Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake Read Free Book Online

haven't whipped the old hermit out of his introspection. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! And here, as you put it, you all are. There's no doubt about that, is there? What a party we will have! 'Mews'ical chairs and all! ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.'
           The almost unbearable pitch of his laughter created an absolute stillness in the hall. The cats, sitting bolt upright, had their round eyes fixed on him.
           'But I keep you waiting!' he cried. 'Waiting in my outer rooms! Are you a mere valetudinarian, my dear Ladyship, or some prolific mendicant whose bewitched offspring she hopes I can return to human shape? Of course you are not, by all that's evident, so why should you be left in this cold - this damp - this obnoxious hell of a hall, with the rain pouring off you in positive waterfalls... and so... and so, 'if' you'll allow me to lead on... ' - he waved a long, thin, delicate arm with as white a hand on the end of it, which fluttered like a silk flag - '... I'll throw a few doors open, Light a lamp or two, flick away a few crumbs in readiness for... What wine shall it be?'
           He began to tread his way to the sitting-room with a curious flicking movement of the feet.
           The Countess followed him. The servants had cleared the table of the supper dishes and the room had been left with so serene a composure about it that it was hard to believe that it was but a short while ago in this same room that Irma had disgraced herself.
           Prunesquallor flung wide the door of the sitting-room for the Countess to pass through. He flung it with a spectacular abandon: it seemed to imply that if the door broke, or the hinges snapped, or a picture was jerked off the wall, what of it? This was his house; he could do what he liked with it. If he chose to jeopardize his belongings, that was his affair. This was an occasion when such meagre considerations would only enter the minds of the vulgar.
           The Countess advanced down the centre of the room and then stopped. She stared about her abstractedly - at the long lemon-yellow curtain, the carved furniture, the deep green rug, the silver, the ceramics, the pale grey-and-white stripes of the wallpaper. Perhaps her mind reverted to her own candle-smelling, bird-filled, half-lit chaos of a bedroom, but there was no expression on her face.
           'Are... all.... your... rooms... like... this...?' she muttered. She had just seated herself in a chair.
           'Well, let me see,' said Prunesquallor. 'No, not exactly, your Ladyship... not 'exactly'.'
           'I... suppose... they're... spotless. Is... that it... eh?'
           'I believe they are; yes, yes, I quite believe they are. Not that I see more than five or six of them during the course of a year; but what with the servants flitting here and there with dusters and brooms, and clanking their buckets and wringing things out - and what with my sister Irma flitting after them to see that the right things are wrung and the wrung things are right, I have no doubt that we are all but sterilized to extinction: no tartar on the banisters: not a microbe left to live its life in peace.'
           'I see,' said the Countess. It was extraordinary how damning those two words sounded. 'But I have come to talk to you.'
           For a moment she stared about her ruminatively. The cats, with not a whisker moving, were everywhere in the room. The mantelpiece was heraldic with them. The table was a solid block of whiteness. The couch was a snowdrift. The carpet was sewn with eyes.
           Her ladyship's head, which always seemed far bigger than any human head had a right to be, was turned away from the doctor and down a little, so that her powerful throat was tautened: yet ample along the near side. Her profile was nearly hidden by her cheek. Her hair was built up, for the most part, into a series of red nests and for the rest smouldered as it fell in snakelike coils to her shoulders,