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.
'It was a terrible time for all of you,' I said rapidly.
'I don't suppose you like being reminded about it.
I just wondered if there was anything one could do to the cottage, that's all.
It seems such a pity, all the furniture being spoilt by the damp.'
He did not say anything.
I felt hot and uncomfortable.
He must have sensed that it was not concern for the empty cottage that had prompted me to all these questions, and now he was silent because he was shocked at me.
Ours had been a comfortable, steady sort of friendship.
I had felt him an ally.
Perhaps I had destroyed all this, and he would never feel the same about me again.
'What a long drive this is,' I said; 'it always reminds me of the path in the forest in a Grimm's fairy tale, where the prince gets lost, you know.
It's always longer than one expects, and the trees are so dark, and close.'
'Yes, it is rather exceptional,' he said.
I could tell by his manner he was still on his guard, as though waiting for a further question from me.
There was an awkwardness between us that could not be ignored.
Something had to be done about it, even if it covered me with shame.
'Frank,' I said desperately, 'I know what you are thinking.
You can't understand why I asked all those questions just now.
You think I'm morbid, and curious, in a rather beastly way.
It's not that, I promise you.
It's only that — that sometimes I feel myself at such a disadvantage.
It's all very strange to me, living here at Manderley.
Not the sort of life I've been brought up to.
When I go returning these calls, as I did this afternoon, I know people are looking me up and down, wondering what sort of success I'm going to make of it.
I can imagine them saying,
"What on earth does Maxim see in her?"
And then, Frank, I begin to wonder myself, and I begin to doubt, and I have a fearful haunting feeling that I should never have married Maxim, that we are not going to be happy.
You see, I know that all the time, whenever I meet anyone new, they are all thinking the same thing — How different she is to Rebecca.'