It was a large room with six full windows. Grandmother was born in this room, and shortly after, the great marble thing shoved in with her. During her long, long life she had never left the room, never once. In that room, in that single space, was all that Grandmother could ever need: her bed was there, her water closet discreetly hidden behind a panel, and all the things of Grandmother’s life, her infancy, her childhood, her schooling, her marriage, proof of her children, her old age, all of her living, every shade of it. Since she couldn’t go out into the world, then the world must come to her. All the best bits of Iremonger pilfering came to Grandmother, she had the finest porcelains, she had a Qing vase from China, she had Russian silver and Gobelins tapestries from Paris, she had so many famous Victorians in her room. The wallpaper was by William Morris, there was a large painting of a young woman in a large dress by Lord Leighton. She wasn’t all modern grandmother in her room, she had older things too: a painting by Joshua Reynolds, a Van Dyck portrait of a doomed cavalier, she had a drawing of a courtier by Hans Holbein. She had all time, I used to think, kept with her in her room. She grew bored of objects soon enough, some things were only played with for a day or two, others stayed for years, and she was always redesigning her rooms; she’d call for a painting of Venice, she’d call for Chinese silks, she’d demand things, and Grandfather should do his very best to please her, for she would be in a temper until her demands were met. And though she could never leave the room on account of her massive marble mantelpiece, still her fury was felt all about the house; it was a temper as big as a mansion. She’d demand things, she’d pull on her bell pull and pull and pull, have the butler with her all day and the housekeeper, demand to have sixteen servants in her room, call in all the uncles and aunts from London. So Grandfather always did his best for her.