Benighted Page 5

  ‘Yes, they’d even bring their women here.’ Miss Femm’s voice was edged with hate. ‘This house was filled with sin. Nobody took any notice of me, except to laugh. Even the women, brazen lolling creatures, smothered in silks and scents, would laugh. They went years ago, and they’re not laughing now, wherever they are. And you don’t hear any laughing here. If I came among them—my own father and brothers, my own blood—they’d tell me to go away and pray, though they never used to tell Rachel to go away and pray. Yes, and I went away and prayed. Oh yes, I prayed.’

  This was poor crazed stuff, but Margaret seemed to hear those prayers, terribly freighted. She stood up now, before pulling off her dress, and saw, so vividly in the candle-light from the mantelshelf, one side of the swollen face, a fungus cheek. It looked like grey seamed fat, sagging into putrefaction. The woman’s whole figure seemed so much dead matter, something that would just stay there and rot. Only her voice and her little eyes were alive, but these were dreadfully alive; and they would remain, screeching and cursing, staring and snapping, when everything else had rotted. Oh, what nonsense was this? The poor old creature was infecting her. She must be sensible, she told herself, and found relief in pulling off her dress.

  After the last outburst, Miss Femm’s mood seemed to change. ‘I’ve kept myself free from all earthly love, which is nothing but vanity and lusts of the flesh. You’ll come to see that in time, and then it may be too late to give yourself, as I’ve done, to the Lord. Just now, you’re young and handsome and silly, and probably think of nothing but your long straight legs and white shoulders and what silks to put on and how to please your man; you’re revelling in the joys of fleshly love, eh?’

  Margaret was only too glad that she was busy rubbing her shoulders with the towel, for this talk made her want to rub and rub, to wipe every word away as soon as it reached her. This stuff was even worse than the other. She towelled away at her bared arms and shoulders and made no reply.

  Miss Femm didn’t seem to care. She went on staring, and said at last: ‘Have you given him a child?’

  That, at least, could be answered. ‘Yes, we’ve one child,’ Margaret told her, ‘a girl, four years old. Her name’s Betty.’ How queer to think of Betty now! She suddenly saw her asleep in that nursery, far away, not merely in Hampstead, in another world. But no, Betty wasn’t in another world—that was the awful thing—she had come into the same world as this Femm woman, yes, and that other, Rachel, who had once screamed on that bed. Her heart shook. She wanted to rush back to Betty at once.

  ‘Betty,’ Miss Femm began. ‘I once knew a Betty.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear, I don’t want to hear,’ Margaret repeated to herself, and somehow contrived to beat off the words that followed as she picked up the blue dress she had taken out of her bag. It was a lovely dress—almost new, and Philip and Muriel Ainsley had both admired it—and it might conquer everything, make this night all clean and sensible again at a stroke. Lovingly she unfolded it.

  When she looked up again, she was surprised to find that Miss Femm, now silent, was much nearer than she had been before. The eyes in that swollen, grey, fatty mask were now fixed upon her. She shivered, suddenly feeling as if she were standing there naked.

  Miss Femm came nearer, stretched out a hand and touched the dress. ‘That’s fine stuff, but it’ll rot. And that’s finer stuff still, but it’ll rot too in time.’

  ‘What’s finer stuff?’ Margaret was looking down at her dress as she asked the question.

  ‘That is.’ And the hand that had been fingering the dress was suddenly pushed flatly and coldly against the bare skin, just above her right breast.

  Margaret sprang back, sick and dazed, all her skin shuddering from that toad-like touch. ‘Don’t!’ she gasped. She was going to fall, to faint; the room was slithery with beastliness, dark with swarming terrors. Then anger came shooting up like a rocket, and cleared the air. She felt herself towering. ‘How dare you!’ she blazed at her. She made a sudden movement, shaking herself, and Miss Femm retreated, mumbling.

