The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake [244]
By well-proportioned mixtures of brute-strength and obsequious delicacy the officials had at last established the Countess Gertrude upon her stage in the enormous swarthy boughs of the cedar tree. A red carpet had been spread over the woodwork of the platform. The waders and lakeside birds of many breeds which had been disturbed by the activities of the Day, after flying distractedly hither and thither over the forest in swarms, had, as soon as the Countess was seated in the enormous wickerwork chair, flocked to her tree, in which they settled. Angling and disputing for positions at her feet and over various parts of her accommodating body were a whitethroat, a fieldfare, a willow-wren, a nuthatch, a tree-pipit, a sand martin, a red-backed shrike, a goldfinch, a yellow bunting, two jays, a greater spotted woodpecker, three moorhens (on her lap with a mallard, a woodcock, and a curlew), a wagtail, four missel thrushes, six blackbirds, a nightingale and twenty-seven sparrows.
They fluttered themselves, sending sprays of varying dimensions according to their wing-spans through the dripping air. There was more shelter beneath the cedars with their great outstretched hands spread one above the other in dark-green, dripping terraces, than was the case for those in alternative vegetation.
At this extreme the stable boys in the top branches of the walnut might as well have been sitting in the lake, they could not have been wetter.
It was the same for the Dwellers on the shore – that proud, impoverished congregation. They cast no reflection in the water at their feet – it was too triturated by the pricking of the rain.
Getting Barquentine established on his stage was the trickiest and most unpleasant task which fell to the lot of the officials. It took place to the accompaniment of such hideous swearing as caused his withered leg to blush beneath the sacking. It must have been hardened by many years of oaths, but this morning an awakened sense of shame at what the upper part of the body could descend to, raddled it from hip to toe. Its only consolation was that the contaminating influence had not descended lower than the lungs, and what diseases the withered leg experienced were entirely physical.
When he was seated on the high-backed ‘Earling’ chair he pushed his crutch irritably beneath it and then began to wring out his beard. Fuchsia was by now in her cedar. She had one to herself and it was comparatively dry, a thick foliage spreading immediately above the stage – and she was gazing across the water at the Dwellers. What was it about them that quickened her – those people of the Outer Wall? Why did she feel ill at ease? It was as though they held a dark secret of which, one day, they would make use; something which would jeopardize the security of the Castle. But they were powerless. They depended upon the grace of Gormenghast. What could they do? Fuchsia noticed a woman standing a little apart from a group. Her feet were in the lake. In her arms she held a child. It seemed, as Fuchsia watched, that she could see for a quick moment the dark strands of rain through the limbs of the child. She rubbed her eyes and again she stared. It was so far. She could not tell.
Even the officials had climbed into the ivy-throttled elm with its broken limb that hung by a sapless tendon.
The Aunts, on the fourth of the cedar stages, shivered, their mouths tightly closed. Death sat with them and they could not concentrate on the procedure.
Barquentine had started, his old voice grating its way through the warm downpour.