CHAPTER VI
Afterthey had all risen from the table, Gladys and Penderel found themselves standing together. There were several yards and the width of the table between them and the others, who were close to the fire. This isolation was accidental, but they were in no hurry to put an end to it. The mood of candour and revelation had passed, leaving them rather shy and awkward with one another, but something had been carried over from that shared feeling. Their faces were still strange but their feet were on common ground.
Gladys looked about her and gave a little shiver. ‘Glad I’m not here alone,’ she told him. ‘This place’d give me the horrors.’
Penderel was curious. ‘D’you mean absolutely alone?’
‘No, I didn’t really. I meant just with the people here.’
‘The Femms?’ He hoped that that was what she did mean.
She met his glance and nodded. ‘Yes. There’s something a bit queer about the man, but that little fat woman, with the voice—there’s something about her....’ She finished the sentence by wrinkling her nose.
Penderel hadn’t troubled himself much with the thought of Miss Femm. ‘She’s probably a harmless old creature, though she certainly does remind one of a slug.’
Gladys kept the wrinkle on her nose for a few moments more, then let it go and smiled. ‘What’s the time?’
He couldn’t tell her. ‘Sorry. No watch.’
‘Fancy a man without a watch!’ she cried, though the thought seemed to please her. ‘But I never have one neither. Can’t be bothered somehow. Why don’t you?’
‘I hardly ever want to know how it’s going—the time, I mean; and if I do, there’s always somebody ready to tell me. Some people never seem to think about anything else. I don’t think I like watches and clocks. We ought to go back to hour-glasses and sundials, things that deal with time quietly and don’t for ever pester you with their sixty seconds to the minute.’
She seemed to be looking at him rather thanlistening to him. ‘You’re a funny boy,’ she said at last. ‘I expect you’ve been told that before.’
Was this something real, only defeated by language, or was she becoming heavily arch? ‘No, I haven’t,’ he replied lightly. ‘I haven’t been told anything for ages. I’ve been spending most of my time with men, and men, you know, never say things like that, never really tell you anything about yourself.’
‘I can tell you something aboutmyself? she said, making a droll little grimace.
‘What’s that?’ He put on a look of mock gravity.
She curved a hand round her mouth. ‘I’m dying for a drink.’
‘So am I,’ he assented, heartily. ‘This confessional business has made me thirstier than ever. Well, what about a drink? There’s some gin left there.’
‘Ugh! Not for me. I’ve not come to mopping straight gins yet. That’ll be the last act. You wouldn’t like to see me soaking gin now, would you?’
He admitted that he wouldn’t. And he meant it. It was curious how the idea revolted him. He had a quick shudderingthought of gay and impudent youth, of something that deliciously held the balance between the urchin and the woman, rotted away: a mere trick, of course, of associations, but nevertheless very curious.
‘Isn’t there anything else?’ she went on. ‘One whisky now, and I’d face the rest of the night cheerfully. Sir Bill there, the greedy pig, swallowed all we had as soon as we came in. If you want to know how those men make so much money, that explains it. They’re greedy pigs.’
Penderel looked at the table and rubbed his chin. ‘I’m with you about the whisky. But there’s none here.’
‘Well, it’s a dam shame, now, isn’t it? Why don’t you carry a flask?’
He stared at her and suddenly struck his left palm with his right hand. ‘Why,’ he cried, ‘what a fool I am!’
‘Of course you are.’ She made a mocking little face. ‘But what’s the big idea?’
‘I don’t carry a flask as a rule, but I had one to-day. I’d forgotten all about it. You can hardly believe it, can you? But it’s true. I had one, I had one, full of good whisky. I remember having one little drink outof it, when we started off again just after dinner.’
‘What about it, then?’ she asked him. ‘You’re not going to be a greedy pig, are you? You’re not going to tell me now that little girls oughtn’t to drink whisky?’
‘Don’t be silly. I’ll go and get it and we’ll share what there is, just the two of us.’
‘That’s the spirit.’ Then her face seemed to change a little and now she really smiled at him. ‘Just the two of us. We don’t want Bill in this—he doesn’t deserve any either—and the others won’t want any. Where is it?’
