Rebecca's Tale

by Sally Beauman

  “Beauty, brains, and breeding,” he said, giving me a sidelong look. “That’s what she had, according to the old lady. She was set on the match from the day she met Miss Rebecca. Mr. Maxim was in love, bowled over—but, even so, his grandmother influenced him, I’ll wager. He was that much in awe of her; she’d raised him, sir, you see, his poor mother dying as she did when he was just three years old, poor mite.”

  Beyond this, Frith had refused to go. He had nothing more to say on the subject of Maxim’s first wife, he insisted. He couldn’t remember; he wouldn’t be prompted. He preferred to go back to a much earlier period. As with many elderly people, his most vivid memories were those of his own youth; Frith was at his happiest, and most voluble, when discussing Lionel de Winter.

  Today, I, too, wanted to discuss Maxim’s father—and I wanted to do so even more since that suggestive conversation over lunch at the Briggs sisters. Why had Rebecca selected that costume for the last fancy-dress ball she gave, and why had her husband reacted to it with such anger? This was an avenue I wanted to explore—and Frith had just given me an opening. I was extremely interested in the occasions when Lionel de Winter had “gone too far”; I was equally interested in the “arrangements” his mother had then made on his behalf. I allowed Frith to meander a little more around the subject of Lionel’s amatory exploits (and they’re still famous in this neighborhood); then I tried roping him in.

  “Frith,” I said, “why don’t you tell me about the Carminowes?”

  To my relief, Frith didn’t balk or divert; he was off and away at once. “Well, John Carminowe, he was one of the keepers, sir,” he began. “And his father before him. A nice little cottage, they had, off the Four Turnings road. I had my eye on that for a time, for my retirement. Would have suited me down to the ground, that place would.”

  “And Mrs. Carminowe, Frith?”

  “Came as a maid, first. I remember her well. A lovely girl, she was—tall, strong, a good worker, I’ll say that for her. She had beautiful hair, and a way with her…. John Carminowe took one look, and he was smitten. So they started walking out, and then they married—she wasn’t more than sixteen. And then there were babies, three strapping boys to begin with, and then a gap, and then two more. And the two youngest, they were a sore trial, they were. There was a little girl, and there was Ben Carminowe and he was born a half-wit. Broke his mother’s heart, he did. All his brothers came to work at the house, in the stables or the gardens—there was work for all in those days. And Ben, he’d follow them and hang around. And the family, they didn’t like that. He wasn’t a pretty sight, poor child, and he was a peeper. He’d creep up to the doors, or they’d catch him listening at windows, and he wouldn’t stay away from the old boathouse down on the shore. Mr. Lionel couldn’t abide the sight of him. He’d fly into a rage—he said if he saw him there one more time, he’d take a horsewhip to him. And he might have done, too. Mr. Lionel had a temper you wouldn’t believe.”

  I would believe. I thought I could understand Lionel de Winter’s mood swings and tempers. I had evidence concerning them in my pocket.

  “Why couldn’t Lionel abide Ben?” I said. “Was it just his appearance, Frith—or was it more than that?”

  “Might have been more….” To my surprise, the old man began to chuckle, then wheeze. “I told you—turned heads, Mrs. Carminowe did. Even after she was widowed. Black hair, black eyes, black dress—she wasn’t thirty when John died. Could have married again, I always reckoned. Could have taken her pick in Kerrith, but she never did. And the de Winters looked after her like one of their own. She kept that cottage until the day she died, Mr. Lionel saw to that, and his mother did, too, after he’d gone…. Sarah, her name was. Sarah Carminowe. Buried over in the churchyard by Manderley, she is.”

  I already knew that. I’d been to Sarah Carminowe’s grave, and her husband’s. I’d seen, in the estate papers, just how well the de Winter family had looked after her. After the death of her husband, and then of her three older boys in the first world war, she remained in that cottage, with her only daughter and her simple-minded son. Other tenants in her situation were moved out to make way for more productive workers. Not Sarah Carminowe. She was still housed and still being paid a “pension” during Maxim de Winter’s day, by which time she was in her fifties and her husband had been dead two decades. The de Winters protected her and her two last children: Ben was sent to the county asylum only after her death, and that was several years after Maxim de Winter left the country. Ben was now also dead. I didn’t know what had happened to the daughter.

