"Thank you, Frith,' I said.

  I went out on the terrace. I could see the trees taking shape beyond the lawns. The fog was lifting, it was rising in little clouds to the sky above. It whirled above my head in wreaths of smoke. I looked up at the windows above my head. They were tightly closed, and the shutters were fastened. They looked as though they would never open, never be thrown wide.

  It was by the large window in the centre that I had stood five minutes before. How high it seemed above my head, how lofty and remote. The stones were hard and solid under my feet. I looked down at my feet and then up again to the shuttered window, and as I did so I became aware suddenly that my head was swimming and I felt hot. A little trickle of perspiration ran down the back of my neck. Black dots jumped about in the air in front of me. I went into the hall again and sat down on a chair. My hands were quite wet. I sat very still, holding my knees.

  'Frith,' I called, 'Frith, are you in the dining-room?'

  'Yes, Madam?' He came out at once, and crossed the hall towards me.

  'Don't think me very odd, Frith, but I rather think I'd like a small glass of brandy.'

  'Certainly, Madam.'

  I went on holding my knees and sitting very still. He came back with a liqueur glass on a silver salver.

  'Do you feel a trifle unwell, Madam?' said Frith. 'Would you like me to call Clarice?'

  'No, I'll be all right, Frith,' I said. 'I felt a bit hot, that's all.'

  'It's a very warm morning, Madam. Very warm indeed. Oppressive, one might almost say.'

  'Yes, Frith. Very oppressive.'

  I drank the brandy and put the glass back on the silver salver.

  'Perhaps the sound of those rockets alarmed you,' said Frith; 'they went off so very sudden.'

  'Yes, they did,' I said.

  'And what with the hot morning and standing about all last night, you are not perhaps feeling quite like yourself, Madam,' said Frith.

  'No, perhaps not,' I said.

  'Will you lie down for half an hour? It's quite cool in the library.'

  'No. No, I think I'll go out in a moment or two. Don't bother, Frith.'

  'No. Very good, Madam.'

  He went away and left me alone in the hall. It was quiet sitting there, quiet and cool. All trace of the party had been cleared away. It might never have happened. The hall was as it had always been, grey and silent and austere, with the portraits and the weapons on the wall. I could scarcely believe that last night I had stood there in my blue dress at the bottom of the stairs, shaking hands with five hundred people. I could not believe that there had been music-stands in the minstrels' gallery, and a band playing there, a man with a fiddle, a man with a drum. I got up and went out on to the terrace again.

  The fog was rising, lifting to the tops of the trees. I could see the woods at the end of the lawns. Above my head a pale sun tried to penetrate the heavy sky. It was hotter than ever. Oppressive, as Frith had said.

  A bee hummed by me in search of scent, bumbling, noisy, and then creeping inside a flower was suddenly silent. On the grass banks above the lawns the gardener started his mowing machine. A startled linnet fled from the whirring blades towards the rose-garden. The gardener bent to the handles of the machine and walked slowly along the bank scattering the short-tipped grass and the pin-point daisy-heads. The smell of the sweet warm grass came towards me on the air, and the sun shone down upon me full and strong from out of the white mist. I whistled for Jasper but he did not come. Perhaps he had followed Maxim when he went down to the beach. I glanced at my watch.

  It was after half past twelve, nearly twenty to one. This time yesterday Maxim and I were standing with Frank in the little garden in front of his house, waiting for his housekeeper to serve lunch.

  Twenty-four hours ago. They were teasing me, baiting me about my dress.

  'You'll both get the surprise of your lives,' I had said.

  I felt sick with shame at the memory of my words. And then I realized for the first time that Maxim had not gone away as I had feared. The voice I had heard on the terrace was calm and practical. The voice I knew. Not the voice of last night when I stood at the head of the stairs. Maxim had not gone away. He was down there in the cove somewhere. He was himself, normal and sane. He had just been for a walk, as Frank had said. He had been on the headland, he had seen the ship closing in towards the shore.

  All my fears were without foundation. Maxim was safe. Maxim was all right.

  I had just experienced something that was degrading and horrible and mad, something that I did not fully understand even now, that I had no wish to remember, that I wanted to bury for ever more deep in the shadows of my mind with old forgotten terrors of childhood; but even this did not matter as long as Maxim was all right.

  Then I, too, went down the steep twisting path through the dark woods to the beach below.

