Rebecca's Tale (37 page)

She gave a little sigh, and a shake of the head. “You see, if anything should happen to Arthur, what will poor Ellie do? That great house—she can’t possibly go on living there alone, even if she could afford to. So, The Pines will end up being sold, and they’ll build bungalows there, I expect. I said to Elinor, I hope, dear, that I never live to see it….” She paused, then patted my hand. “Still, let us hope that’s a long way in the future. Tell me about your visit to London—was that what was worrying you, perhaps? Wasn’t it successful?”

I hesitated, and then for some reason—perhaps influenced by the gentleness of her sympathy, or my liking for her, or the strangely confidential, female nature of our surroundings—I told her. I spoke more openly than I had ever done about the nature of my search, the degree to which it had taken over my life, and the frustration I felt at being able to get thus far and no further. I didn’t tell her everything, but I conveyed more than I said, as I came to realize. Jocelyn listened intently, her eyes resting on my face, and never once interrupted me.

When my stumbling, awkward explanation finally came to an end, she gave a sigh. “I understand,” she said. “Elinor and I always knew that this meant a great deal to you. It’s such a hard task, isn’t it, resurrecting the dead, trying to see them and comprehend them? Elinor and I have learned that with members of our own family—but then families do hide the truth about people, and do it very efficiently. They invent myths and legends, and one hears them as a child, and believes them, and then later in life…Still, never mind that now.”

She looked away, and I wondered which member of her family she was considering. Resurrecting the dead—was that the task I was engaged upon?

“You see, even if you were to find Mrs. Danvers,” she continued, “I’m not sure how much help she would be to you. It’s true, she might have kept some of dear Rebecca’s things. But she was always a
strange woman, you know—I always said to Elinor that I found her
vampiric
. She never really had a life of her own; she drew all her energy from Rebecca. She never wanted to talk about anyone or anything else—and when she did talk about Rebecca, there was this peculiar excited quality, almost as if she were intoxicated. It was the only time she ever showed the least animation—but then Edith Danvers was odd even as a girl….”

She left the sentence hanging. I stared at her; neither she nor her sister had ever given me the slightest indication that they had known Mrs. Danvers prior to her arrival at Manderley as Rebecca’s housekeeper. “As a girl?” I prompted.

“Oh yes. She started in service with us. She worked for my mother, as one of the parlor maids, when Elinor and I were girls and we lived at St. Winnow’s….” She paused. “She stayed only a few months—Mama found her unsatisfactory, and the other staff didn’t take to her. Of course, she was young then, only fifteen or sixteen, not much older than Elinor—I think she came to us on trial. It was a favor on Mama’s part, really. She was fond of Edith Danvers’s mother.”

“She knew her mother? Millicent Danvers?”

“Oh, very well. Millicent was in service for years; she only took on that boardinghouse after she married, and she married comparatively late in life. Before that, she was senior nursemaid with my mother’s family. She looked after Mama as a child…. Mama was the eldest of the three Grenville sisters, if you recall. There was Evangeline, my mother; poor Virginia, who married Lionel de Winter, and died young; and the baby of the family, Isolda. They were regarded as beauties—they were famous in this neighborhood. There was a Sargent portrait of them, you know—it was nicknamed
The Three Graces
, and it used to hang at Manderley. Maxim loved it so, because it was the only portrait of his mother. Rebecca cherished it, too, I remember—but it was destroyed in the fire, alas….

“So sad…” She gave a small shake of the head. “Anyway, Millicent brought the three sisters up, and my mother was devoted to her. They remained in touch after Millicent married and Mama always took an interest in her affairs. That’s why she agreed to take Edith on—but it wasn’t a success, as I say. She was very proud and sharp and difficult. Another cup of coffee, Mr. Gray? Won’t you have a biscuit? You’ve eaten nothing, and they’re so delicious.”

She gave me an artless look. I did not think for a moment that these revelations were artless. “Miss Briggs,” I said, “why have you never told me this before?”

“Well, you never asked about Mrs. Danvers,” she replied gently. “You never really explained the nature of your search—and Elinor and I don’t like to intrude. So, until today, I hadn’t understood exactly how much it mattered to you, or
why
it mattered, perhaps. Somehow I see things much more clearly now. It’s not a great help in any case. It doesn’t help you trace Mrs. Danvers….”

