Ostentatiously he raised his left elbow and Irma, lifting her parasol over her head, her hips gyrating and her nose like a needle pointing the way, took his arm and they moved into the shadows of the trees.
Fuchsia lifted Titus and placed him over her shoulder, while Nannie folded up the rust-coloured rug, and they in their turn began the homeward journey.
Steerpike had reached the further shore and the party of men had resumed their détour of the lake, the chestnut boughs across their shoulders. The youth moved jauntily ahead of them, spinning the swordstick.
COUNTESS GERTRUDE
Long after the drop of lake water had fallen from the ilex leaf and the myriad reflections that had floated on its surface had become a part of the abactina of what had gone for ever, the head at the thorn-prick window had remained gazing out into the summer.
It belonged to the Countess. She was standing on a ladder, for only in such a way could she obtain a view through that high, ivy-cluttered opening. Behind her the shadowy room was full of birds.
Blobs of flame on the dark crimson wallpaper smouldered, for a few sunbeams shredded their way past her head and struck the wall with silent violence. They were entirely motionless in the half light and burned without a flicker, forcing the rest of the room into still deeper shade, and into a kind of subjugated motion, a counter-play of volumes of many shades between the hues of deep ash-grey and black.
It was difficult to see the birds, for there were no candles lighted. The summer burned beyond the small high window.
At last the Countess descended the ladder, step after mammoth step, until both feet on the ground she turned about, and began to move to the shadowy bed. When she reached its head she ignited the wick of a half-melted candle and, seating herself at the base of the pillows, emitted a peculiarly sweet, low, whistling note from between her great lips.
For all her bulk it was as though she had, from a great winter tree, become a summer one. Not with leaves was she decked, but, thick as foliage, with birds. Their hundred eyes twinkled like glass beads in the candlelight.
‘Listen,’ she said, ‘We’re alone. Things are bad. Things are going wrong. There’s evil afoot. I know it.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘But let ’em try. We can bide our time. We’ll hold our horses. Let them rear their ugly hands, and by the Doom, we’ll crack ’em chineways. Within four days the Earling – and then I’ll take him, babe and boy – Titus the Seventy-seventh.’
She rose to her feet, ‘God shrive my soul, for it’ll need it!’ she boomed, as the wings fluttered about her and the little claws shifted for balance. ‘God shrive it when I find the evil thing! For absolution, or no absolution – there’ll be satisfaction found.’ She gathered some cake crumbs from a nearby crate, and placed them between her lips. At the trotting sound of her tongue a warbler pecked from her mouth, but her eyes had remained half closed, and what could be seen of her iris was as hard and glittering as a wet flint.
‘Satisfaction,’ she repeated huskily, with something purr-like in the heavysounding syllables. ‘In Titus it’s all centred. Stone and mountain – the Blood and the Observance. Let them touch him. For every hair that’s hurt I’ll stop a heart. If grace I have when turbulence is over – so be it; and if not – what then?’
THE APPARITION
Something in a white shroud was moving towards the door of the twins’ apartment. The Castle was asleep. The silence like space. The Thing was inhumanly tall and appeared to have no arms.
In their room the aunts sat holding each other by the empty grate. They had been waiting so long for the handle of the door to turn. This is now what it began to do. The twins had their eyes on it. They had been watching it for over an hour – the room ill lit – their brass clock ticking. And then, suddenly, through the gradually yawning fissure of the door the Thing entered, its head scraping the lintel – its head grinning and frozen, was the head of a skull.
They could not scream. The twins could not scream. Their throats were contracted; their limbs had stiffened. The bulging of their four identical eyes was ghastly to see, and as they stood there, paralysed, a voice from just below the grinning skull cried:
‘Terror! terror! terror! pure; naked; and bloody!’
And the nine-foot length of sheet moved into the room.
Old Sourdust’s skull had come in useful. Balanced on the end of the swordstick, and dusted with phosphorus, the sheet hanging vertically down its either side, and kept in place by a tack through the top of the cranium, Steerpike was able to hold it three feet above his own head and peer through a slit he had made in the sheet at his eye level. The white linen fell in long sculptural folds to the floor of the room.
