Rebecca's Tale (58 page)

She stretched out on the floor, lit a cigarette, and examined me narrowly. “So, handsome Mr. Gray’s taken off for Brittany, has he? Have you had any luck with him? I tried my damnedest: One long conversation here, then I sent a postcard. I called him at least twice. Result? Precisely nothing. I thought I must be losing my touch, but now I’ve met you I begin to see, maybe I didn’t have a hope from day one. Are you and he…you know?”

“No,” I said. I considered, then added: “Unfortunately.”

“Ah, well, plenty of other fish in the sea,” she remarked in a nonchalant way. “Too many minnows, of course, but there you are. Cigarette?”

I took the cigarette (I smoke occasionally, when I want to look modern). The ice seemed to have been broken, and we talked for
some while. Selina told me about the new flat she’d found, and her work at the gallery—she made it all sound so easy. She’d just walked in there one day, and talked her way into a job. “You could do it, Ellie,” she said airily. “A pretty girl can always get a job—it’s fun what I do, but it’s not difficult. Mostly I send out invitations, organize the private-view parties. You’re not thinking of coming to London, are you? I’m going to need someone to share this new flat of mine—unlike this place, it’s pricey.”

I explained that I couldn’t contemplate anything like that; I explained that my father needed me, and that if anything did happen to him, I had my life mapped out: I was going to pick up where I’d left off and go to university. “Cambridge,” I said. “If they’ll still have me.”

Selina gave me a very queer look. “Don’t tell me you’re a bluestocking,” she cried. “Give me strength. One of those women’s colleges? Why not go the whole hog and lock yourself up in a nunnery, Ellie?”

I’d never thought of myself as a bluestocking before, but I suppose it could be true. There’s Rose’s influence to consider, and I do read passionately. I don’t consider Girton a nunnery, either. It’s a palace of learning, a passport to the future—though I could see it might not suit Selina. We discussed all this, I asked Selina how she contrived those marvellous sooty Egyptian eyes (she fetched something called eyeliner and demonstrated). Finally, after about half an hour’s frivolous talk (I’m starved of frivolity, so I enjoyed it very much), we got down to business. In more detail than she had on the telephone, Selina explained the developments that had brought me to London.

The week before, a package had arrived, addressed to the upstairs flat, the first mail—as far as she knew—that had ever been delivered to its tenant during her own tenure. She found it when she returned from work one day, a brown envelope addressed to a “Mrs. Danvers.” She’d inspected it, then placed it on the shelf for mail in the hall; she’d tried to call Kerrith at once, but received no answer from Tom’s cottage. Four days later, the package was still lying there unclaimed, though she knew that the flat above was not empty—the eerie furniture moving noises had been continuing intermittently.

On the fifth day, Selina risked the stairs, and knocked on the black door on the landing. She called through the door, using the name
“Mrs. Danvers,” to be met with the usual silence. She was certain the woman was there listening, so she announced that a package had arrived, and she was leaving it outside the door, on the landing. Two days later, curious to know what had happened, she crept up the stairs to check. The package was still lying exactly where she’d left it. That was the day she had called Tom’s cottage again, and I had answered. This morning, shortly before I’d arrived, she had checked one last time. The package had disappeared, so it had been claimed at last, presumably.

“Which means she must be there,” Selina went on, “Yet she’s been totally silent ever since I took that package upstairs. For three whole nights, not one sound!” She made a face. “I was used to the noises, so the silence felt worse. I thought, maybe she’s
dead
, or maybe she’s planning some new routine, creeping downstairs in the dead of night, or something….”

She gave a shiver. “Are you sure you want to go through with this, Ellie? You’re sure you don’t want me to stay here while you go up? I will if you want—she’s not going to open that damn door, so it won’t take long anyway.”

I
would
have liked Selina to remain—I’d looked carefully at the staircase as she showed me in. It was ill-lit; a cataract of bloodred carpet poured down from the landing above; I could see why Selina and her cats avoided it. But I knew I’d never succeed unless I was alone in the house. “I think if she hears you leave or sees you leave I have a better chance,” I said. “You’re probably right, and she won’t open the door—but if she does, she has no reason to harm me.”

Selina looked unconvinced. “You’re sure, Ellie? Whoever she is, we know one thing about the woman up there: She can’t be too sane.”

