“Very good,” she said; “I hope I shall do everything to your satisfaction. The house has been in my charge now for more than a year, and Mr. de Winter has never complained. It was very different of course when the late Mrs. de Winter was alive; there was a lot of entertaining then, a lot of parties, and though I managed for her, she liked to supervise things herself.”
Once again I had the impression that she chose her words with care, that she was feeling her way, as it were, into my mind, and watching for the effect upon my face.
“I would rather leave it to you,” I repeated, “much rather,” and into her face came the same expression I had noticed before, when first I had shaken hands with her in the hall, a look surely of derision, of definite contempt. She knew that I would never withstand her, and that I feared her too.
“Can I do anything more for you?” she said, and pretended to glance round the room. “No,” I said. “No, I think I have everything. I shall be very comfortable here. You have made the room so charming”—this last a final crawling sop to win her approval. She shrugged her shoulders, and still she did not smile. “I only followed out Mr. de Winter’s instructions,” she said.
She hesitated by the doorway, her hand on the handle of the open door. It was as though she still had something to say to me, and could not decide upon the words, yet waited there, for me to give her opportunity.
I wished she would go; she was like a shadow standing there, watching me, appraising me with her hollow eyes, set in that dead skull’s face.
“If you find anything not to your liking you will tell me at once?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, of course, Mrs. Danvers,” but I knew this was not what she had meant to say, and silence fell between us once again.
“If Mr. de Winter asks for his big wardrobe,” she said suddenly, “you must tell him it was impossible to move. We tried, but we could not get it through these narrow doorways. These are smaller rooms than those in the west wing. If he doesn’t like the arrangement of this suite he must tell me. It was difficult to know how to furnish these rooms.”
“Please don’t worry, Mrs. Danvers,” I said. “I’m sure he will be pleased with everything. But I’m sorry it’s given you so much trouble. I had no idea he was having rooms redecorated and furnished. He shouldn’t have bothered. I’m sure I should have been just as happy and comfortable in the west wing.”
She looked at me curiously, and began twisting the handle of the door. “Mr. de Winter said you would prefer to be on this side,” she said, “the rooms in the west wing are very old. The bedroom in the big suite is twice as large as this; a very beautiful room too, with a scrolled ceiling. The tapestry chairs are very valuable, and so is the carved mantelpiece. It’s the most beautiful room in the house. And the windows look down across the lawns to the sea.”
I felt uncomfortable, a little shy. I did not know why she must speak with such an undercurrent of resentment, implying as she did at the same time that this room, where I found myself to be installed, was something inferior, not up to Manderley standard, a second-rate room, as it were, for a second-rate person.
“I suppose Mr. de Winter keeps the most beautiful room to show to the public,” I said. She went on twisting the handle of the door, and then looked up at me again, watching my eyes, hesitating before replying, and when she spoke her voice was quieter even, and more toneless, than it had been before.
“The bedrooms are never shown to the public,” she said, “only the hall and the gallery, and the room below.” She paused an instant, feeling me with her eyes. “They used to live in the west wing and use those rooms when Mrs. de Winter was alive. That big room, I was telling you about, that looked down to the sea, was Mrs. de Winter’s bedroom.”
Then I saw a shadow flit across her face, and she drew back against the wall, effacing herself, as a step sounded outside and Maxim came into the room.
“How is it?” he said to me. “All right? Do you think you’ll like it?”
He looked round with enthusiasm, pleased as a schoolboy. “I always thought this a most attractive room,” he said. “It was wasted all those years as a guest-room, but I always thought it had possibilities. You’ve made a great success of it, Mrs. Danvers: I give you full marks.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said, her face expressionless, and then she turned, and went out of the room, closing the door softly behind her.