Barbelith Underground > Creation > The Road to Manderley

Chapter Three

Danny took my hand in hers as I navigated the narrow steps to below decks, down into private quarters. I felt like a great tide was sweeping me away from shore and out to the deeper waters, where the currents were whirling and dangerous. I was silent, anxious, feeling vulnerable. Danny was quietly in command, leading me through to a larger space and easing me onto a chesterfield.

I held my head in my hands, shadows of fear swirling round, and heard myself groan. She said, "How can you bear that bossy old buzzard? Would bore the pants of me, with her snobbery and her self-importance. I should have given her a good slap."

I laughed at this image. So often I had pictured myself doing just that. Danny handed me a large glass and said, "Good cognac, will take the edge off, drink."

I obeyed, meekly, and gazed up at her deep, dark eyes as she talked on through my silence, massaging me aurally with her rich brown tones.

"Your employer, the grandiose old fossil, was plain Mary Ann Clarke once, an impoverished and distant cousin of My Lady. She was only a grocer’s daughter but she knew how to hide the salami, so she ran away to Paris and lived off her looks till la vie de Bohème began to sour her peaches and cream complexion. Then she lucked into a doddering old miser called Ambrose Foucault. Filthy personal habits but filthy rich too. He was into discipline and punishment. Bullying came naturally to her, as you may be aware, so she wooed him with her whip until he married her. Big mistake! She was just a bully after all, not a true dominatrix, so they tired of one another fairly fast and, within six months, he was dead. Left her very well set up. Lucky Madame!"

"She does seem to be very good at manipulating everyone around her to get just what she wants," I observed, hesitantly.

"She’s not as clever as she thinks. Monsieur Foucault had a nephew, Philippe, who had expected to come into his inheritance when the old miser withered away. Marianne told the world he had choked on a piece of fruit and stonewalled any further questions. She gave liberal backhanders to all and sundry to prevent any more detail from circulating. The disgruntled nephew wouldn’t be hushed, however, and Philippe told the world his Uncle Ambrose had been found tied to a chair with a bag over his head and a whole orange stuffed into his mouth."

"He thought Madame had murdered Monsieur?" I queried.

Danny nodded. "No fingerprints on orange peel though. He could prove nothing. Foucault’s perverse ways of taking his pleasures were fairly well known. Then the grieving widow went onto the offensive and accused Philippe of paranoia and neglecting the old Uncle to hasten his own inheritance. Philippe began banging on about her poisoning him too and he ended up in an asylum. Died years ago."

"Did she kill her husband?"

"Who knows? And, frankly, nobody would care much after all this time. It’s a very old story now. Bit of local colour back in Poitiers where it all happened, I suppose, but Madame usually manages to manipulate situations to her advantage, in the end."

I laughed, long and hard. I was feeling safe from all harm here, in these comfortable surroundings, Danny taking care of me. It was Heaven.

I began to look on the bright side. "Well, I don’t expect Madame will be very happy with me now. I'm a great disappointment to her, I'm afraid. If she gives me my marching orders, I'm not sure what to do. I'm a long way from home and I don’t know anybody here. Oh well, qué será, será, I suppose. Tomorrow is another day." That last quip can only have been the brandy talking but I did feel my usual worries were somewhere faraway, as long as this exhilirating woman was close by.

"Well, sit there and finish off that Courvoisier and we’ll work on a contingency plan later. And you do know us now. But I have been neglecting my to My Lady and her cocktail party."

She winked at me. I pulled back in shock. She called out, "I'll be back," as she left me to my own devices.

I tried to commit the details of my luxurious surroundings to memory, to savour when I returned to the real world and was struggling to keep the wolf from the door. There were several large, beautifully framed photographs on the bureau behind me. I peered into them. Rebecca was in all of them, Danny in none. Rebecca with Sandra Bernhard at Madonna’s wedding. Rebecca with Diana and Dodi, on another yacht. Rebecca dressed as a pirate, complete with stuffed parrot, outshone by Elton John at his 50th birthday party. More and more Rebecca but no Danny.

