第1章

昨晚，我梦见自己又回到了曼陀丽庄园。恍惚中，我站在那扇通往车道的大铁门前，好一会儿被挡在门外进不去。铁门上挂着把大锁，还系了根铁链。我在梦里大声叫唤看门人，却没人答应。于是我就凑近身子，隔着门上生锈的铁条朝里张望，这才明白曼陀丽已是座阒寂无人的空宅。

    烟囱不再飘起袅袅青烟。一扇扇小花格窗凄凉地洞开着。这时，我突然像所有的梦中人一样，不知从哪儿获得了超自然的神力，幽灵般飘过面前的障碍物。车道在我眼前伸展开去，婉蜒曲折，依稀如旧。但是待我向前走去，就觉察到车道已起了变化：它显得又狭窄又荒僻，不再是我们熟悉的那个模样。我一时感到迷惑不解，但当我低下头去避开一根低垂摇曳的树枝时，才发现了变化的来由。原来自然界已恢复了本来的面目，渐渐把她细长的手指顽强而偷偷摸摸地伸到车道上来了。即使在过去，树林对车道来说，也始终是个威胁，如今则终于赢得胜利，黑压压势不可挡地向着车道两侧边沿逼近。榉树伸开赤裸的白色肢体，互相紧紧偎依，枝条交叉错杂，形成奇特的拥抱，在我头顶构成一个形似教堂拱道的穹隆。这里还长有许多别的树木，有些我叫不出名字，还有些低矮的橡树和翘曲的榆树，都同榉树盘根错节地纠结在一起。橡树、榆树，还有巨怪似的灌木丛以及其他一些草木，就这么纷列在这块静谧的土地上，全然不是我记忆中的景象。

    车道已变成一条细带，与过去比，简直成了一根线！路面的沙砾层已不知去向，只见密密的一片杂草和青苔。树枝倒垂下来，阻挡着我的去路，节瘤毕露的根部活像骷髅的魔爪。在这片荒凉芜秽的林莽中间，时而也还能认出一些灌木丛，那是当年我们居住时的标志，是人工栽培和雅趣的产物。如紫阳，它的花穗曾经颇负盛名，但如今因为无人修剪照拂，也成了野生植物，枝干高得出奇，却开不出一朵花来，又黑又丑，与左近那些无名的草木没有什么两样。

    忽而东，忽而西，这条可怜的细线歪歪扭扭地向前伸展。（而它一度就是我们的车道啊！）有时我以为它到头了，不料它又从一棵倒在地上的死树底下钻出，或是在一道由冬日绵雨积成的泥泞小沟的那头挣扎着露出头来。我从未觉得道儿竟这么长，那距离想必是不断成倍延伸，就像树木成倍往高处长去一样。车道似乎根本不通向宅子，而是引入一片迷津，通向一片混饨杂乱的荒野。突然间，我一眼看到了那宅子，宅前的通道被一大簇乱生乱长的异样灌木覆盖了。我仁立着，心儿在胸中怦怦剧跳；眼眶里泪花滚动，带来一阵异样的痛楚。

    这就是曼陀丽！我们的曼陀而故居！还是和过去一样的隐僻、静谧。灰色的砖石在梦境的月光里显得白惨惨的，嵌有竖框的窗子映着绿草坪和屋前平台。时光的流逝，丝毫无损于围墙的完美对称，也无损于宅基本身，整个宅子宛如手掌心里的一颗明珠。

    平台斜连草地，草地一直伸向大海。一转身，我看见那一泓银色的海水，犹如风平浪静时明镜般的湖面，静静地任月光爱抚。没有波浪会使这梦之水粼粼荡漾，也不见云块被西风吹来，遮掩这清朗惨白的夜空。

