She did not answer; she just went on staring at me, her hands folded before her.
“However, it’s a very charming room,” I said, “and I’m sure I shall be comfortable. I understand that it’s been done up for our return.”
“Yes,” she said.
“What was it like before?” I asked.
“It had a mauve paper, and different hangings; Mr. de Winter did not think it very cheerful. It was never much used, except for occasional visitors. But Mr. de Winter gave special orders in his letters that you would have this room.”
“Then this was not his bedroom originally?” I said.
“No, Madam, he’s never used the room in this wing before.”
“Oh,” I said, “he didn’t tell me that,” and I wandered to the dressing table and began combing my hair. My things were already unpacked, my brushes and comb upon the tray. I was glad Maxim had given me a set of brushes, and that they were laid out there, upon the dressing table, for Mrs. Danvers to see. They were new, they had cost money, I need not be ashamed of them.
“Alice has unpacked for you and will look after you until your maid arrives,” said Mrs. Danvers. I smiled at her again. I put down the brush upon the dressing table.
“I don’t have a maid,” I said awkwardly; “I’m sure Alice, if she is the housemaid, will look after me all right.”
She wore the same expression that she had done on our first meeting, when I dropped my gloves so gauchely on the floor.
“I’m afraid that would not do for very long,” she said; “it’s usual, you know, for ladies in your position to have a personal maid.”
I flushed, and reached for my brush again. There was a sting in her words I understood too well. “If you think it necessary perhaps you would see about it for me,” I said, avoiding her eyes; “some young girl perhaps, wanting to train.”
“If you wish,” she said. “It’s for you to say.”
There was silence between us. I wished she would go away. I wondered why she must go on standing there, watching me, her hands folded on her black dress.
“I suppose you have been at Manderley for many years,” I said, making a fresh effort, “longer than anyone else?”
“Not so long as Frith,” she said, and I thought how lifeless her voice was, and cold, like her hand when it had lain in mine; “Frith was here when the old gentleman was living, when Mr. de Winter was a boy.”
“I see,” I said; “so you did not come till after that?”
“No,” she said, “not till after that.”
Once more, I glanced up at her and once more I met her eyes, dark and somber, in that white face of hers, instilling into me, I knew not why, a strange feeling of disquiet, of foreboding. I tried to smile, and could not; I found myself held by those eyes, that had no light, no flicker of sympathy towards me.
“I came here when the first Mrs. de Winter was a bride,” she said, and her voice, which had hitherto, as I said, been dull and toneless, was harsh now with unexpected animation, with life and meaning, and there was a spot of color on the gaunt cheekbones.
The change was so sudden that I was shocked, and a little scared. I did not know what to do, or what to say. It was as though she had spoken words that were forbidden, words that she had hidden within herself for a long time and now would be repressed no longer. Still her eyes never left my face; they looked upon me with a curious mixture of pity and of scorn, until I felt myself to be even younger and more untutored to the ways of life than I had believed.
I could see she despised me, marking with all the snobbery of her class that I was no great lady, that I was humble, shy, and diffident. Yet there was something beside scorn in those eyes of hers, something surely of positive dislike, or actual malice?
I had to say something, I could not go on sitting there, playing with my hair-brush, letting her see how much I feared and mistrusted her.
“Mrs. Danvers,” I heard myself saying, “I hope we shall be friends and come to understand one another. You must have patience with me, you know, because this sort of life is new to me, I’ve lived rather differently. And I do want to make a success of it, and above all to make Mr. de Winter happy. I know I can leave all household arrangements to you, Mr. de Winter said so, and you must just run things as they have always been run; I shan’t want to make any changes.”
I stopped, a little breathless, still uncertain of myself and whether I was saying the right thing, and when I looked up again I saw that she had moved, and was standing with her hand on the handle of the door.