Mrs De Winter (10 page)

He sounded harsh, and impatient. He had never felt easy with any displays of emotion, but I wanted him to be gentle with Giles, to understand him. This cold, dismissive side of him reminded me too much of how he sometimes used to be, before I had known the truth and he had allowed me to come close to him.

I knelt back on my heels from the fire.

Maxim said, ‘It’s hopeless. The wood’s too damp.’

Tes.’ But I continued to watch the weak little thread of smoke, willing it to blaze out.

‘I tried to sort out some of the business affairs with him. He doesn’t know much - it’s all a muddle.’

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I knew that when we had been abroad and any papers had come, Maxim had signed them after barely a glance.

‘I had a talk with the solicitors. They need to see me. I can’t get out of it, damn it.’

My heart lurched. I had never known anything at all about Maxim’s financial or business affairs, but there had been a solicitor once in Kerrith. Perhaps we would have to go over there, perhaps —

‘It’s not the local man,’ he said, as if reading my thoughts. They’re in London.’

‘London?’ I was not able to stop myself sounding eager, quickly excited at the thought.

London.

We might have to go there then, not just hurriedly, furtively, scurrying, heads down, to change trains and leave at once, but to visit, to stay for a day, perhaps even a night, too, on proper business, with time, and a little leisure. London, oh, just once, please. I had never truly liked it, never been a city person in the least, I would not feel relaxed or at home there. But in our exile, I had just occasionally thought of it, daydreamed about it after reading something in an old newspaper from home - a name would catch my eye at random. Lords. The Old Bailey, Parliament Hill Fields, East India Dock, the Mall, St. James’s, the Mansion House, Kensington Gardens … and then I had spent a happy hour walking about, looking in grand shop windows, taking tea, listening to the band in the park on a spring morning, exploring some dark little Dickensian alley, where the houses leaned across to one another and the gutters smelled of printer’s ink, an innocent, pleasant, romantic little pastime, another reminder of home.

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I knew the war had dealt harshly with London, accepted that things would not look the same, would be shabbier, damaged, scarred, and I turned away from all thoughts of that last terrible visit, with Maxim and Favell and Colonel Julyan, to see Rebecca’s doctor, and all that it meant, all that had come after. Well, that had been separate, we would never need to see that particular street again, it would be perfectly easy to keep well away.

London. I was a country person, I knew that it was the green fields and lanes and rises, the smell of ploughed earth and the soft calling of the wood pigeons deep in the cool woods, that I needed to live quietly among for the rest of my days. I would never be happy for long among traffic and sights, on hard city pavements, with buildings looming over me.

But London, again, just once, for a day, no more. Oh, please. I half turned to look at Maxim, and almost asked.

He said, ‘He will come down here to see Giles and me the day after tomorrow.’ His face was closed, his voice tight, I was warned off at once, closed my mouth and did not utter. ‘It will take a few hours, I’m afraid. I want to get it all over and done and sorted out in one day. I don’t want it hanging over me. You’ll have to amuse yourself for half a day - but you want to do that, don’t you? You want to be out.’

If he minded, he did not give a hint of it, he smiled, indulgent, again, talking in that way he had as if to a child. It was coming back, now that we were here. He had told me that I had changed, since our return, but so had he, there were flashes here and there of the old, the other Maxim.

I smiled, and turned back to the fire again, took up the

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bellows and began to press them, my head down, away from him. London faded. We would not go.

‘I hope all this isn’t going to upset you too much,’ I said.

‘I shan’t let it. It’s got to be done, we’ll just get on with it. A lot of Beatrice’s affairs are - are quite separate from mine and the rest of the family’s of course, and have been since her marriage. But whatever loose ends there are can all be tied up together once and for all and then we can be off.’ He stood up, and came over to me, he was standing, very tall and steady, just behind me. I felt him close to my back. ‘Give me those things, let me see if I can lick this fire into shape.’

I handed him the bellows, and stood up. ‘But — we can go to Scotland?’

