Rebecca

“We can never go back again, that much is certain” (5), the narrator declares about a mysterious, tragic past. If she and her companion try to think about their previous life at Manderley in England, “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” (5). She can tell when her mate recalls those days because he begins to smoke cigarette after cigarette and talk quickly about anything else “as a panacea to pain” (5). They have been through an ordeal by fire and believe they have now conquered the “particular devil” who tormented them (5). They live in exile in a dull, little hotel to avoid meeting anyone her mate might know in the large hotels. Their boring routine is preferable to fear. She reads aloud the sporting and political news from English newspapers but avoids the articles that remind her companion of Manderley and the English countryside he left behind. Even the daily tea ritual brings back memories of Manderley, when she recalls that she never dared ask Mrs. Danvers what happened to the uneaten leftovers because she imagined the woman’s scorn, comparing her to Mrs. de Winter—Rebecca.

Although Manderley is an empty shell now, the narrator imagines that an “atmosphere of stress” (9) may linger there: When the leaves rustle, they sound like the stealthy movement of a woman in evening dress, and when they shiver and fall, they sound like the pattern of a woman’s hurrying footsteps in high-heeled, satin shoes.

The narrator reflects that she is very different from her younger self: She has lost her shyness and diffidence. Her present companion’s dependence on her has made her bold and confident at last. The narrator remembers the first time she drove to Manderley, hopeful, desperate to please, and timid. She wonders what she must have seemed like, after Rebecca, and knows that she made a bad impression on Mrs. Danvers.

The narrator recalls her own youthful face, her straight, bobbed hair, and her ill-fitting coat, when she trailed behind Mrs. Van Hopper “like a shy, uneasy colt” (9). The social-climbing, gossipy Mrs. Van Hooper, a short, large-bosomed woman, would place a lorgnette to her small pig’s eyes to stare at any important people in Monte Carlo. Mrs. Van Hopper’s lack of refinement and rude treatment of the young narrator contrast with the narrator’s current companion who smiles at her as he quietly peels an orange with his well-shaped hands. The narrator remembers when waiters perceived her subservient inferiority and treated her badly as an inexperienced young woman. One day at the Hotel d'Azur restaurant in Monte Carlo, Mrs. Van Hopper loudly announced to the embarrassed young narrator that Max de Winter, the owner of Manderley, had been seated at the table next to theirs. The maître d’ hotel treated him like a very special patron, but Mrs. Van Hopper stated that de Winter looked ill because he could not get over his wife’s death.

The narrator wonders what her life would be today if her former employer, Mrs. Van Hopper, had not been such a snob. At the Hotel d'Azur, Mrs. Van Hopper would try to speak to any people of distinction that she had read about in newspaper columns and claim them as her friends. After lunch one day, Mrs. Van Hopper sits “like a large complacent spider” (13) on a sofa in the lounge to intercept Max de Winter as he departs the hotel restaurant. The young narrator is sent upstairs to get a letter, which is to be a means of introduction to Mr. de Winter, from Mrs. Van Hopper’s nephew. She imagines that Mr. de Winter will resent Mrs. Van Hopper’s intrusion upon his privacy. She reluctantly brings the letter to the lounge, wishing she had the courage to warn him of the impending ambush. However, she finds him already seated next to her employer on the sofa.

When Mrs. Van Hopper attempts to send her young employee off to fetch coffee for them, conveying the girl’s unimportance to Mr. de Winter, he surprisingly treats the young woman with courtesy and includes her in the coffee-drinking invitation. Mrs. Van Hopper, an American, rattles on about her nephew Billy in Palm Beach, Florida, but Mr. de Winter asserts that he would not care for that location. The young narrator feels that he belongs to a fifteenth-century walled city of narrow, cobbled streets. She thinks that Mr. de Winter’s face is “arresting, sensitive, medieval in some strange inexplicable way” (15). He reminds her of a museum portrait of a Gentleman Unknown whose eyes follow the observer. Mr. de Winter seems like a figure from “a past where men walked cloaked at night […] a past of whispers in the dark, of shimmering rapier blades, of silent, exquisite courtesy” (15). Mrs. Van Hopper’s mention of the beauty of Manderley evokes a painful silence from Mr. de Winter. He lashes out with a sarcastic reply to stop her intrusive questions, but the insensitive Mrs. Van Hopper does not notice. Her employer’s rude behavior distresses the young narrator. Mr. de Winter asks the young narrator what she thinks of Monte Carlo. Embarrassed, she says it seems artificial. He reveals to Mrs. Van Hopper that he hurriedly left England. The young narrator notices a slight change in his eyes when his words seem to stimulate a memory. As Mrs. Van Hopper persists in getting excessively familiar, Mr. de Winter makes a cutting remark to her and hastily departs.

