Mrs De Winter

by Susan Hill

  ‘It will change. We’ll have an Indian summer, you see.’

  ‘I expect so.’

  He bent and kissed my forehead briefly, already preoccupied with something else.

  What has happened? I thought, wandering out into the garden, where the wind was tossing the heads of the trees and battering at the last of the climbing roses. What has changed? Why is it like this and not as I had dreamed and planned? Was it only that I met Jack Favell by blind chance, and now he is tormenting me, dragging the past up to the light, as Rebecca’s body was dragged to the surface of the sea?

  But I knew that was not so, that the voice in my head had whispered months before, on the railway station platform, during that melancholy journey home to Beatrice’s funeral. ‘That man is a murderer – that man killed his wife.’

  The seeds had lain with me, and like weeds that will spring up here or there, without apparent reason, but quite inevitably, had come to life, at last. I had done this, the fault was mine.

  We make our own destiny.

  Nothing came by post for almost two weeks, but I did not believe that it was over. I was dully expectant, this was only a short reprieve, another part of the torment. I wondered sometimes whether he would send anything that would surprise or shock me. The cuttings and the photograph were locked in my writing case, and when I passed the drawer in which I had concealed it, it was as though it charged the air like electricity, I felt affected by it, unnerved, and tempted to take the case out and open it and look, look.

  But when it came, it was a sheet of lined paper roughly torn out of an exercise book. On it was written £20,000 and a London post office address.

  It was an odd relief, I was not disturbed by this, it was straightforward and I knew how to deal with it. The demand for money was so obvious, so crude. I tore it into pieces the moment I was alone in the house, and dropped them into the range, pressing them hard down with the poker. And as they burned, I willed this to be the end of it.

  It grew warmer again, the sun rose high and early, and baked down upon the countryside all day, but there was a just perceptible change, during the days of greyness and rain the year had moved on, and now looked and smelled of late summer, there was a heavy dew on the lawn each morning, and once, a pale mist lingered between the trees. The roses were over, hollyhocks grew tall and flowered, the colours of old faded chintz, and the leaves were a dead, even green, quite still and dusty in the middle of the day.

  Maxim went to Scotland for three days to consult Frank and, I thought, try to persuade him to move down to England again. I did not think he would succeed. There had been a restraint about Frank, when he had been here, as though he were distancing himself from Maxim’s plans, interested, supportive, but not involved. His heart was in Scotland now, I thought, he was happy and loved it there, because of his family. He would never feel about Cobbett’s Brake as we did, and as he and Maxim had felt about Manderley.

  Maxim had worried about leaving me, tried to persuade me to travel with him, but I wanted to be here, and alone. I had a longing to walk in the garden in the evening and very early, before the sun was up, quite by myself, to feel the house settle down around me at the end of the day, to absorb this place even more deeply into me as if I breathed it in with the air itself. A year ago, I could not have imagined wanting to be apart from Maxim, I would have been anxious, insecure, or only half a person, and afraid for him, too, he was so dependent upon me. But we had changed, moved on, that time was over, we did not need to cling so desperately to one another, like frightened, vulnerable children wanting constant reassurance.

  It was a good sign surely, it seemed to me, in my best moments, it did not mean that we had grown apart, but that we were stronger, and the moments when I looked at him and was afraid became fewer, the whispering voice was so faint, and so soft, I could believe I did not hear it.

  It grew hotter, the nights were sticky and airless. I slept with the windows wide, lying awake until the slight chill before dawn made it easier to sleep. I was quite without anxiety or alarm, I felt so safe in this house, every room, as I walked in and out of them all for sheer pleasure, was accepting and sheltering to me. I missed Maxim in a pleasant, untroubled way. The truth was that I was finding my deepest contentment and fulfilment, for this time, at least, in being here alone.