I examined two paintings on the wall of some great, rambling country house, presumably Manderley. It was very lovely, and very, very large. There it was again on the cover of a coffee table book. I snatched it up and leafed through but had trouble concentrating on the text. Too much of the killer cognac.

I spied several dog eared copies of Diva, a Horse and Hound and a Forbes. I picked up an exquisite old leather bound volume and read along the spine: an Almanach de Gotha. Well beyond my ken.

I needed to pee. With a little difficulty, I manoeuvred myself out into the corridor and found a toilet. It was disappointingly bare and functional. Presumably Her Ladyship had an en suite for her use, somewhere. Bladder happy again, I went investigating further.

Aha: the Master Bedroom! This must have cost a few shekels. Now I knew where the lost "Amber Room" of the King of Prussia and the Tsars of Russia had ended up, bits of it anyway.

Better behave myself, I thought, and made my way back to the safety of the chesterfield. Too slow! There was Danny again, looking severe.

"Had to pee," I said, swaying a little.

"Since you’re making yourself at home, I think you should stay the night and we’ll sort you out in the morning. Come with me."

I followed her, passively, down the corridor again. I had left the door ajar to Rebecca’s boudoir and I saw that Danny saw. "This is my room but there is space for a guest", she said, unsmiling.

I felt a violent lurch in my chest, on hearing those words, and stopped at the door. She was turning back the top sheet of a bottom bunk bed. "Better have my blanket too", she said, stretching up and removing a rather military looking sheet from her top bunk.

Silence. I looked, no doubt longingly, at her. She looked grimly at me. Then she smiled, just a hint of one, and said, "Well, I'll leave you to it. I'm sure you’ll manage, despite the cognac. There are pyjamas in that closet."

And she was gone. I sat on the bed and listened for a short while to the noises from the deck. The party was still in full swing. She would be kept busy for some time yet. I rose and opened the closet. Sensible clothes, mostly suits, no frocks for Danny. Some very ordinary looking knickers folded neatly in the drawer at the bottom, all boiled immaculately white. What was this? Handcuffs, chains, leather belts with D-rings? A secret travelling armoury of SM accoutrements. Bad girls’ toys…

But the cognac was telling. Must have been good stuff and a very full measure. Maybe I could just lie back here on the bed and rest my eyes for a moment…

It was morning. All was quiet from above. I was wearing only my underwear now and had been tucked into this tight little bed. Had she come back and undressed me? Must have. I flushed and felt a fierce heat in my cheeks. Then I lay back on the rough blanket and masturbated to a rhapsodic orgasm, dwelling on Danny removing my clothes and easing me into bed with such care that I remembered nothing of it.

Once again I felt embarrassed to leave my bedding and the evidence of my solitary pleasure there, but this moment in the sun was not going to last forever so I needed to get out there and milk it for all it was worth. Every minute with Danny would be precious in retrospect. And so many strange things had happened in the last couple of days that I could, with reason, expect that more strange turns of fate might lie ahead for me.

I should dress. I did a brave and shaming thing. I took a clean pair of Danny’s knickers from the drawer and drew them on, taking just a moment to savour the sensation, the transgression, and then pulled on my boring, beige Lady’s Companion outfit. I turned to wind my way through the tight corridor and stopped, on impulse, to run my hands over the used sheets on the top bunk. I found a moist patch half way down. Jubilant, I bounced out into the corridor.

I found them on deck, Danny leafing through Figaro and Rebecca, perfect still, even without her maquillage. It was fresh and a sea wind threatened. Danny was having some trouble controlling the pages of her broadsheet in the mild breeze.

"Good morning, ma fille," said Rebecca. Danny looked, for a moment, nonplussed and just gave a little cough.

Oh, I wanted her so much! "Mrs de Winter, Mrs Danvers, thank you both, very very much for your kindness last night. I'm so sorry for my feebleness. I should really go and face down the Gorgon now, curry favour with my boss."

Rebecca was still in gracious hostess mode, as perhaps she always was, "Pshaw! Sit down and breakfast with us, little one. We have food sent over from the Café aux Quat’ Saisons on the quayside every morning. We do have a little galley on board but God knows how all the machines work. Monsieur Blanc does a yummy take-away petit déjeuner."

