The Rebecca Notebook Read online

  He very immaculate, with fresh linen, smelling of eau de cologne and bath salts, a copy of The Times on his lap, his panama hat set at just the right angle, and I with faded hair and colouring, dark glasses concealing eyes that have lost their brightness, and upon my rather dumpy body one of an unending series of cotton frocks, too long for me and sagging at the hem. Later in the day you run up against me in the English library, the bag of knitting still under one arm and three books under the other, and as I pass you I leave a little whiff of lavender water in my wake. I dab it on with the stopper behind each ear every morning, and it lasts me for the day.

  During your brief visit you notice that we live very much by routine. The chairs are put out on the verandah after breakfast and we stay there, with intervals for meals, until sundown. Sometimes I wander off for walks alone, carrying a cardigan I have knitted myself and a local walking stick with a spike at the bottom, but I am always back in time for tea. He has had a nap whilst I was gone, and wakes just in time for my return, preceded by the little waiter with tea. We shift with the sun, and when the first chill of evening falls upon the verandah I put a marker in the book I have been reading to him, and start the small task of getting him indoors. You gather that changing for dinner at half past seven is rather a business for us, but nevertheless we appear in the nick of time, he faultless as usual and reminding you once again of some familiar face, and I in black lace with a fur round my shoulders. We keep very much to ourselves, and beyond a courteous good morning and good night to the few other inhabitants of the hotel, and a more genuine smile to the staff, you never see us talk to anyone.

  The day comes for you to leave for your more exciting rendezvous. This spot is deadly dull, of course, but the rest has done you good, and as you stand on the verandah for the last time, waiting for your luggage to come down, you see us sitting in our usual corner of the verandah, sipping our midmorning coffee. Something prompts you to walk across and say good-bye. You come upon us unawares, and for the first time you notice that there is an indefinable air of sadness about us, a sort of aftermath of tragedy, and you feel a little uncomfortable, as though you had clumsily stumbled against a barrier. You are saved from embarrassment by our smiles, and there is nothing tragic in the way we wish you bon voyage, and chat for a moment quite pleasantly about your destination. We both look rather hungrily at your luggage, and the thought comes to you, very surprisingly, that perhaps we wish we were going too.

  ‘Are you making a long stay here?’ you ask; and I pause a moment before replying, throwing him a glance, ‘Our plans are rather indefinite,’ leaving it at that. The stout hall porter has assembled your luggage and is waiting for his tip. There is nothing to delay you now.

  ‘Well, so long,’ you say, ‘we shall probably meet at home some day.’

  The Englishman shakes your hand and wishes you good luck. ‘No,’ he says, half to you, half to himself, ‘no, we shall never go home again.’

  And then, you smile, and wave, and disappear round the corner of the verandah. You think about us vaguely when you get into the train. Why do they do it, you wonder; leading apparently aimless lives? For what purpose? Are they really in quest of the sun, or is their existence a way of escape, from something or someone?

  We shall never live in England again, that much is certain. The past would be too close to us. Those things we are trying to forget and put behind us would stir again, and that sense of fear, of furtive unrest struggling at length to master unreasoning panic—now mercifully stilled, thank God—might in some manner unforeseen become a living companion, as it did before. We are not unhappy, that I would impress upon you. Henry at least knows something of the peace of God, which, poor darling, he never possessed before. He is wonderfully patient and never complains, not even when he is in pain, which happens, I think, rather more often than he would have me know. I can tell by the way he will look puzzled suddenly, and lost, all expression dying away from his dear face as though swept by an unseen hand, and in its place a mask will form, a sculptured thing, formal and cold, beautiful still but lifeless. He will fall to smoking cigarette after cigarette, not bothering to extinguish them, and the glowing stubs will lie around him on the ground like petals. He will talk quickly and eagerly about nothing at all, an unusual thing for such a silent person, snatching at any subject, however trivial, as a panacea to pain.

