Gibbous House 55

Through the door the kitchen was bathed in a glabrous light, as though daylight itself had been poisoned into pallor. The windows I had peered through on the previous evening's perambulation had not been unaccountably cleaned by by some unseen hand. Nor were there any lamps or candles lit: neither, I supposed, had Mrs Gonderthwaite - even in her youth - illuminated the room. She did not that morning, rather the gloom seeped into the room from her spindly frame, mercifully clothed once more in black.

It may be supposed that I did an injustice to the woman in referring to her as a cook. It is certain that up to that point Gibbous House was not over-encumbered with other servants; Mrs Gonderthwaite wore a chatelaine, perhaps she deserved the appellation housekeeper. I considered taking to calling Maccabi the butler. The woman appeared to be in some kind of trance or religious transport, at least of a fairly discreet kind. I passed a hand before her eyes in an effort to engage with her. With no discernible change in demeanour, she greeted me fulsomely:

'A very good morning to you, Mr Moffat. What might be your requirements in the matter of breaking the fast this morning?'

I searched her face for any hint of irony, and was unrewarded by any sign of emotion, sentience or clew to animation. The woman seemed stuporous; although I could discern no whiff of laudanum. Nevertheless, I took her up on the invitation to stipulate my morning vittles: thinking to thoroughly fox the woman, I began a list comprising blood pudding, haslet, lamb sausage, poached eggs, thick back bacon, fried potato farls and china tea.

'Of course, Mr Moffat. Is it just the one or am I to prepare such for the entire household?'

A look around the kitchen revealed dust in every corner. The gleam of the copper pans the previous evening had been illusory, most were dulled with the green of malachite. No hams hung from the ceiling, no links of sausage in the pantry, which seemed in general uncommon bare – save for an uncertain looking, if huge, game pie. A solitary loaf was blueing with mould on the large and rough table. The butcher's block was bloody and devoid of any meat. At this point, I was marvelling that, although in poor condition, the room at least was devoid of the idiosyncratic and serendipitous additions visible throughout the other rooms I had seen. However, at that moment, I saw that a highly polished sextant lay atop the stove, where one might reasonably have expected a saucepan.

The state of the kitchen made the preparation of a meal for one as likely as Nebuchadnezzar's feast and so I bade her prepare for four, thinking another meal would provide more sport with Maccabi, even if the food proved no more than phantasy.