“Have you got any string?” I said.
“Eh?” he said.
“Have you got any string?” I repeated.
“No shell here,” he said, shaking his head. “Been diggin’ since forenoon.” He nodded his head at me, and wiped his pale blue watery eyes.
“I want something to tie the dog,” I said. “He won’t follow me.”
“Eh?” he said. And he smiled his poor idiot’s smile.
“All right,” I said; “it doesn’t matter.”
He looked at me uncertainly, and then leaned forward, and poked me in the chest.
“I know that dog,” he said; “he comes fro’ the house.”
“Yes,” I said. “I want him to come back with me now.”
“He’s not yourn,” he said.
“He’s Mr. de Winter’s dog,” I said gently. “I want to take him back to the house.”
“Eh?” he said.
I called Jasper once more, but he was chasing a feather blown by the wind. I wondered if there was any string in the boathouse, and I walked up the beach towards it. There must have been a garden once, but now the grass was long and overgrown, crowded with nettles. The windows were boarded up. No doubt the door was locked, and I lifted the latch without much hope. To my surprise it opened after the first stiffness, and I went inside, bending my head because of the low door. I expected to find the usual boat store, dirty and dusty with disuse, ropes and blocks and oars upon the floor. The dust was there, and the dirt too in places, but there were no ropes or blocks. The room was furnished, and ran the whole length of the cottage. There was a desk in the corner, a table, and chairs, and a bed-sofa pushed against the wall. There was a dresser too, with cups and plates. Bookshelves, the books inside them, and models of ships standing on the top of the shelves. For a moment I thought it must be inhabited—perhaps the poor man on the beach lived here—but I looked around me again and saw no sign of recent occupation. That rusted grate knew no fire, this dusty floor no footsteps, and the china there on the dresser was blue-spotted with the damp. There was a queer musty smell about the place. Cobwebs spun threads upon the ships’ models, making their own ghostly rigging. No one lived here. No one came here. The door had creaked on its hinges when I opened it. The rain pattered on the roof with a hollow sound, and tapped upon the boarded windows. The fabric of the sofa-bed had been nibbled by mice or rats. I could see the jagged holes, and the frayed edges. It was damp in the cottage, damp and chill. Dark, and oppressive. I did not like it. I had no wish to stay there. I hated the hollow sound of the rain pattering on the roof. It seemed to echo in the room itself, and I heard the water dripping too into the rusted grate.
I looked about me for some string. There was nothing that would serve my purpose, nothing at all. There was another door at the end of the room, and I went to it, and opened it, a little fearful now, a little afraid, for I had the odd, uneasy feeling that I might come upon something unawares, that I had no wish to see. Something that might harm me, that might be horrible.
It was nonsense of course, and I opened the door. It was only a boat store after all. Here were the ropes and blocks I had expected, two or three sails, fenders, a small punt, pots of paints, all the litter and junk that goes with the using of boats. A ball of twine lay on a shelf, a rusted clasp knife beside it. This would be all I needed for Jasper. I opened the knife, and cut a length of twine, and came back into the room again. The rain still fell upon the roof, and into the grate. I came out of the cottage hurriedly, not looking behind me, trying not to see the torn sofa and the mildewed china, the spun cobwebs on the model ships, and so through the creaking gate and onto the white beach.
The man was not digging anymore; he was watching me, Jasper at his side.
“Come along, Jasper,” I said; “come on, good dog.” I bent down and this time he allowed me to touch him and pull hold of his collar. “I found some string in the cottage,” I said to the man.
He did not answer, and I tied the string loosely round Jasper’s collar.
“Good afternoon,” I said, tugging at Jasper.
The man nodded, staring at me with his narrow idiot’s eyes. “I saw’ee go in yonder,” he said.
“Yes,” I said; “it’s all right, Mr. de Winter won’t mind.”
“She don’t go in there now,” he said.
“No,” I said, “not now.”
“She’s gone in the sea, ain’t she?” he said; “she won’t come back no more?”