Mrs De Winter (29 page)

I believed it, at that moment. I carried guilty knowledge. I felt complete panic rise up in me, at the full realisation of this truth. I did not know what would happen because I did not feel strong enough to bear it in secret, to spend the rest of my life saying nothing, doing nothing, but knowing, knowing. That man is a murderer.’

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But now, he turned, looked up and saw me. He smiled, the murderer, and made the faintest gesture, which meant he wanted me to go over to him, rescue him from some bore, perhaps. I did so, edging between the broad backs and gesticulating arms and booming voices. I was dutiful, and when I reached his side, I behaved quite normally, I spoke and acted as I always had; but I was afraid, standing there. I looked at him for reassurance, that the nightmare would recede, and the words, the truthful words that rang in my head would be silenced. He had not changed, and in one way, nor had anything. We stood together, here in this drawing room full of photographs and flowers and little, irritating tables, Mr and Mrs de Winter, of Cobbett’s Brake. All that was still true. I loved him. I was his wife. We would have our children. We had bought a new farm and a wood, the garden would grow, the sheep grazed on the slopes around the house and the morning was cool and bright. I ran through it all, as the man with the wart at the side of his nose talked on and on, and it was fine, it was all true, nothing altered any of it. There was only this other fact, of the words in my head, and the seed of fear that had been sown, and taken root deep down inside me. Some days I would scarcely be aware of it, everything else would matter more, on others it would stab alarmingly like an unanticipated pain. But it would never go completely, never not have been, and the future was altered and shadowed because of it.

A few days later, a letter arrived by the afternoon post - Dora brought it out to me where I was cutting the

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overgrown edges of one of the borders. The envelope was a cheap brown one, addressed in an ugly, scrawling hand I did not recognise.

‘Mrs de Winter’ — no Christian name or initial.

I took off my gardening gloves and went and sat on the bench. It was cool still, the sun fitful — not July weather, but it had helped the last of the roses to linger, though the grass beneath them was thick every morning with fallen petals.

There was a tray of tea beside me. Dora had left it there. I remember I poured myself a cup, before I slit open the letter -1 suppose, much later, someone must have found it, cold and stagnant as a pond, and taken it back into the house — I had not drunk a sip of it.

There was nothing in the envelope except an old clipping from a newspaper, yellow at the edges, but oddly flat, with precise creases, as if it had been pressed like a flower within the pages of a book.

There was a photograph, I recognised it as the one from which the old picture postcard I once bought had been made. disastrous fire ATMANDERLEY, the headline ran, and below

that, DE WINTER FAMILY HOME GUTTED.

I did not read any more, only sat, holding the piece of newspaper. I had known, really, that it was just a matter of time. I had been waiting for the next thing to happen, and now it had, I was oddly calm, in a cold, numb way. I was not afraid.

I sat on and on, not thinking, leaden inside, but at last, growing too cold, I went back into the house. I should have destroyed the newspaper cutting, stuffed it inside the

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range and burned it then, at once. Instead, I folded it, took it upstairs and put it into the old brown writing case I had had as a schoolgirl, and now never used. Maxim would not find it there.

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Seventeen

The next one came a week later. Maxim passed it to me across the table at breakfast, but I did not need to look at it, I knew as soon as I saw the blotted handwriting across the brown envelope.

He had not taken any notice. I had two other letters, and slipped it between those, but he was preoccupied with reading what Frank Crawley had to say.

I went upstairs.

This time it was longer, an account from the local newspaper of the inquest into Rebecca’s death.

SUICIDE VERDICT.

INQUEST INTO THE DEATH OF MRS MAXIM DE WINTER.

It is strange, I thought. That is my name, it has been my name for more than ten years, and yet when I see it like this, it is her name only. Rebecca was Mrs de Winter, I do not think of myself in connection with it at all.

