Mrs De Winter

by Susan Hill

  ‘I don’t see that,’ Frank said carefully. He had taken his pipe out of his pocket and was beginning to pack the bowl with tobacco from the old leather pouch I remembered that he had always used, and the sight of it brought back another scene like this, when I had poured out my anxieties to him and received sound support and reassurance. ‘It’s perfectly natural, surely. You are English. Very English. This is home, for all the years you have spent living abroad. As you say, it is the same for Maxim and I’m sure he knows it.’

  ‘Could we come back? Would …’ I hesitated, choosing my words. ‘Frank, would there be … anything at all to prevent us?’

  He pulled on his pipe for several minutes and I watched the first, thin blue smoke plume up into the air. I was stroking and stroking the horse, rubbing its muzzle, my heart pounding, and the horse, delighted at this rush of attention and affection after perhaps too much neglect, pawed at the ground and pushed hard into my hand.

  ‘You mean, to do with … what happened?’

  ‘Yes.’

  And then the inquest and the verdict were there with us, too, taking their ghostly places beside the spirit of Manderley, and we did not refer to them, either.

  ‘I really don’t see why there should be anything to prevent your coming back if you both want to,’ Frank said.

  My heart leaped. Stopped. Pounded again. And then I said, ‘Frank, did you go back there?’

  He looked at me, his eyes steady, full of concern. He said, ‘Yes, of course. I had to.’

  I held my breath. Then he put his hand under my elbow, and began to guide me gently, away from the paddock and the horses, out of the orchard, back towards the house.

  ‘It is over,’ he said.

  I did not reply. But the ghost crept after us across the grass, newly awakened. The people were gone, it was not of them that I thought. Rebecca was dead, and her spirit could not haunt me any more, I did not think of her at all that sunlit October morning. Only of the place, the house, the garden, the Happy Valley, slipping down to the hidden cove, the beach. The sea. And, secretly hugging it close and quiet to myself, I welcomed it.

  Curiously, it was not seeing Frank Crawley that made things hard, for Maxim most of all, I could tell by the expression on his face, the way that his eyes seemed to have sunk, inwards, so that the sockets looked half hollow. Frank was nothing but a comfort, we were both easy with him. We sat later, listening to his talk of Inverness-shire, the mountains, the lochs, the deer, the glories of that wild countryside he had so clearly grown to love, and of his wife Janet, and the two little boys. He had snapshots, and we admired them, and now, only the present filled the room, there seemed to be no shadows at all lying between us – except a very different kind of shadow, which I could scarcely acknowledge. But at the sight and talk of the two boys, Hamish and Fergus, I felt the hollowness I had grown so accustomed to, followed by a spurt of wild hope. We never spoke, now, about our having children. It had been different then, with the bright future before us and Manderley for them to inherit. I was not even sure that Maxim would want any children now, there did not seem to be any place for them in our exile. But if we were to come home …

  I looked up, and into the eyes of old Colonel Julyan, and felt an ice form about my hopes and small, secret, gleeful plans.

  There were just a few of us left, Giles and Roger, Maxim and I, an elderly cousin, and Julyan and his daughter. His wife was dead, and she, a plump, plain, cheerful young woman, lived with him now and devoted herself, apparently quite contentedly, to looking after him. We had been speaking beforehand, haltingly, of Europe, the countries we had stayed in, the place where we lived now. Then Julyan said, ‘I remember advising Switzerland. The night after all that business in London.’ A silence fell like a sword into the room. I saw Frank glance urgently at Maxim, heard him clear his throat. But Julyan was going on, he seemed to have no sense whatsoever of the atmosphere, no idea of what he was saying. ‘Of course, it was a holiday I had thought of, just until it all blew over and the gossip died down. But then there was that shocking business of Manderley, and then the war of course. One forgets. Never expected you to leave altogether though … and be away for, what is it, ten years or more? Must be ten years.’

  Then, as we were stock still, frozen with horror and embarrassment, quite unable to speak, he began to struggle to his feet, fumbling with his sticks, knocking one on to the floor and waiting for Frank to retrieve it for him – because no one quite knew what he was intending to do, no one did anything to stop him. Only his daughter put her hand on his arm, as he reached for his glass, lifted it and began to speak again.