The twins were the colour of the sheet. Their mouths were wide open and their screams tore inwards at their bowels for lack of natural vent. They had become congealed with an icy horror, their hair, disentangling from knot and coil, had risen like pampas grass that lifts in a dark light when gusts prowl shuddering and presage storm. They could not even cling more closely together, for their limbs were weighted with cold stone. It was the end. The Thing scraped the ceiling with its head and moved forward noiselessly in one piece. Having no human possibility of height, it had no height. It was not a tall ghost – it was immeasurable; Death walking like an element.
Steerpike had realized that unless something was done it would be only a matter of time before the twins, through the loose meshwork of their vacant brains, divulged the secret of the Burning. However much they were in his power he could not feel sure that the obedience which had become automatic in his presence would necessarily hold when they were among others. As he now saw it, it seemed that he had been at the mercy of their tongues ever since the Fire – and he could only feel relief that he had escaped detection – for until now he had had hopes that vacuous as they were, they would be able to understand the peril in which, were any suspicion to be attached to them, they would stand. But he now realized that through terrorism and victimization alone could loose lips be sealed. And so he had lain awake and planned a little episode. Phosphorus, which along with the poisons he had concocted in Prunesquallor’s dispensary, and which as yet he had found no use for – his swordstick, as yet unsheathed, save when alone he polished the slim blade, and a sheet. These were his media for the concoction of a walking death.
And now he was in their room. He could watch them perfectly through the slit in the sheet. If he did not speak now, before the hysterics began, then they would hear nothing, let alone grasp his meaning. He lifted his voice to a weird and horrible pitch.
‘I am Death!’ he cried. ‘I am all who have died. I am the death of Twins. Behold! Look at my face. It is naked. It is bone. It is Revenge. Listen. I am the One who strangles.’
He took a further pace towards them. Their mouths were still open and their throats strained to loose the clawing cry.
‘I come as Warning! Warning! Your throats are long and white and ripe for strangling. My bony hands can squeeze all breath away… I come as Warning! Listen!’
There was no alternative for them. They had no power.
‘I am Death – and I will talk to you – the Burners. Upon that night you lit a crimson fire. You burned your brother’s heart away! Oh, horror!’
Steerpike drew breath. The eyes of the twins were well nigh upon their cheekbones. He must speak very simply.
‘But there is yet a still more bloody crime. The crime of speech. The crime of Mentioning, Mentioning. For this, I murder in a darkened room. I shall be watching. Each time you move your mouths I shall be watching. Watching. Watching with my enormous eyes of bone. I shall be listening. Listening, with my fleshless ears: and my long fingers will be itching… itching. Not even to each other shall you speak. Not of your crime. Oh, horror! Not of the crimson Fire.
‘My cold grave calls me back, but shall I answer it? No! For I shall be beside you for ever. Listening, listening; with my fingers itching. You will not see me… but I shall be here… there… and
whereveryou go… for evermore. Speak not of Fire… or Steerpike… Fire – or Steerpike, your protector, for the sake of your long throats… Your long white throats.’
Steerpike turned majestically. The skull had tilted a little on the point of the swordstick, but it did not matter. The twins were ice bound in an arctic sea.
As he moved solemnly through the doorway, something grotesque, terrifying, ludicrous in the slanting angle of the skull – as though it were listening… gave emphasis to all that had gone before.
As soon as he had closed the door behind him he shed himself of the sheet and, wrapping the skull in its folds, hid it from view among some lumber that lay along the wall of the passage.
There was still no sound from the room. He knew that it would be fruitless to appear the same evening. Whatever he said would be lost. He waited a few moments, however, expecting the hysteria to find a voice, but at length began his return journey. As he turned the corner of a distant passageway, he suddenly stopped dead. It had begun. Dulled as it was by the distance and the closed doors, it was yet horrifying enough – the remote, flat, endless screaming of naked panic.
