Benighted

by J. B. Priestley

  ‘There’s something in that,’ Philip admitted, and immediately thought how complacent he sounded. Was he really? Margaret was waking up delightfully, suddenly flowering in this darkness.

  Penderel was staring about him. ‘I suppose this counts as dining-out. In a day or two we shall be able to say: “The other night when I dined with the Femms.” That brings it down to commonplace, lets the daylight in, with a crash. I don’t know why it should, but it does.’

  ‘I’m glad it does,’ said Philip. ‘I like the commonplace. It’s the little trim lighted bit of life, with God-knows-what waiting for you if you just go over the edge. Some people I know say they hate waking in the morning and leaving their dreams, but it seems to me that either they must lead a ghastly waking life or they must be crazy. I’m always glad to wake in the morning and find myself out of my dreams, which always turn me into a poor shaking barbarian wandering in the dark, compelled to do some idiotic thing with terror all round me. Ordinary life’s bad enough, but it’s a prince to the stuff we spin out of our rotten unconsciousnesses every night. Don’t you think so?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Penderel stopped to consider the question. ‘I think I must be one of the other people. I often have a splendid time in dreams, and hate waking up. Perhaps when I wake up, I land into one of your dreams. It sounds like it from your description of them, which seems to me a fair account of life on some days. Perhaps we’re all mixed up, your dreams are my waking life, and so on.’

  ‘Just like Alice, in “Through the Looking Glass,” you know,’ said Margaret. ‘She was told she was only part of the King’s dreams—was it the Red King or the White one?—and didn’t she begin to cry? I remember how I used to be awfully sorry for her.’

  ‘Yes. Supposing that Mr. Femm there was dreaming us!’ And then Penderel was sorry he had spoken. He thought Mrs. Waverton looked startled, as if she had suddenly remembered something that had been forgotten during their prattle. But what could she have remembered? Simply that they were here. Or had she learned something while she was out of the room with the queer Miss Femm? Perhaps she knew what he did not know, namely, why Mr. Femm was so frightened. How strange if she were harbouring, behind that bright face, some fearful piece of knowledge, the image of some terrifying shape!

  ‘More likely that we’re dreaming them.’ Philip lowered his voice. ‘Not Femm himself perhaps, though he’s queer enough. But the other two. They’re just the kind of people I might dream about, particularly that great dumb fellow—what’s his name?—Morgan. He’s the worst.’

  Margaret could not resist it. ‘The other one, Phil, Miss Femm——’ she whispered.

  He lowered his head. ‘What about her?’

  ‘She’s a horror.’

  Philip looked at her quickly, then pretended indignation. ‘Well, that’s a fine thing to say about your hostess.’

  ‘No, I mean it, Phil. She’s a horror. She makes me feel sick. I don’t want to go near her.’

  Philip was serious now. ‘Why, what’s she been doing?’

  ‘Oh nothing, really. It’s not that, it’s just what she is. I’ll tell you later.’ Margaret turned round to find Mr. Femm almost at her elbow. Supper was ready, he told them.

  The coldest of cold suppers awaited them on the table. There was the red ruin of a great joint of beef, a dish of cold potatoes, and plenty of bread, butter and cheese. Miss Femm, with her eyes narrowed and her mouth folded away, was already seated on the left-hand side. Philip and Margaret sat down on the near side; Mr. Femm seated himself opposite his sister; and Penderel marched round to the other side and sat down with his back to the front door. Morgan, looking more sullen than ever, hung about behind Miss Femm.

  Philip looked round the table and fell to wondering. When he had first taken leave of the car and the rain and the darkness, his senses had been blunted and he had merely enjoyed, in a numb fashion, the shelter and the warmth and the feeling of security. Now his senses were sharp again and he began to tease himself with questions. Penderel caught his eye and grinned. This was Penderel’s idea of a night, he told himself. It wasn’t his. And then he suddenly admitted to himself that he didn’t like this house and the people in it. These people had lived too long away from everybody and were now half crazy, and the house was musty with their mutual suspicion and resentment. Even Femm himself, who was at least civilised, was unsavoury in some queer way. Fine thoughts, these, for an uninvited guest about to diminish these people’s small store of food.

