Going down to the lodge with a basket on my arm, grapes and peaches for the old lady who was sick. Her hands stretched out to me, “The Lord bless you, Madam, for being so good,” and my saying, “Just send up to the house for anything you want.” Mrs. de Winter. I would be Mrs. de Winter. I saw the polished table in the dining room, and the long candles. Maxim sitting at the end. A party of twenty-four. I had a flower in my hair. Everyone looked towards me, holding up his glass. “We must drink the health of the bride,” and Maxim saying afterwards, “I have never seen you look so lovely.” Great cool rooms, filled with flowers. My bedroom, with a fire in the winter, someone knocking at the door. And a woman comes in, smiling; she is Maxim’s sister, and she is saying, “It’s really wonderful how happy you have made him; everyone is so pleased, you are such a success.” Mrs. de Winter. I would be Mrs. de Winter.
“The rest of the tangerine is sour, I shouldn’t eat it,” he said, and I stared at him, the words going slowly to my head, then looked down at the fruit on my plate. The quarter was hard and pale. He was right. The tangerine was very sour. I had a sharp, bitter taste in my mouth, and I had only just noticed it.
“Am I going to break the news to Mrs. Van Hopper or are you?” he said.
He was folding up his napkin, pushing back his plate, and I wondered how it was he spoke so casually, as though the matter was of little consequence, a mere adjustment of plans. Whereas to me it was a bombshell, exploding in a thousand fragments.
“You tell her,” I said; “she’ll be so angry.”
We got up from the table, I excited and flushed, trembling already in anticipation. I wondered if he would tell the waiter, take my arm smilingly and say, “You must congratulate us, Mademoiselle and I are going to be married.” And all the other waiters would hear, would bow to us, would smile, and we would pass into the lounge, a wave of excitement following us, a flutter of expectation. But he said nothing. He left the terrace without a word, and I followed him to the lift. We passed the reception desk and no one even looked at us. The clerk was busy with a sheaf of papers, he was talking over his shoulder to his junior. He does not know, I thought, that I am going to be Mrs. de Winter. I am going to live at Manderley. Manderley will belong to me. We went up in the lift to the first floor, and so along the passage. He took my hand and swung it as we went along. “Does forty-two seem very old to you?” he said.
“Oh, no,” I told him, quickly, too eagerly perhaps. “I don’t like young men.”
“You’ve never known any,” he said.
We came to the door of the suite. “I think I had better deal with this alone,” he said; “tell me something—do you mind how soon you marry me? You don’t want a trousseau, do you, or any of that nonsense? Because the whole thing can be so easily arranged in a few days. Over a desk, with a license, and then off in the car to Venice or anywhere you fancy.”
“Not in a church?” I asked. “Not in white, with bridesmaids, and bells, and choir boys? What about your relations, and all your friends?”
“You forget,” he said, “I had that sort of wedding before.”
We went on standing in front of the door of the suite, and I noticed that the daily paper was still thrust through the letterbox. We had been too busy to read it at breakfast.
“Well?” he said, “what about it?”
“Of course,” I answered, “I was thinking for the moment we would be married at home. Naturally I don’t expect a church, or people, or anything like that.”
And I smiled at him. I made a cheerful face. “Won’t it be fun?” I said.
He had turned to the door though, and opened it, and we were inside the suite in the little entrance passage.
“Is that you?” called Mrs. Van Hopper from the sitting room. “What in the name of Mike have you been doing? I’ve rung the office three times and they said they hadn’t seen you.”
I was seized with a sudden desire to laugh, to cry, to do both, and I had a pain, too, at the pit of my stomach. I wished, for one wild moment, that none of this had happened, that I was alone somewhere, going for a walk, and whistling.
“I’m afraid it’s all my fault,” he said, going into the sitting room, shutting the door behind him, and I heard her exclamation of surprise.
Then I went into my bedroom and sat down by the open window. It was like waiting in the anteroom at a doctor’s. I ought to turn over the pages of a magazine, look at photographs that did not matter and read articles I should never remember, until the nurse came, bright and efficient, all humanity washed away by years of disinfectant: “It’s all right, the operation was quite successful. There is no need to worry at all. I should go home and have some sleep.”