Mrs De Winter

by Susan Hill

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said, suddenly angry and close to tears of disappointment and frustration with myself. ‘Whatever do you mean? Come on, I’m very cold.’

  ‘I know you,’ he said, still holding my hands. ‘I know you so well.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me as if I were stupid, as if I were some silly little thing to be indulged and patronised.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I was doing that. I apologise.’

  ‘Maxim …’

  ‘No, you were perfectly right to protest.’

  ‘It’s just …’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Cobbett’s Brake,’ he said then, rather thoughtfully. ‘Strange name. Who was Cobbett, do you suppose?’

  But I did not reply, I did not want to speculate idly about the house, as if it were anywhere we had chanced upon and stared at, like people touring some foreign town in which they are half interested. We were going away, we would not see it again. That was all. It would have been kinder, I thought to God, if we had never been allowed to find it.

  ‘You are quite right about tea,’ he said.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘No, though I confess I should have liked some.’

  ‘I’m sorry, it’s my fault –’

  ‘Is it? Why?’

  ‘We’ve spent so long here. You should have told me – made me leave.’

  ‘I didn’t want to. So now, as there will not be tea, we had better use the time more profitably.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He let go of my hands and started the car. ‘We passed a farm, do you remember? About a quarter of a mile from that crossroads, just before we were apparently lost. It was called Home Farm.’ He turned around expertly in the clearing. ‘I daresay that if we stop at it and ask, they will be able to tell you whatever you want to know about the house.’

  They offered us tea there, strong sweet tea, but out of the best china service, got from the front room, and slices of warm fruit bread and butter. We were very welcome, they said, not many visitors came by, it was quiet here, always quiet. I would like that, I almost said, we are quiet people, we are used to it. Maxim talked to the farmer, about the harvest and about sheep and the dairy herd, about how the trees needed work on them, and there wasn’t the manpower after the war, and rents and the hunt, walking around the farmyard and up towards the fields. He was happy, I thought, this was what he had always liked at Manderley, going around with Frank to the tenants, the farms and the cottages, knowing instinctively how to talk to the people, easily, getting on with them, in a way I had always been too awkward and unsure of my own position to do.

  I stayed with the woman, Mrs Peck, in the kitchen, eating my fruit bread, warming my hands on the teacup, light headed with happiness because it was going to be all right, I knew it. I knew. In the yard the hens pecked about and a toddler went with them, on sturdy feet. We would come here often, I thought, I would bring the children, they would learn about the animals, help to feed the pigs, go out in the fields among the first lambs. They would be our neighbours.

  She poured me more tea, filling the pot from the kettle on the range, and swirling it round and round as she spoke. ‘It got to the war then,’ she said, ‘and things came on that much harder, and then, of course, all the help went, the men had to leave and there was just boys. Then, for a while, they had some prisoners of war over from the camp. Italian men, they were, without a word of English and only one or two of them seemed to want to learn any. I suppose it was the strangeness of it and the shock, being away from their own country. You’d feel adrift.’

  Yes, I thought, oh, yes – you would. You did.

  ‘One of them put up the vine, you might have seen it, tried to make it grow, and grow it did, at the side there, in the lee of the old wall. But still the grapes were only little black bitter things you know …’

  ‘Will they come back – will they try and open up the house again?’

  The clock ticked in the kitchen, great loud ticks in time with the thumps of my heart.

  ‘The old couple –? No, no. I could see they weren’t managing, a long time before they would admit it. There was nothing you could say. They had to realise it themselves. It wasn’t my place.’

  She was sitting opposite to me at the kitchen table, a handsome woman, with a fine halo of pale auburn hair, and a broad featured face. I liked her. I saw myself sitting here, chatting through the afternoon, confiding in her, learning things about the house and the garden and the children – for I would do as much as I could myself, with a local girl and someone to cook, I did not want teams of servants running my house, as they had run Manderley, intimidating, a dreadful hierarchy.

