The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake [196]
and very often black but what’s the use of writing-paper with crinkled edges to me for there’s no one to write to us there used to be when I was younger not that I was more attractive then for after all I am still a virgin but there was Spogfrawne who had had so many beautiful adventures among the people he redeemed from sin and he appreciated me and wrote me three letters on tissue paper although it was a pity that his pen-nib used to go right through it so often and make it difficult for me to read the passionate parts where he told me of his love in fact I couldn’t read them at all and when I wrote and asked him to try and remember them and write me a fourth letter just putting in only the passionate sentences which I couldn’t read in the first three of his beautiful letters he wouldn’t answer me and I think it was because I asked him in my last message to him to either write more carefully on the tissue paper or to use ordinary paper that he became shy poor silly stupid glamorous Mr Spogfrawne who I will always remember but he hasn’t been heard of since and I am still a virgin and who is there to make love to me tenderly and to touch the tip of my snowy hands and perhaps just a tiny touch on my hip bone which juts out so magnificently as Steerpike mentioned that evening when Alfred was called away to get a fly out of that Slagg woman’s eye for Steerpike bless the boy has always been most observant and I know how it broke my heart to see him so miserable on the day he left us and now I never see him and it is a pity that he is not a little older and taller but once he speaks to me and fastens his eye on me in that respectful way he has noticing the beauty of my skin and hair and the way my hips come out so excitingly then I do not wish him any different but feel a little queer and realize how impelling he is for what is age anyway but years and years are nothing if not silly and ridiculous man made things which do not understand the way of delicate women with the years coming so unkindly and how could they be so many in my case all forty of them that have never had their due or why I am unmarried I do not know when I take so much care over my cleanliness but who is there who is there oh my emptiness is all alone and with Alfred who can be so silly though he’s really clever but doesn’t listen to me and falls asleep like he is doing now and I wish he wouldn’t keep looking at the Earl who after all isn’t someone to be stared at although there is something very strange about him tonight and how chilly it is in this big and empty and horrible hall which is so famous but what use is it if we don’t talk to each other and there are no men to watch every gracious movement of my throat and I will be glad to be back in my house again where I will go on reading my book, and it won’t be so cold and perhaps I can write a note to Steerpike and ask him to supper yes I will do that Alfred said he won’t be in tomorrow evening and …
Her thoughts are broken by a thud to her left.
THE REVERIE OF LADY CLARICE
Her thoughts have been identical with those of her sister in every way save only in one respect, and this cleavage can best be appreciated by the simple process of substituting Cora’s name for her own wherever it appears in the reverie of the former.
REVERIE OF GERTRUDE THE COUNTESS OF GORMENGHAST
… at any rate the old Sourdust would have taken longer over this job than this one and it won’t be long before I can have my white cat who is crying at my heart again may the fiends wrack the long servant’s bones and I’ve left enough water in the basin for the ravens’ bath and can see to the sandpipers’ wing directly I get away from here and my white cat is comforted but the stupid man has about fourteen pages to get through yet thank heaven I don’t have many of these things to attend and there won’t be another child if I know anything about it but now here is a son for Gormenghast which is what the Castle needed and when he is older I will teach him how he can take care of himself and how to live his own life as far as it is