The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

blood, too. I am ashamed of our likenesses and always will be, so there!’

Steerpike brushed an elegant green vase from the mantel with his elbow, which had the effect he had anticipated. The four eyes moved towards the fragments on the floor – the thread of their dialogue was as shattered as the vase.

‘A sign!’ he muttered in a low, vibrant voice. ‘A portent! A symbol! The circle is complete. An angel has spoken.’

The twins stared open-mouthed.

‘Do you see the broken porcelain, dear ladies?’ he said. ‘Do you see it?’

They nodded.

‘What else is that but the Regime, broken for ever – the bullydom of Gertrude – the stony heart of Sepulchrave – the ignorance, malice and brutality of the House of Groan as it now stands – smashed for ever? It is a signal that your hour is at hand. Give praise, my dears; you shall come unto your splendour.’

‘When?’ said Cora. ‘Will it be soon?’

‘What about tonight?’ said Clarice. She raised her flat voice to its second floor, where there was more ventilation. ‘What about tonight?’

‘There is a little matter to be settled first,’ said Steerpike. ‘One little job to be done. Very simple; very, very simple; but it needs clever people to do it.’ He struck a match.

In the four lenses of the four flat eyes, the four reflections of a single flame, danced – danced.

‘Fire!’ they said. ‘We know all about it. All, all, all.’

‘Oh, then, to bed,’ said the youth, speaking rapidly. ‘To bed, to bed, to bed.’

Clarice lifted a limp hand like a slab of putty to her breast and scratched herself abstractedly. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Good night.’ And as she moved towards the bedroom door she began to unfasten her dress.

‘I’m going too,’ said Cora. ‘Good night.’ She also, as she retired, could be seen unclasping and unhooking herself. Before the door closed behind her she was half unravelled of imperial purple.

Steerpike filled his pocket with nuts from a china bowl and letting himself out of the room began the descent to the quadrangle. He had had no intention of broaching the subject of the burning, but the aunts had happily proved less excitable than he had anticipated and his confidence in their playing their elementary roles effectively on the following evening was strengthened.

As he descended the stone stairs he filled his pipe, and on coming into the mild evening light, his tobacco smouldering in the bowl, he felt in an amiable mood, and spinning his swordstick he made for the pine wood, humming to himself as he went.

He had found Fuchsia, and had built up some kind of conversation, although he always found it more difficult to speak to her than to anyone else. First he inquired with a certain sincerity whether she had recovered from the shock. Her cheek was inflamed, and she limped badly from the severe pain in her leg. The Doctor had bandaged her up carefully and had left instructions with Nannie that she must not go out for several days, but she had slipped away when her nurse was out of the room, leaving a scribble on the wall to the effect that she loved her; but as the creature never looked at the wall the message was abortive.

By the time they had come to the edge of the wood Steerpike was talking airily of any subject that came into his head, mainly for the purpose of building up in her mind a picture of himself as someone profoundly brilliant, but also for the enjoyment of talking for its own sake, for he was in a sprightly mood.

She limped beside him as they passed through the outermost trees and into the light of the sinking sun. Steerpike paused to remove a stag-beetle from where it clung to the soft bark of a pine.

Fuchsia went on slowly, wishing she were alone.

‘There should be no rich, no poor, no strong, no weak,’ said Steerpike, methodically pulling the legs off the stag-beetle, one by one, as he spoke. ‘Equality is the great thing, equality is everything.’ He flung the mutilated insect away. ‘Do you agree, Lady Fuchsia?’ he said.

‘I don’t know anything about it, and I don’t care much,’ said Fuchsia.

‘But don’t you think it’s wrong if some people have nothing to eat and others have so much they throw most of it away? Don’t you think it’s wrong if some people have to work all their lives for a little money to exist on while others never do any work and live in luxury? Don’t you think brave men should be recognized and rewarded, and not just treated the same as cowards? The men who climb mountains, or dive under the sea, or explore jungles full of fever, or save people from fires?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Fuchsia again. ‘Things ought to be fair,’ I suppose. But I don’t know anything about it.’

‘Yes, you do,’ said Steerpike. ‘When you say “Things ought to be fair” it is exactly what I mean. Things ought to be fair, why aren’t they fair? Because of greed and cruelty and lust for power. All that sort of thing must be stopped.

‘Well, why don’t you stop it, then?’ said Fuchsia in a distant voice. She was watching the sun’s blood on the Tower of Flints, and a cloud like a drenched swab, descending, inch by inch, behind the blackening tower.

‘I am going to,’ said Steerpike with such an air of simple confidence that Fuchsia turned her eyes to him.

‘You’re going to stop cruelty?’ she asked. ‘And greediness, and all those things? I don’t think you could. You’re very clever, but, oh no, you couldn’t do anything like that.’

Steerpike was taken aback for a moment by this reply. He had meant his remark to stand on its own – a limpid statement of fact – something that he imagined Fuchsia might often turn over in her mind and cogitate upon.

‘It’s nearly gone,’ said Fuchsia as Steerpike was wondering how to reassert himself. ‘Nearly gone.’

‘What’s nearly gone?’ He followed her eyes to where the circle of the sun was notched with turrets. ‘Oh, you mean the old treacle bun,’ he said. ‘Yes, it will get cold very quickly now.’

‘Treacle bun?’ said Fuchsia. ‘Is that what you call it?’ She stopped walking. ‘I don’t think you ought to call it