    我又转身面向屋子。尽管它屹然挺立，一副神圣不可侵犯的神态，仿佛我们昨天刚刚离开，谁也没敢来碰它一下，但我发现庭园也和林子一样，服从了丛林法则。石南竟高达一百五十码，它们与羊齿绞曲缠绕在一起，还和一大簇无名的灌木胡乱交配。这些杂种灌木，紧紧地依傍着石甫的根部，似乎是意识到自己出身的卑贱。一棵紫丁香与铜榉长到一块儿去了，而那永远与优雅为敌的常青藤，还恶毒地伸出弯曲的蔓须，把这对伙伴更紧地卷绕起来，使它们沦为俘虏。在这无人照管的弃园里，常青藤占着最突出的地位，一股股、一绞纹的长藤爬过草地，眼看就要侵入屋子。此外还有一种原来生长在林中的杂交植物，它的种子很久前散落在树底下，接着也就被人遗忘了，如今它却和常青藤齐头并进，像大黄草似的，把自己丑陋的身子挺向曾经盛开过水仙花的柔软的草地。

    到处可以看到荨麻，它们可以算是入侵大军的先头部队。它们盖满平台，乱七八槽地拥塞着走道，还把它粗俗细长的身子斜靠在屋子的窗棂上。它们是些很差劲的步哨，因为在好些地方，它们的队伍被大黄草突破，就耷拉脑袋，没精打采地伸着躯于，成了野兔出没的处所。我离开车道，走向平台。荨麻拦不住我，任何东西都拦不住我，因为梦中人走路是有法术的。

    月光能给人造成奇异的幻觉，即使对梦中人也不例外。我肃然站在宅子前，竟断定它不是一个空洞的躯壳，而像过去那样是有生命的、在呼吸着的活物。

    窗户里透出灯光，窗帷在夜风中微微拂动。藏书室里，门半开着，那是我们出去时忘了随手带上。我的手绢还留在桌子上，在一瓶秋玫瑰的旁边。

    藏书室里处处留着我们尚未离去的印记：一小堆标有“待归还”记号的图书馆藏书；随手丢在一边的《泰晤士报》；烟灰缸里的一段烟蒂；歪歪斜斜倒在椅子上的枕垫，上边还印着我俩并头倚靠的痕迹；壁炉里炭火的余烬还在晨曦中吐着缕缕青烟；而杰斯珀，爱犬杰斯珀，就躺在地板上，眼睛充满着灵性，肥大的颈部下垂着，尾巴拍搭拍搭摇个不停，那是因为它听见了主人的脚步声。

    我一直没注意到，一朵乌云已经遮没了月亮。乌云有好一阵子徘徊不去，就像一只黑手遮住了脸庞。顿时，幻觉消失了，窗户的灯光也一齐熄灭。我面前的屋子终于又成了荒凉的空壳，没有灵魂，也无人进出。在那虎视眈眈的大墙边，再也听不到往事的细声碎语。

    曼陀丽是座坟墓，我们的恐惧和苦难都深埋在它的废墟之中。这一切再也不能死而复苏。我醒着的时候想到曼陀丽庄园，从不觉得难过。要是我曾在那儿无忧无虑地生活，说不定我还会就事论事地回想起那儿美好的一切：夏日的玫瑰园，拂晓时分的鸟语，栗子树下的午茶，还有草地那边传来的阵阵涛声。

    我还会想到盛开的紫丁香，惦念起“幸福谷”。这一切都是永恒的，不可能像烟云般消散。这些回忆按理是不会惹人伤感的。月亮仍被乌云遮盖着。我虽在梦境之中，却清醒地想到了上面这一切，因为像所有梦中人一样，我知道自己是在做梦。事实上，我是躺在数百英里外的异国土地上，过不了几秒钟就要醒过来，发现自己睡在旅馆空荡荡的小房间里，没有任何特别的气氛，但也正因为如此，才令人感到舒坦释然。我会叹一口气，伸个懒腰，转过身子，睁开眼睛，迷惘地看看那耀眼的阳光和冷漠洁净的天空，这与梦中幽柔的月光是多么不同！白昼横在我俩前头，无疑既漫长又单调，同时却充满某种珍贵的平静感。这是我俩以前不曾体会过的。不，我们不会谈起曼陀丽，我可不愿讲述我的梦境，因为曼陀丽不再为我们所有，曼陀丽不复存在了！

1

  Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and a chain upon the gate. I called in my dream to the lodge keeper, and had no answer, and peering closer through the rusted spokes of the gate I saw that the lodge was uninhabited.

