Rebecca

by Daphne du Maurier

The house was a sepulchre, our fear and suffering lay buried in the ruins. There would be no resurrection.

‘An empty house can be as lonely as a full hotel,’

and the danger pleased me because it was new to me, because I was young.

Monte Carlo was suddenly full of kindliness and charm, the one place in the world that held sincerity. I loved it. Affection overwhelmed me. I wanted to live there all my life.

should make violent love to you behind a palm tree.

trotting in her wake like a shadow, drab and dumb. Of course I was inexperienced, of course I was idiotic, shy, and young. I knew all that.

That’s Manderley, in there. Those are the woods.’ I forced a smile, and did not answer him, aware now of a stab of panic, an uneasy sickness that could not be controlled. Gone was my glad excitement, vanished my happy pride. I was like a child brought to her first school,

whose branches nodded and intermingled with one another, making an archway for us, like the roof of a church. Even the midday sun would not penetrate the interlacing of those green leaves, they were too thickly entwined, one with another, and only little flickering patches of warm light would come in intermittent waves to dapple the drive with gold. It was very silent, very still. On the high-road there had been a gay west wind blowing in my face, making the grass on the hedges dance in unison, but here there was no wind. Even the engine of the car had taken a new note, throbbing low, quieter than before. As the drive descended to the valley so the trees came in upon us, great beeches with lovely smooth white stems, lifting their myriad branches to one another, and other trees, trees I could not name, coming close, so close that I could touch them with my hands. On we went, over a little bridge that spanned a narrow stream, and still this drive that was no drive twisted and turned like an enchanted ribbon through the dark and silent woods, penetrating even deeper to the very heart surely of the forest itself, and still there was no clearing, no space to hold a house.

when she took my hand hers was limp and heavy, deathly cold, and it lay in mine like a lifeless thing. ‘This is Mrs Danvers,’

rhododendrons,

The enchantment was no more, the spell was broken. We were mortal again, two people playing on a beach.

They only came to call at Manderley because they were curious and prying. They liked to criticize my looks, my manners, my figure, they liked to watch how Maxim and I behaved to each other, whether we seemed fond of one another,

‘We’ll have it in the morning-room,’ she must have said, and he must have knelt down beside her, and they must have looked at the cupid together.

‘As long as you don’t black your face and pretend to be a monkey I don’t mind what you do,’ said Maxim.

did not want to be a child. I wanted to be his wife, his mother. I wanted to be old.

husband is not so very different from a father after

‘How do you want to be treated?’ ‘Like other men treat their wives.’ ‘Knock you about, you mean?’

these dancing couples seemed like marionettes twisting and turning on a piece of string, held by some invisible hand.

Perhaps I haunted her as she haunted me; she looked down on me from the gallery as Mrs Danvers had said, she sat beside me when I wrote my letters at her desk. That mackintosh I wore, that handkerchief I used. They were hers. Perhaps she knew and had seen me take them. Jasper had been her dog, and he ran at my heels now. The roses were hers and I cut them. Did she resent me and fear me as I resented her? Did she want Maxim alone in the house again? I could fight the living but I could not fight the dead. If there was some woman in London that Maxim loved, someone he wrote to, visited, dined with, slept with, I could fight with her. We would stand on common ground. I should not be afraid. Anger and jealousy were things that could be conquered. One day the woman would grow old or tired or different, and Maxim would not love her any more. But Rebecca would never grow old. Rebecca would always be the same. And her I could not fight. She was too strong for me.

‘How dare you speak to me like that? How dare you?’ I said. I was not afraid of her any more. I went up to her, shook her by the arm. ‘You made me wear that dress last night,’ I said, ‘I should never have thought of it but for you. You did it

But it wasn’t a man, it wasn’t a woman. The sea got her. The sea was too strong for her. The sea got her in the end.’

And Maxim did not love me. Maxim wanted to be alone again, with Rebecca. ‘Go on,’ whispered Mrs Danvers. ‘Go on, don’t be afraid.’

The mist entered my nostrils and lay upon my lips rank and sour. It was stifling, like a blanket, like an anaesthetic.

‘They’ll argue a bit first, like all foreigners. Here come the tugs.’ ‘They’ll

Couldn’t speak a word of English, of course.

The road to Manderley lay ahead. There was no moon. The sky above our heads was inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea.