Gibbous House Read online

  The paucity of my wardrobe was now becoming irksome to me; as I clothed myself I resolved that Maccabi would be the willing donor of a few items to use until the reappearance of the esteemed Elijah Salomons, with his promises of my ‘gentleman’s wardrobe’ within the week. Besides, it would be amusing to wear fashions last worn before the Hanoverian fop stood in for his lunatic father in matters of state – and I expected it would discommode young Jedediah in the extreme to loan me the best of his apparel.

  Breakfast appeared to me a capital idea, and, since the peculiar Mrs Gonderthwaite was capable of such an extravagant feast as that of the previous evening, I felt that there was some prospect of a trencherman’s repast to begin the day.

  The dining room, however, was deserted. I rang the dissonant hand bell, though there was no prospect of it being heard in the kitchen. It would be quite inappropriate for me to seek out the cook in the kitchen, or, God forbid, in her chamber. For this reason I began to explore the room in earnest, to see what other strange items might be found in it.

  Naturally, I made straight away for the huge wardrobe obscuring the window. Hard up against it on one side was a chiffonier, beautiful and delicate. Sadly, its mirror was spackled and cracked. A great shame as it was one of the few I had encountered in the house. I heaved it aside without ceremony, judging it to be more easily moved than the ottoman stood on its end adjacent the behemoth of a wardrobe on its other side. There was no sign of the smallest finger bone: the anatomical skeleton had quite vanished, although I was relieved to see the outline of its pedestal in the dust in front of the wainscoting.

  A man’s pride will withstand many things; he will usually swallow it, however, in the hope of sending more satisfactory victuals after it. Therefore, I took myself to where I thought the kitchen to be. This necessitated the navigation of the furniture-crammed vestibule. The narrow channels through the piled tables, chairs, chaises, wardrobes, armoires, tallboys and whatnots were somewhat confusing, and it was only at a third attempt that I gained entry to the spur containing the kitchen and the servants’ quarters. The smell was not one to make me sanguine of a palatable breakfast. It was not the smell of spoiled provisions, exactly, neither was it due to a surfeit of cats, but it was a smell firmly placed somewhere between the two. I was at that point in a sort of ante-room, which led, I presumed, to the kitchen.

  Through the door the kitchen was bathed in a gloomy 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 some unseen hand. Nor were there any lamps or candles lit. Neither, I supposed, had Mrs Gonderthwaite – even in her youth – illuminated a 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 a hint of irony and was unrewarded by any sign of emotion, sentience or clue 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 to 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 the room was devoid of the idiosyncratic and serendipitous additions visible throughout the other rooms. At that moment, however, 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.

  The woman seemed unperturbed by the state of the kitchen. On my leaving I sensed she did not stir a whit, but contented herself in the observation of my retreating back. Retracing my steps through the jumble was a little easier, and little caught my eye – although I noted the variety of woods used in the furniture had as many colours as had the leaves of autumn. It was strange that so many pieces – in spite of standing, lying and leaning higgledy-piggledy around the grand hallway – evinced the sheen of a recent polish.

  Maccabi dropped a silver spoon with a clatter on the din-ing table as I swung the door wide. I resisted the temptation to bid him turn out his pockets, but allowed myself a smile at the thought of doing so. In any event, his self-possession had deserted him and already I knew that this – for him – was a rare and discomfiting experience, and, perhaps, my wordless smile would discommode him still more. I said nothing, and took appraisal of his attire.

  It being Shabbos, I presumed he would be wearing the best of his clothes. Since I would soon be wearing them myself, I was disappointed to note the predominance of black and white in the palette. Still, the cut and material seemed of quality, despite the outmoded style. His coat, black, was double-breasted and cut away to tails, the waist of it being very high. Two fingers’ breadth of an exceedingly dull waistcoat were visible below it. His shirt was white linen and so bright as to beg the question of how it could be got so, above all in this bizarre house with its dearth of servants. The frill of his shirt and the height of his collar were the only extravagance of his dress. I gauged that his boots would be a comfortable fit, being possessed of the beautiful shine that only leather of some age may acquire, if tended with great care.

  He seemed to be in the grip of some internal struggle, as though he had noted my close regard of him and could not resolve whether to challenge me over it. Curiosity, or some other motive, eventually compelled him to say, ‘You seem uncommon interested in my garb, today, Mr Moffat.’

  ‘Indeed I am, Jedediah. I rather thought you might be so good as to loan me some articles of clothing, until such time as that fellow of yours brings me something more suitable. If it would not inconvenience you, that is?’

  Again he struggled with some inner demon, before saying stiffly, ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘Oh, you are most kind, Maccabi. If you would but lay out the clothes you are wearing on my cot by ten on the morrow. I have in mind to escort Miss Pardoner to church in Bamburgh. You would not care to come, I take it.’

