'Yes, I might think about that,' I said. I wondered privately why such an idea had never come to me before. It was an obvious and very good solution to my difficulty. I did not want her to know this though. I went on filing my nails.
'All the pictures in the gallery would make good costumes,' said Mrs Danvers, 'especially that one of the young lady in white, with her hat in her hand. I wonder Mr de Winter does not make it a period ball, everyone dressed more or less the same, to be in keeping. I never think it looks right to see a clown dancing with a lady in powder and patches.'
'Some people enjoy the variety,' I said. 'They think it makes it all the more amusing.'
'I don't like it myself,' said Mrs Danvers. Her voice was surprisingly normal and friendly, and I wondered why it was she had taken the trouble to come up with my discarded sketch herself. Did she want to be friends with me at last? Or did she realise that it had not been me at all who had told Maxim about Favell, and this was her way of thanking me for my silence?
'Has not Mr de Winter suggested a costume for you?' she said.
'No,' I said, after a moment's hesitation. 'No, I want to surprise him and Mr Crawley. I don't want them to know anything about it.'
'It's not for me to make a suggestion, I know,' she said, 'but when you do decide, I should advise you to have your dress made in London. There is no one down here can do that sort of thing well. Voce, in Bond Street, is a good place I know.'
'I must remember that,' I said.
'Yes,' she said, and then, as she opened the door, 'I should study the pictures in the gallery, Madam, if I were you, especially the one I mentioned. And you need not think I will give you away. I won't say a word to anyone.'
'Thank you, Mrs Danvers,' I said. She shut the door very gently behind her. I went on with my dressing, puzzled at her attitude, so different from our last encounter, and wondering whether I had the unpleasant Favell to thank for it.
Rebecca's cousin. Why should Maxim dislike Rebecca's cousin? Why had he forbidden him to come to Manderley? Beatrice had called him a bounder. She had not said much about him. And the more I considered him the more I agreed with her. Those hot blue eyes, that loose mouth, and the careless familiar laugh. Some people would consider him attractive. Girls in sweet shops giggling behind the counter, and girls who gave one programmes in a cinema. I knew how he would look at them, smiling, and half whistling a tune under his breath. The sort of look and the type of whistle that would make one feel uncomfortable. I wondered how well he knew Manderley. He seemed quite at home, and Jasper certainly recognised him, but these two facts did not fit in with Maxim's words to Mrs Danvers. And I could not connect him with my idea of Rebecca. Rebecca, with her beauty, her charm, her breeding, why did she have a cousin like Jack Favell? It was wrong, out of all proportion. I decided he must be the skeleton in the family cupboard, and Rebecca with her generosity had taken pity on him from time to time and invited him to Manderley, perhaps when Maxim was from home, knowing his dislike. There had been some argument about it probably, Rebecca defending him, and ever after this perhaps a slight awkwardness whenever his name was mentioned.
As I sat down to dinner in the dining-room in my accustomed place, with Maxim at the head of the table, I pictured Rebecca sitting in where I sat now, picking up her fork for the fish, and then the telephone ringing and Frith coming into the room and saying 'Mr Favell on the phone, Madam, wishing to speak to you,' and Rebecca would get up from her chair with a quick glance at Maxim, who would not say anything, who would go on eating his fish. And when she came back, having finished her conversation, and sat down in her place again, Rebecca would begin talking about something different, in a gay, careless way, to cover up the little cloud between them. At first Maxim would be glum, answering in monosyllables, but little by little she would win his humour back again, telling him some story of her day, about someone she had seen in Kerrith, and when they had finished the next course he would be laughing again, looking at her and smiling, putting out his hand to her across the table.
'What the devil are you thinking about?' said Maxim.
I started, the colour flooding my face, for in that brief moment, sixty seconds in time perhaps, I had so identified myself with Rebecca that my own dull self did not exist, had never come to Manderley. I had gone back in thought and in person to the days that were gone.
'Do you know you were going through the most extraordinary antics instead of eating your fish?' said Maxim. 'First you listened, as though you heard the telephone, and then your lips moved, and you threw half a glance at me. And you shook your head, and smiled, and shrugged your shoulders. All in about a second. Are you practising your appearance for the fancy dress ball?' He looked across at me, laughing, and I wondered what he would say if he really knew my thoughts, my heart, and my mind, and that for one second he had been the Maxim of another year, and I had been Rebecca. 'You look like a little criminal,' he said, 'what is it?'
'Nothing,' I said quickly, 'I wasn't doing anything.'
'Tell me what you were thinking?'
'Why should I? You never tell me what you are thinking about.'
'I don't think you've ever asked me, have you?'
'Yes, I did once.'
'I don't remember.'
'We were in the library.'
'Very probably. What did I say?'
'You told me you were wondering who had been chosen to play for Surrey against Middlesex.'
Maxim laughed again. 'What a disappointment to you. What did you hope I was thinking?'
'Something very different.'
'What sort of thing?'
'Oh, I don't know.'
'No, I don't suppose you do. If I told you I was thinking about Surrey and Middlesex I was thinking about Surrey and Middlesex. Men are simpler than you imagine, my sweet child. But what goes on in the twisted tortuous minds of women would baffle anyone. Do you know, you did not look a bit like yourself just now? You had quite a different expression on your face.'
'I did? What sort of expression?'
'I don't know that I can explain. You looked older suddenly, deceitful. It was rather unpleasant.'
'I did not mean to.'
'No, I don't suppose you did.'
I drank some water, watching him over the rim of my glass. 'Don't you want me to look older?' I said.
'No:
'Why not?'
'Because it would not suit you.'
'One day I shall. It can't be helped. I shall have grey hair, and lines and things.'
'I don't mind that.'
'What do you mind then?'
'I don't want you to look like you did just now. You had a twist to your mouth and a flash of knowledge in your eyes. Not the right sort of knowledge.'
I felt very curious, rather excited. 'What do you mean, Maxim? What isn't the right sort of knowledge?'
He did not answer for a moment. Frith had come back into the room and was changing the plates. Maxim waited until Frith had gone behind the screen and through the service door before speaking again.
'When I met you first you had a certain expression on your face,' he said slowly, 'and you have it still. I'm not going to define it, I don't know how to. But it was one of the reasons why I married you. A moment ago, when you were going through that curious little performance, the expression had gone. Something else had taken its place.'
'What sort of thing? Explain to me, Maxim,' I said eagerly.
He considered me a moment, his eyebrows raised, whistling softly. 'Listen, my sweet. When you were a little girl, were you ever forbidden to read certain books, and did your father put those books under lock and key?'
'Yes,' I said.
'Well, then. A husband is not so very different from a father after all. There is a certain type of knowledge I
