“Where is she tonight? She’s not been on the terrace once.”
“I can’t say, I’m sure. I’ve not seen her.”
“Mrs. de Winter used to be here, there, and everywhere.”
“Aye, that’s right.”
And the woman would turn to her neighbors nodding mysteriously.
“They say she’s not appearing tonight at all.”
“Go on.”
“That’s right. One of the servants from the house told me Mrs. de Winter hasn’t come down from her room all evening.”
“What’s wrong with the maid, is she bad?”
“No, sulky I reckon. They say her dress didn’t please her.”
A squeal of laughter and a murmur from the little crowd.
“Did you ever hear of such a thing? It’s a shame for Mr. de Winter.”
“I wouldn’t stand for it, not from a chit like her.”
“Maybe it’s not true at all.”
“It’s true all right. They’re full of it up at the house.” One to the other. This one to the next. A smile, a wink, a shrug of the shoulder. One group, and then another group. And then spreading to the guests who walked on the terrace and strolled across the lawns. The couple who in three hours’ time would sit in those chairs beneath me in the rose garden.
“Do you suppose it’s true what I heard?”
“What did you hear?”
“Why, that there’s nothing wrong with her at all, they’ve had a colossal row, and she won’t appear!”
“I say!” A lift of the eyebrows, a long whistle.
“I know. Well, it does look rather odd, don’t you think? What I mean is, people don’t suddenly for no reason have violent headaches. I call the whole thing jolly fishy.”
“I thought he looked a bit grim.”
“So did I.”
“Of course I have heard before the marriage is not a wild success.”
“Oh, really?”
“H’m. Several people have said so. They say he’s beginning to realize he’s made a big mistake. She’s nothing to look at, you know.”
“No, I’ve heard there’s nothing much to her. Who was she?”
“Oh, no one at all. Some pick-up in the south of France, a nursery gov., or something.”
“Good Lord!”
“I know. And when you think of Rebecca…”
I went on staring at the empty chairs. The salmon sky had turned to gray. Above my head was the evening star. In the woods beyond the rose garden the birds were making their last little rustling noises before nightfall. A lone gull flew across the sky. I went away from the window, back to the bed again. I picked up the white dress I had left on the floor and put it back in the box with the tissue paper. I put the wig back in its box too. Then I looked in one of my cupboards for the little portable iron I used to have in Monte Carlo for Mrs. Van Hopper’s dresses. It was lying at the back of a shelf with some woolen jumpers I had not worn for a long time. The iron was one of those universal kinds that go on any voltage and I fitted it to the plug in the wall. I began to iron the blue dress that Beatrice had taken from the wardrobe, slowly, methodically, as I used to iron Mrs. Van Hopper’s dresses in Monte Carlo.
When I had finished I laid the dress ready on the bed. Then I cleaned the make-up off my face that I had put on for the fancy dress. I combed my hair, and washed my hands. I put on the blue dress and the shoes that went with it. I might have been my old self again, going down to the lounge of the hotel with Mrs. Van Hopper. I opened the door of my room and went along the corridor. Everything was still and silent. There might not have been a party at all. I tiptoed to the end of the passage and turned the corner. The door to the west wing was closed. There was no sound of anything at all. When I came to the archway by the gallery and the staircase I heard the murmur and hum of conversation coming from the dining room. They were still having dinner. The great hall was deserted. There was nobody in the gallery either. The band must be having their dinner too. I did not know what arrangements had been made for them. Frank had done it—Frank or Mrs. Danvers.
From where I stood I could see the picture of Caroline de Winter facing me in the gallery. I could see the curls framing her face, and I could see the smile on her lips. I remembered the bishop’s wife who had said to me that day I called, “I shall never forget her, dressed all in white, with that cloud of dark hair.” I ought to have remembered that, I ought to have known. How queer the instruments looked in the gallery, the little stands for the music, the big drum. One of the men had left his handkerchief on a chair. I leaned over the rail and looked down at the hall below. Soon it would be filled with people, like the bishop’s wife had said, and Maxim would stand at the bottom of the stairs shaking hands with them as they came into the hall. The sound of their voices would echo to the ceiling, and then the band would play from the gallery where I was leaning now, the man with the violin smiling, swaying to the music.