When, on the evening of the next day, he visited them he found them in bed. The old woman who smelt so badly had brought them their meals. They lay close together and were obviously very ill. They were so white that it was difficult to tell where their faces ended and the long pillow began.
The room was brightly lit. Steerpike was glad to notice this. He remembered that, as ‘Death’, he had mentioned his preference for ‘strangling in a darkened room’. The strong lights indicated that the twins were able to remember at least a part of what he had said that night.
But even now he was taking no chances.
‘Your Ladyships,’ he said, ‘you look seedy. Very seedy. But believe me, you don’t look as bad as I feel. I have come for your advice and perhaps for your help, I must tell you. Be prepared.’ He coughed. ‘I have had a visitor. A visitor from Beyond. Do not be startled, ladies. But his name was Death. He came to me and he said: “Their Ladyships have done foul murder. I shall go to them now and squeeze the breath from their old bodies.” But I said: “No! hold back, I pray you. For they have promised never to divulge a word.” And Death said: “How can I be sure? How can I have proof?” I answered: “I am your witness. If their Ladyships so much as mention the word FIRE or STEERPIKE, you shall take them with you under wormy ground.” ’
Cora and Clarice were trying to speak, but they were very weak. At last Cora said:
‘He… came… here… too. He’s still here. Oh, save us!’
‘He came here!’ said Steerpike, jumping to his feet. ‘Death came here, too?’
‘Yes.’
‘How strange that you are still alive! Did he give you orders?’
‘Yes,’ said Clarice.
‘And you remember them all?’
‘Yes… yes!’ said Cora, fingering her throat. ‘We can remember everything. Oh, save us.’
‘It is for you to save yourselves with silence. You wish to live?’ They nodded pathetically.
‘Then never a word.’
‘Never a word,’ echoed Clarice in the hush of the bright room.
Steerpike bowed and retired, and returned by an alternative staircase flanked by a long, steep curve of banister, down which he slid at high speed, landing nimbly at the foot of the stairs with a kind of pounce.
He had commandeered a fresh suite of rooms whose windows gave upon the cedar lawns. It was more in keeping with the position which his present duties commanded.
Glancing along the corridor before he entered his apartments, he could see in the distance – too far for the sound of their footsteps – the figures of Fuchsia and the Doctor.
He entered his room. The window was a smoke-blue rectangle, interceded by black branches. He lit a lamp. The walls flared, and the window became black. The branches had disappeared. He drew the blinds. He kicked off his shoes and, springing on the bed, twisted himself onto his back and, for a moment, discarded his dignity and became, at least physically, a little more in keeping with his seventeen years; for he wriggled, arched his spine and stretched out his arms and legs with a terrible glee. Then he began to laugh and laugh, the tears pouring from his dark-red eyes until, utterly exhausted and helpless, he fell back upon the pillows and slept, his thin lips twisted.
An hour earlier, Fuchsia had met the Doctor at their rendezvous, the Cool Room. He had not been flippant. He had helped her with words well chosen and thoughts simple and direct that touched deftly on the areas of her sorrow. Together they had covered in their conversation, the whole range of lamentable and melancholy experiences which it had been their lot to encounter. They had spoken of all connected with them, of Fuchsia’s brooding mother; of the uncanny disappearance of her father, and whether he was dead or alive; of the Doctor’s sister and of the Twins: of the enigma of Swelter and Flay and of little Nannie Slagg; of Barquentine and of Steerpike.
‘Be careful of him, Fuchsia,’ said the Doctor. ‘Will you remember that?’
‘I will,’ said Fuchsia, ‘Yes, I will, Doctor Prune.’
Dusk was beyond the bay window… a great, crumbling dusk that wavered and descended like a fog of ashes.
Fuchsia unfastened the two top buttons of her blouse and folded the corners back. She had turned away from the Doctor as she did so. Then she held her hands cupped over her breast bone. It seemed as though she were hiding something.