  He shook his head for answer and departed with unseemly alacrity, I thought.

  The dining table was still as we had left it the evening before. Scraps of food littered the plates and the area of table where the professor had teetered on his perch. The decanter of port was empty of all but the lees, although I was sure I had left sufficient to charge a good two glasses.

  Some of this quantity lay in a congealed and sticky pool beside the decanter, indicating that the remainder had been quaffed some hours before. I would have paid a sovereign to have known by whom. Thankfully for my sanity, a tantalus – identical to that from which the professor and I had availed
ourselves in the library – stood on the sideboard. One decanter was full of the same near-to-high-quality jerez we had drunk, and I poured myself a generous schooner. I removed to my seat at table with decanter and glass and awaited developments in the matter of breaking my fast.

  My disappointment that the next person to come through the dining room door was not the ethereal Mrs Gonderthwaite with my breakfast was tempered by the realisation that it was, in fact, the intriguing Miss Pardoner. My ward was wearing a day dress in a dark shade of a still unsuitable blue, with a lace chemisette and cuffs. She carried a pair of short leather gloves in one hand. The young woman’s hair was most unfashionably short and made a pleasant change from the parted and sausage-curled coiffures that were common during that decade. I declared my surprise that she had such a dress to hand despite the absence of her effects, which were still en route from Lindisfarne.

  ‘You would be surprised what can be found within the walls of your property, Mr Moffat,’ she replied.

  ‘I should only be surprised, Miss Pardoner, if I ceased to be surprised.’

  My reward was the upward curl of her lip, an expression of hers that from the very outset might have provoked me to either violence or lust, or perhaps both in equal measure, but for the heightened enjoyment provided by patience and anticipation. The young woman took her place at table and I felt in need of a spyglass to see her the better. It was most strange to conduct our conversation in the manner of Irish navvies across a canal. Her not-unpleasant voice carried well, and I imagined her on stage as a Cleopatra or Lady Macbeth – though certainly not as Juliet.

  ‘Might we not ride out today, Mr Moffat?’

  ‘Are you not frum, Miss Pardoner?’ I asked.

  ‘I was born a Jew, Mr Moffat, though I have spent some years in the care of Christians. I wonder that you should know such a word.’

  I felt there might be some doubt as to the truth of the former.

  ‘My wife was Jewish. Septimus Coble’s great-niece, in fact.’

  ‘You are no Jew, sir.’ She looked at me expectantly.

  ‘Scarce a Christian, some would say.’

  ‘Something of the pagan about you, Mr Moffat, I think.’

  She was quite the most brazen woman I had ever met outside Whitechapel, and she was bolder still than many of those. In common with many women of my acquaintance it was not in her nature to allow a silence of any duration; therefore, in the absence of any responding remark from myself, she queried, ‘Are we to breakfast on apples and honey this morning, sir?’

  I replied that I should be most astounded if we broke our fast at all.

  At which point, the dining room door opened wide and the narrow-boned figure of the cook was preceded by the huge covered salver I had been so surprised at her carrying so easily the previous day. She placed the silver-domed platter on the table at the mid-point and removed the cover with what passed in so flat a character as a flourish.

  Displayed attractively was every victual I had specified: the steam rose from the lamb sausage and blood pudding and I could have sworn I still heard their sizzling; the potato farls each had a knob of butter atop, slowly melting and pooling beside them on the polished plate; the white of the poached eggs contrasted sharply with the rich pink of the back bacon, which had proved surprisingly plentiful in such a household. Mrs Gonderthwaite gave me an expectant look.

  ‘China tea, Mrs Gonderthwaite. China tea,’ I said.

  The lid was replaced with some enthusiasm and the thin woman repaired to the kitchen with as much animation as she had thus far evinced in my presence.

  It was Maccabi who returned with the tea. He looked quite ludicrously uncomfortable bearing the silver salver on which stood a fine china tea service. His discomfort most likely arose from the height at which he bore the tray – quite why he felt the need to keep the china level with his gaze was a mystery to me. Perhaps he was as yet unused to such duties. He placed the tray delicately on the table beside the huge domed platter. This done, he looked toward me. I gave a nod and waved at the breakfast feast under its silver cover. There was nothing for it but to use the previous evening’s crockery, and he made a good fist of serving Miss Pardoner and myself, prior to serving himself an egg and a potato farl.

  I was unable to resist enquiring if it was quite in accordance with kashrut to eat comestibles that had been in such proximity to the meat of the unclean pig. Maccabi said not a word; Miss Pardoner, however, rejoindered, ‘Some interpretations of the Torah allow for the eating of treif in situations of dire need, Mr Moffat. On the whole, I have found the Jewish religion to contain much good sense.’