  The fog had almost gone, and when I came to the cove I could see the ship at once, lying about two miles offshore with her bows pointed towards the cliffs. I went along the breakwater and stood at the end of it, leaning against the rounded wall. There was a crowd of people on the cliffs already who must have walked along the coastguard path from Kerrith. The cliffs and the headland were part of Manderley, but the public had always used the right-of-way along the cliffs. Some of them were scrambling down the cliff face to get a closer view of the stranded ship. She lay at an awkward angle,

  her stern tilted, and there were a number of rowing-boats already pulling round her. The lifeboat was standing off. I saw someone stand up in her and shout through a megaphone. I could not hear what he was saying. It was still misty out in the bay, and I could not see the horizon. Another motor boat chugged into the light with some men aboard. The motor boat was dark grey. I could see someone in uniform. That would be the harbour-master from Kerrith, and the Lloyd's agent with him. Another motor boat followed, a party of holiday-makers from Kerrith aboard. They circled round and round the stranded steamer chatting excitedly. I could hear their voices echoing across the still water.

  I left the breakwater and the cove and climbed up the path over the cliffs towards the rest of the people. I did not see Maxim anywhere. Frank was there, talking to one of the coastguards. I hung back when I saw him, momentarily embarrassed. Barely an hour ago I had been crying to him, down the telephone. I was not sure what I ought to do. He saw me at once and waved his hand. I went over to him and the coastguard. The coastguard knew me.

  'Come to see the fun, Mrs de Winter?' he said smiling. 'I'm afraid it will be a hard job. The tugs may shift her, but I doubt it. She's hard and fast where she is on that ledge.'

  'What will they do?' I said.

  'They'll send a diver down directly to see if she's broken her back,'

  he replied. 'There's the fellow there in the red stocking cap. Like to see through these glasses?'

  I took his glasses and looked at the ship. I could see a group of men staring over her stern. One of them was pointing at something. The man in the lifeboat was still shouting through the megaphone.

  The harbour-master from Kerrith had joined the group of men in the stern of the stranded ship. The diver in his stocking cap was sitting in the grey motor boat belonging to the harbour-master.

  The pleasure boat was still circling round the ship. A woman was standing up taking a snapshot. A group of gulls had settled on the water and were crying foolishly, hoping for scraps.

  I gave the glasses back to the coastguard.

  'Nothing seems to be happening,' I said.

  'They'll send him down directly,' said the coastguard. 'They'll argue a bit first, like all foreigners. Here come the tugs.'

  'They'll never do it,' said Frank. 'Look at the angle she's lying at.

  It's much shallower there than I thought.'

  "That reef runs out quite a way,' said the coastguard; 'you don't notice it in the ordinary way, going over that piece of water in a small boat.

  But a ship with her depth would touch all right.'

  'I was down in the first cove by the valley when they fired the rockets,'

  said Frank. 'I could scarcely see three yards in front of me where I was.

  And then the things went off out of the blue.'

  I thought how alike people were in a moment of common interest. Frank was Frith all over again, giving his version of the story, as though it mattered, as though we cared. I knew that he had gone down to the beach to look for Maxim. I knew that he had been frightened, as I had been.

  And now all this was forgotten and put aside: our conversation down the telephone, our mutual anxiety, his insistence that he must see me. All because a ship had gone ashore in the fog.

  A small boy came running up to us. 'Will the sailors be drowned?' he asked.

  'Not them. They're all right, sonny,' said the coastguard. "The sea's as flat as the back of my hand. No one's going to be hurt this time.'

  'If it had happened last night we should never have heard them,' said Frank. 'We must have let off more than fifty rockets at our show, beside all the smaller things.'

  'We'd have heard all right,' said the coastguard. 'We'd have seen the flash and known the direction. There's the diver, Mrs de Winter. See him putting on his helmet?'

  'I want to see the diver,' said the small boy.

  'There he is,' said Frank, bending and pointing - 'that chap there putting on the helmet. They're going to lower him into the water.'

  'Won't he be drowned?' said the child.

  'Divers don't drown,' said the coastguard. "They have air pumped into them all the time. Watch him disappear. There he goes.'

  The surface of the water was disturbed a minute and then was clear again.

  'He's gone,' said the small boy.

  'Where's Maxim?' I said.

  'He's taken one of the crew into Kerrith,' said Frank; 'the fellow lost his head and jumped for it apparently when the ship struck. We found him clinging on to one of the rocks here under the cliff. He was soaked to the skin of course and shaking like a jelly. Couldn't speak a word of English, of course. Maxim went down to him, and found him bleeding like a pig from a scratch on the rocks. He spoke to him in German. Then he hailed one of the motor boats from Kerrith that was hanging around like a hungry shark, and he's gone off with him to get him bandaged by a doctor.

