Gibbous House 38

The brass knob was tarnished to the colour of mud and contrasted sharply with the still vibrant teal of Miss Pardoner’s bedroom door. It seemed politic to peruse her chamber first, as no doubt she would be performing her toilette at some time before dinner. There were few women of my acquaintance who could do such in less than an hour. The hinges appeared to be as ill-cared for as the knob, since they groaned and creaked as though about to reveal Ambrosio the Monk in the hands of his inquisitors.

The room was plain enough, neither over-furnished nor sparsely so. Its papered walls were no doubt pleasing to the feminine eye, although perhaps more so a half-century earlier. The porcelain stood neatly and clean on the toilette to the left of a window. What this window overlooked I could not say, for the filth was as impenetrable as night. Nor could I imagine it: something about my home disturbed me whenever I attempted to conjure its composition in my mind’s eye. The bed was four posted, there were holes in its tester. However, the curtains seemed in better repair, although a tawdry scene was depicted on them: a very poorly executed copy of ‘The Marriage of Venus’. I wondered if this had had any bearing on Miss Pardoner’s choice of bedchamber, or if she had merely chosen the nearest door as being the most convenient. The room itself was spacious enough to encompass the large pieces of furniture. A commodious room rather than grandly large, nonetheless there was room on the floorboards for a faded Persian carpet of some antiquity and beauty.

A large double fronted armoire was on the wall adjacent to the sash window. Beside it stood a hautboy in the same richly dark wood; it might have been mahogany. The drawers opened smoothly and I chose an item of intimate apparel from one of them; it fit snugly in the long pocket of my frock coat. Opposite was a bookcase, it contained only three books. Novels, rather. They were the work of the so-called Bell brothers. I opened one at random: Miss Pardoner, or someone, had underlined the following:

‘Conventionality is not morality’ .

It was a mere fragment of a somewhat longer statement. But the four words seemed sufficient to me to found a philosophy. I confess I harboured hopes that my ward’s had been the hand that had drawn the line under this motto.

At which point the mooted defiler of the tome entered the room. A low and extravagant bow seemed an appropriate greeting. She gave the merest nod and struggled against a smirk:

‘I trust you have satisfied your … curiosity, Mr Moffat.’

'There is time enough for that, Miss Pardoner. I promise you.’

I gave a somewhat more perfunctory bow and left her to her toilette. It was not until I left the room that I realised it was deficient in one particular. There had been no sign of a looking glass.