Flay eases her off his shoulder and she drops to the ground. Fuchsia has seen the Doctor’s house in the corner of the quadrangle and she cannot understand why she had not thought of him before. Fuchsia begins to run, and directly she is at the Doctor’s front door she beats it violently with the knocker. The sun is beginning to rise above the marshes and picks out a long gutter and a cornice of the Doctor’s house, and presently, after Fuchsia has slammed at the door again, it picks out the extraordinary headpiece of Prunesquallor himself as it emerges sleepily through a high window. He cannot see what is below him in the shadows, but calls out:
‘In the name of modesty and of all who slumber, go easy with that knocker! What in the world is it? … Answer me. What is it, I repeat? … Is it the plague that has descended on Gormenghast – or a forceps case? Is it a return of midnight mange, or merely flesh-death? Does the patient rave? … Is he fat or thin? … Is he drunk or mad? … Is he …’ The Doctor yawns and it is then that Fuchsia has her first chance to speak:
‘Yes, oh yes! Come quickly, Doctor Prune! Let me tell you. Oh, please, let me tell you!’
The high voice at the sill cries: ‘Fuchsia!’ as though to itself. ‘Fuchsia!’ And the window comes down with a crash.
Flay moves to the girl and almost before he has done so the front door is flung open and Doctor Prunesquallor in his flowered pyjamas is facing them.
Taking Fuchsia by the hand and motioning Flay to follow he minces rapidly to the living room.
‘Sit down, sit down, my frantic one!’ cries Prunesquallor. ‘What the devil is it? Tell the old Prune all about it.’
‘It’s father,’ says Fuchsia, the tears finding release at long last. ‘Father’s become wrong, Doctor Prune; Father’s become all wrong … Oh, Doctor Prune, he is a black owl now … Oh, Doctor, Help him! Help him!’
The Doctor does not speak. He turns his pink, over-sensitive, intelligent head sharply in the direction of Flay, who nods and comes forward a step, with the report of a knee-joint. Then he nods again, his jaw working. ‘Owl,’ he says. ‘Wants mice! … Wants twigs: on mantelpiece! Hooting! Lordship’s mad.’
‘No!’ shouts Fuchsia. ‘He’s ill, Doctor Prune. That’s all. His library’s been burned. His beautiful library; and he’s become ill. But he’s not mad. He talks so quietly. Oh, Doctor Prune, what are you going to do?’
‘Did you leave him in his room?’ says the Doctor, and it does not seem to be the same man speaking.
Fuchsia nods her tear-wet head.
‘Stay here,’ says the Doctor quietly; as he speaks he is away and within a few moments has returned in a lime-green dressing gown with lime-green slippers to match, and in his hand, a bag.
‘Fuchsia dear, send Steerpike to me, in your father’s room. He is quick-witted and may be of help. Flay, get about your duties. The Breakfast must proceed, as you know. Now then, my gipsy-child; death or glory.’ And with the highest and most irresponsible of trill he vanishes through the door.
A CHANGE OF COLOUR
The morning light is strengthening, and the hour of the Great Breakfast approaches. Flay, utterly distraught, is wandering up and down the candle-lit stone lanes where he knows he will be alone. He had gathered the twigs and he had flung them away in disgust only to re-gather them, for the very thought of disobeying his master is almost as dreadful to him as the memory of the creature he has seen on the mantelpiece. Finally, and in despair, he has crunched the twigs between his own stick like fingers, the simultaneous crackling of the twigs and of his knuckles creating for a moment a miniature storm of brittle thunder in the shadow of the trees. Then, striding back to the Castle he has descended uneasily to the Stone Lanes. It is very cold, yet there are great pearls upon his forehead, and in each pearl is the reflection of a candle flame.
Mrs Slagg is in the bedroom of the Countess, who is piling her rust-coloured hair above her head as though she were building a castle. Every now and again Mrs Slagg peers furtively at the bulk before the mirror, but her attention is chiefly centred upon an object on the bed. It is wrapped in a length of lavender coloured velvet, and little porcelain bells are pinned here and there all over it. One end of a golden chain is attached to the velvet near the centre of what has become, through process of winding, a small velvet cylinder, or mummy, measuring some three and a half feet in length and with a diameter of about eighteen inches. At the other end of the chain and lying on the bed beside the lavender roll is a sword with a heavy blade of blue-black steel and a hilt embossed with the letter ‘G’. This sword is attached to the gold chain with a piece of string.
