Death of Jezebel

by Christianna Brand

  A stage was built out into the vast hall: semicircular, cut off from the great room behind—the Assembly room it was called—by a flimsy wooden ‘castellated’ wall. In the centre of this wall was a tower, a mere empty tube, standing on one end: and through the tower had been driven a high arch, leading from the Assembly room to the stage in front. Above the arch was a narrow window, tall enough to give access to a tiny balcony looking out over the hall. A rickety flight of steps inside the tower led to the rickety platform within this window. Isabel Drew, whose nightly task it would be to ascend these steps, hang about on the inside platform, and finally appear dramatically in a blaze of sudden flood-lights on the balcony outside the window, had insured her rounded limbs severally and together, for the duration of the job: and, so devout was her passion for good hard cash, could almost find it in her heart to wish that—right at the end of the run, when she had squeezed all she could possibly get out of Sugar-Daddy Port and the Homes for Heroes Exhibition—the ladder might give way and break just one teeny, weeny, terribly painless little bone…

  Mr. Port on the other hand was in an agony lest anything might happen to darling Isabel. ‘Are you sure, Mrs. Exmouth that the ladder is safe? And that balcony? It looks terribly gimcrack.’

  ‘The whole thing’s as solid as it can be,’ said Charity crossly: and added, glancing at Isabel’s delectable bulges: ‘That is for anybody of normal weight.’ Charity herself was of the meagre quality, too often associated with her name. She gestured at the tin ivy, of an arsenic greenery, that coiled itself up the tower and about the little balcony. ‘Life-like, don’t you think? George positively thought it was the real thing: didn’t you, George?’

  ‘I said that the real thing often looked just as phoney,’ mumbled George.

  ‘But do I want all this frightful ivy?’ said Isabel, clinging with pretty petulance to Mr. Port’s arm.

  Edgar explained tenderly. It was all the fault of that naughty little, soft little, cooing little voice of hers. They simply must have it stronger than it had come up at the original run-through of her speech: microphones and things had had to be hidden up on the tower quite near her, but then the trouble was that they would magnify a lot of other sounds—he didn’t quite understand the mechanics of it all…

  ‘The whole thing’s arranged and fixed up now, so we must have the ivy and that’s the end of it,’ said Charity, settling the tricorne hat with determination upon her head, and preparing to give battle. ‘There’s a switch hidden in the ivy up on the right-hand side of the arch, as you face the stage, and one of the knights will have to just reach up and switch it on when Isabel appears…’

  ‘Oh, that reminds me,’ said Isabel. ‘Talking about knights, here’s another one. His name’s Brian Bryan—Brian Two-Times, I call him.’ She looked upon him with a fond and proprietary air, delighted with the excellence of her wit.

  A handsome, rather swarthy young woman was now dragged forward from her self-imposed obscurity and introduced to Brian Two-Times: Miss Bitch-sorry-Betchley: an old friend of that boy Johnny Wise who had killed himself—and so was Brian. Surely they must have all met, out there in the Malay or wherever it was? Brown eyes met blue, blue eyes rather quickly looked down at the floor. Isabel prattled gaily on, and all unconscious of their doom, the little victims played. The kill had been selected. The killer at hand. The bystanders were gathering at the scene of execution: and Isabel with every careless word knocked yet another nail into the highly complicated structure of double murder…

  Two people, wandering rather aimlessly through the archway leading under the tower and out on to the semicircle of the stage, arrived at just the right moment to complete the cast. Earl Anderson was a short, stocky man, with chrysanthemum-curling black hair—his innumerable devoted friends doubted the authenticity of both curl and colour—luminous large blue eyes, and an air of determined raffishness, much assisted by the affectation of horsey checked coats, slit up on either side of his behind. Perpetua Kirk was a thin, fair, pretty creature, with hair so thick and frizzy that it looked like a well-kept yew hedge—trimmed to a clipped page-boy bob. She drooped along at Earl’s side, walking as though in a sort of stupid dream. Earl had said why not go down and take a look at this absurd Exhibition—the Exmouth woman wanted him to do something about a light switch or something, during the pageant.”… And one might as well go: everybody would be uninteresting and everything would be meaningless, but then so they would anywhere else. ‘There’s your dear Isabel,’ she said, indicating the group below the footlights, looking up at the tower.

