It was all very awkward.
I did not want to get Mrs Danvers into trouble or make any sort of scene.
More important still I did not want to worry Maxim.
I wondered who he was, this man Favell.
He had called Maxim 'Max'.
No one ever called him Max.
I had seen it written once, on the fly-leaf of a book, the letters thin and slanting, curiously pointed, the tail of the M very definite, very long.
I thought there was only one person who had ever called him Max…
As I stood there in the hall, undecided about my tea, wondering what to do, the thought suddenly came to me that perhaps Mrs Danvers was dishonest, that all this time she was engaged in some business behind Maxim's back, and coming back early as I had today I had discovered her and this man, an accomplice, who had then bluffed his way out by pretending to be familiar with the house and with Maxim.
I wondered what they had been doing in the west wing.
Why had they closed the shutters when they saw me on the lawn?
I was filled with vague disquiet.
Frith and Robert had been away.
The maids were generally in their bedrooms changing during the afternoon.
Mrs Danvers would have the run of the place.
Supposing this man was a thief, and Mrs Danvers was in his pay?
There were valuable things in the west wing.
I had a sudden rather terrifying impulse to creep upstairs now to the west wing and go into those rooms and see for myself.
Robert was not yet back.
I would just have time before tea.
I hesitated, glancing at the gallery.
The house seemed very still and quiet.
The servants were all in their own quarters beyond the kitchen.
Jasper lapped noisily at his drinking bowl below the stairs, the sound echoing in the great stone hall.
I began to walk upstairs.
My heart was beating in a queer excited way.
Chapter fourteen
I found myself in the corridor where I had stood that first morning.
I had not been there since, nor had I wished to go.
The sun streamed in from the window in the alcove and made gold patterns on the dark panelling.
There was no sound at all.
I was aware of the same musty, unused smell that had been before.
I was uncertain which way to go.
The plan of the rooms was not familiar to me.
I remembered then that last time Mrs Danvers had come out of a door here, just behind me, and it seemed to me that the position of the room would make it the one I wanted, whose windows looked out upon the lawns to the sea.
I turned the handle of the door and went inside.
It was dark of course, because of the shutters.
I felt for the electric light switch on the wall and turned it on.
I was standing in a little ante-room, a dressing-room I judged, with big wardrobes round the wall, and at the end of this room was another door, open, leading to a larger room.
I went through to this room, and turned on the light.
My first impression was one of shock because the room was fully furnished, as though in use.
I had expected to see chairs and tables swathed in dust-sheets, and dust-sheets too over the great double bed against the wall.
Nothing was covered up.
There were brushes and combs on the dressing-table, scent, and powder.
The bed was made up, I saw the gleam of white linen on the pillow-case, and the tip of a blanket beneath the quilted coverlet.
There were flowers on the dressing-table and on the table beside the bed.
Flowers too on the carved mantelpiece.
A satin dressing-gown lay on a chair, and a pair of bedroom slippers beneath.
For one desperate moment I thought that something had happened to my brain, that I was seeing back into Time, and looking upon the room as it used to be, before she died… In a minute Rebecca herself would come back into the room, sit down before the looking-glass at her dressing-table, humming a tune, reach for her comb and run it through her hair.
If she sat there I should see her reflection in the glass and she would see me too, standing like this by the door. Nothing happened.