She stared at me curiously. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Sometimes, when I walk along the corridor here, I fancy I hear her just behind me. That quick, light footstep. I could not mistake it anywhere. And in the minstrels’ gallery above the hall. I’ve seen her leaning there, in the evenings in the old days, looking down at the hall below and calling to the dogs. I can fancy her there now from time to time. It’s almost as though I catch the sound of her dress sweeping the stairs as she comes down to dinner.” She paused. She went on looking at me, watching my eyes. “Do you think she can see us, talking to one another now?” she said slowly. “Do you think the dead come back and watch the living?”
I swallowed. I dug my nails into my hands.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know.” My voice sounded high-pitched and unnatural. Not my voice at all.
“Sometimes I wonder,” she whispered. “Sometimes I wonder if she comes back here to Manderley and watches you and Mr. de Winter together.”
We stood there by the door, staring at one another. I could not take my eyes away from hers. How dark and somber they were in the white skull’s face of hers, how malevolent, how full of hatred. Then she opened the door into the corridor. “Robert is back now,” she said. “He came back a quarter of an hour ago. He has orders to take your tea out under the chestnut tree.”
She stepped aside for me to pass. I stumbled out onto the corridor, not looking where I was going. I did not speak to her, I went down the stairs blindly, and turned the corner and pushed through the door that led to my own rooms in the east wing. I shut the door of my room and turned the key, and put the key in my pocket.
Then I lay down on my bed and closed my eyes. I felt deadly sick.
15
Maxim rang up the next morning to say he would be back about seven. Frith took the message. Maxim did not ask to speak to me himself. I heard the telephone ring while I was at breakfast and I thought perhaps Frith would come into the dining room and say “Mr. de Winter on the telephone, Madam.” I had put down my napkin and had risen to my feet. And then Frith came back into the dining room and gave me the message.
He saw me push back my chair and go to the door. “Mr. de Winter has rung off, Madam,” he said, “there was no message. Just that he would be back about seven.”
I sat down in my chair again and picked up my napkin. Frith must have thought me eager and stupid rushing across the dining room.
“All right, Frith. Thank you,” I said.
I went on eating my eggs and bacon, Jasper at my feet, the old dog in her basket in the corner. I wondered what I should do with my day. I had slept badly; perhaps because I was alone in the room. I had been restless, waking up often, and when I glanced at my clock I saw the hands had scarcely moved. When I did fall asleep I had varied, wandering dreams. We were walking through woods, Maxim and I, and he was always just a little ahead of me. I could not keep up with him. Nor could I see his face. Just his figure, striding away in front of me all the time. I must have cried while I slept, for when I woke in the morning the pillow was damp. My eyes were heavy too, when I looked in the glass. I looked plain, unattractive. I rubbed a little rouge on my cheeks in a wretched attempt to give myself color. But it made me worse. It gave me a false clown look. Perhaps I did not know the best way to put it on. I noticed Robert staring at me as I crossed the hall and went in to breakfast.
About ten o’clock as I was crumbling some pieces for the birds on the terrace the telephone rang again. This time it was for me. Frith came and said Mrs. Lacy wanted to speak to me.
“Good morning, Beatrice,” I said.
“Well, my dear, how are you?” she said, her telephone voice typical of herself, brisk, rather masculine, standing no nonsense, and then not waiting for my answer. “I thought of motoring over this afternoon and looking up Gran. I’m lunching with people about twenty miles from you. Shall I come and pick you up and we’ll go together? It’s time you met the old lady, you know.”
“I’d like to very much, Beatrice,” I said.
“Splendid. Very well, then. I’ll come along for you about half past three. Giles saw Maxim at the dinner. Poor food, he said, but excellent wine. All right, my dear, see you later.”
The click of the receiver, and she was gone. I wandered back into the garden. I was glad she had rung up and suggested the plan of going over to see the grandmother. It made something to look forward to, and broke the monotony of the day. The hours had seemed so long until seven o’clock. I did not feel in my holiday mood today, and I had no wish to go off with Jasper to the Happy Valley and come to the cove and throw stones in the water. The sense of freedom had departed, and the childish desire to run across the lawns in sandshoes. I went and sat down with a book and The Times and my knitting in the rose garden, domestic as a matron, yawning in the warm sun while the bees hummed among the flowers.