He smiled, and I saw that he looked tired, exhausted, the skin was fine and like a faint bruise beneath his eyes, and he was vulnerable again to me, and I wondered why I had been in some odd way afraid. ‘Of course,’ he said wearily. ‘You shall have your holiday,’ and bent to kiss my forehead, before turning to tackle the withered fire.

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Seven

For the whole of that night and the next day, whatever I saw or heard or thought, however I answered Maxim, lightly, comfortably, he was at one remove from me, I pressed a switch and life continued, but it was not real life, it did not signify.

The only reality was the white wreath, lying on the grass beside the grave, and the black letter, elegant, graceful, deadly, on the stiff card. They accompanied me, they danced before my eyes, they breathed and watched and whispered, they hovered at my shoulder, and would not cease or let me be.

Who? I kept asking myself every time I could be alone, who had done this? How? Why? Why? Who wanted to frighten us? Who hated us? When had they come? Had they been there when I had found the wreath? No, I knew, was strangely, calmly sure that that could not have been. When I had crossed the churchyard and stood beside Beatrice’s grave, when I had bent to examine the flowers, and seen the white wreath first, I had been quite alone, if I had not been I would

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have known it. There had been no one else, no watcher in the shadows, nothing but the wreath itself to disturb me.

I was afraid, but most of all, I was puzzled. I wanted to know, I did not understand, and the worst of it was bearing it entirely alone, keeping all hint from my face and voice, hiding the faintest sign of distraction or anxiety from Maxim.

It preoccupied me completely, even while I went through the motions of passing that night and the following day, it ran alongside me, like a tune that was playing, so that at last, I simply grew used to and accepted it and that calmed me a little.

‘You will have to amuse yourself for half a day but you want to do that, don’t you?’

I heard his voice again as I brushed my hair at the dressing table. I had not known that being home would do this to him, and that the Maxim I had grown used to, patient, quiet, subdued, the Maxim with whom I had lived for our years abroad, would slip away so easily, to reveal so many traces of the old Maxim, the one I had first known. But with every hour that passed in England, he changed a little, it was like watching curtains blow in the wind, to reveal more and more of what stood behind and had only been concealed, not obliterated.

‘You will have to amuse yourself for half a day.’

If it had happened a year ago, a month ago even, if for some reason there had been business to attend to, he would have tried to avoid it completely, to hide, it would have distressed him unbearably to have had to face it, and without any doubt he would have insisted that I be with

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him, listen, read the papers, see it through with him, he could not have done it without me. I had never imagined that he might change, that his old, easy, proud independence would reassert itself, that he would show any sign of being able, and willing, to deal with things alone, or for one moment wish me to be away from him. It was a shock, like watching a helpless, dependent invalid begin to recover, regain strength, show spirit and a flicker of the old fire, stand, and then walk alone again, brushing off impatiently the loving, restraining, anxious hands.

I did not know what I felt, or how much I minded, but I was not hurt. I did not take his brisk words as a rejection. I think perhaps I was relieved. And besides, the change was not total, there was much that was the same. We spent a day together quietly in the house — for apart from pacing a few times round the garden, day and evening, he had not gone out, would not go. It had turned wet and very windy, with scudding, grey clouds and a mist that came down quite close to the house, so that we could not see even as far as the horses in the paddock.

We read beside the fire and played bezique and piquet, and did the crossword in the newspaper, and the dogs slouched between us on the hearthrug, and at lunch, and dinner, Giles sat, and was virtually silent, sunken into himself, his eyes red, with heavy stains and pouches beneath them. He looked unkempt, dishevelled, broken and crumbling to pieces, and oblivious to the fact, and I did not know what to do or to say, I only tried to be kind, to pour his tea or smile at him the few times he caught my eye. I think he was grateful, in his pathetic child-like way, but

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then he went back to be alone in his study for hour after hour.

There was not even Roger to lighten the atmosphere, he had gone away to see friends, and I was relieved of the distress of looking at him and the guilt my feelings caused me.