‘In my raincoat pocket, I suppose,’ he replied. ‘I’ll go and see.’ He went over to his coat, but returned shaking his head. ‘It’s not there. I must have left it in the car, somewhere on the seat.’
Her face fell. ‘If that isn’t just my luck. What’s the good of having a flask out there? We can’t start climbing over rocks and wading through rivers to find it.’
‘But this car’s here, just round the corner,’ he said. ‘You’re forgetting that. I can easily slip out and get the flask.’
‘Of course!’ she cried. ‘I was thinking ofour car. Just a minute then, and I’ll come to the door with you. I’ll put my boots on first.’
‘Have you got a torch?’ he asked. When he discovered that she had, having carried Sir William’s through the darkness, he continued: ‘Well, if you let me have that, I can get the flask in a minute. No need for you to bother yourself, you know.’ But he hoped she would.
When she returned, wearing her boots and coat and carrying the torch, she said: ‘No, I’ll come to the door with you. It’ll be something to do and perhaps we’d better have our drink there. I’ve shocked your friend—Mrs. What’s-her-name—Waverton—enough for to-night. Besides, Bill will be wanting to butt in.’ The others were clustered round the fire and were paying no attention to them. Gladys was eager to go, to do something. It would be a little adventure. She didn’t want to stand there, waiting for him.
They left the big door open behind them and stood at the top of the three steps outside, sheltered from the rain by a small porch. The night was as black as ever and still roared gustily, and the light from behind only showedthem a gleaming slant of rain and pools in the sodden gravel. For a minute or so they made neither movement nor sound but simply stood close together, looking out. Somehow it was as if all things had narrowed to one perilous rim.
‘Give me London,’ said Gladys, her mouth close to his ear. ‘London every time. You never see a night like this there. It never seems so bad. Ugh! I’d get the horrors here. And, mind you, I’ve struck some rotten places in London, but you always feel you’ve only to make a little dash for it and everything’s all right, there’s the lights and the buses and policemen just outside. But look at this.’
‘We’re probably cut off altogether by this time.’ Penderel found the idea attractive. The five of them were shipwrecked. There had come at last a break in the smooth and dreary sequence of things. He hoped they were cut off at least for a few hours. ‘According to these people here, it’s happened at least once before. The house itself is all right, but it might easily be impossible to get away from it.’ But it didn’t look impossible though, and he couldn’t help wishing theevidence were plainer. He didn’t want everything to settle down again.
Gladys surprised him by touching at once the core of his thought. ‘You’re rather pleased about it, aren’t you? Anything for a bit of excitement’s your motto, isn’t it?’
‘Perhaps it is,’ he replied. ‘But I hope you’re not going on to say that you’ve met my sort before. That would make me very angry. I like to think I’m original.’
She reflected for a moment. ‘No, I’ve met all sorts, and some were a bit like you but not really very like. You’re different really.’
‘Now that’s a compliment,’ he cried. ‘Nothing like being different. You’re different too.’
‘Of course you’d have to say that, wouldn’t you?’ She turned her head to look him in the face. Her eyes seemed enormous in that strange half-light of the open door. ‘But you don’t really believe it. I know.’
‘You don’t know.’ This was silly stuff, but he had an odd desire to tease her.
‘Yes, I do. You shut up,’ she retorted, quite calmly. ‘Run away and get that flask. Where’s the car?’
‘Just round the corner here somewhere.’He waved his left hand. ‘It’s in a shed or coach-house or something and won’t be locked up. Can I borrow the torch?’
She handed it to him. ‘I’ll wait here for you.’
