“No!” I said. “No!”
She put my blue frock down beside me on the bed. “Everyone will be arriving,” she said, very worried, very upset. “It will look so extraordinary if you don’t come down. I can’t say you’ve suddenly got a headache.”
“Why not?” I said wearily. “What does it matter? Make anything up. Nobody will mind, they don’t any of them know me.”
“Come now, my dear,” she said, patting my hand, “try and make the effort. Put on this charming blue. Think of Maxim. You must come down for his sake.”
“I’m thinking about Maxim all the time,” I said.
“Well, then, surely…？”
“No,” I said, tearing at my nails, rocking backwards and forwards on the bed. “I can’t, I can’t.”
Somebody else knocked on the door. “Oh, dear, who on earth is that?” said Beatrice, walking to the door. “What is it?”
She opened the door. Giles was standing just outside. “Everyone has turned up. Maxim sent me up to find out what’s happening,” he said.
“She says she won’t come down,” said Beatrice. “What on earth are we going to say?”
I caught sight of Giles peering at me through the open door.
“Oh, Lord, what a frightful mix-up,” he whispered. He turned away embarrassed when he noticed that I had seen him.
“What shall I say to Maxim?” he asked Beatrice. “It’s five past eight now.”
“Say she’s feeling rather faint, but will try and come down later. Tell them not to wait dinner. I’ll be down directly, I’ll make it all right.”
“Yes, right you are.” He half glanced in my direction again, sympathetic but rather curious, wondering why I sat there on the bed, and his voice was low, as it might be after an accident, when people are waiting for the doctor.
“Is there anything else I can do?” he said.
“No,” said Beatrice, “go down now, I’ll follow in a minute.”
He obeyed her, shuffling away in his Arabian robes. This is the sort of moment, I thought, that I shall laugh at years afterwards, that I shall say “Do you remember how Giles was dressed as an Arab, and Beatrice had a veil over her face, and jangling bangles on her wrist?” And time will mellow it, make it a moment for laughter. But now it was not funny, now I did not laugh. It was not the future, it was the present. It was too vivid and too real. I sat on the bed, plucking at the eiderdown, pulling a little feather out of a slit in one corner.
“Would you like some brandy?” said Beatrice, making a last effort. “I know it’s only Dutch courage, but it sometimes works wonders.”
“No,” I said. “No, I don’t want anything.”
“I shall have to go down. Giles says they are waiting dinner. Are you sure it’s all right for me to leave you?”
“Yes. And thank you, Beatrice.”
“Oh, my dear, don’t thank me. I wish I could do something.” She stooped swiftly to my looking glass and dabbed her face with powder. “God, what a sight I look,” she said, “this damn veil is crooked I know. However it can’t be helped.” She rustled out of the room, closing the door behind her. I felt I had forfeited her sympathy by my refusal to go down. I had shown the white feather. She had not understood. She belonged to another breed of men and women, another race than I. They had guts, the women of her race. They were not like me. If it had been Beatrice who had done this thing instead of me she would have put on her other dress and gone down again to welcome her guests. She would have stood by Giles’s side, and shaken hands with people, a smile on her face. I could not do that. I had not the pride, I had not the guts. I was badly bred.
I kept seeing Maxim’s eyes blazing in his white face, and behind him Giles, and Beatrice and Frank standing like dummies, staring at me.
I got up from my bed and went and looked out of the window. The gardeners were going round to the lights in the rose garden, testing them to see if they all worked. The sky was pale, with a few salmon clouds of evening streaking to the west. When it was dusk the lamps would all be lit. There were tables and chairs in the rose garden, for the couples who wanted to sit out. I could smell the roses from my window. The men were talking to one another and laughing. “There’s one here gone,” I heard a voice call out; “can you get me another small bulb? One of the blue ones, Bill.” He fixed the light into position. He whistled a popular tune of the moment with easy confidence, and I thought how tonight perhaps the band would play the same tune in the minstrel’s gallery above the hall. “That’s got it,” said the man, switching the light on and off, “they’re all right here. No others gone. We’d better have a look at those on the terrace.” They went off round the corner of the house, still whistling the song. I wished I could be the man. Later in the evening he would stand with his friend in the drive and watch the cars drive up to the house, his hands in his pockets, his cap on the back of his head. He would stand in a crowd with other people from the estate, and then drink cider at the long table arranged for them in one corner of the terrace. “Like the old days, isn’t it?” he would say. But his friend would shake his head, puffing at his pipe. “This new one’s not like our Mrs. de Winter, she’s different altogether.” And a woman next them in the crowd would agree, other people too, all saying “That’s right,” and nodding their heads.