I took the empty chair and a portion of scrambled eggs. Danny was being very quiet, almost sullen. She had undressed me last night. What had she thought as she exposed my flesh to her gaze? Had she looked at my breasts and felt the urge to nuzzle? Were short, fat dykes her thing? Was I of any interest to her at all? It seemed too much to hope for.

"Have some of the toast too, Bébé," ordered Rebecca.

I did as I was told and tried to eat with a social poise foreign to me. The scrambled eggs were delicious and I said so. "I think it’s the white truffle that gives it the smack," said Rebecca. "There’s some lovely salmon there for a garnish. Go on, it’ll put some colour in those pallid cheeks."

Danny, still reading her newspaper intently, scowled slightly. Rebecca, I have to say, was being quite sweet and motherly. This Gilda the Good Witch persona seemed to interlace with the braying Sloan hauteur.

I could see why Danny was drawn to her. She was in a league of her own. Some Fairy Godmother had come to her christening and blown her a kiss, showering her with blessings. She used her beauty and her smile with panache and she had done very well out of both, it would seem. I thought her beauty exceptional but stereotypical. She was half Botticelli, half Bob Mackie, and separated from us ordinary mortals by her long eyelashes, her flawless skin, and the Vogue covers.

"Tea, Darling?" she asked.

"Thank you," I said, "black."

Milady poured. Some iced water first, then she strained the fragrant tea into a near-transparent porcelain cup. She passed the saucer over my way and said, "Well, you must come back to Cornwall with us, Darling. No argument, end of discussion, simple thing to arrange, please say you will. You would love Manderley, Darling. Best place in the world. Unique!" and her huge smile was infectious.

I was smiling too as I said, "Mrs de Winter, I would love to come to Manderley with you. In a moment, I would go. However, I have to pay my way in this world and I need this job. She is an old fossil but she pays for me to travel, in comfort, and I do have some free time to explore the local fleshpots."

"Of course, Darling, you must go to see Marianne and tell her that you wish to terminate your employment. Tell her Mrs de Winter has hired you for six months to catalogue the libraries at Manderley and insists you leave today. She’ll be thinking that, in six months, you would come back with absolute mountains of gossip from Manderley."

Did her evident pleasure stem from her need to be gossiped about or from her desire to thwart Madame Foucault? Either way, I said, "If you are making me a solid offer of a job, Mrs de Winter, then I accept, wholeheartedly and without reservation. Madame does expect me to continue until next Spring though, I have signed a contract."

"Nonsense," said Milady. "I may not fit the stereotype, Darling." She fussed at her peignoir. "However, Manderley is a huge place and a huge business. Of which I am the C.E.O., a hot shit businesswoman. That’s where the funding for all this comes from." Her great silken sleeves gestured around the yacht, "I have dabbled in trade and done very well. So, I can afford to hire you, at reasonable rates, to spend the rest of the year doing a job that needs doing, with all those dusty old books. And Marianne can go to Hell! I have lawyers for tedious people like her. Please say you’ll come. I could use a little distraction at the moment. And another woman on the premises who is immune to his charms will so annoy Maxim."

"Who?"

"Maxim? My husband, Sweetie. Lovely man but limited. Never should have married me. I make his life Hell on Earth, I'm sure, but what’s to be done? He was so besotted and I was at a loose end, somewhat. Filled a gap, you know? And Manderley too, of course. Manderley was his. Legally, she still is his, but I'm the one who loves her. You’ll be so happy there!" She was incandescently happy. I was entirely won over.

"Darling Danny will whip you back to the Ritz in no time at all, pack up your things, bring you back safe and sound to us. Quick jaunt to the little airport and Maxim is flying us home in his little aeroplane. He’s so keen on little boys’ things like that, engines and whatnot. Handy for coming into Manderley though, it is a bit remote otherwise. Danny, did you hear? Off you go, Darlings, I have some serious sunbathing to do. Gianni always told me that the early morning rays are the best ones for your skin."

