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.
"Why don't you go?" she said. "We none of us want you. He doesn't want you, he never did. He can't forget her. He wants to be alone in the house again, with her. It's you that ought to be lying there in the church crypt, not her. It's you who ought to be dead, not Mrs. de Winter."
She pushed me towards the open window. I could see the terrace below me gray and indistinct in the white wall of fog. "Look down there," she said. "It's easy, isn't it? Why don't you jump? It wouldn't hurt, not to break your neck. It's a quick, kind way. It's not like drowning. Why don't you try it? Why don't you go?"
The fog filled the open window, damp and clammy, it stung my eyes, it clung to my nostrils. I held onto the windowsill with my hands.
"Don't be afraid," said Mrs. Danvers. "I won't push you. I won't stand by you. You can jump of your own accord. What's the use of your staying here at Manderley? You're not happy. Mr. de Winter doesn't love you. There's not much for you to live for, is there? Why don't you jump now and have done with it? Then you won't be unhappy anymore."
I could see the flower tubs on the terrace and the blue of the hydrangeas clumped and solid. The paved stones were smooth and gray. They were not jagged and uneven. It was the fog that made them look so far away. They were not far really, the window was not so very high.
"Why don't you jump?" whispered Mrs. Danvers. "Why don't you try?"
The fog came thicker than before and the terrace was hidden from me. I could not see the flower tubs anymore, nor the smooth paved stones. There was nothing but the white mist about me, smelling of seaweed dank and chill. The only reality was the windowsill beneath my hands and the grip of Mrs. Danvers on my left arm. If I jumped I should not see the stones rise up to meet me, the fog would hide them from me. The pain would be sharp and sudden as she said. The fall would break my neck. It would not be slow, like drowning. It would soon be over. And Maxim did not love me. Maxim wanted to be alone again, with Rebecca.
"Go on," whispered Mrs. Danvers. "Go on, don't be afraid."
I shut my eyes. I was giddy from staring down at the terrace, and my fingers ached from holding to the ledge. The mist entered my nostrils and lay upon my lips rank and sour. It was stifling, like a blanket, like an anesthetic. I was beginning to forget about being unhappy, and about loving Maxim. I was beginning to forget Rebecca. Soon I would not have to think about Rebecca anymore...
As I relaxed my hands and sighed, the white mist and the silence that was part of it was shattered suddenly, was rent in two by an explosion that shook the window where we stood. The glass shivered in its frame. I opened my eyes. I stared at Mrs. Danvers. The burst was followed by another, and yet a third and fourth. The sound of the explosions stung the air and the birds rose unseen from the woods around the house and made an echo with their clamor.
"What is it?" I said stupidly. "What has happened?"
Mrs. Danvers relaxed her grip upon my arm. She stared out of the window into the fog. "It's the rockets," she said; "there must be a ship gone ashore there in the bay."
We listened, staring into the white fog together. And then we heard the sound of footsteps running on the terrace beneath us.
19
It was Maxim. I could not see him but I could hear his voice. He was shouting for Frith as he ran. I heard Frith answer from the hall and come out on the terrace. Their figures loomed out of the mist beneath us.
"She's ashore all right," said Maxim. "I was watching her from the headland and I saw her come right into the bay, and head for the reef. They'll never shift her, not with these tides. She must have mistaken the bay for Kerrith harbor. It's like a wall out there, in the bay. Tell them in the house to stand by with food and drink in case these fellows want anything, and ring through to the office to Mr. Crawley and tell him what's happened. I'm going back to the cove to see if I can do anything. Get me some cigarettes, will you?"
Mrs. Danvers drew back from the window. Her face was expressionless once more, the cold white mask that I knew.
"We had better go down," she said, "Frith will be looking for me to make arrangements. Mr. de Winter may bring the men back to the house as he said. Be careful of your hands, I'm going to shut the window." I stepped back into the room still dazed and stupid, not sure of myself or of her. I watched her close the window and fasten the shutters, and draw the curtains in their place.
"It's a good thing there is no sea running," she said, "there wouldn't have been much chance for them then. But on a day like this there's no danger. The owners will lose their ship, though, if she's run on the reef as Mr. de Winter said."
She glanced round the room to make certain that nothing was disarranged or out of place. She straightened the cover on the double bed. Then she went to the door and held it open for me. "I will tell them in the kitchen to serve cold lunch in the dining room after all," she said, "and then it won't matter what time you come for it. Mr. de Winter may not want to rush back at one o'clock if he's busy down there in the cove."
I stared at her blankly and then passed out of the open door, stiff and wooden like a dummy.
"When you see Mr. de Winter, Madam, will you tell him it will be quite all right if he wants to bring the men back from the ship? There will be a hot meal ready for them any time."
"Yes," I said. "Yes, Mrs. Danvers."
She turned her back on me and went along the corridor to the service staircase, a weird gaunt figure in her black dress, the skirt just sweeping the ground like the full, wide skirts of thirty years ago. Then she turned the corner of the corridor and disappeared.
I walked slowly along the passage to the door by the archway, my mind still blunt and slow as though I had just woken from a long sleep. I pushed through the door and went down the stairs with no set purpose before me. Frith was crossing the hall towards the dining room. When he saw me he stopped, and waited until I came down into the hall.
"Mr. de Winter was in a few moments ago, Madam," he said. "He took some cigarettes, and then went back again to the beach. It appears there is a ship gone ashore."
"Yes," I said.
"Did you hear the rockets, Madam?" said Frith.
"Yes, I heard the rockets," I said.
"I was in the pantry with Robert, and we both thought at first that one of the gardeners had let off a firework left over from last night," said Frith, "and I said to Robert, 'What do they want to do that for in this weather? Why don't they keep them for the kiddies on Saturday night?' And then the next one came, and then the third. 'That's not fireworks,' says Robert, 'that's a ship in distress.' 'I believe you're right,' I said, and I went out to the hall and there was Mr. de Winter calling me from the terrace."
"Yes," I said.
"Well, it's hardly to be wondered at in this fog, Madam. That's what I said to Robert just now. It's difficult to find your way on the road, let alone on the water."
"Yes," I said.
"If you want to catch Mr. de Winter he went straight across the lawn only two minutes ago," said Frith.
"Thank you, Frith," I said.
I went out on the terrace. I could see the trees taking shape beyond the lawns. The fog was lifting, it was rising in little clouds to the sky above. It whirled above my head in wreaths of smoke. I looked up at the windows above my head. They were tightly closed, and the shutters were fastened. They looked as though they would never open, never be thrown wide.
It was by the large window in the center that I had stood five minutes before. How high it seemed above my head, how lofty and remote. The stones were hard and solid under my feet. I looked down at my feet and then up again to the shuttered window, and as I did so I became aware suddenly that my head was swimming and I felt hot. A little trickle of perspiration ran down the back of my neck. Black dots jumped about in the air in front of me. I went into the hall again and sat down on a chair. My hands were quite wet. I sat very still, holding my kne
es.
"Frith," I called, "Frith, are you in the dining room?"
"Yes, Madam?" He came out at once, and crossed the hall towards me.
"Don't think me very odd, Frith, but I rather think I'd like a small glass of brandy."
"Certainly, Madam."
I went on holding my knees and sitting very still. He came back with a liqueur glass on a silver salver.
"Do you feel a trifle unwell, Madam?" said Frith. "Would you like me to call Clarice?"
"No, I'll be all right, Frith," I said. "I felt a bit hot, that's all."
"It's a very warm morning, Madam. Very warm indeed. Oppressive, one might almost say."
"Yes, Frith. Very oppressive."
I drank the brandy and put the glass back on the silver salver.
"Perhaps the sound of those rockets alarmed you," said Frith; "they went off so very sudden."
"Yes, they did," I said.
"And what with the hot morning and standing about all last night, you are not perhaps feeling quite like yourself, Madam," said Frith.