I wondered wildly if Favell’s suitcase were crammed full of cuttings, and if he planned to send them to me one by one,

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for years and years. But sooner or later, surely, he must write and ask for money, he would not be satisfied with trying to torment me at such a distance, never seeing the effect he was having.

I seemed to be living my days and nights as two people, one secret, hidden person, who received the terrible envelopes and scurried to put them away out of sight, and waited for the next, dreading that it would be something I did not yet know about, some awful revelation: that person ran along a single groove of thought, about Rebecca and Manderley, Favell and the cuttings, what he wanted, how to get rid of him, how to conceal all of it from Maxim; but the other continued in the old way, doing the garden, talking to Dora and Ned, going around the new land with Maxim, having Bunty Butterley to lunch, and sometimes, very early in the morning, or at the quiet end of the day, alone outside, saw the children, heard their voices calling in the distance, caught sudden glimpses of their fresh, bright faces.

I was very good at it, I thought. Maxim had no suspicions, never once looked at me closely, did not ask any questions; he himself was the same, full of his new life, energetic, making decisions about the estate. He was usually out now for most of the day but every evening we sat together in the way I used to imagine, during our years abroad. We read books, sometimes we listened to the wireless, I made notes for the garden. I had begun to keep a diary of my plans for it and filled that in, sitting at the small desk in the corner of the room, beside the French windows. I thought ahead to next spring, which steadied me. Bulb catalogues arrived, and I ordered by the hundred, as if in a fever to see the lawns and beds and all the

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grassy slopes clotted thick with flowers, narcissi and daffodils yellow as the sun, and crocuses and scillas of a deep, heavenly blue that would run like rivers across the grass. But not white. I did not want any white flowers.

We played cards or backgammon, too, and each did a crossword, and the darkness drew in a little earlier; it rained softly in the night, releasing all the sweetness from the earth up through the open windows.

I had what I wanted. It was here, now, this present.

Beware of wanting something too badly, my father had once said, for you may get it. I had wanted this quite desperately, and now it was dust and ashes, I felt detached, and leaden; I had what I wanted and no power to enjoy it, it had been given and taken away at the same time.

A photograph came, a crumpled snapshot of a boat in the little cove. I did not mind that, but what made my heart stop, was Jasper, good, strong, eager, faithful Jasper, a puppy, standing on the sand beside it, looking so excitedly, devotedly up. I cried then, and tormented myself with the picture, taking it out and staring at it several times, as if willing Jasper alive.

I wanted to burn that too, but I could not.

We must have a puppy,’ I said to Maxim, going into the study where he was fingering some map.

That old footpath has been completely buried — ploughed over, then left, it’s all overgrown. We must get it back —’ He turned, smiling. ‘A puppy will scrabble up your garden.’

‘I don’t mind, it won’t be for long - I shall train it.’

I had meant to wait until the children were here, but now, I wanted it for myself.

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There’s bound to be a litter somewhere or other — ask the Pecks. A good labrador or else a sharp little terrier. Whatever you want.’

Jasper, I thought. I want Jasper.

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll keep my ears open. Come here and look at this.’

Maxim was pointing at the map, showing me the line of the old path, and as I went to stand beside him, I looked down at his hand, the forefinger outstretched. I had always loved his hands, they were long and beautifully shaped, the nails carefully trimmed. But now, I could only see them as the hands which had held a gun and shot Rebecca dead, and moved her body into the boat, wrenched open the seacocks, manoeuvred the whole thing out into open water so that it would sink. I had not read the newspaper cutting about the inquest and yet the words seemed to have permeated my consciousness and overlaid my brain. I knew what they said because I had been there, I could see the description, the record of the evidence, Maxim’s words, and now, I looked at him all the time in this new and dreadful way. I was frightened of myself, I seemed to have no control over my thoughts and feelings, it was like a sort of madness, and I reached out to him to comfort me, I put my hand on his and stroked the fingers, so that he glanced at me, smiling, but questioningly.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You’ve been very strained — you seem tired.’

