Rebecca by Maurier Daphne Du

Author:Maurier, Daphne Du [Maurier, Daphne Du]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Classics, Fiction, Gothic, Historical, Modern Gothic, Novel, Romance, Thriller
ISBN: 9783190529599
Google: jtRRpwAACAAJ
Amazon: 0380778556
Barnesnoble: 0380778556
Publisher: Little, Brown & Co.
Published: 1938-01-01T03:00:00+00:00

17

Clarice was waiting for me in my bedroom. She looked pale and scared. As soon as she saw me she burst into tears. I did not say anything. I began tearing at the hooks of my dress, ripping the stuff. I could not manage them properly, and Clarice came to help me, still crying noisily.

“It’s all right, Clarice, it’s not your fault,” I said, and she shook her head, the tears still running down her cheeks.

“Your lovely dress, Madam,” she said, “your lovely white dress.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Can’t you find the hook? There it is, at the back. And another one somewhere, just below.”

She fumbled with the hooks, her hands trembling, making worse trouble with it than I did myself, and all the time catching at her breath.

“What will you wear instead, Madam?” she said.

“I don’t know,” I said, “I don’t know.” She had managed to unfasten the hooks, and I struggled out of the dress. “I think I’d rather like to be alone, Clarice,” I said, “would you be a dear and leave me? Don’t worry, I shall manage all right. Forget what’s happened. I want you to enjoy the party.”

“Can’t I press out a dress for you, Madam?” she said, looking up at me with swollen streaming eyes. “It won’t take me a moment.”

“No,” I said, “don’t bother, I’d rather you went, and Clarice…”

“Yes, Madam?”

“Don’t—don’t say anything about what’s just happened.”

“No, Madam.” She burst into another torrent of weeping.

“Don’t let the others see you like that,” I said. “Go to your bedroom and do something to your face. There’s nothing to cry about, nothing at all.” Somebody knocked on the door. Clarice threw me a quick frightened glance.

“Who is it?” I said. The door opened and Beatrice came into the room. She came to me at once, a strange, rather ludicrous figure in her Eastern drapery, the bangles jangling on her wrists.

“My dear,” she said, “my dear,” and held out her hands to me.

Clarice slipped out of the room. I felt tired suddenly, and unable to cope. I went and sat down on the bed. I put my hand up to my head and took off the curled wig. Beatrice stood watching me.

“Are you all right?” she said. “You look very white.”

“It’s the light,” I said. “It never gives one any color.”

“Sit down for a few minutes and you’ll be all right,” she said; “wait, I’ll get a glass of water.”

She went into the bathroom, her bangles jangling with her every movement, and then she came back, the glass of water in her hands.

I drank some to please her, not wanting it a bit. It tasted warm from the tap; she had not let it run.

“Of course I knew at once it was just a terrible mistake,” she said. “You could not possibly have known, why should you?”

“Known what?” I said.

“Why, the dress, you poor dear, the picture you copied of the girl in the gallery. It was what Rebecca did at the last fancy dress ball at Manderley.

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