  ‘No, they won’t come back.’

  My heart leaped.

  ‘There’s the son, though, Mr Roderick – when he finishes his commission, I expect he’ll come back home and open the old place up again. He’s a sister, too, but married and with her own place, I doubt if she’d be interested. No, it will be Mr Roderick. He sends us letters now and then, wanting this or that done – and of course, Mr Tarrant, the land agent, he’s in proper charge.’

  From the yard I heard a cry as the toddler tripped on the flags, and she went out to him, soothing, lifting him up, and I saw that Maxim and the man had come back, and were standing chatting beside the gate. The sky was duck’s egg blue, shot across with blackberry and plum and indigo skeins of cloud, the sun dropping quickly down. In the far corner of the yard, the pig was snuffling noisily into her trough. I did not want to leave, I did not want the day to be over. I looked back to where they stood, waving as we drove away, and went on looking long after we had gone too far and they were quite out of sight.

  Ten

  Every morning, during the first weeks of our marriage, I had sat opposite to Maxim at breakfast, and every evening at dinner, in such a heightened, unreal state that I had often had to stare at my own wrist or fingers, or even to make an excuse and go out to find a mirror in some cloakroom, and gaze into my own face, searching for something long familiar to which I could anchor myself. I had not been able to accept it at all, that I was there, in these places, of right, naturally and easily, that Maxim had married me, so that now I was Mrs de Winter. I remember tables beside windows overlooking the lagoon in Venice, tables outside in small cobbled squares, candlelit tables, sunlit tables, tables dappled with the shade from overhanging trees, and the colours of individual pieces of food set upon white plates, the braid on a waiter’s jacket. This cannot be true, I would think, who am I? Where am I? I can’t be here, I am no longer me, it is impossible that I should be so happy. I grew used to the feeling, but it never truly left me and then, when we came home to Manderley, there was a different sense of unreality.

  And now I sat at another table, not very far from a great stone hearth in which a fire burned, opposite to Maxim in our village hotel, and in the circle of light from the parchment shaded lamp, I felt the old sense of being in a dream, of desperately trying to catch up with what had happened to me. We were no longer hiding away in another country, eating indifferent food, clinging to one another for safety, fearful of how we spoke, of strangers, of the past. We were free of all that, and out into the sunlight.

  We would come home; I knew that. We had no need to run away again. Maxim had been forced to face it all, there had been no other way, but the worst was quickly over, he had drawn the sting of memory, all was well.

  Cobbett’s Brake lay at the back of my mind, rose red, beautiful, in its grassy bowl, and again and again I turned to look at it and joy spurted within me. There was no reason why it should ever be ours, but I knew that it would, I wanted it and the force of my want would make it come about. I had never been in the grip of such simple conviction before, I believed passionately, like the convert to a religion, I would make it so.

  The food was delicious that night, and unlike those first dinners, when I was too light headed and delirious to want to eat, now I ate greedily, hun
gry, relaxed, so sure within myself. There was grilled trout, and roast pheasant with the skin dark and crisp, the potatoes fluffed and dotted with pungent tasting parsley, and some sort of apple pudding sticky with sweetness and plumped out with raisins.

  We ate slowly, and drank a good bottle of claret, we looked at the fire and the sporting prints and the two oil paintings of dogs above the sideboard, and the waitress was slow and plump and had a mole beside her eye, and there was no salt in the salt cellar, we had to ask for it. I looked at my own hands, at the old white scar beside my fingernail, at my wedding ring, long familiar now, but I was not here, I thought, surely this deep, rich, settled happiness, this wonderful new beginning, could not be; I would blink and we would be back in that other small, plain, much duller dining room, in our hotel beside the foreign lake.

  I looked across at Maxim. It was real, it was true. I saw it in his face – we had come through.

  The blow did not fall until a little later.

  We spoke from time to time about the house, not practical talk, not sensible and cautious. Would it ever be sold? Or let perhaps? Would the old couple try to come back, or the son open it up again? How would we find out about it? What was it like inside? Did it need repairs, was it cold, shabby, unattractive?