‘Yes, I will be careful, Doctor Prune,’ she repeated, ‘and I’ll remember all you have said – and tonight I had to wear it – I had to.’
‘You had to wear what, my little mushroom?’ said Prunesquallor, lightening his voice for the first time, for the serious session was over and they could relax.
‘Bless my dull wits if I haven’t lost the thread – if there was one! Say it again, my Swarthy-sweet.’
‘Look! – look! for you and for me, because I wanted to.’
She dropped her hands to her side, where they hung heavily. Her eyes shone. She was a mixture of the clumsy and the magnificent – her head bridled up – her throat gleaming, her feet apart and the toes turned in a little. ‘LOOK!’
The Doctor at her command looked very hard indeed. The ruby he had given her that night, when for the first time he had met Steerpike, burned against her breast.
And then, suddenly, unexpectedly, she had fled, her feet pounding on the stone floors, while the door of the Cool Room swung to and fro… to and fro.
THE EARLING
The day of the ‘Earling’ was a day of rain. Monotonous, sullen, grey rain with no life in it. It had not even the power to stop. There were always a hundred heads at the windows of the North wing that stared into the sky, into the rain. A hundred figures leant across the sills of the Southern wall, and stared. They would disappear back into the darkness, one by one, but others would have appeared at other windows. There would always be about a hundred starers. Rain. The slow rain. The East and the West of the Castle watched the rain. It was to be a day of rain… There could be no stopping it.
Even before the dawn, hours before, when the Grey Scrubbers were polishing the walls of the stone kitchen, and the Raft Makers were putting the finishing touches to the raft of chestnut boughs, and the stable boys, by the light of lanterns, were grooming the horses, it was obvious that there was a change in the Castle. It was the Greatest Day. And it rained. It was obvious, this change, in many ways, most superficially of all, in the visual realm, for all wore sacking. Every mortal one. Sacking dyed in the hot blood of eagles. On this day there could be no one, no one save Titus, exempted from the immemorial decree – ‘That the Castle shall wear sacking on the Earling day.’
Steerpike had officiated at the distribution of the garments under the direction of Barquentine. He was getting to know a great deal about the more obscure and legendary rites. It was in his mind to find himself on Barquentine’s decease the leading, if not the sole authority in matters of ritual and obser
vance. In any event, the subject fascinated him. It was potential.
‘Curse!’ he muttered, as he woke to the sound of rain. But still, what did it matter? It was the future that he had his eyes on. A year ahead. Five years ahead. In the meantime, ‘all aboard for glory!’
Mrs Slagg was up early and had put her sacking garment on at once in deference to the sacrosanct convention. It was a pity that she could not wear her hat with the glass grapes, but of course, on the day of the Earling, no one wore hats. A servant had brought in, the night before, the stone which Titus was to hold in his left hand, the ivy branch which he was to carry in his right, and the necklace of snail-shells for his little neck. He was still asleep, and Nannie was ironing the white linen smock which would reach his ankles. It was blanched to a quality as of white light. Nannie fingered it as though it were gossamer.
‘So it’s come to this.’ Nannie was talking to herself. ‘So it’s come to this. The tiniest thing in the world to be an Earl today. Today! Oh, my weak heart, how cruel they are to make a tiny thing have such responsiverity! Cruel. Cruel. It isn’t righteousness! No, it isn’t. But he is. He is the Earl, the naughty mite. The only one – and no one can say he isn’t. Oh, my poor heart! they’ve never been to see him. It’s only now they want to see him because the day has come.’
Her miniature screwed-up face was skirmishing with tears. Her mouth worked itself in and out of its own dry wrinkles between every sentence. ‘They expect him to come, the new little Earl, for their homage and everything, but it’s me who baths him and gets him ready, and irons out his white smock, and gives him his breakfast. But they won’t think of all that – and then… and then . . .’ (Nannie suddenly sat down on the edge of a chair and began to cry) ‘they’ll take him away from me, Oh, justlessness – and I’ll be all alone – all alone to die… and –’