Джон Пристли - Benighted

"Oh, that!" She dismissed these antique fancies with hearty contempt, all the more hearty because she felt suddenly relieved. "That's only true about looks, when you're bothering about your face and figure. But it's not true about anything else, is it? Everybody I've ever met had more time than they knew what to do with; even old Bill there – with all his cables and telegrams and private secretaries and rushing about – has more gaps than he knows how to fill; I know that. Those old fellows – they read "em out in church, don't they? – must have really been Beauty specialists."

"Perhaps they were – in a way," he put in, reflectively. "But what were you going to say, before you began about not putting on any airs?"

"Oh, yes. About me and Bill. Well, it really boils down to this. It's been a convenient arrangement for both of us. As I said before, I like him, and he's helped me a lot, given me a pretty good time. There's been nothing regular about it, you know; no little flats and all the rest of it; he's just taken me out when he's felt like it or when I've felt like it, and we've had a few week-ends away. This is the longest and the farthest: I was down on this one from the start, but he was desperately keen, wanted a day's golf at Harlech. If he was like some of them I've seen and heard of, not gone away with, though – for ever pawing round you and very smarmy – there'd have been nothing doing. But what he really wants – most times anyhow – is just somebody to be with, to talk big to at dinner or late at night. He likes to sit on the edge of a bed, boasting a bit to round off the day. He's lonely really, for all his talk. He ought to have married again; his wife died when he was young and he hasn't forgotten her either. You can guess that pretty soon. I've weighed him up."

"I can see the balance in your hand," said Penderel. "It's terrifying, but go on."

"Now you're making fun of me," she cried. "I shan't tell you any more."

It was queer, Penderel thought, how simple she became as soon as she talked directly to him, almost childish, whereas every time she spoke about anything else she surprised him. "You must go on. I want to be terrified, and I only wish Porterhouse could hear this. It would open his eyes, though he's by no means a complacent fool about himself, judging from that little anecdote he told at the supper table. Tell me some more about him. Blow the masculine gaff."

"Another thing about him is this. I fancy it's true about a lot of men too. When he asks me to go out with him or to go away with him, it's not so much that he really wants me there." She stopped for a moment to think it out. "What he really wants is not to be wanting somebody, d"you see? And that's not the same thing, is it?"

"Not by a thundering long chalk," he told her. "There's all the difference in the world between "em."

"Well, that's how it is, mostly, with him. He wants everything, you see, or thinks he does; and if he was by himself, knocking about town or staying at some swell seaside hotel, and he saw a lot of smart and pretty girls drifting round, he'd be as mad as blazes because he hadn't one. He wouldn't be able to eat his dinner for thinking about it. But if he has one too, there with him, staring him in the face if he cares to look across, it's all right then. And he's got somebody to show off and somebody to explain himself to and boast to, later on. That's where I come in, then. You see he happens to think I'm rather smart and fairly pretty. Probably you don"t."

"My dear Gladys, I think you're astonishingly pretty, a staggerer." He didn't though; and it suddenly occurred to him that he had met quite a number of prettier girls – belonging to his own class, as people still said – who hadn't interested him at all, whereas this girl was most curiously attractive and exciting. Like a jolly good music-hall, he told himself. Well, whatever it was that drew him, it wasn't the mere look of her, though that was agreeable enough.

"You'd have to say that, wouldn't you? Well, I don't think I am very pretty, so there," she said, quite earnestly. "There's honesty for you."

"Why, what's the trouble?"

"Oh, my face is too broad, to begin with, and my nose isn't right. My figure isn't either, not for these days when you ought to be very long and slender or a kind of boy."

"They're all wrong. Don't you worry about them," he remarked easily. "I detest these death's head and crossbones women you see everywhere now." He remembered, with pleasure, her fine sturdiness, now so much neighbouring warmth. But he was still wondering what it was that attracted him. All her obvious characteristics, of course, her courage and common sense and jolly impudence, floated on a deep rich stream, a Thames itself, of feminine vitality. She made Margaret Waverton seem nothing but a faintly freshened and animated mummy. And the Thames must have come into his mind, because, in some queer fashion, she was mixed up with his feeling about London. It was as if his thought of her danced all the time before a backcloth of the London scene, the roaringly human streets of Cockneydom – of buses and evening papers and oyster-bars and teashops and barrel organs and music-halls. That in itself, on such a night, might explain it all. But he had a feeling that it didn"t.

She was asking him if he was listening. "I've been hearing it some time," she added.

"Hearing what?" He leaned forward a little, then looked at the vague rounded pallor of the face beside him, a mystery and an enchantment in its little darkness of eyes and lips.

"Outside. A kind of rushing noise."

"I'd almost forgotten there was an outside. I can hear it now though. It's getting louder."

"I should think it is. Sounds as if a river were coming down on us." She gave a little shiver. "What are you going to do?"

He was opening the door of the car. "I'm going to see what's happening."

"It sounds as if you want something to happen. I believe you do. If you're not careful, you'll make it happen." There was a trace of real resentment in her tones.

He was out now on the floor of the shed, which sloped down towards the entrance. It seemed to be very wet. There was the noise of a great wash of water coming down, and already it seemed to be rushing past outside and creeping up the shed. It was difficult to see though, because the little lights of the car, which had been backed in at an angle, did not shine his way.

"I say, Roger." Gladys was calling to him. It was queer to hear his Christian name like that, coming out of a dark place in a still unfamiliar voice. He felt as if he had suddenly dropped fifteen years and started over again. "If you're going far, wait a minute," she went on, "because I'm coming with you."

"I'm not going far," he replied. "Hardly a step farther." The water was certainly coming into the shed; a flood had been loosed upon them from somewhere; there was the sound of a river roaring past. "Look out," he shouted. "I'm coming back." A sudden rush of water had swept round the corner like a little tidal wave. In a second it was nearly up to his knees, and the next moment he was climbing into the car again.

"Look at that," he panted. "Water's pouring into the place." She leaned across and looked through the open door, while he tried to squeeze the water out of the bottom of his trousers.

"Why," she cried, "if it gets any higher it'll be in here soon."

"In that case," he grunted, still bending and trying to wring his trousers, "you'll have to keep your feet on the cushions."

She put out a hand. "But suppose it gets higher and higher. My God, we're simply trapped here!"

He straightened himself now, brought his face close to hers and smiled at her through the deep dusk. "We could get out somehow. Besides it can't rise much. It's bound to run away very quickly. It's rather amusing, don't you think?"