  I did not need to know. It would be right, I had no doubt in my mind, did not bother about it.

  It was only the surprise of it we spoke of, the way it had lain there secretly, waiting for us, the way we had been lost, and taken the lane by chance, and so come upon it.

  I did not have to say what I wanted to Maxim, nor to ask him. Perhaps I did not dare, in case, in case. Sometimes he still jumped, snapped out, startling me, sometimes he could be impatient, cold, sometimes he turned abruptly away, shutting me out. I did not risk that happening now, the house mattered too much, what it meant – or what I so longed it to mean – was too important.

  Was I building an elaborately balanced, ornate house of cards? A castle in the air? Yes, a small, spiteful voice whispered, yes, but I turned away and laughed at it, bold, defiant. We had been led to Cobbett’s Brake, every step of our journey perhaps not merely this week, but for years, had been towards it, I believed that with a terrible, superstitious vehemence that was quite uncharacteristic.

  Only once, fleetingly that night, before the worst moment came, did I have the faintest of warnings, a premonition, a reminder, though I brushed it aside at once.

  I went up to our room to fetch Maxim’s book and, as I opened the door, saw that the moon was shining in through the window on to my bedspread and making a clear, pale pool of light, and the sudden sight of it brought the wreath of white flowers vividly to my mind, making my stomach clench in fear; they were there, I could have reached out to touch the petals, I felt the edge of the cream card against my fingers, I stared at the beautifully shaped, black initial letter R.

  ‘No,’ I whispered urgently, aloud into the empty room. ‘No,’ and quickly switched on the light, so that all was ordinary again, and found Maxim’s book, and ran from the room, and though I knew that I carried the image of the wreath in my mind still and perhaps it would be there always, I could never finally escape, I was stronger than it could ever be. Somehow the sight of the house had given me tremendous, almost magical power, the wreath and the card could not hurt me, they were nothing, trivial, a joke, a trick. I filled myself with thoughts of the house, and it refreshed me instantly, I turned to its calm, clear image with gratitude, investing it with so much strength and goodness, and promise.

  I stopped in the doorway of the lounge, and looked with such love, such contentment, at what I saw. The coffee had arrived, the pots and cups were set out on a low table before the fire, and Maxim was leaning forward out of one of the great armchairs, stroking the labrador dog as it stretched, making low grumbling noises of pleasure. No one else was in the lounge yet, so that it might have belonged to us, been a room in our own home, instead of a hotel.

  I had a book but I did not want to read, I was too happy with the present and with the world I wove out of my own fancy, to want to immerse myself in another. So for a while I simply sat, beside Maxim, drinking my coffee, basking in the warmth of the fire, hearing the clock tick and then chime, and nothing touched me, and nothing could, it seemed.

  But after a while, I looked around me for something to do, wishing again that I was a woman who did crochet or a needlepoint. Well, when we were there, I would, and there would be a basket of mending, too, I saw it now, a round wicker basket lined with cotton, a china knob to its lid.

  There was a cupboard in the corner, the door ajar. I went to look into it and found games, boxes of draughts and chess and children’s games, too, ludo and snakes and ladders; jigsaw puzzles of the Fighting Temeraire, a bluebell wood, a hunt in full cry; an old postcard album; some local maps and a gazeteer. But there was nothing to divert me for long. I was happy simply to sit, but I knew that it irritated Maxim, he looked up sharply from his book, disturbed, wanting me to settle, so that I went across to the table in the centre of the room and brought a pile of magazines. They were country picture papers from before the war, carefully set in place each day, looked after, I supposed because such things had not been obtainable more recently.

