Description
A narrow two-storey brick house off Clive Street, between a larger firm’s godown and a native banker’s shopfront, whitewashed this year, with the name on a small brass plate polished daily and a durwan on a stool at the door. The ground floor is the counting house: a long room with the shutters half closed against the glare, a punkah, six clerks on high stools at sloped desks, Bengali and Eurasian writers, an iron chest the size of a coffin with two locks in the corner. Upstairs, by a stair with a runner on it, is Pargeter’s own room: a mahogany desk kept clear of paper, a decanter and glasses already on the tray, a print of a Garden Reach house on the wall, and behind the chair a rack of pigeonholes with clients’ names on the labels in the same fair hand.
Notable Features
- The pigeonholes. Two dozen names. Most fat with paper. The Wentworth pigeonhole and several others as thin as a single letter, and the thin ones all English family names. Georgiana Wentworth saw it on her way out.
- Six clerks is a small establishment for the number of names on that rack.
- The print is a real house at Garden Reach, the one Pargeter means to retire to and can no longer afford.
- The iron chest holds the ledgers. The desk holds the summary accounts.
Connections
Appearances
Connections
People
Headquarters of
- Crispin Pargeter NPC neutralHis agency house; the upstairs room is his own1 session: The Third Course
Visited by
- Emma Wentworth Player character neutralPressed Pargeter at the Clive Street interview1 session: The Third Course
- Georgiana Wentworth Player character neutralPressed Pargeter at the Clive Street interview1 session: The Third Course
Places
Part of
- The Strand Location neutralA narrow house off Clive Street, which runs up from the Strand1 session: The Third Course
Events
Location of
- Pargeter Interview Clive Street Event neutralThe upstairs room, tea and Madeira, the summary accounts on the desk