by Mervyn Peake
Pulling himself together with the air of one who is master of every situation, he swept his gown across one shoulder as though it were a toga and stepping back, surveyed the spread-eagled figure at their feet.
In stepping back, however, he had all but trodden upon Doctor Prunesquallor’s feet and would have done so but for the agile side-step of his host.
The Doctor had been out of the room for a few minutes and had only just been told of the immobile figure on the floor. He was about to have examined the body when Bellgrove had taken his backward step, and now he was delayed still further by the sound of Bellgrove’s voice.
‘My dearest lady,’ said the old lion-headed man, who had begun to repeat himself, ‘warmth is everything. Yet no … not everything … but a good deal. That you should be caused embarrassment by one of my staff, shall I say one of my colleagues, yea, for so he is, shall always be to me like coals of fire. And why? Because, dearest lady, it was for me to have groomed him, to have schooled him in the niceties or more simply, dammit, to have left him behind. And that is what I must do now. I must have him removed,’ and he lifted his voice.
‘Gentlemen,’ he cried. ‘I shall be glad if two of you would remove your colleague and return with him to his quarters. Perhaps Professors … Flannelcat …’
‘But no! but no! I will not have it!’
It was Irma’s voice. She took a step forward and brought her hands up to her long chin where she interlocked her fingers.
‘Mr Headmaster,’ she whispered, ‘I have heard what you have had to say. And it was splendid. I said splendid. When you spoke of “warmth”, I understood. I, a mere woman, I said a mere woman.’ She glared about her, darkly, nervously, as though she had gone too far.
‘But when, Mr Headmaster, I found you were, in spite of your belief, determined to have this gentleman removed’ (she glanced down at the spread-eagled figure at her feet) ‘then I knew it was for me, as your hostess, to ask you, as my guest, to think again. I would not have it said, sir, that one of your staff was shamed in my salon – that he was taken away. Let him be put in a chair in a dim corner. Let him be given wine and pasties, whatever he chooses, and when he is well enough, let him join his friends. He has honoured me, I say he has honoured me …’
It was then that she saw her brother. In a moment she was at his side. ‘O Alfred, I am right, aren’t I? Warmth is everything, isn’t it?’
Prunesquallor gazed at his sister’s twitching face. It was naked with anxiety, naked with excitement and also, to make her expression almost too subtle for credulity, it was naked with the lucence of love’s dawn. Pray God it is not a false one, thought Prunesquallor. It would kill her. For a moment, the conception of how much simpler life would be without her, flashed through his mind, but he pushed the ugly notion away and rising on his toes he clasped his hands so firmly behind his back that his narrow and immaculate chest came forward like a pigeon’s.
‘Whether warmth is everything or not, my very dear sister, it is nevertheless a comforting and a cosy thing to have about – although mark you, it can be very stuffy, by all that’s oxidized, so it can, but Irma, my sweet one – let that be as it may – for as a physician it has struck me that it is about time that something were done for the warrior at your feet; we must see to him, mustn’t we, we must see to him, eh, Mr Bellgrove? By all that’s sacred to my weird profession, we most certainly must …’
‘But he’s not to leave the room, Alfred – he’s not to leave the room. He’s our guest, Alfred, remember that.’
Bellgrove broke in before the Doctor could reply.
‘You have humbled me, lady,’ he said simply, and bowed his lion’s head.
‘And you,’ whispered Irma, a deep blush raddling her neck, ‘have elevated me.’
‘No, madam … ah no!’ muttered Bellgrove. ‘You are over-kind’ and then, taking a plunge, ‘who can hope to elevate a heart, madam, a heart that is already dancing in the milky way?’
‘Why milky?’ said Irma, who, with no desire to drop the level of conversation, had a habit of breaking out with forthright queries. However engulfed she might be in the major mysteries, yet her brain, detached as it were from the business of the soul, took little flights on its own, like a gnat, asked little questions, played little tricks, only to be jerked back into place and subdued for a while as the voices of her deeper self took over.