  ‘So she is,’ said Earl. He called down, ‘Hallo, Jezebel! Hallo, Mrs. Exmouth! Hallo, Mr. Port.’ He supposed that was the new Dutch fellow that Isabel was always talking about.

  ‘Hallo, Earl,’ said Isabel. ‘And don’t call me Jezebel! It makes me cross. Hallo, Peppi.’

  Perpetua gave them her pretty, mirthless smile. Brian Bryan turned away his head from his share of it. He thought: She’s absolutely empty; as empty as a seashell. It seemed impossible that Johnny had loved with his whole young heart this husk of a girl with her curved lips and unsmiling grey eyes. But he remembered Johnny’s letters. Damn her! he thought: and knew that it was not just an expression—that he really meant it: that he wished her soul in hell.

  Susan Betchley also wished Perpetua’s soul in hell… After what happened to Johnny—still going round with that Anderson creature—daring to come here and meet—all of them. Perpetua met the stare of her resentful brown eyes with a mild surprise.

  Perpetua, for whom Johnny Wise had killed himself: who to all intents and purposes had murdered him. And Isabel Drew and Earl Anderson, assistant murderers. And Edgar Port, and Susan Betchley and Brian Two-Times who had loved Johnny. And hobbledehoy George Exmouth who loved Perpetua. Two victims: and a murderer: and supporting cast. And not very long to go…

  They stood grouped together, discussing the action of the pageant with Charity Exmouth; (Charity would be far away in Edinburgh designing yet another ivy-covered decor by the time the murder was committed for which she now so innocently set the scene). She stood outlining the progress of the pageant with sweeps of her bony hands. ‘The trumpets will blare: it’ll be terrific—floodlights will be focused on the archway, all the people will turn to see what’s happening and come crowding to the space here below the stage. Then more trumpets, and the Knights come riding through on their chargers, velvet cloaks flying, silver standards held high! Pace round the stage, form up for the figures, finally into the Grand Chain, harness jingling as the horses break into a trot: the tableau beneath the tower, all the Knights looking up to the window where the Queen of England, Home and Beauty is to make her dramatic appearance! The lights shift slowly upward: a thunder of drums—and in her silver dress with her tall pointed hat and flowing veil, she steps out on to the balcony…’ She broke off, exhausted by the wonder and beauty of it all.

  ‘What is it meant to represent?’ said Susan Betchley in her flat, too-downright way.

  Nobody had the faintest idea what it was meant to represent. ‘Just—er—just a sort of general homage to England, Home and Beauty,’ said Mr. Port, waving his fat little hands. Whether darling Isabel was supposed to favour England, Home or Beauty, he had never quite decided. ‘After all they all meant the same thing to—well, to a great many of us,’ he said. His eyes met Brian Bryan’s and Susan Betchley’s and he looked down at the toes of his shoes. No use trying to explain to people who had not been there and could never understand, what such words had meant to those who for three years had lived in ‘the Malay’, under the tender rule of the Sons of Heaven…

  ‘Now who shall be leading Knight?’ said Charity Exmouth, bustling down to work. She gazed fondly upon her son. ‘George is going to take the part of one of the Knights—just for the fun of it: aren’t you, George?’

  ‘Yes, Motherdear,’ said George, who was taking the part because his mother insisted upon it and for no other reason.

  ‘So who shall b
e leading Knight?’ repeated Mrs. Exmouth.

  ‘Brian Two-Times,’ said Isabel promptly.

  While Mr. Port was pageant master, Isabel’s word was law. ‘Very well then,’ said George’s mother sourly. ‘And then Mr. Earl Anderson must be Second Knight, because I’ve already arranged with him about the amplifier switch: so George must be third. The Leader wears a white cloak and rides a white charger—all the other horses are black: Second wears a red cloak, and Third a blue. So we’d better rechristen them White Knight and Red Knight and Blue Knight. Mr. Bryan, White. Mr. Anderson, Red. George, Blue.’

  Everyone looked more than satisfied with this masterly rearrangement.