“If it’s who I think it is,” I said, “she was never too sane anyway.”

I finally convinced Selina that I meant what I said. I helped her pack up the last of her belongings and persuade her cats into traveling baskets. Selina gave me her front door key; I promised to let her know what happened, and we exchanged addresses. The cats began to yowl piteously as soon as the flaps of the baskets shut. Selina left, banging the front door loudly behind her. I could still hear her cats yowling as I stood in the hall behind the closed front door, and Selina loaded them into her car outside. I heard its engine start up, then
draw away until its sound merged with that steady background hum of traffic.

The hall was cool; a thick grayish radiance from the fan light lit the black-and-white tiles and the winding staircase. There were faint creaking noises in the air, which I told myself were movement in the fabric of the building; the slanting light from above the door was thick with motes of dust; they eddied about, as if there were a draft source somewhere, yet I could feel no draft anywhere.

I walked to the foot of the stairs, hesitated, then slowly began to mount them. I knew that Tom Galbraith had failed to get any response from the occupant above, and that I would fail, too, unless I could think of the right words. What would be the “open sesame” here? I thought Rebecca’s notebook might have given me the answer.

My footsteps on the red carpeted stairs made no sound. They were silent on the carpeted landing. I stood outside the black painted door at last; there was a faint scent of burning. I felt watched—and had to tell myself that no one could be watching, that no one could see through wooden door panels, that there were no spy holes or crannies through which someone could squint at me.

I counted to ten, then tapped lightly on the panels. I said: “Danny, are you there? Please let me in. I must talk to you.”

There was silence. The air felt clammy against my skin. It may have been my imagination but the smell of burning seemed to intensify. I forced myself to tap on the panels once more. I said in a sharper, more authoritative voice: “Danny, open the door at once, please. I don’t intend to stand here on the landing all day. Open it immediately.”

There was a pause, then I heard that noise Tom described, like the soft brush of material against a skirting board. There was a sliding and a turning sound; bolts were being drawn, and locks unfastened. Slowly, the door swung open. The hall beyond was bathed in a bright glaring light from a window at its far end which faced directly into the afternoon sun. The sudden glare after the dimness of the stairwell and the fear and excitement I felt dazzled me. Then I began to see, to read, the figure in front of me.

Standing silhouetted in the light was a woman with white hair; I’d only ever seen her with dark hair dragged back into a tight bun, but this thin white hair was loose on her shoulders, giving her a shocking
girlishness. She was as still as death, with a waxwork pallor; but, just as Rebecca described, I could sense the peculiar energy that emanated from her. She was attempting to speak. Her pale lips moved soundlessly. Even in my childhood, this woman had dressed in the style of dead era; she was wearing similar clothes now, as if her clock had stopped in 1918. Her long black skirt just cleared her ankles. In my dismay and shock, I found myself looking for the little meticulous darn in her stocking that seven-year-old Rebecca had seen. These stockings had holes in them. She was painfully emaciated, but I knew this was Mrs. Danvers.

She appeared to be staring over my shoulder; she’d begun to tremble violently. For a moment or so, she remained still, then she did a terrible thing. She leaned toward me, very, very close. I thought, Dear God, she’s trying to
smell me
.

I could smell
her
—as soon as she moved a sour sickly grave smell came off her clothes and her breath; I recoiled. Could she see me? I wasn’t sure. Her eyes were milky white, they looked as if the skin had grown across the irises, and I had to tell myself it was cataracts. “Your hand, give me your hand,” she said, in a dry grating voice, atonal and very low, as if she were unused to speaking.

I was afraid, but I did so. She clasped it very tight, making a broken crooning sound in her throat. She began to stroke it, and I saw her face change. My hands are narrow, though not nearly as long and narrow as Rebecca’s were, but I suppose her desire was great, and the wait had been very long, so the mistake she then made was understandable.

She made a choking sound, and to my horror, went to kiss my fingers. I snatched my hand back; at once, in front of my eyes, a transformation took place. I could sense the mechanisms of her willpower grind. She crushed her emotion, and shaking with the effort, tried to turn herself back into a servant.

“At last, at last,” she said in that harsh disused voice. “I knew you’d come. I knew you’d never fail me. Everything’s ready for you, just the way you liked it. Your favorite flowers, all your lovely furniture and pictures and books. You remember that special tea you liked? I have it here, all ready. All I have to do is boil the water—come in, come in—how was your journey, madam?”

