“Are you happy here?” he said, looking away from me, out of the window, “I wonder sometimes. You’ve got thinner. Lost your color.”
“Of course I’m happy,” I said, “I love Manderley. I love the garden, I love everything. I don’t mind calling on people. I just said that to be tiresome. I’ll call on people every day, if you want me to. I don’t mind what I do. I’ve never for one moment regretted marrying you, surely you must know that?”
He patted my cheek in his terrible absent way, and bent down, and kissed the top of my head. “Poor lamb, you don’t have much fun, do you? I’m afraid I’m very difficult to live with.”
“You’re not difficult,” I said eagerly, “you are easy, very easy. Much easier than I thought you would be. I used to think it would be dreadful to be married, that one’s husband would drink, or use awful language, or grumble if the toast was soft at breakfast, and be rather unattractive altogether, smell possibly. You don’t do any of those things.”
“Good God, I hope not,” said Maxim, and he smiled.
I seized advantage of his smile, I smiled too, and took his hands and kissed them. “How absurd to say we are not companions,” I said; “why look how we sit here every evening, you with a book or a paper, and me with my knitting. Just like cups of tea. Just like old people, married for years and years. Of course we are companions. Of course we are happy. You talk as though you thought we had made a mistake? You don’t mean it like that, do you, Maxim? You know our marriage is a success, a wonderful success?”
“If you say so, then it’s all right,” he said.
“No, but you think it too, don’t you, darling? It’s not just me? We are happy, aren’t we? Terribly happy?”
He did not answer. He went on staring out of the window while I held his hands. My throat felt dry and tight, and my eyes were burning. Oh, God, I thought, this is like two people in a play, in a moment the curtain will come down, we shall bow to the audience, and go off to our dressing-rooms. This can’t be a real moment in the lives of Maxim and myself. I sat down on the window seat, and let go of his hands. I heard myself speaking in a hard cool voice. “If you don’t think we are happy it would be much better if you would admit it. I don’t want you to pretend anything. I’d much rather go away. Not live with you anymore.” It was not really happening of course. It was the girl in the play talking, not me to Maxim. I pictured the type of girl who would play the part. Tall and slim, rather nervy.
“Well, why don’t you answer me?” I said.
He took my face in his hands and looked at me, just as he had before, when Frith had come into the room with tea, the day we went to the beach.
“How can I answer you?” he said. “I don’t know the answer myself. If you say we are happy, let’s leave it at that. It’s something I know nothing about. I take your word for it. We are happy. All right then, that’s agreed!” He kissed me again, and then walked away across the room. I went on sitting by the window, stiff and straight, my hands in my lap.
“You say all this because you are disappointed in me,” I said. “I’m gauche and awkward, I dress badly, I’m shy with people. I warned you in Monte Carlo how it would be. You think I’m not right for Manderley.”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” he said. “I’ve never said you dressed badly or were gauche. It’s your imagination. As for being shy, you’ll get over that. I’ve told you so before.”
“We’ve argued in a circle,” I said, “we’ve come right back to where we started. This all began because I broke the cupid in the morning room. If I hadn’t broken the cupid none of this would have happened. We’d have drunk our coffee, and gone out into the garden.”
“Oh, damn that infernal cupid,” said Maxim wearily. “Do you really think I care whether it’s in ten thousand pieces or not?”
“Was it very valuable?”
“Heaven knows. I suppose so. I’ve really forgotten.”
“Are all those things in the morning room valuable?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“Why were all the most valuable things put in the morning room?”
“I don’t know. I suppose because they looked well there.”
“Were they always there? When your mother was alive?”
“No. No, I don’t think they were. They were scattered about the house. The chairs were in a lumber room I believe.”