  ‘So you will lead them in, White Knight,’ continued Charity, coyly addressing Brian Bryan in his new identity, ‘in single file through the arch. You pace round the stage once or twice and then all take your positions to form a hollow square, White Knight in the centre…’

  ‘They can’t,’ said Isabel. ‘It’ll be an uneven number if you put one in the centre.’

  ‘We’re only having eleven knights,’ said Charity reasonably,

  ‘But we’ve got twelve suits of armour,’ said Isabel. Her tight little soul revolted at the idea of wasting money—even the Exhibition’s money—on something that was not to be used.

  ‘Well, it’s too late to bother about that now. We’ll just have to look upon one of them as “reserve”. I’ve worked out all the moves and they can’t be changed,’ said Mrs. Exmouth firmly, giving the tricorne a further belligerent tilt. ‘Hollow square, White Knight in the centre. Set to partners: White here, Red here, Yellow and Green Knights over there…’ She sketched one or two simple evolutions and as no one appeared to follow one word of what she was saying, mapped them out with pin-men on scraps of paper torn from her notebook. ‘Now, Red there, Blue over here… No, what am I saying, Blue here, and Red stands still in the centre… No, no, I’m wrong myself, you’ve got me all muddled: it’s Blue that stands still and does nothing and Red rides round to the left…’ By the time they arrived at the Grand Chain the floor was littered with little scraps of paper.

  Isabel was impatient to get to her part in the pageant. She ran up the rickety ladder and hung out of the window, calling down to them in her fluting voice. ‘Well, then, they come out of the Grand Chain, with Brian leading and Earl behind and George behind him, and then the eight others. The eight form up in a semicircle round the edge of the stage, looking out towards the audience. Don’t you think they really ought to be looking up towards the Queen?’

  ‘No,’ said Charity.

  Isabel decided to let that go. ‘Well, I’m in the window, all in the shadows because the lights are focused on the stage: Earl’s on my left hand, looking up at me, and George is on my right: and Brian Two-Times is facing into the archway, with his horse’s behind to the audience, also looking up… The lights slowly rise till they floodlight the window and the balcony: and I appear in my silver dress and my tall pointed hat and break into my speech.’ Without invitation she broke into her speech… All about them in blinding dust, in ear-shattering din, the Homes for Heroes Exhibition underwent the slow and painful process of its birth. Give us the ’ammer… Fetch that plank… Tray one of our Slomber nets… You just pass the chicken in here… The little grey locusts swept and polished and waited for the dust to settle again, the exhibitors leaped and pleaded with the plum-mouthed young ladies in vain. Isabel declaimed. Perpetua Kirk, bored beyond endurance, moved over to Susan and said, with her own little air of polite indifference: ‘Are you taking some part in the pageant, Miss Bitchley? All Isabel’s friends seem to be.’

  ‘I’m not a friend of Miss Drew’s,’ said Susan abruptly. ‘And my name happens to be Betchley; with an “e”.’ She added, because Perpetua only looked at her vaguely, that she did know Isabel Drew but that that didn’t make her a friend.

  ‘Oh, doesn’t it?’ said Perpetua, blankly. What did it matter? One was only trying to be polite.

  ‘Of course she did get me this job,’ acknowledged Susan, anxious to be fair. ‘I had to get something. I lost all I had in the F.M.S. and I find it difficult to get jobs in England—or, anyway, to keep them.’

  The F.M.S. was a part of Malaya. Where Johnny had come from. ‘Oh, yes?’ said Perpetua, brushing away the memory as though a cobweb had drifted across her mind.

  ‘I’m supposed to be the wardrobe mistress,’ said Miss Betchley, fiercely self-derogatory. ‘I look after twelve suits of pretence armour and Isabel Drew’s bits of rubbish. And I have to be on guard at the door into the Assembly room, to see that nobody goes in while the pageant’s in progress.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t they?’ said Perpetua, for something to say.