Danny stood and picked up the car keys from the table. She summoned me to follow and I plodded after her like a faithful puppy. My chauffeuse delivered me to the Ritz very promptly and came round to the passenger side to open my door for me. I felt like a film star. “Come,” she said, “and let me do all the talking.”

Madame bleated and whinnied and screwed up her face. “But she is needed here. I rely on the girl.” She started to stamp her feet and ball her fists. “She has contracted her services for a full year. I shall sue. Unpack your things this minute, Girl, and we’ll say no more about it.” Her inability to understand that Danny was a force of nature and would not be stopped was quite entertaining for me. My meagre belongings were now all safely packed and ready.

Danny spoke little but what she did say was authoritative and allowed for no dissent. She handed my former employer a business card and said, “Save your petulance, Madame. These lawyers will be happy to tie you up in court and siphon off funds from your savings all the while. The “Girl” will come with me, right now, and that will be an end to it.”

And I went, almost demented with glee, leaving Madame honking mournfully like a seal in her room. I had little to take with me and Danny carried it to the car. We drove to the boat and then to the airport. I exchanged few words with the pilot but Rebecca chattered amusingly on as we flew over the French countryside and La Manche. The chihuahua bark had mellowed into a husky, Dietrich croak. It was really quite sexy and entirely singular.

As we circled to land, both Rebecca and Danny started pointing and describing the glories of Manderley, which I was supposed to be able to spot from this height and at this distance. I could perhaps see a stone building in the middle of a great forest, far off, but I wasn’t sure. I smiled and nodded enthusiastically, nervertheless.

It was a 10 minute drive from the airfield to the Big House. Maxim sped off in his own little macho motor. Danny drove Rebecca and me, in the plush old Hispano-Suiza, along the curling drive, beneath the ancient canopy of chestnut, sycamore and oak. I hummed to myself, “On the Road to Mandalay…” and felt like a small child being taken on a picnic. Then we drew up in the impressive courtyard before the most magnificent and palatial building I had ever seen. An intimidated little voice in my head whispered, “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore…”

What an adventure! It was giddying but it was glorious. I looked at the tall, strong back of Mrs Danvers as she swept up the steps ahead of us and realised I was committed to this, however it would work out. I had to trust in this overwhelming feeling because it was so much bigger than anything else I had experienced. It was story book stuff and I deserved a shot at a grand romance.

I climbed after her and passed, for the first time, through the old oaken door of Manderley, a lamb to the slaughter.

Chapter Five

In bed that night, I dreamt of the Mermaid of Zennor. I saw the bleak and windswept slopes of the Penwith Peninsula, as described in my book. It was a strange, mystical, enchanted place of great towering granite crags and weird boulder formations.

I came into the little village of Zennor, which nestled among gorse and granite, just outside of St Ives, and I saw the hedge that the men of the village had built to trap the first cuckoo of spring one year, in an effort to maintain eternal springtime there forever. In my dream, I stopped to shiver at Witches’ Rock where local practitioners of the Black Arts were said to foregather on Midsummer's Eve.

And then there was I, giving full rein to an unexpectedly glorious singing voice in the choir stall of the village church, just as Matthew Trewhella, the hero of the legend, had done. My fabulous, soaring contralto faltered for a moment as I glanced at a beautiful woman in a long black dress who came to sit in a back pew to hear my legendary descants. The woman was tall, and willowy, with cheekbones of supernatural perfection. I inhaled her with my eyes as I sang out like an angel, suddenly ablaze with lust.

When the congregation milled out into the old churchyard, I snuck out after this vision in the long dress, ignoring the claps on the back and congratulations of the Zennor musophiles, and followed the woman in black. She stopped several times and looked over her shoulder but remained just ahead of my urgent gait, until we came to the stream that runs through the village and down to Pendower Cove. The rhythm of my dreaming sped up as I saw myself draw near this mysterious and haunting figure and, of course, it had been Danny all along.

She lay back in the breaking waves of the shore and pulled up her long black dress to mid-thigh. Her mermaid’s tail was gleaming and bucking like a figment of a Madonna video. I reached out to stroke the strong, sleek, moist appendage and she clasped me to her. I felt the waves break over my skin and heard the roar of the surf as we became entwined. I lost myself in her long, passionate, mesmerising embrace as we slid together below the waves and swam ecstatically away, to the land of Lyonesse.

