Rebecca

nothing.

The day was spent in packing, and in the evening people came to say goodbye. We dined in the sitting-room, and she went to bed directly afterwards. Still I had not seen him. I went down to the lounge about half past nine on the pretext of getting luggage labels and he was not there. The odious reception clerk smiled when he saw me. 'If you are looking for Mr de Winter we had a message from Cannes to say he would not be back before midnight.'

'I want a packet of luggage labels,' I said, but I saw by his eye that he was not deceived. So there would be no last evening after all. The hour I had looked forward to all day must be spent by myself alone, in my own bedroom, gazing at my Revelation suit-case and the stout hold-all. Perhaps it was just as well, for I should have made a poor companion, and he must have read my face.

I know I cried that night, bitter youthful tears that could not come from me today. That kind of crying, deep into a pillow, does not happen after we are twenty-one. The throbbing head, the swollen eyes, the tight, contracted throat. And the wild anxiety in the morning to hide all traces from the world, sponging with cold water, dabbing eau-de-Cologne, the furtive dash of powder that is significant in itself. The panic, too, that one might cry again, the tears swelling without control, and a fatal trembling of the mouth lead one to disaster. I remember opening wide my window and leaning out, hoping the fresh morning air would blow away the tell-tale pink under the powder, and the sun had never seemed so bright, nor the day so full of promise. 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. And I was leaving it today. This is the last time I brush my hair before the looking-glass, the last time I shall clean my teeth into the basin. Never again sleep in that bed. Never more turn off the switch of that electric light. There I was, padding about in a dressing-gown, making a slough of sentiment out of a commonplace hotel bedroom.

'You haven't started a cold, have you?' she said at breakfast.

'No,' I told her, 'I don't think so,' clutching at a straw, for this might serve as an excuse later, if I was over- pink about the eyes.

'I hate hanging about once everything is packed,' she grumbled; 'we ought to have decided on the earlier train. We could get it if we made the effort, and then have longer in Paris. Wire Helen not to meet us, but arrange another rendezvous. I wonder' — she glanced at her watch — 'I suppose they could change the reservations. Anyway it's worth trying. Go down to the office and see.'

'Yes,' I said, a dummy to her moods going into my bedroom and flinging off my dressing-gown, fastening my inevitable flannel skirt and stretching my home-made jumper over my head. My indifference to her turned to hatred. This was the end then, even my morning must be taken from me. No last half-hour on the terrace, not even ten minutes perhaps to say goodbye. Because she had finished breakfast earlier than she expected, because she was bored. Well then, I would fling away restraint and modesty, I would not be proud any more. I slammed the door of the sitting-room and ran along the passage. I did not wait for the lift, I climbed the stairs, three at a time, up to the third floor. I knew the number of his room, 148, and I hammered at the door, very flushed in the face and breathless.

'Come in,' he shouted, and I opened the door, repenting already, my nerve failing me; for perhaps he had only just woken up, having been late last night, and would be still in bed, tousled in the head and irritable.

He was shaving by the open window, a camel-hair jacket over his pyjamas, and I in my flannel suit and heavy shoes felt clumsy and over dressed. I was merely foolish, when I had felt myself dramatic.

'What do you want?' he said. 'Is something the matter?'

'I've come to say goodbye,' I said, 'we're going this morning.'

He stared at me, then put his razor down on the washstand. 'Shut the door,' he said.

I closed it behind me, and stood there, rather self-conscious, my hands hanging by my side. 'What on earth are you talking about?' he asked.

'It's true, we're leaving today. We were going by the later train, and now she wants to catch the earlier one, and I was afraid I shouldn't see you again. I felt I must see you before I left, to thank you.'

They tumbled out, the idiotic words, just as I had imagined them. I was stiff and awkward; in a moment I should say he had been ripping.

'Why didn't you tell me about this before?' he said.

'She only decided yesterday. It was all done in a hurry. Her daughter sails for New York on Saturday, and we are going with her. We're joining her in Paris, and going through to Cherbourg.'

'She's taking you with her to New York?'

'Yes, and I don't want to go. I shall hate it; I shall be miserable.'

'Why in heaven's name go with her then?'

'I have to, you know that. I work for a salary. I can't afford to leave her.' He picked up his razor again, and took the soap off his face. 'Sit down,' he said. 'I shan't be long. I'll dress in the bathroom, and be ready in five minutes.'

He took his clothes off the chair and threw them on the bathroom floor, and went inside, slamming the door. I sat down on the bed and began biting my nails. The situation was unreal, and I felt like a lay-figure. I wondered what he was thinking, what he was going to do. I glanced round the room, it was the, room of any man, untidy and impersonal. Lots of shoes, more than ever were needed, and strings of ties. The dressing-table was bare, except for a large bottle of hair-wash and a pair of ivory hair-brushes. No photographs. No snapshots. Nothing like that. Instinctively I had looked for them, thinking there would be one photograph at least beside his bed, or in the middle of the mantelpiece. One large one, in a leather frame. There were only books though, and a box of cigarettes.

He was ready, as he had promised, in five minutes. 'Come down to the terrace while I eat my breakfast,' he said.

I looked at my watch. 'I haven't time,' I told him. 'I ought to be in the office now, changing the reservations.'

'Never mind about that, I've got to talk to you,' he said.

We walked down the corridor and he rang for the lift. He can't realise, I thought, that.the early train leaves in about an hour and a half. Mrs Van Hopper will ring up the office, in a moment, and ask if I am there. We went down in the lift, not talking, and so out to the terrace, where the tables were laid for breakfast.

'What are you going to have?' he said.

'I've had mine already,' I told him, 'and I can only stay four minutes anyway.'

'Bring me coffee, a boiled egg, toast, marmalade, and a tangerine,' he said to the waiter. And he took an emery board out of his pocket and began filing his nails.

'So Mrs Van Hopper has had enough of Monte Carlo,' he said, 'and now she wants to go home. So do I. She to New York and I to Manderley. Which would you prefer? You can take your choice.'

'Don't make a joke about it; it's unfair,' I said; 'and I think I had better see about those tickets, and say goodbye now.'

'If you think I'm one of the people who try to be funny at breakfast you're wrong,' he said. 'I'm invariably ill- tempered in the early morning. I repeat to you, the choice is open to you. Either you go to America with Mrs Van Hopper or you come home to Manderley with me.'

'Do you mean you want a secretary or something?'

'No, I'm asking you to marry me, you little fool.'

The waiter came with the breakfast, and I sat with my hands in my lap, watching while he put down the pot of coffee and the jug of milk.

'You don't understand,' I said, when the waiter had gone; 'I'm not the sort of person men marry.'

'What the devil do you mean?' he said, staring at me, laying down his spoon.

I watched a fly settle on the marmalade, and he brushed it away impatiently.

'I'm not sure,' I said slowly. 'I don't think I know how to explain. I don't belong to your sort of world for one thing.'

'What is my world?'

'Well — Manderley. You know what I mean.'

He picked up his spoon again and helped himself to marmalade.

'You are almost as ignorant as Mrs Van Hopper, and just as unintelligent. What do you know of Manderley? I'm the person to judge that, whether you would belong there or not. You think I ask you this on the spur of the