Rebecca's Tale

by Sally Beauman

  “Not true. My attention is elsewhere,” Francis replied with a smile, and I saw a small glance pass between him and my father, as if the two of them were enjoying a private joke, from which the rest of us were excluded.

  “Look here, Osmond,” my father said, in a magnanimous way, as the meal drew to an end, and he prepared to retreat indoors for the regulation rest. “Come and see us again, won’t you? Make Galbraith there drive down with you one weekend. If the weather’s good, Francis will take you out in his boat—he’s teaching Ellie to sail, you know. We can put you both up. Be delighted. Too many bedrooms in this damn house. Never get used, half of them. Ellie, you persuade them.”

  Rose’s eyebrows rose. Apart from her, no one has stayed at The Pines since the end of the war; six people for a meal was a ten-year record. I frowned: I couldn’t see why the sailing lessons needed to be mentioned; I’d only had two of them.

  I went inside to see my father upstairs. In his room, I opened the window and went to draw the curtains. I could see Francis Latimer in the garden below; he had left the other guests, and was standing alone near our boundary wall, watching the sea. As I watched, he began to pace back and forth, as if something were agitating him; I saw him glance at his watch and then back at the house. He looked up toward my father’s window, then turned abruptly away. The sun would have been in his eyes, and I’m not sure if he saw me.

  I half drew the curtains. Barker settled himself on the hearth rug. My father removed his terrible tweed jacket and his brogues, and lay back on the bed. He closed his eyes at once, and I thought he was sleeping. I tiptoed toward the door, and just as I reached it, he opened his eyes, and fixed me with a blue glare.

  “Want to see you settled, Ellie,” he said. “That’s all I want now. Once I know you’re settled, I can die happily. Shan’t turn up my toes until I’m sure—I hope you realize that.”

  “In that case, I’ll keep you waiting for a good time yet,” I answered.

  “None of your impudence,” my father replied; he gave a sigh. “Listen to the sea, Ellie. The tide’s coming in.”

  I turned to leave him, then I stopped. I could hear the sea, and I suddenly felt right on some edge, tears and happiness in absolute equilibrium. I went back to the bed, and kissed his forehead.

  “That was a good lunch, Ellie.” My father’s eyes were closing. “I took to that Osmond chap. A widower, I hear…Needs a haircut. Galbraith was in very good form, I thought. Hardly recognized him when he walked in. Latimer enjoyed it, I know. Never seen him look so happy. Pity Rose put garlic on those mussels, they’re much better without it. Where are you off to this afternoon?”

  I evaded this question, asked on the edge of sleep. I said Nicholas, Tom, and I were going for a walk; they were then going to see the Briggs sisters, but I’d be back for tea. Francis Latimer was staying. Another sailing lesson was planned for this evening.

  “You’re a good girl, Ellie,” he said, and clasped my hand. “Willful, of course—always have been, always will be. Mind of your own, a bit too damn independent to my way of thinking, and secretive, too; play your cards very close to your chest. Your mother was just the same. But she’d be proud of you, Ellie, I know that. I’m proud of you. Don’t know what I’d have done without you. That’s the long and short of it. Off you go now.”

  I WAITED UNTIL I WAS CERTAIN MY FATHER WAS SLEEPING peacefully, then I sped down the stairs, and out into the sunlight. It was a glorious afternoon, the sea calm, the sky unclouded. I touched Rebecca’s butterfly brooch, which I’d pinned to my blue dress that morning. I wanted to run, or sing.

  “You look happy. It suits you, Ellie,” Francis Latimer said with a smile as I passed him by the monkey puzzle.

  “I am happy,” I replied.

  “Where shall we take the boat this evening? Upriver, or out to sea?”

  “Out to sea,” I said, dancing past. All questions have a right answer and a wrong one and I knew this answer pleased him—I saw his face alter. I left him talking to Rose in the garden, and we set off in Nicholas Osmond’s low-slung car; I sat in the passenger seat next to the angel, and Tom crushed his height into the tiny jib seat behind us. The tonneau cover was down, the air rushed past. I’d never been in a sports car before; I’d never known it could be this exhilarating.