  Two days after he left, I had walked down to the farm to collect some eggs and stayed to talk to Mrs Peck over tea, play with the baby, and watch the cows amble up the lane and into the yard to be milked. I was in no hurry, at all, it was an easy, gentle day, and still very warm, as I returned, the hedgerows and banks dusty and dry, the stream scarcely running.

  I stood for several minutes, looking down at Cobbett’s Brake as it lay below me, red gold in the late afternoon light, the shadows from the holly and chestnut and balsam poplars long upon the grass, and it still seemed to me an enchanted house, not built by men but somehow sprung up magically from the ground, whole and complete. Later I would come back here again, when I had switched the lamps on all over the house, even in the attic room, for then, it was beautiful in a different way, it rode like a great, glittering ship out of a dark sea. I loved it so powerfully that day. I felt at one with it, and part of its fabric, bound up with its past, as well as the present and future. I felt as I had the first time of seeing it, as if it had been here and only waiting for me all my life.

  As I walked into it again, it seemed to draw me gently back into itself. I went into the cool larder to put the eggs on to the stone slab. And as I did so, from the far end of the long passage, I heard the doorbell ring.

  I was surprised. I had heard no sound of a car, but it was true that I had been on the side of the house farthest away from the drive. Then it occurred to me, as I walked towards the door, that it would be Bunty, come to cheer me up, take me out of myself, as she had promised, ‘It’s good to have a breather from them, don’t I know it,’ she had said when I had told her Maxim was going away, ‘but it won’t do you any good to get glum and start to brood.’

  I was not glum, I was perfectly happy, but it would be good to see her for an hour all the same. We would have a late cup of tea, in the garden – it was still warm enough.

  I opened the door.

  ‘Good afternoon, madam.’

  I do not know if my face was drained of all colour, I do not know whether the absolute shock, followed at once by a great flood of fear, was visible at all. I can’t believe that it was not, the emotion was so immediate and violent.

  There was no car, no sign of anyone else. She stood quite alone, very close to the door. She looked a little older, and I was not used to seeing her in outdoor clothes – indeed, almost the first thing I realised was that I never had. She had always been indoors, dressed in deep black, the dull textured yet unpleasantly silken dress, long and with tight sleeves, and a high, buttoned neck.

  She was in black now, a coat to her ankles in spite of the weather. She carried a handbag and gloves, but wore no hat. Her hair was scraped back in the old way, smooth and tightly drawn over the high, prominent forehead, and coiled at the nape of her neck. But now, it was grey hair. The face was narrower and more lined, there seemed even less flesh on the white skull, the eye sockets were deeper.

  Outside, in the world that lay behind her, there was absolute silence, the dead silence of late summer, when the lambs that have bleated are grown and gone away, and no birds sing.

  ‘Mrs Danvers.’

  ‘I hope I have not startled you?’

  She stretched out a white wrist and hand from the black coat, and I was forced to take it. It was hard and narrow and cold.

  ‘Not at all – or rather, yes, of course, I’m surprised to see you, but –’

  ‘I’m sorry, I was not able to give you any warning. If it is inconvenient, you have only to say.’

  ‘No – please come in.’

  ‘I had some unexpected free time, and hearing that you were now in the neighbourhood, naturally I wanted to call and wish y
ou well here.’

  I stood back. She had stepped into the hall, and was waiting, not looking around her but staring at me, her eyes steady on my face from the hollow sockets. It was too dark here, too shadowy, I wanted to be at the back of the house, where the late sun would be flooding the small sitting room, and the windows were open on to the garden. I needed to be able to move away from her, to have the open air around me, the wide sky above my head, I would choke if I were forced to stay in a closed room with her.

  Her footsteps were hard and sharp on the flagged floor, I heard the slight rustle of her skirt and it was a dreadful reminder. I was terrified of it, I almost ran towards the light.

  ‘Would you like some tea, Mrs Danvers? I haven’t had any myself, I was about to make it.’

  ‘Thank you, madam, that would be very pleasant.’

