience, but rather from a kind of coma, was in the same position in which she had first anchored herself, and her husband who had returned to her side. Sourdust hobbled round the table with the tome-full. Cora and Clarice were standing close together, their bodies facing each other but their heads staring in Fuchsia’s direction. Mrs Slagg and Fuchsia were together and Prunesquallor, on tip-toe, was peering at the stamen of a white flower in a vase through a magnifying lens he had whipped from his pocket. There was no need for him to be on tip-toe for it was neither a tall table nor a tall vase nor indeed a tall flower. But the attitude which pleased him most when peering at flowers was one in which the body was bent over the petals in an elegant curve.
Sourdust was shocked. His mouth worked at the corners. His old, fissured face became a fantastic area of cross-hatching and his weak eyes grew desperate. Attempting to lower the heavy volume to the table before the christening bowl where a space had been left for it, his fingers grew numb and lost their grip on the leather and the book slid from his hands, Titus slipping through the pages to the ground and tearing as he did so a corner from the leaf in which he had lain sheathed, for his little hand had clutched at it as he had fallen. This was his first recorded act of blasphemy. He had violated the Book of Baptism. The metal crown fell from his head. Nannie Slagg clutched Fuchsia’s arm, and then with a scream of ‘Oh my poor heart!’ stumbled to where the baby lay crying piteously on the floor.
Sourdust was trying to tear the sacking of his clothes and moaning with impotence as he strained with his old fingers. He was in torture. Doctor Prunesquallor’s white knuckles had travelled to his mouth with amazing speed, and he stood swaying a little. He had turned a moment later to Lady Groan.
‘They resemble rubber, your ladyship, ha, ha, ha, ha. Just a core of india-rubber, with an elastic centre. Oh yes, they are. Very, very much so. Resilience is no word for it. Ha, ha, ha, absolutely no word for it – oh dear me, no. Every ounce, a bounce, ha, ha, ha! Every ounce, a bounce.’
‘What are you talking about man!’ said the Countess.
‘I was referring to your child, who has just fallen on the floor.’
‘Fallen?’ queried the Countess in a gruff voice. ‘Where?’
‘To earth, your ladyship, ha, ha, ha. Fallen positively to earth. Earth, that is, with a veneer or two of stone, wood and carpet, in between its barbaric self and his minute lordship whom you can no doubt hear screaming.’
‘So that’s what it is,’ said Lady Groan, from whose mouth, which was shaped as though she were whistling, the grey bird was picking a morsel of dry cake.
‘Yes,’ said Cora on her right, who had run up to her directly the baby had fallen and was staring up at her sister-in-law’s face. ‘Yes, that’s what it is.’
Clarice, who had appeared on the other side in a reverse of her sister’s position, confirmed her sister’s interpretation, ‘that’s just what it is.’
