The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy (95 page)

The Fly had no time to let go his grip of the High Chair. It swayed above him like a tower – and then while the long line of the staff peered over one another’s shoulders and the boys stood at their desks transfixed, something more appalling than they had ever contemplated took place before them.

For as The Fly came down in a crash on the boards, the wheels of the high chair whirled like tops and gave their final screech and the rickety piece of furniture leapt like a mad thing and from its summit something was hurled high into the air! It was Deadyawn!

He descended from somewhere near the ceiling like a visitor from another planet, or from the cosmic realms of Outer Space, as with all the signs of the Zodiac fluttering about him he plunged earthwards.

Had he but had a long brass trumpet at his lips and the power of arching his back and curling upwards as he neared the floorboards, and of swooping across the room over the heads of the scholars in a riot of draperies, to float away and out through the leaves of the plane tree and over the back of Gormenghast, to disappear for ever from the rational world – then, if only he had had the power to do this, that dreadful sound would have been avoided: that most dreadful and sickening sound which not a single boy or professor who heard it that morning was ever able to forget. It darkened the heart and brain. It darkened the very sunlight itself in that summer classroom.

But it was not enough that their hearing was appalled by the sound of a skull being crushed like an egg – for, as though everything was working together to produce the maximum horror, Fate had it that the Headmaster, in descending absolutely vertically, struck the floor with the top of his cranium, and remained upside down, in a horrible state of balance, having stiffened with a form of premature
rigor mortis
.

The soft, imponderable, flaccid Deadyawn, that arch-symbol of delegated duties, of negation and apathy, appeared now that he was upside down to have more life in him than he had ever had before. His limbs, stiffened in the death-spasm, were positively muscular. His crushed skull appeared to balance a body that had suddenly perceived its reason for living.

The first movement, after the gasp of horror that ran across the sunny schoolroom, came from among the débris of what was once the high chair.

The usher emerged, his red hair ruffled, quick eyes bulging, his teeth chattering with terror. At the sight of his master upside down he made for the window, all trace of cockiness gone from his carriage, his sense of propriety so outraged that there was nothing he wanted so much as to make a quick end to himself. Climbing on the window-sill, The Fly swung his legs over and then dropped to the quadrangle a hundred feet below.

Perch-Prism stepped forward from the ranks of the professors.

‘All boys will make their way immediately to the red-stone yard,’ he said in a crisp, high staccato. ‘All boys will wait there quietly until they are given instructions. Parsley!’

A youth, with his jaw hanging wide and his eyes glazed, started as though he had been struck. He wrenched his eyes from the inverted Deadyawn, but could not find his voice.

‘Parsley,’ said Perch-Prism again, ‘you will lead the class out – and, Chives, you will take up the rear. Hurry now! hurry! Turn your heads to the door, there. You! yes, you, Sage Minor! And you there, Mint or whatever your name is – wake your ideas up. Hustle! hustle! hustle!’

Stupefied, the scholars began to file out of the door, their heads still turned over their shoulders at their late Headmaster.

Three or four other professors had to some extent recovered from the first horrible shock and were helping Perch-Prism to hustle the remnants of the class from the room.

At last the place was clear of boys. The sunlight played across the empty desks: it lit up the faces of the professors, but seemed to leave their gowns and mortarboards as black as though they alone were in shadow. It lit the soles of Deadyawn’s boots as they pointed stiffly to the ceiling.

Perch-Prism, glancing at the professors, saw that it was up to him to make the next move. His beady black eyes shone. What he had of a jaw he thrust forward. His round, babyish, pig-like face was set for action.

He opened his prim, rather savage little mouth and was about to call for help in righting the corpse, when a muffled voice came from an unexpected quarter. It sounded both near and far. It was difficult to make out a word, but for a moment or two the voice became less blurred. ‘No, I don’t think so, l’l man,’ it said, ‘for ’t’s love long lost, my queen, while Bellgrove guards you …’ (the drowsy voice continued in its sleep) ‘… when lion … sprowl I’ll tear their manes … awf … yoo. When serpents hiss at you I’ll tread on dem … probably … and scatter birds of prey to left an’ right.’

A long whistle from under the draperies and then, all of a sudden, with a shudder, the invertebrate mass began to uncoil itself as Bellgrove’s shrouded head raised itself slowly from his arms. Before he freed himself of the last layer of gown he sat back in his tutorial chair, and while he worked with his hands to free his head, his voice came out of the cloth darkness: ‘… Name an isthmus!’ it boomed. ‘Tinepott? … Quagfire? … Sparrowmarsh? … Hagg? … Dankle? … What! Can no one tell his old master the name of an isthmus?’

With a wrench he unravelled his head of the last vestment of gown, and there was his long, weak, noble face as naked and venerable as any deep sea monster’s.

It was a few moments before his pale-blue eyes had accustomed themselves to the light. He lifted his sculptured brow and blinked. ‘Name an isthmus,’ he repeated, but in a less interested voice, for he was beginning to be conscious of the silence in the room.

‘Name … an … isthmus!’

His eyes had accustomed themselves sufficiently for him to see, immediately ahead of him, the body of the Headmaster balanced upon his head.

In the peculiar silence his attention was so riveted upon the apparition in front of him that he hardly realized the absence of his class.

He got to his feet and bit at his knuckle, his head thrust forward. He withdrew his head and shook himself like a great dog; and then he leaned forward and stared once more. He had prayed that he was still asleep. But no, this was no dream. He had no idea that the Headmaster was dead, and so, with a great effort (thinking that a fundamental change had taken in Deadyawn’s psyche, and that he was showing Bellgrove this balancing feat in an access of self-revelation) he (Bellgrove) began to clap his big, finely-constructed hands together in a succession of deferential thuds, and to wear upon his face an expression of someone both intrigued and surprised, his shoulders drawn back, his head at a slant, his eyebrows raised, and the big forefinger of his right hand at his lips. The line of his mouth rose at either end, but his upward curve might as well have been downwards for all the power it had to disguise his consternation.

