Rebecca's Tale (38 page)

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.

T
HE 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 sight, 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.

I thought of the boathouse as he’d described it to me, with its red rug, its bright driftwood fire, its little carved boats, its atmosphere of childlike refuge and seclusion. I thought of the way in which Rebecca had intervened in my life, altering it forever: I’ve never doubted what would have become of me, had she not rescued me from the ignorance and anguish of my childhood.

I could hear the sound of the sea rattling on the shingle. With a troubled mind, I opened the black cover and began reading.

3

Rebecca

A
PRIL
1931

T
WENTY-ONE

S
UCH A COLD, FIERCE, GLITTERING DAY—A MAGNIFICENT
sea, green as glass bottles, surf grinding shells to powder on the beach, a high blue bare sky. Such exhilaration. I thought of you today, I thought of you all day, my darling.

Max was away—the cat was away—so I was free, and early this morning I escaped from them all. Breakfast in the mausoleum first, mirrored eggs, and kidneys seeping blood in silver dishes, Frith creaking his way in and out—I can’t keep food down in the mornings. Just a little coffee and dry toast, then I went to the usual room, sat at my usual desk, and arranged my life: lists, letters, menus, appointments. I’m efficient, dearest—my future’s an alphabet, I file it in pigeonholes. By ten, Jasper and I were walking in the woods; the first azaleas were coming out; we had only the gulls for company.

We came down to the shore. I threw sticks for Jasper; he chased them into the waves, then came back and shook himself, and out from of his fur flew richness—a spray of diamonds as big as hailstones, bright as the ones on my wedding finger. I’ll bring you here one day, my love: I’ll show you the secrets of this bay, the rock with the blue-mauve mussels, like mermaids’ fingernails; the place where I gather my driftwood; the ledge where the white fulmar lays its one white egg every April, and the pools that are deep enough to drown in.

I looked in the pools today, and saw your reflection. The seaweed was your hair, your tight-shut eyes were cockleshells; your hand, opening, closing, was a starfish. The tide rocked you, the sea sang to you, your bones grew as strong as coral; you were as quick as a fish, as perfect as the ripples in the sand.
Move
, my dearest. Hurry up and be born. I want to hold you in my arms, and show you Manderley. All this will be yours, one day.