For that day, we seemed to be suspended in time, in some sort of waiting room, between places. We did not belong in this house, it was vaguely familiar and yet strange, and bleak to us. We felt less comfortable than we might have done in a hotel. Maxim spoke very little, and for much of the day seemed abstracted, brooding, though he was glad, I think, when I tried to divert him, when tea came, or I suggested another game of piquet. Yet I had also a strange sense that to some extent he was merely going along with it to indulge me, keep me happy. I felt myself reverting again to my old, inferior, child-like role.

The day passed slowly. The rain blew onto the window panes, the mist did not lift. It was early dark.

Tou will have to amuse yourself for half a day, but you want to do that, don’t you?’

Yes. My heart pounded suddenly as I drew the curtains that night. I had a secret, it made me catch my breath as I thought of it. I could amuse myself for half a day. I knew what I would do, but I turned on my side, away from Maxim, and could not let him see me, it felt such a betrayal, the worst kind of deceit and infidelity.

The mist had gone, and there were skeins of cloud, in a clear, pale sky, blown by the breeze. It was almost like

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spring, except that the ground was thick with leaves that had been blown off the trees the previous day and lay in heaps about the garden and the drive.

The lawyer would be here by eleven, a taxi was booked to fetch him from the station.

I looked across the breakfast table. Giles was not down. Maxim looked formal, in a suit and stiff shirt, distant from me.

The white wreath floated, pale, insubstantial, between us.

Who? How? When? Why? What did they want of us?

I heard my own voice speaking quite easily. I said, ‘I wonder if Giles would let me take the car? I think it’s market day at Hemmock. I’d rather like to go.’

I had learned to drive almost as soon as we had gone abroad, though we had not owned a car, only hired one here and there, when we felt like taking a trip for a few miles to see some church or monastery or special view we had read of. Maxim seemed to like me to drive him, it had been part of the change in him, although he would never have dreamed of suggesting it in the old life. I had done it gladly, enjoying it, and enjoying even more the feeling it gave me of being different, the one who guided and was responsible. Driving a car seemed such a grown up thing to do, I had made Maxim smile, when I had once said so.

Now, he scarcely glanced up from the paper. ‘Why not? He has to be here, he isn’t going to need it. You’ll enjoy the market.’

So that was all right, he would let me go, he had not changed his mind, did not need me here.

But I felt a pang, as I went to get my coat. I lingered, holding his hand, waiting to be reassured that he could face

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the solicitor, the papers, and whatever the business talk might bring up, without me.

‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘It’s fine. There’s nothing to worry about.’

Only the wreath, I thought, and saw the letter traced, suddenly, upon his face. R. Rebecca.

It had never once crossed my mind that it had stood for anyone else. I saw that Maxim was watching me, composed my face into a bright smile.

He said, ‘It is all like a dream, not unpleasant. I simply go through it — and it has curiously nothing at all to do with me, and tomorrow I shall wake and real life will dawn again, and we can go on with it. Do you understand?’

‘I think so.’

‘Be patient with me.’

‘Darling, would you rather I stayed here, just in the next room - ?’

‘No.’ He touched my cheek lightly with the back of his hand, and I took it, and pressed my face against it, loving him, and guilty, guilty.

Til telephone Frank this evening,’ he said, smiling. We can be away from here tomorrow.’

And then Giles came out of the study, looking for Maxim, some papers in his hand, and so I could ask about the car, I could go, out of their way, out of the house, dismissed with a clear conscience, to amuse myself.

What was I thinking of? What was I planning to do? Why was I making this journey, the journey I had said

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and believed I could never make again? Why was I tempting fate?

I was foolish, what I wanted was wrong, and it was dangerous, too. At best, I would be made wretched and be horribly disappointed. At worst, and if Maxim were ever to find out, I might destroy everything, our fragile happiness, the love and trust we had built up with such care and patience, him, myself, the rest of our lives.

Yet I would go, I think I had known from the day I knew that we were coming back, that I would go, it was quite impossible to resist. I craved it, it was like a secret, irresistible love affair, I dreamed of it, longed for it, wanted and needed to know.