Benighted

by J. B. Priestley

  There was somebody at the other side of the door at last. He had a feeling that somebody was there, although he couldn’t really hear anything. This door, he was positive, would take some opening; you couldn’t imagine it flying open; it looked as if somehow it would have to be unscrewed. Yes, something was happening to it. It was creaking. It was moving. Now for it!—a neat little speech.

  The door opened an inch or two, and Penderel saw an eye. There was no talking to an eye and so he waited. The eye withdrew and then the door was slowly pulled back. A huge lump of a man stood there, blankly staring at him; a shapeless man with a full black beard and matted hair over a low forehead. For a minute Penderel himself was all eyes and no tongue, staring blankly back. Then he recovered himself and rapidly plunged into speech.

  ‘We’ve come to ask for shelter,’ he began. ‘We got lost and now we’re absolutely cut off. We can’t go forward or back. The road seems to have gone on each side.’

  He broke off for a moment to see if there was any response to his appeal. The man made neither sound nor movement; not a gleam of comprehension lit his face; he just stood there, so much humped flesh and staring eyes. It was as if the door had been opened into Siberia. The thought of the menacing night and the Wavertons waiting there behind him, the contrast between their situation and this senseless immobility suddenly angered him. He raised his voice: ‘The road here’s under water now. There are floods, landslides. All the mountain side’s coming down. We shall have to stay here. Don’t you understand?’

  If the man did, he gave no sign, but stood there as if he were staring out of another world. Penderel had a sudden desire to pound the great senseless carcase. But then he remembered that they were now in a remote part of Wales, were really travellers in a foreign country, and that it was quite possible that this fellow, who was obviously some kind of servant, could hardly understand English. He might be the solitary surviving specimen of the original aborigines of this island. Penderel knew no Welsh and could only begin all over again, this time raising his voice and introducing some fine descriptive gestures. At the end, the man came to life, though only slowly. First, he lumbered forward a pace, looked towards the car, examined the night, then very laboriously and solemnly shook his head. After that, he tapped Penderel, who looked in silence and amazement as if he were watching the movements of some prehistoric monster, lightly on the chest, pointed indoors, tapped himself on the chest, and ended by producing from somewhere at the back of his throat, a very queer gurgling sound.

  This noise made Penderel jump, it was so unexpected. ‘What’s that?’ he cried sharply. Even Welsh ought not to sound like that; it was as if a lump of earth had tried to make a remark.

  By way of reply, the man pushed his face near to Penderel’s, opened his mouth very wide, and pointed to it with a long dark forefinger. Then he padded away, leaving Penderel to gape through the open door. He must have retired to fetch his master, for it could hardly be his own house, though he looked more like a performing bear than a butler. Penderel wondered whether to walk forward into the large hall visible through the door or to return for a moment to the Wavertons, who must be wondering what was happening. He turned, however, only to find them at his elbow.

  ‘This is absurd,’ Mrs. Waverton was declaring indignantly. ‘Keeping us here like this! What’s the matter?’

  He determined to put an easy face upon it.

  ‘The matter has just disappeared, to find somebody, I think. Did you see him? I don’t think he’s real.’

  ‘What did he say?’ Waverton asked.

  ‘Nothing. I don’t believe he could say anything. I don’t think he knows English or anything else. Wait until you have a good look at him. He’s a huge troll who’s got all rusty inside.’

  Mrs. Waverton, as usual, seemed to brush away this kind of talk. ‘Let’s go in, Philip. They couldn’t refuse to let us stay, an awful night like this. And it’s ridiculous standing here.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ said Penderel, heartily. ‘As if we were carol-singers and this were some kind of devilish Christmas, perhaps Lucifer’s birthday.’

  ‘We’ll go in then,’ said Waverton. ‘But what about the car?’

  ‘They’ll tell us where to put it later. I must sit down somewhere where there isn’t any rain. My head screams with it.’ And Mrs. Waverton marched in, followed by the two men.