  I began to look through them, at out of fashion frocks and advertisements with strange, quaint lettering, pictures of hunt balls and women riding side saddle. I read an article about St Paul’s Cathedral and another about hares, and it was such nostalgic pleasure, they reminded me of the magazines I had read sometimes in our exile, old copies of The Field, and how I had learned pages of them almost by heart, how the descriptions and drawings, the tiny details of the English countryside, had satisfied my yearning for it a little, how I had had to keep them from Maxim, for fear of stirring up too many memories and longings within him, of hurting him.

  The fire slipped down, scattering sparks. The labrador shifted, grunted, slept on, from somewhere, in the depths of the hotel, a voice, another, laughing briefly, the clatter of a plate. Silence again. The others who had been dining had left, gone upstairs or out. Once Maxim looked up from The Moonstone to smile, once to throw a log on the fire. This is happiness, I thought, this is happiness now. And the house, Cobbett’s Brake, rode like a ship, at anchor, peaceful, expectant, under the moon.

  I turned a page idly.

  The shock was indescribable.

  The magazine was over fifteen years old. They went in for such grandeur in those years before the war.

  It was a full page photograph. She was standing at the head of the great staircase, one hand resting lightly on the banister, the other at her waist, almost as if she were a mannequin. The pose was artificial, yet it was perfectly judged, the spotlight had been placed to light her in exactly the right way. She wore an evening gown of satin, in some dark colour, without sleeves, but with a strap up from the niched bodice over one shoulder, and a sable wrap, carelessly, precisely draped, hung from her hand. Her head was thrown back a little, revealing her long, white neck, her black hair fell in casual, impeccably brushed ripples and waves, long, shining.

  ‘You’ve seen her brushes, haven’t you?’ I heard the voice whisper. ‘Her hair came down below her waist, when she was first married. Mr de Winter used to brush it for her then.’

  I could see the gallery just behind her, at the top of the staircase, the balustrade, and the corridor running away into the shadows.

  I realised that I had never seen her before. Everyone had talked about her, everyone had described her, I had known what she looked like in every detail, how tall she was, and slender, how elegant, how pale skinned, I knew about her black hair. Her beauty. But there had been no photograph, or drawing, or portrait anywhere.

  And so, until now, I had not seen her.

  We stared at one another, and now I saw the beauty and the arrogance, the flash of defiance in her eyes, the coldness, the strength of will. She looked out at me in amusement and pity, despising me, from her great height, commanding the gre
at stairs above the hall.

  ‘Do you think the dead come back and watch the living?’ the whispering voice of the woman said.

  I looked away quickly, away from her bold, amused, triumphant gaze, at the words printed below, ordinary, plain, black and white words, from years ago, a caption line, like so many others they printed there, week after week, beneath some society photograph.

  Mrs Maxim de Winter, at Manderley.

  After that, the nightmare began and perhaps it was a year before we woke from it, perhaps we never did.

  Only a few seconds passed while I took in the photograph, fascinated by the sight of her at last, appalled that it should be here, should have lingered on the table of this remote little hotel, among others, waiting for me, biding its time for years until we should come.

  Mrs Maxim de Winter, at Manderley.

  I shut the cover, mumbling something, and fled, half falling over my handbag which was on the floor as I did so, so that Maxim looked up in surprise. I heard him begin a question, but I did not stay to answer, I could not. He must not see it, he must not know. I stumbled up the stairs, my heart pounding like the sea in my chest, in my head, and she was with me, her pale, haughty, laughing face, her faintly contemptuous expression, looking at me, looking at me, tossing her black hair off her shoulders, resting her hand so easily on the banister of the stairs. Rebecca. I had wanted to see her always, she had repelled and attracted me for years, but she was dead and I had thought myself free of her. He must never see.

  In our room I began to rip out the page with her photograph, my hands shaking, the paper was stiff and glossy, firmly bound in, I could not do it, and when, at last, I did, it tore, across, so that her arm and the side of her sleek, elegant dress had a jagged rip down them, and a part was left firm inside the book. But it had not touched her face. She was still looking up at me, smiling a little, commanding, as Maxim flung open the door of the room.