  There was a knock at the door. Margaret jumped and looked round, then turned to Miss Femm, who was still mumbling. ‘There’s someone at the door,’ she shouted. ‘You’d better see who it is.’ The other looked across, and then, without a word, took the candle from the mantelshelf and went slowly to the door, opened it an inch or two and peeped out. The next moment it had shut behind her.

  The room darkened and grew as soon as Miss Femm had left it. But of course there was only one candle now; it sent Margaret’s shadow sprawling gigantically across the foot of the bed. She turned her eyes away. She did not want to look at that bed. It was growing ghostly; the whole room was filling with ghosts. If she looked at that bed long enough she might see a wasted hand thrust out of it, and meet the eyes of that girl, Rachel Femm. She had heard Rebecca Femm, perhaps it was time now for her to hear Rachel Femm. No, no; things were not really like that; they kept their sanity even if people didn’t; it was only yourself that pushed you over the edge, where the horrors began. She wouldn’t look again, but she’d be sensible inside and busy herself with the familiar comforting things.

  But she couldn’t put on that dress yet: she didn’t feel clean; she wouldn’t feel really clean for days, but something could be done to wipe away that hand. She could feel it yet. There was some water in a jug on the wash-hand stand. She stared at it for a moment, disliking the thought of using it, but finally dipped her towel in it and then rubbed herself hard. She was very tired now and still trembling a little, but the rubbing made her feel better. After she had put on her dress she sat down in front of the little cracked mirror (turning a twitching back to the ghosts) and hastily, shakily, tidied her hair. The familiar reflection brought comfort to her; its peeping blue eyes and lifted mouth sent a message to say that she was Margaret Waverton, that Philip was waiting for her a few yards away, that the car was only round the corner, that they were merely taking shelter in a funny old house among the Welsh mountains. After that message she had time to powder her nose. Then she put away all the things she had taken off and fastened the bag. I’m treating you now, she told the house, as if you were a railway station; you’re not worthy of having an open bag in you and some stockings left to dry.

  She could go now, walk out of this horrible room for ever. (How did she know she could? What if she were brought back in here, to lie in that bed and scream, like Rachel Femm?) She took up the candle and her eye fell on a text just above: The Lord is my Shepherd. She suddenly saw a vast herd of Rebecca Femms. What was their shepherd like? And somewhere behind all that was a beautiful idea, something to do with Betty snuggled into her pillow or with Philip smoking his pipe in the garden on summer nights; and it was all buried, suffocated. The very air of this room, atmosphere made out of dirty wool, would suffocate anything. Well, it was her turn now: she would show this room something, however badly she might be behaving. So she put down her candle, drew back the heavy curtains from the window, jerked up the blind, and, after a struggle with the rusty fastenings and the stiff cord, opened the window. The night came roaring in with a sweep of wind and rain, but the air was unbelievably fresh and sweet. She stood there for a moment, lifting her face towards the now friendly darkness, and strangely she felt the tears gathering in her eyes. A gust of wind blew out the candle. She turned away, found her bag, and walked to the door. When she came to close it from outside she could see nothing of the room, for now all was darkness there, but she seemed to hear the rain, blown in through the window, faintly pattering on the floor.

  As she went back along the corridor she decided that she wouldn’t tell Philip what had happened. She wanted to tell him, but that would have to wait; she couldn’t tell him until things were absolutely dead right between them again, when they would begin once more to share everything, halving thoughts and swapping dreams. Things ought to be like that now, this very mi
nute, she told herself; it would make all the difference here, in this place, where one was so lonely, lost. If she had known this was going to happen—but then of course she hadn’t. She never thought of things like this, and Philip did—it had been one of her complaints, that silly anxiousness of his—and he ought to have made the move. They could have walked into this together then, just a dark night’s adventure. She had had an impulse to say something too, earlier, but you couldn’t break the months of smooth politeness (Did you sleep well? Very well, thanks. Did you?) with a few words shouted in a car during an incessant downpour. And now she couldn’t begin. It would be nothing but humiliating surrender, with Philip pretending elaborately to her that it wasn’t. No, this night at least she must see it through in silence.

