Джон Пристли - Benighted

Margaret waited, afraid of marching briskly into that reverie of his. At last she moved a little in her chair and he looked up. There was just light enough for her to see his face tightening.

"That did it for me," he cried. "Up to then I'd been the nice honest decent little servant of the Company. Well, that was finished. They couldn't give a poor little nobody in a cotton frock, all eyes and smiles and nervousness, a friendly word or look, couldn't they! I told myself I'd put them all in rags. I was mad, but it put an edge on me, strung me up as if I was a fiddle-string. Going home to that empty little flat night after night during the first year, I swore to myself I'd spend the rest of my life beggaring every woman who'd been to that party. Couldn't do it, of course, but I did what I could. Before I'd done, I took a lot of cotton away from some of those fellows and piled it on the backs of their women. Within three years I'd wrecked that company and walked over to its biggest competitor. That started me. You wouldn't think I was sentimental, would you? But that began it. And it wasn't hard because there was nothing for me to do but to make money. I didn't even want to spend it at first, nobody to spend it on, and didn't want to enjoy myself or take it easy, not with that cotton frock stuck in my throat."

He rose from his chair and kicked a log back into its place on the fire. Then he stood looking down at her, his massive face very clear in the candle-light.

"You'll hear some tales of me, probably heard "em already. I'm one of the rudest of the rude self-made men. I've no respect for charming hostesses, nice ladies whose husbands could do with a bit of capital, or dainty aristocratic girls who wouldn't be above marrying a man twice their age if he happened to have bought a title and owned a few factories and ships and a newspaper. They'll tell you that, and they're right. I keep my respect for the young men's wives who turn up in cheap frocks. I suppose a man's got to be sentimental about something, and that's how it takes me. I've slipped many a year's dress allowance into an envelope. Queer, isn't it?"

Margaret murmured something, but she hardly knew what it was, for she was troubled by a vision of factories and ships and crowded offices, and against this background there stood out the figure of this man, no, this huge resentful boy with his oddly commonplace little romance, someone lost, now smiling, now crying, in a tiny flat, one of thousands, nearly thirty years ago. She stared at him. He had never really grown up. Were they all like that, these men who grabbed power, who wrecked whole countrysides, who sent other men flying all over the world? Once again she seemed to ache beneath the sudden pressure of life. It was time Philip returned. Why didn't he come, bringing the lamp? She felt lost herself in this queer light. The very look of that single candle, pointing at the shadows, made her ache.

"What's that?" Sir William held up his hand. "Didn't you hear something?"

Margaret leaned forward in her chair. "I thought I heard a noise, a kind of distant rumbling." She rose to her feet, and they stood together, listening. Their eyes were empty, but in their ears was the whole vague tumult of the night.

"Nothing much," said Sir William at last. "Storm's still going on, I suppose." He thrust his hands into his pockets, and began whistling softly.

There had been so many things to think about that Margaret had almost forgotten the storm, the crumbling hills and the floods outside, the old menace of the night. Their journey through it, their arrival here, these events had crept away from the foreground of her mind, had thinned and faded a little. Now they returned, conquering her mind in one savage rush; the walls and the roof became mere eggshell; and the night was about to pour in its rain and darkness. She stood there pressing down so heavily upon one foot that the whole leg was taut and dully aching, and still she listened.

There was more distant rumbling, then at last a huge crash, coming from somewhere above and behind the house. "I wonder what that was," she said, looking at her companion.

"Something went then," he exclaimed. "More water coming down now, I suppose." He went over to the window, rubbed it with his forefinger, and tried to peer through. "Can't see a thing. It's as black as pitch." He continued to stand there, with his face close to the window. "I'll tell you what," he said, after a minute had passed, "I can hear something though. Sounds like rushing water, tons and tons of it. Come here and listen."

She joined him at the window, which looked out at the back of the house. There was a noise of rushing water coming from somewhere, not a loud noise yet very disturbing, suggesting the presence of a gigantic hostile power. "Is it coming down on us?" she asked.

"All round us now, I should think," he replied. "Probably finding its way in."

Yes, the house was an eggshell perched on the hillside. There was no security anywhere. This thought angered her; she felt as if she had been cheated.

"It won't bother us," Sir William was declaring. "Only keep us indoors here, and anyhow we don't want to go out."

She hastened to agree, and told herself not to be so foolish. A foot or two of water, a few tumbling rocks outside, a little space of darkness, that was all, and what were they? The trouble really was, she ought to be asleep, dreaming. There came a fancy that it was the dreaming part of her, now awake and active, that was taking hold of her experience, turning it into queer stuff, flashing baleful lights upon it. They were now both drifting away from the window, going back to the fire again.

The opening of a door behind turned them round. Could it be Philip at last? No, it was Miss Femm. She came in with a candle in one hand and with the other outstretched, a finger pointing at Margaret.

"You opened it, didn't you?" she screamed, accusingly. "Well, you can go and shut it now, go and shut it. I can"t. No time to lose either. It's down on us, coming in too, I expect, in the cellars."

Margaret couldn't find a word. She felt rather sick. Sir William, however, took charge of the situation. "What's this?" he called, with some sternness.

"The floods, of course!" cried Miss Femm. "All round us."

"Yes, I know that," he returned. "But what's this about opening and shutting?"

"My window." She pointed to Margaret again. "She must have opened it, and now she can shut it. I'm being swamped out."

Margaret found her voice. "I'm sorry." Then she turned to Sir William and lowered her voice. "I'm afraid I opened the window in her room. That's what she means."

"Is that all? Well, I'll go and close it for her," he replied, to her relief. "All right," he shouted, nodding to Miss Femm. "I'll come and shut it."

Miss Femm nodded in reply, keeping her mouth tightly closed and fixing her little eyes on Margaret in a long evil stare. Then she went over to the door through which she had just entered, the one that led into the corridor that Margaret knew, and held it open. Sir William walked towards it, then turned and looked back at Margaret. "Shan't be long," he told her. "Your husband ought to be back with that lamp in a minute or two." He went out, followed by Miss Femm, who banged the door behind her.

It was a desolate sound. Nor was the silence that came so swiftly afterwards any more comforting. There dripped into it the thought that she was now alone. The shadows, thick in every corner of the big room, lit so feebly, despairingly, by the solitary candle, crept nearer to tell her that she was alone. It was only for a minute or so, though. Any moment might bring Philip down those stairs. She walked slowly over to the foot of the staircase and stood there looking up into the gloom above and listening for his footstep. She heard something, a vague noise, it might have been someone talking or moving about upstairs. Was it Philip and Mr. Femm? And if not, who was it, and what had become of them? There was a creaking somewhere. Was it on the stairs above? She glanced round the hall and then had a sudden impulse to run upstairs and find Philip. It would be better than staying there alone. But would it? She might miss him; he might return some other way, down another staircase at the back, and find her gone; and she might be wandering about upstairs. Who knew how big and rambling the house might be! She saw herself creeping down strange dim corridors. No, she would remain where she was. And anyhow, Sir William would return soon.