  I looked at Frith, who was regarding me in a somewhat sly sidelong way; he fumbled with the rug around his knees, and I tucked it in for him. I had taken a close interest in Sarah Carminowe and the exceptional charity shown her; I’d found it was useful to compare the important dates in her life to the key dates in that of the de Winter family. She had married at age sixteen in 1893, three years after Maxim de Winter was born. Her first three children—those strapping boys—were born over the next five years. There was then a gap; her last two children, the little girl and Ben, were born in 1905 and 1906 respectively. The surname they bore, Carminowe, was presumably discretionary, since her husband died in 1904. Someone had consoled the pretty widow.

  “Tell me about Sarah’s two youngest children, Frith,” I said. “Who was their father? It wasn’t John Carminowe, was it?”

  There was a silence. Frith continued to look at me under his brows; I knew he knew the answer, I could sense it—but it was impossible to predict which would win, the desire to talk or the habit of discretion.

  “Sickly,” Frith said, after that long pause. “They were both sickly, the boy and the girl. He had fits—an idiot from birth, he was—and the girl, she had her wits all right, but she wasn’t right—never. Couldn’t keep her food down, people said. Never grew, never thrived like normal children. She was this thin little scrap of a thing, with these dark blue eyes. Ben had blue eyes too, but lighter….”

  “Frith.” I decided to risk pushing much harder. “Both Ben and the girl were born after John Carminowe died. The little girl ten months after he died, and Ben two years after. John Carminowe couldn’t have fathered them. So who did? Was it Lionel? Is that why the de Winter family looked after them?” I paused. “Is that why the children were sickly, Frith?”

  “By-blows,” said Frith, so suddenly he startled me. “By-blows, that’s what they were. That’s what Mrs. de Winter the elder used to say. We take care of them, Frith, she’d say to me. And we don’t talk about it. Mr. Lionel had a way with him. He was a handsome man. Women liked him—not just down here, oh, no. Up in London, too, abroad even; he had a string of them. And he was always generous. We kept a little book—when I was his manservant, this was. I’d write down their birthdays in it, and when there was one coming up, I’d remind him. And we’d send to one of the London stores, and get something sent round. A trinket. A nice pair of gloves. He was thoughtful that way. Liked actresses.” Frith began to chuckle again. “A terrible weakness, he had, for actresses. Bold, I expect. He liked that. And his wife, poor Mrs. Lionel…well, you wouldn’t describe her as bold. Not by a long chalk. A lady, she was.”

  I looked away. In the distance, the sea crested and turned. The red-haired nurse was moving along the terrace, pushing a trolley with a tea urn and little sandwiches and cakes. Once the tea reached Frith, I knew my chances with him were over. I tried another line of questioning, and I tried to keep it gentle.

  “Frith,” I said, “Lionel de Winter was ill, wasn’t he? Ill for a long time, years before he died. Will you tell me about that?”

  “His legs.” Frith gave a wheezy sigh. “His legs, he had this trouble with his legs. On his thighs first, these dark red marks. Then ulcers. And they wouldn’t heal, no matter what we tried, they wouldn’t. We bathed them and we bandaged them—but no, they got worse. Mrs. Lionel was dead by then, and Mr. Maxim, he was only a little boy and he couldn’t understand. He missed his mother�
��she was always hugging him and sitting him on her lap, she doted on that boy, poor creature—and, once she was gone, he was starved of all that. Well, he had to learn—boys do—but even when he was six or seven, if he saw his father, he’d run to him, see, and clasp him round the legs, and beg to be lifted up—and that made his father angry. He’d say the boy was soft, and he’d been spoiled. He’d shout at him, and it got so Mr. Maxim was afraid of his father. But Mr. Lionel didn’t mean to be hard on him, sir. He wasn’t a bad man. It’s just he was in all that pain and it was so bad some days he could scarcely walk. He didn’t like anyone to know that, and he wouldn’t have it talked about, and he couldn’t get up to London….”

  Frith fell into one of the musing, muttering states that punctuated his stories. Eventually, when he seemed to have forgotten I was there, I prompted again.

  “But the ulcers on the legs—they healed eventually, Frith, am I right?”

