Rebecca's Tale (15 page)

I didn’t mention that to the doctor, of course. He is not an imaginative man, and I didn’t want him thinking I was losing my marbles.

“Now take care of yourself, Arthur,” he said, as he prepared to leave. “Try not to get yourself worked up. Think of this as another warning, there’s a good chap. And this time, make sure you heed it.”

I certainly will. I don’t want to keel over now—there’s far too much to do. I have already made a start. (Obviously, rather more time has passed than I indicated at the beginning of this narrative; it’s taken longer to write than I anticipated, especially as I seem to tire quite easily. It is, as I write now, a day or so since the events I describe happened—but they are fresh in my memory.)

First: I have apologized to Ellie, made my peace with her, and
begged her forgiveness. Ellie has begged mine. I have told her that she spoke the truth to me, and the truth needs no forgiveness. Second: I’ve decided to trust Terence Gray, and I’ve already enlisted his assistance. His kindness to me after that foolish fainting fit will not be forgotten. Third: I’ve made this record of these events, for my own benefit and Gray’s, so we can all be clear how this quest began, and I can remind myself, should I need to do so, of the many
clues
I’ve detailed here, and the state of affairs as they were, at the outset.

Gray is coming to see me in a day or two, when I’ve had a chance to rest thoroughly. We’ve already agreed on a division of responsibilities. It turns out that he has a number of “leads”—I think I may call them that—which came out of his discussions with Frith and his recent visit to London. He’s going to postpone his meeting with Jack Favell for a few days, until he’s sure I’m recovered. He’s assured me that he will, at all times, remember the question of
bias
, and, if in doubt, will consult me. I, meanwhile, will open up my boxes and files; I will search my memory, and I will tell him
the whole story
, in interview with him or—if I feel up to it—in writing. Meanwhile, just to be on the safe side (I
might
keel over; you never know), there is this testimony.

To mark the importance of this pact, which we made on the evening of our visit to Manderley, we shook hands, and exchanged certain confidences. Gray told me exactly what he had discovered among all those dusty Manderley estate ledgers (no surprises there: As I suspected, it concerned the Carminowe family) and what he discovered in London at Somerset House and the Public Record Office—and that
did
surprise me. With some emotion, I showed him that strange black notebook sent to me, with its picture of a winged child. Yes, I showed him
Rebecca’s Tale
. And, finally, I gave him—this was a great wrench—my key to the gates of Manderley.

“Go back there tomorrow,” I said. “And whatever else you do, Gray, make sure you take a close look at that boathouse. Someone was there, I know it. What’s more, I’m pretty damn sure I know who it was….”

“Of course I will,” he answered gently. “I’ll go over there as soon as I can. You mustn’t worry about it. Try and forget it for the moment, sir. The pills the doctor gave you should be making you sleepy—I think you should rest now.”

“I’m going to rest—I will in a minute. Gray—listen: Someone else is
on the same trail as we are, that’s what I think. Don’t tell Ellie, will you? Ellie will just say I’m imagining it; she’ll say I see plots right, left, and center…. Well, for once, Ellie’s wrong. No, Gray,
listen
: Whoever was there in the boathouse…I think it was the same person that sent me the notebook. Someone’s out to make trouble—I’ve got a hunch about it. And, if I’m right, it can only be one of two people.”

I gave him the two names. “That’s astonishing, Colonel Julyan,” Gray said politely. “Very ingenious. I’d never have thought of that, sir. Now—I mustn’t let you talk any more. You’ve had an exhausting day, and Ellie’s very concerned about you. I promised her I wouldn’t stay long…. You really must sleep.”

His gentleness and the obvious concern in his face touched me. I think Gray doesn’t like to betray this more sentimental side to his nature, because he then bent down to straighten my eiderdown, so I couldn’t see his expression. (I should have explained—I had been packed off to bed by this time, so this conversation was taking place in my bedroom.) He wished me good night and began to move toward the door.

“Just one last thing, Gray,” I said, as he opened it.

“Yes, Colonel Julyan?”