‘It’s the weather - the summer seems to be slipping away and we’ve had no warmth and sunshine - I find it a bit dispiriting, that’s all.’

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‘It will change. We’ll have an Indian summer, you see.’

‘I expect so.’

He bent and kissed my forehead briefly, already preoccupied with something else.

What has happened? I thought, wandering out into the garden, where the wind was tossing the heads of the trees and battering at the last of the climbing roses. What has changed? Why is it like this and not as I had dreamed and planned? Was it only that I met Jack Favell by blind chance, and now he is tormenting me, dragging the past up to the light, as Rebecca’s body was dragged to the surface of the sea?

But I knew that was not so, that the voice in my head had whispered months before, on the railway station platform, during that melancholy journey home to Beatrice’s funeral. That man is a murderer — that man killed his wife.’

The seeds had lain with me, and like weeds that will spring up here or there, without apparent reason, but quite inevitably, had come to life, at last. I had done this, the fault was mine.

We make our own destiny.

Nothing came by post for almost two weeks, but I did not believe that it was over. I was dully expectant, this was only a short reprieve, another part of the torment. I wondered sometimes whether he would send anything that would surprise or shock me. The cuttings and the photograph were locked in my writing case, and when I passed the drawer in which I had concealed it, it was as though it charged the air

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like electricity, I felt affected by it, unnerved, and tempted to take the case out and open it and look, look.

But when it came, it was a sheet of lined paper roughly torn out of an exercise book. On it was written 20,000 pounds and a London post office address.

It was an odd relief, I was not disturbed by this, it was straightforward and I knew how to deal with it. The demand for money was so obvious, so crude. I tore it into pieces the moment I was alone in the house, and dropped them into the range, pressing them hard down with the poker. And as they burned, I willed this to be the end of it.

It grew warmer again, the sun rose high and early, and baked down upon the countryside all day, but there was a just perceptible change, during the days of greyness and rain the year had moved on, and now looked and smelled of late summer, there was a heavy dew on the lawn each morning, and once, a pale mist lingered between the trees. The roses were over, hollyhocks grew tall and flowered, the colours of old faded chintz, and the leaves were a dead, even green, quite still and dusty in the middle of the day.

Maxim went to Scotland for three days to consult Frank and, I thought, try to persuade him to move down to England again. I did not think he would succeed. There had been a restraint about Frank, when he had been here, as though he were distancing himself from Maxim’s plans, interested, supportive, but not involved. His heart was in Scotland now, I thought, he was happy and loved it there, because of his family. He would never feel about Cobbett’s Brake as we did, and as he and Maxim had felt about Manderley.

Maxim had worried about leaving me, tried to persuade

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me to travel with him, but I wanted to be here, and alone. I had a longing to walk in the garden in the evening and very early, before the sun was up, quite by myself, to feel the house settle down around me at the end of the day, to absorb this place even more deeply into me as if I breathed it in with the air itself. A year ago, I could not have imagined wanting to be apart from Maxim, I would have been anxious, insecure, or only half a person, and afraid for him, too, he was so dependent upon me. But we had changed, moved on, that time was over, we did not need to cling so desperately to one another, like frightened, vulnerable children wanting constant reassurance.

It was a good sign surely, it seemed to me, in my best moments, it did not mean that we had grown apart, but that we were stronger, and the moments when I looked at him and was afraid became fewer, the whispering voice was so faint, and so soft, I could believe I did not hear it.

It grew hotter, the nights were sticky and airless. I slept with the windows wide, lying awake until the slight chill before dawn made it easier to sleep. I was quite without anxiety or alarm, I felt so safe in this house, every room, as I walked in and out of them all for sheer pleasure, was accepting and sheltering to me. I missed Maxim in a pleasant, untroubled way. The truth was that I was finding my deepest contentment and fulfilment, for this time, at least, in being here alone.