Rebecca

I tapped on the glass and told the chauffeur to stop.

'I think I'll get out and walk with Mr Crawley,' I said.

He opened the door for me. 'Been paying calls, Mrs de Winter?' he said.

'Yes, Frank,' I said. I called him Frank because Maxim did, but he would always call me Mrs de Winter. He was that sort of person. Even if we had been thrown on a desert island together and lived there in intimacy for the rest of our lives, I should have been Mrs de Winter.

'I've been calling on the bishop,' I said, 'and I found the bishop out, but the bishop's lady was at home. She and the bishop are very fond of walking. Sometimes they do twenty miles a day, in the Pennines.'

'I don't know that part of the world,' said Frank Crawley; 'they say the country round is very fine. An uncle of mine used to live there.'

It was the sort of remark Frank Crawley always made. Safe, conventional, very correct.

"The bishop's wife wants to know when we are going to give a fancy dress ball at Manderley,' I said, watching him out of the tail of my eye. 'She came to the last one, she said, and enjoyed it very much. I did not know you have fancy dress dances here, Frank.'

He hesitated a moment before replying. He looked a little troubled. 'Oh, yes,' he said after a moment, 'the Manderley ball was generally an annual affair. Everyone in the county came. A lot of people from London too. Quite a big show.'

'It must have taken a lot of organisation,' I said.

'Yes,' he said.

'I suppose', I said carelessly, 'Rebecca did most of it?'

I looked straight ahead of me along the drive, but I could see his face was turned towards me, as though he wished to read my expression.

'We all of us worked pretty hard,' he said quietly. There was a funny reserve in his manner as he said this, a certain shyness that reminded me of my own. I wondered suddenly if he had been in love with Rebecca. His voice was the sort of voice I should have used in his circumstances, had this been so. The idea opened up a new field of possibilities. Frank Crawley being so shy, so dull, he would never have told anyone, least of all Rebecca.

'I'm afraid I should not be much use if we have a dance,' I said, 'I'm no earthly use at organising anything.'

"There would be no need for you to do anything,' he said, 'you would just be your self and look decorative.'

"That's very polite of you, Frank,' I said, 'but I'm afraid I should not be able to do that very well either.'

'I think you would do it excellently,' he said. Dear Frank Crawley, how tactful he was and considerate. I almost believed him. But he did not deceive me really.

'Will you ask Maxim about the ball?' I said. 'Why don't you ask him?' he answered. 'No,' I said. 'No, I don't like to.'

We were silent then. We went on walking along the drive. Now that I had broken down my reluctance at saying Rebecca's name, first with the bishop's wife and now with Frank Crawley, the urge to continue was strong within me. It gave me a curious satisfaction, it acted upon me like a stimulant. I knew that in a moment or two I should have to say it again. 'I was down on one of the beaches the other day,' I said, 'the one with the breakwater. Jasper was being infuriating, he kept barking at the poor man with the idiot's eyes.'

'You must mean Ben,' said Frank, his voice quite easy now; 'he always potters about on the shore. He's quite a nice fellow, you need never be frightened of him. He would not hurt a fly.'

'Oh, I wasn't frightened,' I said. I waited a moment, humming a tune to give me confidence. 'I'm afraid that cottage place is going to rack and ruin,' I said lightly. 'I had to go in, to find a piece of string or something to tie up Jasper. The china is mouldy and the books are being ruined. Why isn't something done about it? It seems such a pity.'

I knew he would not answer at once. He bent down to tie up his shoe lace.

I pretended to examine a leaf on one of the shrubs. 'I think if Maxim wanted anything done he would tell me,' he said, still fumbling with his shoe.

'Are they all Rebecca's things?' I asked.

'Yes,' he said.

I threw the leaf away and picked another, turning it over in my hands.

'What did she use the cottage for?' I asked; 'it looked quite furnished. I thought from the outside it was just a boat-house.'

'It was a boat-house originally,' he said, his voice constrained again, difficult, the voice of someone who is uncomfortable about his subject. 'Then — then she converted it like that, had furniture put in, and china.'

I thought it funny the way he called her 'she'. He did not say Rebecca or Mrs de Winter, as I expected him to do.

'Did she use it a great deal?' I asked.

'Yes,' he said. 'Yes, she did. Moonlight picnics, and — and one thing and another.'

We were walking again side by side, I still humming my little tune. 'How jolly,' I said brightly. 'Moonlight picnics must be great fun. Did you ever go to them?'

'Once or twice,' he said. I pretended not to notice his manner, how quiet it had become, how reluctant to speak about these things.

'Why is the buoy there in the little harbour place?' I said.

'The boat used to be moored there,' he said.

'What boat?' I asked.

'Her boat,' he said.

A strange sort of excitement was upon me. I had to go on with my questions. He did not want to talk about it. I knew that, but although I was sorry for him and shocked at my own self I had to continue, I could not be silent.

'What happened to it?' I said. 'Was that the boat she was sailing when she was drowned?'

'Yes,' he said quietly, 'it capsized and sank. She was washed overboard.'

'What sort of size boat was it?' I asked.

'About three tons. It had a little cabin.'

'What made it capsize?' I said.

'It can be very squally in the bay,' he said.

I thought of that green sea, foam-flecked, that ran down channel beyond the headland. Did the wind come suddenly, I wondered, in a funnel from the beacon on the hill, and did the little boat heel to it, shivering, the white sail fiat against a breaking sea?

'Could not someone have got out to her?' I said.

'Nobody saw the accident, nobody knew she had gone,' he said.

I was very careful not to look at him. He might have seen the surprise in my face. I had always thought it happened in a sailing race, that other boats were there, the boats from Kerrith, and that people were watching from the cliffs. I did not know she had been alone, quite alone, out there in the bay.

"They must have known up at the house!' I said.

'No,' he said. 'She often went out alone like that. She would come back any time of the night, and sleep at the cottage on the beach.'

'Was not she nervous?'

'Nervous?' he said; 'no, she was not nervous of anything.'

'Did — did Maxim mind her going off alone like that?'

He waited a minute, and then 'I don't know,' he said shortly. I had the impression he was being loyal to someone. Either to Maxim or to Rebecca, or perhaps even to himself. He was odd. I did not know what to make of it.

'She must have been drowned, then, trying to swim to shore, after the boat sank?' I said.

'Yes,' he said.

I knew how the little boat would quiver and plunge, the water gushing into the steering well, and how the sails would press her down, suddenly, horribly, in that gust of wind. It must have been very dark out there in the bay. The shore must have seemed very far away to anyone swimming there, in the water.

'How long afterwards was it that they found her?' I said.

'About two months,' he said.

Two months. I thought drowned people were found after two days. I thought they would be washed up close to the shore when the tide came.

'Where did they find her?' I asked. 'Near Edgecoombe, about forty miles up channel,' he said. I had spent a holiday at Edgecoombe once, when I was seven. It was a big place, with a pier, and donkeys. I remembered riding a donkey along the sands.