Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 12, No. 59, November 1948

Telling by Elizabeth Bowen

What makes a writer write? What causes the distinction between a writer who merely wants to write and a writer who simply has to write? What gives a potential writer the final push? In Elizabeth Bowen’s case it was a period in her late teens when she suffered extreme economic hardship. A spree of seemingly uncontrollable extravagance had forced Miss Bowen to sell or pawn most of the things she valued; then for months she lived in rigorous simplicity, barely making ends meet, existing from hand to mouth. During this interval of semi-stagnation, of withdrawal from the world, Miss Bowen suddenly discovered she wanted to write. From the moment her pen first touched paper, the desire became an inner compulsion, and from that time she has thought of practically nothing but writing, its problems, and its fulfillment. True, there have been interims of idleness, but during those lapses or purely transitional phases, she felt only half alive.

Miss Bowen confesses to lining her life, and the life around her, orderly; she loves small gay parties, movies, detective stories, music, and long walks — though not in that order of preference. Today, in the opinion of many critics, she shares with the late Virginia Woolf the highest position among contemporary women novelists in England. Phyllis Bentley once wrote that Elizabeth Bowen’s “short stories are limited in range... but as regards human emotion they are both deep and wide; there is a poignancy, an intensity, in her presentation of experience.”

You will find those qualities — poignancy and intensity, and an incredibly deep understanding — in Miss Bowen’s presentation of the experience of murder. Indeed, she projects the experience of murder, as relived in the mind of an abnormal human being, so realistically that one wonders from what depths of creative perception Miss Bowen brought forth so morbid and so telling a study...

Terry looked up; Josephine lay still. He felt shy, embarrassed all at once at the idea of anyone coming here.

His brain was ticking like a watch: he looked up warily.

But there was nobody. Outside the high cold walls, beyond the ragged arch of the chapel, delphiniums crowded in sunshine — straining with brightness, burning each other up — bars of color that, while one watched them, seemed to turn round slowly. But there was nobody there.

The chapel was a ruin, roofed by daylight, floored with lawn. In a corner the gardener had tipped out a heap of cut grass from the lawn mower. The daisy-heads wilted, the cut grass smelled stuffy and sweet. Everywhere, cigarette-ends, scattered last night by the couples who’d come here to kiss. First the dance, thought Terry, then this: the servants will never get straight. The cigarette-ends would lie here for days, till after the rain, and go brown and rotten.

Then he noticed a charred cigarette stump in Josephine’s hair. The short wavy ends of her hair fell back — still in lines of perfection — from temples and ears; by her left ear the charred stump showed through. For that, he thought, she would never forgive him; fastidiousness was her sensibility, always tormented. (“If you must know,” she had said, “well, you’ve got dirty nails, haven’t you? Look.”) He bent down and picked the cigarette-end out of her hair; the fine ends fluttered under his breath. As he threw it away, he noticed his nails were still dirty. His hands were stained now — naturally — but his nails must have been dirty before. Had she noticed again?

But had she, perhaps, for a moment been proud of him? Had she had just a glimpse of the something he’d told her about? He wanted to ask her: “What do you feel now? Do you believe in me?” He felt sure of himself, certain, justified. For nobody else would have done this to Josephine.

Himself they had all — always — deprecated. He felt a shrug in this attitude, a thinly disguised kind of hopelessness. “Oh, Terry...” they’d say, and break off. He was no good: he couldn’t even put up a tennis net. He never could see properly (whisky helped that at first, then it didn’t), his hands wouldn’t serve him, things he wanted them to hold slipped away from them. He was no good; the younger ones laughed at him till they, like their brothers and sisters, grew up and were schooled into bitter kindliness. Again and again he’d been sent back to them all (and repetition never blunted the bleak edge of these homecomings) from school, from Cambridge, now — a month ago — from Ceylon. “The bad penny!” he would remark, very jocular. “If I could just think things out,” he had tried to explain to his father, “I know I could do something.” And once he had said to Josephine: “I know there is Something I could do.”

“And they will know now,” he said, looking round (for the strange new pleasure of clearly and sharply seeing) from Josephine’s face to her stained breast (her heavy blue beads slipped sideways over her shoulder and coiled on the grass — touched, surrounded now by the unhesitant trickle); from her breast up the walls to their top, the top crumbling, the tufts of valerian trembling against the sky. It was as though the dark-paned window through which he had so long looked out swung open suddenly. He saw (clear as the walls and the sky) Right and Wrong, the old childish fixities. I have done right, he thought (but his brain was still ticking). She ought not to live with this flaw in her. Josephine ought not to live, she had to die.

