Final Curtain

by Ngaio Marsh

  Troy mounted briskly, hoping there would still be a fire in her white room. As she turned the spiral, she gathered up her long dress with her right hand and with her left reached out for the narrow rail.

  The rail was sticky.

  She snatched her hand away with some violence and looked at it. The palm and the under-surface were dark. Troy stood in the shadow of the inner wall, but she now moved up into light. By the single lamps she saw that the stain on her hand was red.

  Five seconds must have gone by before she realized that the stuff on her hand was paint.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Bloody Child

  AT HALF PAST TEN the following morning Troy, hung with paint boxes and carrying a roll of canvas and stretchers, made her way to the little theatre. Guided by Paul and Cedric, who carried her studio easel between them, she went down a long passage that led out of the hall, turned right at a green baize door, ‘beyond which,’ Cedric panted, ‘the Difficult Children ravage at will,’ and continued towards the rear of that tortuous house. Their journey was not without incident, for as they passed the door of what, as Troy later discovered, was a small sitting-room, it was flung open and a short plumpish man appeared, his back towards them, shouting angrily: ‘If you’ve no faith in my treatment, Sir Henry, you have an obvious remedy. I shall be glad to be relieved of the thankless task of prescribing for a damned obstinate patient and his granddaughter.’ Troy made a valiant effort to forge ahead, but was blocked by Cedric, who stopped short, holding the easel diagonally across the passage and listening with an air of the liveliest interest. ‘Now, now, keep your temper,’ rumbled the invisible Sir Henry. ‘I wash my hands of you,’ the other proclaimed. ‘No, you don’t. You keep a civil tongue in your head, Withers. You’d much better look after me and take a bit of honest criticism in the way it’s intended.’ ‘This is outrageous,’ the visitor said, but with a note of something like despair in his voice. ‘I formally relinquish the case. You will take this as final.’ There was a pause, during which Paul attempted, without success, to drag Cedric away. ‘I won’t accept it,’ Sir Henry said at last. ‘Come, now, Withers, keep your temper. You ought to understand. I’ve a great deal to try me. A great deal. Bear with an old fellow’s tantrums, won’t you? You shan’t regret it. See here, now. Shut that door and listen to me.’ Without turning, the visitor slowly shut the door.

  ‘And now,’ Cedric whispered, ‘he’ll tell poor Dr Withers he’s going to be remembered in the Will.’

  ‘Come on, for God’s sake,’ said Paul, and they made their way to the little theatre.

  Half an hour later Troy had set up her easel, stretched her canvas, and prepared paper and boards for preliminary studies. The theatre was a complete little affair with a deepish stage. The Macbeth backcloth was simple and brilliantly conceived. The scenic painter had carried out Troy’s original sketch very well indeed. Before it stood three-dimensional monolithic forms that composed well and broke across the cloth in the right places. She saw where she would place her figure. There would be no attempt to present the background in terms of actuality. It would be frankly a stage set. ‘A dangling rope would come rather nicely,’ she thought, ‘but I suppose they wouldn’t like that. If only he’ll stand!’

  Cedric and Paul now began to show her what could be done with the lights. Troy was enjoying herself. She liked the smell of canvas and glue and the feeling that this was a place where people worked. In the little theatre even Cedric improved. He was knowledgeable and quickly responsive to her suggestions, checking Paul’s desire to flood the set with a startling display of lighting and getting him to stand in position while he himself focussed a single spot. ‘We must find the backcloth discreetly,’ he cried. ‘Try the ground row.’ And presently a luminous glow appeared, delighting Troy.

  ‘But how are you going to see?’ cried Cedric distractedly. ‘Oh, lawks! How are you going to see?’

  ‘I can bring down a standard spot on an extension,’ Paul offered. ‘Or we could uncover a window.’

  Cedric gazed in an agony of inquiry at Troy. ‘But the window light would infiltrate,’ he said. ‘Or wouldn’t it?’

  ‘We could try.’

  At last by an ingenious arrangement of screens Troy was able to get daylight on her canvas and a fair view of the stage.

  The clock—it was, of course, known as the Great Clock—in the central tower struck eleven. A door somewhere backstage opened and shut, and dead on his cue Sir Henry, in the character of Macbeth, walked onto the lighted set.

