Rebecca's Tale (27 page)

I suggested we park ourselves as far as possible from the pianist. Favell had just committed several cardinal sins: I can’t stand being
called “Scotch,” a word that ought to be confined to the drink; I can’t stand southerners who put ice in ordinary blended whisky, let alone a single malt; adding soda to mispronounced Glenmorangie didn’t improve things. Favell’s wallet, I noticed, had been flashed briefly and repocketed swiftly. It didn’t surprise me, in what turned out to be the course of a long evening, that this was the wallet’s one and only sighting.

We sat down in a far corner of the room, Favell selecting the chair opposite a looking glass. He smoothed back his hair, fingered his signet ring, downed half his drink in a single swallow, and looked at me narrowly. I noticed the slight tremor in his hands, and wondered whether it was a symptom of drink or nervousness: both, I decided. He was certainly ill at ease, and was probably one of those men who manifest that state by belligerence. As an opening tactic—and I wasn’t to understand why until much later that evening—he pressed me hard on the contacts I’d made with him.

Had I sent him just the one letter? I explained I’d sent two, and had written to his place of work only when I received no reply from the mansion flat address. For some reason, this seemed to put his mind at rest. In an evasive way, he said he wasn’t living at the flat any more; he didn’t volunteer any information as to where he was now living, and I didn’t press him. After a couple more swallows of whisky, which seemed to steady him, he drew out a heavy crested silver case, lit a cigarette, blew smoke in my face, and, watching me closely, came to the point: “So, canter this past me again,” he said. “What’s your angle exactly?”

I’d prepared for this. From the first, I’d felt sure that Terence Gray, earnest young librarian, was unlikely to cut any ice with Favell, useful though he’s been to me in Kerrith. So I’d killed off that Mr. Gray, and invented a new one, with a journalistic background, and an interest in crime stories—especially ones involving a possible miscarriage of justice, or unsolved murder. I was pretty sure Favell had talked—circumspectly—to journalists before. I now dangled the possibility of newspaper features, maybe even a book, another account of the “Manderley Mystery.” This story had all the right elements, I suggested: a beautiful woman; a famous house; a jealous husband; a mysterious death; rumors of scandal and love affairs…

“Only one problem,” I said. “Enough has been written about this,
God knows, but as far as Rebecca’s concerned, there’s a marked shortage of material.”

Favell had been listening closely. A glint came into his pale blue eyes. “Might be a bit of money in it, then?” he said. “Something in it for you, old boy?”

“Possibly,” I said. “But that’s a long way down the road yet. What I need is
background
. I need new material. I’ve checked out the de Winters—fine. But Rebecca? There’s very little information. I need to know who she was, where she came from, how she came to marry de Winter—what she was
like
. That’s where you could help. You knew her as a child, I hear. And I’ve been told you remained close, that you were one of the few people who understood her.”

Favell’s pale eyes rested on my face. He was indeed by no means stupid, I thought; I’d have to be careful not to overdo the flattery. He was still in the process of assessing me; I saw his gaze take in my suit, my shirt, and my cufflinks. I could sense the cogs of his mind turning over. His glass was already empty.

“Of course, there is Mrs. Danvers,” he said in a meditative way, his gaze never leaving my face. “The housekeeper at Manderley. She was close to Rebecca from her childhood onward. You know about Danny? Hear anything about her when you were sniffing around in Kerrith?”

“I haven’t tracked her down yet. In any case, I wanted to talk to you first. She may be able to help, but she must be old now, and she’s a woman. I’d rather hear a man’s view—especially if the man concerned was close to Rebecca.”

“You could be right there. And I was closer than most. An intimate, you could say.” Favell winked and then laughed. “Cigarette, old boy?”

“I don’t, I’m afraid. Kicked the habit during the war.”

“Had a good war, did you? What outfit were you in?”

“The RAF. Never made it beyond Flight Lieutenant. Nothing glamorous—pen pushing and square bashing mostly. Let me get you another drink.”

Not a good idea to say I’d spent the war in Military Intelligence, I felt sure. And the RAF seemed safe; Favell, given his age, would have escaped call-up. He was perhaps a man who liked an opportunity to patronize others. This misinformation certainly seemed to incline him in my favor.

