The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

she stood in the lamplight, to the ribs themselves. Her neck was long and the Prunesquallors’ head sat upon it surrounded by the same grey thatch like hair as that adopted by her brother, but in her case knotted in a low bun at the neck.

‘The servant is out, OUT,’ she said. ‘It is his evening out. Isn’t it? Isn’t it?’

She seemed to be addressing Steerpike, so he answered: ‘I have no knowledge of the arrangements you have made, madam. But he was in the Doctor’s room a few minutes ago, so I expect it was he whom you heard outside your door.’

‘Who said I heard anything outside my door?’ said Irma Prunesquallor, a trifle less rapidly than usual. ‘Who?’

‘Were you not within your room, madam?’

‘What of it? what of it?’

‘I gathered from what you said that you thought that there was someone walking about upstairs,’ answered Steerpike obliquely; ‘and if, as you say, you were inside your room, then you must have heard the footsteps outside your room. That is what I attempted to make clear, madam.’

‘You seem to know too much about it. Don’t you? don’t you?’ She bent forward and her opaque-looking glasses stared flatly at Steerpike.

‘I know nothing, madam,’ said Steerpike.

‘What, Irma dear, is all this? What in the name of all that’s circuitous is all this?’

‘I heard feet. That is all. Feet,’ said his sister; and then, after a pause she added with renewed emphasis: ‘Feet.’

‘Irma, my dear sister,’ said Prunesquallor, ‘I have two things to say. Firstly, why in the name of discomfort are we hanging around in the hall and probably dying of a draught that as far as I am concerned runs up my right trouser leg and sets my gluteous maximus twitching; and secondly, what is wrong, when you boil the matter down – with feet? I have always found mine singularly useful, especially for walking with. In fact, ha, ha, ha, one might almost imagine that they had been designed for that very purpose.’

‘As usual,’ said his sister, ‘you are drunk with your own levity. You have a brain, Alfred. I have never denied it. Never. But it is undermined by your insufferable levity. I tell you that someone has been prowling about upstairs and you take no notice. There has been no one to prowl. Do you not see the point?’

‘I heard something, too,’ said Steerpike, breaking in. ‘I was sitting in the hall where the Doctor suggested I should remain while he decided in what capacity he would employ me, when I heard what sounded like footsteps upstairs. I crept to the top of the stairs silently, but there was no one there, so I returned.’

Steerpike, thinking the upstairs to be empty, had in reality been making a rough survey of the first floor, until he heard what must have been Irma moving to the door of her room, at which sound he had slid down the banisters.

‘You hear what he says,’ said the lady, following her brother with a stiff irritation in every line of her progress. ‘You hear what he says.’

‘Very much so!’ said the Doctor, ‘Very much so, indeed. Most indigestible.’

Steerpike moved a chair up for Irma Prunesquallor with such a show of consideration for her comfort and such adroitness that she stared at him and her hard mouth relaxed at one corner.

‘Steerpike,’ she said, wrinkling her black dress above her hips as she reclined a little into her chair.

‘I am at your service, madam,’ said Steerpike. ‘What may I do for you?’

‘What on earth are you wearing? What are you wearing, boy?’

‘It is with great regret that at my introduction to you I should be in clothes that so belie my fastidious nature, madam,’ he said. ‘If you will advise me where I may procure the cloth I will endeavour to have myself fitted tomorrow. Standing beside you, madam, in your exquisite gown of darkness –’

‘“Gown of darkness” is good,’ interrupted Prunesquallor, raising his hand to his head, where he spread his snow-white fingers across his brow, ‘“Gown of darkness”. A phrase, ha, ha! Definitely a phrase.’

‘You have broken in, Alfred!’ said his sister. ‘Haven’t you? haven’t you? I will have a suit cut for you tomorrow, Steerpike,’ she continued. ‘You will be here, I suppose? Where are you sleeping? Is he sleeping here? Where do you live? Where does he live, Alfred? What have you arranged? Nothing, I expect. Have you done anything? Have you? have you?’

‘What sort of thing, Irma, my dear? What sort of thing are you referring to? I have done all sorts of things, I have removed a gallstone the size of a potato, I have played delicately upon my violin while a rainbow shone through the dispensary window; I have plunged so deeply into the poets of grief that save for my foresight in attaching fish-hooks to my clothes I might never again have been drawn earthwards, ha, ha! from those excruciating depths!’

Irma could tell exactly when her brother would veer off into soliloquy and had developed the power to pay no attention at all to what he said. The footsteps upstairs seemed forgotten. She watched Steerpike as he poured her out a glass of port with a gallantry quite remarkable in its technical perfection of movement and timing.

‘You wish to be employed. Is that it? Is that it?’ she said.

‘It is my ardent desire to be in your service,’ he said.

‘Why? Tell me why,’ said Miss Prunesquallor.

‘I endeavour to keep my mind in an equipoise between the intuitive, and rational reasoning, madam,’ he said. ‘But with you I cannot, for my intuitive desire to be of service overshadows my reasons, though they are many, I can only say I feel a desire to fulfil myself by finding employment under your roof. And so,’ he added, turning up the corners of his mouth in a quizzical smile, ‘that is the reason why I cannot exactly say