  No smoke came from the chimney, and the little lattice windows gaped forlorn. Then, like all dreamers, I was possessed of a sudden with supernatural powers and passed like a spirit through the barrier before me. The drive wound away in front of me, twisting and turning as it had always done, but as I advanced I was aware that a change had come upon it; it was narrow and unkept, not the drive that we had known. At first I was puzzled and did not understand, and it was only when I bent my head to avoid the low swinging branch of a tree that I realized what had happened. Nature had come into her own again and, little by little, in her stealthy, insidious way had encroached upon the drive with long, tenacious fingers. The woods, always a menace even in the past, had triumphed in the end. They crowded, dark and uncontrolled, to the borders of the drive. The beeches with white, naked limbs leaned close to one another, their branches intermingled in a strange embrace, making a vault above my head like the archway of a church. And there were other trees as well, trees that I did not recognize, squat oaks and tortured elms that straggled cheek by jowl with the beeches, and had thrust themselves out of the quiet earth, along with monster shrubs and plants, none of which I remembered.

  The drive was a ribbon now, a thread of its former self, with gravel surface gone, and choked with grass and moss. The trees had thrown out low branches, making an impediment to progress; the gnarled roots looked like skeleton claws. Scattered here and again among this jungle growth I would recognize shrubs that had been landmarks in our time, things of culture and grace, hydrangeas whose blue heads had been famous. No hand had checked their progress, and they had gone native now, rearing to monster height without a bloom, black and ugly as the nameless parasites that grew beside them.

  On and on, now east now west, wound the poor thread that once had been our drive. Sometimes I thought it lost, but it appeared again, beneath a fallen tree perhaps, or struggling on the other side of a muddied ditch created by the winter rains. I had not thought the way so long. Surely the miles had multiplied, even as the trees had done, and this path led but to a labyrinth, some choked wilderness, and not to the house at all. I came upon it suddenly; the approach masked by the unnatural growth of a vast shrub that spread in all directions, and I stood, my heart thumping in my breast, the strange prick of tears behind my eyes.

  There was Manderley, our Manderley, secretive and silent as it had always been, the gray stone shining in the moonlight of my dream, the mullioned windows reflecting the green lawns and the terrace. Time could not wreck the perfect symmetry of those walls, nor the site itself, a jewel in the hollow of a hand.

  The terrace sloped to the lawns, and the lawns stretched to the sea, and turning I could see the sheet of silver placid under the moon, like a lake undisturbed by wind or storm. No waves would come to ruffle this dream water, and no bulk of cloud, wind-driven from the west, obscure the clarity of this pale sky. I turned again to the house, and though it stood inviolate, untouched, as though we ourselves had left but yesterday, I saw that the garden had obeyed the jungle law, even as the woods had done. The rhododendrons stood fifty feet high, twisted and entwined with bracken, and they had entered into alien marriage with a host of nameless shrubs, poor, bastard things that clung about their roots as though conscious of their spurious origin. A lilac had mated with a copper beech, and to bind them yet more closely to one another the malevolent ivy, always an enemy to grace, had thrown her tendrils about the pair and made them prisoners. Ivy held prior place in this lost garden, the long strands crept across the lawns, and soon would encroach upon the house itself. There was another plant too, some half-breed from the woods, whose seed had been scattered long ago beneath the trees and then forgotten, and now, marching in unison with the ivy, thrust its ugly form like a giant rhubarb towards the soft grass where the daffodils had blown.

  Nettles were everywhere, the vanguard of the army. They choked the terrace, they sprawled about the paths, they leaned, vulgar and lanky, against the very windows of the house. They made indifferent sentinels, for in many places their ranks had been broken by the rhubarb plant, and they lay with crumpled heads and listless stems, making a pathway for the rabbits. I left the drive and went onto the terrace, for the nettles were no barrier to me, a dreamer. I walked enchanted, and nothing held me back.