  ‘For the simple reason that the door’s straight opposite the archway, and the audience could see through the arch right into the room. Of course we’re hanging a bead curtain across the inside of the archway, but it’s best to be on the safe side…’

  Well, what do I care? thought Perpetua. She wished she had never started this stupid conversation, but her habit of good manners was always letting her in for this kind of thing. That was what a convent training did for you. You might not learn hockey or lacrosse but they turned you out with an instinct to say or to do the right, the kindly thing: to be polite. Other things died—for Perpetua all other things had died one moonlight night seven years ago: but the habit was upon her still. She gave Miss Betchley her vague, sweet, meaningless smile, and walked away by herself, staring unseeingly at the half-built houses, the skeleton ‘stands’, the mouthing, gesticulating men and girls going through their patter. Why should the woman be so offensive? I only asked politely if she was doing some job here… But the brown eyes had looked at her with something like hate. I suppose it’s because of Johnny, she thought. They’re all old friends of Johnny’s. They all look at me as if they could kill me… As if they could kill her because one night long ago, poor foolish, flattered, uncertain child that she had been, she had allowed Isabel and Earl to make her tight; and so had been ‘easy’ for Earl… Because from that time forward there had been no life in her soul: because she had gone on, utterly indifferent, in the way that she was led: trying at first and at last not even trying, to blot out the memory of Johnny’s face as she had seen it for that brief moment before he had turned and gone away for ever into the endless night… She did not care for their hate: it could not touch her, nothing could touch her any more—not Earl’s devotion, blowing hot and cold, not Isabel’s avid excitement over her reactions, tapering away into indifference; not the disgust or the sympathy or the understanding or the obtuseness of their friends… Johnny is dead and at peace, she thought: and I am dead, but not at peace. That’s the only difference. We both committed suicide that night. She thrust her hands into the pockets of her light summer coat, walking with downbent head through the echoing aisles.

  The last person one could possibly have wanted to meet just at that juncture was Charity Exmouth’s gangling son George; and yet here he was now, drooping along behind her, catching her up, diffidently beginning to speak: a thin boy with hands and feet that seemed much bigger than they were because they were always so hopelessly in his own way; with a pale, thin face and hungry dark brown eyes. A hobbledehoy. She said with patient politeness that she was just going home…

  He wondered if he dared ask if he might see her to her door, but could not pluck up courage to put the request into words. Instead he left her with ungracious precipitancy, hung about until she emerged in her vague, blind way from the big front door of the hall, and when she got on to a bus, followed her and, unseen, went up on top. Perpetua leaving the bus and picking her way through the Bayswater streets to her bed-sitting room, had an uneasy feeling that she was being followed, and now and again glanced behind her; but her knight errant kept well in the rear, and she saw nothing. Nevertheless, it made her jumpy, and on edge, and the cobweb of her depression was with her still. Johnny is dead, because of me: and if the hate of his frien
ds could kill, I should die a dozen deaths… It all meant nothing, one didn’t care about that or anything; but still—it was a chill feeling to be all alone with on a sunny July evening: and with that shadow, dodging about, keeping quite still, moving on again, just a little way behind her…

  At her door, she plunged her hand into her bag to find her key; and brought out a scrap of paper that had not been there an hour before. A small square of paper, covered on one side with a series of squirls and angles, and criss-crossed lines, with pin-men on pin-horses, pacing a semicircular space. On the other side was written in straggly printed characters: PERPETUA KIRK—YOU ARE GOING TO BE MURDERED.

  Chapter II

  EARL ANDERSON DROVE ISABEL home in his flashy little red car. ‘I can’t find Peppi—she seems to have wandered off somewhere. She’s so vague!’

  ‘She wants someone to look after her,’ said Isabel, beginning at once to check over in her mind all the people who might do to ‘look after’ Perpetua Kirk, and how she, Isabel, might somehow benefit by the arrangement.

  ‘She’s got me,’ said Earl, shortly.

  Isabel laughed. ‘A lot of use you are to her! You’re always fooling around with other people, and after all she’s got her future to think of. She’s in and out of jobs all the time—look at her, now, just vaguely waiting for something new to turn up, and only a few pounds left to get by on. It’s time she left off trailing round with you and got married.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do, meantime?’ said Earl sulkily.

  ‘You don’t care tuppence about her,’ said Isabel, clinging to the door handle as the car dry-skidded a corner. ‘It’s just a habit with both of you. You ought to give her a shove and send her out into the world to look for someone else. Dash it all, she’s getting on a bit: she must be twenty-seven, if she’s a day. And still not married.’