Rebecca's Tale

by Sally Beauman

  I can’t remember what I said, or what excuse I used. I think I invented some forgotten appointment, some lame pretext that would not have fooled Jocelyn or anyone else for one second. She had the kindness and good sense not to argue. “Of course, of course,” she said, rising to her feet. “But, please—won’t you come and see Elinor and me this evening—or tomorrow? I’ll explain to her what I’ve done, but I think we must talk—oh, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me….”

  She took my hand. There was an awkward moment of semi-embrace, and I saw she was close to tears. I broke away from her and blundered my way past the tables in the next room, conscious of the stares from the other customers. I hurried out into the rain and walked away fast, blind to the direction I was taking, hating myself for my own obstinate stupidity. I tried to tell myself there might be some mistake—but I knew there wasn’t. I’d seen the certainty in Jocelyn’s eyes. I’d never realized how passionately I’d believed Rebecca was my mother until the moment when I was forced to recognize she could not be.

  Lanyon was invisible. I walked through the marketplace and on; I only noticed the Kerrith bus when it almost knocked me down. I boarded it, and sat with my face turned to the window. Against the dark skies beyond, the pale shifting outline of my other self moved on the glass. I have no memory of the return journey. Back at my cottage, I paused by the sea, watching the waves rush in, black with kelp, tossing ashore all the weed and detritus stirred up from the ocean bed by a storm far out in the Atlantic.

  The salt in the air stung my skin and eyes. I turned back to the house, intent on putting a closed door between me and the rest of the world. The key snagged in the lock. As I opened the door, and the wind tugged at it, the telephone began ringing.

  It was Simon Lang, in jubilant and loquacious form, fresh from his visit to Somerset House, and reporting back on the question of Isabel Devlin.

  He had found her death certificate quite quickly, he said; the whole process had been fascinating. It was extraordinary—all those millions of details of births, marriages, and deaths, there for the retrieving. He’d felt ancestor inquiries coming on, he said; if he’d had time, he’d have started looking up his grandparents and his great-grandparents….

  “Get on with it, Simon, for God’s sake.”

  “All right, all right. What’s the matter with you? There’s no need to bite my head off. I’m doing you a favor here, I might remind you. Now, Tom, have you a pen handy?”

  I picked up a pen and a notebook, and scribbled.

  Isabel Honor Devlin had died on February 6, 1915, at the age of forty-two; her death was recorded in the Registration District of Lambourn, Berkshire. She had died at a house called Greenways, in the village of Hampton Ferrars. The person identified as the “informant” of her death was Edith Danvers, housekeeper. Isabel’s “rank or profession” was given as wife to Jack Sheridan Devlin, Gentleman—no mention of her having been an actress, I noted. But it was the cause of death, as certified by a Lambourn doctor, that was so arresting to me. Isabel Devlin had not died of a wasting disease such as tuberculosis. Now I could understand why Sir Frank McKendrick had described her final months in the coded terms he did. It was complications, specifically septicemia, following on childbirth that had killed her.

  “And before you ask, the baby seems to have survived,” Simon Lang continued. “I was getting quite caught up in it all by then. No death certificate for any infant with the surname ‘Devlin’ in that area in 1915 or 1916—I checked. So I got onto the Registrar’s office in Lambourn. Still no luck. No deaths of any newborns there in a nine-month period either side of Isabel’s death.”

  “Did you ask them to cross-check with ‘Births’?”

  “Of course I did. I have a good brain, if you recall. Perhaps not quite as good as some, dear, but perfectly serviceable. I had them check all births registered in Lambourn in the December, January, and February—and they must have been an infertile lot there, because there weren’t that many. Not one Devlin. Hullo—this is odd, I thought to myself. The disappearing baby. So I persuaded them to check again. I was about to give up—and then, Tom, breakthrough! I think I found him.”

  “Him?”

