by Mervyn Peake
Picture after moving picture all night long until, as dawn approached, the doctor fell into a dreamless though shallow sleep through which he could hear the dreamland crowing of a cock and the water roaring into Irma’s bath.
THIRTY-TWO
In a score of schoolrooms all through the day innumerable urchins wondered what it was that made their masters even less interested than usual in their existence. Familiar as they were with being neglected over long periods and with the disinterest that descends on those who juggle through long decades with sow’s ears, yet there was something very different about the kind of listlessness that made itself so evident at every master’s desk.
Not a clock in all the various classrooms but had been stared at at least sixty times an hour: not by the bewildered boys, but by their masters.
The secret had been well kept. Not a child knew of the evening party, and when eventually, with the lessons over for the day, the professors arrived back at their private quadrangle, there was a certain smug and furtive air about the way they moved.
There was no particular reason why the invitation to the Prunesquallors should have been kept secret, but a tacit understanding between the masters had been rigidly honoured. There was a sense, perhaps, unformulated for the most part, in their minds, that there was something rather ridiculous about their having all been invited. A sense that the whole thing was somewhat over-simplified. A trifle un-selective. They saw nothing absurd in themselves, individually, and why should they? But a few of them, Perch-Prism in particular, could not visualize his colleagues en masse, himself among them, waiting their entrance at the Prunesquallors’ door, without a shudder. There is something about a swarm that is damaging to the pride of its individual members.
As was their habit, they leaned this evening over the balustrade of the verandah that surrounded the Masters’ Quadrangle. Below them, the small faraway figure of the quadman was sweeping the ground from end to end, leaving behind him the thin strokes of his broom in the fine dust.
They were all there, the evening light upon them; all except Bellgrove, who, leaning back in the headmaster’s chair in his room above the distant classrooms was cogitating the extraordinary suggestions which had been made to him during the day. These suggestions, which had been put forward by Perch-Prism, Opus Fluke, Shred, Swivell and other members, were to the effect that they, for one reason or another and on one occasion or another had heard from friends of friends or had half-heard through hollow panels, or in the darkness below stairs, at such times when Irma was talking to herself aloud (a habit which they assured Bellgrove she had no power to master) that she (Irma) had got the very devil of a passion for him, their reverend headmaster – and that although it was not their affair, they felt he would not be offended to be faced with the reality of the situation – for what could be more obvious than that the party was merely a way for Irma to be near him? It was obvious, was it not, that she could never ask him alone. It would be too blatant, too indelicate, but there it was … there it was. They had frowned at him in sympathy and left.
Now Bellgrove was well used to having his leg pulled. He had had it pulled for as long as he had possessed one. He was thus, for all this weakness and vagueness, no simpleton when it came to banter and the kindred arts. He had listened to all they had said, and now as he sat alone he pondered the whole question for the twentieth time. And his conclusions and speculations came forth from him, heavily like this.
1 The whole thing was poppycock.
2 The purpose of the fabrication was no more than that he should provide, unknowingly, an added zest to the party. These wags on his staff looked forward no doubt to seeing him in constant flight with Irma on his tail.
3 As he had not questioned the story, they could have no idea that he had seen through it.
4 So far, very excellent.
5 How were the tables to be turned …?
6 What was wrong with Irma Prunesquallor anyway?
A fine, upright woman with a long sharp nose. But what about it? Noses had to be some shape or other. It had character. It wasn’t negative. Nor was she. She had no bosom to speak of: that was true enough. But he was rather too old for bosoms anyway. And there was nothing to touch the cool of white pillows in summertime – (‘Bless my soul,’ he said aloud, ‘what am I thinking?’) …
As headmaster he was far more alone than he had ever been before. Bad mixer as he was he preferred to be ‘out of it’ in a crowd than out of it altogether.