  The first thing that Penderel noticed was that the house had electric light. Somehow he hadn’t expected that: it was impossible to imagine the giant troll fingering the switches or going round the accumulators. But the lights weren’t behaving properly though; they were jumping and flickering, and they made the whole place jumpy, queerly uncertain. It was the kind of hall you rarely see except on the stage, being both entrance hall and lounge (and, if necessary, dining and drawing rooms), lofty and panelled, with a large open fireplace in the left-hand far corner, a broad staircase running up on the right and a gallery above, with a door immediately on the left and two more on the right. The fire was a smouldering old ruin; the table in the centre was very old; and all the chairs seemed to be faded and crazy. There was something ruinous about the whole place, and though it was gloriously snug after the howling misery of the night outside, it hardly suggested comfort and a warm hospitality. Penderel decided that it had a smell of mice and old newspapers.

  They all stood bunched together and dripping near the door, and waited in silence for something to happen. After the first glance round, Penderel fixed his eyes on the staircase, down which—if life were what it ought to be—a lady with a long white train should come sweeping, with a great candlestick in each hand. He watched the stairs jump with the lights, and had a sudden daft desire to rush to the bottom of them, strike an attitude, and say something very romantic at the top of his voice. Enter the three wettest people in Christendom: one of them, obviously a tragic clown, approaches the jumping stairs. What a pity people didn’t really think of life as a play, taking care to come on properly, to say and do no more than was necessary, and then to make a good clean exit. If there were any drinks going later, he must point that out to Waverton: it was one of those things you can only say over a drink.

  The first door on the right suddenly opened and a thin elderly man in black walked into the hall, halting when he was a few paces from them. He was followed by a waddling old woman who came up and looked them over curiously with eyes like tiny black buttons. At the back was the huge creature, who stood lumpishly near the door.

  ‘My name is Femm,’ said the thin man, ‘Horace Femm. I cannot understand what is the matter. Our servant, Morgan there, is dumb.’ His voice was as thin as he was, very dry and harsh, and he spoke with a curious and disconcerting precision.

  Penderel cleared his throat, but Mrs. Waverton cut in before him, hastily giving their names and declaring their errand.

  ‘Shelter?’ Mr. Femm looked dubious and put his long hand to his chin. You seemed to hear bone rubbing bone.

  ‘What is it?’ the old woman suddenly screamed, making them all jump.

  Mr. Femm pushed out his neck, bringing his mouth nearer to the hand she held to her ear. Instead of raising his voice he contrived to make it extraordinarily penetrating by hissing his words. The effect was strangely sinister, and indeed he seemed to turn a malignant eye upon the woman. ‘Shelter,’ he hissed. ‘They want to stay here all night.’ It sounded rather like the villain of old-fashioned melodrama.

  The other shook her head. ‘They can’t. We can’t have them here.’ Although she had examined them so thoroughly, she talked as if they weren’t really there.

  ‘You see how it is,’ said Mr. Femm, in his ordinary tones. ‘My sister, Rebecca here, is somewhat deaf. Morgan, as I have already pointed out, is dumb. My brother, Sir Roderick Femm, the master of this house, is confined to his bed upstairs, very old, very weak, and may not live long. Though
not, I beg to assure you, without hospitable instincts, I myself am as rusty as an old file. This house is partly a barn and partly a ruin and could not accommodate you even for a night. I advise you, for your own sakes, to look elsewhere. There is, I believe, an inn about twelve miles from here.’

  These people might have been living in another world; they didn’t seem to know what was happening all round them; it was time now to make them understand the situation. All three began explaining at once. Mrs. Waverton went up to Miss Femm and shouted in her ear. Penderel and Waverton hustled the uncomprehending Mr. Femm to the open door and confronted him with the black and torrential night itself, through which there still came a menacing roar.

  ‘The road’s gone on each side of this house,’ cried Waverton, waving a hand to left and right. ‘We can’t go half a mile, let alone twelve miles. We’re cut off from everywhere. Even the road below’s under water.’

  ‘For that matter,’ Penderel added, determined to show Mr. Femm what sort of world he was living in, ‘this place may be under water soon or even buried. The hill’s crumbling on each side, and it looks as if something above here, a lake or a reservoir, has burst its banks. Listen to that.’ He held up his hand impressively. The roaring really did seem louder than ever. Penderel thought he could hear the distant crashing of rocks.

