Benighted Page 10

  Then something happened. The little lighted patch of night, with its gleam of falling rain and wet ground, at which she had been idly staring for the last five minutes, was suddenly blotted out, and there was nothing but darkness before her. The doorway was all dark. The lights in the house must have gone out. It was all so sudden, so unexpected, so noiseless, that for a moment or two she was completely bewildered and rather frightened. Then she heard voices raised indoors. They would be telling one another that the lights would have to be attended to, that the fusing or whatever it was would have to be put right. The lights would probably be on again in a few minutes. She had said she would wait there. If she went in now, she might spoil it all. She would stay where she was.

  It was queer, frightening, though, standing there in the dark and not knowing what was happening. She could at least peep in, just to satisfy herself. There was a very faint firelight creeping through the doorway now. She could hear voices again, and footsteps, now a loud voice—that was the fat, deaf woman, who must be quite close. She had been staring irresolutely at the darkened doorway, but now, having determined to look into the house, she moved a pace or two forward and to the right. Had she moved another step the heavy door would have flung her back bodily, but as it was she stopped just in time. Actually it did not touch her but it seemed to have been banged in her face.

  She was so startled that the crash left her dizzy, leaning against the door for support. It was as if someone had dealt her a blow. No gust of wind could have banged that great door into its place; somebody inside had shut it; and she was locked out. And now it was darker than ever, and all she could hear was the noise of the rain, a dismal, frightening, lonely sort of noise.

  Why didn’t he come back with that flask? Why didn’t somebody remember they were out and open the door? It had only been shut by a silly accident. She would knock and let them know she was there. But even when she made up her mind, it seemed as if her muscles would not obey her at once, so that she hesitated for some time, with one hand resting on the door itself and the other ready clenched for the knocking. She grew impatient with herself. What was the matter? A rap or two would settle it. Yet when she did knock at last, it was hurriedly and rather timidly, like somebody dubious of the fate an opened door would bring. She waited a moment and then knocked again, this time with more confidence.

  Nothing happened. The massive door looked as if it were closed for ever. The noise of the rain returned with greater insistence, and the night, the immense black wet gulf of it, seemed to close round her. What had happened in the house? What had become of Penderel? She couldn’t wait for him any longer, everything had suddenly become so queer. If she stood in front of that door another minute, she would want to scream and batter it with her two fists. He didn’t know these things were happening, and he was only round the corner. She would go and find him.

  It was a relief to do something, even though it meant splashing through the darkness. She made for that corner of the house round which Penderel’s light had disappeared, but when she had groped her way to the other side of it there were no signs of any sheds or coach-houses. There was, however, some sort of light on the left, and she hurried towards it, imagining for a moment or so that she had found Penderel. But no, this was still the house itself. The light was shining through an uncurtained window on the ground floor. She went nearer and saw that the light came from a solitary candle and that someone was sitting in there. Could this be Penderel? No, it was not. She approached the window more cautiously now, and peeped in.

  The candle was on a bare table and it showed her the figure of a man sprawling there, with a bottle of brandy and a glass before him. It was the huge dumb man she had seen when she first came in, the man they said was drinking, Morgan. She could not see him very distinctly because the window was streaming, but she received a vivid if fantastic impression of his humped shoulders and hairy flushed face. His head was rolling a little from side to side, and he put one great paw on the table to steady himself. He looked as if he had reached the brooding stage, and very soon, she thought, if he didn’t fall asleep, he would turn nasty. She had seen them before—usually with two or three policemen hanging on to them before they had done—and he was obviously that sort and such a huge brute too. He would need about four policemen if he turned nasty. They ought to have locked him in that room, which seemed to be a kitchen. Perhaps they had, though. Now she saw him lift his head, and she felt a sudden stab of fear as he appeared to turn his eyes towards the window. But she reminded herself that he couldn’t see her, and she stayed where she was, watching him, fascinated. Now he had rolled to his feet and was looking about him. He moved forward for a few paces and then stopped, swaying slightly and apparently muttering to himself. Obviously he hadn’t reached the legless state as she thought he might have done, for he moved with some confidence, but he was drunk, there was no doubt about that, broodingly and dangerously drunk, ready for mischief and worse.

  She turned away, dazed after looking at the light, and groped her way round the next corner, feeling wet and cold now and apprehensive. Where was Penderel? For a moment she was completely bewildered by the total darkness and splashed on helplessly, like someone lost and blind. But she heard a noise coming from the right somewhere. It sounded like a horse moving in its stable. She pressed on vaguely in the direction of the sound and seemed to approach a long black bulk. These must be the coach-house and sheds he had mentioned. Yes, there was a glimmer of light further away on the left. She hastened towards it, heedless of the pools through which she had to splash, and a moment later found herself blinking in the sudden full glare of the electric torch. She had found him.

