the stranded ship
The stranded ship is a German or Dutch steamer that runs aground on the reef in the bay near Manderley during a dense fog on the morning after the fancy dress ball. Its appearance is the immediate catalyst for the discovery of Rebecca's sunken sailing boat and the body inside its cabin, an event that shatters the official story of her death and forces Maxim de Winter to confess his crime to the second Mrs de Winter.
Appearance and Grounding
The ship first appears as a vague shape in the fog that has rolled in from the sea, a white wall of mist that has blotted out the sky and the light of day. The second Mrs de Winter, standing at the edge of the woods, hears the sudden explosion of distress rockets that shatter the silence and shake the window of Rebecca's bedroom where she stands with Mrs Danvers. The ship has mistaken the bay for Kerrith harbour and run hard onto a reef. Maxim, who has been watching from the headland, reports to Frith that she is "ashore all right" and that the tides will never shift her; she is "like a wall out there, in the bay." The ship lies about two miles offshore, her bows pointed towards the cliffs, her stern tilted at an awkward angle. The lifeboat stands off, and a crowd of holiday-makers from Kerrith soon gathers on the cliffs, some scrambling down the cliff face for a closer view. The harbour-master from Kerrith, Captain Searle, and the Lloyd's agent arrive in a grey motor boat, while a pleasure boat circles the stranded steamer, a woman standing up to take a snapshot. The crew lean over the side, throwing scraps to the gulls.
The Diver's Discovery
A diver is sent down to inspect the ship's bottom. While working around the hull, he stumbles upon the wreck of a small sailing boat lying on her side on the sandy seabed, quite intact and not broken up at all. He recognises it immediately as the boat belonging to the late Mrs de Winter. The cabin door is tightly closed, the portlights are shut. He breaks one of the ports with a stone and looks inside. The cabin is full of water, and lying on the cabin floor is a body, dissolved of flesh but with the head and limbs still visible. The diver reports his discovery directly to Captain Searle, who then drives to Manderley to break the news to Maxim. The second Mrs de Winter, who has been sitting on the cliffs watching the stranded ship all afternoon, is called in to receive the harbour-master. She learns that the diver has found a body in the cabin of Rebecca's boat. She does not yet know that the body is Rebecca's.
Consequences and Aftermath
The discovery of the boat and the body transforms the inquest into Rebecca's death. The boat-builder James Tabb, who had converted the boat for Rebecca, examines the wreck when it is raised and finds that three holes have been driven through her planking with a spike and that the seacocks have been turned full on. He testifies that the boat was deliberately scuttled, not capsized by accident. This evidence forces the Coroner to abandon the accident theory and leads to a verdict of suicide, a verdict that Jack Favell immediately challenges, accusing Maxim of murder. The stranded ship thus sets in motion the chain of events that culminates in Maxim's confession to the second Mrs de Winter that he killed Rebecca, and in the subsequent journey to consult Doctor Baker, which finally reveals the truth about Rebecca's terminal illness and provides the motive for her death. The ship itself remains on the reef, a broken hulk that the coastguard predicts will be broken up by the sea, a physical monument to the moment the past was forcibly resurrected.