He disliked the sense of isolation, when his staff departed every evening. He had pictured himself as a thwarted hermit – one who could find tranquillity, alone with a profound volume on his knee, and a room about him spare, ascetic, the hard chair, the empty grate. But this was not so. He loathed it and bared his teeth at the mean furniture and the dirty muddle of his belongings. This was no way for a headmaster’s study to be! He thought of cushions and bedroom slippers. He thought of socks of long ago with heels to their name. He even thought of flowers in a vase.
Then he thought of Irma again. Yes, there was no denying it, a fine young woman. Well set up. Vivacious. Rather silly, perhaps, but an old man couldn’t expect all the qualities.
He rose to his feet and plodding to a mirror wiped the dust from its face with his elbow. Then he peered at himself. A slow childish smile spread over his features as though he were pleased with what he saw. Then with his head on one side, he bared his teeth, and frowned for they were terrible. ‘I must keep my mouth shut more than I usually do,’ he mused, and he began to practise talking with closed lips but could not make out what he was saying. The novelty of the whole situation and the fantastic project that was now consuming him set his old heart beating as he grasped for the first time its tremendous significance. Not less than the personal triumph with which it would fill him, and the innumerable practical advantages that would surely result from such a union, was the delight he was prematurely tasting of hoisting the staff with its own petard. He began to see himself sailing past the miserable bachelors, Irma on his arm, an unquestioned patriarch, a symbol of success and married stability with something of the gay dog about him too – of the light beneath the bushel, the dark horse, the man with an ace up his sleeve. So they thought that they could fool him. That Irma was infatuated with him. He began to laugh in a sick and exaggerated way, but stopped suddenly. Could she be? No. They had made the whole thing up. But could she be, all the same? Coincidentally, as it were. No! no! no! Impossible. Why should she be? ‘God bless me!’ he muttered ‘I must be going mad!’
But the adventure was there. His secret plan was there. It was up to him. A sensation that he imagined was one of youth flooded him. He began to hop laboriously up and down on the floor as though over an invisible skipping rope. He made a jump for the table as though to land on the top, but failed to reach the necessary height, bruised his old leg below the knee.
‘Bloody hell!’ he muttered and sat down heavily in his chair again.
THIRTY-THREE
As the Professors were changing into their evening gowns, stabbing at startled hanks of hair with broken combs, maligning one another, finding in one another’s rooms long lost towels, studs and even major garments that had disappeared in mysterious ways – while this was happening to the accompaniment of much swearing and muttering; and while the coarse jests rumbled along the verandah, and Flannelcat, half sick with excitement, was sitting on the floor of his room with his head between his knees as the heavy hand of Opus Fluke reached hairily through his doorway to steal a towel from a rack – while this and a hundred things were going on around the Masters’ Quadrangle, Irma was perambulating the long white room which had been re-opened for the occasion.
It had once been the original salon; a room which the Prunesquallors had never used, being too vast for their requirements. It had been locked up for years, but now, after many days of cleaning and repainting, dusting and polishing, it shone with a terrible newness. A group of skilled men had been kept busy, under I
rma’s watchful eye. She had a delicate taste, had Irma. She could not bear vulgar colours, or coarse furniture. What she lacked was the power to combine and make a harmony out of the various parts that, though exquisite in themselves, bore no relationship either in style, period, grain, colour or fabric to one another.
Each thing was seen on its own. The walls had to be a most tender shade of washed out coral. And the carpet had to be the kind of green that is almost grey, the flowers were arranged bowl by bowl, vase by vase, and though each was lovely in itself, there was no general beauty in the room.
Unknown to her the ‘bittiness’ that resulted gave to the salon a certain informality far from her intentions. This was to prove a lubricating thing, for the professors might well have been frozen into a herd of lock-jawed spectres had Irma made of the place the realm of chill perfection that was at the back of her mind. Peering at everything in turn she moved about this long room like something that had spent all its life in planning to counteract the sharpness of its nose, with such a flaunting splendour of silk and jewellery, powder and scent, as set the teeth on edge like coloured icing.
