Rebecca: Chapters 11–15

I would return a call perhaps, for Maxim was punctilious in these matters and would not spare me, and if he did not come with me I must brave the formality alone, and there would be a pause in the conversation while I searched for something to say.

“Nonsense, not really? How extraordinary men are, Maxim, of all people, who was so fastidious. How could he, after Rebecca?”

“You have qualities that are just as important, far more so, in fact. It’s perhaps cheeky of me to say so, I don’t know you very well. I’m a bachelor, I don’t know very much about women, I lead a quiet sort of life down here at Manderley as you know, but I should say that kindliness, and sincerity, and if I may say so — modesty — are worth far more to a man, to a husband, than all the wit and beauty in the world.”

I could not help it if I felt like a guest in Manderley, my home, walking where she had trodden, resting where she had lain. I was like a guest, biding my time, waiting for the return of the hostess, little sentences, little reproofs reminding me every hour, every day.

“The white alabaster vase in the drawing-room was always used for the lilac, Madam.”
"Oh, wouldn’t it be spoilt? It might get broken."
"Mrs. de Winter always used the alabaster vase, Madam.”

I hesitated, the vase in my hands, Frith's face impassive. He would obey me of course if I said I preferred to put the vase on the smaller table by the window.

She accused Robert of either taking the ornament or breaking it and concealing the breakage. Robert denied both accusations most emphatically, and came to me nearly in tears, sir.

“I’m gauche and awkward, I dress badly, I’m shy with people. I warned you in Monte Carlo how it would be. You think I’m not right for Manderley.”

“Remembering Clarice’s mother I should take it as a direct insult. Her cottage is generally a shambles and smells of boiled cabbage. At one time she had nine children under eleven, and she herself used to patter about in that patch of garden with no shoes and a stocking round her head. We nearly gave her notice to quit. Why Clarice looks as neat and clean as she does I can’t imagine.”

That naked eucalyptus tree stifled by brambles looked like the white bleached limb of a skeleton, and there was a black earthy stream running beneath it, choked with the muddied rains of years, trickling silently to the beach below.

“Oh, well,” he said, “we mustn’t lead the bride astray, must we, Jasper? It wouldn’t do at all.”

How white and thin my face looked in the glass, my hair hanging lank and straight. Did I always look like this? Surely I had more colour as a rule? The reflection stared back at me, sallow and plain.

There were evening dresses here, I caught the shimmer of silver over the top of the white bags that enfolded them. There was a piece of gold brocade.

She smiled, and her manner instead of being still and unbending as it usually was became startlingly familiar, fawning even.

“Now you are here, let me show you everything,” she said, her voice ingratiating and sweet as honey, horrible, false.