'Fuchsia,' he said. 'Whatever you ask I will try to answer. I won't evade your questions. And you must believe me. What happened to your father, I do not know. I only know that he was very ill - and you remember that as well as I do - just as you remember his disappearance. If anyone alive knows what happened to him, I do not know who that man might be unless it is either Flay, or Swelter who also disappeared at the same time.'
'Mr Flay is alive, Dr Prune.'
'No!' said the Doctor. 'Why do you say that?'
'Titus has seen him, Doctor. More than once.'
'Titus!'
'Yes, Doctor, in the woods. But it's a secret. You won't...'
'Is he well? Is he able to keep well? What did Titus say about him?'
'He lives in a cave and hunts for his food. He asked after me. He is very loyal.'
'Poor old Flay!' said the Doctor. 'Poor old faithful Flay. But you mustn't see him, Fuchsia. It would do nothing but harm. I cannot have you getting into trouble.'
'But my father,' cried Fuchsia. 'You said he might know about my father! He may be alive, Dr Prune. He may be alive!'
'No. No. I don't believe he is,' said the Doctor. 'I don't believe so, Fuchsia.'
'But Doctor. Doctor! I must see Flay. He loved me. I want to take him something.'
'No Fuchsia. You mustn't go. Perhaps you will see him again - but you will become distressed - more distressed than you are now, if you start escaping from the castle. And Titus also. This is all very wrong. He is not old enough to be so wild and secret. God bless me - what else does he say?'
'This is all in secret, Doctor.'
'Yes - yes, Fuchsia. Of course it is.'
'He has seen something.'
'Seen something? What sort of thing?'
'A flying thing.'
The Doctor froze into a carving of ice.
'A flying thing,' repeated Fuchsia. 'I don't know what he means.' She leaned back in her chair and clasped her hands. 'Before Nannie Slagg died,' she said - her voice falling to a whisper - 'she talked to me. It was only a few days before she died - and she didn't seem as nervy as usual, because she talked like she used to talk when she wasn't worried. She told me about when Titus was born, and when Keda came to nurse him, which I remember myself, and how when Keda went away again to the Outer Dwellings, one of the Carvers made love to her and she had a baby and how the baby wasn't really like other babies, because of Keda not being married, I mean, but different apart from that, and how there were various rumours about it. The Outer Dwellers wouldn't have it, she said, because it wasn't legitimate, and when Keda killed herself the baby was brought up differently as though it was her fault, and when she was a child she lived in a way that made them all hate her and never talked to the other children, but frightened them sometimes and ran across the roofs and down the mud chimneys and began to spend all her time in the woods. And how the mud Dwellers hated her and were frightened of her because she was so rapid and kept disappearing and bared her teeth. And Nannie Slagg told me that she left them altogether and they didn't know where she had gone for a long time, only sometimes they heard her laughing at them at night, and they called her the 'Thing', and Nannie Slagg told me all this and said she is still alive and how she is Titus' foster sister and when Titus told her of the flying thing in the air I wondered, Dr Prune, whether...'
Fuchsia lifted her eyes and found that the Doctor had risen from his chair and was staring through the window into the darkness where a shooting star was trailing down the sky.
'If Titus knew I had told you,' she said in a loud voice, rising to her feet. 'I would never, be forgiven. But I am frightened for him. I don't want anything to happen to him. He is always staring at nothing and doesn't hear half I say. And I love him, Dr Prune. That's what I wanted to tell you.'
'Fuchsia,' said the Doctor. 'It's very late. I will think about all you have told me. A little at a time, you know. If you tell me everything at once I'll lose my place, won't I? But a little at a time. I know there are other things you want to tell me, about this and that and very important things too - but you must wait a day or two and I will try and help you. Don't be frightened. I will do all I can. What with Flay and Titus and the 'Thing' I must do some thinking, so run along to bed and come and see me very soon again. Why bless my wits if it isn't hours after your bedtime. Away with you!'
'Good night Doctor.'
'Good night my dear child.'
THIRTY
A few days later when Steerpike saw Fuchsia emerge from a door in the west wing and make her way across the stubble of what had once been a great lawn, he eased himself out of the shadows of an arch where he had been lurking for over an hour, and taking a roundabout route began to run with his body half doubled, towards the object of Fuchsia's evening journey.
Across his back, as he ran, was slung a wreath of roses from Pentecost's flower garden. Arriving, unseen, at the servants' burial ground a minute or two before Fuchsia, he had time to strike an attitude of grief as he knelt on one knee, his right hand still on the wreath which he was placing on the little weedy grave.
So Fuchsia came upon him.
'What are 'you' doing here?' Her voice was hardly audible. ''You' never loved her.'
Fuchsia turned her eyes to the great wreath of red and yellow roses and then at the few wild flowers which were clasped in her hand.
Steerpike rose to his feet and bowed. The evening was green about them.