About three quarters of the way along the southern wall of the salon a very fine double window opened upon a walled-in garden where rockeries, crazy pavement, sun-dials, a small fountain (now playing after a two-day struggle with a gardener), trellis work, arbours, statuettes and a fish pond made of the place something so terrifying to the sensitive eye of the Doctor, that he never crossed the garden with his eyes open. Much practice had given him confidence and he could move across it blindly at high speed. It was Irma’s territory; a place of ferns and mosses and little flowers that opened at odd hours during the night. Little miniature grottoes had been made for them to twinkle in.
Only at the far end of the garden was there any sense of nature, and even there it was made manifest by no more than a dozen fine trees whose limbs had grown in roughly the direction they had found most natural. But the grass about their stems was closely mown, and under their boughs a rustic chair or two was artlessly positioned.
On this particular evening there was a hunter’s moon. No wonder. Irma had seen to it.
When she reached the french windows she was delighted with the scene before her, the goblin-garden, silver and mysterious, the moonbeams glimmering on the fountain, the sun-dial, the trellis work and the moon itself reflected in the fish pond. It was all a bit blurred to her, and that was a pity, but she could not have it both ways. Either she was to wear her dark glasses and look less attractive, or she must put up with finding everything about her out of focus. It didn’t matter much how out of focus a garden by moonlight was – in fact in the adding of this supercharge of mystery it became a kind of emotional haze, which was something which Irma, as a spinster, could never have enough of – but how would it be when she had to disengage one professor from another? Would she be able to appreciate the subtlety of their advances, if they made any; those little twitches and twists of the lips, those narrowings and rollings of the eye, those wrinklings of the speculative temple, that shrugging of an eye-brow at play? Would all this be lost to her?
When she had told her brother of her intention to dispense with her glasses, he had advised her, in that case, to leave them off an hour before the guests were due. And he had been right. She was quite sure he had been. For the pain in her forehead had gone and she was moving faster on her swathed legs than she had dared to do at first. But it was all a little confusing, and though her heart beat at the sight of her moon-blur of a garden, yet she clenched her hands at the same time in a gay little temper that she should have been born with bad eyes.
She rang a bell. A head appeared at the door.
‘Is that Mollocks?’
‘Yes, Madam.’
‘Have you got your soft shoes on?’
‘Yes, Madam.’
‘You may enter.’
Mollocks entered.
‘Cast your eye around, Mollocks – I said cast your eye around. No, no! Get the feather duster. No, no. Wait a minute – I said wait a minute.’ (Mollocks had made no move.) ‘I will ring.’ (She rang.) Another head appeared. ‘Is that Canvas?’ ‘Yes, Madam, it is Canvas.’ ‘Yes Madam is quite enough, Canvas. Quite enough. Your exact name is not so enormously important. Is it? Is it? To the larder with you and fetch a feather brush for Mollocks. Away with you. Where are you, Mollocks?’
‘Beside you, Madam.’
‘Ah yes. Ah yes. Have you shaved?’
‘Definitely, Madam.’
‘Quite so. Mollocks. It must be my eyes. You look so dark across the face. Now you are to leave no stone unturned – not one – do you understand me? Move from place to place all over this room, backwards and forwards restlessly do you understand me, with Canvas at your side – searching for those specks of dust that have escaped me – did you say you had your soft shoes on?’
‘Yes, Madam.’
‘Good. Very good. Is that Canvas who has just come in? Is it? Good. Very good. He is to travel with you. Four eyes are better than two. But you can use the brush – whoever finds the specks. I don’t want anything spoilt or knocked over and Canvas can be very clumsy, can’t you, Canvas?’
The old man Canvas who had been sent running about the house since dawn, and who did not feel that as an old retainer he was being appreciated, said that he ‘didn’t know about that’. It was his only line of defence, a repetitive, stubborn attitude beyond which one could not go.
‘Oh yes you are,’ repeated Irma. ‘Quite clumsy. Run along now. You are slow, Canvas, slow.’