All night he had thought this out, walking alone in the shrubberies, helped by the dance music, dodging the others. His mind had been kindled, like a dull coal suddenly blazing. He was not angry; he kept saying: “I must not be angry, I must be just.” He was in a blaze (it seemed to himself) of justice. The couples who came face to face with him down the paths started away. Someone spoke of a minor prophet, someone breathed “Caliban.”... He kept saying: “That flaw right through her. She damages truth. She kills souls; she’s killed mine.” So he had come to see, before morning, his purpose as God’s purpose.

She had laughed, you see. She had been pretending. There was a tender and lovely thing he kept hidden, a spark in him; she had touched it and made it the whole of him, made him a man. She had said: “Yes, I believe, Terry. I understand.” That had been everything. He had thrown off the old dull armor... Then she had laughed.

Then he had understood what other men meant when they spoke of her. He had seen at once what he was meant to do. “This is for me,” he said. “No one but I can do it.”

All night he walked alone in the garden. Then he watched the French windows and when they were open again stepped in quickly and took down the African knife from the dining-room wall. He had always wanted that African knife. Then he had gone upstairs (remembering, on the way, all those meetings with Josephine, shaving, tying of ties), shaved, changed into flannels, put the knife into his blazer pocket (it was too long, more than an inch of the blade came out through the inside lining) and sat on his window-sill, watching sunlight brighten and broaden from a yellow agitation behind the trees into swathes of color across the lawn. He did not think; his mind was like somebody singing, somebody able to sing.

And, later, it had all been arranged for him. He fell into, had his part in, some kind of design. Josephine had come down in her pleated white dress (when she turned, the pleats whirled.) He had said, “Come out!” and she gave that light distant look, still with a laugh at the back of it, and said, “Oh — right-o, little Terry.” And she had walked down the garden ahead of him, past the delphiniums into the chapel. Here, to make justice perfect, he had asked once more: “Do you believe in me?” She had laughed again.

She lay now with her feet and body in sunshine (the sun was just high enough), her arms flung out wide at him, desperately, generously: her head rolling sideways in shadow on the enclosed, silky grass. On her face was a dazzled look (eyes half closed, lips drawn back), an expression almost of diffidence. Her blood quietly soaked through the grass, sinking through to the roots of it.

He crouched a moment and, touching her eyelids — still warm — tried to shut her eyes. But he didn’t know how. Then he got up and wiped the blade of the African knife with a handful of grass, then scattered the handful away. All the time he was listening; he felt shy, embarrassed at the thought of anyone finding him here. And his brain, like a watch, was still ticking.

On his way to the house he stooped down and dipped his hands in the garden tank. Someone might scream; he felt embarrassed at the thought of somebody screaming. The red curled away through the water and melted.

He stepped in at the morning-room window. The blinds were half down — he stooped his head to avoid them — and the room was in dark-yellow shadow. (He had waited here for them all to come in, that afternoon he arrived back from Ceylon.) The smell of pinks came in, and two or three bluebottles bumbled and bounced on the ceiling. His sister Catherine sat with her back to him, playing the piano. (He had heard her as he came up the path.) He looked at her pink pointed elbows — she was playing a waltz and the music ran through them in jerky ripples.

“Hullo, Catherine,” he said, and listened in admiration. So his new voice sounded like this!

“Hullo, Terry.” She went on playing, worrying at the waltz. She had an anxious, methodical mind, but loved gossip. He thought: Here is a bit of gossip for you — Josephine’s down in the chapel, covered with blood. Her dress is spoiled, but I think her blue beads are all right. I should go and see.

“I say, Catherine—”

“Oh, Terry, they’re putting the furniture back in the drawing-room. I wish you’d go and help. It’s getting those big sofas through the door... and the cabinets.” She laughed: “I’m just putting the music away,” and went on playing.

He thought: I don’t suppose she’ll be able to marry now. No one will marry her. He said: “Do you know where Josephine is?”

“No, I haven’t” — rum-tum-tum, rum-tum-tum — “the slightest idea. Go on, Terry.”

He thought: She never liked Josephine. He went away.

He stood in the door of the drawing-room. His brothers and Beatrice were punting the big armchairs, chintz-skirted, over the waxy floor. They all felt him there: for as long as possible didn’t notice him. Charles — fifteen, with his pink scrubbed ears — considered a moment, shoving against the cabinet, thought it was rather a shame, turned with an honest, kindly look of distaste, said, “Come on, Terry.” He can’t go back to school now, thought Terry, can’t go anywhere, really: wonder what they’ll do with him — send him out to the Colonies? Charles had perfect manners: square, bluff, perfect. He never thought about anybody, never felt anybody — just classified them. Josephine was “a girl staying in the house,” “a friend of my sisters’.” He would think at once (in a moment when Terry had told him), “A girl staying in the house... it’s... well, I mean, if it hadn’t been a girl staying in the house...”

Terry went over to him; they pushed the cabinet. But Terry pushed too hard, crooked; the further corner grated against the wall. “Oh, I say, we’ve scratched the paint,” said Charles. And indeed they had; on the wall was a gray scar. Charles went scarlet: he hated things to be done badly. It was nice of him to say: “We’ve scratched the paint.” Would he say later: “We’ve killed Josephine”?

