Rebecca

'You didn't want to dine with Julyan's sister and go down by the late train?'

'No.'

Maxim finished his drink. His eyes looked large and they were ringed with the shadows. They seemed very dark against the pallor of his face.

'How much of the truth', he said, 'do you think July an guessed?'

I watched him over the rim of my glass. I did not say anything.

'He knew,' said Maxim slowly: 'of course he knew.'

'If he did,' I said, 'he will never say anything. Never, never.'

'No,' said Maxim. 'No.'

He ordered another drink from the maitre d'hotel. We sat silent and peaceful in our dark corner.

'I believe', said Maxim, 'that Rebecca lied to me on purpose. The last supreme bluff. She wanted me to kill her. She foresaw the whole thing. That's why she laughed. That's why she stood there laughing when she died.'

I did not say anything. I went on drinking my brandy and soda. It was all over. It was all settled. It did not matter any more. There was no need for Maxim to look white and troubled.

'It was her last practical joke,' said Maxim, 'the best of them all. And I'm not sure if she hasn't won, even now.'

'What do you mean? How can she have won?' I said.

'I don't know,' he said. 'I don't know.' He swallowed his second drink. Then he got up from the table. 'I'm going to nag up Frank,' he said.

I sat there in my corner, and presently the waiter brought me my fish. It was lobster. Very hot and good. I had another brandy and soda, too. It was pleasant and comfortable sitting there and nothing mattered very much. I smiled at the waiter. I asked for some more bread in French for no reason. It was quiet and happy and friendly in the restaurant. Maxim and I were together. Everything was over. Everything was settled. Rebecca was dead. Rebecca could not hurt us. She had played her last joke as Maxim had said. She could do no more to us now. In ten minutes Maxim came back again.

'Well,' I said, my own voice sounding far away, 'how was Frank?'

'Frank was all right,' said Maxim. 'He was at the office, been waiting there for me to telephone him ever since four o'clock. I told him what had happened. He sounded glad, relieved.'

'Yes,' I said.

'Something rather odd though,' said Maxim slowly, a line between his brows. 'He thinks Mrs Danvers has cleared out. She's gone, disappeared. She said nothing to anyone, but apparently she'd been packing up all day, stripping her room of things, and the fellow from the station came for her boxes at about four o'clock. Frith telephoned down to Frank about it, and Frank told Frith to ask Mrs Danvers to come down to him at the office. He waited, and she never came. About ten minutes before I rang up, Frith telephoned to Frank again and said there had been a long-distance call for Mrs Danvers which he had switched through to her room, and she had answered. This must have been about ten past six. At a quarter to seven he knocked on the door and found her room empty. Her bedroom too. They looked for her and could not find her. They think she's gone. She must have gone straight out of the house and through the woods. She never passed the lodge-gates.'

'Isn't it a good thing?' I said. 'It saves us a lot of trouble. We should have had to send her away, anyway. I believe she guessed, too. There was an expression on her face last night. I kept thinking of it, coming up in the car.'

'I don't like it,' said Maxim. 'I don't like it.'

'She can' t do anything,' I argued.' If she' s gone, so much the better. It was Favell who telephoned of course. He must have told her about Baker. He would tell her what Colonel Julyan said. Colonel Julyan said if there was any attempt at blackmail we were to tell him. They won't dare do it. They can't. It's too dangerous.'

'I'm not thinking of blackmail,' said Maxim.

'What else can they do?' I said. 'We've got to do what Colonel Julyan said. We've got to forget it. We must not think about it any more. It's all over, darling, it's finished. We ought to go down on our knees and thank God that it's finished.'

Maxim did not answer. He was staring in front of him at nothing.

'Your lobster will be cold,' I said; 'eat it, darling. It will do you good, you want something inside you. You're tired.' I was using the words he had used to me. I felt better and stronger. It was I now who was taking care of him. He was tired, pale. I had got over my weakness and fatigue and now he was the one to suffer from reaction. It was just because he was empty, because he was tired. There was nothing to worry about at all. Mrs Danvers had gone. We should praise God for that, too. Everything had been made so easy for us, so very easy. 'Eat up your fish,' I said.

It was going to be very different in the future. I was not going to be nervous and shy with the servants any more. With Mrs Danvers gone I should learn bit by bit to control the house. I would go and interview the cook in the kitchen. They would like me, respect me. Soon it would be as though Mrs Danvers had never had command. I would learn more about the estate, too. I should ask Frank to explain things to me. I was sure Frank liked me. I liked him, too. I would go into things, and learn how they were managed. What they did at the farm. How the work in the grounds was planned. I might take to gardening myself, and in time have one or two things altered. That little square lawn outside the morning-room with the statue of the satyr. I did not like it. We would give the satyr away. There were heaps of things that I could do, little by little. People would come and stay and I should not mind. There would be the interest of seeing to their rooms, having flowers and books put, arranging the food. We would have children. Surely we would have children.

'Have you finished?' said Maxim suddenly. 'I don't think I want any more. Only coffee. Black, very strong, please, and the bill,' he added to the mattre d'hotel.

I wondered why we must go so soon. It was comfortable in the restaurant, and there was nothing to take us away. I liked sitting there, with my head against the sofa back, planning the future idly in a hazy pleasant way. I could have gone on sitting there for a long while.

I followed Maxim out of the restaurant, stumbling a little, and yawning. 'Listen,' he said, when we were on the pavement, 'do you think you could sleep in the car if I wrapped you up with the rug, and tucked you down in the back. There's the cushion there, and my coat as well.'

'I thought we were going to put up somewhere for the night?' I said blankly. 'One of those hotels one passes on the road.'

'I know,' he said, 'but I have this feeling I must get down tonight. Can't you possibly sleep in the back of the car?'

'Yes,' I said doubtfully. 'Yes, I suppose so.'

'If we start now, it's a quarter to eight, we ought to be there by half past two,' he said. 'There won't be much traffic on the road.'

'You'll be so tired,' I said. 'So terribly tired.'

'No,' he shook his head. 'I shall be all right. I want to get home. Something's wrong. I know it is. I want to get home.'

His face was anxious, strange. He pulled open the door and began arranging the rugs and the cushion at the back of the car.

'What can be wrong?' I said. 'It seems so odd to worry now, when everything's over. I can't understand you.'

He did not answer. I climbed into the back of the car and lay down with my legs tucked under me. He covered me with the rug. It was very comfortable. Much better than I imagined. I settled the pillow under my head.

'Are you all right?' he said; 'are you sure you don't mind?'

'No,' I said, smiling. 'I'm all right. I shall sleep. I don't want to stay anywhere on the road. It's much better to do this and get home. We'll be at Manderley long before sunrise.'

He got in front and switched on the engine. I shut my eyes. The car drew away and I felt the slight jolting of the springs under my body. I pressed my face against the cushion. The motion of the car was rhythmic, steady, and the pulse of my mind beat with it. A hundred images came to me when I closed my eyes, things seen, things known, and things forgotten. They were jumbled together in a senseless pattern. The quill of Mrs Van Hopper's hat, the hard straight-backed chairs in Frank's dining-room, the wide window in the west wing at Manderley, the salmon-coloured frock of the smiling lady at the fancy dress ball, a peasant girl in a road near Monte Carlo.