  “You are, sir.” He brightened. “After a year or two—they cleared up, just like that. And then Mr. Lionel was back to his old ways, up to London every month or so, cock of the walk—you forget pain, sir, that’s the thing. You can’t remember it. When my arthritis plays up…”

  “So, when did he next become ill, Frith—can you remember?” I looked over at the red-haired nurse in her cap and starched white uniform; she was serving tea to the female patients at the other end of the terrace. At best, I had five minutes.

  “Oh, a long while after. When Mr. Maxim was about twelve, it would have been, sir. The boy was slow at his lessons, and it was the summer the old rector used to tutor him, Colonel Julyan’s grandfather, that was—a fine man. Mr. Maxim was very fond of him. That’s when Mr. Lionel’s headaches started. And his teeth, he had terrible trouble with his teeth, sir. They’d given him this ointment to rub on his gums, and there was mercury in it. It made his teeth go black—and it got so bad, it made him difficult. Very difficult. After that…well, he went from bad to worse. Even with me—some days, he’d be quiet as a lamb, and others he’d start up, fly off the handle, for no reason at all.”

  Frith fumbled with his rug, and turned his faded eyes back toward the sea. If his cataracts obscured his view of Manderley, he saw it with his mind’s eye, I was sure of that—and what he was now watching was beginning to distress him.

  “Sometimes he’d improve,” he went on. “Months at a time. ‘I’m right as rain, Frith,’ he used to say to me. But the headaches always came back—and there were other symptoms, too—and I think they frightened him. As time went by he got very unpredictable, sir. It got so you’d never know what he might do. His mother wasn’t having that. She didn’t want talk. There’d be ladies to tea—and in he’d come, quite normal, and then he’d say something….”

  Frith gave a shake of the head. “Something had to be done, sir—so Mrs. de Winter called a doctor in from London, and we gave him the injections after that, and they kept him quiet. It was morphine, sir, for the pain, and it eased him at first—but then it gave him nightmares, such terrible dreams, he’d scream with fear, sometimes. He never left his room, sir, not for the last four years. I had the key—and I wouldn’t allow talk below stairs. Never. Mrs. de Winter depended on me, she knew she could. She had a will of iron, she did. It came near to breaking her, but you’d never have known it. She never gave way, not for a second, not even in front of me—and then it got to the end, and she took me on one side, and she said there was one last thing I could do for Mr. Lionel. So I witnessed his will, sir, the day he died. I witnessed it along with Colonel Julyan—Captain, he was, then. And I was butler after that, which was all I’d ever wanted.”

  The last of the female patients had been served. The red-haired nurse and her trolley were now coming toward us. I could hear the clatter of cups—and so could Frith. There were a few last questions I had to ask; I was interested in this will, made in 1915. I leaned forward.

  “Frith, why was that will made so late? Lionel was seriously ill, and had been for years. Surely he must have made a will before that?”

  “He had, sir. That was the problem. He’d made it…oh, nine or ten years before, in one of his good periods. Went to a lot of trouble about it, too, swore me to secrecy. His mother didn’t know about it. And when she finally found out, not long before he died, oh, there was trouble then! She wouldn’t rest till he changed it. I never did discover who told her about that will. I never said a word about it, so it was a mystery, that was…. Is that the tea coming now, sir?”

  “No—not yet. It’ll be here soon,” I said. The red-haired nurse had paused to speak to an older woman, wearing a Sister’s uniform. I leaned forward again and lowered my voice. “Frith, why didn’t Lionel’s mother approve of that will? Had he made bequests she disapproved of? Why was a new one necessary?”

  “I don’t remember.” Frith was suddenly becoming fretful. He fumbled with his rug. “It was a long time ago. It was during the war—the Great War—Mr. Maxim was serving in France, and he might have been killed any day. Captain Julyan was in uniform, on leave…. I didn’t like to look at Mr. Lionel—not then. ‘He’s being eaten away’—that’s what the nurse said. And the nurses wouldn’t stay, they couldn’t stomach it. Where’s the tea? I want my tea. It’s Sunday today. They always make sponge cake on Sundays—it’s my favorite.”

  The Sister was departing. The red-haired nurse turned in our direction. One last effort—and it seemed wise not to mention Lionel de Winter directly.

  “Frith, you remember you were telling me about Sarah Carminowe’s two last children? What became of the daughter? Ben lived on, didn’t he—but what happened to the little girl? Lucy, that was her name. I found her baptism entry in the church register. What happened to Lucy Carminowe?”