"No, perhaps not," I said.
"Will you lie down for half an hour? It's quite cool in the library."
"No. No, I think I'll go out in a moment or two. Don't bother, Frith."
"No. Very good, Madam."
He went away and left me alone in the hall. It was quiet sitting there, quiet and cool. All trace of the party had been cleared away. It might never have happened. The hall was as it had always been, gray and silent and austere, with the portraits and the weapons on the wall. I could scarcely believe that last night I had stood there in my blue dress at the bottom of the stairs, shaking hands with five hundred people. I could not believe that there had been music-stands in the minstrel's gallery, and a band playing there, a man with a fiddle, a man with a drum. I got up and went out onto the terrace again.
The fog was rising, lifting to the tops of the trees. I could see the woods at the end of the lawns. Above my head a pale sun tried to penetrate the heavy sky. It was hotter than ever. Oppressive, as Frith had said. A bee hummed by me in search of scent, bumbling, noisy, and then creeping inside a flower was suddenly silent. On the grass banks above the lawns the gardener started his mowing machine. A startled linnet fled from the whirring blades towards the rose garden. The gardener bent to the handles of the machine and walked slowly along the bank scattering the short-tipped grass and the pinpoint daisy-heads. The smell of the sweet warm grass came towards me on the air, and the sun shone down upon me full and strong from out of the white mist. I whistled for Jasper but he did not come. Perhaps he had followed Maxim when he went down to the beach. I glanced at my watch. It was after half past twelve, nearly twenty to one. This time yesterday Maxim and I were standing with Frank in the little garden in front of his house, waiting for his housekeeper to serve lunch.
Twenty-four hours ago. They were teasing me, baiting me about my dress. "You'll both get the surprise of your lives," I had said.
I felt sick with shame at the memory of my words. And then I realized for the first time that Maxim had not gone away as I had feared. The voice I had heard on the terrace was calm and practical. The voice I knew. Not the voice of last night when I stood at the head of the stairs. Maxim had not gone away. He was down there in the cove somewhere. He was himself, normal and sane. He had just been for a walk, as Frank had said. He had been on the headland, he had seen the ship closing in towards the shore. All my fears were without foundation. Maxim was safe. Maxim was all right. I had just experienced something that was degrading and horrible and mad, something that I did not fully understand even now, that I had no wish to remember, that I wanted to bury forevermore, deep in the shadows of my mind with old forgotten terrors of childhood; but even this did not matter as long as Maxim was all right.
Then I, too, went down the steep twisting path through the dark woods to the beach below.
The fog had almost gone, and when I came to the cove I could see the ship at once, lying about two miles offshore with her bows pointed towards the cliffs. I went along the breakwater and stood at the end of it, leaning against the rounded wall. There was a crowd of people on the cliffs already who must have walked along the coast-guard path from Kerrith. The cliffs and the headland were part of Manderley, but the public had always used the right-of-way along the cliffs. Some of them were scrambling down the cliff face to get a closer view of the stranded ship. She lay at an awkward angle, her stern tilted, and there were a number of rowing-boats already pulling round her. The lifeboat was standing off. I saw someone stand up in her and shout through a megaphone. I could not hear what he was saying. It was still misty out in the bay, and I could not see the horizon. Another motorboat chugged into the light with some men aboard. The motorboat was dark gray. I could see someone in uniform. That would be the harbormaster from Kerrith, and the Lloyd's agent with him. Another motorboat followed, a party of holiday-makers from Kerrith aboard. They circled round and round the stranded steamer chatting excitedly. I could hear their voices echoing across the still water.
I left the breakwater and the cove and climbed up the path over the cliffs towards the rest of the people. I did not see Maxim anywhere. Frank was there, talking to one of the coast-guards. I hung back when I saw him, momentarily embarrassed. Barely an hour ago I had been crying to him, down the telephone. I was not sure what I ought to do. He saw me at once and waved his hand. I went over to him and the coast-guard. The coast-guard knew me.
