“Oh, wouldn’t it be spoiled? It might get broken.”
“Mrs. de Winter always used the alabaster vase, Madam.”
“Oh, oh, I see.”
Then the alabaster vase was brought for me, already filled with water, and as I put the sweet lilac in the vase and arranged the sprigs, one by one, the mauve warm scent filling the room, mingling with the smell of the new-mown lawn outside coming from the open window, I thought: “Rebecca did this. She took the lilac, as I am doing, and put the sprigs one by one in the white vase. I’m not the first to do it. This is Rebecca’s vase, this is Rebecca’s lilac.” She must have wandered out into the garden as I did, in that floppy garden hat that I had seen once at the back of the cupboard in the flower room, hidden under some old cushions, and crossed the lawn to the lilac bushes, whistling perhaps, humming a tune, calling to the dogs to follow her, carrying in her hands the scissors that I carried now.
“Frith, could you move that book-stand from the table in the window, and I will put the lilac there?”
“Mrs. de Winter always had the alabaster vase on the table behind the sofa, Madam.”
“Oh, well…” I hesitated, the vase in my hands, Frith’s face impassive. He would obey me of course if I said I preferred to put the vase on the smaller table by the window. He would move the book-stand at once.
“All right,” I said, “perhaps it would look better on the larger table.” And the alabaster vase stood, as it had always done, on the table behind the sofa…
Beatrice remembered her promise of a wedding present. A large parcel arrived one morning, almost too large for Robert to carry. I was sitting in the morning room, having just read the menu for the day. I have always had a childish love of parcels. I snipped the string excitedly, and tore off the dark brown paper. It looked like books. I was right. It was books. Four big volumes. A History of Painting. And a sheet of notepaper in the first volume saying “I hope this is the sort of thing you like,” and signed “Love from Beatrice.” I could see her going into the shop in Wigmore Street and buying them. Looking about her in her abrupt, rather masculine way. “I want a set of books for someone who is keen on Art,” she would say, and the attendant would answer, “Yes, Madam, will you come this way.” She would finger the volumes a little suspiciously. “Yes, that’s about the price. It’s for a wedding present. I want them to look good. Are these all about Art?” “Yes, this is the standard work on the subject,” the assistant would say. And then Beatrice must have written her note, and paid her check, and given the address “Mrs. de Winter, Manderley.”
It was nice of Beatrice. There was something rather sincere and pathetic about her going off to a shop in London and buying me these books because she knew I was fond of painting. She imagined me, I expect, sitting down on a wet day and looking solemnly at the illustrations, and perhaps getting a sheet of drawing-paper and a paint-box and copying one of the pictures. Dear Beatrice. I had a sudden, stupid desire to cry. I gathered up the heavy volumes and looked round the morning room for somewhere to put them. They were out of place in that fragile delicate room. Never mind, it was my room now, after all. I arranged them in a row on the top of the desk. They swayed dangerously, leaning one against the other. I stood back a bit, to watch the effect. Perhaps I moved too quickly, and it disturbed them. At any rate the foremost one fell, and the others slid after him. They upset a little china cupid who had hitherto stood alone on the desk except for the candlesticks. He fell to the ground, hitting the wastepaper basket as he did so, and broke into fragments. I glanced hurriedly at the door, like a guilty child. I knelt on the floor and swept up the pieces into my hand. I found an envelope to put them in. I hid the envelope at the back of one of the drawers in the desk. Then I took the books off to the library and found room for them on the shelves.
Maxim laughed when I showed them to him with pride.
“Dear old Bee,” he said, “you must have had a success with her. She never opens a book if she can help it.”
“Did she say anything about—well—what she thought of me?” I asked.
“The day she came to lunch? No, I don’t think so.”
“I thought she might have written or something.”
“Beatrice and I don’t correspond unless there’s a major event in the family. Writing letters is a waste of time,” said Maxim.
I supposed I was not a major event. Yet if I had been Beatrice, and had a brother, and the brother married, surely one would have said something, expressed an opinion, written two words? Unless of course one had taken a dislike to the wife, or thought her unsuitable. Then of course it would be different. Still, Beatrice had taken the trouble to go up to London and to buy the books for me. She would not have done that if she disliked me.