- •It was a surprise, therefore, to find that this newcomer remained standing on his feet, and it was he who made a signal to the waiter.
- •I hesitated a moment before replying.
- •I expected him to laugh, it was a stupid story, I don't know why I told him, but he looked at me thoughtfully as he stirred his coffee.
- •I sat still, my hands in my lap, not knowing whether he meant it or not.
- •I closed it behind me, and stood there, rather self-conscious, my hands hanging by my side. 'What on earth are you talking about?' he asked.
- •I looked at my watch. 'I haven't time,' I told him. 'I ought to be in the office now, changing the reservations.'
- •I watched a fly settle on the marmalade, and he brushed it away impatiently.
- •I hesitated, but she went on, thank heaven, not waiting for my answer.
- •I wished she would go; she was like a shadow standing there, watching me, appraising me with her hollow eyes, set in that dead skull's face.
- •I shook my head. 'No, I'd rather not,' I said, 'No, I must go downstairs.' I began to walk down the stairs, and she came with me, by my side, as though she were a warder, and I in custody.
- •I was not prepared for this question, and she must have seen the surprise in my face, for she laughed lightly, and squeezed my arm.
- •I explained about Mrs Van Hopper, and what had led to it, and she seemed sympathetic but a little vague, as though she was thinking of something else.
- •I listened to them both, leaning against Maxim's arm, rubbing my chin on his sleeve. He stroked my hand absently, not thinking, talking to Beatrice.
- •I was not sure where Beatrice had blundered, and thought it better not to ask. Perhaps he still resented the chat about his health before lunch.
- •I said nothing; it was not my affair.
- •It was the sort of remark Frank Crawley always made. Safe, conventional, very correct.
- •I looked straight ahead of me along the drive, but I could see his face was turned towards me, as though he wished to read my expression.
- •I stopped breathless, already a little ashamed of my outburst, feeling that now at any rate I had burnt my boats for all time. He turned to me looking very concerned and troubled.
- •I looked up from Jasper, my face red as fire. 'Darling,' I said, 'I meant to tell you before, but – but I forgot. The fact is I broke that cupid when I was in the morning-room yesterday.'
- •It was like being a prisoner, giving evidence. How paltry and mean my actions sounded, even to myself. 'I put them all into an envelope,' I said.
- •I came out from behind the door looking no doubt as big a fool as I felt. 'No, of course not,' I said, 'I heard voices, I was not quite sure who it was. I did not expect any callers this afternoon.'
- •I was surprised at his tone. It sounded as though he knew him well. It was queer, to hear Maxim talked of as Max. No one called him that.
- •I wanted to run away, but I could not move. I went on watching her eyes.
- •I shook my head. 'No,' I said. 'No.'
- •I forced a smile. I could not speak. My throat felt dry and tight.
- •I swallowed. I dug my nails into my hands.
- •I wondered why. However, it was simpler not to say anything.
- •I smiled, waiting to be asked. The old lady turned her head in my direction. 'What's Bee talking about?' she said. 'I did not know you were an artist. We've never had any artists in the family.'
- •I saw a slow smile pass over the calm, placid face. 'I like water-cress day,' she said.
- •I stared straight in front of me down the road. I did not mind for myself. I should not have cared if I had been alone. I minded for Beatrice.
- •It was a moment or two before Maxim replied, and when he did his voice was quite calm and matter-of-fact.
- •I heard Frank's quiet voice beside me. 'I don't mind organizing the ball if Maxim has no objection to giving it. It's up to him and Mrs de Winter. It's nothing to do with me.'
- •I pretended to file my nails. They were too short and too brittle, but the action gave me something to do and I did not have to look at her.
- •I began to laugh weakly, the tears coming into my eyes. 'Oh dear,' I said, 'let's send wires to everybody not to come.'
- •I covered my own mousy hair with the curled wig, trying to hide my triumph, trying to hide my smile. Somebody came and hammered on the door.
- •I drank some to please her, not wanting it a bit. It tasted warm from the tap; she had not let it run.
- •I did not say anything. I went on sitting on the bed with my hands in my lap.
- •I caught sight of Giles peering at me through the open door.
- •I hesitated, Frank was the only person I did not mind knowing. 'He did not come to bed last night.'
- •I did not know what to say. The situation was mad, unreal. She kept talking in that choked muffled way with her head turned from me.
- •I remembered crouching in the gallery when the library door was open. I remembered Maxim's voice raised in anger, using the words that Mrs Danvers had just repeated. Jealous, Maxim jealous...
- •I backed away from her towards the window, my old fear and horror rising up in me again. She took my arm and held it like a vice.
- •I did not say anything. He hesitated. I felt his eyes upon me.
- •I stared at him, bewildered at first, then shocked, then rather sick.
- •I stared at him stupidly, not understanding. 'What will they do?' I said.
- •I sat on the floor, clasping my knees, staring at him.
- •I did not say anything. We stared at one another. I felt the little pain come again at the pit of my stomach.
- •I wondered how much pleasure it had given him to disguise himself as Cromwell. I had not seen much of him at the ball. He had spent most of the evening in the morning-room, playing bridge.
- •I sat down on the chair beside the fireplace. I held the arms of the chair very tight. Frank came over and stood behind the chair. Still Maxim did not move. He never took his eyes off Favell.
- •I saw Maxim go very white, and a little pulse began to show on his forehead. 'Don't interfere with this, Frank,' he said, 'this is my affair entirely. I'm not going to give way to blackmail.'
- •I heard Maxim's voice, very cool, very calm. 'I want Kerrith 17,' he said.
- •In a few minutes Frank came back again into the room.
- •I waited, waited. Why couldn't he get done with it and finish and let us go? Why must we sit there, waiting, our eyes upon his face.
