Mrs De Winter (21 page)

That Maxim seemed to have secrets too now, that I caught him looking at me strangely, questioningly, that he seemed to need time to conduct matters of business did not trouble me, though I was surprised. I was glad of it, I thought it must mean that he had some interest elsewhere, outside of our enclosed, inward looking little world.

January passed in gloom and greyness, late dark and early dark, in bitter winds and rain that drove relentlessly across the lagoon. The water rose and flooded steps and landing stages, crept up the walls of the buildings, overspilled into the piazza, a foetid, damp smell curled into our nostrils whenever we went out, and the lamps were never switched off, day after day.

When relief came, it was not only with the sight of the sun, after the weeks of dark, not only with the faintest trace of something clean and new on the air that reminded us that there would be spring, it was with something quite other, and entirely unexpected. It came with high comedy and a reminder of that past in which I had very first known Maxim, which had nothing of sadness or unpleasantness about it, as so many of our memories had. It brought back the first flush of love, and my own innocence, and showed me again how well Maxim had rescued me.

It was my birthday, a happier day than Christmas, for Maxim always tried to give me not simply a present but some wonderful surprise, some pleasure I could not have anticipated. It was the sort of thing he was very good at, so

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that I woke, always, with that child-like sense of anticipation, the flutter of excitement, as I remembered the day.

The sun shone brilliantly and we went out very early. We were to breakfast not as usual, modestly in our pensione^ but at Florian’s, and as we walked over the bridge and down towards the piazza, among the Venetians hurrying to work, the women and toddlers, and babies, the small boys running to school, the sky was the enamel blue of the sky in a Renaissance painting, and indeed, that seemed the exact word for it. ‘A new birth,’ I said, as we strolled, ‘a new beginning.’

Maxim smiled, and I suddenly saw his face as I had very first seen it, sitting on the sofa at the Hotel Cote d’Azur all those years ago. Then, it had seemed to me a medieval face, in some strange way, the face of a fifteenth-century portrait, a face that belonged to a walled city like this one, full of narrow cobbled streets, and it was so again, there was the same sharpness and elegance about it, so that he fitted in exactly here, though he was not at all like the jutting nosed, red haired Venetians.

The coffee tasted better than coffee had for years, real, rich Italian coffee, the taste belonged to the old years before the war and all the deprivations. Coffee had become thin, grey, gruel-like stuff, but this was fragrant, rich and dark, and the cups were large, with a delicate gold rim, and as we sat, not outside — it was still too chilly and too early for that — but on one of the plush banquettes beside the window, the pigeons rose in a cloud, and fluttered up and around and around the glittering domes of St Mark’s, casually at home among the massive lions and the prancing horses, and then fell back again on to the pavement.

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Maxim was leaning back, looking at me, his expression one of amusement. ‘You have not very long left,’ he said, ‘you had better make the best of it.’

I knew what he meant at once. ‘What shall you do?’ I asked. We had better make plans. You will not like me then.’

‘Of course. I shall disown you on the stroke of midnight, you will be cast into outer darkness.’

When I had first met Maxim, on one of those heady, unforgettable, first days, we had been driving back in his car to Monte Carlo, and something, some remark, had brought me back to myself and the reality of my situation, and I had blurted out in a moment of frustration and misery, ‘I wish I was a woman of about thirty-six dressed in black satin and a string of pearls.’

For that had seemed to me the sort of age and type of worldly, sophisticated woman Maxim de Winter would prefer, and I had been so much younger, gauche and school girlish, inexperienced, and stupid. But it had been me he had married, me he had wanted, astonishing, unbelievable as it had been — and still was, I thought, now, looking at him across the pink tablecloth of Florian’s, still was. A woman of thirty-six in black satin and a string of pearls had been everything he had loathed and wanted to escape from, a woman like Rebecca. I had learned that.

But in a couple of years I would be thirty-six. Though I would never wear the black satin, I had once or twice secretly wished for the pearls, for they were flattering, gentle and softer than most jewels, which had always seemed to me hard, brittle, repellent things.

