'Don't, Jasper,' I said. He went on sniffing deeply, his nose thrust to the crack. I pushed the door open and looked inside. It was very dark. Like it had been before. Nothing was changed. The cobwebs still clung to the rigging of the model boats. The door into the boat-store at the end of the room was open though. Jasper growled again, and there was a sound of something falling. Jasper barked furiously, and darting between my legs into the room he tore to the open door of the store. I followed him, heart beating, and then stood uncertainly in the middle of the room. 'Jasper, come back, don't be a fool,' I said. He stood in the doorway, still barking furiously, an hysterical note in his voice. Something was there then, inside the store. Not a rat. He would have gone for a rat. 'Jasper, Jasper. Come here,' I said. He would not come. I went slowly to the door of the store.
'Is there anybody there?' I said.
No one answered. I bent down to Jasper, putting my hand on his collar, and looked round the edge of the door. Someone was sitting in the corner against the wall. Someone who, from his crouching position, was even more frightened than me. It was Ben. He was trying to hide behind one of the sails. 'What is the matter? Do you want something?' I said. He blinked at me stupidly, his mouth slightly open.
'I'm not doing nothing,' he said.
'Quiet, Jasper,' I scolded, putting my hand over his muzzle, and I took my belt off and ran it through his collar as a leash.
'What do you want, Ben?' I said, a little bolder this time.
He did not answer. He watched me with his sly idiot's eyes.
'I think you had better come out,' I said. 'Mr de Winter doesn't like people walking in and out of here.'
He shambled to his feet grinning furtively, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. The other hand he kept behind his back. 'What have you got, Ben?" I said. He obeyed me like a child, showing me the other hand. There was a fishing line in it. 'I'm not doing anything,' he repeated.
'Does that line belong here?' I asked.
'Eh?' he said.
'Listen, Ben,' I said. 'You can take that line if you want to, but you mustn't do it again. It's not honest, taking people's things.'
He said nothing. He blinked at me and wriggled.
'Come along,' I said firmly.
I went into the main room and he followed me. Jasper had stopped barking, and was now sniffing at Ben's heels. I did not want to stop any longer in the cottage. I walked quickly out into the sunshine, Ben shuffling behind me. Then I shut the door.
'You had better go home,' I said to Ben.
He held the fishing line clutched to his heart like a treasure. 'You won't put me to the asylum, will you?' he said.
I saw then that he was trembling with fright. His hands were shaking, and his eyes were fixed on mine in supplication, like a dumb thing.
'Of course not,' I said gently.
'I done nothing,' he repeated, 'I never told no one. I don't want to be put to the asylum.' A tear rolled down his dirty face.
"That's all right, Ben,' I said; 'no one will put you away. But you must not go to the cottage again.'
I turned away, and he came after me, pawing at my hand.
'Here,' he said. 'Here, I got something for you.'
He smiled foolishly, he beckoned with his finger, and turned towards the beach. I went with him, and he bent down and picked up a flat stone by a rock. There was a little heap of shells under the stone. He chose one, and presented it to me. "That's yourn,' he said.
'Thank you; it's very pretty,' I said.
He grinned again, rubbing his ear, his fright forgotten. 'You've got angel's eyes,' he said.
I glanced down at the shell again, rather taken aback. I did not know what to say.
'You're not like the other one,' he said.
'Who do you mean?' I said. 'What other one?'
He shook his head. His eyes were sly again. He laid his finger against his nose. 'Tall and dark she was,' he said. 'She gave you the feeling of a snake. I seen her here with me own eyes. Be night she'd come. I seen her.' He paused, watching me intently. I did not say anything. 'I looked in on her once,' he said, 'and she turned on me, she did. "You don't know me, do you?" she said. "You've never seen me here, and you won't again. If I catch you looking at me through the windows here I'll have you put to the asylum," she said. "You wouldn't like that would you? They're cruel to people in the asylum," she said. "I won't say nothing, M'am," I said. And I touched me cap, like this here.' He pulled at his sou'wester. 'She's gone now, ain't she?' he said anxiously.
