You must not let him rattle you.'
'Why the devil should I be rattled?
I have nothing to be rattled about.'
'Of course not.
But I've attended these coroner's inquests before, and it's so easy to get nervy and irritable.
You don't want to put the fellow's back up.'
'Frank's right,' I said.
'I know just what he means.
The swifter and smoother the whole thing goes the easier it will be for everyone.
Then once the wretched thing is over we shall forget all about it, and so will everyone else, won't they, Frank?'
'Yes, of course,' said Frank.
I still avoided his eye, but I was more convinced than ever that he knew the truth.
He had always known it.
From the very first.
I remembered the first time I met him, that first day of mine at Manderley, when he, and Beatrice, and Giles had all been at lunch, and Beatrice had been tactless about Maxim's health.
I remembered Frank, his quiet turning of the subject, the way he had come to Maxim's aid in his quiet unobtrusive manner if there was ever any question of difficulty.
That strange reluctance of his to talk about Rebecca, his stiff, funny, pompous way of making conversation whenever we had approached anything like intimacy.
I understood it all.
Frank knew, but Maxim did not know that he knew.
And Frank did not want Maxim to know that he knew.
And we all stood there, looking at one another, keeping up these little barriers between us.
We were not bothered with the telephone again.
All the calls were put through to the office.
It was just a question of waiting now. Waiting until the Tuesday.
I saw nothing of Mrs Danvers.
The menu was sent through as usual, and I did not change it.
I asked little Clarice about her.
She said she was going about her work as usual but she was not speaking to anybody.
She had all her meals alone in her sitting-room.
Clarice was wide-eyed, evidently curious, but she did not ask me any questions, and I was not going to discuss it with her.
No doubt they talked of nothing else, out in the kitchen, and on the estate too, in the lodge, on the farms.
I supposed all Kerrith was full of it.
We stayed in Manderley, in the gardens close to the house.
We did not even walk in the woods.
The weather had not broken yet.
It was still hot, oppressive.
The air was full of thunder, and there was rain behind the white dull sky, but it did not fall.
I could feel it, and smell it, pent up there, behind the clouds.
The inquest was to be on the Tuesday afternoon at two o'clock.
We had lunch at a quarter to one.
Frank came.
Thank heaven Beatrice had telephoned that she could not get over.
The boy Roger had arrived home with measles; they were all in quarantine.
I could not help blessing the measles.
I don't think Maxim could have borne it, with Beatrice sitting here, staying in the house, sincere, anxious, and affectionate, but asking questions all the time.
Forever asking questions.
Lunch was a hurried, nervous meal.
We none of us talked very much.
I had that nagging pain again.
I did not want anything to eat.