“Go on,” whispered Mrs. Danvers. “Go on, don’t be afraid.”
I shut my eyes. I was giddy from staring down at the terrace, and my fingers ached from holding to the ledge. The mist entered my nostrils and lay upon my lips rank and sour. It was stifling, like a blanket, like an anesthetic. I was beginning to forget about being unhappy, and about loving Maxim. I was beginning to forget Rebecca. Soon I would not have to think about Rebecca anymore…
As I relaxed my hands and sighed, the white mist and the silence that was part of it was shattered suddenly, was rent in two by an explosion that shook the window where we stood. The glass shivered in its frame. I opened my eyes. I stared at Mrs. Danvers. The burst was followed by another, and yet a third and fourth. The sound of the explosions stung the air and the birds rose unseen from the woods around the house and made an echo with their clamor.
“What is it?” I said stupidly. “What has happened?”
Mrs. Danvers relaxed her grip upon my arm. She stared out of the window into the fog. “It’s the rockets,” she said; “there must be a ship gone ashore there in the bay.”
We listened, staring into the white fog together. And then we heard the sound of footsteps running on the terrace beneath us.
19
It was Maxim. I could not see him but I could hear his voice. He was shouting for Frith as he ran. I heard Frith answer from the hall and come out on the terrace. Their figures loomed out of the mist beneath us.
“She’s ashore all right,” said Maxim. “I was watching her from the headland and I saw her come right into the bay, and head for the reef. They’ll never shift her, not with these tides. She must have mistaken the bay for Kerrith harbor. It’s like a wall out there, in the bay. Tell them in the house to stand by with food and drink in case these fellows want anything, and ring through to the office to Mr. Crawley and tell him what’s happened. I’m going back to the cove to see if I can do anything. Get me some cigarettes, will you?”
Mrs. Danvers drew back from the window. Her face was expressionless once more, the cold white mask that I knew.
“We had better go down,” she said, “Frith will be looking for me to make arrangements. Mr. de Winter may bring the men back to the house as he said. Be careful of your hands, I’m going to shut the window.” I stepped back into the room still dazed and stupid, not sure of myself or of her. I watched her close the window and fasten the shutters, and draw the curtains in their place.
“It’s a good thing there is no sea running,” she said, “there wouldn’t have been much chance for them then. But on a day like this there’s no danger. The owners will lose their ship, though, if she’s run on the reef as Mr. de Winter said.”
She glanced round the room to make certain that nothing was disarranged or out of place. She straightened the cover on the double bed. Then she went to the door and held it open for me. “I will tell them in the kitchen to serve cold lunch in the dining room after all,” she said, “and then it won’t matter what time you come for it. Mr. de Winter may not want to rush back at one o’clock if he’s busy down there in the cove.”
I stared at her blankly and then passed out of the open door, stiff and wooden like a dummy.
“When you see Mr. de Winter, Madam, will you tell him it will be quite all right if he wants to bring the men back from the ship? There will be a hot meal ready for them any time.”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, Mrs. Danvers.”
She turned her back on me and went along the corridor to the service staircase, a weird gaunt figure in her black dress, the skirt just sweeping the ground like the full, wide skirts of thirty years ago. Then she turned the corner of the corridor and disappeared.
I walked slowly along the passage to the door by the archway, my mind still blunt and slow as though I had just woken from a long sleep. I pushed through the door and went down the stairs with no set purpose before me. Frith was crossing the hall towards the dining room. When he saw me he stopped, and waited until I came down into the hall.
“Mr. de Winter was in a few moments ago, Madam,” he said. “He took some cigarettes, and then went back again to the beach. It appears there is a ship gone ashore.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Did you hear the rockets, Madam?” said Frith.
“Yes, I heard the rockets,” I said.
“I was in the pantry with Robert, and we both thought at first that one of the gardeners had let off a firework left over from last night,” said Frith, “and I said to Robert, ‘What do they want to do that for in this weather? Why don’t they keep them for the kiddies on Saturday night?’ And then the next one came, and then the third. ‘That’s not fireworks,’ says Robert, ‘that’s a ship in distress.’ ‘I believe you’re right,’ I said, and I went out to the hall and there was Mr. de Winter calling me from the terrace.”