Джон Пристли - Benighted

…..the bright day is done,

And we are for the dark…..

Benighted by J. B. Priestley

First published London: Heinemann, 1927

Copyright © 1927 by J. B. Priestley

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.