Benighted Page 18

  He was standing at the very top now, one hand behind him, touching the rail, the other achingly folded round the poker. While his eyes stared into the shadows and his ears seemed to run on and search the landing, his thoughts went sickeningly racing round. He was terribly afraid now, angry with himself for standing there. Why shouldn’t he rush downstairs, join Gladys in that room and lock the door, or plunge out into the night itself, into safety and sweet air? However, probably nothing would happen. But then, if nothing happened, he would be all right here. And if he went and something did happen, whether it hurt him or not, he knew that all would be over, the road missed for ever; the rest would be just breathing and eating and sleeping, with his spirit, a poor shamed ghost, returning time and again to take its stand on these stairs.

  Yes, he could only stay. What was that? Surely that was somebody moving, not very far away? Why didn’t Waverton and Porterhouse show themselves? But then they wouldn’t, not because they didn’t want to, but because it always happened like that: he might have known that he would have to be alone. He’d always been more afraid of madness than anything else—the very thought of a maniac had always filled him with terror, and when this creature had raved on the stairs he’d felt sick, as if he were being pelted with lumps of putrid flesh—and of course he’d have to come in the end to face it alone. The thing came at last, the darkness shaping itself, and immediately everybody disappeared, doors were locked all round you, and you found yourself alone with it. That noise again, much nearer this time! Yes, he was at the other end of the landing. He was coming on steadily.

  ‘Stop!’ he cried, quite involuntarily. ‘Stay there, d’you hear? Don’t try to get past. I’ve got a poker here and I shall use it.’ His voice was ridiculously hoarse and shaky, not at all commanding.

  The footsteps ceased, and he found he could just see a vague outline of the madman standing there a few yards away. Undoubtedly he had stopped at the sound of a voice, but he made no reply. Penderel waited and then asked himself despairingly how he could have expected a reply. Madness wouldn’t stand there bandying words with him. Nevertheless he had stopped.

  ‘Go back and don’t be a fool.’ Sheer necessity compelled him to speak out again, for only the sound of his own voice kept him from running away. ‘You’re not coming past here. Get back at once.’ It was woefully grotesque and futile perhaps, yet it raised his spirits a little.

  Now there came an answering gabble from that vague shape, a gabble that seemed to end in a kind of chuckle. There was a movement, followed by a quick pattering down the landing. He was going away.

  In his astonishment and relief, Penderel sank back against the banisters. Was it all over, then? Had he really gone? Did it only need a command or two, however shaky, just simple courage, no matter if it was raised perilously on tip-toe, to turn aside—flicking it away—what had seemed doom itself? There came now a moment of triumph, and his spirits went soaring. It seemed as if the corner were turned at last, and he had a flashing vision of life stretched widely and gloriously before him, the shining happy valley, lost for years and apparently gone for ever, a dream bitterly cast off, until this strange night brought glimpse after glimpse of it through thinning mist, and now finally swung it into full view. Now he knew what it was to be alive. He could have cried aloud with happiness.

  The very next moment he was sick at heart. He heard the quick pattering again; the footsteps were hastening towards him through the darkness; and everything, even his courage, collapsed at the sound. He wanted to run headlong now, to run crying defeat and then to hide himself for ever. But one last slender cord of will, still unbroken, kept him standing there.

  ‘Stop!’ he cried again. But how feeble it sounded! He wanted to implore now and not to command.

  The maniac had stopped already, however, though this time he was nearer. There burst from him a sudden yell of rage.

  Penderel drew himself up and tried to control his voice. ‘You can’t come here, I tell you——’ he began; but before he could say any more, something heavy, a chair or a small table, came flying through the air, smashing against his right arm and ribs, sending the poker clattering below, and knocking him sideways and backwards against the banisters as it crashed into them itself. He fell down, helpless in a spinning world, dizzy and sick. His arm hurt dreadfully, seemed to be broken. Soon the creature would be trampling the life out of him. He tried to rise, but it was too late, the maniac was upon him, and he received a blow in the face that sent his head back with a dreadful jolt and blinded him for a moment.

  There was no fear left in him now. In an agony of effort he flung himself forward, grabbed the man’s legs and put out all his strength in one great lift. Down he came, and now they were rolling about the floor, tearing at one another. Penderel found himself possessed by a tremendous fury: ‘You bloody swine!’ he was jerking out, ‘I’ll kill you.’ He contrived to scramble to his feet, but before he had time to do anything but pull himself up, dizzily and achingly, the other was on his feet too and renewing the attack. He was a much older man than Penderel, but he was also much bigger and heavier and seemed to be unusually powerful.

  Penderel had his back against the banisters. For a minute or two, while the madman was still breathless, there was little danger. He was able to dodge or ward off the lumbering blows aimed at him. He covered himself with his left arm, for the right, though not entirely useless, hurt him terribly every time he moved it. Indeed, all his right side ached, and whenever he took a deep breath he felt a little stab of pain there. Standing where he was, he wasn’t really barring the way downstairs, though he could leap upon the man’s back if he should try to go down; but it was evident now that Saul Femm—Penderel had begun to give him his name—intended to settle with him before going any further. And if he could only hold out here, he told himself, the others would be in little danger. Waverton and Porterhouse might return any minute now, and even if he was finished before they did return, he would leave Saul in no condition to deal with them. There was just a minute or two in which to think of these things.