  “Male child. Date of birth given as February 1, 1915, in other words five days before Isabel died, which is about right, given the septicemia, I reckon. Registered as an illegitimate birth, father unknown, mother unknown, two days after Isabel’s death, on February 8. Given the name ‘Terence Gray’ and registered by some official from the Lambourn and District Foundling Hospital. Someone dumped the baby, do you see? Which rather suggests that Isabel had been up to something, and the baby’s father wasn’t Jack Devlin, Gentleman, et cetera. I think it has to be Isabel’s baby, though. It was the only birth in that district in the right period that isn’t legitimately accounted for. I’ve requested copies of both certificates, and I’ll send them on to you. Now—tell me I’ve done well.”

  I told him he had done well. I got rid of him, hung up, and stared at the dark sea beyond the window.

  Now Rebecca’s intervention in my life made sense; my resemblance to her, which no one had ever remarked on until today, made sense. I reached for Sir Frank McKendrick’s book and read his comments again feverishly; I tried to remember everything Favell had told me. What did I know of Isabel Devlin? She was Rebecca’s mother. She had married her husband in France, and been abandoned by him; she had become an actress; she had believed Desdemona might fight back when Othello murdered her. She had sung her “Willow Song” with a sweet voice, but did not know how to project to an audience. She had the “prettiest golden hair.” To the sentimental Sir Frank, she was a “lass unparallel’d”—and she had died in a botched childbirth at the beginning of a vicious war, leaving a daughter to make a sad little shrine to her memory.

  I found these scraps unbearable. They suggested much; they told me too little. I didn’t want to be indoors for a second longer. I went out into the air and the rain and the crash of the surf on the shore, and began walking to the little church by Manderley. There I had met Isabel’s daughter, and there the daughter who was my sister or half-sister was buried.

  THE CHURCHYARD WAS DESERTED. I WALKED BETWEEN THE wet tombstones, and down to the river where I stood with May all those years ago; the water was in full spate, brown with mud, rushing for the ocean. I looked at the Carminowe graves again, the plain granite memorials to black-eyed, black-gowned Sarah Carminowe, and her poor son, Ben; but I could no longer see where the Carminowes fitted into Rebecca’s tale. They were a sad coda to it, I told myself, ghosts at the story’s periphery. The rain swirled and beat on the stones. I turned back to the church itself, pushing back the heavy oak door, and entering a place unchanged since my childhood—a place where twenty-five years was as nothing in the slow quiet passing of the centuries. The altar cloth was still blue and gold; the dead still lay under my feet. I felt they were expecting me.

  I edged between the oak pews, and when I looked down at Gilles de Winter’s pale, glittering effigy, I was a child again. All the protections I’ve built up fell away. I touched the cold little dog at his feet, then looked up at a pair of sea-colored eyes. I thought of all the things I could have said to Rebecca that day if I’d known who she was and I said them now in my mind, when it was twenty-five years too late for her to hear me.

  She’d promised me that willpower worked, so I tried to will my sister back from the dead. I didn’t care that she had once warned me against this very activity. I wanted her, and, wherever she was, in whatever dim and remote part of her underworld, I meant to have her back. This time she was not going to slip away from me, like some latter-day Eurydice. I said her name in my mind, and I felt something start to stir in the church. Its cold still air became charged. I could feel the crackle of its electricity. I could sense disquiet all around me, and I knew Rebecca was close; her shadow burned me. I rose to my feet and left the church. I looked around the deserted graveyard. The rain was blinding, but I felt she was just out of sig
ht, just ahead of me. I set off on the narrow steep path that led to Manderley.

  I was drenched, and there was one small part of my mind that knew these actions weren’t sane—but I beat it down, and the farther I walked, and the harder the rain fell, the more that part of me was silenced. I leaned against the wind, and wiped the rain out of my eyes. I turned into the Manderley woods, fighting my way through wet undergrowth. I lingered by the dark rainswept shape of the ruined house; I stood above the cove; I looked at her boathouse and the threatening swell of the bay beyond it. I could smell gorse blossom and salt; there was not a ship to be seen, the sea was wide and empty. I took a step forward, felt the ground start to give way under my feet, and with a lurch of adrenaline, stepped back from the edge. I watched the waves roll in against the shore. The ache of my childhood began to loosen its grip. Gulls wheeled above the waves. I looked at the detritus of the tide line, the slick black mounds of kelp, and something—or someone—stilled my mind: I became calmer.