  I remember my father expounding once upon the theory that men and women emerge stronger and finer after suffering, and that to advance in this or any world we must endure ordeal by fire. He should have known, of course—he was a doctor. And I, at the time a chubby schoolgirl in tearing health from a scramble on the south downs, considered it a dreary doctrine. Since then I have known fear, and loneliness, and very great distress. I have watched my beloved husband come through a great crisis, and I—I was not a silent spectator. I know now that it is not easy to live. Sooner or later, in the life of everyone comes a moment of trial. We all of us have our own particular devil who rides us and torments us, and we must give battle in the end. Henry and I have conquered ours, or so we believe. The devil does not ride us any more. But we are shorn of our little earthly glory, he a cripple and his home lost to him, and I, well, I suppose I am like all childless women, craving for echoes I shall never hear, and lacking a certain quality of tenderness. Like a ranting actress in an indifferent play, I might say that this is the price we have to pay for our freedom. But I have had enough of melodrama in this life, and would bereave my Henry of his five senses if it would ensure him his present peace and security until eternity.

  As I said before, we are not unhappy. We have money to live without discomfort. Granted that the little hotel you found us in was cheap, the food indifferent, and that day after day dawns very much the same, yet we would not have it otherwise. We both appreciate simplicity, and if we are sometimes bored—well, boredom is a pleasing antidote to fear. The only time Henry shows impatience is when the postman lags, for it means we must wait perhaps another day before hearing the result of some match played a week ago. We have tried wireless, but the noise is such an irritant, and we prefer to store up our excitement against the arrival of our mail. Oh, the Test Matches that have saved us from ennui, the boxing bouts, even the billiard scores. Finals of schoolboy sports, dog racing, strange little competitions in the remoter counties, all these are grist to our hungry mill. Sometimes old copies of the Field come our way, and I am transported from this indifferent shore to the reality of an English spring. I read of chalk streams and the mayfly, of harbours where the tide is at the flood, of sorrel growing in meadows, and rooks circling above church towers as they used to do at Manderley. The smell of wet earth comes to us from those thumbed and tattered pages, the sour tang of moorland peat, and handful upon handful of green and soggy moss, spattered white in places with the herons’ droppings.

  Once there was an article on wood pigeons, and as I read it aloud to Henry it was as though I was once again in the deep woods at Manderley, the pigeons fluttering above my head. I heard their soft complacent call, so comfortable and cool on a hot summer’s afternoon, and there would be no disturbing of their peace until Jasper came loping through the bracken to find me, his damp muzzle questing the ground, his spaniel ears a-droop, his jowl saggy, and his great eyes a perpetual reproach. Then like old ladies caught at their ablutions, the bathroom door ajar, the pigeons would flutter from their hiding place, shocked into silly agitation, and making a monstrous to-do with their wings streak away from us above the treetops, and so out of sight and sound. While I, yawning idly, would recollect that the sun by now had left the rose garden, there were languid heads upon lean stalks calling for water, but most important of all there were fresh raspberries for tea…

  It was the grey look on Henry’s face that made me stop abruptly and turn the pages until I found an article on cricket, very practical and dull. Middlesex batting on a hard wicket at the Oval, piling up interminable dreary runs—how I blessed their stolid flannelled figures—and
in a few minutes his face had settled back into repose, the colour had returned, and he was deriding the Surrey bowling in healthy irritation. We were saved a retreat into the past and I had learnt my lesson. That grey look meant hunger and regret, and bitterness too for this exile we had brought upon ourselves, so in future I must keep away from colour and scent and sound, rain and the lapping of water. Read English news, yes, and English sport, politics and pomposity, but keep the things that hurt to myself alone. They can be my secret indulgence.