‘Right you are,’ he cried. ‘I shan’t be long.’ He hurried away, and a moment later she saw the light from his torch vanish behind a corner of the house. Three or four minutes passed for her in a kind of dream, in the very centre of which, far removed from the darkness and the rain, there seemed to be something comforting, warm, glowing. It would be fun when he came back with the flask. The drink didn’t matter much—though she had missed the whiskies-and-sodas that most evenings brought, and felt a little uncomfortable, uncertain of herself—but she liked the idea of the two of them, just them and nobody else, sharing that flask, making a kind of cosiness together in the middle of this awful night. There was something about this boy ... she felt she understood him. She had remembered him from that one night at the ‘Rats and Mice.’ He hadn’t remembered her, hadn’t noticed her. That was nothing. She wasn’t so sorry about that.He had had a lot to drink, was nearly tight, but not red and goggly like most of them, but pale, with very bright eyes, all strung up. He wasn’t the usual sort. He didn’t care much about girls, but was one of those who went round drinking with other fellows, played cards for money all night, and talked and talked about the War and books and politics and all that, very clever and very funny. They’d think he was happy, they’d know no better; she could almost see and hear them, a lot of men talking and laughing, silly babies. That girl had done it for him, or begun it. She found herself wondering what that girl was like. Tall and fair, little head, high voice and snobby accent, cool sort of stare, twenty-guinea tailor-mades as ‘these old rags’ for the morning stroll, one kiss if you’re a good boy—she’d be that kind, rather like this one here he’d been staying with, Mrs. Waverton. But he wasn’t in love with this Mrs. Waverton, wasn’t even interested, she could see that. Perhaps that girl wasn’t the same kind. And anyhow, what did it matter, what was she being so silly about? It was time he was back.
Then something happened. The little lighted patch of night, with its gleam of fallingrain and wet ground, at which she had been idly staring for the last five minutes, was suddenly blotted out, and there was nothing but darkness before her. The doorway was all dark. The lights in the house must have gone out. It was all so sudden, so unexpected, so noiseless, that for a moment or two she was completely bewildered and rather frightened. Then she heard voices raised indoors. They would be telling one another that the lights would have to be attended to, that the fusing or whatever it was would have to be put right. The lights would probably be on again in a few minutes. She had said she would wait there. If she went in now, she might spoil it all. She would stay where she was.
It was queer, frightening, though, standing there in the dark and not knowing what was happening. She could at least peep in, just to satisfy herself. There was a very faint firelight creeping through the doorway now. She could hear voices again, and footsteps, now a loud voice—that was the fat, deaf woman, who must be quite close. She had been staring irresolutely at the darkened doorway, but now, having determined tolook into the house, she moved a pace or two forward and to the right. Had she moved another step the heavy door would have flung her back bodily, but as it was she stopped just in time. Actually it did not touch her but it seemed to have been banged in her face.
She was so startled that the crash left her dizzy, leaning against the door for support. It was as if someone had dealt her a blow. No gust of wind could have banged that great door into its place; somebody inside had shut it; and she was locked out. And now it was darker than ever, and all she could hear was the noise of the rain, a dismal, frightening, lonely sort of noise.
Why didn’t he come back with that flask? Why didn’t somebody remember they were out and open the door? It had only been shut by a silly accident. She would knock and let them know she was there. But even when she made up her mind, it seemed as if her muscles would not obey her at once, so that she hesitated for some time, with one hand resting on the door itself and the other ready clenched for the knocking. She grew impatient with herself. What was the matter? A rap or two would settle it. Yet when shedid knock at last, it was hurriedly and rather timidly, like somebody dubious of the fate an opened door would bring. She waited a moment and then knocked again, this time with more confidence.
Nothing happened. The massive door looked as if it were closed for ever. The noise of the rain returned with greater insistence, and the night, the immense black wet gulf of it, seemed to close round her. What had happened in the house? What had become of Penderel? She couldn’t wait for him any longer, everything had suddenly become so queer. If she stood in front of that door another minute, she would want to scream and batter it with her two fists. He didn’t know these things were happening, and he was only round the corner. She would go and find him.
It was a relief to do something, even though it meant splashing through the darkness. She made for that corner of the house round which Penderel’s light had disappeared, but when she had groped her way to the other side of it there were no signs of any sheds or coach-houses. There was, however, some sort of light on the left, and she hurried towards it,imagining for a moment or so that she had found Penderel. But no, this was still the house itself. The light was shining through an uncurtained window on the ground floor. She went nearer and saw that the light came from a solitary candle and that someone was sitting in there. Could this be Penderel? No, it was not. She approached the window more cautiously now, and peeped in.