Upstairs, the young narrator dreads Mrs. Van Hopper’s bridge game when her duties include clearing the ashtrays for the group of cardplayers. She thinks of a medieval-looking house in Monaco and absentmindedly sketches a profile of a historical-looking figure with an aquiline nose. The hotel lift boy knocks at the door and gives her a note from Mr. de Winter that asks forgiveness for his rudeness that afternoon. The young narrator’s name is on the envelope, spelt correctly, which is unusual.

The morning after the bridge party, Mrs. Van Hopper wakes up ill with influenza. A nurse is hired, and the young narrator unexpectedly has time to herself. She goes to lunch at the hotel restaurant earlier than usual, hoping no one will be dining there yet. She discovers that Mr. de Winter is at the next table, probably trying to avoid them by lunching early. Awkwardly, she knocks over the vase of flowers, wetting her tablecloth. Mr. de Winter invites her to join him at his table, to which she reluctantly agrees, afraid of disturbing his lunch. He apologizes again for his rudeness, and she explains that her employer is curious about anyone important. When he asks why he should be considered important, she replies that it is because of Manderley. He is silent. The narrator wonders why mention of his famous home elicits “that feeling of discomfort, as though I had trespassed on forbidden ground […] making as it were a barrier between him and others” (23). She recalls a picture postcard of Manderley that she had bought as a child on a holiday in the west of England.

He is puzzled by her relationship to Mrs. Van Hopper; she reveals her employment as a companion. He questions her about her beautiful, unusual name. Her parents are deceased. She tells him about her wonderful father, about whom she typically does not share information, but she feels drawn to speak to Mr. de Winter, “because his eyes followed me in sympathy like the Gentleman Unknown” (24). She loses her shyness, talking to him for an hour and a half. He tells her that he enjoyed this conversation more than he has enjoyed anything for a very long time. She helped him to escape his despondency and introspection. He seems more modern and not as much in shadows to the narrator. He says that they share the status of being alone in the world; although he has a sister and an ancient grandmother, neither of them provides companionship. When she mentions that he has a home, an inscrutable look returns to his eyes. He thinks that she has made a mistake in taking the companion job, which has no future. He asks what she intends to do on her holiday and offers to drive her. She feels happy, as if he has been her friend for many years.

They spend the day together driving around Monte Carlo. She feels important and grown up at last. However, when they drive to a summit, where the edge of the road falls away 2,000 feet to the sea, Mr. de Winter is detached again, “so lost in the labyrinth of his own unquiet thoughts” (29) that she does not exist. She turns white with fear, wondering about his sanity. He snaps out of his mood and apologizes. He reveals that he had been at that spot many years ago, but it has not changed. On their drive back, he begins to talk about Manderley, not about his life, but about the many lovely wildflowers that grow there. He refuses to have wildflowers in the house because they become listless in vases. Roses are the exception. She finds a poetry book in his car, and he tells her she can read it. When he thanks her for the day and bids farewell, she feels like a child whose treat is over. She reads a poem about a person being pursued and wonders what Mr. de Winter is fleeing. The book is dedicated to Max from Rebecca in a curious, slanted handwriting, with the name “Rebecca” strong in black ink, “the tall and sloping R dwarfing the other letters” (33). She recalls Mrs. Van Hopper’s gossip about the tragedy of the drowning of Mr. de Winter’s wife in a bay near Manderley and that he never speaks of Rebecca.

As a 21-year-old in Monte Carlo, the narrator guiltily flushes when she tells the bedridden Mrs. Van Hopper that she occupies herself taking tennis lessons from the professional. The young narrator tours every morning with Mr. de Winter in his car and lunches every day at his hotel table. She feels the fever of first love: excited to join him, happy wherever they drive, and content whether they converse of not. Only the clock is her enemy. She impulsively wishes aloud for an invention that would bottle memory like a scent, so she could uncork it at any time to relive a moment like the present one. His mocking laughter hurts her, and she vows never to tell Mrs. Van Hopper about these excursions because the employer would only emphasize Mr. de Winter’s charity in driving her. She tells him that she wishes she were 36 and dressed in black satin with pearls. He replies that if she were like that she would not be in his car. She asks why he chooses her as the object of his charity. He knows everything about her, but she knows no more about him than on the day they met—only that he resides at Manderley and lost his wife. When she mentions the forbidden word, “wife,” his silence makes her believe that their friendship is ended. He sits “looking more than ever like someone medieval who lived within a frame” (38). He tells her that memories are bitter to him because of something that happened a year ago, which altered his life. He invites the narrator on drives because he wants her company. She helps blot out memories for him; otherwise, he would have left Monte Carlo and kept traveling. He vehemently states that if she does not believe him, she can get out of the car and find her way home. She says she wants to go home; her adult pride is lost, and she begins to cry.

