'How did they know it was her — after two months, how could they tell?' I said. I wondered why he paused before each sentence, as though he weighed his words. Had he cared for her, then, had he minded so much?
'Maxim went up to Edgecoombe to identify her,' he said. Suddenly I did not want to ask him any more. I felt sick at myself, sick and disgusted. I was like a curious sightseer standing on the fringe of a crowd after someone had been knocked down. I was like a poor person in a tenement building, when someone had died, asking if I might see the body. I hated myself. My questions had been degrading, shameful. Frank Crawley must despise me.
'It was a terrible time for all of you,' I said rapidly. 'I don't suppose you like being reminded about it. I just wondered if there was anything one could do to the cottage, that's all. It seems such a pity, all the furniture being spoilt by the damp.' He did not say anything. I felt hot and uncomfortable. He must have sensed that it was not concern for the empty cottage that had prompted me to all these questions, and now he was silent because he was shocked at me. Ours had been a comfortable, steady sort of friendship. I had felt him an ally. Perhaps I had destroyed all this, and he would never feel the same about me again.
'What a long drive this is,' I said; 'it always reminds me of the path in the forest in a Grimm's fairy tale, where the prince gets lost, you know. It's always longer than one expects, and the trees are so dark, and close.'
'Yes, it is rather exceptional,' he said. I could tell by his manner he was still on his guard, as though waiting for a further question from me. There was an awkwardness between us that could not be ignored. Something had to be done about it, even if it covered me with shame.
'Frank,' I said desperately, 'I know what you are thinking. You can't understand why I asked all those questions just now. You think I'm morbid, and curious, in a rather beastly way. It's not that, I promise you. It's only that — that sometimes I feel myself at such a disadvantage. It's all very strange to me, living here at Manderley. Not the sort of life I've been brought up to. When I go returning these calls, as I did this afternoon, I know people are looking me up and down, wondering what sort of success I'm going to make of it. I can imagine them saying, "What on earth does Maxim see in her?" And then, Frank, I begin to wonder myself, and I begin to doubt, and I have a fearful haunting feeling that I should never have married Maxim, that we are not going to be happy. You see, I know that all the time, whenever I meet anyone new, they are all thinking the same thing — How different she is to Rebecca.'
I stopped breathless, already a little ashamed of my outburst, feeling that now at any rate I had burnt my boats for all time. He turned to me looking very concerned and troubled.
'Mrs de Winter, please don't think that,' he said. 'For my part I can't tell you how delighted I am that you have married Maxim. It will make all the difference to his life. I am positive that you will make a great success of it. From my point of view it's — it's very refreshing and charming to find someone like yourself who is not entirely — er — ' he blushed, searching for a word 'not entirely au fait, shall we say, with ways at Manderley. And if people around here give you the impression that they are criticising you, it's — well — it's most damnably offensive of them, that's all. I've never heard a word of criticism, and if I did I should take great care that it was never uttered again.'
'That's very sweet of you, Frank,' I said, 'and what you say helps enormously. I dare say I've been very stupid. I'm not good at meeting people, I've never had to do it, and all the time I keep remembering how — how it must have been at Manderley before, when there was someone there who was born and bred to it, did it all naturally and without effort. And I realise, every day, that things I lack, confidence, grace, beauty, intelligence, wit — Oh, all the qualities that mean most in a woman — she possessed. It doesn't help, Frank, it doesn't help.'
He said nothing. He went on looking anxious, and distressed. He pulled out his handkerchief and blew his nose. 'You must not say that,' he said. 'Why not? It's true,' I said.
'You have qualities that are just as important, far more so, in fact. It's perhaps cheek of me to say so, I don't know you very well. I'm a bachelor, I don't know very much about women, I lead a quiet sort of life down here at Manderley as you know, but I should say that kindness, and sincerity, and — if I may say so — modesty are worth far more to a man, to a husband, than all the wit and beauty in the world.'
He looked very agitated, and blew his nose again. I saw that I had upset him far more than I had upset myself, and the realisation of this calmed me and gave me a feeling of superiority. I wondered why he was making such a fuss. After all, I had not said very much. I had only confessed my sense of insecurity, following as I did upon Rebecca. And she must have had these qualities that he presented to me as mine. She must have been kind and sincere, with all her friends, her boundless popularity. I was not sure what he meant by modesty. It was a word I had never understood. I always imagined it had something to do with minding meeting people in a passage on the way to the bathroom… Poor Frank. And Beatrice had called him a dull man, with never a word to say for himself.
'Well,' I said, rather embarrassed, 'well, I don't know about all that. I don't think I'm very kind, or particularly sincere, and as for being modest, I don't think I've ever had much of a chance to be anything else. It was not very modest, of course, being married hurriedly like that, down in Monte Carlo, and being alone there in that hotel, beforehand, but perhaps you don't count that?'
'My dear Mrs de Winter, you don't think I imagine for one moment that your meeting down there was not entirely above board?' he said in a low voice.
'No, of course not,' I said gravely. Dear Frank. I think I had shocked him. What a Frankish expression, too, 'above board'.
It made one think immediately of the sort of things that would happen below board.
'I'm sure,' he began, and hesitated, his expression still troubled, 'I'm sure that Maxim would be very worried, very distressed, if he knew how you felt. I don't think he can have any idea of it.'
'You won't tell him?' I said hastily.
'No, naturally not, what do you take me for? But you see, Mrs de Winter, I know Maxim pretty well, and I've seen him through many… moods. If he thought you were worrying about — well — about the past, it would distress him more than anything on earth. I can promise you that. He's looking very well, very fit, but Mrs Lacy was quite right the other day when she said he had been on the verge of a breakdown last year, though it was tactless of her to say so in front of him. That's why you are so good for him. You are fresh and young and — and sensible, you have nothing to do with all that time that has gone. Forget it, Mrs de Winter, forget it, as he has done, thank heaven, and the rest of us. We none of us want to bring back the past. Maxim least of all. And it's up to you, you know, to lead us away from it. Not to take us back there again.'
He was right, of course he was right. Dear good Frank, my friend, my ally. I had been selfish and hypersensitive, a martyr to my own inferiority complex. 'I ought to have told you all this before,' I said.
'I wish you had,' he said. 'I might have spared you some worry.'
'I feel happier,' I said, 'much happier. And I've got you for my friend whatever happens, haven't I, Frank?'
'Yes, indeed,' he said.
We were out of the dark wooded drive and into the light again. The rhododendrons were upon us. Their hour would soon be over. Already they looked a little overblown, a little faded. Next month the petals would fall one by one from the great faces, and the gardeners would come and sweep them away. Theirs was a brief beauty. Not lasting very long.