The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy полностью

Mrs Slagg dabs a little powder upon something that moves in the shadow at one end of the roll, and then peers about her, for it is hard for her to see what she is doing, the shadows in the bedroom of the Countess are of so dark a breed. Between their red rims her eyes wander here and there before she bends over Titus and plucks at her underlip. Again her eyes peer up at the Countess, who seems to have grown tired of her hair, the edifice being left unfinished as though some fitful architect had died before the completion of a bizarre edifice which no one else knew how to complete. Mrs Slagg moves from the bedside in little half-running, half-walking steps, and from the table beneath the candelabra plucks a candle that is waxed to the wood among the birdseed, and, lighting it from a guttering torso of tallow that stands by, she returns to the lavender cylinder which has begun to twist and turn.

Her hand is unsteady as she lifts the wax above the head of Titus, and the wavering flame makes it leap. His eyes are very wide open. As he sees the light his mouth puckers and works, and the heart of the earth contracts with love as he totters at the wellhead of tears. His little body writhes in its dreadful bolster and one of the porcelain bells chimes sweetly.

‘Slagg,’ said the Countess in a voice of husk.

Nannie, who is as light as a feather, starts into the air an inch or two at the sudden sound, and comes to earth again with a painful jarring of her little arid ankles; but she does not cry out, for she is biting her lower lip while her eyes cloud over. She does not know what she has done wrong and she has done nothing wrong, but there is always a feeling of guilt about her when she shares a room with the Countess. This is partly due to the fact that she irritates the Countess, and the nurse can sense this all the while. So it is in a thin and tremulous voice that she stammers:

‘Yes, oh yes, Ladyship? Yes … yes, your Ladyship?’

The Countess does not turn her head to speak, but stares past herself in the cracked mirror, her elbows resting on the table, her head supported in the cups of her hands.

‘Is the child ready?’

‘Yes, yes, just ready, just ready. Ready now, your Ladyship, bless his little smallness … yes … yes …’

‘Is the sword fixed?’

‘Yes, yes, the sword, the –’

She is about to say ‘the horrid, black sword’, but she checks herself nervously, for who is she to express her feeling when ritual is involved? ‘But it’s so hot for him,’ she continues hurriedly, ‘so hot for his little body in all this velvet – though, of course,’ she adds, a stupid little smile working in and out of the wrinkles of her lips, ‘it’s very pretty.’

The Countess turns slowly in her chair. ‘Slagg,’ she says, ‘come over here, Slagg.’

The old woman, her heart beating wildly, patters her way around the bed and stands by the dressing-table. She clasps her hands together on her flat chest and her eyes are wide open.

‘Have you still no idea of how to answer even simple questions?’ asks the Countess very slowly.

Nannie shakes her head, but suddenly a red spot appears in either cheek. ‘I can answer questions, I can!’ she cries, startling herself with her own ineffectual vehemence.

The Countess does not seem to have heard her. ‘Try and answer this one,’ she murmurs.

Mrs Slagg cocks her head on one side and listens like a grey bird.

‘Are you attending, Slagg?’

Nannie nods her head as though suffering from palsy.

‘Where did you meet that youth?’ There is a moment’s silence.

‘That Steerpike?’ the Countess adds.

‘Long ago,’ says Nannie, and closed her eyes as she waits for the next question. She feels pleased with herself.

‘Where is what I said: where, not when,’ booms the voice.

Mrs Slagg tries to gather her thoughts together. Where? Oh, where was it? she wondered. It was long ago … And then she recalled how he had appeared with Fuchsia suddenly at the door of her room.

‘With Fuchsia … Oh, yis … yis, it was with my Fuchsia, your Ladyship.’

‘Where does he come from? Answer me, Slagg, and then finish my hair.’

‘I never do know … No, not ever … I have never been told. Oh, my poor heart, no. Where could the boy come from?’ She peers at the dark bulk above her.

Lady Gertrude wipes the palm of her hand slowly across her brow. ‘You are the same Slagg,’ she says, ‘the same brilliant Slagg.’

Nannie begins to cry, wishing desperately that she were clever.

‘No use crying,’ says the Countess. ‘No use. No use. My birds don’t cry. Not very often. Were you at the fire?’

The word ‘fire’ is terrible to Mrs Slagg. She clutches her hands together. Her bleary eyes grow wild. Her lips tremble, for in her imagination she can see the great flames rising about her.

‘Finish my hair, Nannie Slagg. Stand on a chair and do it.’