Rebecca

"The gentlemen are not back yet, are they, Robert?' I asked.

'No, Madam, not yet. I thought you were with them, Madam.'

'No. No, I've been back some time.'

'Will you have tea, Madam?'

'No, no, I'll wait.'

'It looks as though the weather was going to break at last, Madam.'

'Yes.'

No rain fell. Nothing since those two drops on my hand. I went back and sat in the library. At half past five Robert came into the room.

"The car has just driven up to the door now, Madam,' he said.

'Which car?' I said.

'Mr de Winter's car, Madam,' he said.

'Is Mr de Winter driving it himself?'

'Yes, Madam.'

I tried to get up but my legs were things of straw, they would not bear me. I stood leaning against the sofa. My throat was very dry. After a minute Maxim came into the room. He stood just inside the door.

He looked very tired, old. There were lines at the corner of his mouth I had never noticed before.

'It's all over,' he said.

I waited. Still I could not speak or move towards him.

'Suicide,' he said, 'without sufficient evidence to show the state of mind of the deceased. They were all at sea of course, they did not know what they were doing.'

I sat down on the sofa. 'Suicide,' I said, 'but the motive? Where was the motive?'

'God knows,' he said. 'They did not seem to think a motive was necessary. Old Horridge, peering at me, wanting to know if Rebecca had any money troubles. Money troubles. God in heaven.'

He went and stood by the window, looking out at the green lawns. 'It's going to rain,' he said. "Thank God it's going to rain at last.'

'What happened?' I said, 'what did the Coroner say? Why have you been there all this time?'

'He went over and over the same ground again,' said Maxim. 'Little details about the boat that no one cared about a damn. Were the sea-cocks hard to turn on? Where exactly was the first hole in relation to the second? What was ballast? What effect upon the stability of the boat would the shifting of the ballast have? Could a woman do this unaided? Did the cabin door shut firmly? What pressure of water was necessary to burst open the door? I thought I should go mad. I kept my temper though. Seeing you there, by the door, made me remember what I had to do. If you had not fainted like that, I should never have done it. It brought me up with a jerk. I knew exactly what I was going to say. I faced Horridge all the time. I never took my eyes off his thin, pernickety, little face and those gold-rimmed pince-nez. I shall remember that face of his to my dying day. I'm tired, darling; so tired I can't see, or hear or feel anything.'

He sat down on the window-seat. He leant forward, his head in his hands. I went and sat beside him. In a few minutes Frith came in, followed by Robert carrying the table for tea. The solemn ritual went forward as it always did, day after day, the leaves of the table pulled out, the legs adjusted, the laying of the snowy cloth, the putting down of the silver teapot and the kettle with the little flame beneath. Scones, sandwiches, three different sorts of cake. Jasper sat close to the table, his tail thumping now and again upon the floor, his eyes fixed expectantly on me. It's funny, I thought, how the routine of life goes on, whatever happens, we do the same things, go through the little performance of eating, sleeping, washing. No crisis can break through the crust of habit. I poured out Maxim's tea, I took it to him on the window-seat, gave him his scone, and buttered one for myself.

'Where's Frank?' I asked.

'He had to go and see the vicar. I would have gone too but I wanted to come straight back to you. I kept thinking of you, waiting here, all by yourself, not knowing what was going to happen.'

'Why the vicar?' I said.

'Something has to happen this evening,' he said. 'Something at the church.'

I stared at him blankly. Then I understood. They were going to bury Rebecca. They were going to bring Rebecca back from the mortuary.

'It's fixed for six-thirty,' he said. 'No one knows but Frank, and Colonel Julyan, and the vicar, and myself. There won't be anyone hanging about. This was arranged yesterday. The verdict doesn't make any difference.'

'What time must you go?'

'I'm meeting them there at the church at twenty-five past six.'

I did not say anything. I went on drinking my tea. Maxim put his sandwich down untasted. 'It's still very hot, isn't it?' he said.

'It's the storm,' I said. 'It won't break. Only little spots at a time. It's there in the air. It won't break.'

'It was thundering when I left Lanyon,' he said, 'the sky was like ink over my head. Why in the name of God doesn't it rain?'

The birds were hushed in the trees. It was still very dark.

'I wish you did not have to go out again,' I said.

He did not answer. He looked tired, so deathly tired.

'We'll talk over things this evening when I get back,' he said presently. 'We've got so much to do together, haven't we? We've got to begin all over again. I've been the worst sort of husband for you.'

'No!' I said. 'No!'

'We'll start again, once this thing is behind us. We can do it, you and I. It's not like being alone. The past can't hurt us if we are together. You'll have children too.' After a while he glanced at his watch. 'It's ten past six,' he said, 'I shall have to be going. It won't take long, not more than half an hour. We've got to go down to the crypt.'

I held his hand. 'I'll come with you. I shan't mind. Let me come with you.'

'No,' he said. 'No, I don't want you to come.'

Then he went out of the room. I heard the sound of the car starting up in the drive. Presently the sound died away, and I knew he had gone.

Robert came to clear away the tea. It was like any other day. The routine was unchanged. I wondered if it would have been so had Maxim not come back from Lanyon. I wondered if Robert would have stood there, that wooden expression on his young sheep's face, brushing the crumbs from the snow-white cloth, picking up the table, carrying it from the room.

It seemed very quiet in the library when he had gone. I began to think of them down at the church, going through that door and down the flight of stairs to the crypt. I had never been there. I had only seen the door. I wondered what a crypt was like, if there were coffins standing there. Maxim's father and mother. I wondered what would happen to the coffin of that other woman who had been put there by mistake. I wondered who she was, poor unclaimed soul, washed up by the wind and tide. Now another coffin would stand there. Rebecca would lie there in the crypt as well. Was the vicar reading the burial service there, with Maxim, and Frank, and Colonel Julyan standing by his side? Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. It seemed to me that Rebecca had no reality any more. She had crumbled away when they had found her on the cabin floor. It was not Rebecca who was lying in the crypt, it was dust. Only dust.

Just after seven the rain began to fall. Gently at first, a light pattering in the trees, and so thin I could not see it. Then louder and faster, a driving torrent falling slant ways from the slate sky, like water from a sluice. I left the windows open wide. I stood in front of them and breathed the cold clean air. The rain splashed into my face and on my hands. I could not see beyond the lawns, the falling rain came thick and fast. I heard it sputtering in the gutter-pipes above the window, and splashing on the stones of the terrace. There was no more thunder. The rain smelt of moss and earth and of the black bark of trees.