Except they had not revenged. Nowhere had the Jews, driven like cattle and slaughtered like them, fought back against their oppressors, and Phryne caught her lip, wondering what commandment she was outraging by washing for just a little rebellion, just one uprising, since the brave Queen Esther had told the Persian King that she was a Jewess, and the Jews had hanged Haman and his sons on the gallows they had thoughtfully built for the Semites—which was the feast ever after of Purim.
Of course, that did explain why neither Abrahams was available. It was Saturday, which was Shabbes, the Sabbath, and they could not talk on the telephone during Shabbes—that would be work. Presumably.
Phryne finished her glass of rather good French champagne and slid down into her dark green sheets. The wind was tormenting the tree outside her window, lashing the branches against the house. It was a restless, uncomfortable sound, and she could not concentrate. She laid the book aside, put out her lamp and closed her eyes, but the constant scratching at the glass irritated her so that she sat up, meaning to find another book or perhaps dress and go out to a certain nightclub which might yield her some interesting company. Her own house seemed silent as Phryne swung her feet to the floor, her silky nightdress sliding off one pale shoulder.
Something attracted her gaze to the window, and she saw two bright points, like eyes. She was so surprised that she sat quite still for perhaps ten seconds. Then she rose and moved towards the window and the little lights. She had almost reached the casement when a shrill howling broke out downstairs. Phryne was distracted, and when she looked again whatever it was had gone, if it had ever been there.
'Well, what did you make of that?' she asked the black Tom Ember, who had been reposing as usual at the foot of her bed. Ember really appreciated silk sheets. He had looked up when Phryne had moved, but appeared uninterested in whatever had been at the window. The wailing noise, however, galvanized the cat. He ran to Phryne's door and demanded to be let out immediately and not a second later, and when she opened the door he leapt down the stairs and vanished out of sight.
Phryne followed more slowly. She knew what the howling was. A small puppy had woken up and missed its mother, its siblings and its nice warm nest, and was telling the entire house that it was really unhappy. She hoped to get to the as-yet-unnamed beast before Ember, who appeared to be seriously displeased.
Phryne paced down the staircase into the parlour and turned on the light. The grocer's box padded with an old jumper was still in the chimney corner, but there was no warmth left in the ashes. She knelt down and looked in, and a small desperate creature tried to fit itself into her hand, stopping in mid-howl and whimpering.
'Poor little pest,' said Phryne, lifting the puppy and cradling it to her silky breast. 'I'll bet you're hungry and you are certainly cold. Let's go and warm you some milk, shall we, and we'll put your box next to the stove.'
It was one thirty by the kitchen clock. Phryne stoked the slow-combustion stove with chunks of red gum, lowered the lids and waited for a while until the firebox began to roar. Then she found a saucepan and heated some milk and water, half and half for a dog. She poured it into a saucer and watched the little dog wriggle and lap, reflecting how strange it was to be sitting in her own house at such an hour on such an errand. The rest of the house was asleep. Dot was asleep in her tower, and the girls in their bedroom under the jazz-coloured comforters. Phryne could hear Mr Butler snoring in the Butler's suite, beyond the pantry. It was strange to be awake, Phryne thought, when everyone else was so firmly in the land of nod.
Ember walked into the kitchen and sat down at Phryne's feet, tail curled around black paws, looking inscrutable as was his wont. The clock ticked. The electric light banished the darkness but made the garden outside Phryne's house as black as a pit, and she felt suddenly uncomfortable, as though someone was watching her. She pulled the creamy silk close at the front, swore and stood up, taking the poker. Action, she reflected, was always better than unease.
She unlocked the back door with its huge key and stood in the doorway, scanning her own domain. One tree, tall. One shed, whitewashed. Three garden beds, grey in the darkness. One small patch of lawn. Nothing else, no sound but the wind and no movement but the trees bowing under the wind. She stared out into the night, poker raised, for some time before she closed and locked the door again and returned to the puppy.
It had clambered back into the grocer's box, and was washing itself inefficiently with a small pink tongue like a scrap of ham. Ember, watching it with close attention, cleared the box lid with one complicated leap which took him into a reclining position with the puppy snuggled up to his side. He dipped his gaze and licked the top of its ragged black and white head, then began to wash its milky face.
'Ember, it's a dog, canis, you know, not felis,' Phryne informed him. Ember appeared unenlightened by this news. The kitchen began to warm. Phryne, fascinated, made herself some Dutch cocoa from the tin with the lady in a white cap on the front and sat sipping it, her bare feet on the hearth stone, the uncurtained windows as black as black glass, and listened to Ember's rising purr.
She put herself back to bed half an hour later, and the night seemed to have quieted so that she fell easily asleep.
All of which went close to explaining why, when Phryne woke suddenly to voices at her own front door, she was annoyed.
'Eight of the clock on a Sunday morning, what an hour!' she exclaimed, as Dot tentatively enquired if Miss Fisher wanted to see the apologetic young man now downstairs with a bunch of hyacinths (white) in his hand?
'Oh, all right, Dot dear, but I'm not getting up yet. Tell Mr Abrahams that if he cares to breakfast with me I will be delighted to see him in a quarter of an hour's time. Open the window, Dot dear, and bring me coffee, I want to see the spoon standing up in it.'
Phryne extracted herself from a tangle of green sheets and quilt, went into her own bathroom, made certain contraceptive preparations and washed her face. That was as far as she was intending to go in the way of hygiene, and her cream negligee which supplemented the remarkable appeal of her cream nightdress should be decent enough for a chat with a nice young man before Phryne went back to sleep. The insertion of her diaphragm was almost second nature now, with a young man in the offing. She stood at the window, looking out, until the rising wind chilled her and she wrestled the casement shut.
There were green leaves on the sill, recently broken, but whether they had been snapped off the parent stem by a climber or a possum or the weather, who could tell?
Simon Abrahams, who was escorted up the stairs to Miss Fisher's boudoir by a very respectable maid carrying a covered tray, stopped at the door and stared in a way which would have caused his mother to clip his ears. The room was lush, and the bed in which Miss Fisher reposed was hung about with cobweb-fine black gauze embroidered with ivy leaves and grapes. He looked aside and saw his own faun's face in a mirror wreathed with garlands. The bedchamber was opulent, unrestrained and entirely shameless he was glad to say, and he walked forward, his feet sinking into a velvety carpet like moss.
'Simon dear, do come in,' said the vision in the big bed. She was draped in milky Chinese silk and looked both sleepy and cross. He thought her very beautiful and dangerous, and sat down carefully on the edge of her bed and took her hand reverently between both of his own, raising it to his lips to kiss.