  She had probably seen the worst of it, though, and everything would now become sensible again instead of getting more and more out of hand, opening pits under your feet. (Though nerves accounted for most of it; and days and nights of rain and Penderel’s company—he loved to make the simplest thing seem sinister and unmanageable, even his stupid jokes were wild, unpleasant—would account for nerves.) The rest would be merely discomfort and the writhing memory of that room. But if there were only another woman there (not that horror), someone of her own kind who would understand a word or a glance, it would be better.

  Yes, everything was all right, she told herself as she pushed open the door into the hall. The men were there, looking comfortable enough. And there were signs of supper on the table. Food—even if that woman had a hand in it—would make a difference. She walked across to them, smiling. Would they notice that something had happened to her? Philip might, and he was looking at her, smiling too, though rather vaguely. Now that she saw him again, that room seemed miles away, shrank to a pin-point of terror.

  She put down the bag and walked up to Philip. ‘You must have wondered what had become of me,’ she told him.

  ‘No, they told me you’d gone to change.’ He was surprisingly casual.

  ‘Didn’t you think I’d been a long time?’ she asked, hoping that he wouldn’t think she was fishing for a compliment as she used to do in the old days.

  He shook his head and smiled. ‘I didn’t expect you back so soon. You’ve been quicker than usual.’

  It was astonishing. She felt as if she had been away for hours, just because she had gone through that adventure, been jammed into all manner of queer horrible lives for a few minutes, while they had smoked a cigarette or two and chatted by the fire. ‘I seem to have been away a long time,’ she replied lamely. It was rather frightening, this difference in the point of view, leaving you so lonely.

  ‘Good for you, Mrs. Waverton!’ Penderel called out to her from the other side of the fireplace. ‘You make it look like a party. I knew you would. And there’s supper coming, though of course it’s not polite to mention it.’

  It was one of his silly remarks, but for once he did not irritate her and she smiled across at him. But, strangely enough, instead of giving her his usual grin in return, he gave her a curiously unsmiling but kind, even sympathetic, glance. It was just as if he knew what had been happening. That, of course, was absurd, but still there was something very strange in his look.

  ‘Supper will be ready in a few minutes, Mrs. Waverton,’ said a harsh voice at her elbow. This was that long bony creature, Mr. Femm. She had forgotten his existence, but now she looked at him with a new and rather creepy interest. ‘We have very little to offer you, I am afraid,’ he went on, ‘but you will understand that we were not expecting company. We have to live very simply here.’ He moved forward to help Morgan, who had just entered, to unload a tray. Morgan too she had almost forgotten, and now she looked curiously at his bearded sullen face and gigantic bulk. For one moment he raised his heavy head and his eyes met hers and some kind of intelligence seemed to dawn in them. Then, from behind him, a third figure appeared, to busy itself at the table. It was Miss Femm.

  Philip was asking her if she was hungry. ‘I am; just about ready for anything,’ he added. ‘And by the way, we’re probably entirely cut off by this time. It’s just possible, I understand, that soon we couldn’t get out of the house even if we wanted to do. Not that it matters, of course, for a few hours, an odd night. We’re not too badly off here, though probably there won’t be much sleep for us.’ It was just the kind of thing she had wanted to avoid doing, but somehow it was done before she could think. She had slipped a hand through his arm and was now pressing it close.

  CHAPTER IV

  Penderel left his chair, and the three of them, making a little group in front of the fire, talked in whispers. Margaret had released Philip’s arm and was now feeling rather foolish. She had just caught sight of a loaf of bread and a large piece of cheese, and the solid ordinariness of them had suggested to her that she was in danger of behaving like a tired hysterical woman.