I stared at him stupidly, not understanding. 'What will they do?' I said.
"They'll identify her body,' he said, 'there's everything to tell them, there in the cabin. The clothes she had, the shoes, the rings on her fingers. They'll identify her body; and then they will remember the other one, the woman buried up there, in the crypt.'
'What are you going to do?' I whispered.
'I don't know,' he said. 'I don't know.'
The feeling was coming back to me, little by little, as I knew it would. My hands were cold no longer. They were clammy, warm. I felt a wave of colour come into my face, my throat. My cheeks were burning hot. I thought of Captain Searle, the diver, the Lloyd's, agent, all those men on the stranded ship leaning against the side, staring down into the water. I thought of the shopkeepers in Kerrith, of errand boys whistling in the street, of the vicar walking out of church, of Lady Crowan cutting roses in her garden, of the woman in the pink dress and her little boy on the cliffs. Soon they would know. In a few hours. By breakfast time tomorrow. 'They've found Mrs de Winter's boat, and they say there is a body in the cabin.' A body in the cabin. Rebecca was lying there on the cabin floor. She was not in the crypt at all. Some other woman was lying in the crypt. Maxim had killed Rebecca. Rebecca had not been drowned at all. Maxim had killed her. He had shot her in the cottage in the woods. He had carried her body to the boat, and sunk the boat there in the bay. That grey, silent cottage, with the rain pattering on the roof. The jig-saw pieces came tumbling thick and fast upon me. Disjointed pictures flashed one by one through my bewildered mind. Maxim sitting in the car beside me in the south of France. 'Something happened nearly a year ago that altered my whole life. I had to begin living all over again...' Maxim's silence, Maxim's moods. The way he never talked about Rebecca. The way he never mentioned her name. Maxim's dislike of the cove, the stone cottage. 'If you had my memories you would not go there either.' The way he climbed the path through the woods not looking behind him. Maxim pacing up and down the library after Rebecca died. Up and down. Up and down. 'I came away in rather a hurry,' he said to Mrs van Hopper, a line, thin as gossamer, between his brows. 'They say he can't get over his wife's death.' The fancy dress dance last night, and I coming down to the head of the stairs, in Rebecca's dress. 'I killed Rebecca,' Maxim had said. 'I shot Rebecca in the cottage in the woods.' And the diver had found her lying there, on the cabin floor...
'What are we going to do?' I said. 'What are we going to say?'
Maxim did not answer. He stood there by the mantelpiece, his eyes wide and staring, looking in front of him, not seeing anything.
'Does anyone know?' I said, 'anyone at all?'
He shook his head. 'No,' he said.
'No one but you and me?' I asked.
'No one but you and me,' he said.
'Frank,' I said suddenly, 'are you sure Frank does not know?'
'How could he?' said Maxim, 'there was nobody there but myself. It was dark..." He stopped. He sat down on a chair, he put his hand up to his forehead. I went and knelt beside him. He sat very still a moment. I took his hands away from his face and looked into his eyes. 'I love you,' I whispered, 'I love you. Will you believe me now?' He kissed my face and my hands. He held my hands very tightly like a child who would gain confidence.
'I thought I should go mad,' he said, 'sitting here, day after day, waiting for something to happen. Sitting down at the desk there, answering those terrible letters of sympathy. The notices in the papers, the interviews, all the little aftermath of death. Eating and drinking, trying to be normal, trying to be sane. Frith, the servants, Mrs Danvers. Mrs Danvers, who I had not the courage to turn away, because with her knowledge of Rebecca she might have suspected, she might have guessed... Frank, always by my side, discreet, sympathetic. "Why don't you get away?" he used to say, "I can manage here. You ought to get away." And Giles, and Bee, poor dear tactless Bee. "You're looking frightfully ill, can't you go and see a doctor?" I had to face them all, these people, knowing every word I uttered was a lie.'
I went on holding his hands very tight. I leant close to him, quite close. 'I nearly told you, once,' he said, 'that day Jasper ran to the cove, and you went to the cottage for some string. We were sitting here, like this, and then Frith and Robert came in with the tea.'
'Yes,' I said. 'I remember. Why didn't you tell me? The time we've wasted when we might have been together. All these weeks and days.'
'You were so aloof,' he said, 'always wandering into the garden with Jasper, going off on your own. You never came to me like this.'
'Why didn't you tell me?' I whispered. 'Why didn't you tell me?'
'I thought you were unhappy, bored,' he said. 'I'm so much older than you. You seemed to have more to say to Frank than you ever had to me. You were funny with me, awkward, shy.'
'How could I come to you when I knew you were thinking about Rebecca?' I said. 'How could I ask you to love me when I knew you loved Rebecca still?'
He pulled me close to him and searched my eyes.
'What are you talking about? What do you mean?' he said.
I knelt up straight beside him. 'Whenever you touched me I thought you were comparing me to Rebecca,' I said. 'Whenever you spoke to me or looked at me, walked with me in the garden, sat down to dinner, I felt you were saying to yourself, "This I did with Rebecca, and this, and this." ' He stared at me bewildered as though he did not understand.
'It was true, wasn't it?' I said.
'Oh, my God,' he said. He pushed me away, he got up and began walking up and down the room, clasping his hands.
'What is it? What's the matter?' I said.
He whipped round and looked at me as I sat there huddled on the floor. 'You thought I loved Rebecca?' he said. 'You thought I killed her, loving her? I hated her, I tell you. Our marriage was a farce from the very first. She was vicious, damnable, rotten through and through. We never loved each other, never had one moment of happiness together. Rebecca was incapable of love, of tenderness, of decency. She was not even normal.'