“Lowly Flight Lieutenant, eh?” He laughed. “Ah, well, we can’t all be heroes. I wangled a nice little billet—Ministry of Supply. Lots of opportunities there. And then I had a lot of Yank friends. So I could lay my hands on whatever I needed…. I had a good war. Best years of my life, I think sometimes.”

I was making some progress, I thought—and the second drink helped. Favell remained watchful, but he warmed up considerably. I let him talk on about the war years, and at first made no attempt to rein him in. Most interviewees, I’ve discovered, cannot wait to hold forth. They
want
to talk, and love to claim special insight, even when they possess very little. It helps if you can identify, then exploit, an informant’s weakness, his Achilles’ heel. Sometimes it’s vanity or a taste for self-justification, sometimes it’s simply garrulity. What was Favell’s? As he talked on, I was watching for an opening.

Favell was a heavy drinker, that was obvious just looking at him—and I was beginning to wonder if he’d been drinking before I met him that evening. I could see he was vain, and he did respond to flattery. But I needed something more, and I finally saw it. It was when I recognized the light of long-buried grievances in his pale eyes that I knew I had my opening. I bought him another whisky—a single. I didn’t want him too drunk, and I didn’t want him too sober.

I asked him about Rebecca’s death and the “cover-up” afterwards. That led to ten minutes of accusations against Max de Winter (as Favell called him) and “that old snob” Colonel Julyan, who had hushed things up for his friend. I had the impression these accusations had been Favell’s party piece for years.

“Max killed her,” Favell said. “I don’t give a damn about that doctor’s evidence. I still don’t believe it was suicide, and I never bloody well will. All right, Rebecca was ill, she was dying, and that’s why she wanted to see me that night, of course. She must have been going to tell me about her illness….” He hesitated, and his manner became evasive. “I never went to Manderley as she asked, you see. Got her note too late. I was out at a party, on the razzle, didn’t get back till four in the morning. And it was damn lucky I
didn’t
go, as I realized afterward. If Max had found us together, he’d probably have killed me, too. He was being eaten alive by jealousy—he wasn’t sane when it came to Rebecca.”

Favell then changed the subject, which surprised me. He moved
rapidly on to other examples of prejudice against him. Not only did Favell nurse grievances, I discovered, but they went way back—to his father; his teachers at the boarding school he attended in Kenya; his instructors at Dartmouth Naval College; the officers on the ship where he served as a midshipman; the officers superior to him on every other ship he’d ever served on; the officer in charge of the court-martial that led to his leaving the Royal Navy; the so-called friends who’d refused to help him when he was back on civvy street; and the numerous friends who had let him down since. There was no reference to his prison sentence, but then I didn’t expect there to be. And there was no sign that his cousin Rebecca was exempt from these charges of neglect and indifference.

I listened very carefully. And I noticed something interesting: the reference to Kenya, of course, but beyond that the striking consistency of his complaints. Favell had a mountainous chip on his shoulder, and the only person in this saga that he
did
exclude from his charges of persecution, snobbery, and neglect was his mother. She had been a “saint”; she had scrimped and saved to pay his school fees in Africa; she’d gone without to raise the money for his passage to England when he was seventeen; she’d had a “miserable” life, with a spendthrift snobbish husband, who looked down on her and abused her both verbally and physically throughout Favell’s childhood. All her love and hope and expectation had been lavished on her son—and that son now felt he had failed her.

“I never made it up to her,” Favell said, and his eyes watered. “I left Kenya early in 1915, and I never saw her again. I used to write—not as often as I should have done, but I’m not much of a letter writer. I tried to hide it from her, how much I loathed the Navy, that bloody farce of a court-martial—but she found out. Some so-called friend wrote and told her. If I’d gone back to Kenya then, I could have explained, I could always talk her round. But I hung about in the Far East. You could live well there for next to nothing in those days. So I wasn’t with her when she died: 1928. Worst year of my life. That’s when I cut my losses and came back to England—which wasn’t the smartest move I’ve ever made, I can tell you. And that’s when I remet Rebecca.”