  I turned back to the woods and the familiar cliff path that led toward Kerrith. I began the final slippery descent to my cove. The thin gray light was failing; on my right hand, low over the sea, a full pale moon was already rising. Then I halted, peering through the rain. A woman was standing in front of my cottage. She had her back toward me; she was tall and slender; I saw her unlatch the gate, and move toward the door. I knew instantly that it was Rebecca. I began running. It’s a measure of how disturbed I still was, I suppose, that even when I saw the familiar car parked just beyond my house, its presence didn’t register. I reached the gate, and fumbled with the latch. I moved toward the steps like a sleepwalker. The woman turned, and I saw that it was Ellie.

  I startled her as much as she startled me. She gave an exclamation, swung around, and stared at me, at my drenched hair and my sodden clothes. “Oh, you frightened me,” she said. “I couldn’t hear your footsteps because of the wind. You’re soaked—I didn’t recognize you—may I come in? I can’t stay…”

  I fumbled with the lock on the door, fumbled with the matches and the lamp. Ellie stood stiffly in the doorway; she didn’t look at me.

  “Something’s wrong,” I said as the light flared up. “Ellie, what’s happened—is your father all right?”

  “I think so, I hope so—they still haven’t finished their tests. They kept us hanging around all morning, and now they say…they say there’s signs of arrhythmia, I think that’s the word. So they’re going to keep him in overnight. I came back to The Pines to get his things, pyjamas and things, then I’m going back to the hospital. They’re letting me stay there. I insisted. I told them, I won’t leave. I have to be there. They said that wasn’t routine. If they use the word ‘routine’ once more, I’ll…I don’t know what I’ll do. Shout. Throw something…”

  She bent her head and made a small sound. Her voice had been almost as usual, and it took me a moment to realize that she was crying.

  “Ellie, don’t, don’t…” I approached her, and when she didn’t look up, I put my arms around her. “I’ll come with you. Let me come with you—”

  “No. I want to be alone with him.” She pushed me away. “Call me tomorrow. We should be home by late morning. I’ll talk to you then. And, meanwhile, I came here for a reason. I have something to give you….” She reached in under the wet folds of her mackintosh, and drew out a brown envelope. It was identical in every respect to the one containing that first notebook of Rebecca’s.

  “This arrived for my father this morning, just as we were leaving. He didn’t see it. I don’t want him to know it’s arrived. It’s making him ill, all this—raking over the past, worrying and worrying about things he did or didn’t do twenty years ago.” She pushed back her wet scarf, then thrust the envelope at me. “Here, you have it. You’ll want to read it as much as he does. Just don’t tell him you have it. Don’t mention it—not until he’s stronger.”

  “Read it?” I said.

  I think she heard the hope in my voice; her face contracted. “Yes. Read. It’s a proper document this time,” she said, her tone sharpening. “Right up your street. That’s what you do, after all, isn’t it? Read documents. Piece together the past. And then write books about it.”

  There was a silence. She had twisted away from me so I couldn’t see her face. I said, “Ellie? You know? How long have you known?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake—do you think I’m an idiot? If you want to tell lies efficiently, don’t mix them up with the truth. It’s much better to lie from beginning to end, and be done with it…. At least, I think so.” She half opened the door, and looked at the rain. It was sheeting down; it made a curtain of transparency. “Why tell the truth about which university you went to, which Cambridge college—you know my aunt Rose is a don there. You must have known how easy that information was to check.”

  “Maybe I thought no one would care enough to check,” I said, turning away. “Why should they?”

