The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake [404]
FORTY-SEVEN
I
As the days went by, Titus was becoming more and more difficult to control. In the long dormitories where after dark the boys of his own age would light their shielded candles, squat in groups, perform strange rites or eat their pilfered cakes, Titus was no watcher of the scene. He was no mere watcher from the safety of his bed, when, in fierce and secret grapple, old scores were settled in deathly silence while, in his cubicle by the dormitory door, the formidable janitor slept like a crocodile upon his back. The erratic breathing of this man, his tossings and turnings, his very wheezings and mutterings were an open book to Titus and his confederates. They all conveyed a certain depth of sleep, which at its deepest was shallow enough. But it was silence that they feared, for silence meant that his eyes were open in the darkness.
As sacred as the fact that there had always been an Earl of Gormenghast and always would be, and that when the time came he would be virtually unapproachable, a man out of range both socially and for reason of his intrinsic difference – as sacred as all this, was the tradition that as a boy the Earl of Gormenghast must be in no way treated as something apart. It was the pride of the Groans that their childhood was no time of cotton-wool.
As for the boys themselves, they found little difficulty in putting this into practice. They knew that there was no difference between themselves and Titus. It was only later that they would think otherwise. And in any case what a child may become in his later years is of little interest to his friends or his foes. It is the world of here and now that matters most. And so Titus fought with the rest in the breathless dormitory – and from time to time was caught out of his bed and was caned by the janitor.
He took the risk and he took the punishment. But he hated it. He hated the ambiguity of it all. Was he a lord or an urchin? He resented a world in which he was neither one thing nor another. That his early trials would fit him for his responsibilities in later life, made no appeal to him. He was not interested in his later life and he was not interested in having responsibilities. Somehow or other the whole thing was unfair.
And so he said to himself: ‘All right! So I’m the same as anyone else, am I? Then why do I have to report to Steerpike every evening, in case I’m lost? Why do I have to do extra things after classes – when none of the others have to? Turning keys in rotten old locks. Pouring wine all over turrets – walking here and there until I’m tired! Why should I do all this extra if I’m not any different? It’s a rotten trick!’
The professors found him difficult, wayward, and on occasions, insolent. All except Bellgrove, for whom Titus had a fondness and an inexplicable respect.
II
‘Are you thinking of doing any work this afternoon, or were you planning to spend it in chewing that end of your pen, dear boy?’ asked Bellgrove leaning forward over his desk and addressing Titus.
‘Yes, sir!’ said Titus with a jerk. He had been far away, in a day dream.
‘Do you mean, “Yes, sir, I’m going to work” or “Yes, sir, I’m going to chew my pen”, dear boy?’
‘O work, sir.’
Bellgrove flicked a lock of his mane back over his shoulder with the end of his ruler.
‘I am so pleased,’ he said. ‘You know, my young friend, that one day when I was about your age, I was suddenly taken with the idea of concentrating upon the paper which my old schoolteacher had set me. I don’t know what gave me the idea. I had never thought of doing such a thing before. I had heard of people who had tried it, you know – of paying attention, of putting their minds to the work in hand – but I had never thought of doing it myself. But – and here you must listen,