Titus Groan [Gormenghast 01] by Mervyn Peake

Author:Mervyn Peake [Peake, Mervyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 978-0879516284
Published: 2014-12-24T05:00:00+00:00

36

"PREPARATIONS FOR ARSON"

On one excuse or another Steerpike absented himself from the

Prunesquallors' during the major part of the next two days. Although he

accomplished many things during this short period, the three stealthy

expeditions which he made to the library were the core of his activities. The

difficulty lay in crossing, unobserved, the open ground to the conifer wood.

Once in the wood and among the pines there was less danger. He realized how

fatal it might prove to be seen in the neighbourhood of the library, so shortly

before the burning. On the first of the reconnaissances, after waiting in the

shadows of the Southern wing before scudding across the overgrown gardens to the

fields that bordered the conifers, he gathered the information which he needed.

He had managed after an hour's patient concentration to work the lock of the

library door with a piece of wire, and then he had entered the silent room, to

investigate the structure of the building. There was a remoteness about the

deserted room. Shadowy and sinister though it was by night, it was free of the

vacancy which haunted its daylight hours. Steerpike felt the insistent silence

of the place as he moved to and fro, glancing oven his high shoulder more than

once as he took note of the possibilities for conflagration.

His survey was exhaustive, and when he finally left the building he

appreciated to a nicety the nature of the problem. Lengths of oil-soaked

material would have to be procured and laid behind the books where they could

stretch unobserved from one end of the room to the other. After leading around

the library they could be taken up the stairs and along the balcony. To lay

these twisted lengths (no easy matter to procure without awakening speculation)

was patently a job for those hours of the early morning, after Lord Sepulchrave

had left for the castle. He had staggered, on his second visit, under an

enormous bundle of rags and a tin of oil to the pine wood at midnight, and had

occupied himself during the hours while he waited for Lord Sepulchrave to leave

the building in knotting together the odd assortment of pilfered cloth into

lengths of not less than forty feet.

When at last he saw his Lordship leave the side door and heard his slow,

melancholy footsteps die away on the pathway leading to the Tower of Flints, he

rose and stretched himself.

Much to his annoyance the probing of the lock occupied even more time than

on the last occasion, and it was four o'clock in the morning before he pushed

the door open before him.

Luckily, the dank autumn mornings were on his side, and he had a clean

three hours. He had noticed that from without no light could be observed and he

lit the lamp in the centre of the room.

Steerpike was nothing if not systematic, and two hours later, taking a

tour of the library, he was well satisfied, Not a trace of his handiwork could

be seen save only where four extremities of the cloth hung limply beside the

main, unused, door of the building. These strips were the terminals of the four

lengths that circumscribed the library and would be dealt with.

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