  Some people have a vice for reading Bradshaws, and plan innumerable journeys across country for the fun of linking up impossible connections. I, on the contrary, am a mine of information on the English countryside. I know the name of every owner of every British moor, and their tenants too. I know how many partridge are killed on such-and-such an estate, how many pheasants, how many head of deer. I know where trout are rising, and where salmon are leaping; even the names of those who are walking hound puppies are familiar to me. I attend all meets, I follow every run. The state of the crops, the price of fat cattle, the mysterious ailments of pigs. I relish them all. A poor pastime, perhaps, and not a very intellectual one, but I breathe the air of England as I read, and can face this glittering sky with greater courage.

  That afternoon you saw me set forth upon my walk, stick in hand, was passed by me in the west country on a misty afternoon. I did not notice the scrubby vineyards and the crumbling stones because I was picking foxgloves and campion from a wet streaking hedge. Yes, I know my cotton frock sagged at the back, and my cardigan had stretched, and I came back worn and dusty-looking. I noticed your pitying, indulgent smile. For all that I had enjoyed my afternoon, and it was worth being away from Henry to find his smile of welcome when I returned.

  Although you were hiding behind the Daily Mail I know you were watching the little ritual of our tea. The order never varies. Two slices of bread and butter each, one Indian tea, one China (I take mine with lemon), and two brioches with apricot jam. No cake. Henry has a theory that it gives him indigestion. What a hidebound, pernickety couple we must seem to an outsider like yourself, clinging to our routine and living like slaves to the clock. Having a sit-down tea at half past four because we always did in England. You should have seen us at Manderley—there it was even more of a ritual. In winter we had it in the library, the table put within comfortable distance of the roaring log fire. On the stroke of the half hour old Robert would fling open the door, followed by that nervous young footman he was in the process of training, who will never become proficient until he can control his hands from shaking, and the performance of laying the table would be carried out under the forbidding eye of Robert, who now and again communicated with his minion by way of dumb show.

  Such a feast would be laid before us always, and yet we ate so little, Henry faithful always to his slice of bread and butter and his apricot jam. I must admit I went a little further. Those dripping crumpets, I can taste them now, alternating with piping-hot floury scones and tiny crisp wedges of toast. Sandwiches of a delectable but unknown nature, mysteriously flavoured, and that very special gingerbread. Angel cake that melted in the mouth, and its rather stodgier companion, bursting with peel and raisins. There must have been enough food there to keep a starving family for a week. I never knew what happened to it all. The waste used to worry me sometimes, but I never dared ask Mrs Danvers what she did about it. She would have looked at me in scorn and smiled that freezing superior smile of hers. I can hear her say, ‘There were never any complaints when Mrs de Winter was alive,’ before she swept away, leaving me standing on one foot. Poor Mrs Danvers, I wonder what she is doing now. She always despised me. I think it was the expression on her face that gave me my first feeling of unrest. Instinctively I thought, ‘She is comparing me with Rebecca,’ and sharp as a sword the shadow came between us.

  Well, it is over now, finished and done with. I ride no more tormented, and Henry is free. Even my faithful Jasper has gone to the happy hunting ground, and this summer Manderley opens as a country club. The prospectus was sent to me the other day. I did not show it to Henry, but put it away in the bottom of my trunk. They have demolished the old gun room and the flower room in the east wing, and my little morning room, and have built what they call a ‘sun loggia’, Italian style, with vita glass, so that the guests can sprawl about in negligée and acquire the fashionable tan.

  Four concrete squash courts stand where the stables used to be, and they have sunk a swimming pool in the wilderness. The rose garden is a rose garden still, but they have discovered its possibilities for tea, and with gay little tables and bright umbrellas intend luring their clients there on summer afternoons. I have no doubt that Joe Allan and his Boys will look very well in the minstrels’ gallery, so appropriately placed for their convenience above the great hall, where I gather the Saturday dances are to be held. Apparently the golf course will not be ready until the winter, for the park does not lend itself easily to conversion, and there are so many trees to come down. The place will be packed for the opening weekend, every room is booked already, and a famous film star is to start the proceedings by diving into the swimming pool in evening dress. The dress no doubt to be auctioned afterwards. Whether the venture is a success or not, one thing at least is certain. The guests will sleep soundly in their beds. Our ghosts will never trouble them. I shall keep the prospectus, though, and use it now and again as a lash when I fail in humour. It might stimulate in me an affection for cactus bushes and olive groves, stony vineyards and dusty bougainvillea.