  Mr. Femm retreated a step, his eyes two pin-points in a crumpled sheet of paper. Penderel hadn’t seen a man look so frightened for years. What an oddity!—dense at first, and then flying into a panic. A man so thin, with so little flesh and so much shining bone ought to be braver than that; he was almost a skeleton, and skeletons, jangling and defiant, are brave enough. It’s our flesh, Penderel told himself, the jellied stuff that rots so easily, which quivers and creeps, goes goosey with fright; but our bones stand up and don’t give a damn. This fellow was a fraud.

  Mr. Femm had now turned and gone hissing towards his sister. ‘Did you hear that?’ he asked her. ‘They say there’s been a landslide on each side of us, and floods too. The lake has burst its banks. We are trapped. We shall have to go. Do you hear?’ His voice had almost risen to a scream.

  She was now as quiet as he was noisy. She looked him up and down contemptuously, clasped her little fat hands in front of her, and said: ‘Yes, I heard. I’ve expected it after all this rain and rain and rain. It will all come tumbling down again. God is not mocked.’ She gloated over this, and looked at her brother triumphantly, her suety face alight with malice. ‘You’re afraid, Horace. You don’t believe in God. Oh, no! But you’re afraid to die. You don’t believe in His mercy, but now you can believe in His wrath.’ She looked at him steadily, and then when he opened his mouth to reply she went on again, more vehemently. ‘You’ve seen His anger in the sky. You’ve heard Him in the night. And you’re afraid. Where’s your mocking now?’ She stopped, and nobody spoke or stirred for a moment. ‘Well, your time hasn’t come yet. This house is safe enough. This has happened before, before you came back, Horace, and we were never touched.’ She turned her head. ‘Morgan, come here,’ she shrieked, and when he came towering above her, she screamed up at him: ‘You remember the great storm, when we were cut off once before, and there were floods and landslides and the road down there was all washed away? This house was safe then, wasn’t it?’

  Morgan nodded and made a noise in his beard. Then he made a sweeping gesture to include the whole house, and pointed impressively to the floor.

  ‘Morgan remembers,’ cried Miss Femm. ‘He means that the house was safe because it stands on a great rock.’

  He nodded his head affirmatively again, pointed to the back of the house, raised his finger, and then clenched his fist, grinning trollishly throughout the dumb show.

  ‘He means that this rock comes out at the back of the house and shields it,’ Miss Femm explained. ‘Morgan remembers the last time we had storms like these, when this was the only place left untouched. And so you see, Horace, we can stay where we are.’

  Mr. Femm had now recovered himself. ‘It is obvious,’ he said, looking at Mrs. Waverton, ‘that you will have to remain here for the night. The misfortune is yours, not ours. I am afraid we can promise you very little.’

  ‘No beds,’ screamed his sister, with that terrifying unexpectedness of hers. Penderel had begun to cherish an intense dislike of her, and longed to bellow in return, particularly when she gave another screech: ‘They can’t have beds.’

  ‘As my sister hints,’ said Mr. Femm, smoothly, ‘there are no beds, I am afraid, at your disposal. Indeed, this is the last house in Britain I should choose to be either a guest or a host in. But please remember that it is not mine.’

  ‘We really don’t need beds or anything, thank you. We quite understand,’ Mrs. Waverton told him.

  ‘Just a roof,’ added Waverton.

  ‘And a fire,’ Penderel put in. And for the love of Mike, he whispered to himself, a drink too. A brief tussle with floods and landslides was sufficiently heartening in itself, but an acquaintance with this house, these people, was not to be undertaken feeling all cold and dark inside, without a drink.

  A faint suggestion of geniality, like a leaden and watery gleam of November sunshine, crept into Mr. Femm’s manner. ‘Of course, of course! We can offer you a roof and a fire and some food and drink. You can spend the night sitting round the fire here, perhaps the best place a night like this. I am not sure that I want to go to bed myself to-night. Morgan, attend to the fire. You must make yourselves as comfortable as you can.’ He bent forward again and hissed: ‘Perhaps we could have supper soon, Rebecca.’

  ‘I’ll see that they have some supper, Horace,’ cried his sister. ‘Don’t give yourself airs. You’re not the master here.’

