Дафна Дю Морье – Rebecca / Ребекка. Книга для чтения на английском языке (страница 4)

‘Mr de Winter is having coffee with us, go and ask the waiter for another cup,’ she said, her tone just casual enough to warn him of my footing. It meant I was a youthful thing and unimportant, and that there was no need to include me in the conversation. She always spoke in that tone when she wished to be impressive, and her method of introduction was a form of self-protection, for once I had been taken for her daughter, an acute embarrassment for us both. This abruptness showed that I could safely be ignored, and women would give me a brief nod which served as a greeting and a dismissal in one, while men, with large relief, would realize they could sink back into a comfortable chair without offending courtesy[13].

It was a surprise, therefore, to find that this newcomer remained standing on his feet, and it was he who made a signal to the waiter. ‘I’m afraid I must contradict you’ he said to her, ‘you are both having coffee with me’; and before I knew what had happened he was sitting in my usual hard chair, and I was on the sofa beside Mrs Van Hopper. For a moment she looked annoyed – this was not what she had intended – but she soon composed her face, and thrusting her large self between me and the table she leant forward to his chair, talking eagerly and loudly, fluttering the letter in her hand.

‘You know I recognized you just as soon as you walked into the restaurant,’ she said, ‘and I thought, “Why, there’s Mr de Winter, Billy’s friend, I simply must show him those snaps of Billy and his bride taken on their honeymoon”, and here they are. There’s Dora. Isn’t she just adorable? That little, slim waist, those great big eyes. Here they are sunbathing at Palm Beach. Billy is crazy about her, you can imagine. He had not met her of course when he gave that party at Claridge’s, and where I saw you first. But I dare say you don’t remember an old woman like me?’

This with a provocative glance and a gleam of teeth.

‘On the contrary I remember you very well' he said, and before she could trap him into a resurrection of their first meeting he had handed her his cigarette case, and the business of lighting-up stalled her for the moment. ‘I don’t think I should care for Palm Beach,’ he said, blowing the match, and glancing at him I thought how unreal he would look against a Florida background. He belonged to a walled city of the fifteenth century, a city of narrow, cobbled streets, and thin spires, where the inhabitants wore pointed shoes and worsted hose[14]. His face was arresting, sensitive, medieval in some strange inexplicable way, and I was reminded of a portrait seen in a gallery, I had forgotten where, of a certain Gentleman Unknown. Could one but rob him of his English tweeds, and put him in black, with lace at his throat and wrists, he would stare down at us in our new world from a long-distant past – a past where men walked cloaked at night, and stood in the shadow of old doorways, a past of narrow stairways and dim dungeons, a past of whispers in the dark, of shimmering rapier blades, of silent, exquisite courtesy.

I wished I could remember the Old Master who had painted that portrait. It stood in a corner of the gallery, and the eyes followed one from the dusky frame…

They were talking though, and I had lost the thread of conversation. ‘No, not even twenty years ago' he was saying. ‘That sort of thing has never amused me.’

I heard Mrs Van Hopper give her fat, complacent laugh. ‘If Billy had a home like Manderley he would not want to play around in Palm Beach,’ she said. ‘I’m told it’s like fairyland, there’s no other word for it.’

She paused, expecting him to smile, but he went on smoking his cigarette, and I noticed, faint as gossamer, the line between his brows.

‘I’ve seen pictures of it, of course’ she persisted, ‘and it looks perfectly enchanting. I remember Billy telling me it had all those big places beat for beauty. I wonder you can ever bear to leave it.’

His silence now was painful, and would have been patent to anyone else, but she ran on like a clumsy goat, trampling and trespassing on land that was preserved, and I felt the colour flood my face, dragged with her as I was into humiliation.

‘Of course you Englishmen are all the same about your homes,’ she said, her voice becoming louder and louder, ‘you depreciate them so as not to seem proud. Isn’t there a minstrels’ gallery at Manderley, and some very valuable portraits?’ She turned to me by way of explanation. ‘Mr de Winter is so modest he won’t admit to it, but I believe that lovely home of his has been in his family’s possession since the Conquest[15]. They say that minstrels’ gallery is a gem. I suppose your ancestors often entertained royalty at Manderley, Mr de Winter?’

