The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake [240]
‘Be careful of him, Fuchsia,’ said the Doctor. ‘Will you remember that?’
‘I will,’ said Fuchsia, ‘Yes, I will, Doctor Prune.’
Dusk was beyond the bay window … a great, crumbling dusk that wavered and descended like a fog of ashes.
Fuchsia unfastened the two top buttons of her blouse and folded the corners back. She had turned away from the Doctor as she did so. Then she held her hands cupped over her breast bone. It seemed as though she were hiding something.
‘Yes, I will be careful, Doctor Prune,’ she repeated, ‘and I’ll remember all you have said – and tonight I had to wear it – I had to.’
‘You had to wear what, my little mushroom?’ said Prunesquallor, lightening his voice for the first time, for the serious session was over and they could relax. ‘Bless my dull wits if I haven’t lost the thread – if there was one! Say it again, my Swarthy-sweet.’
‘Look! – look! for you and for me, because I wanted to.’
She dropped her hands to her side, where they hung heavily. Her eyes shone. She was a mixture of the clumsy and the magnificent – her head bridled up – her throat gleaming, her feet apart and the toes turned in a little. ‘LOOK!’
The Doctor at her command looked very hard indeed. The ruby he had given her that night, when for the first time he had met Steerpike, burned against her breast.
And then, suddenly, unexpectedly, she had fled, her feet pounding on the stone floors, while the door of the Cool Room swung to and fro … to and fro.
THE EARLING
The day of the ‘Earling’ was a day of rain. Monotonous, sullen, grey rain with no life in it. It had not even the power to stop. There were always a hundred heads at the windows of the North wing that stared into the sky, into the rain. A hundred figures leant across the sills of the Southern wall, and stared. They would disappear back into the darkness, one by one, but others would have appeared at other windows. There would always be about a hundred starers. Rain. The slow rain. The East and the West of the Castle watched the rain. It was to be a day of rain … There could be no stopping it.
Even before the dawn, hours before, when the Grey Scrubbers were polishing the walls of the stone kitchen, and the Raft Makers were putting the finishing touches to the raft of chestnut boughs, and the stable boys, by the light of lanterns, were grooming the horses, it was obvious that there was a change in the Castle. It was the Greatest Day. And it rained. It was obvious, this change, in many ways, most superficially of all, in the visual realm, for all wore sacking. Every mortal one. Sacking dyed in the hot blood of eagles. On this day there could be no one, no one save Titus, exempted from the immemorial decree – ‘That the Castle shall wear sacking on the Earling day.’
Steerpike had officiated at the distribution of the garments under the direction of Barquentine. He was getting to know a great deal about the more obscure and legendary rites. It was in his mind to find himself on Barquentine’s decease the leading, if not the sole authority in matters of ritual and observance. In any event, the subject fascinated him. It was potential.
‘Curse!’ he muttered, as he woke to the sound of rain. But still, what did it matter? It was the future that he had his eyes on. A year ahead. Five years ahead. In the meantime, ‘all aboard for glory!’
Mrs Slagg was up early and had put her sacking garment on at once in deference to the sacrosanct convention. It was a pity that she could not wear her