  ‘Golly!’ Troy whispered. ‘Oh, Golly!’

  ‘Devastatingly fancy dress,’ said Cedric in her ear, ‘but in its ridiculous way rather exciting. Or not? Too fancy?’

  ‘It’s not too fancy for me,’ Troy said roundly, and walked down the aisle to greet her sitter.

  At midday Troy drove her fingers through her hair, propped a large charcoal drawing against the front of the stage and backed away from it down the aisle. Sir Henry took off his helmet, groaned a little, and moved cautiously to a chair in the wings.

  ‘I suppose you want to stop,’ said Troy absently, biting her thumb and peering at her drawing.

  ‘One grows a trifle stiff,’ he replied. She then noticed that he was looking more than a trifle tired. He had made up for her sitting, painting heavy shadows round his eyes and staining his moustache and the tuft on his chin with water-dye. To this he had added long strands of crêpe hair. But beneath the greasepaint and hair his face sagged a little and his head drooped.

  ‘I must let you go,’ said Troy. ‘I hope I haven’t been too exacting. One forgets.’

  ‘One also remembers,’ said Sir Henry. ‘I have been remembering my lines. I played the part first in 1904.’

  Troy looked up quickly, suddenly liking him.

  ‘It’s a wonderful role,’ he said. ‘Wonderful.’

  ‘I was very much moved by it when I saw you five years ago.’

  ‘I’ve played it six times and always to enormous business. It hasn’t been an unlucky piece for me.’

  ‘I’ve heard about the Macbeth superstition. One mustn’t quote from the play, must one?’ Troy made a sudden pounce at her drawing and wiped her thumb down a too dominant line. ‘Do you believe it’s unlucky?’ she asked vaguely.

  ‘It has been for other actors,’ he said, quite seriously. ‘There’s always a heavy feeling offstage during performance. People are nervy.’

  ‘Isn’t that perhaps because they remember the superstition?’

  ‘It’s there,’ he said. ‘You can’t escape the feeling. But the piece has never been unlucky for me.’ His voice, which had sounded tired, lifted again. ‘If it were otherwise, should I have chosen this role for my portrait? Assuredly not. And now,’ he said with a return of his arch and over-gallant manner, ‘am I to be allowed a peep before I go?’

  Troy was not very keen for him to have his peep, but she took the drawing a little way down the aisle and turned it towards him. ‘I’m afraid it won’t explain itself,’ she said. ‘It’s merely a sort of plot of what I hope to do.’

  ‘Ah, yes!’ He put his hand in his tunic and drew out a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez and there, in a moment, was Macbeth, with glasses perched on his nose, staring solemnly at his own portrait. ‘Such a clever lady,’ he said. ‘Very clever!’ Troy put the drawing away and he got up slowly. ‘Off, ye lendings!’ he said. ‘I must change.’ He adjusted his cloak with a practised hand, drew himself up, and, moving into the spotlight, pointed his dirk at the great naked canvas. His voice, as though husbanded for this one flourish, boomed through the empty theatre.

  Well, may you see things well done there: adieu!

  Lest our old robes sit easier than our new!

  ‘ “God’s benison go with you!” ’ said Troy, luckily remembering the line. He crossed himself, chuckled and strode off between the monoliths to the door behind the stage. It slammed and Troy was alone.

  She had made up her mind to start at once with the laying out of he
r subject on the big canvas. There would be no more preliminary studies. Time pressed and she knew now what she wanted. There is no other moment, she thought, to compare with this, when you face the tautly stretched surface and raise your hand to make the first touch upon it. And, drawing in her breath, she swept her charcoal across the canvas. It gave a faint drumlike note of response. ‘We’re off,’ thought Troy.

  Fifty minutes went by and a rhythm of line and mass grew under her hand. Back and forward she walked, making sharp accents with the end of her charcoal or sweeping it flat across the grain of the canvas. All that was Troy was now poured into her thin blackened hand. At last she stood motionless, ten paces back from her work, and, after an interval, lit a cigarette, took up her duster and began to flick her drawing. Showers of charcoal fell down the surface.

  ‘Don’t you like it?’ asked a sharp voice.