  She stood in the sitting room, her back to the windows and the garden, the outside world, but it was as though she had not seen them, they held no interest for her, and I realised that, just as I had never seen her in outdoor clothes, nor had I seen her anywhere else save inside the house at Manderley.

  ‘Perhaps you would like to go and look at the garden – I’m afraid the roses are over but the borders still have some interest, though I’m really only beginning to bring the garden back – it was so neglected, it will take years.’

  She did not glance around. Her eyes had not left my face. ‘Yes, you have only been here since the spring I believe.’

  ‘That’s right, we came in May, we were abroad for – for some years.’

  ‘Ah yes.’

  There was a silence. I did not mean to feel guilty, I had no reason to do so but as she continued to look at me, I felt myself flush and glanced quickly away. The words lay between us and did not need to be spoken, the reason for our time abroad and all that had gone before it was laid out like a pattern on the rug, it was as though we could both stand and look at it.

  ‘Please do sit down. I – I’ll make the tea. It won’t take long.’

  Her eyes flickered away from me for a few seconds, her eyebrows were very faintly raised. She is despising me, I thought, she is sneering.

  ‘I’m afraid that since the war it has been so very difficult to obtain the right help, young people do not seem interested in going into service now. But I’m sure when you settle you will find people to come.’

  ‘Oh, I have help –’ I said hurriedly, ‘as much as I want, that is. It is really not like the old days –’ The words ‘at Manderley’ hovered in the air. ‘I have Dora every day – and Mrs Peck from the farm helps sometimes.’

  ‘I see.’ The disdain in her voice made me flush again, in spite of myself, and I was angry that she still had such power to humiliate me.

  ‘I really do not want any grand array of servants, Mrs Danvers, it never suited me.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Things are much less formal here.’

  ‘Yes – and of course it is quite a small house to run by comparison.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘yes, it is,’ and I fled away from her, down to the kitchen.

  My hands were trembling so much I was afraid that I would drop the china, and when I poured the water I splashed some of it and scalded the back of my hand. It made a long scarlet mark which was acutely painful.

  The questions flitted about inside my head like bright, darting birds trapped in a cage, their voices sharp and urgent. How had she found us? Where had she come from? Did she live nearby? If so, was that chance? What did she know of our life before this, and now, since we had come here? I imagined her somewhere not very far away, knowing every detail of our movements, watching us, spying.

  And how had she come here this afternoon? It seemed unlikely that she had walked.

  The tray was heavy, and before I lifted it, I had to stand, holding on to the wall, steadying myself with deep breaths. I should not let her frighten me. I must not, there was no reason. She had no power.

  But I knew that she had, in a way that Jack Favell did not, and never could have had. She had always had power over me, I feared and hated her and she despised me and thought me of no account, I withered to nothing in front of her. With Favell and in every other respect now, I had more strength, more confidence. But seeing Mrs Danvers, I had become the uncertain, awkward, self abasing creature who had first arrived as a bride at Manderley and dared to try and take Rebecca’s place.

  But I stepped out as briskly as I could along the passage, and only my burning hand was a reminder of what, in a few moments, she had done to me.

  She seemed not to have moved at all, she still had her back to the garden. Her eyes found my face at once, and remained, large, gleaming, steady upon it. She watched as I set down the tray and took out two small tables, put down the stand and pot and cups. She did not make any gesture, did not offer to help. I felt foolish and clumsy, I should not be doing this, there should be a bell to ring, at least one servant to bring us tea. Her face was set in the old curl of contempt. I was nothing. She was effortlessly superior to me.

  ‘This is such a nice house, madam. You and Mr de Winter will be very happy here, I know.’

  ‘Yes – yes, thank you, Mrs Danvers, we are – we love the house and we are buying more land about – it’s exactly what we want.’

  ‘Of course it is very different from Manderley. No one would ever compare it with that, would they?’

  ‘I suppose they wouldn’t.’

  ‘But then, there was never anywhere to compare with that and never will be.’ She sat, very erect, on the edge of her chair, holding her cup, I wished she would not stare at me and never move her eyes away. My hand was very painful.