  Now Saul was completely recovered and, screaming wildly, he hurled himself upon Penderel, who heard the banisters cracking ominously behind him. He felt helpless in the man’s grasp. The pressure of the banisters against the small of his back was agonising. And struggle as he might, he could not release himself. One hand was fumbling for his throat. The banisters were cracking again, and he felt himself being lifted. Desperately he drew up one leg and, hanging on with all his might, drove his knee into the other man’s belly, released the pressure a little, contrived to slip his leg down again, pushed a hand up under Saul’s slavering chin, and by summoning the very remnant of his strength was able to send them both tottering forward a pace, clear of the banisters. There they swayed, six inches this way and that, at close grips.

  Blood and sweat ran down his face, blinding him; the pain in his side was intolerable; and he felt his strength ebbing out; but he held on, held on as if there was nothing else left in the world to do. And all the while his mind, escaping from this shameful nightmare of stench and blood and pain, went darting back to queer memories and flashing along the edge of vivid little dreams; and once more he was lying in the long cool grass near the playing-field wall, or listening to Jim and Tom Ranger outside a tent, a glimmer of starlight there, or standing under the blossom at Garthstead; and oddly mingling with these memories were thoughts that came and went like swallows, thoughts of the dusk and glitter of town at early evening, quiet pipes in the night, the loud jolly orchestra and the brightening curtain, that little place up five flights of stairs, Gladys laughing at him, brave eyes meeting his through a door suddenly opened. They were so long, so long swaying there in the dark, there was time for a whole shadow show of life.

  He couldn’t see at all now; he had to fight for each stabbing breath; and the blood drummed relentlessly in his ears. One hand had f
ound Saul’s throat and tightened on it, but he could no longer hold his ground and fell back inch after inch until at last he seemed to be lifted off his feet. He went crashing against the banisters; something was breaking; the life was being squeezed out of him; but still he held on. Now they were clear of the banisters again, for Saul had relaxed his pressure for a moment and had been compelled to fall back a step, with Penderel still clinging to him. Saul put out all his remaining strength in one tremendous heave. ‘I’m done, I’m done,’ Penderel was crying, crying through a black night of crashing, splintering woodwork and rushing air. And then there was no more pain.

  CHAPTER XIV

  Margaret was trying the handle of the door. ‘He’s locked it,’ she cried, staring at Gladys.

  ‘I know he has.’ Gladys had sunk to her knees. She put the candlestick, with its feeble, spluttering flame on the floor beside her, and stretched out a hand to the door, leaning against it. ‘He’s shut us in because he thought we’d be safe in here.’ She spoke slowly, dully.

  ‘I don’t want to be safe, to be shut in like this.’ Margaret rattled the handle uselessly. ‘I want to know what’s happening. I want to be with Phil—my husband.’

  ‘Don’t you see?’ Gladys had roused herself and was looking up now, her eyes bright with resentment. ‘He’s out there, waiting for that lunatic to come down, and shoved us in here to be out of the way. You don’t seem to understand what he’s doing. You thought he was dodging it, didn’t you? My God!’

  ‘I did at first,’ Margaret said gently. ‘I’m sorry.’ And as she looked down at the girl’s pale face, working queerly in that jumpy little light, she felt sorry too, sorry for her, sorry for everybody.

  ‘As if he would!’ Then her tone changed from indignation to bitterness. ‘Well, I wish to God he had, wish we’d never come back. It would have to be him, of course it would be. It was just waiting for him. That’s silly, I suppose. I don’t care. I’m all to pieces now—and he’s out there, as lonely as hell, waiting for that—that thing.’

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ Margaret told her, trying to keep her voice quiet and confident. ‘The others will be back soon. Then there’ll be three of them.’

  ‘That woman locked the other door,’ Gladys muttered.

  ‘They’ll get the key from her when they’ve done with Morgan,’ Margaret went on. But she was thinking how all this crazy locking of doors made it seem like a bad dream. She glanced round in the dying light and shivered. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘I don’t know. What does it matter?’ Gladys raised herself up and tried to listen through the door.

  Margaret took up the candlestick and moved forward a few paces. She saw nothing but the dimmest shapes of furniture, however, for the little spluttering flame gave a last jump, trembled, and then rapidly dwindled. Her spirits sank with it as the darkness closed round her. She trailed back to the door and, when the last flicker had gone, she let the candlestick fall to the ground. ‘What’s happening?’ She bent forward.

  ‘Oh, I can’t hear a thing,’ Gladys whispered.

  Together they listened at the door, and it seemed to be hours before they heard anything but their own quick breathing and heart-beats. They were lost in a pulsating darkness.

  ‘We can’t do anything but wait,’ whispered Margaret at last. Somehow she daren’t raise her voice above a whisper.

  ‘I can hear him moving about now; can you?’ Gladys listened again. ‘Bill and your husband don’t seem to have come out yet. I believe he’s going upstairs.’