Drawing on another cigarette, he began to explain what had happened when he returned to England. What did he discover? Why,
the little cousin that he hadn’t set eyes on or heard from in years was mistress of Manderley, and was married to the very rich Max de Winter.

“Well, when I found that out I cheered up, old boy, I can tell you,” he said. “I made a few inquiries. Rebecca and I had lost touch; it must have been a good ten years since I last saw her, and I hadn’t written for seven at least—not one of nature’s correspondents, as I told you. But Rebecca was always damn fond of me. We’d been very close for a couple of years when we were young, and, not to put too fine a point on it, when I found I was a bit short of the readies, I thought she’d be sure to come through. Had my eye on a nice little flat in Cadogan Square; so I spruced myself up, and hightailed it down to Manders. Didn’t get the warmest of welcomes, old boy. Met the husband—a cold fish if ever there was one. Met Rebecca—and there was quite a change there, I can tell you. But would she help cousin Jack? No. Couldn’t put me up because the house was full for the weekend. Couldn’t help out on the financial front. Said she didn’t have any money of her own—said it to my face, when just one of her rings would have paid for that flat,
with
some change left over.”

He paused, his face clouding, as if he had just remembered some detail that worried him. He stubbed out one cigarette, and lit another. I asked him if anything was wrong.

“No. Just thought of something, that’s all. Not important. Where was I? Ah, yes—trying to get my little cousin to help me through a rough patch. And getting turned down. Not very pleasant. Got told a few home truths, old boy. She had a cutting tongue, Rebecca.”

He hesitated. “Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hold it against her. A couple of months later, when I really
was
in Queer Street, she came through for me—on her terms, of course. She was like that. She bought a car through me; I did a few car deals for friends, even back then. This was a real beauty, a Bentley, went like the wind, and Rebecca paid way over the odds for it. She knew perfectly well she was paying through the nose, you could never put one over on her, but that was her way of helping me out. Maybe she thought it would hurt my pride less, doing it indirectly like that. It’s possible—she could be good like that, Rebecca.”

He paused, then laughed. “On the other hand, she might have thought she was buying me off. She didn’t want me at Manderley,
you see. I’d wangled a few more invitations. Knew some of her London friends, her more
bohemian
friends.” He gave me a small glance. “Gate-crashed a few parties. And that didn’t suit my little cousin at all. No ifs and buts about it—she didn’t want me there.”

“Why do you think that was?” I asked. I could well see why Rebecca might not want this cousin at her smart parties. Favell had a different explanation.

“Knew her too well, old boy,” he said, “Knew her of old, didn’t I? Rebecca couldn’t hide things from me. I’d heard all the stories—love at first sight, how happy they were, the ideal couple, still on their honeymoon after nearly three years of marriage…Well, she couldn’t fool me. I knew within ten minutes of walking into that house she wasn’t happy, and neither was he. I
knew
, as soon as I saw them together—there was something badly wrong. Right at the core.”

He paused, frowning into the middle distance. Again I had the impression that he was scarcely aware of me, that he was locked back in his own memories. After an interval, he seemed to snap back into the present; he gave a shrug.

“Not sure I ever got to the bottom of that, old boy. A little mystery there, I think. But I’ll tell you one thing for free. It was a fake, their marriage. A fake from start to finish. What’s that term the French use? A
marriage blanc
, that’s it. They weren’t sleeping together. No sex—and I’d have laid money on it.”

I didn’t say anything, but I may have raised my eyebrows or given some other indication of disbelief because Favell showed immediate signs of irritation. As I was beginning to learn, he disliked the least hint of contradiction.

“Fine. Don’t believe me, it’s no skin off my nose, old chum. But I’m telling you I’m right. Oh, I don’t doubt he
had
slept with her—and before they were married, knowing Rebecca. I don’t doubt he still
wanted
to sleep with her. I could see that in his face every time he looked at her—it was naked. That man was dying inside, and I wasn’t surprised. That’s the effect Rebecca had on men, and it started way back, when she was still in her teens. She could break your heart with one glance when she was fourteen years old, and didn’t she know it! She was born a tease, she was bloody shameless—lapped up admiration, led you on, and then slapped you down…. I looked at Max,
and it was like looking in the mirror. I knew how it felt to be on the receiving end, you see—”