Benighted
By J. B. Priestley
Chapter I.
Margaret was saying something, but he couldn’t hear a word. The downpour and the noise of the engine were almost deafening. Suddenly he stopped the car and leaned back, relieved, relaxed, free for a moment from the task of steering a way through the roaring darkness. He had always felt insecure driving at night, staring out at a little lighted patch of road and groping for levers and switches, pressing pedals, had always been rather surprised when the right thing happened. But to-night, on these twisting mountain roads, some of them already awash, with storm after storm bursting upon them and the whole night now one black torrent, every mile was a miracle. It couldn’t last. Their rattling little box of mechanical tricks was nothing but a piece of impudence. He turned to Margaret.
‘You needn’t have done that,’ she was saying now. She had had to raise her voice, of course, but it was as cool and clear as ever. She was still detached, but apparently, for once, not amused.
‘Done what?’ Philip returned, but his heart sank, for he knew what she meant. Then he felt annoyed. Couldn’t he stop the damned thing for a minute? He was easily the coldest and wettest of the three of them.
‘You needn’t have stopped the car,’ Margaret replied. ‘I was only saying that we ought to have turned back before. It’s simply idiotic going on like this. Where are we?’
He felt an icy trickle going down his back and shook himself. ‘Hanged if I know,’ he told her. ‘Somewhere in wildest Wales. That’s as near as I can get. I’ve never found my bearings since we missed that turning. But I think the direction’s vaguely right.’ He wriggled a little. He was even wetter than he had imagined. He had got wet when he had gone out to change the wheel and then later when she had stopped and he had had to look at the engine, and since then the rain had been coming in steadily. Not all the hoods and screens in the world could keep out this appalling downpour.
‘This is hopeless.’ Margaret was calmly condemning the situation. ‘What time is it?’
There was no light on the dashboard, so he struck a match and held it near the clock. Half-past nine. There was just time to catch a glimpse of Margaret’s profile before the tiny flame vanished. It was like overhearing a faintly scornful phrase about himself. He suddenly felt responsible for the whole situation, not only for the delay on the road and the missed turning, but for the savage hills and the black spouting night. Once again he saw himself fussing away, nervous, incompetent, slightly disordered, while she looked on, critical, detached, indulgent or contemptuous. When anything went wrong—and it was in the nature of things to go wrong—she always made him feel like that. Perhaps all wives did. It wasn’t fair. It was taking a mean advantage of the fact that you cared what they thought, for once you stopped caring the trick must fail.
‘We’d better go on and try and arrive somewhere,’ Margaret was saying. ‘Shall I drive now?’ He was expecting that. She always imagined that she was the better driver. And perhaps she was, though. Not really so skilful with the wheel, the gears, the brakes, but far cooler than he was simply because she never saw the risks. Her imagination didn’t take sudden leaps, didn’t see a shattered spine a finger’s breadth away, didn’t realise that we all went capering along a razor-edge. Unlike him, she blandly trusted everything, everything, that is, except human beings. Now they were not so bad, merely stupid—the thought came flashing as he shifted his position—it was only the outside things that were so devilish.
‘No, thanks. I’ll keep on. There’s no point in changing now. We’ll arrive somewhere soon.’ He was about to reach out to the switch when the light of a match at the back turned him round. Penderel, who had been dozing there for the last two hours, was now lighting a cigarette. ‘Hello!’ he shouted back. ‘You all right, Penderel? Not drowned yet?’ Penderel’s face, queerly illuminated, looked at once drawn and impish. A queer stick!—mad as a hatter some people thought, Margaret among them; but Philip wasn’t sure. He suddenly felt glad to see him there. Penderel wouldn’t mind all this.
Penderel blew out smoke, held up the lighted match, and leaned forward, as vivid as a newly painted portrait. He grinned. ‘Where are we?’ Then the match went out and he was nothing but a shadow.
‘We don’t know,’ Philip shouted back above the drumming rain. ‘We’ve missed the way. We’re somewhere in the Welsh mountains and it’s half-past nine. Sorry.’
‘Don’t mention it.’ Penderel seemed to be amused. ‘I say, this storm’s going on for ever. I believe it’s the end of the world. They’ve overheard the talk at the Ainsleys and have decided to blot us all out. What do you think?’
Philip felt Margaret stirring beside him. He knew that her body was stiffening with disapproval, partly because the Ainsleys, with whom they had all three been staying, were old friends of hers, but chiefly because she didn’t like Penderel, whose existence she had almost forgotten, and was only too ready to disapprove of everything he said or did. ‘We shan’t see even Shrewsbury to-night,’ Philip shouted back. A halt at Shrewsbury had been their modified plan, following upon their delay on the road and their slow progress in the torrential rain.
