The Midwich Cuckoos

by John Wyndham

  ‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘Naturally I knew there was the security angle – you told me as much yourself – and I was not surprised at that. I don’t know what goes on at The Grange, but I do know it is very hush.’

  ‘It wasn’t simply The Grange that was put to sleep,’ he pointed out. ‘It was everything for a mile around.’

  ‘But it included The Grange. That must have been the focal point. Quite possibly the influence, whatever it is, doesn’t have less than that range – or perhaps the people, whoever they were, thought it safer to have that much elbow room for safety.’

  ‘That’s what the village thinks?’ he asked.

  ‘Most of it – with a few variations.’

  ‘That’s the sort of thing I want to know. They all pin it on The Grange, do they?’

  ‘Naturally. What other reason could there be – in Midwich?’

  ‘Well then, suppose I tell you I have reason to believe that The Grange had nothing whatever to do with it. And that our very careful investigations do no more than confirm that?’

  ‘But that would make nonsense of the whole thing,’ I protested.

  ‘Surely not – not, that is, any more than any accident can be regarded as a form of nonsense.’

  ‘Accident? You mean a forced landing?’

  Bernard shrugged. ‘That I can’t tell you. It’s possible that the accident lay more in the fact that The Grange happened to be located where the landing was made. But my point is this: almost everyone in this village has been exposed to a curious and quite unfamiliar phenomenon. And now you, and all the rest of the place, are assuming it is over and finished with. Why?’

  Both Janet and I stared at him.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it’s come, and it’s gone, so why not?’

  ‘And it simply came, and did nothing, and went away again, and had no effect on anything?’

  ‘I don’t know. No visible effect – beyond the casualties, of course, and they mercifully can’t have known anything about it,’ Janet replied.

  ‘No visible effect,’ he repeated. ‘That means rather little nowadays, doesn’t it? You can, for instance, have quite a serious dose of X-rays, gamma-rays, and others, without immediate visible effect. You needn’t be alarmed, it is just an instance. If any of them had been present we should have detected them. They were not. But something that we were unable to detect was present. Something quite unknown to us that is capable of inducing – let’s call it artificial sleep. Now, that is a very remarkable phenomenon – quite inexplicable to us, and not a little alarming. Do you really think one is justified in airily assuming that such a peculiar incident can just happen and then cease to happen, and have no effect? It may be so, of course, it may have no more effect than an aspirin tablet; but surely one should keep an eye on things to see whether that is so or not?’

  Janet weakened a little.

  ‘You mean, you want us, or someone, to do that for you. To watch for, and note, any effects?’

  ‘What I’m after is a reliable source of information on Midwich as a whole. I want to be kept posted and up to date on how things are here so that if it should become necessary to take any steps I shall be aware of the circumstances, and be better able to take them in good time.’

  ‘Now you’re making it sound like a kind of welfare work,’ Janet said.

  ‘In a way, that’s what it is. I want a regular report on Midwich’s state of health, mind, and morale so that I can keep a fatherly eye on it. There’s no question of spying. I want it so that I can act for Midwich’s benefit, should it be necessary.’

  Janet looked at him steadily for a moment.

  ‘Just what are you expecting to happen here, Bernard?’ she asked.

  ‘Would I have to make this suggestion to you if I knew?’ he countered. ‘I’m taking precautions. We don’t know what this thing is, or does. We can’t slap on a quarantine order without evidence. But we can watch for evidence. At least, you can. So what do you say?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I told him. ‘Give us a day or two to think it over, and I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Good,’ he said. And we went on to talk of other things.

  Janet and I discussed the matter several times in the next few days. Her attitude had modified considerably.

  ‘He’s got something up his sleeve, I’m sure,’ she said. ‘But what?’

  I did not know. And:

  ‘It isn’t as if we were being asked to watch a particular person, is it?’

  I agree that it was not. And:

  ‘It wouldn’t be really different in principle from what a Medical Officer of Health does, would it?’