  ‘Tell me, Philip,’ Margaret said, ‘why these lights are so jumpy. They’re getting on my nerves. They make everything look so unreal.’

  ‘Evidently they make their own light here,’ he told her, pleasantly matter-of-fact. ‘And there’s something wrong with the batteries or the wiring. You can’t be surprised, a night like this, whatever they do. So don’t be alarmed if they go out altogether.’

  Margaret nodded in silence. The thought of being left in total darkness filled her mind. Her skin tightened and shrank again from a clammy touch. If those lights did go out, she wouldn’t move a yard from the fire and Philip until morning.

  Mr. Femm, who had exchanged a remark with Penderel, now remembered his duties as a host and stretched a hand towards the dish of potatoes.

  ‘Stop!’ screamed his sister, making them all jump. ‘What are you doing? We’re not all heathens.’

  He brought back his hand, folded his arms, and looked across at her with a sneer on his face. Then he glanced at the others and spoke to them in a voice that was out of reach of her ears. ‘I had forgotten that my sister, who is nothing if not a good Christian, would want to ask a blessing. We shall enjoy our food so much more once she has called the attention of her tribal deity to us.’

  ‘Horace Femm,’ she cried across the table, ‘you’re blaspheming. If I can’t hear, I can see. There’s blasphemy written across your face.’

  He leaned forward and used that curious hissing voice which they had noticed before. ‘My dear Rebecca, I was merely telling your guests, who were wondering why they were not being served, that you were about to ask a blessing, to thank God for His bounty and His mercy, for this ample and delectable supper——’

  ‘That will do,’ she screamed at him. ‘I know your mocking, lying tongue.’

  ‘——For the health and prosperity and happiness granted to this family, for these years of peace and plenty, for all our pleasant days and quiet nights. Thank Him not only for yourself but for me, and for Roderick, and for Saul——’

  ‘Stop, you fool!’ She threw out her hand as she yelled and glared at him across the table, and immediately the spirit, which had made his voice drop wormwood, died out of him. He looked confused and frightened, and sank back into his chair. There followed a moment’s silence. They were all little frozen figures. Then Miss Femm bent her head and gabbled a grace.

  ‘You think you’re safe now, Horace, and you’ve had something to drink.’ She was busy filling the plates at her side with slices of beef, and she spoke more quietly. ‘And now you think you can afford to let that bad tongue of yours wag again. You’ll be sorry you didn’t keep it still.’

  He roused himself. ‘I am sorry I have had a hand in this ridiculous scene,’ he told her. Then he turned to Margaret and showed her the ghost of a smile. ‘I must apologise for these exhibitions of—what shall I say?—rural eccentricities. We have lived so long alone here that we have forgotten how to behave in front of visitors. Even I, who only returned here during the War and have known the world, have forgotten my manners. We are old and rusty mountain hermits. You must excuse us.’

  This was as embarrassing as the rest of it, and Margaret was glad to busy herself with the potatoes that he somewhat fantastically proffered with his apology. Philip and Penderel, having exchanged glances across the width of the table, said nothing but tried to be bu
stling with plates and slices of bread and the cruet. Good old eating, thought Penderel, it’ll carry anything off. Not that he minded these little family quarrels of the Femms, he told himself; he rather enjoyed them. They were like a passage from a new kind of morality play; a short scene for the sneering bone and the screaming flesh.

  Nobody spoke. It was one of those silences not easily broken; their strength is tested by a tap or two of words tried over in the mind, and then they are left alone. Margaret bent over her plate. Philip was idly watching Miss Femm, who was heaping red meat on the plate that Morgan held out to her. The man looked so huge and savage that it seemed strange to see him with a plate at all. He ought to have taken the joint itself in his hairy hands and retired mumbling into a corner to gnaw it. Philip turned to his supper, and wondered who would speak next.