The candle was on a bare table and it showed her the figure of a man sprawling there, with a bottle of brandy and a glass before him. It was the huge dumb man she had seen when she first came in, the man they said was drinking, Morgan. She could not see him very distinctly because the window was streaming, but she received a vivid if fantastic impression of his humped shoulders and hairy flushed face. His head was rolling a little from side to side, and he put one great paw on the table to steady himself. He looked as if he had reached the brooding stage, and very soon, she thought, if he didn’t fall asleep, he would turn nasty. She had seen them before—usually with two or three policemen hanging on to them before they had done—and he was obviously that sort and such a huge brutetoo. He would need about four policemen if he turned nasty. They ought to have locked him in that room, which seemed to be a kitchen. Perhaps they had, though. Now she saw him lift his head, and she felt a sudden stab of fear as he appeared to turn his eyes towards the window. But she reminded herself that he couldn’t see her, and she stayed where she was, watching him, fascinated. Now he had rolled to his feet and was looking about him. He moved forward for a few paces and then stopped, swaying slightly and apparently muttering to himself. Obviously he hadn’t reached the legless state as she thought he might have done, for he moved with some confidence, but he was drunk, there was no doubt about that, broodingly and dangerously drunk, ready for mischief and worse.
She turned away, dazed after looking at the light, and groped her way round the next corner, feeling wet and cold now and apprehensive. Where was Penderel? For a moment she was completely bewildered by the total darkness and splashed on helplessly, like someone lost and blind. But she heard a noise coming from the right somewhere. Itsounded like a horse moving in its stable. She pressed on vaguely in the direction of the sound and seemed to approach a long black bulk. These must be the coach-house and sheds he had mentioned. Yes, there was a glimmer of light further away on the left. She hastened towards it, heedless of the pools through which she had to splash, and a moment later found herself blinking in the sudden full glare of the electric torch. She had found him.
‘Is that you?’ she called, halting.
‘Hello!’ came his voice, and she hurried forward. ‘I was just coming back,’ he went on. ‘Sorry to have been such a time, but first I couldn’t find the car and then I couldn’t find the flask. I looked all round the back seat, then at last remembered I had passed it to Waverton and he had put it down and forgotten it, and it was on the front seat. Sorry to have kept you waiting.’
She was hardly listening. They were in a kind of shed, and she was at his side, leaning against him, breathless. She felt all weak now. ‘Half a minute,’ she gasped, and straightened herself.
He put a hand on her arm, and with theother hand sent the light of the torch circling round the shed. ‘Hello, what’s wrong?’
She waited a few moments. It didn’t seem much now. He would think she was being silly. ‘Nothing much really,’ she told him. ‘Only it seemed so funny. While I was standing at the door, waiting for you, all the lights in the house suddenly went out.’
‘That’s nothing,’ he interrupted. ‘They’ve been jumpy all the time. I’ve been expecting that. This home-made electricity’s always going wrong, and a night like this just asks for it.’
‘All right, Mr. Wise Man. I thought of that too. But there’s some more. Just after the lights went out, the door was banged in my face. I was locked out.’
‘That’s queer certainly,’ he admitted. ‘Perhaps the wind though....’
‘No, it wasn’t. Then I knocked, but nobody came. I was fed up standing there, waiting for you, so I set off to find you, and on the way I saw that man Morgan in the kitchen, fighting drunk. Phew!’ She blew out her breath. ‘I want to sit down.’
‘Of course you do,’ he cried. ‘You want a drink too. Well, then, inside or out?’
‘What do you mean? If it’s the drink, I want it inside.’
He turned her round and flashed the light forward. There was the car, which had been backed into the long shed. ‘We can perch on the step or running-board or whatever they call it, or we can get inside and be snug and talk it all out over the whisky. Just a minute,’ he added, moving forward. ‘I’ll switch on the lights to make it cosier. Only the dims though, because it’s Waverton’s electricity, not mine. There you are.’
‘We’ll sit inside,’ she decided.
‘Right you are. Front or back?’ he enquired, bowing and waving a hand towards the two doors.
She laughed. He was turning it all into fun again. ‘Oh, the back!’ she cried. He held open the door and she climbed in and settled herself happily on the cushions. He sat down by her side and began to unscrew the flask.