She paused. “One thing I
did
want to add, though,” she continued. “If you should succeed in finding her, don’t take everything she says as gospel, will you? I may be wrong, but I never felt she understood Rebecca. To hear her talk, Rebecca was invincible—and rather cruel, I always thought, the kind of woman who would never let anyone or anything stand in her way. I’m not sure how true that was. Rebecca was intensely determined, of course, had the most extraordinary willpower, but I always thought that cost her dear. There were sadnesses in her life, I suspect. She never discussed them, ever. But you could sense they were there….”

She raised her faded gentle eyes to hold my gaze. “In fact, I always wondered if she knew she was unable to bear children—or if that came as a terrible revelation to her at the end, when she saw that doctor in London….”

I became very still. The information came to me from nowhere, and I was totally unprepared for it. I tried to disguise my reaction, but it’s hard to disguise intense shock. I stared at Jocelyn Briggs, and I saw sympathy flood her gaze.

“Ah, you didn’t know—I thought so,” she said quietly. “I always imagined Arthur would have explained, but I see he didn’t. You see, poor Rebecca could never have had children. Nothing to do with the disease that was killing her. There was…well, there was some gynecological problem, a malformation of the womb, I believe. So, even if she hadn’t contracted the cancer, even if she had lived, she could never have borne a child. She saw that London doctor twice, you know. There was a week’s interval between the appointments. At the first, tests were done and X rays taken. When she went back, seven days later, he told her she was mortally ill, and that she could never have conceived. We’ll never know now, I suppose, whether she
already knew, or suspected it, poor woman.” She hesitated. “You should understand—there’s no question about this. If you ask him, I’m sure Arthur will show you the letters of confirmation that doctor wrote. I know I can be vague, but for once I’m not muddling the details. There’s no possibility of error, I’m afraid. Elinor and I have seen the doctor’s letters.”

Her color had risen. I think it was very difficult for her to discuss this with a man, and she had to force herself to do so. There could be only one reason why she had chosen to speak out so frankly, and to do so now: She had seen through me. She knew I was adopted; today, I had dropped my guard; she had seen that poor edifice of hope and supposition that I had built up—and she had seen the necessity of dismantling it. It was done with the utmost tact and gentleness, and I was unable to hide the pain it caused me.

I saw my own distress reflect in her face; I’m not sure what I did—the moment is a blur. I think I stood up and began on some apology. All I could focus on was the importance of escape. Jocelyn’s eyes filled with regret and anxiety.

“Oh, Mr. Gray—Terence—please wait. Don’t go. Perhaps I shouldn’t have spoken. I just felt that I must make things clear, because I could see what you believed—oh, dear, what have I done? Elinor will be furious with me. You see, you
do
look like Rebecca, that’s what’s so strange. Other people may not see the resemblance, even Elinor can’t, but I remarked on it the first day I met you. Your eyes are very like hers, and…when I saw you at the bus stop today, and you looked so sad, the resemblance was very strong, terribly strong, but it can’t be…. I felt you should know that. It’s not possible.”

I can’t remember what I said, or what excuse I used. I think I invented some forgotten appointment, some lame pretext that would not have fooled Jocelyn or anyone else for one second. She had the kindness and good sense not to argue. “Of course, of course,” she said, rising to her feet. “But, please—won’t you come and see Elinor and me this evening—or tomorrow? I’ll explain to her what I’ve done, but I think we must talk—oh, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me….”

She took my hand. There was an awkward moment of semi-embrace, and I saw she was close to tears. I broke away from her and blundered my way past the tables in the next room, conscious of the
stares from the other customers. I hurried out into the rain and walked away fast, blind to the direction I was taking, hating myself for my own obstinate stupidity. I tried to tell myself there might be some mistake—but I knew there wasn’t. I’d seen the certainty in Jocelyn’s eyes. I’d never realized how passionately I’d believed Rebecca was my mother until the moment when I was forced to recognize she could not be.