  In another moment he was answered. The whole world spoke next. What happened was the last thing that any of them expected to happen. They all jumped and looked towards the door, now clamourous with repeated and urgent rappings.

  ‘What’s that?’ cried Miss Femm. ‘The door?’

  ‘Yes,’ roared Penderel, enjoying the sound of his own voice. ‘There’s someone outside.’

  ‘They can’t come in,’ she shrieked.

  ‘Who can it be?’ Mr. Femm looked from one to the other and his voice quavered.

  Penderel answered him. ‘More visitors. Benighted, like us.’ He looked across at Waverton and grinned.

  ‘They can’t come in,’ Miss Femm shrieked again.

  This angered Philip and he found his voice. ‘That’s what they are, I expect,’ he told Mr. Femm. ‘You’ll have to let them in, of course. It’s probably dangerous to be out now.’

  The knocking had stopped now. There was a faint sound of voices. Mr. Femm glanced rapidly from Philip to his sister. Then the knocking began again.

  Penderel stood up. ‘The poor beggars must be half drowned. We can’t keep them waiting there.’

  ‘No, we shall have to let them in.’ Mr. Femm bent forward and looked at his sister. ‘Of course they will have to come in, if they want shelter. Morgan, go and open the door.’

  Miss Femm pushed back her chair and looked up at Morgan. ‘Go on then,’ she cried, pointing to the door. ‘And I’ll come with you and see who they are.’ Morgan lumbered forward and very slowly drew back the bolts. When he had opened the door an inch or two so that Miss Femm might peer out, it was unexpectedly thrown wide open and someone came in, pushing past the two at the door. It was a girl, all wet and muddy. She came further into the room, stopped to draw a long breath, then threw herself into the nearest chair and cried: ‘My God! What a night!’

  She was followed by a bulky middle-aged man, equally wet and muddy. For a moment he stood there looking about him and gasping for breath. Then he removed his dripping hat and showed them a ruddy face with a heavy shaven jowl. ‘Thought you were never going to open that door. Never knew such a night. There’s a reservoir burst or something and a big landslide. Smashed my car and only just got away with our lives. Doubt if you’re safe here. Phew!’ He mopped his face and then looked from one to another of them. ‘Sorry to barge in like this, but you see how it is. Who’s the owner here?’

  Philip suddenly recognised the man. ‘Why,’ he cried, stepping forward, ‘surely you’re Sir William Porterhouse? I thought so. I’m Waverton, of Treffield and Waverton, architects. You once called to see us about something.’

  ‘So I did.’ Sir William extended a hand. ‘I remember you now. This your place?’

  Philip explained the situation and everybody was introduced. The girl was presented to them as Miss Gladys Du Cane. She had now taken off her hat and coat and stood revealed as a very pretty girl in her early twenties. She was slightly below medium height (an inch or two shorter than Margaret) and squarely though finely built. Her hair was thick and dark and crisp, and she had full hazel eyes, and a wide-lipped scarlet mouth setting off a rather pale face. Margaret decided at once that the girl belonged to a type that she detested. It was curious to see her here, so far from Shaftesbury Avenue and the lights and the dance bands and the theatres and the film agencies that were her obvious background. It was just as if an electric sign had found its way into the room. But these two people, insufferable though they might be in other circumstances, were not unwelcome. They made everything seem less fantastic and mysterious and unbearable.

  ‘No telephone here, I suppose?’ Sir William had turned to Mr. Femm.

  ‘No telephone or any other sign and mark of civilisation,’ Mr. Femm told him. ‘You are now completely cut off from the world, sir, but apparently this house will not suffer from the floods and the landslides.’

  ‘The road must have gone completely at each side now,’ said Philip. He remembered how he had resented the magnate’s super-man airs in town, and found a certain malicious pleasure now in the sight of his helplessness. It would do him good. ‘It was impassable when we came here, three-quarters of an hour ago. I can’t imagine how you got here at all.’