  ‘Father, do you think …’

  But he shook her off, and she subsided, flushed, giving me one, desperate glance.

  Julyan cleared his throat. ‘It calls for a few words, I think. In spite of the sadness of the occasion … the reason we are all here …’ He looked at Maxim, and then at me. ‘You’ve been missed and that’s the plain truth. I’ve often been over here – Giles will vouch for that, and we’ve sat in this room and spoken about you.’ He paused. I looked at Giles, bent slightly forward, staring at the table, the jowls of his face plum coloured. Looked at Roger, and as quickly, away. ‘It’s up to me to say it. The past is dead and buried …’

  I squirmed, not daring to meet Maxim’s eye. The old man seemed to have no idea what he had just said.

  ‘Done with. Well, let it be so.’

  He shifted his weight on the sticks, balanced awkwardly. The hall clock struck three. ‘All I meant to say is that it’s damned good to see you both again and … and welcome home.’ And he raised his glass to us and then, alone, slowly and solemnly, drank his toast.

  For a moment, I thought that I might die, or scream, cry out or faint, or simply get up and run away. I felt sick with embarrassment and disbelief, desperate with anxiety for Maxim and what he felt, and what he might be about to do. Even Frank seemed paralysed, and tongue tied, even he had found no way of coming to our aid.

  But to my surprise, Maxim sat, very still, very composed and then, after a moment, took a sip from his own glass, his eyes on Julyan. ‘Thank you,’ he said quietly. That was all, but it meant that somehow I could breathe again, though there was a tight pain in my chest and my face felt hot. But it was all right, nothing terrible had happened, we were still here at the lunch table, all of us as we had been, and it was today, October, the day of Beatrice’s funeral, and the past was the past and had no power over us.

  In the end they went; Julyan’s daughter taking an eternity to get him to the door, for he insisted on walking without any help at all and it was an awkward, painful business over the gravel and then he had to be settled and the car cranked and warmed up and backed to and fro, under the old man’s direction.

  But at last they were gone, and then there was only another hour or so before Frank, too, had to leave, a car was coming to take him to the station, from where he would go to London and then, on the night sleeper, home to Scotland.

  The afternoon light lay softly over the fields, lemon coloured, with the leaves spinning and sifting down through it, the last of the apples falling. It was quite warm. I wanted to be out there because it was so beautiful, I could not bear to miss a moment of it after so long away, and could not face being shut up in the house either, hearing the clock and the creak of the stairs and the patter of the dogs’ feet as they went in and out of every room, looking for Beatrice, and Giles’s great, heaving sighs. But Maxim would not come out, he had gone suddenly ashen, with tiredness and strain. ‘I’ll lie down,’ he said, ‘sleep a bit perhaps. Then there is only the rest of the day to get through.’

  I did not reply. We were standing in the hall, the doors open on to the garden. It smelled faintly of apples. Somewhere in the shadows Frank Crawley hovered tactfully, waiting to be of use – his habitual way which had always so irritated Beatrice. ‘What a dull creature he is,’ she had said to me on that first day, ‘never has anything interesting to say.’ I had known
then that she had been wrong to dismiss Frank’s dullness and steadiness, his lack of excitement, wrong to be impatient with him, and I wondered now if she had come to understand his value in the end, seen through to his true worth.

  ‘Go out,’ Maxim said now, ‘it’s what you want. Go out there while you can.’ And looking into his face, I saw that he knew, knew to my heart, what I felt and longed for and had tried so hard to conceal. He smiled, a wan, tired smile, and bent to kiss my forehead lightly. ‘Go on.’ Then he turned and began to go, dismissively, away from me, up the stairs.

  I went out.

  Four

  The previous night I had woken because of my own disorientation, after the long journey and shock of arriving here.

  Now, it was a sound that awakened me from the deepest of dreamless sleeps, and for a few seconds, as I sat up in my bed, I was confused again, thinking somehow that I was back in our hotel room, and wondering vaguely why the window seemed to be in the wrong place.