Luckily for Bellgrove there was no need for him to reply, for the Doctor had signalled a couple of gownsmen over and the seemingly prostrate suppliant was lifted from the carpet, and carried, like a wooden effigy, to a candle-lit corner, where a comfortable chair with plump green cushions stood ready.
‘Seat him in the chair, gentlemen, if you will be so good, and I will have a look at him.’
The two gownsmen lowered the rigid body. It lay straight as a board, supported by no more than its head on the chair-back, and its heels on the ground. Between these extremities were thrust the plump green cushions so that they might, as it were, prop the plank – to take the little man’s weight, but no weight descended and the cushions remained as plump as ever.
There was something frightful about it all and this frightfulness was in no way mitigated by the radiant smile that was frozen on the face.
With a magnificent gesture, the Doctor stripped himself of his beautiful velvet jacket and flung it away as though he had no further use for it.
Then he began to roll up his silk sleeves like a conjurer.
Irma and Bellgrove were close behind him. By this time the reservoirs of tact on which the professors had been drawing were wellnigh dry and a horde stood watching in absolute silence.
The Doctor was fully conscious of this, but by not so much as a flicker did he reveal his awareness, let alone his delight in being watched.
The incident had changed the whole mood of the party. The hilarity and sense of freedom that had been so spontaneous had received an all but mortal blow. For some while, although certain jests were made, and glasses were filled and emptied, there was a darkness on the spirit of the room, and the jests were forced and the wine was swallowed mechanically.
But now that the first red blush of communal shame had died out of the staff; now that the embarrassment was merely cerebral and now that there was something to absorb them (for there was no resisting such an occasion as was now presented by Prunesquallor as he stood upright in his silken shirt sleeves, as slender as a stork, his skin as pink as a girl’s, his glasses gleaming in the light of the candles) – now that there was all this, their equipoise began to return and with it a sense of hope; hope that the evening had not been ruined, that it held in store, once the Doctor had dealt with their seemingly paralysed colleague, a modicum at least of that rare abandon which had begun to set their tongues on fire, and their blood a-jigging – for it was once in a score of years, they told themselves that they could break the endless rhythm of Gormenghast, the rhythm that steered their feet each evening westward – westward to their quadrangle.
They were absolutely silent as they watched the Doctor’s every movement.
Prunesquallor spoke. It seemed that he was talking to himself, although his voice, in reaching those gownsmen who were at the rear of the audience, was certainly a little louder than one would have thought necessary. He took a pace forwards and at the same time raised his hands before him to the height of his shoulders where he worked his fingers to and fro in the air with the speed of a professional pianist.
Then he brought his hands together and began to draw them to and fro one across the other, palm to palm. His eyes were closed.
‘Rarer than Bluggs Disease,’ he mused, ‘or the spiral spine! No doubt of it … by all that’s convulsive … no doubt of it at all. There was a case, quite fascinating – now where was it and when was it … very similar – a man if I remember rightly had seen a ghost … yes, yes … and the shock had all but finished him …’
Irma shifted her feet …
‘Now shock is the operative word,�
�� went on the Doctor rocking himself gently on his heels, his eyes still closed – ‘and shock must be answered with shock. But how, and where … how and where … Let me see … let me see …’
Irma could wait no longer. ‘Alfred,’ she cried. ‘do something! Do something!’
The Doctor did not seem to hear her, so deep was he in his reverie.
‘Now, perhaps, if one knew the nature of the shock, its scale, the area of the brain that received it – the kind of unpleasantness …’
‘Unpleasantness!’ came Irma’s voice again. ‘Unpleasantness! How dare you, Alfred! You know that it was I who turned his head, poor creature, that it was for me he fell headlong, for me that he is rigid and dreadful.’
‘Aha!’ cried the Doctor. It was obvious he had not heard a word that his sister had said. ‘Aha!’ If he had appeared animated and vital before, he was trebly so now. His every gesture was as rapid and fluid as mercury. He took a prancing step towards his patient.