‘Shrewsbury!’ Penderel laughed. ‘Nor the Hesperides either. We’ll be lucky if we get anywhere, out of this. I’ll tell you what’—he hesitated a moment—‘I don’t want to frighten Mrs. Waverton——’
‘Go on, Mr. Penderel.’ Margaret was icy. ‘I’m not easily frightened.’
‘Aren’t you? I am,’ Penderel replied, loudly and cheerfully. He seemed to be for ever putting his foot in it, either didn’t know or didn’t care. ‘I was thinking that you’ll have to be careful here. We’ve had a week’s heavy rain, and thunderstorms for the last two days, and in this part of the world they’re always having landslides and whatnot. Don’t be surprised to find yourself driving into the middle of a lake, or the whole hillside coming down on you, or the road disappearing under the front wheels.’
The noise and the darkness made snubbing difficult, but Margaret did what she could. ‘I must say I should be very surprised indeed,’ she threw back. ‘Hurry on, Philip. Open the windscreen. We can’t be any wetter than we are now and I want to look out for any turnings or signposts.’
‘Not that I care, you know,’ Penderel called out. ‘I don’t want to go to Shrewsbury. I don’t particularly want to go anywhere. Something might happen here, and nothing ever happens in Shrewsbury, and nothing much on the other side of Shrewsbury. But here there’s always a chance.’
As Philip started the car again he wished himself a hundred miles the other side of Shrewsbury, moving sedately down some sensible main road towards a fire and clean sheets. The road they were on now seemed little better than a track, twisting its way along the hillside. There were no lights to be seen, nothing but the flashing rain and the jumping scrap of lighted road ahead, full of deep ruts and stones and shining with water. He moved cautiously forward, shaking the raindrops from his eyes and gripping the wheel as hard as he could. This ring of metal seemed his only hold upon security now that everything was black and sliding and treacherous, and even then it rattled uselessly in his hand at times. One silly twist and they were bogged for the night or even over the edge. Earlier it had been rather exhilarating rushing through this savagery of earth and weather, but now he felt tired and apprehensive.
Penderel had been exaggerating, of course, perhaps trying to frighten Margaret. But no, he wouldn’t be doing that, though he probably knew that she didn’t like him and was against his returning from the Ainsleys’ with them. He exaggerated for his own good pleasure, being a wild youth who liked to see life as either a screaming buffoonery or a grand catastrophe, something Elizabethan in five acts. Yet there were landslides after heavy rain in this part of the world. There might be floods too. Philip saw them stuck somewhere on this hillside all night. And what a night too! He shivered and involuntarily pressed the accelerator.
The car roared forward, and though he immediately released the pressure it did not slacken speed because there was a sudden dip in the road. Just in front the hillside jutted into a sharp edge of rock and the road turned a blind corner. Philip had only time to touch the footbrake when this corner swung towards him. He gave the wheel a hard twist; for a second the car went sliding; and the next moment they were round the corner but apparently plunging into a river. The road had disappeared; there was nothing ahead but the gleam of water. In they went with a roar and a splash. Philip gripped the wheel harder than ever; he felt Margaret’s hand upon his left arm; he heard a shout from Penderel behind. Then the roaring and splashing filled the night, but the car seemed to be slowing down. He accelerated and the engine responded, with loud spasmodic bursts, but all to no purpose. The car swung forward, stopped, drummed, and then shook violently, swung forward again, then stopped.
‘Don’t stop.’ Margaret was crying in his ear.
‘Can’t help it,’ he shouted. What a damn silly remark! Did she think they were in a motor-boat! He must do something though. The engine was still running, trembling there under his feet, like a hunted beast. Hastily he shoved the lever into low gear and rammed down the accelerator. The car gave an agonised roar and seemed to shake itself like a dog, but for a moment or so nothing else happened. ‘Here for the night, here for the night,’ Philip heard himself chanting idiotically. Then slowly, almost painfully it seemed, the car moved forward, protesting every yard against the unfamiliar element. And now the road began to climb again; the worst was passed; the lights showed solid ground ahead, and a few minutes’ more splashing brought them out into earth and air. The little box of tricks had won. At least, Philip reminded himself, it had won so far; end of first round. But what was coming next? They were still climbing a little, and now the hillside to the right seemed less steep and rocky, but that to the left fell away more sharply. He could see nothing there but rain falling into a black gulf. It had the curiously vivid and dramatic quality of rain in a film.
Margaret was saying something and appeared to be fumbling in the pocket in the door. What was it she wanted? He caught the word ‘stop’ in her reply, and so once again brought the car to a standstill. ‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘I’m looking for the map,’ she replied. ‘We must find out where we are. We can’t go on like this.’