Again the old man said he ‘didn’t know about that’ and having said so, turned in a puny fury of temper from his mistress and tripping over his own feet as he turned, grabbed at a small table. A tall alabaster vase swayed on its narrow base like a pendulum while Mollocks and Canvas watched it, their mouths open, their limbs paralysed.
But Irma had surged away from them and was practising a certain slow and languid mode of progress which she felt might be effective. Up and down a little strip of the soft grey carpet she swayed, stopping every now and again to raise a limp hand before her, presumably to be touched by the lips of one or other of the professors.
Her head would be tilted away at these moments of formal intimacy, and there was only a segment of her sidelong glance as it grazed her cheekbones, to reward the imaginary gallant as he mouthed her knuckles.
Knowing Irma’s vision to be faulty and that they could not be seen, with the length of the salon between them, Canvas and Mollocks watched her from under their gathered brows, marking time, like soldiers the while, to simulate the sounds of activity.
They had not long, however, in which to watch their mistress for the door opened and the doctor came in. He was in full evening dress and looked more elegant than ever. Across his immaculate breast was the pick of the few decorations with which Gormenghast had honoured him. The crimson Order of the Vanquished Plague, and the Thirty-fifth Order of the Floating Rib lay side by side upon his narrow, snow-white shirt, and were suspended from wide ribbons. In his buttonhole was an orchid.
‘O Alfred,’ cried Irma. ‘How do I seem to you? How do I seem to you?’
The Doctor glanced over his shoulder and motioned the retainers out of the room with a flick of his hand.
He had hidden himself away all afternoon and sleeping dreamlessly had to a great extent recovered from the nightmares he had suffered. As he stood before his sister he appeared as fresh as a daisy, if less pastoral.
‘Now I tell you what,’ he cried, moving round her, his head cocked on one side, ‘I tell you what, Irma. You’ve made something out of yourself, and if it ain’t a work of art, it’s as near as makes no matter. By all that emanates, you’ve brought it off. Great grief! I hardly know you. Turn round, my dear, on one heel! La! La! Significant form, that’s what she is! And to think the same blood batters in our veins! It’s quite embarrassing.’
‘What do you mean, Alfred? I thought you were praising me.’ (There was
a catch in her voice.)
‘And so I was, and so I was! – but tell me sister, what is it, apart from your luminous, un-sheltered eyes – and your general dalliance – what is it that’s altered you – that has, as it were … aha … aha … H’m … I’ve got it – O dear me … quite so, by all that’s pneumatic, how silly of me – you’ve got a bosom, my love, or haven’t you?’
‘Alfred! It is not for you to prove.’
‘God forbid, my love.’
‘But if you must know …’
‘No, no, Irma, no no! I am content to leave everything to your judgement.’
‘So you won’t listen to me …’ (Irma was almost in tears).
‘O but I will. Tell me all.’
‘Alfred dear – you liked the look of me. You said you did.’
‘And I still do. Enormously. It was only that, well, I’ve known you a long time and …’
‘I’m told,’ said Irma, breaking in breathlessly, ‘that busts are … well …’
‘… that busts are what you make them?’ queried her brother standing on his toes.
‘Exactly! Exactly!’ his sister shouted. ‘And I’ve made one, Alfred, and it gives me pride of bearing. It’s a hot water bottle, Alfred; an expensive one.’
There was a long and deathly silence. When at last Prunesquallor had reassembled the fragments of his shattered poise he opened his eyes.
‘When do you expect them, my love?’
‘You know as well as I do. At nine o’clock, Alfred. Shall we call in the Chef.’
‘What for?’
‘For final instructions, of course.’
‘What again?’
‘One can’t be too final, dear.’
‘Irma,’ said the Doctor, ‘perhaps you have stumbled on a truth of the first water. And talking of water – is the fountain playing?’
‘Darling!’ said Irma, fingering her brother’s arm. ‘It’s playing its heart out,’ and she gave him a pinch.
