The Moor - Laurie R. King [47]
To do him justice, I do not think that when Ketteridge began the story, he was aware that his two guests might take it as something more personal than a quaint and touching tale of another's marriage. His face gave away the moment when he did become aware that he was speaking to a man and a woman with an even more exaggerated disparity of age, if not of education, but he rallied and ploughed on as if unconscious of the potential discomfort his narrative might bring.
However, immediately that story ended, he went off on another tack entirely, and we were soon hearing about the Baring-Gould archaeological excavations on the moor and the reports of the Devonshire Association.
Sweet course and cheese disposed of, we returned to the central hall, bidding farewell to the serried ranks of purchased ancestors staring down at us from the dark recesses of the minstrel's gallery at the far end of what was more accurately a banqueting hall than a dining room. Back in the hall, we found the brilliant lighting blessedly shut down, replaced by the gentling glow of a multitude of candles. It had been an excellent meal, the food unadorned, even homely, but beautifully cooked; now, the chairs in front of the fireplace where we sat to drink our coffee and the men their brandies were comfortable, and the conversation, Ketteridge having laid aside his curiosity about Holmes' past cases, was amiable. All in all, a much nicer evening than I had anticipated.
Even the hall seemed more appealing. Without the stark electric lights, the room reverted to its proper nature, a richly furnished chamber that had outlasted dynasties, outlasted too the family it had housed for five centuries.
It was, despite its opulence, remarkably comfortable and easy on the eyes and the spirit. I had assumed that Ketteridge bought the furnishings along with the portraits, but looking at them again, I began to wonder. The pieces were all either very old indeed or too new to have been installed during the Baskerville reign, and surely a house put together by a woman could not have been so unremittingly solid, dark, and male. Even the many decorative touches were masculine, the carpets and statues, pillows, wall tapestries, and paintings all large, intense in colour, and lush in texture, the overall effect so rich one could almost taste it. Studying the room in mild curiosity, trying to analyse how this came about, I noticed the subtle use of geometry, from the square of the chairs and settee before the fireplace to the triangle formed by the arrangement of three discrete centres that were placed with deceptive thoughtlessness, across the expanse of floor.
It was a collection of deep red, blue, and black needlework pillows on the sofa opposite the fireplace that nudged me into realising what the room reminded me of: Moroccan architecture and decorative arts, the elaborate arabesques built around the most basic geometry, as if the strength of a Norman church were to be combined with the delicacy of a piece of lacework. It was very unlikely, given the setting of a building from the Elizabethan era risen from foundations two hundred years older, but the hall that had at first seemed cluttered and overly furnished with colour and pattern, now in the dimmer light of the many thick candles assumed the persona of an Oriental palace. I smiled: Our dusky host had made for himself a Moorish retreat in the midst of Dartmoor.
Holmes took a sip from his glass, and then beat his host to the questions. "Tell us, Mr Ketteridge, just how a Californian who struck it rich in the goldfields comes to settle in remotest Dartmoor?"