Lanyon was invisible. I walked through the marketplace and on; I only noticed the Kerrith bus when it almost knocked me down. I boarded it, and sat with my face turned to the window. Against the dark skies beyond, the pale shifting outline of my other self moved on the glass. I have no memory of the return journey. Back at my cottage, I paused by the sea, watching the waves rush in, black with kelp, tossing ashore all the weed and detritus stirred up from the ocean bed by a storm far out in the Atlantic.

The salt in the air stung my skin and eyes. I turned back to the house, intent on putting a closed door between me and the rest of the world. The key snagged in the lock. As I opened the door, and the wind tugged at it, the telephone began ringing.

It was Simon Lang, in jubilant and loquacious form, fresh from his visit to Somerset House, and reporting back on the question of Isabel Devlin.

He had found her death certificate quite quickly, he said; the whole process had been fascinating. It was extraordinary—all those millions of details of births, marriages, and deaths, there for the retrieving. He’d felt ancestor inquiries coming on, he said; if he’d had time, he’d have started looking up his grandparents and his great-grandparents….

“Get on with it, Simon, for God’s sake.”

“All right, all right. What’s the matter with you? There’s no need to bite my head off. I’m doing you a favor here, I might remind you. Now, Tom, have you a pen handy?”

I picked up a pen and a notebook, and scribbled.

Isabel Honor Devlin had died on February 6, 1915, at the age of forty-two; her death was recorded in the Registration District of Lambourn, Berkshire. She had died at a house called Greenways, in the village of Hampton Ferrars. The person identified as the “informant” of her death was Edith Danvers, housekeeper. Isabel’s
“rank or profession” was given as wife to Jack Sheridan Devlin, Gentleman—no mention of her having been an actress, I noted. But it was the cause of death, as certified by a Lambourn doctor, that was so arresting to me. Isabel Devlin had not died of a wasting disease such as tuberculosis. Now I could understand why Sir Frank McKendrick had described her final months in the coded terms he did. It was complications, specifically septicemia, following on childbirth that had killed her.

“And before you ask, the baby seems to have survived,” Simon Lang continued. “I was getting quite caught up in it all by then. No death certificate for any infant with the surname ‘Devlin’ in that area in 1915 or 1916—I checked. So I got onto the Registrar’s office in Lambourn. Still no luck. No deaths of
any
newborns there in a nine-month period either side of Isabel’s death.”

“Did you ask them to cross-check with ‘Births’?”

“Of course I did. I have a good brain, if you recall. Perhaps not quite as good as some, dear, but perfectly serviceable. I had them check all births registered in Lambourn in the December, January,
and
February—and they must have been an infertile lot there, because there weren’t that many. Not one Devlin. Hullo—this is odd, I thought to myself. The disappearing baby. So I persuaded them to check again. I was about to give up—and then, Tom, breakthrough! I think I found him.”

“Him?”

“Male child. Date of birth given as February 1, 1915, in other words five days before Isabel died, which is about right, given the septicemia, I reckon. Registered as an illegitimate birth, father unknown, mother unknown, two days
after
Isabel’s death, on February 8. Given the name ‘Terence Gray’ and registered by some official from the Lambourn and District Foundling Hospital. Someone dumped the baby, do you see? Which rather suggests that Isabel had been up to something, and the baby’s father
wasn’t
Jack Devlin, Gentleman, et cetera. I think it has to be Isabel’s baby, though. It was the only birth in that district in the right period that isn’t legitimately accounted for. I’ve requested copies of both certificates, and I’ll send them on to you. Now—tell me I’ve done well.”

I told him he had done well. I got rid of him, hung up, and stared at the dark sea beyond the window.

Now Rebecca’s intervention in my life made sense; my resemblance to her, which no one had ever remarked on until today, made sense. I reached for Sir Frank McKendrick’s book and read his comments again feverishly; I tried to remember everything Favell had told me. What did I know of Isabel Devlin? She was Rebecca’s mother. She had married her husband in France, and been abandoned by him; she had become an actress; she had believed Desdemona might fight back when Othello murdered her. She had sung her “Willow Song” with a sweet voice, but did not know how to project to an audience. She had the “prettiest golden hair.” To the sentimental Sir Frank, she was a “lass unparallel’d”—and she had died in a botched childbirth at the beginning of a vicious war, leaving a daughter to make a sad little shrine to her memory.