The heavy thuds of his hand-clapping sounded solitary. They echoed fully about the room. He turned his eyes to his class as though for support or explanation. He found neither. Only the infinite emptiness of deserted desks, with the broad, hazy shafts of the sun slanting across them.

He put his hand to his head and sat down suddenly.

‘Bellgrove!’ A crisp, sharp voice from behind him caused him to swing around. There, in a double line, silent as Deadyawn or the empty desks, stood the Professors of Gormenghast, like a male chorus or a travesty of Judgement Day.

Bellgrove stumbled to his feet and passed his hand across his brow.

‘Life itself is an isthmus,’ said a voice beside him.

Bellgrove turned his head. His mouth was ajar. His carious teeth were bared in a nervous smile.

‘What’s that?’ he said, catching hold of the speaker’s gown near the shoulder and pulling it forwards.

‘Get a grip on yourself,’ said the voice, and it was Shred’s. ‘This is a new gown. Thank you. Life is an isthmus, I said.’

‘Why?’ said Bellgrove, but with one eye still on Deadyawn. He was not really listening.

‘You ask me
why
!’ said Shred. ‘Only think! Our Headmaster there,’ he said (bowing slightly to the corpse) ‘is even now in the second continent. Death’s continent. But long before he was even …’

Mr Shred was interrupted by Perch-Prism. ‘Mr Fluke,’ he shouted, ‘will you give me a hand?’ But for all their efforts they could do little with Deadyawn except reverse him. To seat him in Bellgrove’s chair, prior to his removal to the Professor’s mortuary, was in a way accomplished, though it was more a case of leaning the headmaster
against
the chair than seating him
in
it, for he was as stiff as a starfish.

But his gown was draped carefully about him. His face was covered with the blackboard duster, and when at last his mortar-board had been found under the débris of the high chair, it was placed with due decorum on his head.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Perch-Prism, when they had returned to the Common-room after a junior member had been dispatched to the doctor’s, the undertaker’s and to the red-stone yard to inform the scholars that the rest of the day was to be spent in an organized search for their school-fellow Titus – ‘Gentlemen,’ said Perch-Prism, ‘two things are paramount. One, that the search for the young Earl shall be pushed forward immediately in spite of interruption; and two, the appointment of the new Headmaster must be immediately made, to avoid anarchy. In my opinion,’ said Perch-Prism, his hands grasping the shoulder-tags of his gown while he rocked to and fro on his heels, ‘in my opinion the choice should fall, as usual, upon the senior member of the staff,
whatever his qualifications
.’

There was immediate agreement about this. Like one man they saw an even lazier future open out its indolent vistas before them. Bellgrove alone was irritated. For, mixed with his pride, was resentment at Perch-Prism’s handling of the subject. As probable headmaster he should already have been taking the initiative.

‘What d’you mean by “whatever his qualifications” … damn you, ’Prism?’ he snarled.

A terrible convulsion in the centre of the room, where Mr Opus Fluke lay sprawled over one of the desks, revealed how that gentleman was fighting for breath.

He was yelling with laughter, yelling like a hundred hounds; but he could make no sound. He shook and rocked, the tears pouring down his crude, male face, his chin like a long loaf shuddering as it pointed to the ceiling.

Bellgrove, turning from Perch-Prism, surveyed Mr Fluke. His noble head had coloured, but suddenly the blood was driven from it. For a flashing moment Bellgrove saw his destiny. Was he, or was he not, to be a leader of men? Was this, or was this not, one of those crucial moments when authority must be exercised – or withheld for ever? Here they were, in full conclave. Here was he – Bellgrove – within his feet of clay, standing in all his weakness before his colleagues. But there was something in him which was not consistent with the proud cast of his face.

At that moment he knew himself to be of finer marl. He had known what ambition was. True, it was long ago and he was no longer worried by such ideas, but he had known of it.

Quite deliberately, realizing that if he did not act at once he would never act again, he lifted a large stone bottle of red ink from the table at his side and, on reaching Mr Fluke and finding his head thrown back, his eyes closed, and his strong jaws wide open in a paroxysm of seismic laughter, Mr Bellgrove poured the entire contents down the funnel of Fluke’s throat in one movement of the wrist. Turning to the staff, ‘Perch-Prism,’ he said, in a voice of such patriarchal authority as startled the professors almost as much as the ink-pouring, ‘you will set about organizing the search for his Lordship. Take the staff with you to the red-stone yard. Flannelcat, you will get Mr Fluke removed to the sick-room. Fetch the doctor for him. Report progress this evening. I shall be found in the Headmaster’s study. Good morning, Gentlemen.’

As he swept out of the room with a bellying sweep of his gown and a toss of his silver hair, his old heart was beating madly. Oh, the joy of giving orders! Oh, the joy of it! Once he had closed the door behind him, he ran, with high monstrous bounds, to the Headmaster’s study and collapsed into the Headmaster’s chair –
his
chair from now onwards. He hugged his knees against his chin, flopped over on his side, and wept with the first real sense of happiness he had known for many years.

Like rooks hovering in a black cloud over their nests, a posse of professors in a whirl of gowns and a shuffling roofage of mortar-boards, flapped and sidled their individual way towards, and eventually,
through
, a narrow opening in a flank of the Masters’ Hall.