  ‘What about the car?’ Waverton asked. ‘Is there anywhere I could put it where it would be safe all night?’

  ‘Your motor car? You have it outside there?’ Mr. Femm twisted his long dry fingers and called Morgan from the fire. ‘There are out-houses, round the corner there, on the left, where we only keep a horse and a trap now. There might be room for a motor car there. Morgan will know. Morgan, go with this gentleman and see if there is room for his motor car in the stables or coach-house.’ Morgan nodded sullenly and lurched towards the door.

  ‘What about the bags?’ Waverton looked at both his wife and Penderel.

  ‘We’ll get them in,’ Penderel replied.

  Mrs. Waverton was emphatic. ‘I simply must have mine, Philip. I’m soaked to the skin and must change my things. Bring the bags in now.’

  Darkness and rain and a vague tumult still held the night. ‘Thank God I’m now seeing the last of this car to-night,’ Waverton said, as they tugged at the straps round the luggage grid. ‘We’re well out of this, though I must say this is a queer house.’

  ‘A very queer house and very queer people,’ Penderel replied, pulling at the swollen leather. ‘I now know the real meaning of the phrase, “Cherchez les Femms.” I’ve taken this old bag of mine into some damned odd places, but I have a feeling this is going to be about the oddest.’

  Waverton grunted. ‘It’s better than capering in the dark along roads that aren’t there, anyhow. It’s safe and there’s a roof and a fire.’

  ‘Nothing’s safe,’ said Penderel, swinging out two bags. ‘Perhaps this is the fire, and we’re merely taking the bags out of the frying-pan.’ He hurried round to the door and did not hesitate to jostle Morgan, who had been standing in the doorway all the time. If the man didn’t like it, he could lump it, and lumping it seemed to be all he could do. A gorilla would have been a little more amiable and helpful: the man overdid his dumbness and his part as giant troll.

  They all began bustling about now, just as if the hall had been suddenly turned into a railway station, Penderel thought. Mrs. Waverton, looking less like a superior person than usual (she was really rather pretty), s
hed her sodden hat and coat, pounced upon one of the bags, and was now exchanging confidential little shrieks with Miss Femm. Waverton had gone out again, accompanied by Morgan, and was now steering his car round the corner into the coach-house or shed or whatever it was. Mr. Femm had gone creaking away somewhere. Penderel did his best to join in the bustle, but when he had taken off his heavy dripping coat and had flung it over his bag near the door, there was nothing left for him to do. He lit a cigarette, sat down near the fire, and dreamily regarded his steaming outstretched legs and enjoyed the creeping warmth. He was tired. Images of his companions came floating by like spectral ships: Mrs. Waverton, one of those pale and clear and terrifically educated women who knew everything and who knew nothing, never actually breaking through into the real world; Philip Waverton himself, crammed with shy sense and honest-to-God feeling, but too anxious, too married, too well broken-in; the Femms here, the string-and-bone dithering male and the fat and somehow obscene female, with her revivalist God, and that tongueless hulk of a Morgan. And there was another somewhere, upstairs in bed. What was his name? Sir Roderick—that was it. Old Sir Roderick, the master of the house, doomed to be for ever upstairs silent and unseen. Did he ever give any orders? Perhaps Rebecca brought them down—what was it?—written on tables of stone.

  The next moment Penderel could have groaned aloud. Suddenly that old feeling had returned. It came, as usual, without warning. A grey tide, engulfing all colour and shape of things that had been or were to be, rushed across his mind, sweeping the life out of everything and leaving him all hollow inside. Once again he sat benumbed in a shadow show. Yet as ever—and this was the cruel stroke—there was something left, left to see that all the lights were being quenched, left to cry out with a tiny crazed voice in the grey wastes. This was what mattered, this was the worst, and black nights and storms and floods and crumbling hills were not to be compared with this treachery from within. It wasn’t panic nor despair, he told himself, that made so many fellows commit suicide; it was this recurring mood, draining the colour out of life and stuffing one’s mouth with ashes. One crashing bullet and there wasn’t even anything left to remember what had come and gone, to cry in the mind’s dark hollow; life could then cheat as it liked, for it did not matter; you had won the last poor trick.