  ‘Yes, he is,’ Margaret told her, and could feel her trembling. There was a long pause, during which they listened again, then Margaret went on: ‘I can’t hear anything now. Perhaps he’s waiting at the top. That’s horrible, isn’t it? Why doesn’t Philip come back? It’s awful waiting here.’

  ‘It’s worse waiting there,’ cried Gladys, raising her voice now. ‘With that ghastly loony creeping down. Oh, my God!’ She cleared her throat. ‘I expect you know what’s the matter with me, or you must think I’m going mad too.’

  ‘I feel we’re all going mad to-night,’ Margaret broke in, hastily. ‘Everything’s turned crazy and horrible. That’s the awful thing, isn’t it?—that you can’t trust anything, like being in a nightmare. Haven’t you been feeling that?’

  ‘Yes, I have.’ Gladys was at once eager and piteous. ‘Didn’t I tell you before? I knew, I knew. Something told me all along, and I tried to tell him but I couldn’t make him understand. It was only a feeling—but you know what I mean?’

  ‘Who did you try to tell?’

  ‘Penderel, of course. When we were outside. That’s what I was going to tell you, I mean when I said you’d know what’s the matter with me—because, you see—Oh, you know—I love him. We can talk now, can’t we? Yes, we went outside and sat and talked, and then I found it out; came as quick as lightning, sudden but absolutely dead certain.’ Then she added, simply: ‘And you know what it means. You’re in love with your husband, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’ This was neither the time nor the place, Margaret felt, for all those delicate reservations that her truthful mind had so often brought out and examined. Then she realised, in a flash, that they no longer appeared to exist. She couldn’t remember what they were. And she didn’t want to remember. ‘I haven’t always thought so,’ she went on. ‘But I am.’

  ‘I knew you were,’ Gladys whispered. ‘I could tell, always can. But I suppose it doesn’t make you ache any more, does it?’

  ‘I think,’ said Margaret, slowly, ‘it’s beginning to, again.’

  ‘It’s funny it’s so different——’ Gladys began, but then broke off. There was a crash outside. ‘My God! Did you hear that? And we can’t do a thing! Has that lunatic come down, do you think? Are they fighting?’

  ‘I think they must be. It’s horrible, horrible.’

  ‘And he’s there by himself. The other two haven’t come back. Why don’t they come?’ Gladys pressed her hands together in the darkness.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Margaret stammered. ‘Something may have happened to them. That beast—Morgan—and Miss Femm.’ Then something seemed to snap inside her. ‘Oh, I can’t bear it, can’t bear it any longer.’ Her legs crumpled like paper and she slipped down the door, sobbing.

  Gladys was kneeling by her side now, with an arm about her. ‘Never mind, never mind, Mrs. Waverton. It’s awful, isn’t it, but it’ll all come right for you, you’ll see. Nothing’ll have happened to him. Your man can look after himself.’ They clung together, while through the dark, from behind the door, came tiny vague sounds, a mysterious thud-thudding. But neither of them wanted to listen any longer. They could only wait, comforting one another, until the door was opened again, to reveal their fate. Until that moment arrived, this was all their world, and they could only cling together in the darkness and cry to one another their hope and their despair.

  ‘It’s worn me down,’ said Margaret, brokenly. ‘You’ve no idea what it’s been like, for me, here. One thing after another. First, Miss Femm—telling me about her sister—then touching me—and that horrible room of hers. Then Morgan—he came after me—like a beast. And Philip had to fight him, upstairs. And then that strange old man—lying so still in his bed—whispering terrible things. And now this. All going on and on. Everything strange and dark and getting queerer and darker. No end to it. Until at last you begin to feel that all the safe and clean and sane things have gone for ever. You can’t hold on for ever. It’s been different for you perhaps; but don’t you see what I mean?’

  Gladys murmured that she did and tightened her clasp. She didn’t understand it all, but that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now except keeping close until that door opened.

  ‘I hated it at first,’ Margaret went on. ‘But then when we were talking round the table I liked it. And I t
hought Philip and I could easily find one another after that, because it seemed so easy to know and understand people, even strangers, so easy to be happy with someone you once loved.’

  ‘I felt that too, or something like it.’ Gladys was crying very quietly. ‘Oh, what am I crying for! It doesn’t matter though. But—it was better than that with me. It was really beginning, see? First, listening to all of you, then talking about myself. Then talking to him out there. And being able to laugh about everything together, and knowing as well that I could do a lot for him. He was absolutely fed up, didn’t care a damn about anything. And I was like that really. And then I thought, if it lasted, I wouldn’t be lonely any more, wouldn’t be going in at night sometimes wishing I was dead. And even if it didn’t last, I’d had something, you see, something different. . . .’

  Margaret had been mechanically telling herself that it was all very sudden and strange, this love affair of her companion’s. But when Gladys’s voice trailed away, there came, flowing up through the silence, the thought that it was not strange at all, that it was as simple and natural as the breath in their bodies. Now it seemed strange that people whose hearts were empty could meet on such a night and talk through this darkness without loving. ‘I see,’ she said, after a long pause. Then she added: ‘You know, I didn’t like you at first, but I do now.’