Reading Rebecca Pt. 4

Bookshelves of Doom, Chapters 10-12

It might seem that I was a little too harsh on our narrator, Mrs. deWinter the second in my last posting. I don't want anyone to think that Maxim is anywhere close to perfect. In case you had any doubts whatsoever about his jerkiness (and that is keeping it polite), these next chapters will prove that he hasn't a clue on how a woman wants to be treated--needs to be treated.

In Chapter 10, Maxim turns into a crankmeister. He's angry from having had to entertain guests--Beatrice, etc.--and he's grown snappy and impatient. He wants to go for a walk in the rain. And he wants his wife to go with him. He doesn't want to wait for her to get her own coat. He wants to parade her about in a raincoat that's much too big for her while he goes on and on and on about how awful it is to have to see one's family.

I took Maxim's arm.
"Do you like my hair?" I said.
He stared down at me in astonishment. "Your hair?" he said, "why on earth do you ask? Of course I like it. What's the matter with it?"
"Oh, nothing," I said, "I just wondered."
"How funny you are," he said.

Maxim clearly doesn't understand women. But that doesn't really come as a surprise. I think the compliments must be few and far between in this marriage. His wife who definitely has security issues and confidence issues and a whole lot of other issues...is just looking for reassurance, love, and a nice word now and then. She wants to be treated as more than a pet. She doesn't want to be a Jasper all her life.

During her walk, she thinks about what Beatrice has said about her brother--how he gets angry and moody, etc. But how she essentially makes up her mind to ignore and excuse that knowledge, that conversation. I could see him moody, difficult, irritable perhaps, but not angry as she had inferred, not passionate. Perhaps she had exaggerated, people very often were wrong about their relatives.

Has she forgotten the cliff top drive? How about when he inexplicably goes off on her when she brings up Manderley or his wife during a drive one day? She seems to be ignoring a LOT of warning signs when it comes to her husband's character and temperament. Or else she's extremely naive and foolish to convince herself of this generalization: people very often were wrong about their relatives.

Then there are a whole lot of descriptions about flowers, birds, scents, and singing. I don't really like this kind of stuff.

Then comes the action where Jasper wonders off to go on one of his old haunts. Max turns angry and vicious. Our narrator goes after the dog. And she finds a few things that are strange: a crazy but harmless man named Ben, and a beach house/cottage (boat house) where Rebecca spent some of her days and nights.

Once the dog is retrieved, the two proceed to bicker and bicker until she accepts the blame for everything and she is kissing his feet again.

Back in the library:

Don't be angry with me anymore, I whispered.
He took my face in his hands and looked down at me with his tired and strained eyes. I'm not angry with you he said.
Yes, I said. I've made you unhappy. It's the same as making you angry. You're all wounded and hurt and torn inside. I can't bear to see you like this. I love you so much.
Do you? he said. Do you? He held me very tight, and his eyes questioned me, dark and uncertain, the eyes of a child in pain, a child in fear.

There are so many things that are wrong with this conversation. Of course he has no reason to be angry with her. He was the one that acted irrationally brutish. And it must have felt like a slap in the face for him to ask her twice if she loved him. As if he doubted how she felt. After all, she is the one who is always impulsively sharing with him. He hasn't once said that he loved her. That he was in love with her. That he wanted her.

He does eventually grunt out a small apology for being a 'bear' to her.

It was over then. The episode was finished. We must not speak of it again.

Sad, sad, lonely woman. To think of all the stuff she's repressing...all the stuff she's denying...it's just not healthy.

Chapter 11

Though she's promised herself not to speak of it again, she can't stop thinking about it.

I could not forget the white, lost look in Maxim's eyes when we came up the path through the woods, and I could not forget his words, "Oh God, what a fool I was to come back." It was all my fault, because I had gone down into the bay. I had opened up a road into the past again. And although Maxim had recovered, and was himself again, and we lived our lives together, sleeping, eating, walking, writing letters, driving to the village, working hour by hour through our day, I knew there was a barrier betwee us because of it. He walked alone, on the other side, and I must not come to him. And I became nervous and fearful that some heedless word, some turn in a careless conversation should bring that expression back to his eyes again.

How awful to spend all that time blaming yourself and making yourself responsible for someone else's emotional and mental well-being. How exhausting. It would be a full-time job for her to walk on eggshells and try to prevent another one of Maxim's moody episodes. It's impossible and foolish to think she can do it.

In this chapter, we see the narrator hating and dreading her social calls, or rounds. It also features her having a personal conversation with Frank Crawley. It is the first time she's openly able to ask about Rebecca. It is also the FIRST time that she's been honest and forthcoming about her feelings, her thoughts, her emotions.

Chapter 12

In this chapter our narrator tries to get accustomed to being rich and having servants. There is some discussion of undergarments and lace. And she also breaks a china cupid and foolishly hides the evidence. So there is another social "blunder" that her husband essentially blames her for. When she finally admits that Mrs. Danvers is intimidating and a bit weird/spooky and just downright unfriendly...he blames her for not handling her correctly...for not acting like the mistress of the house.

I really saw much to hate in Maxim's behavior when he is picking on her for not knowing how to act as his wife. Her clothes. Her shyness. Her manners. When she keeps insisting that he knew all that before he married her. That he knew she was shy, awkward, from a different class, nervous, anxious, etc. That he shouldn't expect her to be different now that she's his wife. She can't flip a switch and transform into the 'proper' wife. What follows is another episode in which Max acts like a brutish bear and is genuinely unlikable.

Are you happy here? he said looking away from me, out of the window. I wonder sometimes. You've got thinner. Lost your colour.
Of course I'm happy I said. I love Manderley. I love the garden. I love everything. I don't mind calling on people. I said that just to be tiresome. I'll call on people every day, if you want me to. I don't mind what I do. I've never for one moment regretted marrying you, surely you must know that?
He patted my cheek in his terribly absent way, and bent down and kissed the top of my head. Poor lamb, you don't have much fun do you? I'm afraid I'm difficult to live with.
You're not difficult I said eagerly. You are easy, very easy. Much easier than I thought you would be. I used to think it would be dreadful to be married, that one's husband would drink, or use awful language, or grumble if the toast was soft at breakfast, and be rather unattractive altogether, smell possibly. You don't do any of those things.

I'm honestly surprised she wasn't struck with lightning. How can she not know she's lying. And if she does know...why the eager pretense? The begging and pleading to embrace the lie together.

His response later on that "If you say we are happy, let's leave it at that. It's something I know nothing about. I take your word for it. We are happy. All right then, that's agreed."

How strange, how very strange. Of course he knows if he is happy in the marriage, if he's satisfied with it. If he's regretting his decision. How could you NOT know.