  Moonlight can play odd tricks upon the fancy, even upon a dreamer's fancy. As I stood there, hushed and still, I could swear that the house was not an empty shell but lived and breathed as it had lived before.

  Light came from the windows, the curtains blew softly in the night air, and there, in the library, the door would stand half open as we had left it, with my handkerchief on the table beside the bowl of autumn roses.

  The room would bear witness to our presence. The little heap of library books marked ready to return, and the discarded copy of The Times. Ashtrays, with the stub of a cigarette; cushions, with the imprint of our heads upon them, lolling in the chairs; the charred embers of our log fire still smoldering against the morning. And Jasper, dear Jasper, with his soulful eyes and great, sagging jowl, would be stretched upon the floor, his tail a-thump when he heard his master's footsteps.

  A cloud, hitherto unseen, came upon the moon, and hovered an instant like a dark hand before a face. The illusion went with it, and the lights in the windows were extinguished. I looked upon a desolate shell, soulless at last, unhaunted, with no whisper of the past about its staring walls.

  The house was a sepulcher, our fear and suffering lay buried in the ruins. There would be no resurrection. When I thought of Manderley in my waking hours I would not be bitter. I should think of it as it might have been, could I have lived there without fear. I should remember the rose garden in summer, and the birds that sang at dawn. Tea under the chestnut tree, and the murmur of the sea coming up to us from the lawns below.

  I would think of the blown lilac, and the Happy Valley. These things were permanent, they could not be dissolved. They were memories that cannot hurt. All this I resolved in my dream, while the clouds lay across the face of the moon, for like most sleepers I knew that I dreamed. In reality I lay many hundred miles away in an alien land, and would wake, before many seconds had passed, in the bare little hotel bedroom, comforting in its very lack of atmosphere. I would sigh a moment, stretch myself and turn, and opening my eyes, be bewildered at that glittering sun, that hard, clean sky, so different from the soft moonlight of my dream. The day would lie before us both, long no doubt, and uneventful, but fraught with a certain stillness, a dear tranquility we had not known before. We would not talk of Manderley, I would not tell my dream. For Manderley was ours no longer. Manderley was no more.

  2

  We can never go back again, that much is certain. The past is still too close to us. The things we have tried to forget and put behind us would stir again, and that sense of fear, of furtive unrest, struggling at length to blind unreasoning panic--now mercifully stilled, thank God--might in some manner unforeseen become a living companion, as it had been before.

  He is wonderfully patient and never complains, not even when he remembers... which happens, I think, rather more often than he would have me know.

  I can tell by the way he will look lost and puzzled suddenly, all expression dying away from his dear face as though swept clean 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 on the ground like petals. He will talk quickly and eagerly about nothing at all, snatching at any subject as a panacea to pain. I believe there is a theory that men and women emerge finer and stronger after suffering, and that to advance in this or any world we must endure ordeal by fire. This we have done in full measure, ironic though it seems. We have both known fear, and loneliness, and very great distress. I suppose sooner or later in the life of everyone comes a moment of trial. We all of us have our particular devil who rides us and torments us, and we must give battle in the end. We have conquered ours, or so we believe.

  The devil does not ride us anymore. We have come through our crisis, not unscathed of course. His premonition of disaster was correct from the beginning; and like a ranting actress in an indifferent play, I might say that we have paid for freedom. But I have had enough melodrama in this life, and would willingly give my five senses if they could ensure us our present peace and security. Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind. Of course we have our moments of depression; but there are other moments too, when time, unmeasured by the clock, runs on into eternity and, catching his smile, I know we are together, we march in unison, no clash of thought or of opinion makes a barrier between us.

  We have no secrets now from one another. All things are shared. Granted that our little hotel is dull, and the food indifferent, and that day after day dawns very much the same, yet we would not have it otherwise. We should meet too many of the people he knows in any of the big hotels. We both appreciate simplicity, and we are sometimes bored--well, boredom is a pleasing antidote to fear. We live very much by routine, and I--I have developed a genius for reading aloud. 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.