‘A good voyage, Waverton!’ Penderel shouted. ‘Have a cigarette?’ Philip found the open case under his nose when he turned, and lit up with Penderel. Then there was a little click and the whole car was illuminated, transformed into a queer tiny room. The night was banished, wind and rain and darkness disappearing behind the shining screen; Margaret had found the little observation lamp and had fixed it in the plug. She had also found the map and was now bending over it, the lamp in her hand. But it was only a flimsy affair of paper and the rain had played havoc with it. Philip, who was visited by a sudden feeling of cosiness, watched her turn it over and stare at it with wide grave eyes. Then he saw her shake her head; just like a child, he thought. He wanted to tell her so and give her a quick little hug, a sign across a thousand miles of desert; then rush away to the nearest shelter and talk everything out with her. What was she feeling? How odd it was that he didn’t know!
‘You look,’ she said, holding out the map. ‘I can’t see anything. It’s all a stupid puddle.’
He peered at the thing just to satisfy her. Roads and rivers and stout acres were now so many blotches. ‘It seems to me it represents this country very well, for everything here’s under water. The thing’s useless. Besides I can’t make out where we missed the turning.’ He followed a possible road with his forefinger, only to discover that it led him into a long blue smudge, under which some fifty square miles were submerged. Perhaps if they went there, everything would be different. Perhaps they were there. ‘I give it up,’ he told her. Then he turned to see Penderel’s tousled hair and bright eyes above the back of the seat. ‘Would you like to look at the map, Penderel? We can’t make anything of it.’
Penderel grinned and shook his head. ‘No map for me. I don’t believe we’re on a map. Drive on and we’ll arrive somewhere. Only don’t let it be water. We be land rats.’
Margaret made a slight gesture of impatience. ‘It’s absurd now trying to get to any particular place. We must stop at the first village we come to and ask for shelter. What’s that?’ There came a crack of thunder that rolled and clanged among the hills. Philip opened the door on his side, threw away his cigarette, looked out at the thick jigging wires of rain, and then hastily closed the door. ‘More rain and thunder,’ he said, then looked doubtfully at Margaret.
‘We’d better move on and, as you say, get in anywhere.’ There arrived with Margaret’s nod a savage assent from the sky, another roll and clanging of iron doors on the summits above.
Philip started the engine again. Margaret put out the little observation lamp and with it any fleeting sense of cosiness. The night invaded them once more; they were wet and numbed and maundering on towards a furious autumnal midnight, among cracking mountains, lost in a world of black water; they were sitting crazily behind two lamps that showed nothing but a streaming track, the flashing of the rain, and the gulf beyond. When they moved off, very cautiously hugging the right-hand side, he could hear Penderel’s voice raised above the din. He was singing or at least shouting some kind of song, like a man in his bath. The whole night was going to be one vast bath and so Penderel was singing. A queer youth!—Philip looked down on him from a great height, but then suddenly remembered that Penderel was only two years younger than himself. It was his daft drinking and shouting and singing that magnified these two years. Unlike him,
Penderel didn’t seem’ to have escaped from the War yet, and every night with him was still the night before one moved up to the line. Why didn’t Margaret like him? He wanted to think about Margaret, but just now there wasn’t time.
There was another sharp bend in the road, not fifty yards away, and he decided to nose round it very cautiously. What a tremendous rumbling there was! Was it thunder? He shouted to the others. Margaret was leaning forward, peering out. ‘Look out, Waverton,’ he thought he heard Penderel shout. The bend was here, another corner as sharp as the last, and he pulled round and ran straight into roaring chaos. A torrent of water was pouring down upon the road and something struck the car, a large clod of earth or a rock, with a resounding jolt. The entire slope above seemed to be rumbling and shuttering. In another minute they would be buried or sent flying over the other side of the road. Dazed as he was, he realised that there was just a chance of escape, and he pressed down the accelerator while he kept the other foot trembling on the brake for fear the road in front should be blocked or should have fallen away. So far it seemed to be clear, though the whole hillside immediately behind them now seemed to be crashing down. The road ran back in a curve, probably between two spurs of the hill. Margaret was shrieking in his ear: ‘Lights! Look, Phil. Lights! Pull in there.’ He saw them not far in front, where the road seemed to bend back again, beyond the centre of its horseshoe curve. Without thinking, he began to slow down. There seemed to be some sort of gateway there, an entrance to a drive perhaps. Then the rumbling and crashing and tearing behind, growing in volume every moment, awakened him to the danger of the situation.
It was obvious now that there was a house in front, and he could see the open entrance to the drive. But what kind of place was this to stay in, with the whole hillside threatening to descend upon them and tons of water coming down from somewhere? ‘We’d better go on while we can,’ he shouted to Margaret. ‘It’s not safe here.’ But at the same time he clapped on the brakes and brought the car down to a walking pace. They were now only a few yards from the gateway, were actually sheltered by the high wall of the garden. He felt a vague sense of safety, the sight of that wall keeping at bay the terror of the water and the crumbling slope.