  We drove fast round the blind bend near Tom’s former cottage, then up the steep hill toward the woods of Manderley. We parked at Four Turnings, pushed back the heavy gates, and entered the cool blue shade of the trees.

  “You’ve brought the ring with you, Tom?” Osmond asked. Tom nodded, and I saw a small glance, a silent message, pass between them.

  “I might just wander off and look at Manderley itself,” Osmond said. “I have to see it, after imagining it all these weeks. I’ll meet you both at the beach, shall I?”

  He disappeared between the trees, and I tensed. I was now alone with Tom Galbraith—and in no doubt that this had been prearranged between them. Had Tom been as reserved as he usually was, I would probably have remained tense, but even now we were alone his new mood of confidence did not desert him.

  I wished I knew what had caused this transformation—he had the air of a man who’d made up his mind, and was now at peace with himself; but I quickly forgot that as we began to walk through the trees. I could hear the sound of the waves, inviting us forward, and I began to tell him what had happened in his absence. I described my encounters with Mrs. Danvers and Mrs. de Winter. I told him about the books I’d found in the boathouse, the list of children’s names, the butterfly brooch, and the last, censored notebook.

  He listened intently—and he questioned me, as I’d expected. But, by the time we were reaching the edge of the woods, with sunlight ahead of us, I’d become aware of a certain distancing in him. Even when I told him of Mrs. de Winter’s revelations regarding Rebecca’s death, his response was curiously muted. He was interested in what I was telling him—but not as interested as he would once have been; I could sense his mind was on something else. Once or twice I saw him glance at me with an amused affection, but I knew he was preoccupied.

  I decided I’d been dwelling too long on these details, and all the questions they raised; he must want to tell me—and I wanted to hear—about Brittany, and what he had discovered there.

  “Well, as I said at lunch, we had a wonderful time there,” he said, as we came out into the sunlight, and turned toward the sea. “The coast is very similar to this. I could see at once why Rebecca felt she’d come home when she first came here. Nicky and I found some very beautiful fishing villages, quite untouched. The churches are interesting—”

  “But you went to St. Croigne Dulac itself?”

  “Eventually. We drove about for a bit first. Nicky needed a break, and I wanted to get my bearings. So we made our way down the Brittany coast quite slowly. We went to St. Croigne our second week.”

  “You waited a whole week? Heavens—I’d have rushed straight there. Oh, Tom—did you find Rebecca’s house, the foursquare house set down by the shore?”

  “Oh, yes. Well, you couldn’t miss it, really. St. Croigne’s a tiny place. That house is set apart from the rest of the village. You step out of the door, onto the sand. It’s exactly as Rebecca describes it, I suppose, but the house was empty, and shuttered up, so we couldn’t see inside. We did hope to track down the key—one of the fishermen acts as a gardien for the place—but we never quite managed it. We kept missing him.”

  “And where did you stay? Did you see the church, or the cousins’ chateau? Were any of Marie-Hélène’s family still alive? I thought, maybe the son who named Je Reviens for Rebecca might still live there.”

  “We put up at a little hotel—a guest house, really. The wife was a marvelous cook. She took to Nicky—well, everyone does, I expect you’ve seen that. We didn’t manage to track down any of Marie-Hélène’s family though. The son had died in the last war. And we never did establish the truth about that boy who died in the fishing-boat accident—well, I didn�
��t really expect that we would. That coast is highly dangerous; there are too many accidents, too many drownings….”

  Something was wrong. This, from the man who triple-checked everything?

  “Not that it was a wasted journey,” he went on, glancing over his shoulder toward the house. I could see Nicholas Osmond in the distance, the sun glinting on his godlike hair. Tom and I began to descend the path to the beach. The tide was coming in fast, now; soon the rocks of the reef would be invisible.

  “I hope not,” I said, feeling my elation begin to seep away and trying hard to hold on to it. “I’d so like to have seen it—I’d so like to go there.”