  Maxim was absolutely still; we were both exhausted, emotionally, with the strain of it all, I felt slow and stupid with tiredness. What had I heard? Nothing. It was perfectly quiet and the room dark, there was no moon tonight.

  Then it came again, the sound that must have awoken me, an odd, muffled noise I could not place – it might have been animal or human.

  I lay down again, but as soon as I put my head on to the pillow it was louder, and closer, seeming to come up to me through the floorboards, or down the walls of the house, so that in the end I got up and went quietly to the door.

  Standing in the dark corridor, I thought at first that it was one of the dogs, still distressed by Beatrice’s absence, perhaps, and confused by the changes in the household routine, whimpering and pacing about. But the dogs were shut away in the kitchen quarters below. This sound was coming from a bedroom.

  And then, I realised that what I was hearing was the sound of sobbing, a man’s sobbing, interspersed with mutterings and sudden, little cries.

  I did not want to go to him, I felt a dreadful sort of horror and shame of it. I wanted to return quickly to bed and stuff my fingers in my ears, pull the pillow over me to shut it out, too many long hidden emotions threatened to sneak to the surface as a result of my hearing the crying voice.

  But then, out of my guilt sprang pity, and the natural desire to comfort, to help, and so I stumbled along the corridor, and round to the front of the house, feeling my way with my hand along the wall, my feet cold on the worn old carpet that ran down the centre of the polished boards – for Giles and Beatrice did not seem to have bothered about too much luxury, they lived in the house as they had first come to it thirty-odd years before, not bothering to replace or repair very much, probably not even noticing how things were or if they got worn, always preferring to be outside, and giving their attention to the horses, the dogs, the garden, as well as to their friends. It was one of the things that had endeared them to me. I had felt so comfortable in this house, the few times I had visited, after the grandeur and formality of Manderley, which had been so terrifying to me, and far more than I could ever have lived up to.

  At the far end of the corridor I stopped outside Beatrice’s bedroom; the sound of crying was quite clear, only a little muffled by the closed door.

  I hesitated, trying to be calm, trying to compose myself, hating it. And then I went in.

  ‘Giles.’

  For quite a long time he did not see or hear me, did not look up, so that I coughed, and made a little rattling noise with the handle, and then, at last, spoke his name gently again.

  ‘Giles – I heard you – I couldn’t bear it. Is there anything I can get for you, anything I can do?’

  The bedside lamps were on, and he was sitting beside Beatrice’s funny old-fashioned dressing-table. I could see the reflection of his duck neck above his navy-blue dressing-gown, in the triple mirror. The wardrobe doors were hanging open, and one or two drawers of the chest, too, and some of her clothes had been pulled out and were strewn on the floor, across the bed, over the back of the chair, her tweed skirts and sensible woollen jumpers, a purple frock, a maroon cardigan, scarves, underclothes, a camel coat, her stole with the fox’s head hanging down, its small beady eyes gleaming up at me horribly.

  Giles was clutching an old peach-coloured satin wrap to his face – I remembered seeing Beatrice in it once, years ago, and I stood, staring stupidly, just inside the door, not knowing what else I might do or say. And after a while, though without any start or surprise, he looked up. His eyes were swollen and reddened and welling over with tears. There were tears on his face, streaking through the blue shadows of beard, I could not only see and hear, I could almost smell and feel his misery, the depth of his helpless grief.

  He did not say anything, only stared at me, like a child, and then began to sob again, his shoulders heaving, not making any effort at all to stop, he held the peach wrap to his face and cried into it, and wiped his eyes with it, and took in occasional great gulps of air like someone drowning. It was horrible. I was appalled at him, and appalled at myself, too, for the way his abandoned grief repelled me. I was so used to Maxim, he was the only man I had ever known at all, and Maxim had never cried, never once, it was unimaginable. I did not think he could have cried since the age of three or four. When he felt deeply, it showed in his face, he became very pale and his skin tightened, his eyes went hard, or else a shadow would somehow fall, but his self control was otherwise absolute. I did not dare think how he would have responded to Giles now.

  In the end, I closed the door and went and sat on the edge of the bed, nearer to him, and for a long time was simply there, silent, miserable, huddled into my dressing-gown, as Giles sobbed, and after a while something inside me, some pride or reserve, simply broke down and I did not mind any more, instead it seemed right that he should be allowed to give way to his feelings like this, and that I should simply be there, to let him, and for company.

