BENIGHTED
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
_Fiction_
ADAM IN MOONSHINE
_Essays, etc._
BRIEF DIVERSIONS
PAPERS FROM LILLIPUT
I FOR ONE
TALKING
OPEN HOUSE
_Criticism_
FIGURES IN MODERN LITERATURE
THE ENGLISH COMIC CHARACTERS
MEREDITH (English Men of Letters)
PEACOCK (English Men of Letters)
BENIGHTED
BY
J. B. PRIESTLEY
_.....the bright day is done.
And we are for the dark....._
[Illustration: description: Logo of four-bladed windmill with
letters W on left side and H on right
side.]
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD.
_First published ... 1927_
_Printed in Great Britain at_ The Ballantyne Press
_by_ Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & Co. Ltd.
_Colchester, London & Eton_
BENIGHTED
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.