  Tom took my arm. “Don’t sound so sad,” he said with a smile. “It’s just as Rebecca described it, I promise you. No discrepancies there.” He hesitated, then said gently, “In some ways, you know, Ellie, you see a place better with your mind’s eye anyway. Imagination gives you 20/20 vision—that’s what Nicky always says, anyway.”

  Our footsteps crunching on the shingle, we walked across to the boathouse, but the land agents had completed their task of making it secure. The windows were boarded, the door padlocked. Looking at the building, I felt the conversation with Mrs. de Winter the day before had changed nothing. She had given me answers of a kind, but the questions—and many questions remained—were more interesting. We turned away, and began to walk back along the beach. I increased my pace, Tom slowed, and gradually a distance opened us between us.

  I kicked off my sandals, and walked at the edge of the waves, letting the water wash over my feet. I could feel the promise and energy of the day emptying out of it. I stopped and turned to look at the sea. Rebecca had died in this place. Her body had lain under the water directly in front of me. Once that had mattered to Tom Galbraith as much as it did to me—but I was no longer sure that was the case. He had moved on, I could sense it. Maybe he was right to do so. Maybe all these events were of such importance to me only because the rest of my life was so constrained and limited.

  Did I believe that? I watched the waves; no, I didn’t believe it. The past matters. The dead matter. And I wouldn’t have expected this reaction from a man who searched for truth in the small print, either.

  “You’ve lost interest,” I said sadly to Tom as he drew alongside me. “You no longer care as much as you once did. That’s why you’ve brought that ring of Rebecca’s here today, isn’t it? You’re going to consign it to the waves, then go back to Cambridge and forget the whole thing. Oh, Tom, it will just be an episode for you, I know it.”

  “Ellie, don’t look so downcast. It isn’t that, I promise you.” Taking my arm, he drew me toward him. “I couldn’t go on being as obsessed as I was—it wasn’t healthy. Going to Brittany and talking to Nicky made me see that. That visit, well, it’s shown me what my priorities have to be. I can’t spend all my waking hours thinking about the dead—neither can Nicky, and neither should you. I want to get on with my life, make plans for the future. I feel as if I know who I am now. It’s what a person does that determines who he is, not who his parents were—that’s what I believe now, at least I think that’s what I believe. Ellie, look at me—please. There are things I need to say to you….”

  I turned to face him. He was looking down at me with an expression of concern and there was a tenderness in his face that I’d not seen before. “Ellie, listen,” he said, “there’s something I want you to know. I’ve changed, Ellie, I’ve been changed by the visit to Brittany. Rebecca’s influenced me, you’ve influenced me—but it’s more than that. A month ago, I couldn’t have said this to you. Two weeks ago I tried, but I couldn’t say it. Now I can. I expect you can tell what I feel in any case—it’s obvious, at least I feel it is. I can’t hide it.”

  He stopped. Behind him, Nicholas Osmond was just descending the cliff path; he shouted Tom’s name, and Tom swung around to look at him. My mind was trying to follow Tom’s words, but my heart was swifter. In two weeks, I hadn’t entirely cured my propensity to hope, after all. I felt a rush of joy, as sharp and immediate as a jolt of adrenaline—and then I saw Tom’s expression.

  He was looking at his friend, and he was transfigured. I suppose I knew then—or began to know. I saw love in his face, as I should have seen it before—and indeed when love is felt to that degree it is unmistakable. It lit his eyes, and I stepped back from its radiance. I looked at the figure of his friend descending the path, I looked at his bright hair and I knew that if Tom was changed it was nothing to do with me or with reading Rebecca’s notebooks. He might choose to believe that, but I thought it was the angel’s influence.

  Halfway down the path, Osmond broke into a run, and in a carefree joyful way leaped down onto the shingle and approached us. He had mistimed his return, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t need Tom Galbraith to tell me what he felt, I could see it in his face and in his friend’s. No one looking at them could have been in any doubt that this love was reciprocated.

