Джон Пристли - Benighted

CHAPTER XIV

Margaret was trying the handle of the door. "He's locked it," she cried, staring at Gladys.

"I know he has." Gladys had sunk to her knees. She put the candlestick, with its feeble, spluttering flame on the floor beside her, and stretched out a hand to the door, leaning against it. "He's shut us in because he thought we'd be safe in here." She spoke slowly, dully.

"I don't want to be safe, to be shut in like this." Margaret rattled the handle uselessly. "I want to know what's happening. I want to be with Phil – my husband."

"Don't you see?" Gladys had roused herself and was looking up now, her eyes bright with resentment. "He's out there, waiting for that lunatic to come down, and shoved us in here to be out of the way. You don't seem to understand what he's doing. You thought he was dodging it, didn't you? My God!"

"I did at first," Margaret said gently. "I'm sorry." And as she looked down at the girl's pale face, working queerly in that jumpy little light, she felt sorry too, sorry for her, sorry for everybody.

"As if he would!" Then her tone changed from indignation to bitterness. "Well, I wish to God he had, wish we'd never come back. It would have to be him, of course it would be. It was just waiting for him. That's silly, I suppose. I don't care. I'm all to pieces now – and he's out there, as lonely as hell, waiting for that – that thing."

"It'll be all right," Margaret told her, trying to keep her voice quiet and confident. "The others will be back soon. Then there'll be three of them."

"That woman locked the other door," Gladys muttered.

"They'll get the key from her when they've done with Morgan," Margaret went on. But she was thinking how all this crazy locking of doors made it seem like a bad dream. She glanced round in the dying light and shivered. "Where are we?"

"I don't know. What does it matter?" Gladys raised herself up and tried to listen through the door.

Margaret took up the candlestick and moved forward a few paces. She saw nothing but the dimmest shapes of furniture, however, for the little spluttering flame gave a last jump, trembled, and then rapidly dwindled. Her spirits sank with it as the darkness closed round her. She trailed back to the door and, when the last flicker had gone, she let the candlestick fall to the ground. "What's happening?" She bent forward.

"Oh, I can't hear a thing," Gladys whispered.

Together they listened at the door, and it seemed to be hours before they heard anything but their own quick breathing and heart-beats. They were lost in a pulsating darkness.

"We can't do anything but wait," whispered Margaret at last. Somehow she daren't raise her voice above a whisper.

"I can hear him moving about now; can you?" Gladys listened again. "Bill and your husband don't seem to have come out yet. I believe he's going upstairs."

"Yes, he is," Margaret told her, and could feel her trembling. There was a long pause, during which they listened again, then Margaret went on: "I can't hear anything now. Perhaps he's waiting at the top. That's horrible, isn't it? Why doesn't Philip come back? It's awful waiting here."

"It's worse waiting there," cried Gladys, raising her voice now. "With that ghastly loony creeping down. Oh, my God!" She cleared her throat. "I expect you know what's the matter with me, or you must think I'm going mad too."

"I feel we're all going mad to-night," Margaret broke in, hastily. "Everything's turned crazy and horrible. That's the awful thing, isn't it? – that you can't trust anything, like being in a nightmare. Haven't you been feeling that?"

"Yes, I have." Gladys was at once eager and piteous. "Didn't I tell you before? I knew, I knew. Something told me all along, and I tried to tell him but I couldn't make him understand. It was only a feeling – but you know what I mean?"

"Who did you try to tell?"

"Penderel, of course. When we were outside. That's what I was going to tell you, I mean when I said you'd know what's the matter with me – because, you see – Oh, you know – I love him. We can talk now, can't we? Yes, we went outside and sat and talked, and then I found it out; came as quick as lightning, sudden but absolutely dead certain." Then she added, simply: "And you know what it means. You're in love with your husband, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am." This was neither the time nor the place, Margaret felt, for all those delicate reservations that her truthful mind had so often brought out and examined. Then she realised, in a flash, that they no longer appeared to exist. She couldn't remember what they were. And she didn't want to remember. "I haven't always thought so," she went on. "But I am."

"I knew you were," Gladys whispered. "I could tell, always can. But I suppose it doesn't make you ache any more, does it?"

"I think," said Margaret, slowly, "it's beginning to, again."

"It's funny it's so different – - " Gladys began, but then broke off. There was a crash outside. "My God! Did you hear that? And we can't do a thing! Has that lunatic come down, do you think? Are they fighting?"

"I think they must be. It's horrible, horrible."

"And he's there by himself. The other two haven't come back. Why don't they come?" Gladys pressed her hands together in the darkness.

"I don't know," Margaret stammered. "Something may have happened to them. That beast – Morgan – and Miss Femm." Then something seemed to snap inside her. "Oh, I can't bear it, can't bear it any longer." Her legs crumpled like paper and she slipped down the door, sobbing.

Gladys was kneeling by her side now, with an arm about her. "Never mind, never mind, Mrs. Waverton. It's awful, isn't it, but it'll all come right for you, you'll see. Nothing'll have happened to him. Your man can look after himself." They clung together, while through the dark, from behind the door, came tiny vague sounds, a mysterious thud-thudding. But neither of them wanted to listen any longer. They could only wait, comforting one another, until the door was opened again, to reveal their fate. Until that moment arrived, this was all their world, and they could only cling together in the darkness and cry to one another their hope and their despair.

"It's worn me down," said Margaret, brokenly. "You've no idea what it's been like, for me, here. One thing after another. First, Miss Femm – telling me about her sister – then touching me – and that horrible room of hers. Then Morgan – he came after me – like a beast. And Philip had to fight him, upstairs. And then that strange old man – lying so still in his bed – whispering terrible things. And now this. All going on and on. Everything strange and dark and getting queerer and darker. No end to it. Until at last you begin to feel that all the safe and clean and sane things have gone for ever. You can't hold on for ever. It's been different for you perhaps; but don't you see what I mean?"

Gladys murmured that she did and tightened her clasp. She didn't understand it all, but that didn't matter. Nothing mattered now except keeping close until that door opened.

"I hated it at first," Margaret went on. "But then when we were talking round the table I liked it. And I thought Philip and I could easily find one another after that, because it seemed so easy to know and understand people, even strangers, so easy to be happy with someone you once loved."

"I felt that too, or something like it." Gladys was crying very quietly. "Oh, what am I crying for! It doesn't matter though. But – it was better than that with me. It was really beginning, see? First, listening to all of you, then talking about myself. Then talking to him out there. And being able to laugh about everything together, and knowing as well that I could do a lot for him. He was absolutely fed up, didn't care a damn about anything. And I was like that really. And then I thought, if it lasted, I wouldn't be lonely any more, wouldn't be going in at night sometimes wishing I was dead. And even if it didn't last, I'd had something, you see, something different. . . ."