‘By all that’s pragmatical, it’s this or nothing.’ He slid his hand into one of his waistcoat pockets and withdrew a small silver hammer. This he swivelled between his thumb and index finger for a few moments, his eyebrows raised.
In the meanwhile Bellgrove had begun to grow impatient. The situation had taken a queer turn. It was not in circumstances like these that he had hoped to present himself to Irma nor was this the kind of atmosphere in which his tenderness could flourish. For one thing he was no longer the centre of attraction. His immediate desire was to be alone with her. The very words ‘alone with her’ made him blush. His hair shone more whitely than ever against his dark red brow. He glanced at her and immediately knew what to do. It was crystal clear that she was uncomfortable. The figure on the chair was not a pleasant sight for anyone, let alone a lady of distinction, a lady of delicate tastes.
He tossed the shaggy splendour of his mane. ‘Madam,’ he said. ‘This is no place for you.’ He drew himself up to his full height, forcing back his shoulders and drawing his long chin into his throat. ‘No place at all, madam,’ and then apprehensive that Irma might interpret him wrongly and find in his remark some slight upon her party, he shot a glance at her through his eyelashes. But she had found nothing amiss. On the contrary, there was gratitude in her small weak eyes; gratitude in the gleaming incline of her bosom, and in the nervous clasping of her hands.
She no longer heard her brother’s voice. She no longer felt the presence of the robed males. Someone had been thoughtful. Someone had realized that she was a woman, and that it was not proper for her to stand with the rest as though there was no difference between herself and her guests. And this someone, this noble and solicitous being was no other than the headmaster – O how splendid it was that there should still be a gentleman on the face of the earth: youth had fled from him, ah yes, but not romance.
‘Mr Headmaster,’ she said, pursing her lips and lifting her eyes to his craggy face with an archness hardly credible, ‘it is for you to say. It is for me to hearken. Speak on. I am listening … I said, I am listening.’
Bellgrove turned his head away from her. The wide, weak smile that had spread itself across his face was not the kind of thing that he would wish Irma to see. A year or so ago, he had once, with no warning, caught sight of himself in a mirror when a smile (an antecedent of the uncontrollable expression that was even now undermining the spurious grandeur of his face) had shocked him. It was to his credit that he had recognized the danger of allowing such a thing to become public – for he was, not without cause, proud of his features. And so he turned his face away. How could he help giving vent to some kind of demonstration of his feelings. For at Irma’s words ‘It is for you to say’ the wide rich panorama of married life suddenly appeared before him, stretched out, it seemed, to the horizon with its vistas of pale gold, its gentle meads. He saw himself as an immemorial oak, its branches spreading godlike, with Irma, a sapling poplar, whose leaves like heartthrobs twinkled in his shade. He saw himself as the proud eagle, landing with a sigh of his wings upon a solitary crag. He saw Irma, waiting for him in the nest, but curiously enough, she was sitting there in a nightdress. And then, suddenly, he saw himself as a very old man, with a toothache, and his memory caught sight of an ancient face in the mirrors of a thousand shaving-rooms.
He crushed this most unwelcome glimpse beneath the heel of his immediate sensations.
He turned back to Irma.
‘I offer you my arm, dear madam – such as it is.’
‘I will accompany you, Mr Headmaster.’
Irma lowered her little eyelids and then flicked a sideways glance at Mr Bellgrove, who having crooked out his elbow somewhat extravagantly paused a moment before dropping it with a sense of defeat that was quite intoxicating.
‘By hell!’ he murmured passionately to himself – ‘I am not so old that I miss the subtleties.’
‘Forgive my precipitation, dear madam,’ he said, bowing his head. ‘But perhaps … perhaps you understand …’
Clasping her hands together at her bosom Irma turned from the throng, and swaying strangely, began to pace into the empty regions of the room. The carpet lit by a hundred candles had lost something of its glow. It was even brighter but it was not so warm, for the chilly rays of the moon were now streaming through the open windows.