  I said, ‘I’m afraid I don’t think about Manderley much now.’

  ‘Don’t you? But then you were never very happy there, were you? It was never really yours. I’m sure Mr de Winter thinks of it all the time.’

  ‘No – no, I don’t think so.’

  ‘I know that I myself do. It is always there, isn’t it? It never leaves me.’

  I had brought in a small plate of lemon biscuits and now I picked them up to offer to her and then realised that I had not brought side plates for them, and stood up to get them. As I did so, I knocked the biscuits to the floor. They lay in a crumbly pile on the carpet, poor, dry, stale little things. I stared at them and felt tears pricking my eyes, tears of anger and humiliation. I knelt down to scrabble about, picking them up, and she watched me pityingly, though when I sat back on my heels and glanced at her, the white skull of a face was masked, only the eyes glittered.

  ‘Mrs Danvers –’ I blurted then. ‘How did you find out where we were?’

  She did not hesitate, the voice came slipping softly, glibly out.

  ‘I have a very pleasant situation not very far away, in the village of Fernwode. Perhaps you know it?’

  ‘No, no, I don’t think so.’

  I scraped the remains of the biscuits on to the tray.

  ‘I am housekeeper companion to an elderly lady. She is alone in the world, and really, my duties are quite light – it suits me very well indeed, though of course, nothing will ever be the same as it was, will it?’

  ‘No, no, I expect it won’t.’

  ‘And Mr de Winter is well?’

  I had meant to go on asking questions, wanted to know what she had been doing for these past years, where she had gone from Manderley, what had happened during the war, but I could not. The way she sat, so stiff, so menacingly still, the eyes never leaving my face, froze the words on my tongue, I dared not speak them.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Maxim is fine. He’s in Scotland at the moment, seeing Frank Crawley about some matters to do with the estate.’

  ‘Ah yes.’

  The moment I said it, I wished I had not told her. I did not want her to know I was here alone.

  ‘Only for a couple of days. I think he may even be home tomorrow.’ I heard the nervousness in my voice, and knew that she had easily seen through the lie.

&n
bsp; It was not only frightening to be sitting here in this room opposite to her again, it was odd. She had always been standing, apparently deferential, awaiting instructions, or orders, and yet I had never felt her superior, she had always been in control. Now, I had served her tea, she was sitting in a chair in my house, and yet it felt wrong in a new way, I was not her employer nor her equal, I was as inferior to her as I had ever been.

  The sun had shrunk gradually from the room, and there was a shadow over the garden. It was airless and still uncannily silent.

  ‘I was so sorry to hear about Mrs Lacey, it must have been very distressing for you both.’

  And then I knew. I saw it in her face, though it was still expressionless, saw it in her eyes, that seemed to be two hard, bright points of light in the dark sockets. It was you. Of course, I had guessed it and I was right: it was you, who sent the white wreath. But my mouth was dry. She watched me, her face bone white in the gathering dusk.

  Why, I wanted to cry out, for God’s sake, what more do you want? Of me? Of Maxim? What are we expected to do? What do you want? Then I heard the soft crunch of the gravel on the drive. Mrs Danvers stirred.

  ‘That will be the car.’ She stood up, her skirt falling into place with a silken sound. ‘I asked him to wait outside, in the lane. I am very fortunate in that my employer rarely needs it. I am at liberty to make use of it when it is available, with the driver.’

  Dumbly, I led her towards the hall. On the drive the black car waited, the driver holding open the door. I ought to have been amused, I thought. Maxim would have laughed, to see me carrying the tea tray, serving Mrs Danvers, to witness her being handed in and driven away by a chauffeur. ‘Trust Mrs Danvers,’ he would say, ‘she always had a sort of style, don’t you think?’ and then dismiss her, as of no more importance in our lives.

  But I knew that was not true.

  I had shaken hands with her and she had turned away and climbed into the car without a word, and it had driven off at once.