  ‘What am I going to do?’ he said once, and then again, looking up at me and yet, I thought, not really speaking to me or wanting an answer. ‘What am I going to do without her? She has been my whole life for thirty-seven years. Do you know where we met? Did she ever tell you? I fell off my horse and she came up and got me back on again, and led us home – I’d broken my wrist – she simply took off a belt or a scarf or some such and led my horse with hers and it was a difficult beggar, and it went as quiet as a little child’s pony, had it eating out of her hand. I ought to have felt such a bloody fool – I’m damned sure I looked one, but somehow I didn’t, I didn’t mind at all, she had that effect on me straight off – I never cared less about anything at all with Bea, relied on her, you know, totally, for everything. I mean, she was boss, she saw to things – well, of course, you knew that. I’d never amounted to much, never would have done, though I was quite all right, only somehow or other Bea made it all work and set me on my feet and after that, I was right as rain, not a care in the world, happy as Larry – it’s very hard to explain.’

  He was looking at me now, his eyes searching my face, for – what? Reassurance? Approval? I did not know. He was like an old lap-dog, rheumy-eyed.

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I always saw how happy you were – how well you were suited. It was – well, everyone saw it.’

  ‘Did they?’ His face lit up suddenly, with a pathetic, sloppy sort of eagerness.

  ‘Of course,’ I said uselessly. ‘Of course they did.’

  ‘Everyone loved her, they all admired her, she never made an enemy, for all her sharp tongue – but she could say what she thought, give someone a piece of her mind, and then that would be that, forgiven and forgotten – she had so many friends, you know – all those people today, all those people at the funeral – did you see them all?’

  ‘Yes, yes, Giles, I saw them – I was very touched – it must have been such a help to you.’

  ‘A help?’ He looked round the room suddenly, desperately, almost as though he had forgotten for a moment where
he was, and then at me, and his eyes did not take me in either.

  ‘A help,’ he said dully.

  ‘Yes, that so many people who had been fond of Beatrice were there.’

  ‘Yes, but there is no help,’ he said, quite simply, almost as if he were explaining something to a stupid child, ‘You see she is dead and she died when I was not there. She died in a hospital, she wasn’t at home, I wasn’t with her, I failed her, I let her down. She never ever failed me, never once.’

  ‘No, Giles, no, you shouldn’t blame yourself.’ Useless words.

  ‘But I am to blame.’

  I did not say ‘no’ again, I did not speak at all. There was no point in it – nothing to say.

  ‘She is dead and I don’t know how I can go on with things, you see. I’m nothing now, nothing without her. I never amounted to anything, I don’t know what to do. What am I going to do? I can’t be without her, you see, I can’t be without Beatrice at all.’ And the tears sprang from his eyes and poured unchecked down his face again and he sobbed, great, raucous, ugly sobs, as unrestrained as a baby. And I went clumsily over to him and sat beside him, and held him, a burbling, helpless, lonely, grieving, fat old man, and then, at last, I wept with him, and wept for him, and for Beatrice, too, because I had loved her … but they were not only tears for Beatrice, they were in some strange way, for so much else, other losses, other griefs, and when there were no more tears, we sat, quietly, I holding poor Giles, not minding him at all, only glad to be there, some small comfort for him in that silent, grieving house.

  He began to talk again, after a while, and once he had begun, could not stop – he told me so much, about Beatrice, their years together, little happy stories, private memories, family jokes, it was a whole innocent lifetime he laid before me; I heard of their wedding, their buying this house, Roger’s birth and growing up, their friends, their neighbours and so many horses, dogs, bridge parties, dinners, picnics, trips to London, Christmases, birthdays, and as he talked, and I listened, it dawned on me that he scarcely mentioned Maxim, or Manderley, or anything to do with that part of life, not out of tact – he was too far gone, too deeply immersed in himself and the past to think of that, scarcely even aware of my presence, let alone what I stood for – but it was as though Manderley and Beatrice’s early years there, her family, had scarcely impinged upon his own life and consciousness at all.