  ‘It’s absurd,’ said Penderel, ‘that we should have to be so secretive about food. Why should we have to pretend it isn’t there until our hosts point it out to us? I’d like to live in a country where all guests gathered round the table and were expected to make comments as each dish appeared. They’d say: “What’s this you’re putting on the table? Oh, yes, splendid! We all like that”; or “Don’t bring that cabbage in for us. We never touch it.” What do you think?’

  ‘It would suit me,’ said Philip. ‘But I don’t know how hostesses would like it.’

  ‘They wouldn’t,’ Margaret replied for them. ‘It would be beastly.’ She liked the glance that Philip had given her; it wasn’t so blank; there was friendliness, a hint of long intimacy, in it. She smiled at him.

  Philip returned the smile. ‘You don’t understand hostesses, Penderel. I suspect you’ve never really been behind the scenes.’ But his thoughts were with Margaret. She was different somehow. She was thawing. He wished there was time and opportunity to talk, really to talk, with all cards quietly set out on the table. Perhaps there would be, later. This would be just the place for it, so remote, so strange, where, so to speak, you couldn’t hide any cards as you could at home.

  Penderel thought he would keep on, though really he had nothing to say. He was like a hostess himself. But they seemed to like it, and it eased the situation. ‘Now that’s not true,’ he cried. ‘I have imagination, and we imaginative fellows are always behind the scenes, and so we suffer with all our hosts and hostesses but must only smile and smile, like true guests. Women don’t suffer like that, do they, Mrs. Waverton, because though they know what’s going on when they are guests, they don’t identify themselves with it, but stand on their dignity as guests and are as aloof as High Court judges.’

  ‘No, they don’t, Mr. Penderel.’ She was sharp but very friendly. She liked him much better here than she had done in the outside world, in civilisation. ‘They only appear to do. It’s no use: you can’t deceive us. You don’t understand women at all. You don’t know anything about them.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Penderel confessed. ‘I don’t understand ’em. I don’t even pretend to. Another thing, I don’t like the fellows who do.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ said Philip. ‘It’s a funny thing, but the men who write little books about women, or lecture about them, or pretend to specialise in them in their novels are always complete bounders. You must have noticed that, Penderel?’ He had said this before—he could almost read the number of times in Margaret’s glance, demure, amused, tolerant—but he spoke with conviction. The thought of those greasy experts suddenly annoyed him.

  ‘I have noticed it.’ Penderel was very emphatic. ‘They’re nasty, crawly lads, who’d be better employed selling lipsticks. Why women themselves can’t see it, I don’t know. They seem to love ’em.’

  ‘There you go again!’ Margaret was amused by the pair of them, so intolerant and self-righteous, so young mannish. ‘I believe the secret of your hostili
ty is simple jealousy. You’re both jealous because these men seem to be so attractive.’ They instantly denied the charge, but let her continue. ‘And anyhow, sensible women don’t like them very much, probably don’t like them at all in their heart of hearts. But one can’t help being interested and curious, of course.’

  ‘One can,’ said Philip, gloomily, ‘or one ought to try. Too many people are interested and curious nowadays. We’re all becoming tasters. We sit at the back of our minds watching our sensations like people at a music hall, and we find ourselves yawning between the turns. It’s impossible to be happy, or even cheerful, that way. I’m no better than anybody else; we seem to be all alike. But I do draw the line somewhere. If some silly bounder of a woman became a Man expert, and wrote little books or went round lecturing on Man, I wouldn’t waste a minute reading her or go a yard to hear her talk. Very few men would.’

  ‘No, and simply because you are all so conceited,’ Margaret told him. She was beginning to enjoy this, and for the moment had even forgotten where they were. ‘We’re so anxious to have men’s opinion because we’re not conceited, though, thank goodness, we’re beginning to lose our silly humility. You are convinced that no woman could tell you anything worth hearing about yourselves; but even if you thought she could, you’d still take care to keep out of the way so that your complacency shouldn’t be disturbed.’