Rebecca

'Oh, but that would not look right at all,' said Frank seriously. 'People would be very offended. You must dance with the people who ask you.'

I turned away to hide my smile. It was a joy to me the way he never knew when his leg had been pulled.

'Do you think Lady Crowan's suggestion about the Dresden shepherdess was a good one?' I said slyly.

He considered me solemnly without the trace of a smile. 'Yes, I do,' he said. 'I think you'd look very well indeed.'

I burst into laughter. 'Oh, Frank, dear, I do love you,' I said, and he turned rather pink, a little shocked I think at my impulsive words, and a little hurt too that I was laughing at him.

'I don't see that I've said anything funny,' he said stiffly.

Maxim came in at the window, Jasper dancing at his heels. 'What's all the excitement about?' he said.

'Frank is being so gallant,' I said. 'He thinks Lady Crowan's idea of my dressing up as a Dresden shepherdess is nothing to laugh at.'

'Lady Crowan is a damned nuisance,' said Maxim. 'If she had to write out all the invitations and organise the affair she would not be so enthusiastic. It's always been the same though. The locals look upon Manderley as if it was a pavilion on the end of a pier, and expect us to put up a turn for their benefit. I suppose we shall have to ask the whole county.'

'I've got the records in the office,' said Frank. 'It won't really entail much work. Licking the stamps is the longest job.'

'We'll give that to you to do,' said Maxim, smiling at me.

'Oh, we'll do that in the office,' said Frank. 'Mrs de Winter need not bother her head about anything at all.' I wondered what they would say if I suddenly announced my intention of running the whole affair. Laugh, I supposed, and then begin talking of something else. I was glad, of course, to be relieved of responsibility, but it rather added to my sense of humility to feel that I was not even capable of licking stamps. I thought of the writing-desk in the morning-room, the docketed pigeonholes all marked in ink by that slanting pointed hand.

'What will you wear?' I said to Maxim.

'I never dress up,' said Maxim. 'It's the one perquisite allowed to the host, isn't it, Frank?'

'I can't really go as a Dresden shepherdess,' I said, 'what on earth shall I do? I'm not much good at dressing up.'

'Put a ribbon round your hair and be Alice-in-Wonderland,' said Maxim lightly; 'you look like it now, with your finger in your mouth.'

'Don't be so rude,' I said. 'I know my hair is straight, but it isn't as straight as that. I tell you what, I'll give you and Frank the surprise of your lives, and you won't know me.'

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

'All right, that's a bargain,' I said. 'I'll keep my costume a secret to the last minute, and you won't know anything about it. Come on, Jasper, we don't care what they say, do we?' I heard Maxim laughing at I went out into the garden, and he said something to Frank which I did not catch.

I wished he would not always treat me as a child, rather spoilt, rather irresponsible, someone to be petted from time to time when the mood came upon him but more often forgotten, more often patted on the shoulder and told to run away and play. I wished something would happen to make me look wiser, more mature. Was it always going to be like this? He away ahead of me, with his own moods that I did not share, his secret troubles that I did not know? Would we never be together, he a man and I a woman, standing shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, with no gulf between us? I did not want to be a child. I wanted to be his wife, his mother. I wanted to be old.

I stood on the terrace, biting my nails, looking down towards the sea, and as I stood there I wondered for the twentieth time that day whether it was by Maxim's orders that those rooms in the west wing were kept furnished and untouched. I wondered if he went, as Mrs Danvers did, and touched the brushes on the dressing-table, opened the wardrobe doors, and put his hands amongst the clothes.

'Come on, Jasper,' I shouted, 'run, run with me, come on, can't you?' and I tore across the grass, savagely, angrily, the bitter tears behind my eyes, with Jasper leaping at my heels and barking hysterically.

The news soon spread about the fancy dress ball. My little maid Clarice, her eyes shining with excitement, talked of nothing else. I gathered from her that the servants in general were delighted. 'Mr Frith says it will be like old times,' said Clarice eagerly. 'I heard him saying so to Alice in the passage this morning. What will you wear, Madam?'

'I don't know, Clarice, I can't think,' I said.

'Mother said I was to be sure and tell her,' said Clarice. 'She remembers the last ball they gave at Manderley, and she has never forgotten it. Will you be hiring a costume from London, do you think?'

'I haven't made up my mind, Clarice,' I said. 'But I tell you what. When I do decide, I shall tell you and nobody else. It will be a dead secret between us both.'

'Oh, Madam, how exciting,' breathed Clarice. 'I don't know how I am going to wait for the day.'

I was curious to know Mrs Danvers' reaction to the news. Since that afternoon I dreaded even the sound of her voice down the house telephone, and by using Robert as mediator between us I was spared this last ordeal. I could not forget the expression of her face when she left the library after that interview with Maxim. I thanked God she had not seen me crouching in the gallery. And I wondered, too, if she thought that it was I who had told Maxim about Favell's visit to the house. If so, she would hate me more than ever. I shuddered now when I remembered the touch of her hand on my arm, and that dreadful soft, intimate pitch of her voice close to my ear. I did not want to remember anything about that afternoon. That was why I did not speak to her, not even on the house telephone.

The preparations went on for the ball. Everything seemed to be done down at the estate office. Maxim and Frank were down there every morning. As Frank had said, I did not have to bother my head about anything. I don't think I licked one stamp. I began to get in a panic about my costume. It seemed so feeble not to be able to think of anything, and I kept remembering all the people who would come, from Kerrith and round about, the bishop's wife who had enjoyed herself so much the last time, Beatrice and Giles, that tiresome Lady Crowan, and many more people I did not know and who had never seen me, they would every one of them have some criticism to offer, some curiosity to know what sort of effort I should make. At last, in desperation, I remembered the books that Beatrice had given me for a wedding present, and I sat down in the library one morning turning over the pages as a last hope, passing from illustration to illustration in a sort of frenzy. Nothing seemed suitable, they were all so elaborate and pretentious, those gorgeous costumes of velvet and silk in the reproductions given of Rubens, Rembrandt and others. I got hold of a piece of paper and a pencil and copied one or two of them, but they did not please me, and I threw the sketches into the waste-paper basket in disgust, thinking no more about them.

In the evening, when I was changing for dinner, there was a knock at my bedroom door. I called 'Come in,' thinking it was Clarice. The door opened and it was not Clarice. It was Mrs Danvers. She held a piece of paper in her hand. 'I hope you will forgive me disturbing you,' she said, 'but I was not sure whether you meant to throw these drawings away. All the waste-paper baskets are always brought to me to check, at the end of the day, in case of mislaying anything of value. Robert told me this was thrown into the library basket.'

I had turned quite cold all over at the sight of her, and at first I could not find my voice. She held out the paper for me to see. It was the rough drawing I had done during the morning.

'No, Mrs Danvers,' I said, after a moment, 'it doesn't matter throwing that away. It was only a rough sketch. I don't want it.'

'Very good,' she said, 'I thought it better to enquire from you personally to save any misunderstanding.'

'Yes,' I said. 'Yes, of course.' I thought she would turn and go, but she went on standing there by the door.

'So you have not decided yet what you will wear?' she said. There was a hint of derision in her voice, a trace of odd satisfaction. I supposed she had heard of my efforts through Clarice in some way.

'No,' I said. 'No, I haven't decided.'

She continued watching me, her hand on the handle of the door.

'I wonder you don't copy one of the pictures in the gallery,' she said.

I pretended to file my nails. They were too short and too brittle, but the action gave me something to do and I did not have to look at her.