He caught Margaret’s ‘No, stop!’ and instantly obeyed the cry. He did it against his judgment, yet felt partly relieved to be free for a moment from wheels and brakes. She clutched his arm and he could feel her trembling a little. ‘Let’s stay here,’ she was gasping.
‘We ought to go on while the road’s still open.’ His voice was hoarse and he too was shaking.
‘Let’s get out and see what’s happening,’ Penderel chimed in. ‘I believe the whole damned hill’s going. Something’s burst up above.’ He was opening the door. Horribly cramped, Philip tumbled out and joined him in the black downpour. At least it was good to be on one’s legs again, and though the night was hideous, the situation seemed less precarious than it did when one was sitting in there, playing fantastic tricks with mechanism.
‘Are we going to push on,’ Penderel shouted, ‘or stay here and ask these people for shelter? We can’t go back, for that road’s completely done in. And the road in front may be done in too. I’m for staying here.’
‘But listen to that.’ The fury behind had not spent itself and even appeared to be gathering force. ‘We’re close to it,’ Philip went on, ‘and the whole place seems dangerous to me. It may be all washed away before morning. And really we ought to tell those people what’s happening.’
Penderel walked forward, peered through the entrance, and then returned. ‘They don’t seem to be bothering much about it. Lights on, but no signs of alarm.’
‘Perhaps they don’t know.’ Philip shivered. ‘For that matter there may not be anybody there. They may have cleared off.’
Margaret was looking out of the car. ‘Why are you standing there?’ For once she sounded forlorn. ‘I can’t stand much more of this. It’s a nightmare.’
‘Penderel thinks we ought to stay here,’ Philip told her. ‘But I feel inclined to go on. It isn’t safe here and the road in front seems to be still open.’ He looked forward as far as he could, and though the road was partly flooded it revealed no dangerous obstacle.
‘But is it open?’ Penderel asked the question, and Margaret, still peering out, seemed to echo him.
The next moment they were answered. There came a rumble and a following roar, this time in front of them, somewhere not far away in the darkness. It seemed as if a whole side of the hill was slipping or being washed away. The noise was deafening, terrifying, like a great buffeting of the ears; and even the ground beneath their feet seemed to tremble. The road in front had gone, and what was left of the horseshoe bend, the little stretch on which they stood, was now being rapidly flooded. ‘Bring her in here,’ Penderel shouted, and rushed to the drive, bent on leading the way. Philip hesitated long enough to feel the sudden chill wash of water round his legs, and then clambered back into the car. The rain was streaming down his face and he could hardly see; his hands were so numbed that they were like pieces of wood; but the engine was running and he contrived to jam in the gear and slip the clutch with only the loss of a few seconds. For a moment or two the car roared helplessly, but then it began to move slowly, with a prodigious splashing, and he turned it through the entrance and up the drive, which ran forward at a slight incline. He could see Penderel hurrying in front, a jerky and blurred figure in the rain, just like a man in a film. Now the house, surprisingly large to be in such an out-of-the-way place, towered above them. What was to be done with the car? Philip couldn’t decide, so merely turned it round the corner, where the drive curved towards the front door only a few yards away, and then came to a standstill. The head lamps shone upon the house and the door was strongly, dramatically, illuminated by their uncouth glare. It was a large door, stout enough for a little fortress, and three broad steps led up to it. Somehow it looked as if it were closed for ever.
Philip found Penderel looking in at him. ‘Benighted!—that’s the word,’ Penderel said. ‘I’ve been trying to remember it all the way from the gate. I’ll go and beg for shelter. What a night! What a place! I like this, though, don’t you?’
Philip stared after him as he walked forward to the door. The night was still a tumult, full of a distant rumbling and crashing and the ceaseless drumming of the rain, yet there seemed to fall in it now a sudden quietness. It was the house itself that was so quiet. Driving up like this, you expected a bustle, shadows hurrying across the blinds, curtains lifted, doors flung open. But so far this house hadn’t given the slightest sign, in spite of its lighted windows. It seemed strangely turned in upon itself, showing nothing but a blank face in the night. You could hardly imagine that great front door ever being opened at all.
And now Penderel was there at the door, darkening it with his shadow and groping for a knocker. Philip turned to Margaret, who was leaning back, exhausted perhaps. Once inside, out of the night, warmed and dry, eyes meeting eyes again in the light, they could perhaps talk everything out: now was their chance, before they reached home again and custom fell on them like weights of armour. He put out a reassuring hand, and though she didn’t meet it with her own, he seemed to catch a faint smile. Did she whisper something? He couldn’t tell. All he heard now was Penderel knocking at that door.