Then I found myself appraising the image of the mermaid of Zennor, carved on a bench in the church of St Senara. Danny’s severe hair was flowing free in the sea swell and she held a mirror in one hand and a comb in the other. Resounding inside my sleeping head was the muffled peal of submarine bells…

…And awoke to the sound of my alarm ringing by my bedside. I leapt enthusiastically out of bed and ran to the shower, where I sang random happy tunes as I prepared myself for the coming day’s adventure.

I came through from the little en suite to find breakfast sitting on the table at the end of the bed but I was far too excited to eat. I forced myself, dutifully, to put in an hour in the library and then ran up to my room to collect my packed bag. I slung it jauntily over one shoulder and made for the main door, whistling.

I hurried down several creaky staircases and along the layrinthine oak-panelled corridors of the sun-filled East Wing until I was at the top of the grand staircase leading down to the main door. There, I stopped for a moment and took three deep, purging breaths to regain some control of autonomic functions and still my jackhammering heart.

And there she was, that gorgeous and perfectly female form filling out those familiar tennis shorts, caught up in calming one highly excited Master de Winter and checking that Higgs, the second footman, had everything necessary loaded up and ready for departure.

One, two, three, I was sweeping down the marbled stairs, trembling with anticipation as I stepped into my destiny. I was a short and seductive, fat and fabulous dyke who was planning, today, to take Danny’s breath away and capture her heart, as she had mine!

There was a sudden flurry of grating noise, the chihuahua’s bark I knew so well, and there was Rebecca too, just below me. “Where are you going, Darling Danny?” she yelped, plaintively.

Danny turned to her, holding Mark’s trusting little hand, and said, “Young Master Mark and I are taking a picnic to the beach, My Lady. We may be gone all day. It looks to be a fine day for it, according to the forecast.” Mark clung to Danny and stared at the floor, not acknowledging his mother at all.

Rebecca, similarly ignoring her son, snorted and rejoined, “Well, I might have wanted your assistance today, Danny, what with chère Cholister about to arrive and the fancy dress ball to organise…”

Danny brindled and the smile failed, “My Lady, this was agreed on Monday. The boy has been looking forward to it very much. I will be happy to work with you all day tomorrow on the preparations for entertaining La Comtesse. We have time enough, I'm sure. I will have the mobile phone with me, should an emergency arise.”

I was intrigued to see how Danny so effortlessly took command of Rebecca and dismissed her whimpers. Perhaps there had always been this unexpected dimension to their relationship. Perhaps this was a new development, such a froideur grown between them.

“Oh well then, I suppose, if you must, Mrs Danvers…” conceded the cowed Mistress of Manderley and she hung her head, sulkily, for a moment. Mrs Danvers! Miaow! Much more of this and it would be an Alexis and Krystle catfight in the entrance hall!

“And I shall be taking the girl with me,” declared Danny, as I crept up beside her. “She has been beavering away since she arrived here, shut up every day in that dusty library. She needs some fresh air.”

Rebecca looked furious and her face paled to an ashen tint. She said nothing but turned on her Manolo Blahniks and swept up the staircase without a further word or a backward glance.

Danny winked at me and we marched out to the waiting car. Little Mark began to sing, his happiness bubbling up and out of him, and I joined in merrily before I became aware that his choice of tune was unfortunate. “Ding dong, the witch is dead…”

Another wink from Danny, “Sssh, both of you!” She took her mobile phone from her pocket and switched it off. “There won’t be any emergencies today then…” She gave me a conspiratorial smile that made me blush.

And then we were off on our adventure. I felt giddy. This thing between Danny and Milady Rebecca was obviously very different from what I had imagined heretofore. I was being swept away through all this beautiful country to spend the whole day in the company of this compelling woman. We would laze together in the sun, exchange who knows what confidences, commune with nature without workaday interruptions… Sheer delight infused me.