She led me down the corridor before I could say a word; we went up a short flight of steps; she stood back, and I passed through an
archway into a huge and appalling room. I felt as if I were sleepwalking. It was the room with the great arched studio window that’s visible from the street below, and I’m not sure I can describe it. I was overcome with confusion, with dismay, and pity for her—and with fear, too, because it’s frightening to be that close, face-to-face with the unmistakable evidence of a mind gone awry long ago, and a willpower so intense that I could feel it scorching the air around me.

“You’ve let your hair grow long again,” she said, leading me toward a chair. “I’m glad. I always preferred it long. Do you remember how I used to brush it for you? ‘Hair drill, Danny,’ you’d say. ‘You maid me better than anyone, Danny,’ you said. I’ve looked after everything; when I left Manderley, I couldn’t bring very much, but I brought your favorite dresses, the sea-green silk, you remember that? And that sealskin coat—it wasn’t costly, not like some of the others, but I knew that was the one you’d want, and it’s here. But I couldn’t find your ring, your little diamond ring—I looked and looked, but I couldn’t find it anywhere.” She began crying.

“Mrs. Danvers,” I said, as gently and quietly as I could. “Mrs. Danvers—please. You’re ill. Won’t you sit down for a moment?”

“I’ll fetch the tea,” she said, regaining control. I’m not sure whether she failed to hear me, or refused to hear me. “I’ll fetch the tea, now. You sit there. I won’t be a moment, madam. Then I’ve something to show you—a surprise for you….”

Before I could prevent her, she turned and left me. I heard her footsteps go softly down that short flight of stairs. A door closed. The heat in the room was stifling. The chair I’d been led toward was crawling with moths. I backed away and looked around me.

The studio room was double height, opened right up into the roof beams; it must have been beautiful and would once have been white, but now the walls were yellowish and scabrous. It was crammed with an insanity of things, but they must have been rearranged so often during those long night rituals that any purpose they’d had was inverted. Tables were upended; cushions hung from hooks on the wall; pictures were stacked with their faces to the skirting; books had been made into barricades, sectioning the room into quarters. I thought of Rebecca’s Religion of the House. Was this what that worship led to? I edged between the book barricades, toward the far corner, where there was a piano.

Something scuttled out from under it as I approached; I nerved myself to go nearer, though the smell in that part of the room was fetid and turned my stomach. The piano had been gutted: its lid was propped open, so I could see into its entrails. The strings had been sliced; it looked as if someone had taken a knife to them, then caught hold of them, and attempted to pull them out. The result was a writhing tangle of wires and loops, like metal intestines. Something—a rat, a mouse—had got trapped in there long ago; I could see a dusty mummified darkness in the depths of the wires. I could smell old decay from three feet away.

I stepped back, feeling hot and sick. Who had done this? Mrs. Danvers?

“Don’t you fret about that, madam,” said a voice behind me. “Now you’ve come, we can get that piano mended. I would have done it before for you, but I don’t like men coming here—and I wasn’t sure, maybe you preferred it that way. When I first came here—after you left—everything was so lovely, just as it always was, except for that. I knew you must have done it after you saw that doctor, madam. Shall I get it mended, I thought? Then I decided to wait, until you gave me instructions. Oh, look, oh, look—” She made a choking sound. I turned to her and saw her face contract. “I’ve brought the tea, madam—and I don’t have lemons. I should have bought lemons….”

Her distress was very great. When I called her “Mrs. Danvers” it seemed to distress her more, so, in the end, pitying her deeply, unsure what to do, I called her “Danny” again, and told her the tea was delicious as it was. I lifted the dusty cup to my lips and pretended to sip. The tea had been made with cold water.

“Will you be needing a fire, madam?” She said, looking around the room in an anxious way; the temperature there, at the top of the building, under the roof, with the windows fast shut and the sun blazing in, must have been well into the eighties. I told her I wouldn’t be needing a fire, and turned to look at the fireplace. She had been burning books, I saw—perhaps they were her only fuel in the winter months. There was a great mound of ashes in the grate, and the singed remains of half-burned pages and calf bindings. On the chimneypiece shelf above, an exquisite china figure in a
bocage
of flowers stood next to a stopped clock. The looking glass behind them had been sheeted.