“It was a boathouse originally,” he said, his voice constrained again, difficult, the voice of someone who is uncomfortable about his subject. “Then—then she converted it like that, had furniture put in, and china.”
I thought it funny the way he called her “she.” He did not say Rebecca or Mrs. de Winter, as I expected him to do.
“Did she use it a great deal?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, she did. Moonlight picnics, and—and one thing and another.”
We were walking again side by side, I still humming my little tune. “How jolly,” I said brightly. “Moonlight picnics must be great fun. Did you ever go to them?”
“Once or twice,” he said. I pretended not to notice his manner, how quiet it had become, how reluctant to speak about these things.
“Why is the buoy there in the little harbor place?” I said.
“The boat used to be moored there,” he said.
“What boat?” I asked.
“Her boat,” he said.
A strange sort of excitement was upon me. I had to go on with my questions. He did not want to talk about it. I knew that, but although I was sorry for him and shocked at my own self I had to continue, I could not be silent.
“What happened to it?” I said. “Was that the boat she was sailing when she was drowned?”
“Yes,” he said quietly, “it capsized and sank. She was washed overboard.”
“What sort of size boat was it?” I asked.
“About three tons. It had a little cabin.”
“What made it capsize?” I said.
“It can be very squally in the bay,” he said.
I thought of that green sea, foam-flecked, that ran down channel beyond the headland. Did the wind come suddenly, I wondered, in a funnel from the beacon on the hill, and did the little boat heel to it, shivering, the white sail flat against a breaking sea?
“Could not someone have got out to her?” I said.
“Nobody saw the accident, nobody knew she had gone,” he said.
I was very careful not to look at him. He might have seen the surprise in my face. I had always thought it happened in a sailing race, that other boats were there, the boats from Kerrith, and that people were watching from the cliffs. I did not know she had been alone, quite alone, out there in the bay.
“They must have known up at the house!” I said.
“No,” he said. “She often went out alone like that. She would come back any time of the night, and sleep at the cottage on the beach.”
“Was not she nervous?”
“Nervous?” he said; “no, she was not nervous of anything.”
“Did—did Maxim mind her going off alone like that?”
He waited a minute, and then “I don’t know,” he said shortly. I had the impression he was being loyal to someone. Either to Maxim or to Rebecca, or perhaps even to himself. He was odd. I did not know what to make of it.
“She must have been drowned, then, trying to swim to shore, after the boat sank?” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
I knew how the little boat would quiver and plunge, the water gushing into the steering well, and how the sails would press her down, suddenly, horribly, in that gust of wind. It must have been very dark out there in the bay. The shore must have seemed very far away to anyone swimming there, in the water.
“How long afterwards was it that they found her?” I said.
“About two months,” he said.
Two months. I thought drowned people were found after two days. I thought they would be washed up close to the shore when the tide came.
“Where did they find her?” I asked.
“Near Edgecoombe, about forty miles up channel,” he said.
I had spent a holiday at Edgecoombe once, when I was seven. It was a big place, with a pier, and donkeys. I remembered riding a donkey along the sands.
“How did they know it was her—after two months, how could they tell?” I said. I wondered why he paused before each sentence, as though he weighed his words. Had he cared for her, then, had he minded so much?
“Maxim went up to Edgecoombe to identify her,” he said.
Suddenly I did not want to ask him any more. I felt sick at myself, sick and disgusted. I was like a curious sightseer standing on the fringe of a crowd after someone had been knocked down. I was like a poor person in a tenement building, when someone had died, asking if I might see the body. I hated myself. My questions had been degrading, shameful. Frank Crawley must despise me.