  And you, perhaps you will visit Manderley, one weekend, jaded and out of sorts from your London season. The west country is not so far in these days of easy flying, and they are sure to clear a landing ground for planes somewhere in the park. If you are stouthearted and not overburdened with imagination you can walk anywhere in Manderley with impunity, but if London life has put a strain upon your nerves there are one or two places I should avoid. The deep woods, for instance, after dark, and the little woodman’s cottage. Here there may linger still a certain atmosphere of stress. That corner in the drive too, where the stump of a tree encroaches upon the gravel, it is not a spot in which to pause. Your fancy might play odd tricks upon you, especially when the sun has set. When the leaves rustle they sound very much like the stealthy movement of a woman in evening dress, and when they shiver suddenly, and fall and scatter before you on the ground, they could be the patter-patter of a woman’s hurrying footstep, and that mark in the gravel the imprint of a high-heeled satin shoe.

  No, if I were you I should toy with my cocktail in the new American bar, that billiard room always lacked atmosphere; and remain downstairs where you can hear the crooner braying, do not wander alone along the passages upstairs. There is a moment, just after twilight, if the moon is full, when the light streams through that long narrow window in the old west wing; and you could swear that in the corner there, against the door, where the shadows are darkest, there is a figure crouching, a woman surely. But perhaps the west wing is ablaze with electric light now, and dressing rooms and shower baths abound, and all the shadows have been swept away.

  As you stand in the doorway of the hall, waiting for Joe Allan to strike up with one of his hot numbers, and light a cigar feeling at peace with yourself and the world, you will never connect Manderley with that fellow in the chaise longue and the panama hat, and his dull little wife in her faded cotton frock; yet it was not so long ago that Henry stood where you are standing now, whistling and calling to the dogs, and the step that you have sprinkled so freely with the ash from your cigar was thick with the crumbs I had scattered for the linnets…

  I suppose we are both very changed. Henry looks much older, of course, and his hair has gone very grey; but there is a certain stillness about him, an air of tranquillity that was not there before, and I—rather too late in the day—have lost my diffidence, my timidity, my shyness with strangers. Perhaps Henry’s dependence upon me for every little thing has made me confident an
d bold at last. At any rate I am different from that self who drove to Manderley for the first time, hopeful and eager, handicapped by a rather desperate gaucherie, and filled with an intense desire to please. Those preceding years of companionship with Mrs Van Hopper had scarcely engendered in me great qualities of confidence, and it was my lack of poise that made such a bad impression on people like Mrs Danvers. What must I have seemed like after Rebecca…?

  As we sit today at our table in the window, quietly working our way through from hors d’oeuvre to dessert, I think of that other hotel dining room, larger and far more splendid than this, that dreadful Côte d’Azur at Monte Carlo, and how, instead of having Henry opposite me, his steady, well-shaped hands peeling a mandarin in methodical fashion, I had Mrs Van Hopper, her fat bejewelled fingers questing a plate heaped with ravioli, her small pigs’ eyes darting suspiciously from her plate to mine for fear I should have made a better bargain.

  Only a few years ago—far fewer than you would suppose—she dominated my small world; the salary she paid me was one hundred and fifty pounds a year, and Manderley was unknown to me. There was I, with straight bobbed hair and youthful unpowdered face, trailing in her wake like a subdued mouse. Now, with Henry by my side, in spite of all we have lost, in spite of his maimed body and scarred hands, those days, the terror, the distress, are over, and I feel a glow of contentment come upon me. His maimed body and my disfigurement are things of no account, we have learned to accept them, we live, we breathe, we have vitality, the spark of divinity has not passed us by. This factor alone should be enough for us; we have been spared to one another, and because of this we shall endure.