  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 my way, and I am transported from this indifferent island to the realities of an English spring. I read of chalk streams, of the mayfly, of sorrel growing in green meadows, of rooks circling above the woods as they used to do at Manderley. The smell of wet earth comes to me from those thumbed and tattered pages, the sour tang of moorland peat, the feel of soggy moss spattered white in places by a heron's droppings.

  Once there was an article on wood pigeons, and as I read it aloud it seemed to me that once again I was in the deep woods at Manderley, with 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 undergrowth to find me, his damp muzzle questing the ground. Like old ladies caught at their ablutions, 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. When they were gone a new silence would come upon the place, and I--uneasy for no known reason--would realize that the sun no longer wove a pattern on the rustling leaves, that the branches had grown darker, the shadows longer; and back at the house there would be fresh raspberries for tea. I would rise from my bed of bracken then, shaking the feathery dust of last year's leaves from my skirt, and whistling to Jasper, set off towards the house, despising myself even as I walked for my hurrying feet, my one swift glance behind.

  How strange that an article on wood pigeons could so recall the past and make me falter as I read aloud. It was the gray look on his face that made me stop abruptly, and turn the pages until I found a paragraph on cricket, very practical and dull--Middlesex batting on a dry wicket at the Oval and piling up interminable dreary runs. How I blessed those solid, flannelled figures, for in a few minutes his face had settled back into repose, the color had returned, and he was deriding the Surrey bowling in healthy irritation.

  We were saved a retreat into the past, and I had learned my lesson. Read English news, yes, and English sport, politics, and pomposity, but in future keep the things that hurt to myself alone. They can be my secret indulgence. Color and scent and sound, rain and the lapping of water, even the mists of autumn and the smell of the flood tide, these are memories of Manderley that will not be denied. Some people have a vice of reading Bradshaws. They plan innumerable journeys across country for the fun of linking up impossible connections. My hobby is less tedious, if as strange. I am a mine of information on the English countryside. I know the name of every owner of every British moor, yes--and their tenants too. I know how many grouse are killed, how many partridge, how many head of deer. I know where trout are rising, and where the salmon leap. I attend all meets, I follow every run. Even the names of those who walk hound puppies are familiar to me. The state of the crops, the price of fat cattle, the mysterious ailments of swine, 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.

  The scrubby vineyards and the crumbling stones become things of no account, for if I wish I can give rein to my imagination, and pick foxgloves and pale campions from a wet, streaking hedge.

  Poor whims of fancy, tender and un-harsh. They are the enemy to bitterness and regret, and sweeten this exile we have brought upon ourselves.

  Because of them I can enjoy my afternoon, and return, smiling and refreshed, to face the little ritual of our tea. The order never varies. Two slices of bread and butter each, and China tea. What a hidebound couple we must seem, clinging to custom because we did so in England. Here, on this clean balcony, white and impersonal with centuries of sun, I think of half past four at Manderley, and the table drawn before the library fire. The door flung open, punctual to the minute, and the performance, never varying, of the laying of the tea, the silver tray, the kettle, the snowy cloth. While Jasper, his spaniel ears a-droop, feigns indifference to the arrival of the cakes. That feast was laid before us always, and yet we ate so little.

  Those dripping crumpets, I can see them now. Tiny crisp wedges of toast, and piping-hot, floury scones. Sandwiches of unknown nature, mysteriously flavored and quite delectable, and that very special gingerbread. Angel cake, that melted in the mouth, and his rather stodgier companion, bursting with peel and raisins. There was enough food there to keep a starving family for a week. I never knew what happened to it all, and 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, smiling that freezing, superior smile of hers, and I can imagine her saying: "There were never any complaints when Mrs. de Winter was alive." Mrs. Danvers. I wonder what she is doing now. She and Favell. I think it was the expression on her face that gave me my first feeling of unrest. Instinctively I thought, "She is comparing me to 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 both of us are free. Even my faithful Jasper has gone to the happy hunting grounds, and Manderley is no more. It lies like an empty shell amid the tangle of the deep woods, even as I saw it in my dream. A multitude of weeds, a colony of birds. Sometimes perhaps a tramp will wander there, seeking shelter from a sudden shower of rain and, if he is stouthearted, he may walk there with impunity. But your timid fellow, your nervous poacher--the woods of Manderley are not for him. He might stumble upon the little cottage in the cove and he would not be happy beneath its tumbled roof, the thin rain beating a tattoo. There might linger there still a certain atmosphere of stress... That corner in the drive, too, where the trees encroach upon the gravel, is not a place in which to pause, not after 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 away along the ground, they might be the patter, patter, of a woman's hurrying footstep, and the mark in the gravel the imprint of a high-heeled satin shoe.