En route to Fowey, I tried to put my journalist’s skills to work and interrogate Danny for more personal data but she wasn’t giving. Instead, she plumbed me for all the details I would share of my past life. It felt comfortable to open up and share. She never criticised, either explicitly or implicitly, and I felt buoyed up by her apparent interest in me and what seemed like approval of my strongly expressed opinions about my experience of life up till then.

She had begun to tell me more local history, continually relating it back to the de Winter dynasty’s tenure at Manderley, when we arrived in the ancient town of Fowey and parked.

We wandered through Fowey’s narrow streets, clinging to the hill side, and I was pleased by the bustle of the place after my near solitary confinement in the library. Danny explained that it was still a working deep water port, full of character and even fuller of tourists. She seemed to be a mine of information on all things Cornish, past and present. It was easy to be infected by her enthusiasm for this splendid place.

She gave us a choice, Mark and me, of the local places of interest: fine old St Fimbarrus Church; Bull Hill with its granite steps to climb; the Secret Gardens of the old Boys’ Grammar School, alive with roses; and St Catherine’s Castle, overlooking the Harbour Entrance, built by Henry VIII. The list was endless and included the biodomes of the Eden Project, just four miles away at St Austell. We agreed that would be best left for another whole day and I did the gracious thing and let Mark choose.

Bursting with energy, he opted for the long walk west through the town to St Catherine's Point and the Castle Ruins, overlooking the entrance to the Harbour, stopping to admire the local lifeboat en route. It was a brisk and exhilirating walk and we continued to talk throughout, just beginning to touch on some of Danny’s personal story as we came back to the town.

Mark was beginning to be a little stroppy but Danny was all ease with him. “Boy’s getting tired, that’s all. We’ll take the ferry to Polruan now and that will distract him. When we get to the beach we’ll eat and that’ll sort him out.” In the meantime, a packet of crisps came out of her backpack and Mark munched contentedly until we were on the foot ferry trip across the River.

Polruan was less tourist-filled than Fowey, but just as full of character and old style charm. Its narrow streets clung similarly to the hill side, leading down to the waterfront and the quay. Danny told me it had been a boat building centre for hundreds of years and Tom’s Boatyard still built wooden hulled boats and large metal fishing boats too. She told me her father and grandfather had both worked there and I began to realise it was not accident nor its picturesque tourist qualities which had caused her to bring me to her birthplace.

As we explored the Block house defending the Polruan side of the Harbour Entrance, she told me about both father and grandfather, speaking with enormous affection of both. She reminisced about her grandfather talking to her in Cornish but admitted it was part of her heritage that was now lost to her.

The sea was still in her blood though and the love of boats. It had been one of the things that had attracted her to working for old Wystan de Winter, Max’s father, when she was a girl. I wondered that her maternal forebears didn’t seem to figure in her account but thought it wise not to raise the issue, yet.

We stopped to let Mark marvel at two old tug boats at anchor and then headed along the estuary to Carne Beach. She told me about taking care of her father, until he died, and then going off to train as a nurse in London. She hadn’t been too happy, then, in the metropolis and longed to come back to Cornwall, so she answered an advertisement in The Lady for a live-in nurse for old Mr de Winter.

It had been a good life, looking after the old buffer in his declining years, particularly since he had spent most of them on the boat at Biarritz or Monte Carlo. She seemed to have been genuinely fond of him and it was clear Max was a disappointingly pale copy of this eccentric old man.

Squire Wystan had left her a tidy sum in his will and she thought that had been the beginning of bad blood between her and parsimonious Max, who had never got on with his father. But, by then, he had married Rebecca and the young bride, to whom he could deny nothing, had taken to Danny immediately she had come to Manderley, so she had stayed on.

We unpacked our picnic when we reached the cove and she identified a range of suitable munchies just for me. She told me she was in charge of ordering in the victuals at Manderley, when she was there, and had Monsieur Ponton, the chef, well trained in my dietary needs. No wonder I had been eating so well since coming there.

Mark was soon full up and had jelly and icecream plastered all over his face and clothes. He was off scampering contentedly in the surf, leaving me to crunch a startlingly sour Granny Smith and continue absorbing details of Danny’s past. I needed only to prod occasionally at the open door and out came her whole history.

