The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake [346]
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.
‘I did not know her as you did, your ladyship,’ he said. ‘But it struck me as so mean a grave for an old lady to be buried in. I was able to get these roses … and … well …’ (his simulation of embarrassment was exact).
‘But your wildflowers!’ he said, removing the wreath from the head of the little mound and placing it at the dusty foot – ‘they are the ones that will please her spirit most – wherever she is.’
‘I don’t know anything about that,’ said Fuchsia. She turned from him and flung her flowers away. ‘It’s all nonsense anyway.’ She turned again and faced him. ‘But you,’ she blurted. ‘I didn’t think you were sentimental.’
Steerpike had never expected this. He had imagined that she would feel she had found an ally in the graveyard. But a new idea presented itself. Perhaps he had found an ally in her. How far was her phrase ‘it’s all nonsense anyway’ indicative of her nature?
‘I have my moods,’ he said and with a single action plucked the great wreath of roses from the foot of the grave and hurled it from him. For a moment the rich roses glowed as they careered through the dark green evening to disappear in the darkness of the surrounding mounds.
For a moment she stood motionless, the blood drained from her face, and then she sprang at the young man and buried the nails of her hands in his high cheekbones.
He made no move. Dropping her arms and backing away from him with slow, exhausted steps, she saw him standing perfectly quietly, his face absolutely white save the bright blood on his cheeks that were red like a clown’s.
Her heart beat as she saw him. Behind him the green porous evening was hung like a setting for his thin body, his whiteness, and the hectic wounds