'I don't know who you mean,' I said slowly; 'no one is going to put you in the asylum. Good afternoon, Ben.'
I turned away and walked up the beach to the path dragging Jasper by his belt. Poor wretch, he was potty, of course. He did not know what he was talking about. It was hardly likely that anyone would threaten him with the asylum. Maxim had said he was quite harmless, and so had Frank. Perhaps he had heard himself discussed once, amongst his own people, and the memory of it lingered, like an ugly picture in the mind of a child. He would have a child's mentality too, regarding likes and dislikes. He would take a fancy to a person for no reason, and be friendly one day perhaps and sullen the next. He had been friendly with me because I had said he could keep the fishing line. Tomorrow if I met him he might not know me. It was absurd to notice anything said by an idiot. I glanced back over my shoulder at the cove. The tide had begun to run and was swirling slowly round the arm of the harbour wall. Ben had disappeared over the rocks. The beach was deserted again. I could just see the stone chimney of the cottage through a gap in the dark trees. I had a sudden unaccountable desire to run. I pulled at Jasper's leash and panted up the steep narrow path through the woods, not looking back any more. Had I been offered all the treasures in the world I could not have turned and gone down to the cottage or the beach again. It was as though someone waited down there, in the little garden where the nettles grew. Someone who watched and listened.
Jasper barked as we ran together. He thought it was some new kind of game. He kept trying to bite the belt and worry it. I had not realised how closely the trees grew together here, their roots stretching across the path like tendrils ready to trip one. They ought to clear all this, I thought as I ran, catching my breath, Maxim should get the men on to it. There is no sense or beauty in this undergrowth. That tangle of shrubs there should be cut down to bring light to the path. It was dark, much too dark. That naked eucalyptus tree stifled by brambles looked like the white bleached limb of a skeleton, and there was a black earthy stream running beneath it, choked with the muddied rains of years, trickling silently to the beach below. The birds did not sing here as they did in the valley. It was quiet in a different way. And even as I ran and panted up the path I could hear the wash of the sea as the tide crept into the cove. I understood why Maxim disliked the path and the cove. I disliked it too. I had been a fool to come this way. I should have stayed on the other beach, on the white shingle, and come home by the Happy Valley.
I was glad to come out on to the lawn and see the house there in the hollow, solid and secure. The woods were behind me. I would ask Robert to bring me my tea under the chestnut tree. I glanced at my watch. It was earlier than I thought, not yet four. I would have to wait a bit. It was not the routine at Manderley to have tea before half past. I was glad Frith was out. Robert would not make such a performance of bringing the tea out into the garden. As I wandered across the lawn to the terrace my eye was caught by a gleam of sunshine on something metal showing through the green of the rhododendron leaves at the turn in the drive. I shaded my eyes with my hand to see what it was. It looked like the radiator of a car. I wondered if someone had called. If they had though, they would have driven up to the house, not left their car concealed like that from the house, at the turn of the drive, by the shrubs. I went a little closer. Yes, it was a car all right. I could see the wings now and the hood. What a funny thing. Visitors never did that as a rule. And the tradesmen went round the back way by the old stables and the garage. It was not Frank's Morris. I knew that well. This was a long, low car, a sports car. I wondered what I had better do. If it was a caller Robert would have shown them into the library or the drawing-room. In the drawing-room they would be able to see me as I came across the lawn. I did not want to face a caller dressed like this. I should have to ask them to stay to tea. I hesitated, at the edge of the lawn. For no reason, perhaps because the sunlight flickered a moment on the glass, I looked up at the house, and as I did so I noticed with surprise that the shutters of one of the windows in the west wing had been opened up. Somebody stood by the window. A man. And then he must have caught sight of me because he drew back abruptly, and a figure behind him put up an arm and closed the shutters.