“I think perhaps you’d better help with the sofas,” said Charles civilly.

“You should have seen the blood on my hands just now,” said Terry.

“Bad luck!” Charles said quickly and went away.

Beatrice, Josephine’s friend, stood with her elbows on the mantelpiece looking at herself in the glass above. Last night a man had kissed her down in the chapel (Terry had watched them). This must seem to Beatrice to be written all over her face — what else could she be looking at? Her eyes in the looking-glass were dark, beseeching. As she saw Terry come up behind her, she frowned angrily and turned away.

“I say, Beatrice, do you know what happened down in the chapel?”

“Does it interest you?” She stooped quickly and pulled down the sofa loose-cover where it had “runkled” up, as though the sofa legs were indecent.

“Beatrice, what would you do if I’d killed somebody?”

“Laugh,” said she, wearily.

“If I’d killed a woman?”

“Laugh harder. Do you know any women?”

She was a lovely thing, really: he’d ruined her, he supposed. He was all in a panic. “Beatrice, swear you won’t go down to the chapel.” Because she might, well — of course she’d go down: as soon as she was alone and they didn’t notice she’d go creeping down to the chapel. It had been that kind of kiss.

“Oh, be quiet about that old chapel!” Already he’d spoiled last night for her. How she hated him! He looked round for John. John had gone away.

On the hall table were two letters, come by the second post, waiting for Josephine. No one, he thought, ought to read them — he must protect Josephine; he took them up and slipped them into his pocket.

“I say,” called John from the stairs, “what are you doing with those letters?” John didn’t mean to be sharp but they had taken each other unawares. They none of them wanted Terry to feel how his movements were sneaking movements; when they met him creeping about by himself they would either ignore him or say: “Where are you off to?” jocosely and loudly, to hide the fact of their knowing he didn’t know. John was Terry’s elder brother, but hated to sound like one. But he couldn’t help knowing those letters were for Josephine, and Josephine was “staying in the house.”

“I’m taking them for Josephine.”

“Know where she is?”

“Yes, in the chapel... I killed her there.”

But John — hating this business with Terry — had turned away. Terry followed him upstairs, repeating: “I killed her there, John... John, I’ve killed Josephine in the chapel.” John hurried ahead, not listening, not turning round. “Oh, yes,” he called over his shoulder. “Right you are, take them along.” He disappeared into the smoking-room, banging the door. It had been John’s idea that, from the day after Terry’s return from Ceylon, the sideboard cupboard in the dining-room should be kept locked up. But he’d never said anything; oh no. What interest could the sideboard cupboard have for a brother of his? he pretended to think.

Oh yes, thought Terry, you’re a fine man with a muscular back, but you couldn’t have done what I’ve done. There had, after all, been Something in Terry. He was abler than John (they’d soon know). John had never kissed Josephine.

Terry sat down on the stairs saying: “Josephine, Josephine!” He sat there gripping a baluster, shaking with exaltation.

The study door-panels had always looked solemn; they bulged with solemnity. Terry had to get past to his father; he chose the top left-hand panel to tap on. The patient voice said: “Come in!”

Here and now, thought Terry. He had a great audience; he looked at the books round the dark walls and thought of all those thinkers. His father jerked up a contracted, strained look at him. Terry felt that hacking with his news into this silence was like hacking into a great, grave chest. The desk was a havoc of papers.

“What exactly do you want?” said his father, rubbing the edge of the desk.

Terry stood there silently: everything ebbed. “I want,” he said at last, “to talk about my future.”

His father sighed and slid a hand forward, rumpling the papers. “I suppose, Terry,” he said as gently as possible, “you really have got a future?” Then he reproached himself. “Well, sit down a minute... I’ll just...”

Terry sat down. The clock on the mantelpiece echoed the ticking in his brain.

He waited.

“Yes?” said his father.

“Well, there must be some kind of future for me, mustn’t there?”

“Oh, certainly...”

“Look here, father, I have something to show you. That African knife—”

“What about it?”

“That African knife. It’s here. I’ve got it to show you.”

“What about it?”

“Just wait a minute.” He put a hand into either pocket: his father waited.

“It was here — I did have it. I brought it to show to you. I must have it somewhere — that African knife.”

But it wasn’t there, he hadn’t got it; he had lost it; left it, dropped it — on the grass, by the tank, anywhere. He remembered wiping it... Then?

Now his support was all gone; he was terrified now; he wept.

“I’ve lost it,” he quavered, “I’ve lost it.”

“What do you mean?” said his father, sitting blankly there like a tombstone, with his white, square face.

“What are you trying to tell me?”

“Nothing,” said Terry, weeping and shaking. “Nothing, nothing, nothing.”