There was a long silence. We went on staring at each other. Nobody moved in the hall. I swallowed, my hand moved to my throat. 'What is it?' I said. 'What have I done?'
If only they would not stare at me like that with dull blank faces. If only somebody would say something. When Maxim spoke again I did not recognise his voice. It was still and quiet, icy cold, not a voice I knew.
'Go and change,' he said, 'it does not matter what you put on. Find an ordinary evening frock, anything will do. Go now, before anybody comes.'
I could not speak, I went on staring at him. His eyes were the only living things in the white mask of his face.
'What are you standing there for?' he said, his voice harsh and queer. 'Didn't you hear what I said?'
I turned and ran blindly through the archway to the corridors beyond. I caught a glimpse of the astonished face of the drummer who had announced me. I brushed past him, stumbling, not looking where I went. Tears blinded my eyes. I did not know what was happening. Clarice had gone. The corridor was deserted. I looked about me stunned and stupid like a haunted thing. Then I saw that the door leading to the west wing was open wide, and that someone was standing there.
It was Mrs Danvers. I shall never forget the expression on her face, loathsome, triumphant. The face of an exulting devil. She stood there, smiling at me.
And then I ran from her, down the long narrow passage to my own room, tripping, stumbling over the flounces of my dress.
Chapter seventeen
Clarice was waiting for me in my bedroom. She looked pale and scared. As soon as she saw me she burst into tears. I did not say anything. I began tearing at the hooks of my dress, ripping the stuff. I could not manage them properly, and Clarice came to help me, still crying noisily.
'It's all right, Clarice, it's not your fault,' I said, and she shook her head, the tears still running down her cheeks.
'Your lovely dress, Madam,' she said, 'your lovely white dress.'
'It doesn't matter,' I said. 'Can't you find the hook? There it is, at the back. And another one somewhere, just below.'
She fumbled with the hooks, her hands trembling, making worse trouble with it than I did myself, and all the time catching at her breath.
'What will you wear instead, Madam?' she said.
'I don't know,' I said, 'I don't know.' She had managed to unfasten the hooks, and I struggled out of the dress. 'I think I'd rather like to be alone, Clarice,' I said, 'would you be a dear and leave me? Don't worry, I shall manage all right. Forget what's happened. I want you to enjoy the party.'
'Can I press out a dress for you, Madam?' she said, looking up at me with swollen streaming eyes. 'It won't take me a moment.'
'No,' I said, 'don't bother, I'd rather you went, and Clarice…'
'Yes, Madam?'
'Don't — don't say anything about what's just happened.'
'No, Madam.' She burst into another torrent of weeping.
'Don't let the others see you like that,' I said. 'Go to your bedroom and do something to your face. There's nothing to cry about, nothing at all.' Somebody knocked on the door. Clarice threw me a quick frightened glance.
'Who is it?' I said. The door opened and Beatrice came into the room. She came to me at once, a strange, rather ludicrous figure in her Eastern drapery, the bangles jangling on her wrists.
'My dear,' she said, 'my dear,' and held out her hands to me.
Clarice slipped out of the room. I felt tired suddenly, and unable to cope. I went and sat down on the bed. I put my hand up to my head and took off the curled wig. Beatrice stood watching me.
'Are you all right?' she said. 'You look very white.'
'It's the light,' I said. 'It never gives one any colour.'
'Sit down for a few minutes and you'll be all right,' she said; 'wait, I'll get a glass of water.'
She went into the bathroom, her bangles jangling with her every movement, and then she came back, the glass of water in her hands.
I drank some to please her, not wanting it a bit. It tasted warm from the tap; she had not let it run.
'Of course I knew at once it was just a terrible mistake,' she said. 'You could not possibly have known, why should you?'
'Known what?' I said.
'Why, the dress, you poor dear, the picture you copied of the girl in the gallery. It was what Rebecca did at the last fancy dress ball at Manderley. Identical. The same picture, the same dress. You stood there on the stairs, and for one ghastly moment I thought…'
She did not go on with her sentence, she patted me on the shoulder.
'You poor child, how wretchedly unfortunate, how were you to know?'
'I ought to have known,' I said stupidly, staring at her, too stunned to understand. 'I ought to have known.'
'Nonsense, how could you know? It was not the sort of thing that could possibly enter any of our heads. Only it was such a shock, you see. We none of us expected it, and Maxim…'
'Yes, Maxim?' I said.
'He thinks, you see, it was deliberate on your part. You had some bet that you would startle him, didn't you? Some foolish joke. And of course, he doesn't understand. It was such a frightful shock for him. I told him at once you could not have done such a thing, and that it was sheer appalling luck that you had chosen that particular picture.'
'I ought to have known,' I repeated again. 'It's all my fault, I ought to have seen. I ought to have known.'
'No, no. Don't worry, you'll be able to explain the whole thing to him quietly. Everything will be quite all right. The first lot of people were arriving just as I came upstairs to you. They are having drinks. Everything's all right. I've told Frank and Giles to make up a story about your dress not fitting, and you are very disappointed.'
I did not say anything. I went on sitting on the bed with my hands in my lap.
'What can you wear instead?' said Beatrice, going to my wardrobe and flinging open the doors. 'Here. What's this blue? It looks charming. Put this on. Nobody will mind. Quick. I'll help you.'
'No,' I said. 'No, I'm not coming down.'
Beatrice stared at me in great distress, my blue frock over her arm.
'But, my dear, you must,' she said in dismay. 'You can't possibly not appear.'
'No, Beatrice, I'm not coming down. I can't face them, not after what's happened.'
'But nobody will know about the dress,' she said. 'Frank and Giles will never breathe a word. We've got the story all arranged. The shop sent the wrong dress, and it did not fit, so you are wearing an ordinary evening dress instead. Everyone will think it perfectly natural. It won't make any difference to the evening.'
'You don't understand,' I said. 'I don't care about the dress. It's not that at all. It's what has happened, what I did. I can't come down now, Beatrice, I can't.'
'But, my dear, Giles and Frank understand perfectly. They are full of sympathy. And Maxim too. It was just the first shock… I'll try and get him alone a minute, I'll explain the whole thing.'
'No!' I said. 'No!'
She put my blue frock down beside me on the bed. 'Everyone will be arriving,' she said, very worried, very upset.
'It will look so extraordinary if you don't come down. I can't say you've suddenly got a headache.'
'Why not?' I said wearily. 'What does it matter? Make anything up. Nobody will mind, they don't any of them know me.'
