“I was not referring to blood-relationship, Mrs. Danvers,” said Colonel Julyan. “I mean something closer than that.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand, sir,” said Mrs. Danvers.
“Oh, come off it, Danny,” said Favell; “you know damn well what he’s driving at. I’ve told Colonel Julyan already, but he doesn’t seem to believe me. Rebecca and I had lived together off and on for years, hadn’t we? She was in love with me, wasn’t she?”
To my surprise Mrs. Danvers considered him a moment without speaking, and there was something of scorn in the glance she gave him.
“She was not,” she said.
“Listen here, you old fool…” began Favell, but Mrs. Danvers cut him short.
“She was not in love with you, or with Mr. de Winter. She was not in love with anyone. She despised all men. She was above all that.”
Favell flushed angrily. “Listen here. Didn’t she come down the path through the woods to meet me, night after night? Didn’t you wait up for her? Didn’t she spend the weekends with me in London?”
“Well?” said Mrs. Danvers, with sudden passion, “and what if she did? She had a right to amuse herself, hadn’t she? Love-making was a game with her, only a game. She told me so. She did it because it made her laugh. It made her laugh, I tell you. She laughed at you like she did at the rest. I’ve known her come back and sit upstairs in her bed and rock with laughter at the lot of you.”
There was something horrible in the sudden torrent of words, something horrible and unexpected. It revolted me, even though I knew. Maxim had gone very white. Favell stared at her blankly, as though he had not understood. Colonel Julyan tugged at his small mustache. No one said anything for a few minutes. And there was no sound but that inevitable falling rain. Then Mrs. Danvers began to cry. She cried like she had done that morning in the bedroom. I could not look at her. I had to turn away. No one said anything. There were just the two sounds in the room, the falling rain and Mrs. Danvers crying. It made me want to scream. I wanted to run out of the room and scream and scream.
No one moved towards her, to say anything, or to help her. She went on crying. Then at last, it seemed eternity, she began to control herself. Little by little the crying ceased. She stood quite still, her face working, her hands clutching the black stuff of her frock. At last she was silent again. Then Colonel Julyan spoke, quietly, slowly.
“Mrs. Danvers,” he said, “can you think of any reason, however remote, why Mrs. de Winter should have taken her own life?”
Mrs. Danvers swallowed. She went on clutching at her frock. She shook her head. “No,” she said. “No.”
“There, you see?” Favell said swiftly. “It’s impossible. She knows that as well as I do. I’ve told you already.”
“Be quiet, will you?” said Colonel Julyan. “Give Mrs. Danvers time to think. We all of us agree that on the face of it the thing’s absurd, out of the question. I’m not disputing the truth or veracity of that note of yours. It’s plain for us to see. She wrote you that note sometime during those hours she spent in London. There was something she wanted to tell you. It’s just possible that if we knew what that something was we might have the answer to the whole appalling problem. Let Mrs. Danvers read the note. She may be able to throw light on it.” Favell shrugged his shoulders. He felt in his pocket for the note and threw it on the floor at Mrs. Danvers’ feet. She stooped and picked it up. We watched her lips move as she read the words. She read it twice. Then she shook her head. “It’s no use,” she said. “I don’t know what she meant. If there was something important she had to tell Mr. Jack she would have told me first.”
“You never saw her that night?”
“No, I was out. I was spending the afternoon and evening in Kerrith. I shall never forgive myself for that. Never till my dying day.”
“Then you know of nothing on her mind, you can’t suggest a solution, Mrs. Danvers? Those words ‘I have something to tell you’ do not convey anything to you at all?”
“No,” she answered. “No, sir, nothing at all.”
“Does anybody know how she spent that day in London?”
Nobody answered. Maxim shook his head. Favell swore under his breath. “Look here, she left that note at my flat at three in the afternoon,” he said. “The porter saw her. She must have driven down here straight after that, and gone like the wind too.”