  It is when I remember these things that I return with relief to the prospect from our balcony. No shadows steal upon this hard glare, the stony vineyards shimmer in the sun and the bougainvillea is white with dust. I may one day look upon it with affection. At the moment it inspires me, if not with love, at least with confidence. And confidence is a quality I prize, although it has come to me a little late in the day. I suppose it is his dependence upon me that has made me bold at last. At any rate I have lost my diffidence, my timidity, my shyness with strangers. I am very 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. It was my lack of poise of course that made such a bad impression on people like Mrs. Danvers. What must I have seemed like after Rebecca? I can see myself now, memory spanning the years like a bridge, with straight, bobbed hair and youthful, unpowdered face, dressed in an ill-fitting coat and skirt and a jumper of my own creation, trailing in the wake of Mrs. Van Hopper like a shy, uneasy colt. She would precede me in to lunch, her short body ill-balanced upon tottering, high heels, her fussy, frilly blouse a complement to her large bosom and swinging hips, her new hat pierced with a monster quill aslant upon her head, exposing a wide expanse of forehead bare as a schoolboy's knee. One hand carried a gigantic bag, the kind that holds passports, engagement diaries, and bridge scores, while the other hand toyed with that inevitable lorgnette, the enemy to other people's privacy.

Chapter 1 Maxim de Winter

Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me 

that I was passing through the iron gates that led to the driveway. 

The drive was just^narrow track now, its stony surface covered 

with grass and weeds^Sometimes, when I thought I had lost it, it

would appear again, beneath a fallen tr^e or beyond^ pool formed 

by the winter rains. The trees had thrown c^t new low 

bra'ricRs'^hich stretched across my way. I came to the house 

suddenly, and stood there with my heart beating fast and tears 

filling my eyes.

There was Manderley, our Manderley, secret and silent as it had always 

been, the grey stone shining in the moonlight of my dream. Time could not 

spoil the beauty of those walls, nor of the place itself, as it lay like a jewel in 

the hollow of a hand. The grass ^i^^sloped down towards the sea, which was 

a sheet of silver lying ^calm under the moon, like a lake undisturbed by wind or storm.

I turned again to the house, and I saw that the garden had run wild, just as the woods had done. Weeds were everywhere. But J moonlight can play strange tricks with the imagination, even with a dreamer’s imagination. 

As I stood there, I could swe^THat the house was not an empty shell, but lived and breathed as it had lived before. Light came from the windows, the curtains blew softly in the night air, and there, in the library, the door stood half open as we,j^d left it, with my handkerchief on the table beside the bowl of autumn flowers.

Then a cloud came over the moon, like a dark hand across a face.The memories left me. Г looked again at an empty shell, with no whisper of the past about its staring walls. Our feaf^ ihd ^ ^suffering were gone now. When I thought about Manderley in 31'^ 7У my waking hours I would not be bitter; I would think of it as it might have been, ifl could have lived there without fear. I would remember the rose garden in summer, and the birds that sang there; tea under the trees, and the sound of the sea coming up to us from the shore below. I would think of the flowers blown from the bushes, and the Happy VaUey. These things could never lose their freshness. They were memories that could not hurt. All this I knew in my dream (because, like most sleepers, I knew that I dreamed). 

In reality, I lay far away, in a foreign land, and would wake before long in my lonely little hotel bedroom. I would lie for a moment, stretch myself and turn, confused by that burning sun, that hard, clean sky, so different from the soft moonlight of my dream. The day would lie before us both, long no doubt, but full of a certain peace, a calm we had not known before. We would not talk of Manderley; I would not tell my dream. For Manderley was ours no longer. Manderley was no more.

