‘We’ll get them in,’ Penderel replied.
Mrs. Waverton was emphatic. ‘I simply must have mine, Philip. I’m soaked to the skin and must change my things. Bring the bags in now.’
Darkness and rain and a vague tumult still held the night. ‘Thank God I’m now seeing the last of this car to-night,’ Waverton said, as they tugged at the straps round the luggage grid. ‘We’re well out of this, though I must say this is a queer house.’
‘A very queer house and very queer people,’ Penderel replied, pulling at the swollen leather. ‘I now know the real meaning of the phrase, “Cherchez les Femms.” I’ve taken this old bag of mine into some damned odd places, but I have a feeling this is going to be about the oddest.’
Waverton grunted. ‘It’s better than capering in the dark along roads that aren’t there, anyhow. It’s safe and there’s a roof and a fire.’
‘Nothing’s safe,’ said Penderel, swinging out two bags. ‘Perhaps this is the fire, and we’re merely taking the bags out of the frying-pan.’ He hurried round to the door and did not hesitate to jostle Morgan, who had been standing in the doorway all the time. If the man didn’t like it, he could lump it, and lumping it seemed to be all he could do. A gorilla would have been a little more amiable and helpful: the man overdid his dumbness and his part as giant troll.
They all began bustling about now, just as if the hall had been suddenly turned into a railway station, Penderel thought. Mrs. Waverton, looking less like a superior person than usual (she was really rather pretty), shed her sodden hat and coat, pounced upon one of the bags, and was now exchanging confidential little shrieks with Miss Femm. Waverton had gone out again, accompanied by Morgan, and was now steering his car round the corner into the coach-house or shed or whatever it was. Mr. Femm had gone creaking away somewhere. Penderel did his best to join in the bustle, but when he had taken off his heavy dripping coat and had flung it over his bag near the door, there was nothing left for him to do. He lit a cigarette, sat down near the fire, and dreamily regarded his steaming outstretched legs and enjoyed the creeping warmth. He was tired. Images of his companions came floating by like spectral ships: Mrs. Waverton, one of those pale and clear and terrifically educated women who knew everything and who knew nothing, never actually breaking through into the real world; Philip Waverton himself, crammed with shy sense and honest-to-God feeling, but too anxious, too married, too well broken-in; the Femms here, the string-and-bone dithering male and the fat and somehow obscene female, with her revivalist God, and that tongueless hulk of a Morgan. And there was another somewhere, upstairs in bed. What was his name? Sir Roderick—that was it. Old Sir Roderick, the master of the house, doomed to be for ever upstairs silent and unseen. Did he ever give any orders? Perhaps Rebecca brought them down—what was it?—written on tables of stone.
The next moment Penderel could have groaned aloud. Suddenly that old feeling had returned. It came, as usual, without warning. A grey tide, engulfing all colour and shape of things that had been or were to be, rushed across his mind, sweeping the life out of everything and leaving him all hollow inside. Once again he sat benumbed in a shadow show. Yet as ever—and this was the cruel stroke—there was something left, left to see that all the lights were being quenched, left to cry out with a tiny crazed voice in the grey wastes. This was what mattered, this was the worst, and black nights and storms and floods and crumbling hills were not to be compared with this treachery from within. It wasn’t panic nor despair, he told himself, that made so many fellows commit suicide; it was this recurring mood, draining the colour out of life and stuffing one’s mouth with ashes. One crashing bullet and there wasn’t even anything left to remember what had come and gone, to cry in the mind’s dark hollow; life could then cheat as it liked, for it did not matter; you had won the last poor trick.
Having conjured the malady into a phrase or two, Penderel felt better, came out of his reverie and looked about for entertainment. He found it in the person of Mr. Femm, who was bearing down upon him, carrying a small tray. There was a bottle on the tray, and Penderel felt like breaking into applause. Flourish of trumpets: enter Bottle.
‘Now do you think, Mr.—er——’ Mr. Femm put down the tray and hesitated.