  ‘Is that you?’ she called, halting.

  ‘Hello!’ came his voice, and she hurried forward. ‘I was just coming back,’ he went on. ‘Sorry to have been such a time, but first I couldn’t find the car and then I couldn’t find the flask. I looked all round the back seat, then at last remembered I had passed it to Waverton and he had put it down and forgotten it, and it was on the front seat. Sorry to have kept you waiting.’

  She was hardly listening. They were in a kind of shed, and she was at his side, leaning against him, breathless. She felt all weak now. ‘Half a minute,’ she gasped, and straightened herself.

  He put a hand on her arm, and with the other hand sent the light of the torch circling round the shed. ‘Hello, what’s wrong?’

  She waited a few moments. It didn’t seem much now. He would think she was being silly. ‘Nothing much really,’ she told him. ‘Only it seemed so funny. While I was standing at the door, waiting for you, all the lights in the house suddenly went out.’

  ‘That’s nothing,’ he interrupted. ‘They’ve been jumpy all the time. I’ve been expecting that. This home-made electricity’s always going wrong, and a night like this just asks for it.’

  ‘All right, Mr. Wise Man. I thought of that too. But there’s some more. Just after the lights went out, the door was banged in my face. I was locked out.’

  ‘That’s queer certainly,’ he admitted. ‘Perhaps the wind though . . .’

  ‘No, it wasn’t. Then I knocked, but nobody came. I was fed up standing there, waiting for you, so I set off to find you, and on the way I saw that man Morgan in the kitchen, fighting drunk. Phew!’ She blew out her breath. ‘I want to sit down.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ he cried. ‘You want a drink too. Well, then, inside or out?’

  ‘What do you mean? If it’s the drink, I want it inside.’

  He turned her round and flashed the light forward. There was the car, which had been backed into the long shed. ‘We can perch on the step or running-board or whatever they call it, or we can get inside and be snug and talk it all out over the whisky. Just a minute,’ he added, moving forward. ‘I’ll switch on the lights to make it cosier. Only the dims though, because it’s Waverton’s electrici
ty, not mine. There you are.’

  ‘We’ll sit inside,’ she decided.

  ‘Right you are. Front or back?’ he enquired, bowing and waving a hand towards the two doors.

  She laughed. He was turning it all into fun again. ‘Oh, the back!’ she cried. He held open the door and she climbed in and settled herself happily on the cushions. He sat down by her side and began to unscrew the flask.

  ‘So they’ve shut us out, eh?’ He was pouring the whisky into the little cup. ‘Well, that’s nothing new, is it? We’re always being shut out.’

  ‘I’m not.’ She took the cup he offered.

  He laughed. ‘Aren’t you? I am. Drink up, and then begin at the beginning and tell me all about it. Wait, though, I’ll have a drink first. I don’t suppose there’s anything in it, I mean the business of the lights and the door, of course, but there might be, there’s just a chance. If there were, it would be something horrible. Well, I drink your health, Gladys.’ He drained the cup. ‘I hope you don’t mind my calling you that, as between fellow adventurers, you know, shut out, lost in the dark, draining the last flask.’

  ‘No, I don’t mind. I like it.’ She felt warm now, snuggling in the seat and with the tiny fire of whisky somewhere inside her; and she found herself leaning against him a little, discovering a certain comfort in the suggestion of his neighbouring solidity. ‘But what do you mean by your something horrible?’ she went on to ask. ‘Are you trying to frighten me?’

  He was more serious now, though not entirely so. ‘No, I’m not. I tell you I don’t suppose there’s anything in it. But, I repeat, if there were, it would be something horrible. What I mean is, that this house we’ve crept into out of the dark might be all right—that is, so far as we’re concerned, just for to-night, we’ll say—and probably will be, but it’s very queer, and if it goes wrong, it’ll go wrong very badly. I feel it in my bones. Once off the track and there’ll be something hellish let loose. You see, I’ve been brooding over it a bit, and I know more about it than you do.’

  ‘You’re making it up,’ she cried. ‘You don’t know any more than I do. You’re trying to work it all up into something very exciting, just to pass the time. I know you.’

  ‘Perhaps I am. But listen. To begin with, there’s old Sir Roderick.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘Exactly, who’s he? You’ve never heard of him. But he’s in there. He’s the master of the house really and was once tremendously important, but is now very old and infirm and is somewhere upstairs, invisible and ungetatable. When you come to think of it, he’s rather like God.’

  She pinched his arm. ‘You mustn’t,’ she told him, and meant it. It wouldn’t do to say such things a night like this. He was worse than she was, and she would have to hold him in. He didn’t seem to resent the pinch and she let her hand stay where it was, loosely grasping his arm.

