Reading Rebecca Pt. 6

Bookshelves of Doom

Chapter 16: In which the author tests how often the reader will want to shake their head and say, "Do you really think that is a good idea?????"

It all begins with the invasion of visitors. Frank, Maxim, and our narrator have to play host. And of course Maxim gets out of doing the actual work of hosting.

Maxim was always at the other end of the room, showing a book the a bore, or pointing out a picture, playing the perfect host in his own inimitable way, and the business of tea was a side-issue that did not matter to him.

I'm sure by now we've all noticed that almost everything in their married life is relegated to a side-issue so he can avoid dealing with the mundaneness of it all. You could even say that his wife's happiness is a side-issue that did not matter to him. He only chooses to "see" her about 10% of the time. In that 10% he might care to listen to her, to look at her, to see what she's wearing, how she's acting. The rest of the time he's a clueless oaf making his new wife wear his dead wife's floppy rain coat and trying to keep up with him on walks.

When there is a pause in conversation at tea, one of the guests takes a chance and pounces on Maxim and implores him to have a ball--a magnificent party.

I think this is when the three play a proverbial game of hot potato. None wants to step up and say that it's a bad idea. None wants to admit that it's something best left in the past. So it's a dare. I will if he will. No, I will if they will. No, I will if she will... and eventually it's a done deal because no one weasels out of it. Now, how many think this ball is a good idea?????

It was all rather a business to organize. You had better ask Frank Crawley, he'd have to do it.

I don't mind organizing the ball if Maxim has no objection to giving it. It's up to him and Mrs. de Winter. It's nothing to do with me.

Maxim still watched me doubtfully over the tea-pot. It occurred to me that perhaps he thought I could not face it, that being shy, as he knew only too well, I should find myself unable to cope. I did not want him to think that. I did not want him to feel I should let him down. I think it would be rather fun, I said.
Maxim turned away, shrugging his shoulders.

Then our narrator begins to feel sheepish that Frank and Maxim don't delegate any responsibility to her at all for the party--not even the licking of the stamps. I was glad of course to be relieved of responsibility, but it rather added to my sense of humility to feel that I was not even capable of licking stamps. That line struck me as a bit passive aggressive and just downright pathetic. Obviously, she does mind. She minds even after all these years later. She apparently is buying into the lie that someone--herself or Maxim--told her that she was dumb and useless and unimportant. Anyone can lick stamps. I bet even Ben could lick stamps. Placing them squarely and 'just' so on the envelopes, maybe not, but anyone can lick stamps. And she knows it. I don't know why she is so passively passive.

Now it is bad enough that they're giving a party, a ball, but it's 10x worse that it's a costume party. I began to groan as I read about it. First, Maxim, teases her that she should come as Alice from Alice in Wonderland--I don't know if that's because she wants to look older and wiser than Alice--it might be hard to gain the respect of your neighbors if "the bride" and "hostess" of the party was dressed up as a little girl. It would also be like flashing a neon sign that Maxim is so much older and that she is so much younger. Or it could be as simple as she lays it out to be--that he's teasing her because her hair is straight. But really, I think it has to be a bit more complicated than that.

I'll give you and Frank the surprise of your lives, and you won't know me.
As long as you don't black your face and pretend to be a monkey I don't mind what you do, said Maxim.
All right, that's a bargain, I said, I'll keep my costume a secret to the last minute, and you won't know anything about it.

You don't have to be a genius to pick up on the sense of approaching doom. With each second of the conversation, the chance for impending catastrophe is rising. Why, why, why would she think it a good idea to play this game???? Russian roulette with a wardrobe choice is not going to be pretty.

This sentence struck me as odd:

As Frank had said, I did not have to bother my head about anything. I don't think I licked one stamp.

It seems like she's saying she doesn't remember what she did. As important, as symbolic, as those stamps were...she'd remember if she'd licked or not. She's just being silly. She knows she didn't lick a stamp. Why the pretense???

You would think after the last few chapters where our narrator is exposed to the full creepy, horrific strangeness of Mrs. Danvers that she would think twice before inviting her into her bedroom and taking fashion advice. I'm just saying that she should have seen this one coming. I mean her intentions were obvious from the start:

There was a hint of derision in her voice, a trace of odd satisfaction.

This woman has had it out from her from day one. She's always been afraid of her. And her last encounter was truly frightening. The woman grabbed onto her arms for goodness sake and wouldn't let go and then made her do odd things with Rebecca's possessions. And her physical reaction to her presence was a big clue, "I had turned quite cold all over at the sight of her."

