The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake [368]
There was something frightful about it all and this frightfulness was in no way mitigated by the radiant smile that was frozen on the face.
With a magnificent gesture, the Doctor stripped himself of his beautiful velvet jacket and flung it away as though he had no further use for it.
Then he began to roll up his silk sleeves like a conjurer.
Irma and Bellgrove were close behind him. By this time the reservoirs of tact on which the professors had been drawing were wellnigh dry and a horde stood watching in absolute silence.
The Doctor was fully conscious of this, but by not so much as a flicker did he reveal his awareness, let alone his delight in being watched.
The incident had changed the whole mood of the party. The hilarity and sense of freedom that had been so spontaneous had received an all but mortal blow. For some while, although certain jests were made, and glasses were filled and emptied, there was a darkness on the spirit of the room, and the jests were forced and the wine was swallowed mechanically.
But now that the first red blush of communal shame had died out of the staff; now that the embarrassment was merely cerebral and now that there was something to absorb them (for there was no resisting such an occasion as was now presented by Prunesquallor as he stood upright in his silken shirt sleeves, as slender as a stork, his skin as pink as a girl’s, his glasses gleaming in the light of the candles) – now that there was all this, their equipoise began to return and with it a sense of hope; hope that the evening had not been ruined, that it held in store, once the Doctor had dealt with their seemingly paralysed colleague, a modicum at least of that rare abandon which had begun to set their tongues on fire, and their blood a-jigging – for it was once in a score of years, they told themselves that they could break the endless rhythm of Gormenghast, the rhythm that steered their feet each evening westward – westward to their quadrangle.
They were absolutely silent as they watched the Doctor’s every movement.
Prunesquallor spoke. It seemed that he was talking to himself, although his voice, in reaching those gownsmen who were at the rear of the audience, was certainly a little louder than one would have thought necessary. He took a pace forwards and at the same time raised his hands before him to the height of his shoulders where he worked his fingers to and fro in the air with the speed of a professional pianist.
Then he brought his hands together and began to draw them to and fro one across the other, palm to palm. His eyes were closed.
‘Rarer than Bluggs Disease,’ he mused, ‘or the spiral spine! No doubt of it … by all that’s convulsive … no doubt of it at all. There was a case, quite fascinating – now where was it and when was it … very similar – a man if I remember rightly had seen a ghost … yes, yes … and the shock had all but finished him …’
Irma shifted her feet …
‘Now shock is the operative word,’ went on the Doctor rocking himself gently on his heels, his eyes still closed – ‘and shock must be answered with shock. But how, and where … how and where … Let me see … let me see …’
Irma could wait no longer. ‘Alfred,’ she cried. ‘do something! Do something!’
The Doctor did not seem to hear her, so deep was he in his reverie.
‘Now, perhaps, if one knew the nature of the shock, its scale, the area of the brain that received it – the kind of unpleasantness …’
‘Unpleasantness!’ came Irma’s voice again. ‘Unpleasantness! How dare you, Alfred! You know that it was I who turned his head, poor creature, that it was for me he fell headlong, for me that he is rigid and dreadful.’
‘Aha!’ cried the Doctor. It was obvious he had not heard a word that his sister had said. ‘Aha!’ If he had appeared animated and vital before, he was trebly so now. His every gesture was as rapid