  “I cared. I wanted to know who you were. I like to know who my so-called friends are. When they’re taking up hours and hours of my father’s time, I’m especially keen to know. I waited for weeks. I kept thinking, He’ll tell us in the end. He’ll explain all this. I drove you to Lanyon that day—I thought you’d tell me then. When you didn’t, when you got on that train and you never said a word, I called Rose. I asked her to make some checks. I described you; that helped. You’re quite memorable, you know, quite distinctive. And it couldn’t have been easier. The Provost of King’s is a very old friend of Rose’s. It took her precisely two telephone calls.”

  “Ah, I understand.” I turned back to look at her. “One to her friend the Provost, and one to me in London. That was Rose, wasn’t it? Making assurance doubly sure. I thought you said you hadn’t given out that number.”

  “I lied. Why shouldn’t I lie? You had. You made my father like you. You made him trust you. And all the time, you’ve been deceiving him and deceiving me. It’s so underhanded—I don’t understand it. Using a false name…”

  “It isn’t a false name. Not exactly.” I hesitated. “Ellie, let me come with you now. Let me talk to you. I can explain. I want to explain—I nearly did when we spoke on the telephone yesterday.”

  “That’s easy to say. Yesterday? How convenient. Well, I haven’t time for explanations. I must go. I must get back to the hospital—and, besides, I know you’ll be anxious to open that envelope.”

  “Don’t go yet. I bought this for you yesterday.” I turned back to my desk and picked up my book on Walsingham. I gave it to Ellie. She looked at it in silence, her head bent, her face hidden.

  “You bought this for me? Yesterday? You’re not lying?”

  “I’m not lying, Ellie.”

  She lifted her head then, and I watched her face change. The beautiful candid eyes rested on mine; a drop of rain from her wet hair ran down her temple.

  “Why yesterday? Why not before?”

  “No particular reason. I suppose I’d had enough of lies and evasions. You don’t have to read it. You’re bound to be bored by it. It’s very dry. Full of footnotes…”

  “Oh, I’m not afraid of footnotes,” she said.

  We looked at each other. A sudden warmth came into her eyes, she began to smile, turned away, turned back, and then, in a quick, impulsive way, reached up and kissed me. “You taste of salt,” she said, drawing back. “You’ve been walking by the sea. You’re soaking wet, Mr. Gray, Mr. Galbraith—Tom—whatever I should call you.”

  I began to say something and reached for her hand, but she slipped from my grasp, and turned to the door. “This cottage is so cold—you’ll freeze to death if you’re not careful.” She gave me a wry glance. “Take my advice: Put on some dry clothes. Light a fire—and then begin reading.”

  I stood on the steps and watched her run down the path. By the time she reached the gate, the rain made her insubstantial: It turned her back into a ghost. I watched her leave. I thought about that unexpected kiss, then resolved not to think about it. I
went back into my cottage, picked up the envelope Ellie had given me, and examined it. The handwriting was identical to that on the first parcel the Colonel had been sent. This package had arrived exactly a week after the first, I realized. I could see Ellie had checked the contents; the envelope had been opened.

  I drew out another black notebook, identical to the first. My hands were unsteady. I undid the leather ties; no photograph this time, but these pages had been written in. I looked at the black ink, at the distinctive sloping hand, with the strongly marked capitals. The pages smelled faintly of salt; there were marks on them, as if they had been stained with tears, or sea water.

  I made myself close the notebook again, then I took Ellie’s advice. The cottage was damp and icy cold, and it felt colder without Ellie’s presence. I changed into dry clothes and lit a fire. I drew the curtains on the rain and the wind, turned up the lamp, and sat down at my desk. The flames of the fire flickered; they crackled and flared green as they burned up the salts in the driftwood. Who had sent this, and why? Which of the many possible Rebeccas would I find in these pages?

  I thought of the story the Colonel had told me, of his encounter with Rebecca in that boathouse of hers, shortly before her death. Was this the notebook in which she had been writing then? Was this the account of her life that she had told him she’d begun writing for her children? If that memory of the Colonel’s was accurate, I realized, then I had the answer to the question Jocelyn Briggs had raised that morning: Rebecca could not have known she was infertile.