  ‘Then there’s woman Femm,’ he continued. ‘You’ve seen and heard her. She might break out anywhere. I’m not sure now she didn’t frighten Margaret Waverton. There’s Morgan. You’ve just seen him——’

  ‘I have,’ she broke in, with conviction, ‘and I hope to God they’ve locked him in.’

  ‘There’s man Femm, those bones that have dodged the police. I wonder what he’d been doing, by the way. Now the queer thing about him is that he’s terrified, absolutely jangling with fear of something or somebody in the house. I noticed it, and he said he was afraid of Morgan getting drunk——’

  ‘If that’s what it was, I don’t blame him.’ She was very emphatic.

  ‘But it wasn’t, that’s the point. I’m positive it wasn’t. It was something, somebody else. In the house too. Perhaps it’s Sir Roderick, who may be a kind of old horror.’

  She tightened her grip on his arm. ‘That’s enough of that. I want to be able to go back there.’

  ‘All right. But you ought to have been telling your tale. Now you begin, and when you’ve finished, we’ll go back and see what’s really happened.’ He sank a little lower in his seat and rested his head on the cushions. She began her story of the lights and the door, and as she spoke her head gradually slipped down until at last her cheek was resting against his sleeve. Throughout there was at the back of her mind the thought of that great closed door and the surrounding darkness and the rain that could still be faintly heard beating against the roof of the shed. But there was a little roof of their own, the car’s hood just above their heads, between them and that other roof, and they seemed to be in a queer tiny room, smelling of leather and petrol, that lodged them warmly and securely in the very centre of the night, just the two of them, talking so easily together. She wanted to give herself a shivering little hug—just as she used to do when she was a kid and the curtain went up at the theatre—and she hadn’t felt like that for a long time. It was queer how excited and happy she was inside, simply because the two of them were there talking about strange things and all the time talking their own strangeness away.

  CHAPTER VII

  It had looked as if Philip were going to plunge into an explanation, as if they were going to have it out together at last. They had drawn away from the others and were standing near the fire, intent upon one another. They ought to have begun as soon as that curious talk, which had pretended to be a mere game round the table, had come to an end. Indeed, their eyes had begun, Margaret told herself, and then admitted that it was mean of her to have left the actual cold plunge into talk to Philip. Poor Philip was so dreadfully handicapped. If he wasn’t too proud to talk to her properly—and she was sure the night had withered away all but the merest husk of pride in both of them—he was still shy. Why had she stupidly waited and then squandered the precious moments in chatter. No, it wasn’t really chatter, nothing they said now could be called that, but it wasn’t the talk they wanted. Their eyes condemned it. Eyes were doing that everywhere, watching in despair the world being chattered away.

  Then it had seemed as if he were about to begin. He had tightened his lips for a moment and that familiar little frown had appeared. How well she knew that look! There had been times too—and they weren’t pleasant to think about now—when she had hated it, had turned away and had allowed other faces (Murrell smiling down at her, the sickly fool!—how could she have been so silly!) to come flashing into her mind. The little speech that had followed that look on his face had seemed to confirm her judgment. He had said, very gravely: ‘Did you understand what I meant when I was talking at the table, Margaret? It was important, you know—I mean important for us.’

  There was everything in that plural. Of course she had understood. As if she didn’t know him, know every twist and turn of his mind, so anxious, blundering, honest, yes, gloriously honest! She had waited a moment before replying, but only to pick out the right words so that she could get the two of them really launched. And then, before she had spoken a word, it had happened. The lights had gone out. It was as if the house couldn’t leave them alone. She was just finding her feet in it, that queer experience in that horrible room with Miss Femm was just beginning to look like a mere attack of nerves, everything was settling down into decency and friendliness, and now the light was gone. At first they seemed to be in total darkness, but it was soon partly dispelled by the dull glow from the fire. Now she stood among shadows in a faintly crimsoned cavern.

  The fuss that followed was rather welcome; it did at least keep the house at bay. The men began shouting to one another about fusing and short circuiting and accumulators. Philip, who knew all about these things, offered to try and make the lights work again, but Mr. Femm seemed to think it was hopeless. Margaret didn’t listen very carefully, being content that their loud, cheerful voices filled the darkness. But when Sir William struck a match and held it up and there was talk of candles, she remembered the one she had brought back with her from Miss Femm’s room.

  They
lit this candle and put it on the table, and then they all drew a little closer and looked down on its tiny wavering flame. At this moment, Miss Femm marched in upon them, carrying another lighted candle.

  ‘You’ve got one, have you,’ she yelled at them. ‘Well, look at it. It’s guttering. There’s a draught.’ She looked round the room. ‘The door’s wide open.’ She went over and closed it with a bang. Then she returned to the table, put down her candlestick, and let her little button eyes run from one to the other of them.