Mrs De Winter

by Susan Hill

  The last time I had seen Mrs van Hopper she had looked up at me, pausing in the act of powdering her nose in the mirror of her vanity case to tell me that in agreeing to marry Maxim de Winter, I was making a big mistake and one that I would bitterly regret. She had doubted my ability to function as mistress of Manderley, poured scorn on my hopes and dreams, eyed me with a prying, unpleasant expression. But I had not cared, I had been able to stand up to her and disregard all she said, for the first time since I had gone into her employment as a paid companion, because now I was loved, now I was to marry, I was to become Mrs Maxim de Winter, and could take on anyone, I thought, face anything. Her power over me had been loosened in an instant, I was no longer paid by her, and no longer made to feel inferior, stupid, inept, clumsy, a non person. The dreadful weeks of embarrassment and humiliation and tedium were over, the endless bridge parties and cocktails in her hotel rooms, the fetching and carrying, the meals at which I was treated with barely concealed contempt by waiters, having to put up with her snobberies and self-regarding conceits, all were over, and I was rescued, safe.

  I had gone out of the room, and down to where Maxim was waiting for me, impatiently, in the foyer, and I never saw or heard from her again. Once only, having nothing better to do, I wrote her a brief letter. She did not reply, and after that I was engulfed by all the terrible events that came one after another like storm waves, and broke over our lives. I don’t think, in the quiet years that had followed, I had spared her more than a couple of passing thoughts, had never wondered where she was, or even if she were still alive. She had nothing to do with me, she had passed out of my life that day at the Hotel Côte d’Azur in Monte Carlo. Yet I should have thought of her, if we owe our thoughts to people who have been so important to us. If I had never become her companion, and if she had not been addicted to preying upon and mercilessly cornering anyone she considered smart and worth knowing, anyone who was anyone, I would not be here now, Mrs Maxim de Winter, my life would have been different in every possible respect.

  I assumed that he would want to avoid her seeing us, that we would lurk here, hunched on our high backed sofas until she had gone into dinner, and then fled, gone on somewhere less public to eat; but something of the old confidence, even a faint arrogance, had returned to Maxim; perhaps he did not care, perhaps he felt less vulnerable – I could not tell. At any rate, he leaned forward, his lips still curled in amusement, and whispered to me, ‘Finish your drink. I think we are ready to go in.’

  I looked at him in surprise, but he smiled, and the smile was mischievous, I saw that he intended not merely to brave the moment, but to enjoy it, and I remembered how cruelly, subtly adept he had been before at dealing with her.

  Now, he stood up. His face was a perfect mask. It was all I could do not to giggle. ‘Don’t look,’ he said. The waiter came forward, to lead us towards the dining room.

  Don’t look. I did not. But of course, there was no need. As we passed her corner, looking straight ahead, our expressions bland, I heard her intake of breath, and the dreadful sound that carried me back to the past again, the snap of her lorgnette.

  ‘Why it is – my God – quick, stop them, get up, move – stupid boy – it is – well, Maxim de Winter!’

  What she wanted most, of course, was to be invited to dine with us. She had not changed, she was as transparent, as manipulative as ever. Her ploy was to ask us to join her at her table. ‘So many years, such old, old friends, however could I not leap at the chance – I really can’t take no for an answer.’

  But she was obliged to. ‘I am so sorry,’ Maxim said, charmingly, impeccably polite, ‘but it is a very special occasion, we are only in Venice a few days and it is my wife’s birthday, we are having a particular table. I’m sure you will forgive us.’

  She would not. I saw her mouth open and close as she fished about desperately for the right words to detain us, have us change our minds. Maxim was there before her. ‘But we would be so pleased if you would have coffee with us after dinner – you,’ his eyes flickered briefly, quizzically to the young man who had half risen to his feet as we stopped, but now was sitting again, looking sulky, ‘– and your friend,’ and smoothly, without pausing, he put his hand under my elbow and steered me ahead and into the dining room. I longed to look back, to see the expression on her face, and dared not. But I knew that the young man was not gauche and shy and embarrassed by her, as I had been, I saw that he had a conceit and a superciliousness about him which I could not like, and so, I did not sympathise with him, did not feel for him at all. Instead, I felt an odd pang of pity, even of fondness, for Mrs van Hopper, for I did not think that he would last, nor that he would be very nice to her. She had bought his companionship, as once she had bought mine, but our arrangement had been businesslike, and quite usual, and if I had been exploited that had also been usual in such a situation. People like me were a particular sort of servant who ought to expect that. This time, I thought, it might be the other way around.

  Mrs van Hopper was an old woman, over dressed, over made-up, her skull showing a little through the thin, white hair, her hands podgy, the flesh tight around her array of rings, her eyes oddly flat, sunken into the sockets. Otherwise, she was unchanged, as vulgar, inquisitive, insensitive, as before.

  They were seated on the far side of the dining room, right away from us, which clearly annoyed and frustrated her, for I saw her call over the head waiter almost at once, and begin to gesture to other tables – but without success. He merely shook his head curtly, and they were left, she marooned with only her lorgnette, which she flicked up and down, throughout dinner, several times, and quite blatantly in our direction.

  ‘I wonder how long our young man – man, just, I think, but certainly not a gentleman – has been in tow,’ Maxim said at one point. ‘Poor Mrs van Hopper – from you, a perfectly respectable little paid friend of the bosom, to that. By what steps did she make the descent do you suppose?’

  ‘I don’t like the look of him,’ I said.

  ‘I should hope not. She’s a silly old snob but she doesn’t deserve that.’

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her turn to stare at an elderly couple who were coming into the room, but almost at once the lorgnette was lowered, dismissing them from her sphere of interest. But for some reason I went on looking at them, as they settled at a table quite near to us. He was frail, his skin paper thin and yellowing, stretched over his skull and long bony hands, his eyes rheumy, and she was solicitous with him, and loving, patiently helping him to sit, taking his stick and laying it down, saying something across the table to make him laugh. She was his wife, I could see that, she was much younger, but not young enough to be his daughter, and besides, there was a tenderness between them, a long familiarity of look and gesture, which was not filial. He would die soon, I thought, he had the curious transparency that comes to the very old a little while before death, the air of slight detachment and dreaminess, as though they have already half left the world. I looked from them, across to Maxim, and saw us, in thirty years time, close, loving, yet waiting as they were, for separation, saw us still in exile, belonging only in hotels, childless, too, for I somehow knew that they were. I looked out of the window quickly, at the lamp on a gondola, bobbing slowly past. I would not think of it, I would not mind. After all, I might have been here, at the other side of the room, with Mrs van Hopper.

  Over our coffee, in the lounge, Maxim became gravely courteous to her, sitting beside her on the sofa, passing her cup, impeccably attentive, and she bridled and blushed in response, tapped him with her lorgnette, and I felt calm and strong and tolerant. He was very clever in making her talk of herself, of where she had been living, of her family, even her hapless nephew Billy, whom she had once used as a flimsy excuse for an introduction, and she prattled about her travels.

  ‘Such a relief to be able to get back to Europe, I can’t tell you, after all those dreary years stuck in America and never getting away. I so longed for everywhere, for
Paris and Rome and London and Monte, for a bit of style and life again, and to read about you all in such dreariness and squalor was really too much to bear.’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ Maxim said, ‘it must have been dreadful.’

  I looked away quickly, turned to the young man. He was American, and was, he said, ‘a designer’ but he would not elaborate, and made only the barest effort to be polite to me – I was of little interest, I realised, a plain, dull, early middle aged woman of no account. But I saw that he eyed Maxim slightly surreptitiously, glancing at him under his lashes, summing up his clothes, listening, and squirrelling the information carefully away.

  Once, Mrs van Hopper sent him off for a photograph she wanted to show us, ordering him and yet with an ingratiating, unpleasant little plea, not exactly in the peremptory way she would have dismissed me. He went without a word, and yet made it clear that he might equally well have chosen not to, and I liked him even less, felt even sorrier to see her with him.

  And then, suddenly, like a cat flashing out its claws swiftly and without warning to an unwary prey, she turned to Maxim, catching him quite off guard. ‘You must have been devastated when Manderley went up in flames – we read of it, of course, it was the talk everywhere. Such a terrible, terrible tragedy.’

  I saw his mouth set, his face flush very slightly. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Tell me do. Whatever happened? Was it deliberate – no, surely not, whoever would have done such a dreadful thing? An accident I suppose, some careless stupid housemaid not putting up a firescreen – I hope they suffered. Your whole world gone up in flames like that – all those priceless treasures.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And was anyone burned alive? I suppose there were people there at the time.’

  ‘No, fortunately, no one was hurt.’

  ‘But you were not there I understand, you were – where – in London was it? All sorts of stories went around, I can’t begin to tell you.’

  She glanced at the young man who sat, silent and sullen beside me. ‘Now, just go quickly upstairs again and bring that crocodile wallet, the one with all my cuttings in, I know I’ve got them with me – go on, do –’ She turned back to Maxim, ignoring me entirely. ‘There was so much about it in the press and of course all the business of the inquest – and what a horrible thing that must have been and I have to say it, really quite bizarre. I don’t suppose you’ve seen half that was written at the time, you dashed off goodness knows where, to get over the shock I suppose. Not that running away does any good, you take your troubles with you – but I daresay you’ve found that out. Tell me, they brought in a verdict of suicide. Now why on earth would a beautiful, rich young woman with everything she could possibly desire, a great house, an attractive husband, the world at her feet you might say, why would she want to kill herself? It simply defies belief.’

  I could not bear it then, I did not care whether she still despised me and wanted to pretend that I did not exist. I did. I said, ‘Mrs van Hopper, please don’t –’ but Maxim interrupted, standing up as he did so and looking down on her with loathing barely concealed behind a cold politeness.

  ‘Your world may think what it chooses,’ he said, ‘but really, opinion and gossip count for nothing at all against truth – I’m sure you agree. Now, I know you will excuse us, it has been quite extraordinary to meet you again.’

  My last sight of her was an expression of helpless outrage, annoyance that she had been left abruptly, looking foolish, and that she could do nothing at all about it. She struggled to get to her feet and pursue us, but Maxim was too swift, and she was infirm and old and fat and, I saw, had a stick beside her. She had barely addressed a word to me. And I noticed that, far from jumping up to run her errand, as I had always, nervously, done, the young man had remained seated, ignoring her order with complete, insolent self possession.

  But it happened that they could not find our coats and in the end, Maxim went impatiently to the cloakroom himself in search of them. I waited, looking idly at a copy of an old map of Venice, on the wall behind one of the thick marble pillars, so that Mrs van Hopper and the young man did not see me, as they came, she limping, holding on to his unwilling arm, out of the lounge.

  ‘He used to be such a glamorous man in those days, quite a catch, but for some extraordinary reason I never understood he married that little mousey thing, and now look – my God, what a dull, dreary couple they’ve become – mind, if you ask me, there’s a lot more to that business over his first wife than ever came out. Don’t pull away like that, I need you to steady me.’

  And so they passed on, her voice continuing, querulous and nasal out of the foyer towards the lifts.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said at once to Maxim, as we were leaving. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘Well, that awful woman – those things she said –’

  ‘And that was your fault?’

  ‘No, of course not, I know, but –’

  I felt that I should have shut her up, protected him from her, I could not bear it if he had been hurt and would be forced to brood all over again.

  Maxim held me firmly by the elbow, as we got into the gondola, a plain one this time, without the extra, celebratory lights. As we got out into the Grand Canal, a sudden wind cut coldly down, smelling of the sea. ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘She’s a stupid old woman and they deserve one another.’

