Gormenghast (18 page)

       But he could see quite clearly that at the centre of this distant group a short, precise figure was handing out to his colleagues what looked like small stiff pieces of paper.

       And so it was. The sprightly Perch-Prism was dispensing the invitation cards which he had received that same afternoon by special messenger:

       IRMA and ALFRED PRUNESQUALLOR hope to have the pleasure of.......................................... 's company on .......................................... (etc.)

       One by one the invited parties were handed their invitations, and there was not a single professor who could withhold either a gasp or grunt of surprise or a twitch of the eyebrow.

       Some were so stupefied that they were forced to sit down on the steps for a short while until their pulse rate slackened.

       Shred and Shrivell tapped their teeth with the gilded edges of their cards, and were already making guesses at the psychological implications.

       Fluke, his wide lipless mouth disgorging endless formations of dense and cumulous smoke, was gradually allowing a giant grin to spread itself across his gaunt face.

       Flannelcat was embarrassingly excited, and was already trying to rub a thumb-mark from the corner of his card, which he had every intention of framing.

       Bellgrove had his great prophet's jaw hanging wide.

       There were sixteen invitations altogether. The entire staff of the Leather Room had been invited.

       They had arrived, these invitation cards, at a time when Perch-Prism had been the only master present in the Common-room and he had taken over the responsibility of delivering them personally to the others.

       Suddenly Opus Fluke's long leather mouth opened like a horse's and a howl of insensitive laughter reverberated through the sun-blotched place.

       A score of mortar-boards swivelled.

       'Really!' said the sharp, precise voice of Perch-Prism. 'Really, my dear Fluke! What a way to receive an invitation from a lady! Come, come.'

       But Fluke could hear nothing. The idea of being invited to a party by Irma Prunesquallor had somehow broken through to the most sensitized area of his diaphragm, and he yelled and yelled again until he was breathless. As he panted hoarsely to a standstill, he did not even look about him: he was still in his own world of amusement; but he 'did' hold the Invitation Card up before his wet and pebbly eyes once more, only to open his wide mouth again in a fresh spasm; but there was no laughter left in him.

       Perch-Prism's pug-baby features expressed a certain condescension, as though he understood how Mr Fluke felt, but was nevertheless surprised and mildly irritated by the coarseness in his colleague's make-up.

       It was Perch-Prism's saving grace that in spite of his old-maidishness, his clipped and irritatingly academic delivery and his general aura of omniscience, yet he had a strongly developed sense of the ridiculous and was often forced to laugh when his brain and pride wished otherwise.

       'And the Headmaster,' he said, turning to the noble figure at his side, whose jaw still hung open like the mouth of a sepulchre, 'what does 'he' think, I wonder? What does our Headmaster think about it all?'

       Bellgrove came to with a start. He looked about him with the melancholy grandeur of a sick lion. Then he found his mouth was open, so he closed it gradually, for he would not have them think that he would hurry himself for anyone.

       He turned his vacant lion's eye to Perch-Prism, who stood there perkily looking up at him and tapping his shiny invitation card against his polished thumbnail.

       'My dear Perch-Prism,' said Bellgrove, 'why on earth should you be interested in my reaction to what is, after all, not a very extraordinary thing in my life? It is possible, you know,' he continued laboriously, 'it is just possible that when I was a younger man I received more invitations to various kinds of functions than you have ever received, or can ever hope to receive, during the course of your life.'

       'But 'exactly'!' said Perch-Prism. 'And that is why we want his opinion. That is why our Headmaster alone can help us. What could be more enlightening than to have it straight from the horse's mouth?'

       For neatness' sake he could not help wishing that he were addressing Opus Fluke, for Bellgrove's mouth, though hardly hyper-human, was nothing like a horse's.

       'Prism,' he said, 'compared with me you are a young man. But you are not so young as to be ignorant of the elements of decent conduct. Be good enough in your puff-adder attitude to life to find room for one delicacy at least; and that is to address me, if you must, in a manner less calculated to offend. I will 'not' be talked 'across'. My staff must realize this from the outset. I will 'not' be the third person singular. I am old, I admit it. But I am nevertheless here. 'Here'.' he roared; 'and standing on the selfsame pavement with you, Master 'Prism; and I exist, by hell! in my full conversational and vocative rights.'

