The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy полностью

As he held forth, inwardly, he was paying, outwardly, the most passionate attention to Mrs Slagg’s every syllable.

‘And it’s always been the same,’ she was quavering, ‘always the same. Responserverity all the time, Doctor; and I’m not a little thing any more.’

‘Of course not, of course not, tut, tut; by all that’s shrewd you speak nobly, Mrs Slagg – very nobly,’ said Prunesquallor, considering at the same time whether there would have been enough room for her in his black bag, without removing the bottles.

‘Because we’re not as young as we were, are we, sir?’

Prunesquallor considered this point very carefully. Then he shook his head. ‘What you say has the ring of truth in it,’ he said. ‘In fact, it has every possible kind of ring in it. Ring-ting, my heart’s on the wing, as it were. But tell me, Mrs Slagg – tell me in your own concise way – of Mr Slagg – or am I being indelicate? No – no – it couldn’t be. Do you know, Fuchsia? Do you? For myself, I am at sea over Mr Slagg. He is under my keel – utterly under. That’s queer! Utterly under. Or isn’t it? No matter. To put it brutally: was there a – No, no! Finesse, please. Who was – No, no! Crude; crude. Forgive me. Of Mr Slagg, dear lady, have you any … kind of – Good gracious me! and I’ve known you all this long while and then this teaser comes – crops up like a dove on tenterhooks. There’s a “ring” in that – ha, ha, ha! And what a teaser! Don’t you think so, dear?’

He turned to Fuchsia.

She could not help smiling, but held the old nurse’s hand.

‘When did you marry Mr Slagg, Nannie?’ she asked.

Prunesquallor heaved a sigh. ‘The direct approach,’ he murmured. ‘The apt angle. God bless my circuitous soul, we learn … we learn.’

Mrs Slagg became very proud and rigid from the glass grapes on her hat to her little seat.

‘Mr Slagg,’ she said in a thin, high voice, ‘married me.’ She paused, having delivered, as it seemed to her, the main blow; and then, as an afterthought: ‘He died the same night – and no wonder.’

‘Good heavens – alive and dead and halfway between. By all that’s enigmatic, my dear, dear Mrs Slagg, what can you possibly mean?’ cried the Doctor, in so high a treble that a bird rattled its way through the leaves of a tree behind them and sped to the west.

‘He had a stroke,’ said Mrs Slagg.

‘We’ve – had – strokes – too,’ said a voice.

They had forgotten the twins and all three turned their startled heads, but they were not in time to see which mouth had opened.

But as they stared Clarice intoned: ‘Both of us, at the same time. It was lovely.’

‘No, it wasn’t,’ said Cora. ‘You forget what a nuisance it became.’

‘Oh, that!’ replied her sister. ‘I didn’t mind that. It’s when we couldn’t do things with the left side of us that I didn’t like it much.’

‘That’s what I said, didn’t I?’

‘Oh no, you didn’t.’

‘Clarice Groan,’ said Cora, ‘don’t be above yourself.’

‘How do you mean?’ said Clarice, raising her eyes nervously.

Cora turned to the Doctor for the first time. ‘She’s ignorant,’ she said blankly. ‘She doesn’t understand figures of eight.’

Nannie could not resist correcting the Lady Cora, for the Doctor’s attention had infected her with an eagerness to go on talking. A little nervous smile appeared on her lips, however, when she said: ‘You don’t mean “figures of eight”, Lady Cora; you mean “figures of speech”.’

Nannie was so pleased at knowing the expression that the smile remained shuddering in the wrinkles of her lips until she realized that she was being stared at by the aunts.

‘Servant,’ said Cora. ‘Servant …’

‘Yes, my lady. Yes, yes, my lady,’ said Nannie Slagg, struggling to her feet.

‘Servant,’ echoed Clarice, who had rather enjoyed what had happened.

Cora turned to her sister. ‘There’s no need for you to say anything.’

‘Why not?’ said Clarice.

‘Because it wasn’t you that she was disobedient with, stupid.’

‘But I want to give her some punishment, too,’ said Clarice.

‘Why?’

‘Because I haven’t given any for such a long time … Have you?’

‘You’ve never given any at all,’ said Cora.

‘Oh yes, I have.’

‘Who to?’

‘It doesn’t matter who it was. I’ve given it, and that’s that.’

‘That’s what?’

‘That’s the punishment.’

‘Do you mean like our brother’s?’

‘I don’t know. But we mustn’t burn her, must we?’

Fuchsia had risen to her feet. To strike her aunts, or even to touch them, would have made her quite ill and it is difficult to know what she was about to do. Her hands were shaking at her sides.