  Not very different, I thought. And:

  ‘If we don’t do it for him, he’d have to find someone else to do it. I don’t really see who he’d get, in the village. It wouldn’t be very nice, or efficient, if he did have to introduce a stranger, would it?’

  I supposed not.

  So, mindful of Miss Ogle’s strategic situation in the post office, I wrote, instead of telephoning, to Bernard telling him that we thought we saw our way clear to cooperation provided we could be satisfied over one or two details, and received a reply suggesting that we should arrange a meeting when we next came to London. The letter showed no feeling of urgency, and merely asked us to keep our eyes open in the meantime.

  We did. But there was little for them to perceive. A fortnight after the Dayout, only very small rumples remained in Midwich’s placidity.

  The small minority who felt that Security had cheated them of national fame and pictures in the newspapers had become resigned: the rest were glad that the interruption of their ways had been no greater. Another division of local opinion concerned The Grange and its occupants. One school held that the place must have some connexion with the event, and but for its mysterious activities the phenomenon would never have visited Midwich. The other considered its influence as something of a blessing.

  Mr Arthur Crimm, O.B.E., the Director of the Station, was the tenant of one of Zellaby’s cottages, and Zellaby, encountering him one day, expressed the majority view that the village was indebted to the researchers.

  ‘But for your presence, and the consequent Security interest,’ he said, ‘we should without doubt have suffered a visitation far worse than that of the Dayout. Our privacy would have been ravaged, our susceptibilities outraged by the three modern Furies, the awful sisterhood of the printed word, the recorded word, and the picture. So, against your inconveniences, which I am sure have been considerable, you can at least set our gratitude that the Midwich way of life has been preserved, largely intact.’

  Miss Polly Rushton, almost the only visitor to the district to be involved, concluded her holiday with her uncle and aunt, and returned home to London. Alan Hughes found himself, to his disgust, not only inexplicably posted to the north of Scotland, but also listed for release several weeks later than he had expected, and was spending much of his time up there in documentary argument with his regimental record office, and most of the rest of it, seemingly, in correspondence with Miss Zellaby. Mrs Harriman, the baker’s wife, after thinking up a series of not very convincing circumstances which could have led to the discovery of Herbert Flagg’s body in her front garden, had taken refuge in attack and was belabouring her husband with the whole of his known and suspected past. Almost everyone else went on as usual.

  Thus, in three weeks the affair was nearly an historical incident. Even the new tombstones that marked it might – or, at any rate, quite half of them might – have been expected so to stand in a short time, from natural causes. The only newly created widow, Mrs Crankhart, rallied well, and showed no intention of letting her state depress her, nor indeed harden.

  Midwich had, in fact, simply twitched – curiously, perhaps, but only very slightly – for the third or fourth time in its thousand-year doze.

  ∗

  And now I come to a technical difficulty, for this, as I have explained, is not my story; it is Midwich’s story.
If I were to set down my information in the order it came to me I should be flitting back and forth in the account, producing an almost incomprehensible hotchpotch of incidents out of order, and effects preceding causes. Therefore it is necessary that I rearrange my information, disregarding entirely the dates and times when I acquired it, and put it into chronological order. If this method of approach should result in the suggestion of uncanny perception, or disquieting multiscience, in the writer, the reader must bear with it the assurance that it is entirely the product of hindsight.

  It was, for instance, not current observation, but later inquiry which revealed that a little while after the village had seemingly returned to normal there began to be small swirls of localized uneasiness in its corporative peace; certain disquiets that were, as yet, isolated and unacknowledged. This would be somewhere about late November, even early December – though perhaps in some quarters slightly earlier. Approximately, that is, about the time that Miss Ferrelyn Zellaby mentioned in the course of her almost daily correspondence with Mr Hughes that a tenuous suspicion had perturbingly solidified.

  In what appears to have been a not very coherent letter, she explained – or, perhaps one should say, intimated – that she did not see how it could be, and, in fact, according to all she had learnt, it couldn’t be, so she did not understand it at all, but the fact was that, in some mysterious way, she seemed to have started a baby – well, actually ‘seemed’ wasn’t quite the right word because she was pretty sure about it, really. So did he think he could manage a weekend leave, because one did rather feel that it was the sort of thing that needed some talking over…?