  ‘We must have been just behind you.’ Sir William found a chair and drew up to the table. ‘Think I saw your lights once. I pressed on, no good going back, and found myself in a devil of a situation. Car was nearly under water, stopped, started again, stopped again, then ran into a landslide or something of that sort. The bonnet was hit by a flying rock, the wheels were stuck, and in a minute the car was half buried. Took us all our time to get out.’

  ‘How did you find this place?’ Philip asked him.

  ‘Left the car there. It’s there now if it hasn’t been washed into the valley—damn shame, too—it’s a little Hispano I had made specially, to drive myself—only car I ever cared about. Always the same though, care about a thing and it’s done in before you can say “knife.” Well, we crawled out and didn’t know where we were. Pitch black and raining like fury and water spouting all over the place. Had to leave everything, bags and all. No use going back, I said, we hadn’t passed a light or signs of a house for miles. We went on, sloshing in mud, up to the knees in water, climbing over rocks. We’d an electric torch, but that wasn’t much good. Then we saw a light and made for it as best we could. And here we are, and here we’ll have to stay, at least till morning and perhaps longer. It’s getting worse out there. You’d think it was the end of the world after being out in it for ten minutes; I don’t mind telling you I thought I was nearly through. Can I use this glass?’ He produced a flask from his pocket, emptied it into the glass, and promptly swallowed the inch of whisky in one gulp.

  ‘Hello!’ his late companion called across. ‘You’ve not finished it, have you?’

  ‘Afraid I have, Gladys.’ And he showed her the flask.

  ‘Well, I must say, Bill, you are a pig.’ And the girl made a face when he threw her a rather perfunctory ‘Sorry.’ She was now sitting close to the fire and, having pulled off the high boots she had been wearing, was holding out one steaming silk-stockinged foot after another near the blaze.

  ‘I’ve got a pair of slippers with me that I had in the car,’ she confided to Margaret, ‘and that’s all I have got. What a night! I’ll bet you had it pretty rough, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, it was very bad,’ Margaret answered indifferently.

  ‘Well, we’re out of it now all right unless this place is swamped during the night.’ Then she lowered her voice. ‘Any beds going?’

  Margaret shook her head. ‘No, we shall have to stay in here all night.’ Her voice sounded stiff, unfriendly, and that was a pity perhaps, but really she couldn’t help it. She had spent years disliking the type at a distance and she couldn’t change in a few minutes just because this obvious week-ending chorus girl had chanced to come under the same roof, out of the same wild night. The man was different. She didn’t mind him. Indeed, his very bluffness and vulgarity would be useful here, br
eeding a coarse sanity in this queer situation.

  They were returning to supper now. Morgan had lurched off with his plate, and the others were settling down again at the table. The baronet confessed that he was ready for some cold meat and bread and cheese, and had found a place between Margaret and Mr. Femm. ‘Come along, Gladys,’ he called, ‘if you want something to eat. We interrupted this little supper party and we’ve been asked to join it.’

  ‘Righto,’ she cried. ‘I’m coming.’ And Penderel brought up a chair for her and she sat down by his side. He noticed that she met the long stare of Miss Femm, now so much folded and silent fat, with a smile that was deliciously near a grin. It wasn’t mere cheek either. This girl was all right.

  She looked at him frowningly. ‘What’s your name? Sorry, but I can never remember.’

  ‘Penderel.’ And that’s the worst of being nobody in particular, he thought, for you always feel a fool when you bring out your name.

  She frowned at him again. ‘What else? ’Scuse me asking.’

  ‘Roger,’ he told her, and thought it sounded rusty. It was some time since he heard it.

  ‘Roger Penderel.’ She was obviously turning it over in her mind. ‘Look here, don’t you know a boy called Ranger, Dick Ranger?’

  ‘Lord, yes. I know young Ranger. His elder brother, Tom, used to be a great pal of mine. He’s somewhere in the Sudan now, being done to a turn. Dick’s not been down long from Oxford and has developed into a tremendous West Ender. He knows all the places, stops out late, and is as cynical as a taxi driver. He quite frightens me, makes me feel old and simple.’