“This is important, Gray. Always remember, if you should need to talk this over, and if I should happen to be unavailable—if I should be having a rest, say, or taking a nap, something of that kind—you can’t do better than talk to Ellie. She has a good heart and a sound head on her shoulders.”

“I already know that, sir,” he quietly replied. “I became aware of that almost as soon as I met her.”

I was satisfied with this reply, and the steadfast way in which it was made. In that moment, the last of my reservations fell away. I forgave him everything that had caused me doubts: his occasional evasiveness, his unfortunate dryness of tone, his unilateral tendencies—even that grammar school.

“Over to you now,” I said.

When he had left, I settled myself back on my pillows, with loyal Barker at my bedside, and the sound of the sea just audible. I fell into a doze. In an instant, I was back in the Manderley woods, and coming toward me through the trees, in her white dress, wearing that little blue enamel butterfly brooch, was Rebecca.

2

Gray

A
PRIL
13, 1951

T
EN

April 13—Thursday

I
T’S ONE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING; THE WIND HAS VEERED
round to the southwest, which means rain, and it’s gusting. I came back too late to light a fire, so the cottage is freezing. I’m sitting here in three sweaters, with a glass of the black-market malt whisky I bought in London. Colonel Julyan and Ellie finally took me to Manderley on my first official visit this afternoon—with disastrous results. In view of what’s happened, I can’t leave Kerrith now; I’ll have to rearrange my schedule—and I won’t be able to meet Jack Favell in London until next week, Monday at the earliest.

It was past eleven when I finally left The Pines; I felt anxious and restless, so I went for a long solitary walk upriver from Kerrith toward Pelynt, before coming all the way back here again. I hoped that might have some calming effect—or at least put the day’s events in perspective. There’s no sign of that happening. I’ve tried looking at this from every possible point of view. I’d like to believe Ellie when she says that this could have happened at any time, the doctor had warned her. I’d like to believe that, as she claims, the Colonel’s stroke was caused by a quarrel she had with him; but I don’t. I am responsible.

I’ve been pressing him too hard with my questions recently—I should have had the sense to draw back. And I made a selfish error in going down to the boathouse cove this afternoon; I wanted to inspect it in daylight—it never occurred to me that he’d attempt to follow. Until he talked to me tonight, I hadn’t understood how much that place means to him. This is just one example of the maddening way he
witholds
information: He’d never told me how much time Rebecca spent there in the months before her death, and he’d never explained that, in his view, it was her last place of refuge. I wish I’d known that months ago. In the light of what the Colonel told me and showed me today, I’ll have to rethink everything.

Even so, I should have foreseen how upset he’d be. I know how protective he is of Rebecca. It was blind stupidity on my part not to see that I should go down there only if he had sanctioned it—and to go there as I did, without permission from him, was in his eyes a kind of sacrilege.

I hadn’t even reached the boathouse when I heard Ellie calling. I’ve never approached the cove from that route before. The path is very overgrown, and there’s been landslip in several places. I was walking toward the boathouse when I heard Ellie’s shouts, looked up, and saw him collapse. She reached her father first and she was distraught—I’m sure she thought he was dead. For a moment, I feared the same; then I realized that he was breathing, but very shallowly. I knew it was a stroke at once. His lips were blue, and there was slight paralysis on the left side; I saw it in the facial muscles first, then, when he started to come round, his speech was slurred. His right hand was functioning—he gripped my arm with astonishing strength, as if he’d never let go of it—but his left arm and hand were completely slack.

I had to make a decision and make it fast: Which was worse, to leave him with Ellie and go for help (Ellie would not leave his side), or try to move him? Manderley is isolated. The nearest house with a telephone that Ellie knew of was a cottage off the Four Turnings road once lived in by the Carminowe family—but that was a good three miles away. Then there would have been more delays while we waited for assistance. I was afraid that, if we did this, the Colonel might die in Ellie’s arms, and she’d be left alone there by the sea with him. I wanted to spare her that; I decided to risk moving him.

I had to carry him—and there was no difficulty in that. He’s a tall man (he stoops now, but would once have been my own height), and in the old photographs Ellie has shown me I can see that he was once strongly built; he’s now painfully thin—he layers himself in tweeds, so I’d never realized exactly how thin, until I lifted him. He’s a man of formidable presence and formidable will, but he is pitifully frail. I could lift him as easily as a grown child or a woman.