  CHAPTER 7

  Coming Events

  IN point of fact, investigations have shown that Alan was not the first to hear Ferrelyn’s news. She had been worried and puzzled for some little time, and two or three days before she wrote to him had made up her mind that the time had come for the matter to be known in the family circle: for one thing, she badly needed advice and explanation that none of the books she consulted seemed able to give her; and, for another, it struck her as more dignified than just going on until somebody should guess. Angela, she decided, would be the best person to tell first – Mother, too, of course, but a little later on, when the organizing was already done; it looked like one of those occasions when Mother might get terribly executive about everything.

  Decision, however, had been rather easier to take than action. On the Wednesday morning Ferrelyn’s mind was fully made up. At some time in that day, some relaxed hour, she would draw Angela quietly aside and explain how things were.…

  Unfortunately, there hadn’t seemed to be any part of Wednesday when people were really relaxed. Thursday morning did not feel suitable somehow, either, and in the afternoon Angela had had a Women’s Institute meeting which made her look tired in the evening. There was a moment on Friday afternoon that might have done – and yet it did not seem quite the kind of thing one could raise while Daddy showed his lunch visitor the garden, preparatory to bringing him back for tea. So, what with one thing and another, Ferrelyn arose on Saturday morning with her secret still unshared.

  ‘I’ll really have to tell her today – even if everything doesn’t seem absolutely right for it. A person could go on this way for weeks,’ she told herself firmly, as she finished dressing.

  Gordon Zellaby was at the last stage of his breakfast when she reached the table. He accepted her good-morning kiss absent-mindedly, and presently took himself off to his routine – once briskly round the garden, then to the study, and the Work in progress.

  Ferrelyn ate some cornflakes, drank some coffee, and accepted a fried egg and bacon. After two nibbles she pushed the plate away decisively enough to arouse Angela from her reflections.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Angela inquired from her end of the table. ‘Isn’t it fresh?’

  ‘Oh, there’s nothing wrong with it,’ Ferrelyn told her. ‘I just don’t happen to feel eggy this morning, that’s all.’

  Angela seemed uninterested, when one had half-hoped she would ask why. An inside voice seemed to prompt Ferrelyn: ‘Why not now? After all, it can’t really make much difference when, can it?’ So she took a breath. By way of introducing the matter gently she said:

  ‘As a matter of fact, Angela, I was sick this morning.’

  ‘Oh, indeed,’ said her stepmother, and paused while she helped herself to butter. In the act of raising her marmaladed toast, she added: ‘So was I. Horrid, isn’t it?’

  Now she had taxied on to the runway, Ferrelyn was going through with it. She squashed the opportunity of diverting, forthwith:

  ‘I think,’ she said, steadily, ‘that mine was rather special kind of being sick. The sort,’ she added, in order that it should be perfectly clear, ‘that happens when a person might be going to have a baby, if you see what I mean.’

  Angela regarded her for a moment with thoughtful interest, and nodded slowly.

  ‘I do,’ she agreed. With careful attention she buttered a further area of toast, and added marmalade. Then she looked up again.

  ‘So was mine,’ she said.

  Ferrelyn’s mouth fell a little open as she stared. To her astonishment, and to her confusion, she found herself feeling slightly shocked.… But.… Well, after all, why not? Angela was only sixteen years older than herself, so it was all very natural really, only… well, somehow one just hadn’t expected it.… It didn’t seem quite.… After all, Daddy was a triple grand father by his first marriage.…

  Besides, it was all so unexpected.… It somehow hadn’t seemed likely.… Not that Angela wasn’t a wonderful person, and one was very fond of her… but, sort, of as a capable elder sister.… It needed a bit of readjusting to.…

  She went on staring at Angela, unable to find the right-sounding thing to say, because everything had somehow turned the wrong way round.…

  Angela was not seeing Ferrelyn. She was looking straight down the table, out of the window at something much further away than the bare, swaying branches of the chestnut. Her dark eyes were bright and shiny.

