The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake [34]
‘So that’s it, is it?’ said Doctor Prunesquallor, removing the loaded tray from Nannie Slagg and lowering both it and himself at the same time to the floor of the long passage. He sat there on his heels with the tray at his side and peered up at the old lady, who gazed in a frightened way at his eye swimming hugely beneath his magnifying spectacles.
‘You are kept in the west wing? So that’s it?’ Doctor Prunesquallor with his forefinger and thumb stroked his chin in a profound manner and frowned magnificently. ‘It is the word “kept”, my dear Mrs Slagg, that galls me. Are you an animal, Mrs Slagg? I repeat are you an animal?’ As he said this he rose halfway to his feet and with his neck stretched forward repeated his question a third time.
Poor Nannie Slagg was too frightened to be able to give her answer to the query.
The doctor sank back on his heels.
‘I will answer my own question, Mrs Slagg. I have known you for some time. For, shall we say, a decade? It is true we have never plumbed the depths of sorcery together nor argued the meaning of existence – but it is enough for me to say that I have known you for a considerable time, and that you are no animal. No animal whatsoever. Sit upon my knee.’
Nannie Slagg, terrified at this suggestion, raised her little bony hands to her mouth and raised her shoulders to her ears. Then she gave one frightened look down the passage and was about to make a run for it when she was gripped about the knees, not unkindly, but firmly and without knowing how she got there found herself sitting upon the high bony knee-cap of the squatting doctor.
‘You are not an animal,’ repeated Prunesquallor, ‘are you?’
The old nurse turned her wrinkled face to the doctor and shook her head in little jerks.
‘Of course you’re not. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, of course you’re not. Tell me what you are?’
Nannie’s fist again came to her mouth and the frightened look in her eyes reappeared.
‘I’m … I’m an old woman,’ she said.
‘You’re a very unique old woman,’ said the doctor, ‘and if I am not mistaken, you will very soon prove to be an exceptionally invaluable old woman. Oh yes, ha, ha, ha, oh yes, a very invaluable old woman indeed.’ (There was a pause.) ‘How long is it since you saw her ladyship, the Countess? It must be a very long time.’
‘It is, it is,’ said Nannie Slagg, ‘a very long time. Months and months and months.’
‘As I thought,’ said the doctor. ‘Ha, ha, ha, as I very much thought. Then you can have no idea of why you will be indispensable?’
‘Oh no, sir!’ said Nannie Slagg, looking at the breakfast tray whose load was fast becoming cold.
‘Do you like babies, my very dear Mrs Slagg?’ asked the doctor, shifting the poor woman on to his other acutely bended knee joint and stretching out his former leg as though to ease it. ‘Are you fond of the little creatures, taken by and large?’
‘Babies?’ said Mrs Slagg in the most animated tone that she had so far used. ‘I could eat the little darlings, sir, I could eat them up!’
‘Quite,’ said Doctor Prunesquallor, ‘quite so, my good woman. You could eat them up. That will be unnecessary. In fact it would be positively injurious, my dear Mrs Slagg, and especially under the circumstances about which I must now enlighten you. A child will be placed in your keeping. Do not devour him Nannie Slagg. It is for you to bring him up, that is true, but there will be no need for you to swallow him first. You would be, ha, ha, ha, ha – swallowing a Groan.’
This news filtered by degrees through Nannie Slagg’s brain and all at once her eyes looked very wide indeed.
‘No, oh no, sir!’
‘Yes, oh yes, sir!’ replied the physician. ‘Although the Countess has of late banished you from her presence, yet, Nannie Slagg, you will of necessity be restored, ha, ha, ha, be restored to a very important state. Sometime today, if I am not mistaken, my wide-eyed Nannie Slagg, I shall be delivering a brand new Groan. Do you remember when I delivered the Countess of Lady Fuchsia?