Benighted

Chapter III. Margaret felt relieved at the very sight of her bag. Five minutes with it in private and she would be herself again. Dry clothes and a comb through her hair would settle everything. The last ten minutes had been dreadful. She felt all wet round her shoulders and knees, and so bedraggled, so effaced by rain and rushing darkness, that she could hardly think of herself as having the outward appearance of a complete real person. It was like being a tattered ghost; you couldn’t possibly face anything. It had been worse coming in here, meeting these people, than it was in the actual danger outside. The moment you were less than yourself, people were the worst of all. There had been one awful second, when this queer creature, Miss Femm, had been screaming at her brother, when she had suddenly wanted to scream herself, to clutch at Philip, to drag him to the door, back to the car. It was absurd. But she was wet and tired; the storm had got on her nerves. Once neat outside, cosy within, she would be ready to face anything. Now for some dry things at last. She picked up her bag and walked up to Miss Femm. ‘I’m dreadfully wet,’ she said, producing a splendid woman-to-woman smile. ‘May I go and change my things?’ ‘What?’ the woman screamed at her. Of course, she was deaf. How annoying deaf people were, and how queer: they seemed scarcely human. Margaret repeated her request in a loud voice, but this time without the smile. She felt like a ridiculous little girl. Miss Femm nodded. ‘You look wet. You go and change your clothes.’ ‘A bathroom perhaps?’ Margaret shouted. How silly she sounded! ‘Will you please show me where to go?’ ‘You’ll have to go in my bedroom. That’s all there is.’ There was no note of apology in this. Miss Femm seemed to be enjoying herself. ‘There’s no bathroom, not now. It’s all in ruins. You couldn’t get inside the door. We’re all in ruins here. You’ll have to put up with it.’ Only the tiny snapping eyes were alive in that doughy face of hers. They went travelling over Margaret like two angry little exiles in a hateful country. ‘I quite understand. It’s very good of you to have us here.’ Margaret made a movement to show that she was tired of standing there with the bag in her hand. ‘Come with me then.’ Miss Femm turned and went waddling away. Margaret, following behind, expected her to make for the staircase and was surprised to find her going towards a door on the left. They passed through this door and walked down a very dimly lit corridor that had an uncarpeted stone floor. Margaret shivered: the place was like a cellar. There was a big window on the left, without curtains, brightly slashed with rain until she came up to it, and then it was all black, with the night roaring outside. This must be the back of the house then. A little further on, however, they came to a door on the same side as the window. Miss Femm halted, her hand on the knob. It flashed upon Margaret that if this door were opened the wind and the rain and the darkness would come in, and they would walk through it back into the night. But she must be sensible; this wasn’t the place for silly fancies; there must be a little wing, of course, jutting out here. ‘You came yourselves, didn’t you?’ cried Miss Femm, still standing at the door. ‘You thought it better to be here than out there, eh? Well, you’ll have to put up with it. We’re all going to pieces here. You’d have been proud to come here once; you’d have thought my brother, Sir Roderick, a great man then; and so he was, in a way. But not in God’s way. None of them were that. And now they’re all rotting, going to pieces, choked with dust, like this house. We’ve done with life here, what you’d call life.’ Her voice had risen to a scream again. There was no reply to this and Margaret didn’t try to make any. With someone else she might have ventured some soothing meaningless remark, but you couldn’t do that at the top of your voice. The woman was obviously a little mad, probably touched with religious mania, and if she had lived here all her life there was some excuse for her. After all, there was no reason to be alarmed. These were only the old apologies (I’m afraid you’ll find us all upset, Mrs. Waverton) in a new fantastic shape. So she said nothing, but nodded sympathetically. There was something comforting in the very weight of the bag she was holding. Miss Femm opened the door. ‘I’ve none of this electric light. I won’t have it. You’ll have to wait till I’ve lit the candles.’ She went in and Margaret waited in the doorway. The room was not quite dark for a sullen glow of firelight crept about in it. Margaret took heart. A fire was more than she had expected. It was all going to be quite pleasant. Two candles were alight now, one on a rather high mantelshelf and the other on a little dressing-table. ‘Come in,’ Miss Femm shouted, ‘and shut the door.’ The room was not very large; it seemed to be crowded with heavy furniture; and it was closely shuttered. You couldn’t imagine it ever having had an open window. The place was muggy and stale, smelling as if it were buried deep in dirty old blankets. On the left was a big bed, piled suffocatingly high with clothes, and an enormous wardrobe so top-heavy that, it seemed to be falling forward. A wood fire smouldered in a little iron grate. On the other side of the fireplace were a massive chest of drawers, looking as if they bulged with folded alpaca and flannel and moth-balls, the little dressing-table, which had a tiny cracked mirror on it, and a dismal wash-hand stand. The walls seemed to be crowded with old-fashioned oleographs and steel engravings of an hysterically religious kind, full of downy-bearded and ringleted Saviours, and with ornamented texts about the Prince of Love and the Blood of the Lamb. Having once glanced round, Margaret kept her eyes away from the walls. Next week, to-morrow even, these things would probably seem funny; the whole room would be a remembered joke; but at the moment it was all rather horrible. It was all so thick and woolly and smelly. There was a chair near the fire and Margaret promptly took possession of it. She felt rather sick. Miss Femm, a thick little image, stood watching her at the other side of the fireplace. Why didn’t the creature go? Margaret pulled the bag towards her and began to unfasten it. ‘Thank you,’ she called, looking up. ‘I can manage quite well now.’ It was a relief to see her own things, so familiar, so sensible, snugly waiting her in the open bag. Miss Femm suddenly shattered the silence. I stay down here,’ she shrieked, ‘because it’s less trouble and it’s quiet. My sister Rachel had this room once, after she’d hurt her spine. She died here. I was only young then, but she was younger than I was, only twenty-two when she died. That was in ninety-three—before you were born, eh?’ Margaret nodded and kicked off a shoe. She hoped this wasn’t opening a chapter of reminiscence. She wanted to change and get out of this place. The very thought of the hall, with Philip and the others there, seemed pleasant now. ‘Rachel was a handsome girl, wild as a hawk, always laughing and singing, tearing up and down the hills, going out riding. She was the great favourite. My father and Roderick worshipped her and let her have all her own way. All the young men that came followed her about. Then it was all Rachel, Rachel, with her big brown eyes and her red cheeks and her white neck. She found a young man to please her at last, but one day she went out riding and they brought her back in here. She was six months on that bed, and many an hour I spent listening to her screaming. I’d sit there by the bedside and she’d cry out for me to kill her, and I’d tell her to turn to Jesus. But she didn’t, even at the end. She was godless to the last.’ With both shoes off now, Margaret was waiting impatiently for the woman to go. She didn’t want to listen, but there was no escape from that screeching voice nor from the image it called up of the long-dead Rachel Femm, who would remain with her like a figure from a bad dream. Somehow she felt as if the broad road of life were rapidly narrowing to a glittering wire. She must hurry, hurry. She stood up, pointedly turned her back on her companion, and began taking things out of the bag. But Miss Femm did not stir. In another minute she was talking again, this time, it would seem, more to herself than to Margaret. ‘They were bad enough before here, but after Rachel died they were worse. There was no end to their mocking and blaspheming and evil ways. They were all accursed, whether they stayed here or went away. I see that now. They were all branded. They were marked down one by one. I see His hand in it now. And it’s not finished yet. Sometimes He will reveal his great plan to the least of His servants. He’s out there to-night. He’s out there now.’ This was awful. In despair, Margaret sat down and began peeling off her stockings. She knew that the woman’s eyes were now fixed upon her; she could feel their beady stare. Miss Femm was quieter now that her interest had narrowed to Margaret. ‘You’re married, aren’t you?’ Margaret reached out for her towel so that she could dry her feet. ‘Yes. My husband’s out there in the hall.’ Philip turned into something different, something intangible and yet substantial, like a big account in a bank, as soon as she called him my husband. This thing was not to be confused with the exciting personal adventure called Philip. ‘Which one?’ Miss Femm was asking. ‘The quiet dark one or the other?’ ‘Yes, the quiet dark one.’ Margaret rubbed away and suddenly felt proud of Philip for being a quiet dark one. ‘The other’s a godless lad. I saw him. There isn’t much I don’t see. He’s got wild eyes, and he’s one of Satan’s own. I’ve seen too many of them, coming here laughing and singing and drinking and bringing their lustful red and white women here, not to know. He’ll come to a quick bad end. If I’d have known, he wouldn’t have set foot in this house.’ Miss Femm was screaming again and she had now moved forward a pace or two. But it was quite evident that she had no intention of going, so Margaret did not hesitate any longer but continued changing hastily. The room was horribly oppressive; you seemed to breathe dirty old wool. As she pulled on dry stockings she was annoyed to find that her hands were trembling. ‘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 minute, 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.