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The age did not matter, I knew now that on some days I was older than my mother had been, as old as it was possible ever to be, and on others, a very few — today was one — I was the age I had been when I had met Maxim, and would never alter or grow older. Most of the time, if I thought of it at all, I was some dull, indeterminate middle age.

But this morning, my birthday, I was as new born as the day, and the sunshine, the air, the sparkling city, filled me with delight, I would never whine again, I said, I would never be discontented, never look back over my shoulder, pining for lost things. I had no need of that.

The day brought small pleasures but he waited until darkness to surprise me best, telling me to change into an evening frock, and wear a fur wrap, and then leaving me alone, to get ready. I had supposed that we would walk across to one of our favourite small restaurants near the Rialto Bridge, but we went only down the side street, as far as the landing stage, and there was a gondola, waiting like an elegant, dark swan on the gleaming water, with torches lit and glowing golden around its prow. We had ridden like this the last time we had been here, on our honeymoon, Maxim had made just such romantic gestures a dozen times a day, but I was not used to it now, our life was not like that, I had forgotten how good he had been at it.

I wanted time to stop, and the quiet journey down the canal to last forever. I did not look back or long for anything else, but only wanted the present, in this place — such times are the more precious for being rare. But it did not take very long, we were slipping up to a landing stage, and I saw the entrance doors of the hotel opened

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by attendants, the lights gleamed on the water and bobbed there.

I had never truly enjoyed smart places, we had both done with all that; and yet, once in a while, it was an excitement, a brief, fluttering episode of pleasure, to dress up and sit under chandeliers and be attended to, and perfectly harmless, for it was a game now, a treat, not a way of living, not essential to our self image, as I knew it was to very many of the people Maxim had once known - Maxim, and Rebecca.

He had been so wary of such places for so long, afraid of being seen and pointed out, as well as afraid of reviving memories he found painful, that I was quite used to our hiding away and did not mind it. I was surprised now, that he had wanted to dine at the oldest, smartest hotel in Venice.

Tou deserve a special occasion,’ he said, ‘you’ve had so few of them. I’ve been too dull for you.’

‘No. That’s what is best - what I like. You know that.’

Too wrapped up in myself then. I intend to take myself in hand.’

I stopped, just as we were about to go inside, between the uniformed, braided porters, holding open the glass doors. ‘Don’t change - I wouldn’t want this often.’

‘Certainly not, I’m far too old to change.’

‘It will be lovely - I’ve walked by here so often and looked in - it always seems so beautiful - like a palazzo, not like a hotel.’

That’s what it was.’ We went in, stepping on to the jewel coloured carpet. ‘And we are very unlikely to meet anyone at all. If people still take notice of such things, it isn’t yet the smart season to be in Venice.’

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It may not have been, but there were smart people dining in the hotel that night nonetheless, mainly older people, clearly rich, in a dull, old fashioned sort of way, women in small fur wraps and emeralds, with balding men, couples who sat and stared ahead of them complacently, and scarcely spoke. We passed between them unremarked, and I wondered whether we seemed old too, whether any young people ever did come here.

And then I saw one. He came down the velvet carpet, between the brocaded sofas, the deep, ruby red chairs, and I could not help staring at him, because he was young, as young as any of the junior waiters, but of a style and type I did not recognise, could not place. He was very slim, with beautifully shaped, dark hair that looked as if it had been carefully recombed only moments before. He wore a dinner jacket with a black satin tie which Maxim would probably frown at as being slightly too wide; for that was the kind of thing he still noticed and counted as important, a small, innate snobbery, and it seemed that I had acquired it, I was judging the pretty young man with a critical as well as a curious eye. He paused for a second to let our waiter step back out of his path and I saw what a beautifully shaped mouth he had, how perfect a skin, but also, that he had a discontented, faintly supercilious expression. A younger son, or a grandson, I decided, enduring a holiday with older relatives and longing only to get away from them, but obliged to sit listening to talk about people in whom he was not interested, and play bridge and walk rather slowly about Venice, and to fetch and carry — for he held an envelope and a spectacle case that I was sure were not his own. I supposed

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that he had expectations and so must be dutiful, careful not to offend for fear of being cut from the will.