  “She died. They all died. They’re all dead now.” Frith’s voice rose on a querulous note, and I knew I’d gone too far and pushed too hard and I’d frightened him. “They’re all dead. They’re all gone. I’m the only one left. And I want my tea now—nurse, nurse, I want some sponge cake.” He tried to turn in his chair and look for her; then he looked at me, angry and flushed and confused. “Who are you?” he said, his voice rising on a high thin note. “Why am I talking to you? I don’t know you. I’ve never seen you before…. Nurse, nurse, tell him to leave me alone….”

  “Now, now, Mr. Frith…” The little nurse arrived and bent over his chair. She patted his hand, and then, straightening up, made faces at me. They meant I should leave—but I’d known I’d have to leave anyway. I stood up and said good-bye to Frith, though I don’t think he was even aware of me by then.

  “What a state you do get yourself into,” the nurse was saying as I walked away. “Look at you, working yourself up over nothing, when the nice gentleman’s come to see you specially! Now, Mr. Frith, here’s your sponge cake….”

  I walked down from the covered terrace into the grounds, and when I was out of sight beyond the great banks of shrub roses for which St. Winnow’s is famous, I took Lionel de Winter’s death certificate out of my pocket and re-examined it.

  When Frith spoke, I could see Manderley as it had been. It rose up before my eyes with a vividness I knew could be deceptive. I felt I could see Lionel and his mother—but could I? No, I couldn’t rely on such images; I preferred to rely on documents—especially documents like the one I was holding. This was evidence, and it was incontrovertible.

  Lionel de Winter had died in June 1915; cause of death was General Paralysis of the Insane. Or, to give it its modern name: syphilis.

  Whether or not he was aware of it, Frith had just given me a description of that disease’s stages—primary, secondary, and tertiary. And the implications of Lionel’s illness were considerable. Syphilis is a cruel and virulent disease: If it affects a man, it can infect a wife or a mistress—and children.

  IT WAS TOO EARLY TO CALL IN AT THE PINES YET, AND, besides, I needed to be alone, and I needed to think. Not for the first time since I came here, I cursed my lack of transport. I’d felt Terence Gray w
ouldn’t own a car, so did not bring mine, and now I regretted that. If I’d had a car, I could have gone over to the Manderley church now, and looked again at the Carminowe gravestones. Not that I really needed to do so—I could remember them perfectly well: John Carminowe and his wife Sarah lay in a quiet section of the churchyard, under the branches of a yew, overlooking the sea. Their three elder sons did not lie next to them. Those strapping boys had been buried in some corner of a foreign field, and their names, along with those of some thirty of their contemporaries, were on the war memorial in Kerrith. They had died aged seventeen, eighteen, and twenty. I pitied their mother, living on at that cottage with her two last children. Sarah Carminowe must have looked ahead and made provision for her son, for Ben, frequenter of Manderley, had been laid beside her. I had found no gravestone for Lucy Carminowe—and no record of her death, either.

  I began to walk slowly down the lane to the riverside; instead of turning toward Kerrith, I gave in to impulse and turned the other way, toward Pelynt and the fisherman’s cottage May and Edwin rented the year we came here. It is set apart from the rest of the tiny village, right next to the water. It is still let, rather than lived in all year, I think; I found it empty, the interior shutters closed, and the small garden neglected. I sat on the steps by the house for a while in the late afternoon sun, throwing stones idly at the water and trying to make them skip, as I did as a boy. I was angry with myself. I was falling into the most obvious of traps, the trap any apprentice historian learns to avoid: In the absence of sufficient facts, I was trying to make those facts I did have fit my own hypothesis.

  It was possible, but not certain, that Lionel de Winter had fathered Sarah Carminowe’s last two children—and the way in which Frith had spoken certainly encouraged that view. That would have meant that Maxim de Winter had at least one half-brother and-sister, possibly more, given his father’s philandering. Had Maxim known, or at any point suspected, that a boy treated as a village idiot might be a blood relation? That would have been a terrible realization for any young man—especially since there was the possibility that Ben Carminowe’s mental defects might be a result of Lionel de Winter’s illness. Maxim himself had almost certainly been born before the onset of his father’s disease, or so I calculated. But if he knew what killed his father, and I could see no way in which he could have escaped that knowledge, he might not have felt certain of that himself. Even if he were perfectly healthy, would it not cast a shadow over him, would he not feel tainted?