  I think Tom knew there was no need for further explanation, he saw the comprehension in my face. “Ellie,” he said awkwardly, turning back to me. “You do understand now? I should have told you, but I didn’t know how you’d react. If I’ve done or said anything that misled you—”

  “You haven’t. Of course you haven’t,” I said, speaking fast. “And I’m glad for you. I’m glad for you both. I told you before: You’re my friend, Tom. I hope you always will be.”

  As soon as the words were uttered, I knew they were true—I was glad for him. I still felt pain, so perhaps I hadn’t succeeded in relinquishing him as fully as I’d tried to do; I felt embarrassment at my own stupidity, too, but those emotions were unimportant, and, oddly enough, the happiness I felt for Tom and his friend almost wiped the pain out—at that moment anyway. I hugged Tom, and when the angel came closer, I embraced him, too. “The ring, the ring,” said the angel, who seemed to take the embrace in good part. “Hurry up. The tide’s coming in—another ten minutes and the rocks will be underwater.”

  We all three set off across the shingle and began to clamber out across the rocks, Tom some way ahead, Nicholas Osmond and I behind him.

  “I see Tom told you. You don’t disapprove?” Osmond said, glancing at me with those sapphire eyes.

  “No. Why should I?”

  “Most people do. It’s a hanging offense, virtually.” He came to a halt, and I saw him hesitate. He looked toward Tom, moving across the rocks ahead of us.

  “I always have loved him,” he said. “Almost from the day we first met. I’m sure my wife knew, though I never told her. I never told Tom, either. I’m not as brave as he is, you see, Ellie. That’s the great difference between us. I used to be afraid to admit what I was—Tom never felt that. I thought that if I married, maybe I could turn myself into someone else, be what everyone had always expected me to be, and I did try….”

  He hesitated, then his face lit. “Then Tom wrote to me, and asked me to go to Brittany for him. As soon as I opened the letter, I knew that wasn’t what he was really asking. I was being given a second chance. I’d promised myself I’d never live a lie again—so I took it.”

  “Come on,” Tom shouted from the rocks ahead of us. Osmond rested his hand on my arm and looked at me closely. “You’re not hurt, Ellie? Were you in love with him?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied, and as I said it, I realized it was true. “It felt like being in love. I’ve only been in love once before, so maybe I’m not a good judge. Tom told me not to be, in any case—he was very scrupulous about that. But it’s not so easy to stop, is it? Maybe it will be easier now. I’m sure to make a full recovery in due course. People do. Meanwhile, I don’t intend to pine away, I promise you.”

  “Oh, I think pining away is a very unlikely fate,” Osmond replied, with a smile. “I was watching you at lunch and I rather thought that consolation was close at hand. Come on, Ellie.”

  Taking my arm, he led me across the rocks. I thought about that word “consolation.” We clambered over rock pools, u
ntil we were as far out into the bay as we could reach. We stood next to Tom, who had taken Rebecca’s tiny ring from his pocket. To our left, we could see the reef curving out into the water in a scimitar shape, and beyond it, bone white under the translucent water, the sandbank where Je Reviens had gone down, the bank where Rebecca had listened to her sirens.

  Above us, gulls wheeled and cried; behind us, the low dark bulk of Manderley crouched by its woods; there was a salt breeze off the water; the air smelled newly created. I looked up at the milky haze of the sky, then down at the azure of the sea. The waves washed and withdrew. I moved a little apart from the two men. I looked up at the path where fourteen-year-old Rebecca had seen this place for the first time and known she spoke its language. I looked at the tiny ring, glittering between Tom Galbraith’s fingers; I thought of who had given it to her and when, and what it might mean to her. I summoned her up, all her brightness of spirit—the water moved against the rocks with a new restlessness. Tom spun the ring high up into the air. It arced against the light, glittered and became invisible, sparkled one last time, then disappeared beneath the green-blue water by the sandbank.

  I thought, I shan’t come back here again; that’s it, it’s over and done. I was wrong, in fact—I have been back once since then, but at the time I couldn’t have foreseen the circumstances.