  If he's lucky he'll just catch old Phillips sitting down to lunch.'

  'When did he go?' I said.

  'He went just before you turned up,' said Frank, 'about five minutes ago.

  I wonder you didn't see the boat. He was sitting in the stern with this German fellow.'

  'He must have gone while I was climbing up the cliff,' I said.

  'Maxim is splendid at anything like this,' said Frank. 'He always gives a hand if he can. You'll find he will invite the whole crew back to Manderley, and feed them, and give them beds into the bargain.'

  "That's right,' said the coastguard. 'He'd give the coat off his back for any of his own people, I know that. I wish there was more like him in the county.'

  'Yes, we could do with them,' said Frank.

  We went on staring at the ship. The tugs were standing off still, but the lifeboat had turned and gone back towards Kerrith.

  'It's not their turn today,' said the coastguard.

  'No,' said Frank, 'and I don't think it's a job for the tugs either. It's the ship-breaker who's going to make money this time.'

  The gulls wheeled overhead, mewing like hungry cats; some of them settled on the ledges of the cliff, while others, bolder, rode the surface of the water beside the ship.

  The coastguard took off his cap and mopped his forehead.

  'Seems kind of airless, doesn't it?' he said.

  'Yes,' I said.

  The pleasure boat with the camera people went chugging off towards Kerrith.

  "They've got fed up,' said the coastguard.

  'I don't blame them,' said Frank. 'I don't suppose anything will happen for hours. The diver will have to make his report before they try to shift her.'

  'That's right,' said the coastguard.

  'I don't think there's much sense in hanging about here,' said Frank;

  'we can't do anything. I want my lunch.'

  I did not say anything. He hesitated. I felt his eyes upon me.

  'What are you going to do?' he said.

  'I think I shall stay here a bit,' I said. 'I can have lunch any time.

  It's cold. It doesn't matter. I want to see what the diver's going to do.' Somehow I could not face Frank just at the moment. I wanted to be alone, or with someone I did not know, like the coastguard.

  'You won't see anything,' said Frank; 'there won't be anything to see.

  Why not come back and have some lunch with me?'

  'No,' I said. 'No, really ..."

  'Oh, well,' said Frank, 'you know where to find me if you do want me.

  I shall be at the office all the afternoon.'

  'All right,' I said.

  He nodded to the coastguard and went off down the cliff towards the cove.

  I wondered if I had offended him. I could not help it. All these things would be settled some day, one day. So much seemed to have happened since I spoke to him on the telephone, and I did not want to think about anything any more. I just wanted to sit there on the cliff and stare at the ship.

  'He's a good sort, Mr Crawley,' said the coastguard.

  'Yes,' I said.

  'He'd give his right hand for Mr de Winter too,' he said.

  'Yes, I think he would,' I said.

  The small boy was still hopping around on the grass in front of us.

  'When's the diver coming up again?' he said.

  'Not yet, sonny,' said the coastguard.

  A woman in a pink striped frock and a hairnet came across the grass towards us. 'Charlie? Charlie? Where are you?' she called.

  'Here's your mother coming to give you what-for,' said the coastguard.

  'I've seen the diver, Mum,' shouted the boy.

  The woman nodded to us and smiled. She did not know me. She was a holiday-maker from Kerrith. 'The excitement all seems to be over doesn't it?' she said; 'they are saying down on the cliff there the ship will be there for days.'

  'They're waiting for the diver's report,' said the coastguard.

  'I don't know how they get them to go down under the water like that,'

  said the woman; 'they ought to pay them well.'

  'They do that,' said the coastguard.

  'I want to be a diver, Mum,' said the small boy.

  'You must ask your Daddy, dear,' said the woman, laughing at us. 'It's a lovely spot up here, isn't it?' she said to me. 'We brought a picnic lunch, never thinking it would turn foggy and we'd have a wreck into the bargain. We were just thinking of going back to Kerrith when the rockets went off under our noses, it seemed. I nearly jumped out of my skin. "Why, whatever's that?" I said to my husband. "That's a distress signal," he said; "let's stop and see the fun." There's no dragging him away; he's as bad as my little boy. I don't see anything in it myself.'

  'No, there's not much to see now,' said the coastguard.

  "Those are nice-looking woods over there; I suppose they're private,'

  said the woman.

  The coastguard coughed awkwardly, and glanced at me. 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.