Bellgrove glanced about him as he turned to follow her. No one appeared to be interested in their departure. Every eye was fixed upon the Doctor. For a moment, Bellgrove felt disappointed that he could not stay, for there was drama in the air. The Doctor was evidently making an exhaustive overhaul of the stiffened figure whose clothes were being removed, one by one; no easy work; for the joints were quite inflexible. Mollocks and Canvas, the Prunesquallors’ servants, had, however, a pair of scissors each and, when necessary, were, under the Doctor’s supervision, using them to free the patient.
The Doctor still had the little silver hammer in one hand. With the other he was running his pianist-fingers over the rigid gentleman as though he were a keyboard – his eyebrows raised, his head cocked on one side like a tuner.
Bellgrove could see at a glance that in following Irma he was about to miss the climax of a considerable drama, but turning on his heel, and seeing her again he knew that a drama even more considerable was his for the making.
With his beautiful white gown rippling behind him, he strode in her wake, and on the eleventh stride he came within the orbit of her perfume.
Without pausing in the swaying movement of her gait she turned her head on its swan-white neck. Her emerald ear-ring flashed with light. Her long, sharp nose, immaculately powdered would have put most suitors off, but to Bellgrove it had the proportions of a beak on the proud head of a bird, exquisitely dangerous and sharp. Something to admire rather than love. It was almost a weapon, but a weapon which he felt confident would never be used against him. However that might be, it was hers – and in that simple fact lay its justification.
As they approached the bay window that was open to the night, Bellgrove inclined his head to her.
‘This,’ he said, ‘is our first walk together.’
She stopped as they reached the open window. What he had said had obviously touched her.
‘Mr Bellgrove,’ she whispered, ‘you mustn’t say things like that. We hardly know one another.’
‘Quite so, dear lady, quite so,’ said Bellgrove. He took out a large greyish handkerchief and blew his nose. This is going to be a long business, he thought – unless he were to take some kind of a short cut – some secret path through love’s enchanted glades.
Before them, shining balefully in the moonlight lay the walled-in garden. The upper foliage of the trees shone as white as foam. The underside was black as well-water. The whole garden was a lithograph of richest blacks and staring whites. The fishpool with its surrounding carvings appeared to blaze with a kind of lunar vulgarity. A fountain shot its white jets at the night. Under the livid pergolas, under the stone arches, under the garden tubs, under th
e great rockery, under the fruit trees, under each moon-white thing the shadows lay as black sea-drenched seals. There were no greys at all. There was no transition. It was a picture, terrifyingly simple.
They stared at it together.
‘You said just now, Miss Prunesquallor, that we hardly knew each other. And how true this is – when we measure our mutual recognition by the hands of the clock. But can we, madam, can we measure our knowledge thus? Is there not something in both of us which contradicts so mean a measure? Or am I flattering myself? Am I laying myself open to your scorn? Am I baring my heart too soon?’
‘Your heart, sir?’
‘My heart.’
Irma struggled with herself.
‘What were you saying about it, Mr Headmaster?’
Bellgrove could not quite remember, so he joined his big hands together at the height of the organ in question, and waited a moment or two for inspiration. He seemed to have proceeded rather faster than he had meant and then it struck him that his silence, rather than weakening his position, was enhancing it. It seemed to give an added profundity to the proceedings and to himself. He would keep her waiting. O the magic of it! The power of it! He could feel his throat contracting as though he were biting into a lemon.
This time as he angled his arm he knew she would take it. She did. Her fingers on his forearm set his old heart pounding and then, without a word they stepped forward together into the moonlit garden.
It was not easy for Bellgrove to know in which direction to escort his hostess. Little did he know that it was he who was being steered. And this was natural, for Irma knew every inch of the hideous place.
For some while they stood by the fishpond in which the reflection of the moon shone with a fatuous vacancy. They stared at it. Then they looked up at the original. It was no more interesting than its watery ghost, but they both knew that to ignore the moon on such an evening would be an insensitive, almost a brutish thing to do.
