THE DARK BREAKFAST

Barquentine is unaware that there have been grave and sinister happenings in the Castle on this historic morning. He knows, of course, that the Earl has, since the burning of the library, been in a critical state of health, but of his dreadful transformation upon the mantelpiece he is ignorant. Since the early hours he has been studying the finer points of ritual to be observed at the Breakfast. Now, as he stumps his way to the dining-hall, his crutch clanking ominously on the flagstones, he sucks at a hank of his beard, which curls up and into his mouth through long training, and mutters irritably.

He still lives in the dusty, low-ceilinged room which he has had for over sixty years. With his new responsibilities bringing with them the necessity for interviewing numerous servants and officials has come no desire to establish himself in any of the numerous suites of rooms which are his to occupy if he so desires. The fact that those who are obliged to come either to consult him or for orders are forced to contort themselves painfully in order to negotiate a passage through his rabbit hutch doorway, and when inside to move about in a doubled-up condition, has no effect on him at all. Banquentine is not interested in the comfort of others.

Fuchsia, approaching the dining-hall in company with Mrs Slagg who is carrying Titus, hears the rattle of Barquentine’s crutch following them down the corridor. At a normal time she would have shuddered at the sound, but the horrifying and tragic minutes which she had spent with her father have filled her with so violent an alarm and so nameless a foreboding as to expel all other fears. She has on the immemorial crimson which is worn by the first daughter of the House of Groan at the christening of a brother, and around her neck are the so called Daughter’s Doves, a necklace of white sandstone doves carved by the 17th Earl of Gormenghast, strung together on a cord of plaited grass.

There is no sound from the infant, who is encased in the lilac roll. Fuchsia carries the black sword at one side, although the golden chain is still attached to Titus. Nannie Slagg beside herself with trepidation and excitement, peers now at her bundle and now at Fuchsia, sucking at her wrinkled lips as her little feet shuffle along below her best sepia-coloured skirt.

‘We won’t be late, my caution, will we? Oh no, because we mustn’t, must we?’ She peers into one end of the lilac roll. ‘Bless him that he’s so good, with all this horrible thunder; yis, he’s been as good as gold.’

Fuchsia does not hear; she is moving in a nightmare world of her own. Who can she turn to? Who can she ask? ‘Doctor Prune, Doctor Prune,’ she says to herself, ‘… he will tell me; he will know that I can make him well again. Only I can make him well again.’