Rebecca

'Did you hear the rockets, Madam?' said Frith.

'Yes, I heard the rockets,' I said.

'I was in the pantry with Robert, and we both thought at first that one of the gardeners had let off a firework left over from last night,' said Frith, 'and I said to Robert, 'What do they want to do that for in this weather? Why don't they keep them for the kiddies on Saturday night?' And then the next one came, and then the third. 'That's not fireworks,' says Robert, 'that's a ship in distress.'

'I believe you're right,' I said, and I went out to the hall and there was Mr de Winter calling me from the terrace.'

'Yes,' I said.

'Well, it's hardly to be wondered at in this fog, Madam. That's what I said to Robert just now. It's difficult to find your way on the road, let alone on the water.'

'Yes,' I said.

'If you want to catch Mr de Winter he went straight across the lawn only two minutes ago,' said Frith.

'Thank you, Frith,' I said.

I went out on the terrace. I could see the trees taking shape beyond the lawns. The fog was lifting, it was rising in little clouds to the sky above. It whirled above my head in wreaths of smoke. I looked up at the windows above my head. They were tightly closed, and the shutters were fastened. They looked as though they would never open, never be thrown wide.

It was by the large window in the centre that I had stood five minutes before. How high it seemed above my head, how lofty and remote. The stones were hard and solid under my feet. I looked down at my feet and then up again to the shuttered window, and as I did so I became aware suddenly that my head was swimming and I felt hot. A little trickle of perspiration ran down the back of my neck. Black dots jumped about in the air in front of me. I went into the hall again and sat down on a chair. My hands were quite wet. I sat very still, holding my knees.

'Frith,' I called, 'Frith, are you in the dining-room?'

'Yes, Madam?' He came out at once, and crossed the hall towards me.

'Don't think me very odd, Frith, but I rather think I'd like a small glass of brandy.'

'Certainly, Madam.'

I went on holding my knees and sitting very still. He came back with a liqueur glass on a silver salver.

'Do you feel a trifle unwell, Madam?' said Frith. 'Would you like me to call Clarice?'

'No, I'll be all right, Frith,' I said. 'I felt a bit hot, that's all.'

'It's a very warm morning, Madam. Very warm indeed. Oppressive, one might almost say.'

'Yes, Frith. Very oppressive.'

I drank the brandy and put the glass back on the silver salver.

'Perhaps the sound of those rockets alarmed you,' said Frith; 'they went off so very sudden.'

'Yes, they did,' I said.

'And what with the hot morning and standing about all last night, you are not perhaps feeling quite like yourself, Madam,' said Frith.

'No, perhaps not,' I said.

'Will you lie down for half an hour? It's quite cool in the library.'

'No. No, I think I'll go out in a moment or two. Don't bother, Frith.'

'No. Very good, Madam.'

He went away and left me alone in the hall. It was quiet sitting there, quiet and cool. All trace of the party had been cleared away. It might never have happened. The hall was as it had always been, grey and silent and austere, with the portraits and the weapons on the wall. I could scarcely believe that last night I had stood there in my blue dress at the bottom of the stairs, shaking hands with five hundred people. I could not believe that there had been music-stands in the minstrels' gallery, and a band playing there, a man with a fiddle, a man with a drum. I got up and went out on to the terrace again.

The fog was rising, lifting to the tops of the trees. I could see the woods at the end of the lawns. Above my head a pale sun tried to penetrate the heavy sky. It was hotter than ever. Oppressive, as Frith had said. A bee hummed by me in search of scent, bumbling, noisy, and then creeping inside a flower was suddenly silent. On the grass banks above the lawns the gardener started his mowing machine. A startled linnet fled from the whirring blades towards the rose-garden. The gardener bent to the handles of the machine and walked slowly along the bank scattering the short-tipped grass and the pin- point daisy-heads. The smell of the sweet warm grass came towards me on the air, and the sun shone down upon me full and strong from out of the white mist. I whistled for Jasper but he did not come. Perhaps he had followed Maxim when he went down to the beach. I glanced at my watch. It was after half past twelve, nearly twenty to one. This time yesterday Maxim and I were standing with Frank in the little garden in front of his house, waiting for his housekeeper to serve lunch.

Twenty-four hours ago. They were teasing me, baiting me about my dress. 'You'll both get the surprise of your lives,' I had said.

I felt sick with shame at the memory of my words. And then I realised for the first time that Maxim had not gone away as I had feared. The voice I had heard on the terrace was calm and practical. The voice I knew. Not the voice of last night when I stood at the head of the stairs. Maxim had not gone away. He was down there in the cove somewhere. He was himself, normal and sane. He had just been for a walk, as Frank had said. He had been on the headland, he had seen the ship closing in towards the shore. All my fears were without foundation. Maxim was safe. Maxim was all right. I had just experienced something that was degrading and horrible and mad, something that I did not fully understand even now, that I had no wish to remember, that I wanted to bury for ever more deep in the shadows of my mind with old forgotten terrors of childhood; but even this did not matter as long as Maxim was all right.

Then I, too, went down the steep twisting path through the dark woods to the beach below.

The fog had almost gone, and when I came to the cove I could see the ship at once, lying about two miles offshore with her bows pointed towards the cliffs. I went along the breakwater and stood at the end of it, leaning against the rounded wall. There was a crowd of people on the cliffs already who must have walked along the coastguard path from Kerrith. The cliffs and the headland were part of Manderley, but the public had always used the right-of-way along the cliffs. Some of them were scrambling down the cliff face to get a closer view of the stranded ship. She lay at an awkward angle, her stern tilted, and there were a number of rowing-boats already pulling round her. The lifeboat was standing off. I saw someone stand up in her and shout through a megaphone. I could not hear what he was saying. It was still misty out in the bay, and I could not see the horizon. Another motor boat chugged into the light with some men aboard. The motor boat was dark grey. I could see someone in uniform. That would be the harbour-master from Kerrith, and the Lloyd's agent with him. Another motor boat followed, a party of holiday-makers from Kerrith aboard. They circled round and round the stranded steamer chatting excitedly. I could hear their voices echoing across the still water.

I left the breakwater and the cove and climbed up the path over the cliffs towards the rest of the people. I did not see Maxim anywhere. Frank was there, talking to one of the coastguards. I hung back when I saw him, momentarily embarrassed. Barely an hour ago I had been crying to him, down the telephone. I was not sure what I ought to do. He saw me at once and waved his hand. I went over to him and the coastguard. The coastguard knew me.

'Come to see the fun, Mrs de Winter?' he said smiling. 'I'm afraid it will be a hard job. The tugs may shift her, but I doubt it. She's hard and fast where she is on that ledge.'

'What will they do?' I said.

'They'll send a diver down directly to see if she's broken her back,' he replied. 'There's the fellow there in the red stocking cap. Like to see through these glasses?'

I took his glasses and looked at the ship. I could see a group of men staring over her stern. One of them was pointing at something. The man in the lifeboat was still shouting through the megaphone.

The harbour-master from Kerrith had joined the group of men in the stern of the stranded ship. The diver in his stocking cap was sitting in the grey motor boat belonging to the harbour-master.

The pleasure boat was still circling round the ship. A woman was standing up taking a snapshot. A group of gulls had settled on the water and were crying foolishly, hoping for scraps.

I gave the glasses back to the coastguard.

'Nothing seems to be happening,' I said.