He kisses her hand and throws his handkerchief into her lap, which she is too ashamed to touch. She feels young, small, and very alone, with the gulf between them wider than ever. She finally blows her nose in his handkerchief. Suddenly, he pulls her beside him and places his arm around her shoulder, with his other hand on the wheel. He tells her that she is young enough to be his daughter and he does not know how to deal with her, but his family calls him Maxim and he would like her to do the same. He takes off her hat and kisses the top of her head. He asks her to promise never to wear black satin and they smile at each other. In her elation, she “almost had the courage to claim equality” (41). She is still young enough to consider the right to call him by his first name a triumph, although he has used hers since first acquaintance. The narrator reflects that the morning “promoted me to a new level of friendship. I did not lag so far behind as I had thought” (42).

When she returns to Mrs. Van Hopper’s suite, the employer asks if Mr. de Winter is still in the hotel. Mrs. Van Hopper states that Mr. de Winter reportedly had adored his brilliant and beautiful wife, Rebecca, who gave tremendous parties at Manderley. The young narrator begins to imagine the deceased wife, “following a phantom in my mind, whose shadowy form had taken shape at last” (43). When she thinks of Rebecca’s bold, slanted handwriting, “stabbing the white paper, the symbol of herself, so certain, so assured” (43), the narrator recalls that Rebecca called her husband, the intimate “Max,” while she must refer to him only as “Maxim.”

Suddenly Mrs. Van Hopper decides to return to New York and expects the young narrator to accompany her. Maxim is away at Cannes and the young woman cries all night thinking that she will never see him again. Mrs. Van Hopper is annoyed that she does not appreciate the opportunity to see New York and meet young men. The narrator finishes packing Mrs. Van Hopper’s trunks and imagines a polite, stiff farewell to an indifferent Maxim. The next morning, Mrs. Van Hopper decides to catch an earlier train. Desperate to see Maxim before her departure, the narrator runs to his hotel room and hammers on the door. He opens the door and asks what she wants. He is surprised when she tells him that she is leaving that day. She explains that she does not want to go but must earn her living. He invites her to breakfast on the hotel terrace because he needs to talk to her.

Maxim offers her the choice to go to New York with Mrs. Van Hopper or to go to Manderley with him. She asks if he wants a secretary. Maxim replies, “No, I’m asking you to marry me, you little fool” (51). She thinks she does not belong to his world and that he is trying to be kind to her. Maxim repeats the marriage proposal. He is not being philanthropic, but believes she loves him. She admits she does love him and cried all night. He laughs and says it is a pity she must grow up. He announces that instead of being Mrs. Van Hopper’s companion, she will become his; her duties will be almost the same. She anxiously wonders if it is a joke. He realizes that this is not her idea of a romantic proposal, but he promises to take her to Venice for a brief time, because he wants to show her Manderley. She thinks the Manderley postcard bought during her childhood was a premonition of her future. She imagines being Mrs. de Winter, the praised lady of the estate. He asks if his age of 42 seems very old to her. He decides to tell Mrs. Van Hopper the news by himself. He wants to arrange the marriage in a few days, with a license. Although the young narrator expected a church wedding with friends and relatives, she adapts to his preference because he insists that he had that sort of wedding before.

She feels pain in the pit of her stomach when he disappears to talk with Mrs. Van Hopper. He has never said anything about being in love with her. She thinks, “Not like him the first time […] asking Rebecca” (56). She tells herself to never think of that, and attributes the hurtful thought to demons. Then she opens the poetry book he lent her and sees the title page, with Rebecca’s inscription to Max. Although Rebecca is dead, she notices “how alive was her writing though, how full of force” (57). She takes her nail-scissors and cuts the page out of the book, tearing it into little fragments, and throwing them in the wastebasket. When she looks in the basket: “Even now the ink stood up on the fragments thick and black, the writing was not destroyed” (57). She sets fire to the fragments with a match, “the letter R was the last to go, it twisted in the flame, it curled outwards for a moment, becoming larger than ever” (57), before crumbling to dust.

When she speaks to Mrs. Van Hopper, her former employer insinuates that the young narrator did something illicit with Maxim. Mrs. Van Hopper tells her that she lacks the experience to cope as mistress of Manderley. Her former employer suggests that she is making a big mistake, which she will bitterly regret. Mrs. Van Hopper plants the idea that Maxim is not in love with her, but only marrying her because he cannot live in that empty house alone.