The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy @page { margin-bottom: 5.000000pt; margin-top: 5.000000pt; } REVERIE OF NANNIE SLAGG … yees yees yees it’s all so big and wonderful I suppose it is oh my poor heart this lovely rich breakfast which nobody eats and the little precious boy in the middle of the cutlery bless his little heart for he hasn’t cried once not once the tiny morsel and with everybody around him too and thinking about him for it’s his breakfast my pretty precious and Nannie will tell you all about it when you’re a big boy oh my poor heart how old I’ll be by then and how cold it is a good thing I wrapped the little boy in his wrap which is under all the lilac windings yees yees and he mustn’t sneeze oh no but be still though I am so cold and his great heavy mother beside me so that I feel I don’t matter at all and I suppose I don’t matter at all for nobody takes any notice of me and nobody loves me except my darling caution but even she sometimes forgets but not the others who never think of me except when they want me to do something for them for I have to do everything and oh my poor heart I’m not young any more and strong and I get tired and even Fuchsia never remembers how tired I get even now I’m tired for having to sit so long in the cold so far beneath the huge Countess who doesn’t even look at her little boy who’s being so good and I don’t think she could ever love him like I love him but oh my poor heart it’s a good thing the Countess can’t hear me thinking about her like this though sometimes I think she can tell when I think against her because she’s so silent and when she looks at me I don’t know what to do or where to go and I feel so little and weak and I feel like that now but how cold it is and I’d rather have my own simple kind of breakfast by the fire in my own small room than look at all this food on the table getting cold although it’s all here for the little boy bless him and I will look after him as long as I have any strength in my poor bones and make him a good boy and teach Fuchsia to take care of him and she is loving him more than ever she did before though she doesn’t like to hold him like I do and I am glad because she might drop him the clumsy caution and oh my poor heart if he should ever fall and be killed oh no no never she must never hold him for she is so ignorant of how to be careful of a little baby she doesn’t look at him now in the middle of the table any more than her mother or any of the others do but just stares at her father with her naughty dark face so sad what can it be for she must tell me and tell me everything leaving nothing out about why she looks so mournful the silly girl who can have no trouble at her age and hasn’t got all the work to do and the trials which I have on my old shoulders all the time and it is silly for her to be so sad when she is only a child and doesn’t know anything bless her.
