Du Maurier, Daphne Read Free

Patience she remembered.
    A cold, empty letter, giving no word of comfort, and admitting nothing, except that her niece must not ask for money. Aunt Patience, with her silk petticoat and delicate ways, the wife of an innkeeper! Mary decided that this was something her mother had not known. The letter was very different from the one penned by a happy bride ten years ago.
    However, Mary had promised, and there was no returning on her word. Her home was sold; there was no place for her here. Whatever her welcome should be, her aunt was her own mother’s sister, and that was the one thing to remember. The old life lay behind—the dear familiar farm and the shining Helford waters. Before her lay the future—and Jamaica Inn.
    And so it was that Mary Yellan found herself northward bound from Helston in the creaking, swaying coach, through Truro town, at the head of the Fal, with its many roofs and spires, its broad cobbled streets, the blue sky overhead still speaking of the south, the people at the doors smiling, and waving as the coach rattled past. But when Truro lay behind in the valley, the sky came overcast, and the country on either side of the highroad grew rough and untilled. Villages were scattered now, and there were few smiling faces at the cottage doors. Trees were sparse; hedges there were none. Then the wind blew, and the rain came with the wind. And so the coach rumbled into Bodmin, grey and forbidding like the hills that cradled it, and one by one the passengers gathered up their things in preparation for departure—all save Mary, who sat still in her corner. The driver, his face a stream of rain, looked in at the window.
    “Are you going on to Launceston?” he said. “It’ll be a wild drive tonight across the moors. You can stay in Bodmin, you know, and go on by coach in the morning. There’ll be none in this coach going on but you.”
    “My friends will be expecting me,” said Mary. “I’m not afraid of the drive. And I don’t want to go as far as Launceston; will you please put me down at Jamaica Inn?”
    The man looked at her curiously. “Jamaica Inn?” he said. “What would you be doing at Jamaica Inn? That’s no place for a girl. You must have made a mistake, surely.” He stared at her hard, not believing her.
    “Oh, I’ve heard it’s lonely enough,” said Mary, “but I don’t belong to a town anyway. It’s quiet on Helford River, winter and summer, where I come from, and I never felt lonely there.”
    “I never said nothing about loneliness,” answered the man. “Maybe you don’t understand, being a stranger up here. It’s not the twenty-odd mile of moor I’m thinking of, though that’d scare most women. Here, wait a minute.” He called over his shoulder to a woman who stood in the doorway of the Royal, lighting the lamp above the porch, for it was already dusk.
    “Missus,” he said, “come here an’ reason with this young girl. I was told she was for Launceston, but she’s asked me to put her down at Jamaica.”
    The woman came down the steps and peered into the coach.
    “It’s a wild, rough place up there,” she said, “and if it’s work you are looking for, you won’t find it on the farms. They don’t like strangers on the moors. You’d do better down here in Bodmin.”
    Mary smiled at her. “I shall be all right,” she said. “I’m going to relatives. My uncle is landlord of Jamaica Inn.”
    There was a long silence. In the grey light of the coach Mary could see that the woman and the man were staring at her. She felt chilled suddenly, anxious; she wanted some word of reassurance from the woman, but it did not come. Then the woman drew back from the window. “I’m sorry,” she said slowly. “It’s none of my business, of course. Good night.”
    The driver began to whistle, rather red in the face, as one who wishes to rid himself of an awkward situation. Mary leant forward impulsively and touched his arm. “Would you tell me?” she said. “I