Free Mrs De Winter by Susan Hill Page A

the sight of his hands on the fruit bringing back to me, as they did every day, the memory of that first breakfast I had seen him eat, the morning in Monte Carlo when I had gone, sick with love, with misery, to tell him I had to leave for New York that day with Mrs van Hopper. Every detail of what he wore, ate, drank, every word of what he said, was immortal to me, no detail would, could, ever fade or be confused or forgotten.
    He glanced up at me, and whatever the expression on my face was, read it, and through it to what I felt and thought, unerringly, I have still not learned to conceal things, my hopes and fears, every nuance of passing emotion, still show as clearly on my face as on that of a child, I know. I am still not a grown woman in that way. I think he would not want it.
    Now, in that dining room full of old fashioned oak furniture, with the chill of the night still on it because the heater did not work very well, and the dreadful memory of yesterday’s luncheon when old Colonel Julyan had struggled to his feet to toast our return, now, Maxim laid down his apple and the knife neatly by his plate, and reached out across the table and took my hand.
    ‘Oh, my darling girl, how very badly you want to stay longer, don’t you? How much you are dreading my getting up and telling you we should pack, now, at once, and have the car come as soon as possible. You have changed since we got back, do you know that? You look different, something has happened to your eyes — your face ‘
     
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    I was ashamed then, deeply ashamed, I felt guilty that I had failed to conceal anything at all from him, have my own secrets. Clinging to my own joy at being home, afraid that he did not share it, terrified, as he said, of having to leave too soon.
    ‘Listen.’ He had got up and gone to stand by the window and now he gestured for me and I went at once to stand beside him. The top gate stood open, Roger had led the horses out.
    ‘I can’t go there — you know that.’
    ‘Of course - oh, Maxim, I would never dream of asking — it would be out of the question — I couldn’t bear to go back to Manderley either.’
    Though as I said it, glibly, reassuringly, I knew that I lied, and a little snake of guilt stirred and began to uncoil slightly, guilt and its constant companion deceit. For I thought of it night and day, it was always in my mind somewhere, just out of sight, waiting for me, I dreamed of it, Manderley. Not far. Just across the county, away from this low, lovely, gentle inland village, across the high, bare back of the moors and so down, slipping between hills, following the cleft in the land along the river, to the sea, and belonging to another life, years ago, to the past, and yet as close as my next breath. Empty? Derelict? Razed completely? Built upon? Wilderness? Or restored, alive again? Who knew? I wanted to find out. Dared not.
    Manderley.
    I scarcely faltered, all of it came into my mind and before my eye, in a single encompassing second. I said, ‘I wasn’t thinking of - of Manderley.’ It was still hard to say
     
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    the name, I felt Maxim tense at once. ‘But, oh, Maxim, it is good to be in England. You feel it too, don’t you? The way it looks - the light - the trees - everything. Couldn’t we have a while longer? Go to a few places perhaps — out of the way places, I mean — not anywhere from — from before. New places. No one will know us or see us - and then we can go back again and take it with us — it will see us through until - whenever. Besides, I don’t think we should leave Giles just yet, it would seem so cruel.’ I had told him a little, very briefly, about the night before. ‘Just a few days more here to help him begin to sort things out and then — well, Frank invited us up to Scotland. Couldn’t we go there? I’d love to see it — I’ve never been — and meet his family — it was good to see him so happy and settled, wasn’t it?’
    I babbled on, and he indulged me in