  Troy jumped galvanically and turned. The little girl she had seen fighting on the terrace stood in the aisle, her hands jammed in the pockets of her pinafore and her feet planted apart.

  ‘Where did you come from?’ Troy demanded.

  ‘Through the end door. I came quietly because I’m not allowed. Why are you rubbing it out? Don’t you like it?’

  ‘I’m not rubbing it out. It’s still there.’ And indeed the ghost of her drawing remained. ‘You take the surplus charcoal off,’ she said curtly. ‘Otherwise it messes the paints.’

  ‘Is it going to be Noddy dressed up funny?’

  Troy started at this use of a name she had imagined to be Miss Orrincourt’s prerogative and invention.

  ‘I call him Noddy,’ said the child, as if guessing at her thought, ‘and so does Sonia. She got it from me. I’m going to be like Sonia when I’m grown up.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Troy, opening her paint box and rummaging in it.

  ‘Are those your paints?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Troy, looking fixedly at her. ‘They are. Mine.’

  ‘I’m Patricia Claudia Ellen Ancred Kentish.’

  ‘So I’d gathered.’

  ‘You couldn’t have gathered all of that, because nobody except Miss Able ever calls me anything but Panty. Not that I care,’ added Panty, suddenly climbing onto the back of one of the stools and locking her feet in the arms, ‘I’m double jointed,’ she said, throwing herself back and hanging head downwards.

  ‘That won’t help you if you break your neck,’ said Troy.

  Panty made an offensive gargling noise.

  ‘As you’re not allowed here,’ Troy continued, ‘hadn’t you better run off?’

  ‘No,’ said Panty.

  Troy squeezed a fat serpent of Flake White out on her palette. ‘If I ignore this child,’ she thought, ‘perhaps she will get bored and go.’

  Now the yellows, next the reds. How beautiful was her palette!

  ‘I’m going to paint with those paints,’ said Panty at her elbow.

  ‘You haven’t a hope,’ said Troy.

  ‘I’m going to.’ She made a sudden grab at the tray of long brushes. Troy anticipated this move by a split second.

  ‘Now, see here, Panty,’ she said, shutting the box and facing the child, ‘if you don’t pipe down I shall pick you up by the slack of your breeches and carry you straight back to where you belong. You don’t like people butting in on your games, do you? Well, this is my game, and I can’t get on with it if you butt in.’

  ‘I’ll kill you,’ said Panty.

  ‘Don’t be an ass,’ said Troy mildly.

  Panty scooped up a dollop of vermilion on three of her fingers and flung it wildly at Troy’s face. She then burst into peals of shrill laughter.

  ‘You can’t whack me,’ she shrieked. ‘I’m being brought up on a system.’

  ‘Can’t I!’ Troy rejoined. ‘System or no system—’ And indeed there was nothing she desired more at the moment than to beat Panty. The child confronted her with an expression of concentrated malevolence. Her cheeks were blown out with such determination that her nose wrinkled and turned up. Her mouth was so tightly shut that lines resembling a cat’s whiskers radiated from it. She scowled hideously. Her pigtails stuck out at right angles to her head. Altogether she looked like an infuriated infant Boreas.

  Troy sat down and reached for a piece of rag to clean her face. ‘Oh, Panty,’ she said, ‘you do look so exactly like your Uncle Thomas.’

  Panty drew back her arm again. ‘No, don’t,’ said Troy. ‘Don’t do any more damage with red paint, I implore you. Look here, I’ll strike a bargain with you. If you’ll promise not to take any more paint without asking, I’ll give you a board and some brushes and let you make a proper picture.’

  Panty glared at her. ‘When?’ she said warily.

  ‘When we’ve asked your mother or Miss Able. I’ll ask. But no more nonsense. And especially,’ Troy added, taking a shot in the dark, ‘no more going to my room and squeezing paint on the stair rail.’

  Panty stared blankly at her. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said flatly. ‘When can I paint? I want to. Now.’

  ‘Yes, but let’s get this cleared up. What did you do before dinner last night?’

  ‘I don’t know. Yes, I do. Dr Withers came. He weighed us all. He’s going to make me bald because I’ve got ringworm. That’s why I’ve got this cap on. Would you like to see my ringworm?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I got it first. I’ve given it to sixteen of the others.’