We can never go back again; that is certain. The past is still too close to us. But we have no secrets from each other now; everything is shared. Our little hotel may be dull, and the food not very good; day after day, things may be very much the same. But dullness is better than fear. We live now very much by habit. And I have become very good at reading out loud. The only time I have known him show impatience is when the postman is delayed and we have to wait for our post from England. I have lost my old self-consciousness. I am very different from that person who drove to Manderley for the first time, hopeful and eager, filled with the desire to please. It was my lack of confidence, of course, that struck people like Mrs Danvers. What' must I hjve seemed like, after Rebecca?

I can see myself now, so long ago, with my short straight hair and young, unpowdered face, dressed in a badly fitting coat and skirt, following Mrs Van Hopper into the hotel for lunch. She would go to her usual table in the corner, near the window, and, looking to left and right, would say, ‘Not a single well-knownface! I shall tell the manager he must make a reduction in my bill. 

What does he think I come here for? Tp look at the waiters?’

We ate in silence, as Mrs Van Hopper liked to think about nothing but her food. Then I saw that the table next to ours, which had been empty for three days, was to be used once more. The head waiter was showing the new arrival to his place. Mrs Van Hopper put down her fork and stared. Then she leaned over the table to me, her small eyes bright with excitement, her voice a little too loud.

‘It’s Max de Winter,’ she said,‘the man who owns Manderley. 

You’ve heard of it, of course. He looks ill, doesn’t he? They say he hasn’t been the same since his wife’s death. The papers were full of it, of course. They say he never talks about it, never mentions her name. She was drowned, you know, in the bay near Manderley .. .’

Her interest in other people was like a disease. I can see her as though it were yesterday, on that unforgettable afternoon, wondering how to make her attack. Suddenly, she turned to me. 

‘Go upstairs quickly and find that letter from my brother’s son, the one with the photograph. Bring it dovvn to me immediately.’

I saw then that she had made her plan. I wished I had the courage to warn the stranger. But when I returned, I saw that she had not waited; he was already sitting beside her. I gave her the letter, without a word. He rose to his feet immediately.

‘Mr de Winter is having coffee with us; go and ask the waiter for another cup,’ she said, just carelessly enough to warn him what I was. Her expression showed that I was young and unimportant, and that there was no need to include me in the conversation. So it was a surprise when he remained standing and made a sign to the waiter.

‘I’m afraid I must disagree,’ he said to her.‘You are both having coffee with me,’ and before I knew what had happened he was sitting on my usual chair and I was beside Mrs Van Hopper.For a moment she looked annoyed. Then she leaned forward, holding the letter.

‘You know, I recognized you as soon as you walked in,’ she said, ‘and I thought, “Why, there’s Mr de Winter, Billy’s friend; I simply must show him the photographs of Billy and his wife.” And here they are, bathing at Palm Beach. Billy is mad about her. He hadn’t met her, of course, when he gave that party where I saw you first. 

But I don’t expect you remember an old woman like me?’

‘Yes, I remember you very well,’ he said.'l don’t think 1 should care for Palm Beach. That sort of thing has never amused me.’

Mrs Van Hopper gave her fat laugh. ‘If Billy had a home like Manderley, he wouldn’t want to play around in Palm Beach,’ she said. She paused, expecting him to smile, but he went on smoking, looking just a little disturbed.

‘I’ve seen pictures of it, of course,’ she said, ‘and it looks perfectly beautiful. I remember Billy telhng me it was lovelier than any other house of its size and age. I am surprised you can ever bear to leave it.’

His silence was painful, as anyone else would have noticed, but she continued, ‘You Englishmen are all the same about your homes,’ her voice becoming louder, ‘you don’t want to seem proud of them. Isn’t there a great haU at Manderley, with some very valuable pictures?’

I think he realized my discomfort; he leaned forward in his chair and spoke to me, his voice gentle, asking if I would have some more coffee, and when 1 shook my head I felt that his eyes were still resting on me, wondering.