       He coughed and shook his leonine head. 'Change your idiom, my young friend, or change your tense, and lend me a handkerchief to put over my head - these sunbeams are giving me a headache.'

       Perch-Prism produced a blue silk handkerchief at once and draped it over the peeved and noble head.

       'Poor old "prickles" Bellgrove, poor old fangs,' he mused, whispering the words into the old man's ears as he tied the corners of the blue handkerchief into little knots, where it hung over the elder's head. 'It'll be just the thing for him, so it will - a 'wild' party at the Doctor's, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!'

       Bellgrove opened his rather weak mouth and grinned. He could never keep his sham dignity up for long; but then he remembered his position again and in a voice of sepulchral authority - 'Watch your step, sir,' he said. 'You have twisted my tail for long enough.'

       'What a peculiar business this Prunesquallor affair 'is', my dear Flannelcat,' said Mr Crust. 'I rather doubt whether I can afford to go. I wonder whether you could possibly - er - lend me...'

       But Flannelcat interrupted. 'They've asked me, too,' he said, his invitation card shaking in his hand. 'It is a long time since...'

       'It is a long time since our evenings were disturbed from the Outside like this,' interrupted Perch-Prism. 'You gentlemen will have to brush yourselves up a bit. How long is it since you have seen a lady, Mr Fluke?'

       'Not half long enough,' said Opus Fluke, drawing noisily at his pipe. 'Never care for hens. Irritated me. May be wrong - quite possible - that's another point. But for me - no. Spoilt the day completely.'

       'But you will accept, of course, won't you, my dear fellow?' said Perch-Prism, inclining his shiny round head to one side.

       Opus Fluke yawned and then stretched himself before he replied.

       'When is it, friend?' he asked (as though it made any difference to him when his every evening was an identical yawn).

       'Next Friday evening, at seven o'clock - R. S. V. P. it is,' panted Flannelcat.

       'If dear old bloody Bellgrove goes,' said Mr Fluke, after a long pause, 'I couldn't stay away - not if I was paid. It'll be as good as a play to watch him.'

       Bellgrove bared his irregular teeth in a leonine snarl and then he took out a small notebook, with his eyes on Mr Fluke, made a note. Approaching his taunter, 'Red Ink,' he whispered, and then began to laugh uncontrollably. Mr Fluke was stupefied.

       'Well... well... well...' he said at last.

       'It is far from "well", Mr Fluke.' said Bellgrove, recovering his composure; 'and it will not be well until you learn to speak to your Headmaster like a gentleman.'

       Said Shrivell to Shred: 'As for Irma Prunesquallor, it's a plain case of mirror-madness, brought on by enlargement of the terror-duct - but not altogether.'

       Said Shred to Shrivell: 'I disagree. It is the Doctor's shadow cast upon the shorn and naked soul of his sister, which shadow she takes to be destiny - and here I agree with you that the terror-duct comes into play, for the length of her neck and the general frustration have driven her subconscious into a general craving for males - a substitute, of course, for gollywogs.'

       Said Shrivell to Shred: 'Perhaps we are both right in our different ways.' He beamed at his friend. 'Let us leave it at that, shall we? We will know more when we see her.'

       'Oh, shut up! you bloody old woman,' said Mulefire, with a deadly scowl.

       'Oh come, come, la!' said Cutflower. 'Let us be terribly gay, la! My, my! If it isn't getting chilly, la - call me feverish.'

       It was true, for looking up they found they were plunged in deep shade, the sun-blotch having moved on; and they saw also, as they raised their heads, that they were the last of the professors to be left on the stone steps.

       Motioning the others to follow, Bellgrove led them through the red turnstile, where a moment or two after, they had all passed through its creaking arms and into the dark and crumbling hall beyond; he turned and climbed the staircase alone and eventually found himself in the Masters' Hall once more.