  Since I had shared a bed with Arabella, I knew some of what the Torah might or might not permit, but still I wondered what dire need might be in evidence in this case.

  Addressing neither party in particular, I enquired, ‘Is the professor not in the habit of breaking his fast in the morning?’

  Maccabi, seated at last, took his delicate china cup and drained the tea in one noisy draught. My ward said, ‘His custom is not to rise in the forenoon.’

  Perhaps he lay awake until the small hours contemplating. It occurred to me I had failed to enquire in what discipline the professor had made his reputation. I made great show of emptying my own thimbleful of tea and looked expectantly at Maccabi. The noise as his cup clattered and smashed on the table was as nothing compared to that of his chair falling to the floor. With exaggerated stiffness and formality, he poured my tea, splashing only a little on my coat sleeve.

  Addressing the fascinating Miss Pardoner, more to hear what outrage she would commit on decorum than out of any genuine interest, I enquired, ‘And in what particular field has the esteemed professor made his undoubted reputation?’

  Miss Pardoner appeared not to consider her reply. ‘Professor Jedermann is a polymath, simply put. A master of natural sciences, philosophies ancient and modern, an expert on art, a bibliophile of great passion. Enoch studied with the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, a thing in itself that is remarkable, given the man’s expressed desire to remove all Jewish heads and replace them with others containing not a single Jewish idea. I am glad you do not enquire of the man himself; Enoch is a little self-conscious.’

  It seemed such a preposterous thing for a philosopher, even a German one, to be: I was unsure as to whether the minx was mocking me in the extreme, or wished to indicate in what high esteem the professor’s abilities were held. Equally, I found it strange that a man so tolerant of others’ religion would associate with one with so noted a hatred of Jews.

  ‘How comes he here? There is hardly a seat of learning here in Northumbria. A man would have to ride as far as Durham to discuss the most mundane of philosophical posits, would he not?’

  It was Maccabi who answered this, a little shortly for my liking. ‘He is the curator of the Collection.’

  I was quite unable to contain a snort of laughter, and would have made great mock of this portentous statement had not the dining room doors swung wide open. Mrs Gonderthwaite, having recovered her temper, said in a voice devoid of modulation, ‘Mr Moffat, there is someone without.’

  This utterance seemed a little deficient in the matter of information, but the woman was already gliding to the entrance hall and the house door. Had I not seen her naked, I could have believed the woman less than corporeal.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Before the door, cap in hand, was a grubby specimen of the local population. His trousers were better called rags and, though his feet were shod, his boots were an uncommon mismatch in colour, design and, it appeared, fit. He was possessed of a prodigious beard but no moustaches, and his pate was as bald as his lip. The single tooth in his head endowed each sibilant with a comical whistle, while his Northumbrian accent rendered intelligibility a hopeless dream.

  The bold Miss Pardoner had followed me to the door – although my factotum, strangely, had not. My ward informed me that the man, an itinerant labourer currently employed on the estate, had dis
covered a body in the pond. She may well have understood the man, but I should not have been surprised to learn that she had observed events the previous evening from some vantage point in the house.

  ‘Tell the oaf to show us the place.’

  Miss Pardoner’s smirk was again in evidence as I strode out the door and turned right, in the opposite direction to that in which the pond lay.

  ‘Find out the fellow’s name, Miss Pardoner.’

  ‘It’s Cullis, Mr Moffat. Or that is the name I saw in the account book yesterday, where he made his mark against it this last month.’

  We made an odd trio as we walked along the fore wall of the east wing. Cullis was as bent and wiry as an old man, but he was most likely only a few years older than I. Miss Pardoner seemed as youthful and vibrant as a butterfly between a gorse and a briar bush. I hoped she would live longer than any lepidoptera might. We rounded the wing and paused on the terrace.

  ‘Where might this pond be?’ I said, looking to the wrong side of the hill.

  ‘Over there to the left, Mr Moffat. Can you not hear the frogs and fowl?’

  Of course I could – and I could also see that there was grave danger of overplaying any hand whilst in the company of my ward.

  Over by the pond, I pretended no shock or disgust at the sight of the broken body. The shepherd’s head was bent at a most unlikely angle and thus I deduced that, as I had thought, whether by the blow from the rock or by the fall the man had been dead before reaching the water.

  ‘Who is it?’

  Miss Pardoner had not time to supply the answer before Cullis.

  ‘Wor Lad.’

  Which seemed a strange name of eastern European origin to me, until Miss Pardoner explained that it meant the corpse was that of Cullis’s younger sibling.