The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake [56]
Unfortunately Nannie, having tripped over a loose flagstone, was ten feet away at the word ‘Welcome’ and Sourdust, upon whose massive forehead a few beads of perspiration had suddenly appeared, felt the three long seconds pass with a ghastly slowness before she appeared at the door of the room. Immediately before she had left the corner Keda had placed the little iron crown gently on the infant’s head to Nannie’s satisfaction, and the two of them as they appeared before the assembly made up for their three seconds’ tardiness by a preposterous quality that was in perfect harmony with the situation.
Sourdust felt satisfied as he saw them, and their delay that had rankled was forgotten. He approached Mrs Slagg carrying his great book with him, and when he had reached them he opened the volume so that it fell apart in two equal halves and then, extending it forward towards Nannie Slagg, he said:
‘It is written, and the writing is adhered to, that between these pages where the flax is grey with wisdom, the first-born male-child of the House of Groan shall be lowered and laid lengthways, his head directed to the christening bowl, and that the pages that are heavy with words shall be bent in and over him, so that he is engulfed in the sere Text encircled with the Profound, and is as one with the inviolable Law.’
Nannie Slagg, an inane expression of importance on her face, lowered Titus within the obtuse V shape of the half-opened book so that the crown of his head just overlapped the spine of the volume at Sourdust’s end and his feet at Mrs Slagg’s.
Then Lord Sepulchrave folded the two pages over the helpless body and joined the tube of thick parchment at its centre with a safety-pin.
Resting upon the spine of the volume, his minute feet protruding from one end of the paper trunk and the iron spikes of the little crown protruding from the other, he was, to Sourdust, the very quintessential of traditional propriety. So much so that as he carried the loaded book towards the refectory table his eyes became so blurred with tears of satisfaction, that it was difficult for him to make his way between the small tables that lay in his path, and the two vases of flowers that stood so still and clear in the cool air of the room were each in his eyes a fume of lilac, and a blurr of snow.
He could not rub his eyes, and free his vision, for his hands were occupied, so he waited until they were at last clear of the moisture that filmed them.
Fuchsia, in spite of knowing that she should remain where she was, had joined Nannie Slagg. She had been irritated by an attempt that Clarice had made to nudge her in a furtive way whenever she thought that no one was watching.
‘You never come to see me although you’re a relation, but that’s because I don’t want you to come and never ask you,’ her aunt had said, and had then peered round to see whether she was being watched, and noticing that Gertrude was in a kind of enormous trance, she continued:
‘You see, my poor child, I and my sister Cora are a good deal older than you and we both had convulsions when we were about your age. You may have noticed that our left arms are rather stiff and our left legs, too. That’s not our fault.’
Her sister’s voice came from the other side of the semi-circle of figures in a hoarse flat whisper, as though it was trying to reach the ears of Fuchsia without making contact with the row of ears that lay between. ‘Not our fault at all,’ she said, ‘not a bit our fault. Not any of it.’
‘The epileptic fits, my poor child,’ continued Cora, after nodding at her sister’s interruption, ‘have left us practically starved all down the right side. Practically starved. We had these fits you see.’
‘When we were about your age,’ came the empty echo.
‘Yes, just about your age,’ said Cora, ‘and being practically starved all down the right side we have to do our embroidered tapestries with one hand.’
‘Only one hand,’ said Clarice. ‘It’s very clever of us. But no one sees us.’
She leaned forward