“It’s a very fine sight, Manderley en fête,” said Frank. “You’ll enjoy it, you see. You won’t have to do anything alarming. You just receive the guests and there’s nothing in that. Perhaps you’ll give me a dance?”
Dear Frank. I loved his little solemn air of gallantry.
“You shall have as many dances as you like,” I said. “I shan’t dance with anyone except you and Maxim.”
“Oh, but that would not look right at all,” said Frank seriously. “People would be very offended. You must dance with the people who ask you.”
I turned away to hide my smile. It was a joy to me the way he never knew when his leg had been pulled.
“Do you think Lady Crowan’s suggestion about the Dresden shepherdess was a good one?” I said slyly.
He considered me solemnly without the trace of a smile. “Yes, I do,” he said. “I think you’d look very well indeed.”
I burst into laughter. “Oh, Frank, dear, I do love you,” I said, and he turned rather pink, a little shocked I think at my impulsive words, and a little hurt too that I was laughing at him.
“I don’t see that I’ve said anything funny,” he said stiffly.
Maxim came in at the window, Jasper dancing at his heels. “What’s all the excitement about?” he said.
“Frank is being so gallant,” I said. “He thinks Lady Crowan’s idea of my dressing up as a Dresden shepherdess is nothing to laugh at.”
“Lady Crowan is a damned nuisance,” said Maxim. “If she had to write out all the invitations and organize the affair she would not be so enthusiastic. It’s always been the same though. The locals look upon Manderley as if it was a pavilion on the end of a pier, and expect us to put up a turn for their benefit. I suppose we shall have to ask the whole county.”
“I’ve got the records in the office,” said Frank. “It won’t really entail much work. Licking the stamps is the longest job.”
“We’ll give that to you to do,” said Maxim, smiling at me.
“Oh, we’ll do that in the office,” said Frank. “Mrs. de Winter need not bother her head about anything at all.” I wondered what they would say if I suddenly announced my intention of running the whole affair. Laugh, I supposed, and then begin talking of something else. I was glad, of course, to be relieved of responsibility, but it rather added to my sense of humility to feel that I was not even capable of licking stamps. I thought of the writing desk in the morning room, the docketed pigeonholes all marked in ink by that slanting pointed hand.
“What will you wear?” I said to Maxim.
“I never dress up,” said Maxim. “It’s the one perquisite allowed to the host, isn’t it, Frank?”
“I can’t really go as a Dresden shepherdess,” I said, “what on earth shall I do? I’m not much good at dressing-up.”
“Put a ribbon round your hair and be Alice-in-Wonderland,” said Maxim lightly; “you look like it now, with your finger in your mouth.”
“Don’t be so rude,” I said. “I know my hair is straight, but it isn’t as straight as that. I tell you what, I’ll give you and Frank the surprise of your lives, and you won’t know me.”
“As long as you don’t black your face and pretend to be a monkey I don’t mind what you do,” said Maxim.
“All right, that’s a bargain,” I said. “I’ll keep my costume a secret to the last minute, and you won’t know anything about it. Come on, Jasper, we don’t care what they say, do we?” I heard Maxim laughing as I went out into the garden, and he said something to Frank which I did not catch.
I wished he would not always treat me as a child, rather spoiled, rather irresponsible, someone to be petted from time to time when the mood came upon him but more often forgotten, more often patted on the shoulder and told to run away and play. I wished something would happen to make me look wiser, more mature. Was it always going to be like this? He away ahead of me, with his own moods that I did not share, his secret troubles that I did not know? Would we never be together, he a man and I a woman, standing shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, with no gulf between us? I did not want to be a child. I wanted to be his wife, his mother. I wanted to be old.
I stood on the terrace, biting my nails, looking down towards the sea, and as I stood there I wondered for the twentieth time that day whether it was by Maxim’s orders that those rooms in the west wing were kept furnished and untouched. I wondered if he went, as Mrs. Danvers did, and touched the brushes on the dressing table, opened the wardrobe doors, and put his hands among the clothes.