The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy полностью

‘I’d go far away from here – to another kind of land’, said Fuchsia, ‘where people who didn’t know that I was the Lady Fuchsia would be surprised when I told them that I was; and they would treat me better and be more polite and do some homage sometimes. But I wouldn’t stop bringing home my leaves and shining pebbles and fungi from the woods, whatever they thought’.

‘You’d go away from me?’ said Nannie in such a melancholy voice that Fuchsia held her in her strong arms.

‘Don’t cry,’ she said. ‘It isn’t any good.’

Nannie turned her eyes up again and this time they were filled with the love she felt for her ‘child’. But even in the weakness of her compassion she felt that she should preserve her station and repeated: ‘Must you go into the dirty water, my own one, and tear your clothes just like you’ve always done, caution dear? Aren’t you big enough to go out only on nice days?’

‘I like the autumn weather,’ said Fuchsia very slowly. ‘So that’s why I go out to look at it.’

‘Can’t you see it from out of your window, precious?’ said Mrs Slagg. ‘Then you would keep warm at the same time, though what there is to stare at I don’t know; but there, I’m only a silly old thing.’

‘I know what I want to do, so don’t you think about it any more’, said Fuchsia. ‘I’m finding things out.’

‘You’re a wilful thing,’ said Mrs Slagg a little peevishly, ‘but I know much more than you think about all sorts of things. I do; yes, I do; but I’ll get you your tea at once. And you can have it by the fire, and I will bring the little boy in because he ought to be awake by now. Oh dear! there is so much to do. Oh, my weak heart, I wonder how long I will last.’

Her eyes, following Fuchsia’s, turned to the boulder around which a wet mark was spreading on the patchwork quilt.

‘You’re the dirtiest terror in the world,’ she said. ‘What’s that stone for? What is it for, dear? What’s the use of it? You never listen. Never. Nor grow any older like I told you to. There’s no one to help me now. Keda’s gone, and I do everything.’ Mrs Slagg wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Change your wet clothes or I won’t bring you anything and your dirty wet shoes at once!’ … Mrs Slagg fumbled at the door handle, opened the door and shuffled away down the corridor, one hand clasped at her chest.

Fuchsia removed her shoes without untying the laces by treading on the heels and working her feet loose. Mrs Slagg had made up a glowing fire and Fuchsia, pulling off her dress, rubbed her wet hair with it. Then, wrapping a warm blanket about her, she fell back into a low armchair that had been drawn up to the fire and, sinking into its familiar softness, gazed absently at the leaping flames with half-closed eyes.

When Mrs Slagg returned with a tray of tea and toasted scones, currant bread, butter and eggs and a jar of honey, she found Fuchsia asleep.

Placing the tray on the hearth she tip-toed to the door and disappeared, to return within the minute with Titus in her arms. He was dressed in a white garment which accentuated what warmth of colour there was in his face. At birth he had been practically bald, but now, though it was only two months later, he was blessed with a mop of hair as dark as his sister’s.

Mrs Slagg sat down with Titus in a chair opposite Fuchsia and peered weakly at the girl, wondering whether to wake her at once or whether to let her finish her sleep and then to make another pot of tea. ‘But the scones will be cold, too’, she said to herself. ‘Oh, how tiresome she is.’ But her problem was solved by a loud single knuckle-rap at the door, which caused her to start violently and clutch Titus to her shoulder, and Fuchsia to wake from her doze.

‘Who is it?’ cried Mrs Slagg. ‘Who is it?’

‘Flay,’ said the voice of Lord Sepulchrave’s servant. The door opened a few inches and a bony face looked in from near the top of the door.

‘Well?’ said Nannie, jerking her head about. ‘Well? Well? What is it?’

Fuchsia turned her head and her eyes moved up the fissure between the door and the wall until they came at last to settle on the cadaverous features.

‘Why don’t you come inside?’ she said.

‘No invitation,’ said Flay flatly. He came forward, his knees cracking at each step. His eyes shifted from Fuchsia to Mrs Slagg and from Mrs Slagg to Titus, and then to the loaded tea-tray by the fire, on which they lingered before they returned to Fuchsia wrapped in her blanket. When he saw she was still looking at him his right hand raised itself like a bunch of blunt talons and began to scratch at a prominent lump of bone at the back of his head.

‘Message from his Lordship, my Lady,’ he said; and then his eyes returned to the tea-tray.

‘Does he want me?’ said Fuchsia.

‘Lord Titus,’ said Flay, his eyes retaining upon their lenses the pot of tea, toasted scones, currant bread, butter, eggs and a jar of honey.

‘He wants little Titus, did you say?’ cried Mrs Slagg, trying to make her feet reach the ground.