  But I could not forget, I went on remembering that she had said she had a folder of newspaper cuttings, about the inquest and the fire, had kept them, talked about it all with her friends, heard her words of suspicion. ‘A lot more to that business than ever came out. Why would she want to kill herself? It simply defies belief …’

  Yes, I thought. Yes, of course it does, because it was not true. It was obvious to them, and I knew the truth of it. Rebecca had not killed herself. Maxim had murdered her.

  And I looked at his profile, as the gondola swung and turned out of the Grand Canal and the wind caught it broadside and rocked it a little. His face was stony, I could not tell what he was thinking, or how he felt, I was shut out from him again. I glanced up at the black, shuttered buildings, and as I did so, the voices began again, whispering, whispering out of the darkness.

  Perhaps it is not in human nature to be content with our lot, however good, in this world, perhaps, because life is a process of change and flux, growth and decay, we have to be restless, have to experience discontent, yearnings, hopes, desire to move on, and can do no other.

  So I could not help standing at the narrow window of our room, looking across at the opposite buildings, or down into the canal, and wishing for something else, somewhere else, against all reason. But looking back now, I know that I did not revel in the present sufficiently, did not give thanks often enough, that I was not glad, as I should most earnestly have been, that we had become Mrs van Hopper’s ‘dull, dreary couple.’ For it did not last, it could not, simply because nothing does, but more, because I willed that it should not and I got my way. I remember hearing someone once say to me, when I was a child, demanding this or that, ‘Beware of wanting something too much – you may get it’ and I did not understand. Now I do.

  Is this all? I asked myself. Will there truly be nothing more than this perambulating, pointless life, trundling through our middle years down to old age and infirmity and separation and death. Is this all? No, it was not.

  It is better that we cannot see into the future. We are spared that. The past we carry with us forever into the present and that is enough to contend with.

  Maxim seemed to have a flurry of business to attend to again, he wrote letters, sent cables, became preoccupied. I did not ask about it but it troubled me that he did not tell me, not out of any real desire to know the details but because we had shared everything and now, there were secrets.

  Winter gave way finally, wonderfully, to spring, and Venice came alive, it was the season again. We left, going east to Greece and to mountains
covered in flowers and air that smelled of honey. I was happier again because we were moving on, I had no time to brood, there was too much that was new to divert me.

  It was May when we left, to sail for Istanbul, and I did not think that I wanted to go there, for some reason I was afraid of the idea of a place so entirely foreign, so strange in every possible way, I wanted change and new sights, yet at the same time to remain within certain bounds. It would have been easier if Maxim had not been strange too, and far away from me, distracted by something, often staring ahead of him with a slight frown. I dared not ask him why, it seemed safest to be ignorant, but I speculated endlessly; that it had to do with what Mrs van Hopper had said, or that there were problems to do with the family’s affairs, after Beatrice’s death; even financial anxieties.

  The last two days of our time in Greece were tense and miserable, the distance that Maxim seemed to be putting between us was greater than ever. We spoke calmly, coolly, talked of what we saw, what the next stage of our journey was to be, and I longed for the old closeness, the way he had been dependent upon me, but growing older takes the edge off impatience. This had happened before, I said, I would ride it out. He would come back.

  I could not have dreamed how.

  The weather was perfect, warm, scented, glorious spring, the world washed clean. The day had been held, poised between cold dawn and the chill of night, so that I had spent much of it on the deck of the steamer that was taking us down the Bosporus towards Istanbul. And now, we were almost there, I had seen the domes of the old city come riding towards us, seeming to float, insubstantial, glittering things haloed in the light of the setting sun which lay, gold leaf upon the surface of the quiet water.

  Maxim was standing beside me in silence. The light changed, flushing rose red, the whole western sky was suffused with it, and the line of the buildings darkened and flattened, the domes and turrets and thin spires were paper on coloured cloth.

  I had not expected to like this place, I had thought everything about it would feel alien, and, when we finally reached the shore, perhaps it would, but now, looking, looking, I was caught up in it and moved as I had rarely been by the simple sight of anything. Except the house. The rose red house.