We managed to get him back to the car, and into the rear seat; I sat beside him, still afraid he might die before we could get him back to The Pines—and Ellie wouldn’t hear of taking him anywhere else. The nearest hospital is even farther away than Kerrith, but that wasn’t the reason: “I’m taking him home,” she said. “That’s where he’ll want to be, and that’s where I’m taking him.”

I knew she was right, so I didn’t argue. I sat next to the Colonel, who was lying back, with his eyes closed; his dog, Barker, was in the front, resting his head on the seat behind him, and I swear that on the entire journey that extraordinary dog never once took his eyes off his master.

Ellie is a good—and a fast—driver. We sped back up that endless winding drive—and then something curious happened. As soon as we were on the road again, the old man seemed to revive. First, his right hand stole out, and grasped my arm; then, gradually, the color came back into his face and he opened his eyes and looked around him. I could see he was trying to speak, and I tried to quieten him, to tell him to rest. I don’t know whether he heard or understood me.

I looked at his bright blue eyes, and I thought of these past months, and the games of cat and mouse he’s played with me. I thought of all the times when I’ve been infuriated and exasperated by him, when I’ve gone away cursing him for his tetchiness, his wiliness, and his recalcitrance.

None of it mattered. Not one jot. Did I care, in that moment, that he was one of the most difficult, prejudiced, manipulative old buggers I’d ever encountered? No, I didn’t. I
liked
him. In that moment, I more than liked him. I wanted him to live—and the sudden intensity of that wish took me by surprise. I never had a father (Nicky claims that’s why I’m not just a bastard, but, as he cheerfully puts it, “a cold-blooded bastard”), but in that moment I think I knew how it felt to be a son. I felt a rush of emotion so conflicting and so unex
pected that I had to look away—and, desperately ill though he was, I think the old man
knew
. He started pulling at my arm and I finally made out what he was saying. He was calling me by his dead son’s name: “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you, Jonathan.”

(B
RIEF PAUSE HERE; ONE OF THE SHUTTERS HAD COME
loose in the wind; I had to get up and fasten it.) I’ll continue. There was one last scene to be played out before I left The Pines, and, reexamining it now, in retrospect, I’m certain Colonel Julyan had planned it. He’d pretended to believe that diagnosis of a “faint” for Ellie’s sake, but I’m sure he knew it was nonsense. He knew, just as surely as if the doctor had told him, that the next forty-eight hours were critical, and he might not survive the night. And ill as he was, he was determined,
determined
, not to sleep until he’d spoken to me. Come what may, he was not going to let me leave that house until the ritual he had in mind was effected.

The doctor had given him enough medication to “fell an ox,” as he put it. It had no effect whatsoever—far from being felled, the Colonel carried on as if he’d swallowed a handful of pep pills. Ellie and I managed to get him into bed, whereupon the Colonel, whose power of speech was improving by the second, ordered her out of the room. Ellie hesitated; the doctor had said that it was imperative to avoid the least agitation. Since nothing agitates the Colonel quite as much as not getting his own way, Ellie didn’t hesitate very long. She left us.

“Sit there, Gray,” said the Colonel, pointing to a chair. “Sit there and listen.”

I sat. The curtains had been left a little drawn back, as he likes. The window was a fraction ajar. The ancient gas fire was lit, and was faintly sputtering. Barker, a dog midway between a bear and a sheep, a sort of brown ambulatory hearth rug, was sitting at my feet, regarding me soulfully. Through the crack in the window, I could just hear the sound of the sea, whispering, whispering. Out there in the dark, across the bay, lay Manderley, and a mile or so beyond it, the small gray Saxon church where Rebecca lies buried. I knew the Colonel had loved her once—I think I knew that very, very early. I could see it there in his eyes, almost from our first conversation. I’m certain that
love was unexpressed and unrequited—and all the more powerful for that. The emotions we never admit to, never confess, are, as I’ve learned to my own cost, always the most powerful, and sometimes the most enduring.