This was more than I had hitherto endured, even from her, but the swift lash of his reply was unexpected. ‘Not since Ethelred[16]’ he said. ‘The one who was called Unready. In fact, it was while staying with my family that the name was given him. He was invariably late for dinner.’

She deserved it, of course, and I waited for her change of face, but incredible as it may seem his words were lost on her, and I was left to writhe in her stead, feeling like a child that had been smacked.

‘Is that really so?’ she blundered. ‘I’d no idea. My history is very shaky and the kings of England always muddled me. How interesting, though. I must write and tell my daughter; she’s a great scholar.’

There was a pause, and I felt the colour flood into my face. I was too young, that was the trouble. Had I been older I would have caught his eye and smiled, her unbelievable behaviour making a bond between us; but as it was I was stricken into shame, and endured one of the frequent agonies of youth.

I think he realized my distress, for he leant forward in his chair and spoke to me, his voice gentle, asking if I would have more coffee, and when I refused and shook my head I felt his eyes were still on me, puzzled, reflective. He was pondering my exact relationship to her, and wondering whether he must bracket us together in futility.

‘What do you think of Monte Carlo, or don’t you think of it at all?’ he said. This including of me in the conversation found me at my worst, the raw ex-schoolgirl, red-elbowed and lanky-haired, and I said something obvious and idiotic about the place being artificial, but before I could finish my halting sentence Mrs Van Hopper interrupted.

‘She’s spoilt, Mr de Winter, that’s her trouble. Most girls would give their eyes for the chance[17] of seeing Monte.’

‘Wouldn’t that rather defeat the purpose?’ he said, smiling.

She shrugged her shoulders, blowing a great cloud of cigarette smoke into the air. I don’t think she understood him for a moment. ‘I’m faithful to Monte,’ she told him. ‘The English winter gets me down, and my constitution just won’t stand it. What brings you here? You’re not one of the regulars. Are you going to play “Chemy”, or have you brought your golf clubs?’

‘I have not made up my mind,’ he said, ‘I came away in rather a hurry.’ His own words must have jolted a memory, for his face clouded again and he frowned very slightly.

She babbled on, impervious. ‘Of course you miss the fogs at Manderley; it’s quite another matter; the west country must be delightful in the spring.’

He reached for the ashtray, squashing his cigarette, and I noticed the subtle change in his eyes, the indefinable something that lingered there, momentarily, and I felt I had looked upon something personal to himself with which I had no concern.

‘Yes,’ he said shortly, ‘Manderley was looking its best.’ A silence fell upon us during a moment or two, a silence that brought something of discomfort in its train, and stealing a glance at him I was reminded more than ever of my Gentleman Unknown who, cloaked and secret, walked a corridor by night. Mrs Van Hopper’s voice pierced my dream like an electric bell.

‘I suppose you know a crowd of people here, though I must say Monte is very dull this winter. One sees so few well-known faces. The Duke of Middlesex is here in his yacht, but I haven’t been aboard yet.’ She never had, to my knowledge[18]. ‘You know Nell Middlesex of course,’ she went on. ‘What a charmer she is. They always say that second child isn’t his, but I don’t believe it. People will say anything, won’t they, when a woman is attractive? And she is so very lovely. Tell me, is it true the Caxton-Hyslop marriage is not a success?’ She ran on, through a tangled fringe of gossip, never seeing that these names were alien to him, they meant nothing, and that as she prattled unaware he grew colder and more silent. Never for a moment did he interrupt or glance at his watch; it was as though he had set himself a standard of behaviour, since the original lapse when he had made a fool of her in front of me, and clung to it grimly rather than offend again. It was a page-boy in the end who released him, with the news that a dressmaker awaited Mrs Van Hopper in the suite. He got up at once, pushing back his chair. ‘Don’t let me keep you,’ he said. ‘Fashions change so quickly nowadays they may even have altered by the time you get upstairs.’