Mrs De Winter Read Online Free PDF Page A

clock chimed. There were footsteps once or twice across the floor of the room above, a murmur of voices. Then silence. Outside, in the season, there would have been the sound of guests coming in, on warm evenings we would have sat out for a while on the terrace, and the fairy lights that were strung around the lake shore would not have been switched off until midnight, there would have been so many strollers, locals, visitors. It had just enough pleasant life for us, this place, just enough activity and diversion and even a sober sort of gaiety. Looking back, I am astonished at how very little we asked of life then, those years give off such a staid, contented air, like a period of calm between storms.
    We sat for almost an hour but there was no telephone call, so that in the end, because it was clear that they were waiting politely to put out the lights and close, we began to gather ourselves to go upstairs. Maxim finished my drink as well as his own. The mask was back over his face, his eyes were dull as he looked at me occasionally for reassurance.
    We were in our room. It was fairly small but in the summer we were able to open two doors that led out on to a tiny balcony. It overlooked the back of the hotel, the garden not the lake, but we preferred that, we would not have wanted it to be too public.
     
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    We had scarcely closed the door behind us when we heard footsteps, and then the sharp rapping on the door. Maxim turned to me. ‘You go.’
    I opened the door.
    ‘Madam, the telephone again, for Mr de Winter, but I could not make the connection to your room, the line is too bad. Will you please come down?’
    I glanced at Maxim, but he nodded, gesturing me to go, as I had known that he would. ‘I will take it,’ I said, ‘my husband is rather tired.’ And I went quickly, apologising to the manager as I did so, along the corridor and down the stairs.
    It is the detail that one remembers.
    The manager led me to the telephone in his own office, where a lamp shone on to the desk. Otherwise, the hotel was in darkness. Silent. I remember the sound of my own footsteps on the black and white tiles of the lobby floor. I remember a little wooden carving of a dancing bear on the ledge beside the telephone. An ashtray full of small cigar stubs.
    ‘Hello … hello …’
    Silence. Then a faint voice, a lot of crackling, as if the words were alight. Silence again. I spoke frantically into the mouthpiece, trying to be heard, to make contact. And then he was shouting in my ear. ‘Maxim? Maxim, are you there? Is that you?’
    ‘Giles,’ I said. ‘Giles, it’s me …’
    ‘Hello … hello …’
    ‘Maxim is upstairs. He … Giles…’
    ‘Oh.’ His voice receded again, and when it returned
     
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    sounded as if it were coming from beneath the sea, there was an odd, booming echo.
    ‘Giles, can you hear me? Giles, how is Beatrice? We only got your letter this afternoon, it was terribly delayed.’
    There was an odd noise that at first I took to be some new interruption or interference on the line. Then I realised that it was not. It was the sound of Giles crying. I remember that I picked up the little carved wooden bear and began to roll it over and over in the palm of my hand, smoothing it, turning it.
    This morning … early this morning.’ His voice came out in odd gulps, and kept tailing away into tears. Once he paused for several seconds to overcome them, but did not succeed. ‘She was still in the nursing home, we didn’t get her home… she wanted to come home … I was trying to work things out, do you see? I meant her to be at home …’ He sobbed again, and I did not know what to say to him, how to cope with it at all, it made me sorry for him, but embarrassed too, I wanted to drop the receiver, to run away.
    ‘Giles …’
    ‘She is dead. She died this morning. Early this morning. I wasn’t even there. I’d gone home, do you see, I’d no idea… they didn’t tell me.’ He took a deep, deep breath,