  ‘Did you go up to my room and mess about with my paints?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Honestly, Panty?’

  ‘Honestly what? I don’t know where your room is. When can I paint?’

  ‘Do you promise you didn’t put paint…’

  ‘You are silly!’ said Panty furiously. ‘Can’t you see a person’s telling the truth.’

  And Troy, greatly bewildered, thought that she could.

  While she was still digesting this queer little scene, the door at the back of the stalls opened and Cedric peered round it.

  ‘So humble and timid,’ he lisped. ‘Just a mouse-like squeak to tell you luncheon is almost on the table. Panty!’ he cried shrilly, catching sight of his cousin. ‘You gross child! Back to the West Wing, miss! How dare you muscle your hideous way in here?’

  Panty grinned savagely at him. ‘Hallo, Sissy,’ she said.

  ‘Wait,’ said Cedric, ‘just wait till the Old Person catches you. What he won’t do to you!’

  ‘Why?’ Panty demanded.

  ‘Why! You ask me why. Infamy! With the grease-paint fresh on your fingers.’

  Both Panty and Troy gaped at this. Panty glanced at her hand. ‘That’s her paint,’ she said, jerking her head at Troy. ‘That’s not grease-paint.’

  ‘Do you deny,’ Cedric pursued, shaking his finger at her, ‘do you deny, you toxic child, that you went into your grandfather’s dressing-room while he was sitting for Mrs Alleyn, and scrawled some pothouse insult in lake-liner on his looking-glass? Do you deny, moreover, that you painted a red moustache on the cat, Carabbas?’

  With an air of bewilderment that Troy could have sworn was genuine, Panty repeated her former statement. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t.’

  ‘Tell that,’ said Cedric with relish, ‘to your grandpapa and see if he believes you.’

  ‘Noddy likes me,’ said Panty, rallying. ‘He likes me best in the family. He thinks you’re awful. He said you’re a simpering popinjay.’

  ‘See here,’ said Troy hastily. ‘Let’s get this straight. You say Panty’s written something in grease-paint on Sir Henry’s looking-glass. What’s she supposed to have written?’

  Cedric coughed. ‘Dearest Mrs Alleyn, we mustn’t allow you for a second to be disturbed…’

  ‘I’m not disturbed,’ said Troy. ‘What was written on the glass?’

  ‘My mama would have wiped it off. She was in his room tidying, and saw it. She hunted madly for a rag but the Old Person, at that moment, walked in and saw it. He’s ro
aring about the house like a major prophet.’

  ‘But what was it, for pity’s sake?’

  ‘ “Grandfather’s a bloody old fool,” ’ said Cedric. Panty giggled. ‘There!’ said Cedric. ‘You see? Obviously she wrote it. Obviously she made up the cat.’

  ‘I didn’t. I didn’t.’ And with one of those emotional volte-faces by which children bewilder us, Panty wrinkled up her face, kicked Cedric suddenly but half-heartedly on the shin, and burst into a storm of tears.

  ‘You odious child!’ he ejaculated, skipping out of her way.

  Panty flung herself on her face, screamed industriously and beat the floor with her fists. ‘You all hate me,’ she sobbed. ‘Wicked beasts! I wish I was dead.’

  ‘Oh, la,’ said Cedric, ‘how tedious! Now, she’ll have a fit or something.’

  Upon this scene came Paul Kentish. He limped rapidly down the aisle, seized his sister by the slack of her garments and, picking her up very much as if she was a kitten, attempted to stand her on her feet. Panty drew up her legs and hung from his grasp, in some danger, Troy felt, of suffocation. ‘Stop it at once, Panty,’ he said. ‘You’ve been a very naughty girl.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Troy. ‘I don’t think she has, honestly. I mean, not in the way you think. There’s a muddle, I’m certain of it.’

  Paul relinquished his hold. Panty sat on the floor, sobbing harshly, a most desolate child.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Troy, ‘I’ll explain. You didn’t do it, Panty, and you shall paint if you still want to.’

  ‘She’s not allowed to come out of school,’ said Paul. ‘Caroline Able will be here in a minute.’