“Go to my room,” she mimicked, “go to my room. The mistress of the house thinks I had better go to my room. And after that, what then? You’ll go running to Mr. de Winter and saying, ‘Mrs. Danvers had been unkind to me, Mrs. Danvers has been rude.’ You’ll go running to him like you did before when Mr. Jack came to see me.”
“I never told him,” I said.
“That’s a lie,” she said. “Who else told him, if you didn’t? No one else was here. Frith and Robert were out, and none of the other servants knew. I made up my mind then I’d teach you a lesson, and him too. Let him suffer, I say. What do I care? What’s his suffering to me? Why shouldn’t I see Mr. Jack here at Manderley? He’s the only link I have left now with Mrs. de Winter. ‘I’ll not have him here,’ he said. ‘I’m warning you, it’s the last time.’ He’s not forgotten to be jealous, has he?”
I remembered crouching in the gallery when the library door was open. I remembered Maxim’s voice raised in anger, using the words that Mrs. Danvers had just repeated. Jealous, Maxim jealous…
“He was jealous while she lived, and now he’s jealous when she’s dead,” said Mrs. Danvers. “He forbids Mr. Jack the house now like he did then. That shows you he’s not forgotten her, doesn’t it? Of course he was jealous. So was I. So was everyone who knew her. She didn’t care. She only laughed. ‘I shall live as I please, Danny,’ she told me, ‘and the whole world won’t stop me.’ A man had only to look at her once and be mad about her. I’ve seen them here, staying in the house, men she’d meet up in London and bring for weekends. She would take them bathing from the boat, she would have a picnic supper at her cottage in the cove. They made love to her of course; who would not? She laughed, she would come back and tell me what they had said, and what they’d done. She did not mind, it was like a game to her. Like a game. Who wouldn’t be jealous? They were all jealous, all mad for her. Mr. de Winter, Mr. Jack, Mr. Crawley, everyone who knew her, everyone who came to Manderley.”
“I don’t want to know,” I said. “I don’t want to know.”
Mrs. Danvers came close to me, she put her face near to mine. “It’s no use, is it?” she said. “You’ll never get the better of her. She’s still mistress here, even if she is dead. She’s the real Mrs. de Winter, not you. It’s you that’s the shadow and the ghost. It’s you that’s forgotten and not wanted and pushed aside. Well, why don’t you leave Manderley to her? Why don’t you go?”
I backed away from her towards the window, my old fear and horror rising up in me again. She took my arm and held it like a vice.
“Why don’t you go?” she said. “We none of us want you. He doesn’t want you, he never did. He can’t forget her. He wants to be alone in the house again, with her. It’s you that ought to be lying there in the church crypt, not her. It’s you who ought to be dead, not Mrs. de Winter.”
She pushed me towards the open window. I could see the terrace below me gray and indistinct in the white wall of fog. “Look down there,” she said. “It’s easy, isn’t it? Why don’t you jump? It wouldn’t hurt, not to break your neck. It’s a quick, kind way. It’s not like drowning. Why don’t you try it? Why don’t you go?”
The fog filled the open window, damp and clammy, it stung my eyes, it clung to my nostrils. I held onto the windowsill with my hands.
“Don’t be afraid,” said Mrs. Danvers. “I won’t push you. I won’t stand by you. You can jump of your own accord. What’s the use of your staying here at Manderley? You’re not happy. Mr. de Winter doesn’t love you. There’s not much for you to live for, is there? Why don’t you jump now and have done with it? Then you won’t be unhappy anymore.”
I could see the flower tubs on the terrace and the blue of the hydrangeas clumped and solid. The paved stones were smooth and gray. They were not jagged and uneven. It was the fog that made them look so far away. They were not far really, the window was not so very high.
“Why don’t you jump?” whispered Mrs. Danvers. “Why don’t you try?”
The fog came thicker than before and the terrace was hidden from me. I could not see the flower tubs anymore, nor the smooth paved stones. There was nothing but the white mist about me, smelling of seaweed dank and chill. The only reality was the windowsill beneath my hands and the grip of Mrs. Danvers on my left arm. If I jumped I should not see the stones rise up to meet me, the fog would hide them from me. The pain would be sharp and sudden as she said. The fall would break my neck. It would not be slow, like drowning. It would soon be over. And Maxim did not love me. Maxim wanted to be alone again, with Rebecca.