  The shininess increased and sparkled into two drops sparkling on her lower lashes. They welled, overflowed, and ran down Angela’s cheeks.

  A kind of paralysis still held Ferrelyn. She had never seen Angela cry. Angela wasn’t that kind of person.…

  Angela bent forward, and put her face in her hands. Ferrelyn jumped up as if she had been suddenly released. She ran to Angela, put her arms round her, and felt her trembling. She held her close, and stroked her hair, and made small, comforting sounds.

  In the pause that followed Ferrelyn could not help feeling that a curious element of miscasting had intruded. It was not an exact reversal of roles, for she had had no intention of weeping on Angela’s shoulder; but it was near enough to it to make one wonder if one were fully awake.

  Quite soon, however, Angela ceased to shake. She drew longer, calmer breaths, and presently sought for a handkerchief.

  ‘Phew!’ she said. ‘Sorry to be such a fool, but I’m so happy.’

  ‘Oh’ Ferrelyn responded, uncertainly.

  Angela blew, blinked, and dabbed.

  ‘You see,’ she explained, ‘I’ve not really dared to believe it myself. Telling it to somebody else suddenly made it real. And I’ve always wanted to, so much, you see. But then nothing happened, and went on not happening, so I began to think – well, I’d just about decided I’d have to try to forget about it, and make the best of things. And now it’s really happening after all, I – I –’ She began to weep again, quietly and comfortably.

  A few minutes later she pulled herself together, gave a final pat with the bunched handkerchief, and decisively put it away.

  ‘There,’ she said, ‘that’s over. I never thought I was one to enjoy a good cry, but it does seem to help.’ She looked at Ferrelyn. ‘Makes one thoroughly selfish, too – I’m sorry, my dear.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right. I’m glad for you,’ Ferrelyn said, generously she thought b
ecause, after all, one had been a bit anti-climaxed. After a pause, she went on:

  ‘Actually, I don’t feel weepy about it myself. But I do feel a bit frightened.…’

  The word caught Angela’s attention, and dragged her thoughts from self-contemplation. It was not a response she expected from Ferrelyn. She looked at her step-daughter for a thoughtful moment, as if the full import of the situation were only just reaching her.

  ‘Frightened, my dear?’ she repeated. ‘I don’t think you need feel that. It isn’t very proper, of course, but – well, we shan’t get anywhere by being puritanical about it. The first thing to do is to make sure you’re right.’

  ‘I am right,’ Ferrelyn said, gloomily. ‘But I don’t understand it. It’s different for you, being married, and so on.’

  Angela disregarded that. She went on:

  ‘Well, then, the next thing must be to let Alan know.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ agreed Ferrelyn, without eagerness.

  ‘Of course it is. And you don’t need to be frightened of that. Alan won’t let you down. He adores you.’

  ‘Are you sure of that, Angela?’ doubtfully.

  ‘Why, yes, you silly. One only has to look at him. Of course, it’s all quite reprehensible, but I shouldn’t be surprised if you find he’s delighted. Naturally, it will – Why, Ferrelyn, what’s the matter?’ She broke off, startled by Ferrelyn’s expression.

  ‘But – but you don’t understand, Angela. It wasn’t Alan.’

  The look of sympathy died from Angela’s face. Her expression went cold. She started to get up.

  ‘No!’ exclaimed Ferrelyn, desperately, ‘you don’t understand, Angela. It isn’t that. It wasn’t anybody! That’s why I’m frightened.…’

  ∗

  In the course of the next fortnight, three of the Midwich young women sought confidential interviews with Mr Leebody. He had baptized them when they were babies; he knew them, and their parents, well. All of them were good, intelligent, and certainly not ignorant, girls. Yet each of them told him, in effect: ‘It wasn’t anybody, Vicar. That’s why I’m frightened.…’