She told me about her first love affair, with a Staff Nurse at Guy’s, in London. She reminisced about being part of the London lesbian “underworld” of the 70’s. Things had been very different then. Then she fell head over heels for Rebecca, who led her a very merry dance and did not succumb to her charms until, after Mark’s birth and neonatal illnesses, she had needed to be coaxed back to life. This task had apparently been far beyond her husband whom Danny described as “The triumph of style over substance”. I thought, privately, that the same might be said of Rebecca but wisely refrained from making this observation.

Her own mind was perhaps drifting that way, however, and she mused, “There was a time when it was enough for me to sit at My Lady’s side and worship her. Happiness in slavery… She seemed so perfect and yet so forlorn. Many have compared her to the late Princess of Wales and I have to say I can see it. I have come to see her now as even more of what the French call a monstre sacré.”

She sighed and fell silent. I wondered whether expressing this disloyalty to Milady was causing her some sadness, perhaps even pain. Her brow furrowed and she turned to me, with an emergent smile, and shocked me with the words, “But since I first saw you, that day in the Ritz, I have begun to see more and more that I will never be engaged with My Lady in a relationship of equals and will always be in thrall to her superficial charms. I think it is a fantasy which I have worked very hard to sustain for nearly two decades and now, suddenly, I am becoming disenchanted with it.”

I gasped at this declaration. Immediately her attention was taken by Mark, squeaking loudly over by a rock pool, and she had risen and sped off to see to him. I was left, burning with the need to hear more encouragement from her and the ache, growing ever stronger within me, to reach out and touch her, as I had done her mermaid incarnation in my dream last night.

She had drawn back from her “come on” when she returned. “He’s fine, just alarmed by a crab. We will need to move soon before the tide’s much further in and cross the river. Have you enjoyed yourself so far? I had hoped to squeeze in a trip round the Lost Gardens of Heligan on the way home. They’re well worth seeing and just a little way off.”

“Danny,” I said, bravely, using her nickname for the first time, “I’ve enjoyed it all more than I can say.” I hesitated to go further, given her own reticence.

“Excellent! Mark is no bother and amply repays your attention with his warmth and innocent sweetness, you’ll find. And the coastal towns are magnificent, particularly Polruan, but I'm obviously biased.”

I just blurted it out, “And you are magnificent, Danny. It is being with you, talking to you, having you near me, which has made this day so wonderful for me. I have dreamed of having you to myself ever since that day in Biarritz when I first saw you at the foot of those stairs in your tennis shorts. I was not running away from anything when I came to Manderley, I was running towards the possibility of developing some sort of relationship with you, however unlikely it seemed in prospect.”

I was astonished at my own frankness and wondered if I’d blown it by being so direct. We gazed at each other in silence and time seemed to stand still. Then she kissed me. She kissed me! She kissed me like I’d never been kissed before and I never wanted it to stop. Oh, how I loved her!

We spoke little, and that only about trivialities, as we made back for the ferry. She held Mark’s hand in her left and mine in her right. The sun seemed brighter and the landscape yet more breathtaking than before. She whispered in my ear, “I shall come to your room tonight…” and everything thereafter was a blur.

We crossed the river, we climbed into the car, we visited Heligan on the way home, we drew up at Manderley and went our separate ways, and none of it registered. Her promise, those seven unforgettable words, repeated ad infinitum in my head until I was back in my room, crashed out on my bed, counting the minutes until the sun set and the house settled down for the night. “I shall come to your room tonight…”

My dinner was brought up and I ate very little. I asked Higgs if I might have a beer too. Within five minutes, he was back at my door, bearing a bottle of Dos Equis in a bucket of ice.

I gulped down the cerveza thirstily and then I drifted off into a febrile dream in which the Mermaid of Zennor and I swam to the beach at Polruan and lay in the surf, where we did things with each other’s bodies that only a creature of myth would think up.

I was blushing and flushed when I woke up. I checked the clock. Time for a shower and a change of clothes and then I would tidy up my things, and then… Oh, then… “I shall come to your room tonight…”