Rebecca

by Daphne du Maurier

He will talk quickly and eagerly about nothing at all, snatching at any subject as a panacea to pain.

Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.

The only time I have known him show impatience is when the postman lags, for it means we must wait another day before the arrival of our English mail. We have tried wireless, but the noise is such an irritant, and we prefer to store up our excitement; the result of a cricket match played many days ago means much to us.

Today, wrapped in the complacent armour of approaching middle age, the infinitesimal pricks of day by day brush one lightly and are soon forgotten, but then – how a careless word would linger,

She was dead, and one must not have thoughts about the dead. They slept in peace, the grass blew over their graves. How alive was her writing though, how full of force.

At any moment she might come back into the room and she would see me there, sitting before her open drawer, which I had no right to touch.

‘There would be no need for you to do anything,’ he said, ‘you would just be your self and look decorative.’

I supposed I was not a major event.

Men are simpler than you imagine, my sweet child. But what goes on in the twisted tortuous minds of women would baffle anyone.

I could not do that. I had not the pride, I had not the guts. I was badly bred.

“She’s got the three things that matter in a wife,” she told me: “breeding, brains, and beauty.” And I believed her, or forced myself to believe her.

I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great distorted wall in front of them that hid the truth.

Everything was over. Everything was settled. Rebecca was dead. Rebecca could not hurt us.