‘So they’ve shut us out, eh?’ He was pouring the whisky into the little cup. ‘Well, that’s nothing new, is it? We’re always being shut out.’
‘I’m not.’ She took the cup he offered.
He laughed. ‘Aren’t you? I am. Drink up, and then begin at the beginning and tell me all about it. Wait, though, I’ll have a drink first. I don’t suppose there’s anything in it, I mean the business of the lights and the door, of course, but there might be, there’s just a chance. If there were, it would be something horrible. Well, I drink your health, Gladys.’ He drained the cup. ‘I hope you don’t mind my calling you that, as between fellow adventurers, you know, shut out, lost in the dark, draining the last flask.’
‘No, I don’t mind. I like it.’ She felt warm now, snuggling in the seat and with the tiny fire of whisky somewhere inside her; and she found herself leaning against him a little, discovering a certain comfort in the suggestion of his neighbouring solidity. ‘But what do you mean by your something horrible?’ she went on to ask. ‘Are you trying to frighten me?’
He was more serious now, though not entirely so. ‘No, I’m not. I tell you I don’t suppose there’s anything in it. But, I repeat, if there were, it would be something horrible. What I mean is, that this house we’ve crept into out of the dark might be all right—thatis, so far as we’re concerned, just for to-night, we’ll say—and probably will be, but it’s very queer, and if it goes wrong, it’ll go wrong very badly. I feel it in my bones. Once off the track and there’ll be something hellish let loose. You see, I’ve been brooding over it a bit, and I know more about it than you do.’
‘You’re making it up,’ she cried. ‘You don’t know any more than I do. You’re trying to work it all up into something very exciting, just to pass the time. I know you.’
‘Perhaps I am. But listen. To begin with, there’s old Sir Roderick.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘Exactly, who’s he? You’ve never heard of him. But he’s in there. He’s the master of the house really and was once tremendously important, but is now very old and infirm and is somewhere upstairs, invisible and ungetatable. When you come to think of it, he’s rather like God.’
She pinched his arm. ‘You mustn’t,’ she told him, and meant it. It wouldn’t do to say such things a night like this. He was worse than she was, and she would have to hold him in. He didn’t seem to resent the pinch andshe let her hand stay where it was, loosely grasping his arm.
‘Then there’s woman Femm,’ he continued. ‘You’ve seen and heard her. She might break out anywhere. I’m not sure now she didn’t frighten Margaret Waverton. There’s Morgan. You’ve just seen him——’
‘I have,’ she broke in, with conviction, ‘and I hope to God they’ve locked him in.’
‘There’s man Femm, those bones that have dodged the police. I wonder what he’d been doing, by the way. Now the queer thing about him is that he’s terrified, absolutely jangling with fear of something or somebody in the house. I noticed it, and he said he was afraid of Morgan getting drunk——’
‘If that’s what it was, I don’t blame him.’ She was very emphatic.
‘But it wasn’t, that’s the point. I’m positive it wasn’t. It was something, somebody else. In the house too. Perhaps it’s Sir Roderick, who may be a kind of old horror.’
She tightened her grip on his arm. ‘That’s enough of that. I want to be able to go back there.’
‘All right. But you ought to have been telling your tale. Now you begin, and whenyou’ve finished, we’ll go back and see what’s really happened.’ He sank a little lower in his seat and rested his head on the cushions. She began her story of the lights and the door, and as she spoke her head gradually slipped down until at last her cheek was resting against his sleeve. Throughout there was at the back of her mind the thought of that great closed door and the surrounding darkness and the rain that could still be faintly heard beating against the roof of the shed. But there was a little roof of their own, the car’s hood just above their heads, between them and that other roof, and they seemed to be in a queer tiny room, smelling of leather and petrol, that lodged them warmly and securely in the very centre of the night, just the two of them, talking so easily together. She wanted to give herself a shivering little hug—just as she used to do when she was a kid and the curtain went up at the theatre—and she hadn’t felt like that for a long time. It was queer how excited and happy she was inside, simply because the two of them were there talking about strange things and all the time talking their own strangeness away.