The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

‘He thinks he’s so wise,’ said Cora.

‘But he’s no cleverer than we are.’

‘He’s not as clever,’ said Clarice.

‘Nor is Gertrude,’ they said almost at the same moment.

‘She stole your birds, didn’t she?’ said Steerpike, winking at Prunesquallor.

‘How did you know?’ they said, advancing on him a step further.

‘Everyone knows, your Ladyships. Everyone in the castle knows,’ replied Steerpike, winking this time at Irma.

The twins held hands at once and drew close together. What Steerpike had said had sunk in and was making a serious impression on them. They had thought it was only a private grievance, that Gertrude had lured away their birds from the Room of Roots which they had taken so long preparing. But everyone knew! Everyone knew!

They turned to leave the room, and the Doctor opened his eyes, for he had almost fallen asleep with one elbow on the central table and his hand propping his head. He arose to his feet but could do nothing more elegant than to crook a finger, for he was too tired. His sister stood beside him creaking a little, and it was Steerpike who opened the door for them and offered to accompany them to their room. As they passed through the hall he removed his cape from a hook. Flinging it over his shoulders with a flourish he buttoned it at the neck. The cloak accentuated the highness of his shoulders, and as he drew its folds about him, the spareness of his body.

The aunts seemed to accept the fact that he was leaving the house with them, although they had not replied when he had asked their permission to escort them to their rooms.

With an extraordinary gallantry he shepherded them across the quadrangle.

‘Everybody knows, you said.’ Cora’s voice was so empty of feeling and yet so plaintive that it must have awakened a sympathetic response in anyone with a more kindly heart than Steerpike’s.

‘That’s what you said,’ repeated Clarice.

‘But what can we do? We can’t do anything to show what we could do if only we had the power we haven’t got,’ said Clarice lucidly. ‘We used to have hundreds of servants.’

‘You shall have them back,’ said Steerpike. ‘You shall have them all back. New ones. Better ones. Obedient ones. I shall arrange it. They shall work for you, through me. Your floor of the castle shall be alive again. You shall be supreme. Give me the administration to handle, your Ladyships, and I will have them dancing to your tune – whatever it is – they’ll dance to it.’

‘But what about Gertrude?’

‘Yes, what about Gertrude,’ came their flat voices.

‘Leave everything to me, I will secure your rights for you. You are Lady Cora and Lady Clarice, Lady Clarice and Lady Cora. You must not forget that. No one must be allowed to forget it.’

‘Yes, that’s what must happen,’ said Cora.

‘Everyone must think of who we are,’ said Clarice.

‘And never stop thinking about it,’ said Cora.

‘Or we will use our power,’ said Clarice.

‘Meanwhile, I will take you to your rooms, dear ladies. You must trust me. You must not tell anyone what we’ve said. Do you both understand?’

‘And we’ll get our birds back from Gertrude.’

Steerpike took them by the elbows as they climbed the stairs.

‘Lady Cora,’ he said, ‘you must try to concentrate on what I am saying to you. If you pay attention to me I will restore you to your places of eminence in Gormenghast from which Lady Gertrude has dethroned you.’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes.’

The voices showed no animation, but Steerpike realized that only by what they said, not by how they said it, could he judge whether their brains reacted to his probing.

He also knew when to stop. In the fine art of deceit and personal advancement as in any other calling this is the hallmark of the master. He knew that when he reached their door he would itch to get inside and to see what sort of appointments they had and what on earth they meant by their Room of Roots. But he also knew to a nicety the time to slacken rein. Such creatures as the aunts for all their slowness of intellect had within them the Groan blood which might at any moment, were a false step to be made, flare up and undo a month of strategy. So Steerpike left them at the door of their apartments and bowed almost to the ground. Then as he retired along the oak passage, and was turning a corner to the left he glanced back at the door where he had left the twins. They were still looking after him, as motionless as a pair of waxen images.

He would not visit them tomorrow, for it would do them good to spend a day of apprehension and of silly discussion between themselves. In the evening they would begin to get nervous and need consoling, but he would not knock at the door until the following morning. Meanwhile he would pick up as much information as he could about them and their tendencies.

Instead of crossing over to the Doctor’s house when he had reached the quadrangle he decided he would take a stroll across the lawns and perhaps around by the terraces to the moat, for the sky had emptied itself of cloud and was glittering fiercely with a hundred thousand stars.

‘THE FIR-CONES’

The wind had dropped, but the air was bitterly cold and Steerpike was glad of his cape. He had turned the collar up and it stood stiffly above the level of his ears. He seemed to be bound for somewhere in particular, and was not simply out for a nocturnal stroll. That peculiar half-walking, half- running gait was always with him. It appeared that he was eternally upon some secret mission, as indeed from his own viewpoint he generally was.