For one evening in March 1884, the long room at Hartfield House was given over entirely to Aziz, and Xerxes Hartfield, who is not much accustomed to being seated, yielded the head of his own table and sat where he was put. The room was laid low with brass trays and cushions in the manner of Aziz's Morocco; the lamps were hooded in pierced tin and threw their small stars about the ceiling; the dishes were his own, ordered by him, down to the sherbets and the sugared dates. Rain came against the windows all night with a steadiness one could set a watch by. Mabel, the cheetah, dozed by the fender under a spread of orange peel, and was fed her mutton at 10:15 by Aziz in view of the whole table, which the company found agreeable.
The Reverend Simeon Gaunt sat among them and took no wine, as he never had. Twice across the dishes he addressed himself to Effie Strange: once upon the sin of appetite, which he developed at some length, and once to observe that he had written to her guardian and would speak to him before the week was out. Effie, who had come in pale grey watered silk and was merry through the sweets, received both communications without visible injury.
The sherbet glasses were poured out in the pantry at half past nine and carried in on one tray. Gaunt's was distinguishable from the rest: it alone was set upon a saucer, since he would not take a glass from a hand. Effie was seen coming from the pantry at half past nine with the tray, having gone in to beg a cup of water for a headache; she came out with it and gave it to the footman on duty in the hall.
Between 10:00 and 10:40 the company remained at Aziz's table, and Gaunt withdrew alone to the small tiled smoking room off the hall to sit with his sherbet, as was his custom after the sweets.
The smoking room has one door, and that door gives on the hall. From 10:00 the hall was occupied by servants clearing away the trays, and they were of one mind afterwards: one person passed in after Gaunt, and none came out until Aziz went to fetch him at twenty past eleven. The person who went in wore a pale gown. The hall lamp was hooded and no face was seen. Effie wore pale grey watered silk. Lavinia wore black.
At twenty past eleven, then, Aziz went to the smoking room and found the Reverend Simeon Gaunt laid along the divan with a tasselled cushion over his face and his hands folded upon his breast. Nothing in the little tiled room was disarranged. His penitential cord was still knotted at his waist, untouched. Dr Tobias Quill, called from the table, gave laudanum first and smothering after: the man had been made insensible before the cushion was put down, and there was no mark of struggle anywhere upon him or upon the room. Quill said this in the doorway, in the voice of a man reading a bill of fare, and the household agreed that it had been very ill-bred of somebody.
On the low brass tray beside the divan stood a glass of almond sherbet, half drunk, and a dish of sugared dates. Gaunt took no wine and never had; the sherbet had been made up for him particularly, and no one else drank it.
A laudanum bottle from the house medicine press was found at eleven o'clock in the pantry, uncorked and near empty. Quill observed that the press had been full a fortnight since, and added, with the mild fairness of his profession, that four households in Cairnholm keep the same tincture.
The company were then invited to say where they had been, and did so with excellent manners.
Xerxes had sat at his own table from dinner through to the discovery, in sight of everybody, and had not left the long room; there is a certain relief in being displaced from the head of one's table. Aziz had been in the long room all evening, at the table or at the fender with Mabel, until he went to fetch Gaunt. Quill had been in the long room from 10:00 until Aziz called him.
The Colonel had come on business about a shipping venture and stayed to dine; he was at table until 10:00 and thereafter in the business room with Xerxes's clerk over the venture papers until 11:05, and the clerk vouches for him. Nan Pringle, who came with the Colonel and sat below the salt, went with him at 10:00 to copy figures, and the clerk vouches for her as for him.
Wat Frew sat at the foot of the table until 10:40 and then went out to the area door with a lantern to go over a bill of lading with a boatman, who stayed with him until eleven. Cousin R, who had spent the fortnight asking Gaunt patient questions about penance, left the table at 10:20 for the library and sat there with the door open on the hall, where the clearing servants saw him at his book until eleven.
Lavinia was at table until 10:40, then in her own room writing letters; she came down at eleven and was seen upon the stair by two servants. Effie was at table from 10:00 and excused herself twice, once between 10:40 and 11:05, saying that the pierced lamps gave her a headache.
Fifi and Zane passed the night at Cruikshank Manor, kept there by the spring cleaning of the plate, abed by ten and vouched for by the housekeeper and the whole servants' hall.
Certain matters, being of the fortnight rather than of the evening, may be set down here.
Gaunt had called at Colonel Cruikshank's man of business on Tuesday and again on Thursday. On Thursday he laid a signed complaint, in his own hand, against a druggist in the Bothy Wynd, and enquired what more might be done to have a licence taken away. The druggist in the Bothy Wynd is where Effie's laudanum is made up. She stands entered in his day-book eleven times since Candlemas, and owes him four pounds. Twice that month she had asked Quill for a prescription and twice been refused; she got what she wanted in the Bothy Wynd instead.
Colonel Cruikshank is Effie's guardian and holds his will unaltered; he had told the room in January that he would not keep a dissipated heir.
Lavinia's trust falls in to her absolutely at Michaelmas next, and Gaunt had told the household at Christmas that he would not obstruct it. He did not know of the tryst between Lavinia and Zane, nor of anything concerning the closet at Hartfield House; he had spoken of neither to anyone, and Cousin R, who collects such things and keeps them tidily, said flatly that the cleric knew nothing worth keeping. Gaunt had never sought to interfere with Wat's cargoes, holding smuggling a matter for the excise and not for the pulpit, and had said openly that he welcomed exposure of his own mortifications as no more than his deserts. Neither had he in his life reproved the Colonel for the séances; he sat through one in February without a word, and remarked afterwards that a widower's grief was not his business. The Colonel, for his part, pays Lavinia to sit with him for his wife's sake, and Lavinia's own savings are held in her half-brother's trust and doled out to her quarterly.
The pierced lamps went on burning and throwing their small stars. On the brass tray the half-drunk sherbet stood beside the dates, which nobody had touched. Mabel slept on in her orange peel. The household stood in the doorway of the little tiled room, and did not go in.