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.