Lunch passed off better than I had dared to hope. There were few arguments, or perhaps Beatrice was exercising tact at last; at any rate she and Maxim chatted about matters concerning Manderley, her horses, the garden, mutual friends, and Frank Crawley, on my left, kept up an easy patter with me for which I was grateful, as it required no effort. Giles was more concerned with food than with the conversation, though now and again he remembered my existence and flung me a remark at hazard.
“Same cook I suppose, Maxim?” he said, when Robert had offered him the cold soufflé for the second time. “I always tell Bee, Manderley’s the only place left in England where one can get decent cooking. I remember this soufflé of old.”
“I think we change cooks periodically,” said Maxim, “but the standard of cooking remains the same. Mrs. Danvers has all the recipes, she tells them what to do.”
“Amazing woman, that Mrs. Danvers,” said Giles, turning to me; “don’t you think so?”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “Mrs. Danvers seems to be a wonderful person.”
“She’s no oil painting though, is she?” said Giles, and he roared with laughter. Frank Crawley said nothing, and looking up I saw Beatrice was watching me. She turned away then, and began talking to Maxim.
“Do you play golf at all, Mrs. de Winter?” said Mr. Crawley.
“No, I’m afraid I don’t,” I answered, glad that the subject had been changed again, that Mrs. Danvers was forgotten, and even though I was no player, knew nothing of the game, I was prepared to listen to him as long as he pleased; there was something solid and safe and dull about golf, it could not bring us into any difficulties. We had cheese, and coffee, and I wondered whether I was supposed to make a move. I kept looking at Maxim, but he gave no sign, and then Giles embarked upon a story, rather difficult to follow, about digging a car out of a snowdrift—what had started the train of thought I could not tell—and I listened to him politely, nodding my head now and again and smiling, aware of Maxim becoming restive at his end of the table. At last he paused, and I caught Maxim’s eye. He frowned very slightly and jerked his head towards the door.
I got up at once, shaking the table clumsily as I moved my chair, and upsetting Giles’s glass of port. “Oh, dear,” I said, hovering, wondering what to do, reaching ineffectively for my napkin, but “All right, Frith will deal with it,” said Maxim, “don’t add to the confusion. Beatrice, take her out in the garden; she’s scarcely seen the place yet.”
He looked tired, rather jaded. I began to wish none of them had come. They had spoiled our day anyway. It was too much of an effort, just as we returned. I felt tired too, tired and depressed. Maxim had seemed almost irritable when he suggested we should go into the garden. What a fool I had been, upsetting that glass of port.
We went out onto the terrace and walked down onto the smooth green lawns.
“I think it’s a pity you came back to Manderley so soon,” said Beatrice, “it would have been far better to potter about in Italy for three or four months, and then come back in the middle of the summer. Done Maxim a power of good too, besides being easier from your point of view. I can’t help feeling it’s going to be rather a strain here for you at first.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” I said. “I know I shall come to love Manderley.”
She did not answer, and we strolled backwards and forwards on the lawns.
“Tell me a bit about yourself,” she said at last; “what was it you were doing in the south of France? Living with some appalling American woman, Maxim said.”
I explained about Mrs. Van Hopper, and what had led to it, and she seemed sympathetic but a little vague, as though she was thinking of something else.
“Yes,” she said, when I paused, “it all happened very suddenly, as you say. But of course we were all delighted, my dear, and I do hope you will be happy.”
“Thank you, Beatrice,” I said, “thank you very much.”
I wondered why she said she hoped we would be happy, instead of saying she knew we would be so. She was kind, she was sincere, I liked her very much, but there was a tiny doubt in her voice that made me afraid.
“When Maxim wrote and told me,” she went on, taking my arm, “and said he had discovered you in the south of France, and you were very young, very pretty, I must admit it gave me a bit of a shock. Of course we all expected a social butterfly, very modern and plastered with paint, the sort of girl you expected to meet in those sort of places. When you came into the morning room before lunch you could have knocked me down with a feather.”