‘Yes, yes,’ said Cora, ‘we’ll preserve it. We’ll preserve it in our bosoms, won’t we, Clarice? Our silent power.’

‘Yes, all the power we’ve got,’ said Clarice. ‘But we haven’t got much.’

‘It is coming to you,’ said Steerpike. ‘It is on its way. You are of the blood; who else but you should wield the sceptre? But alone you cannot succeed. For years you have smarted from the insults you have been forced to endure. Ah, how patiently, you have smarted! How patiently! Those days have gone. Who is it that can help you?’ He took a pace towards them and bent forward. ‘Who is it that can restore you: and who will set you on your glittering thrones?’

The aunts put their arms about one another so that their faces were cheek to cheek, and from this double head they gazed up at Steerpike with a row of four equidistant eyes. There was no reason why there should not have been forty, or four hundred of them. It so happened that only four had been removed from a dead and endless frieze whose inexhaustible and repetitive theme was forever, eyes, eyes, eyes.

‘Stand up,’ said Steerpike. He had raised his voice.

They got to their feet awkwardly and stood before him evil. A sense of power filled Steerpike with an acute enjoyment.

‘Take a step forward,’ he said.

They did so, still holding one another.

Steerpike watched them for some time, his shoulders hunched against the mantelpiece. ‘You heard me speak,’ he said. ‘You heard my question. Who is it that will raise you to your thrones?’

‘Thrones,’ said Cora in a whisper; ‘our thrones.’

‘Golden ones,’ said Clarice. ‘That is what we want.’

‘That is what you shall have. Golden thrones for Lady Cora and Lady Clarice. Who will give them to you?’

He stretched forward his hands and, holding each of them firmly by an elbow, brought them forward in one piece to within a foot of himself. He had never gone so far before, but he could see that they were clay in his hands and the familiarity was safe. The dreadful proximity of the identical faces caused him to draw his own head back.

‘Who will give you the thrones, the glory and the power?’ he said. ‘Who?’

Their mouths opened together. ‘You,’ they said. ‘It’s you who’ll give them to us. Steerpike will give them to us.’

Then Clarice craned her head forward from beside her sister’s and she whispered as though she were telling Steerpike a secret for the first time.

We’re burning Sepulchrave’s books up,’ she said, ‘the whole of his silly library. We’re doing it – Cora and I. Everything is ready.’

‘Yes,’ said Steerpike. ‘Everything is ready.’