I began eating a piece of grass and looked away.
'Yes, that's all private in there,' he said.
'My husband says all these big estates will be chopped up in time and bungalows built,' said the woman.
'I wouldn't mind a nice little bungalow up here facing the sea.
I don't know that I'd care for this part of the world in the winter though.'
'No, it's very quiet here winter times,' said the coastguard.
I went on chewing my piece of grass.
The little boy kept running round in circles.
The coastguard looked at his watch.
'Well, I must be getting on,' he said; 'good afternoon!'
He saluted me, and turned back along the path towards Kerrith.
'Come on, Charlie, come and find Daddy,' said the woman.
She nodded to me in friendly fashion, and sauntered off to the edge of the cliff, the little boy running at her heels.
A thin man in khaki shorts and a striped blazer waved to her.
They sat down by a clump of gorse bushes and the woman began to undo paper packages.
I wished I could lose my own identity and join them. Eat hard-boiled eggs and potted meat sandwiches, laugh rather loudly, enter their conversation, and then wander back with them during the afternoon to Kerrith and paddle on the beach, run races across the stretch of sand, and so to their lodgings and have shrimps for tea.
Instead of which I must go back alone through the woods to Manderley and wait for Maxim.
And I did not know what we should say to one another, how he would look at me, what would be his voice.
I went on sitting there on the cliff.
I was not hungry.
I did not think about lunch.
More people came and wandered over the cliffs to look at the ship.
It made an excitement for the afternoon.
There was nobody I knew.
They were all holiday-makers from Kerrith.
The sea was glassy calm.
The gulls no longer wheeled overhead, they had settled on the water a little distance from the ship.
More pleasure boats appeared during the afternoon.
It must be a field day for Kerrith boatmen.
The diver came up and then went down again.
One of the tugs steamed away while the other still stood by.
The harbour-master went back in his grey motor boat, taking some men with him, and the diver who had come to the surface for the second time.
The crew of the ship leant against the side throwing scraps to the gulls, while visitors in pleasure boats rowed slowly round the ship.
Nothing happened at all.
It was dead low water now, and the ship was heeled at an angle, the propeller showing clean.
Little ridges of white cloud formed in the western sky and the sun became pallid.
It was still very hot.
The woman in the pink striped frock with the little boy got up and wandered off along the path towards Kerrith, the man in the shorts following with the picnic basket.
I glanced at my watch.
It was after three o' clock.
I got up and went down the hill to the cove.
It was quiet and deserted as always.
The shingle was dark and grey. The water in the little harbour was glassy like a mirror.
My feet made a queer crunching noise as I crossed the shingle.
The ridges of white cloud now covered all the sky above my head, and the sun was hidden.
When I came to the further side of the cove I saw Ben crouching by a little pool between two rocks scraping winkles into his hand.
My shadow fell upon the water as I passed, and he looked up and saw me.
'G' day,' he said, his mouth opening in a grin.
'Good afternoon,' I said.
He scrambled to his feet and opened a dirty handkerchief he had filled with winkles.