"Come to see the fun, Mrs. de Winter?" he said smiling. "I'm afraid it will be a hard job. The tugs may shift her, but I doubt it. She's hard and fast where she is on that ledge."
"What will they do?" I said.
"They'll send a diver down directly to see if she's broken her back," he replied. "There's the fellow there in the red stocking cap. Like to see through these glasses?"
I took his glasses and looked at the ship. I could see a group of men staring over her stern. One of them was pointing at something. The man in the lifeboat was still shouting through the megaphone.
The harbormaster from Kerrith had joined the group of men in the stern of the stranded ship. The diver in his stocking cap was sitting in the gray motorboat belonging to the harbormaster.
The pleasure-boat was still circling round the ship. A woman was standing up taking a snapshot. A group of gulls had settled on the water and were crying foolishly, hoping for scraps.
I gave the glasses back to the coast-guard.
"Nothing seems to be happening," I said.
"They'll send him down directly," said the coast-guard. "They'll argue a bit first, like all foreigners. Here come the tugs."
"They'll never do it," said Frank. "Look at the angle she's lying at. It's much shallower there than I thought."
"That reef runs out quite a way," said the coast-guard; "you don't notice it in the ordinary way, going over that piece of water in a small boat. But a ship with her depth would touch all right."
"I was down in the first cove by the valley when they fired the rockets," said Frank. "I could scarcely see three yards in front of me where I was. And then the things went off out of the blue."
I thought how alike people were in a moment of common interest. Frank was Frith all over again, giving his version of the story, as though it mattered, as though we cared. I knew that he had gone down to the beach to look for Maxim. I knew that he had been frightened, as I had been. And now all this was forgotten and put aside: our conversation down the telephone, our mutual anxiety, his insistence that he must see me. All because a ship had gone ashore in the fog.
A small boy came running up to us. "Will the sailors be drowned?" he asked.
"Not them. They're all right, sonny," said the coast-guard. "The sea's as flat as the back of my hand. No one's going to be hurt this time."
"If it had happened last night we should never have heard them," said Frank. "We must have let off more than fifty rockets at our show, beside all the smaller things."
"We'd have heard a
ll right," said the coast-guard. "We'd have seen the flash and known the direction. There's the diver, Mrs. de Winter. See him putting on his helmet?"
"I want to see the diver," said the small boy.
"There he is," said Frank, bending and pointing--"that chap there putting on the helmet. They're going to lower him into the water."
"Won't he be drowned?" said the child.
"Divers don't drown," said the coast-guard. "They have air pumped into them all the time. Watch him disappear. There he goes."
The surface of the water was disturbed a minute and then was clear again. "He's gone," said the small boy.
"Where's Maxim?" I said.
"He's taken one of the crew into Kerrith," said Frank; "the fellow lost his head and jumped for it apparently when the ship struck. We found him clinging onto one of the rocks here under the cliff. He was soaked to the skin of course and shaking like a jelly. Couldn't speak a word of English, of course. Maxim went down to him, and found him bleeding like a pig from a scratch on the rocks. He spoke to him in German. Then he hailed one of the motorboats from Kerrith that was hanging around like a hungry shark, and he's gone off with him to get him bandaged by a doctor. If he's lucky he'll just catch old Phillips sitting down to lunch."
"When did he go?" I said.
"He went just before you turned up," said Frank, "about five minutes ago. I wonder you didn't see the boat. He was sitting in the stern with this German fellow."
"He must have gone while I was climbing up the cliff," I said.
"Maxim is splendid at anything like this," said Frank. "He always gives a hand if he can. You'll find he will invite the whole crew back to Manderley, and feed them, and give them beds into the bargain."
"That's right," said the coast-guard. "He'd give the coat off his back for any of his own people, I know that. I wish there was more like him in the county."
"Yes, we could do with them," said Frank.
We went on staring at the ship. The tugs were standing off still, but the lifeboat had turned and gone back towards Kerrith.