All speculation over in a moment, the young man summed up, pigeon holed and dismissed. I felt so ashamed of myself that, as he caught my eye, glancing across at us, I half smiled, before looking away again in embarrassment. His eyes flickered, there was perhaps a movement at the corners of his mouth, before he moved on. I saw Maxim raise an eyebrow at me, understanding at once everything I had thought and decided, and in complete agreement with me, I could tell without his having to speak. He looked amused.

Then, I heard a voice from the sofa in the corner just behind us, a loud voice, aggrieved, complaining, a voice that came ringing to me across the intervening years, and turned me into an awkward, ill dressed girl of twenty-one again. ‘My goodness, you took your time, whatever were you doing? Why on earth you couldn’t find them right away I just can’t imagine.’

Maxim and I stared at each other, our eyes widening in disbelief.

‘Now do sit down again, you’re hovering, and you know I can’t stand you to hover. No, not there, there. That’s it. Now, just pass me the envelope, I’m sure the cutting I want is in it, there was a photograph, it was in Paris Soir - oh, I know it was an old one, from years before the war, and I daresay it may not be him, I daresay he is dead, like the rest of them — only there was something so familiar about the back of his head, I could swear it was the Comte - he had such style, you can’t imagine - well, no, you couldn’t;

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r”

so French, he kissed my hand every time we met with such wonderful panache — only French men know how to bring that off, they know exactly how to treat a woman. What ever is the matter with you now, why are you fidgeting like that? We’ll go in to dinner in ten minutes.’

The last time I had seen Mrs van Hopper she had looked up at me, pausing in the act of powdering her nose in the mirror of her vanity case to tell me that in agreeing to marry Maxim de Winter, I was making a big mistake and one that I would bitterly regret. She had doubted my ability to function as mistress of Manderley, poured scorn on my hopes and dreams, eyed me with a prying, unpleasant expression. But I had not cared, I had been able to stand up to her and disregard all she said, for the first time since I had gone into her employment as a paid companion, because now I was loved, now I was to marry, I was to become Mrs Maxim de Winter, and could take on anyone, I thought, face anything. Her power over me had been loosened in an instant, I was no longer paid by her, and no longer made to feel inferior, stupid, inept, clumsy, a non person. The dreadful weeks of embarrassment and humiliation and tedium were over, the endless bridge parties and cocktails in her hotel rooms, the fetching and carrying, the meals at which I was treated with barely concealed contempt by waiters, having to put up with her snobberies and self-regarding conceits, all were over, and I was rescued, safe.

I had gone out of the room, and down to where Maxim was waiting for me, impatiently, in the foyer, and I never saw or heard from her again. Once only, having nothing better to do, I wrote her a brief letter. She did not reply, and after that

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I was engulfed by all the terrible events that came one after another like storm waves, and broke over our lives. I don’t think, in the quiet years that had followed, I had spared her more than a couple of passing thoughts, had never wondered where she was, or even if she were still alive. She had nothing to do with me, she had passed out of my life that day at the Hotel Cote d’Azur in Monte Carlo. Yet I should have thought of her, if we owe our thoughts to people who have been so important to us. If I had never become her companion, and if she had not been addicted to preying upon and mercilessly cornering anyone she considered smart and worth knowing, anyone who was anyone, I would not be here now, Mrs Maxim de Winter, my life would have been different in every possible respect.

I assumed that he would want to avoid her seeing us, that we would lurk here, hunched on our high backed sofas until she had gone into dinner, and then fled, gone on somewhere less public to eat; but something of the old confidence, even a faint arrogance, had returned to Maxim; perhaps he did not care, perhaps he felt less vulnerable — I could not tell. At any rate, he leaned forward, his lips still curled in amusement, and whispered to me, ‘Finish your drink. I think we are ready to go in.’