       But the staff, after passing through the crumbling chamber, indian-filed its way along a peculiarly high and narrow passage; and at last, after descending yet another flight of stairs - this time of ancient walnut - they passed through a doorway on the far side of which lay their quadrangle.

       It was here, in the communal privacy of their quarters, that the excitement which they had felt mounting within them once they had passed out of the Masters' Hall, lessened; but another kind of excitement quickened. On reaching their quadrangle they had digested the fact that they were free for another evening. The sense of 'escape' had gone, but an even lighter sensation freed their hearts and feet. Their bowels felt like water. Great lumps arose in their throats. There were tears in the corners of their eyes.

       All about their quadrangle the pillars of the cloisters glowed (although they were in shadow) with the dark rose-gold of the brick. Above the arches of the cloisters a terrace of rose-coloured brickwork circumscribed the quadrangle at about twenty feet above the ground; and punctuating the wall at the rear of this high terrace were the doors of the Professors' apartment. On each door, according to custom, the owner's name was added to the long list of former occupants. These names were carefully printed on the black wood of each door, their vertical columns of small and exact lettering, all but filling the available space. The rooms themselves were small and uniform in shape, but were as various in character as their occupants.

       The first thing that the professors did on returning to their quarters was to go to their several rooms and change their black gowns of office for the dark-red variety issued for their evening hours.

       Their mortar-boards were hung up behind their doors or sent skimming across their rooms to some convenient ledge or corner. The dog's-eared condition of most of their boards was due to this 'skimming'. When thrown in the right way, out of doors and against a slight breeze, they could be made to climb into the air, the black cup uppermost, the tassels floating below like the black tails of donkeys. When thirty at a time soared at the sun above the quadrangle, then was a schoolboy's nightmare made palpable.

       Once in their wine-red gowns it was the usual custom to step out of their rooms on to the terrace of rose-red brick, where, leaning on its balustrade, the professors would spend one of the pleasantest hours of the day, conversing or ruminating until the sound of the supper-gong called them to the refectory.

       To the old Quadman, sweeping the leaves from the mellow brickwork of the quadrangle floor, it was a sight that never failed to please as, surrounded on every side by the glowing cloisters and above them by the long wine-red line of the professors as they leaned with their elbows on the terrace wall, he shepherded the fluttering leaves together with his ragged broom.

       On this particular night, although not a single mortar-board was sent skimming, the staff became very flighty indeed towards the end of their evening meal in the Long Hall, when innumerable suggestions were propounded as to the inner reason for the Prunesquallors' invitations. The most fantastic of all was put forward by Cutflower, to wit that Irma, in need of a husband, was turning to them as a possible source. At this suggestion the crude Opus Fluke, in an excess of ribald mirth, crashed his great, raw ham of a hand down on the long table so heavily as to cause a 'corps de ballet' of knives, forks and spoons to sail into the air and for a pair of table legs to do the splits; so that the nine professors at his table found the remains of their supper lying at every angle below the level of their knees. Those who were holding their glasses in their hands were happy enough; but for those whose wine was spilt among the debris, a moment or two of reflection was occasioned before they could regain the spirit of the evening.

       The idea that anyone of them should get married seemed to them ludicrously funny. It was not that they felt themselves unworthy, far from it. It was that such a thing belonged to another world.

       'But yes, but yes, indeed. Cutflower, you are right,' said Shrivell at the first opportunity of making himself heard. 'Shred and I were saying much the same thing.'

       'Quite so,' said Shred.

       'In my case,' said Shrivell. 'sublimation is simple enough, for what with the crags and eagles that find their way into every confounded dream I have - and I dream every night, not to speak of my automatic writing, which puts my absurd love for Nature in its place - for in reading what I have written, as it were in a trance, I can see how foolish it is to give a thought to natural phenomena, which are, after all, nothing but an accretion of accidents... er... where was I?'

       'It doesn't matter,' said Perch-Prism. 'The point is that we have been invited: that we shall be guests, and that above all we shall do the right thing. Good grief!' he said, looking about him at the faces of the staff, 'I wish I was going alone.'