‘What brings you here?’ Mrs Van Hopper went on.‘You’re not one of the regular visitors. What are your plans?’

‘I haven’t made up my mind,’ he said,‘I came away in rather a hurry.’

His own words must have raised a memory, for he looked disturbed again. She talked on, still not noticing. ‘Of course youmiss Manderley.The West Country must be lovely in the spring.’ 

‘Yes,’ he said shortly. ‘Manderley was looking its best.’

In the end it was a waiter who gave him his opportunity, with a message for Mrs Van Hopper. He got up immediately, pushing back his chair. ‘Don’t let me keep you,’ he said.

‘It’s so nice to have met you like this, Mr ,de Winter; I hope I shall see something of you.You must come and have a drink some time. I have one or two people coming in tomorrow evening. Why not join us?’ Г turned away so that I did not have to watch him search for an excuse.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, ‘tomorrow I am probably driving to Sospel; I’m not sure when I shall get back.’

Looking a little annoyed, she left it, and he went.

The next morning Mrs Van Hopper woke with a sore throat and a rather high temperature. Her doctor told her to stay in bed. I left her quite happy, after the arrival of a nurse, and went down early for lunch — a good half-hour before our usual time. I expected the room to be empty, and it was — except for the table next to ours. I was not prepared for this. I thought he had gone to Sospel. I was halfway across the room before I saw him, and could not go back. 

This was a situation for which I was not trained. I wished I was older, different. I went to our table, looking straight ahead. But as soon as 1 sat down, I knocked over the bowl of flowers. The water ran over the cloth, and down onto my legs.The waiter was at the other end of the room and did not see. In a second, though, my neighbou/ was at my side.

‘You can’t sit with a wet tablecloth,’ he said,‘you won’t enjoy your food. Get out of the way’ He began to dry the table with his handkerchief, and then the waiter came hurrying to help.

‘Lay my table for two,’ he said. ‘This lady will have lunch with me.‘Oh, no,’ I said,‘I couldn’t possibly.’

‘Why not?’

I tried to think of an excuse. 1 knew he did not want to lunch with me. He was only being polite.

‘Come and sit down. We needn’t talk unless we want to.’

He sat down, and went on eating, his lunch as though nothing had happened. I knew we could go on like this, all through the meal, without speaking but without any sense of awkwardness.

‘Your friend,' he began at last,‘she is very much older than you.Have you known her long?’

‘She’s not really a friend,’ I told him, ‘she is an employer. She’s training me to be a companion, and she pays me.’

‘1 did not know one could buy companionship,’ he said; ‘it sounds a strange idea. You haven’t much in common with her. 

What do you do it for? Haven’t you any family?’

‘No - they’re dead.’

‘You know,’ he said,‘we’ve got that in common, you and I. We are both alone in the world. Oh, I’ve got a sister, though we don’t see much of each other, and an ancient grandmother whom I visit two or three times a year, but neither of them provides much companionship. You know, I think you’ve made a big mistake in coming here, in joining forces with Mrs Van Hopper. You’re not made for that sort of job. You’re too young, for one thing, and too soft. Now go upstairs and put your hat on, and I’ll have the car brought round.’

I was happy that afternoon; I can remember it well. I can see the blue sky and sea. I can feel again the wind on my face, and hear my laugh, and his that answered it. It was not the Monte Carlo that I had known before. The harbour was a dancing thing, bright with boats, and the sailors were cheerful, smiling men, careless as the wind. 1 can remember as though I were still wearing it my comfortable, badly fitting suit, my broad hat, the shoes I wore. 1 had never looked more youthful; 1 had never felt so old.I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a misery too, whatever the poets may say. One is so easily hurt.

I have forgotten much of Monte Carlo, of those morning drives, of where we went, even of our conversation; but I have not forgotten how my fingers trembled, pulling on my hat, and how I would run down the stairs and so outside. He would be there, in the driver’s seat, reading a paper while , he waited, and when he saw me he would smile, and throw it behind him into the back seat, and open the door, saying,‘Well, how is the companion this morning, and where does she want to go?’ If he had driven round in circles it  would not have mattered to me.