So her taking Danver's advice on the costume was just ridiculously poor judgment. But then again, she has never been one for following her instinct.

I should study the pictures in the gallery, Madam, if I were you, especially the one I mentioned. And you need not think that I will give you away. I won't say a word to anyone.

Anyone else pick up on the "flash of knowledge in your eyes. Not the right sort of knowledge." When our narrator is daydreaming about Rebecca--imagining what it felt like to be her--she gets this creepy, devilish look on her face that spooks her husband. I don't know if it's just me but I thought of the knowledge of good and evil. Rebecca definitely had secrets--deep, dark secrets--things that are still harmful even after her death. "There is a certain type of knowledge I prefer you not to have. It's better kept under lock and key." Could that knowledge be cheating, flirting, or betrayal????

We were all three in the rather hearty, cheerful humour of people before a funeral. We made pointless jokes about nothing at all, our minds eternally on the thought of the next few hours. I felt very much the same as I did the morning I was married. The same stifled feeling that I had gone too far now to turn back.

Ouch, that paragraph is telling. She is comparing her wedding day with that of a funeral. But it's still odd, I've been to a good many funerals and I can't say that many of them were "hearty" or "cheerful" before, during, or after. Though it is the time where you can snicker to yourself about seeing bald guys with sprayed on "hair". Or make a whispered joke about the music. But still definitely leagues away from hearty.

As the social bomb begins ticking, I find this amusing line..."Mrs. Danvers is responsible for everything..." Yes, she is. Much more than you know.

The last good thought before the nightmare begins...

Everybody looked at me and smiled. I felt pleased and flushed and rather happy. People were being nice. They were all so friendly. It was suddenly fun, the thought of the dance, and that I was to be the hostess.

I suppose it was a nice fantasy while it lasted. She begins imagining her grand entrance to the ball. She starts imagining what it would feel like to have a husband that was happy, proud, and well, sane. But reality sinks in when she realizes the trick that Mrs. Danvers played on her. Her husband is a bear to her in front of Beatrice and Giles. Fortunately, they are the only guests to have arrived...not including Frank.

It was Mrs. Danvers. I shall never forget the expression on her face, loathsome and triumphant. The face of an exulting devil. She stood there, smiling at me.

Chapter 17: Our narrator's valley of despair

Beatrice and Clarice, her maid, attempt to provide comfort after the verbal lashing of her husband and her humiliation and disappointment at "ruining" the party before it even got started. This chapter is all about the battle of wills. Will she or won't she come down to the party to face her husband, her guests. Which impulse is stronger--her pride or her shame? I'm reminded of the scene in Gone With The Wind when Scarlett is forced to go to Ashley's surprise party. This chapter is weird because a lot of it isn't real. Our narrator imagines what the party is like downstairs. She imagines what people are saying about her behind her back. After playing out the entire evening in her head--everything bad that would be said about her if she didn't appear--she chooses to go down. She's a little late, but she's trying to save as much face as possible. During the party it is Frank who plays her hero.

The figure who stood beside me was wooden too. His face was a mask, his smile was not his own. The eyes were not the eyes of the man I loved, the man I knew. They looked through me and beyond me, cold, expressionless, to some place of pain and torture I could not enter, to some private, inward hell I could not share.

She may not be able to share her "husband's hell." But he is doing a good job in providing his wife with a hell of her own to call home.

I wished my mind would rest like my body, relax, and pass to sleep.

It's phrases like this that make the narrator someone I can relate to. Who doesn't wish they could turn off their minds at the end of a really bad day so they could get some peace and forget about their hellish experiences of the day?

Chapter 18: Maxim didn't come to bed, and he's "missing" from Manderley

Just when our narrator thought her problems couldn't get any worse...her husband is a no show in their bedroom, and he's disappeared from Manderley. He is apparently still royally ticked off at her for the costume catastrophe. This is when Mrs. Danvers really, really makes her move. And turns the dial from maliciously devilish to unrestrained evil. At least though our narrator has the guts to confront the woman who is singlehandedly trying to destroy her.

Mrs Danvers, I said, I have not come to talk about the menu. You know that, don't you?

Several pages later,
How dare you speak to me like that, how dare you? I said. I was not afraid of her any more. I went up to her, shook her by the arm.

Mrs. Danver's behavior is demonic. She's trying to taunt the narrator into committing suicide. Definitely bizarre.