We were saved a retreat into the past, and I had learnt my lesson.
Read English news, yes, and English sport, politics, and pomposity, but in future keep the things that hurt to myself alone. They can be my secret indulgence.
Colour and scent and sound, rain and the lapping of water, even the mists of autumn, and the smell of the flood tide, these are memories of Manderley that will not be denied.
Some people have a vice of reading Bradshaws.
They plan innumerable journeys across country for the fun of linking up impossible connexions.
My hobby is less tedious, if as strange.
I am a mine of information on the English countryside.
I know the name of every owner of every British moor, yes — and their tenants too.
I know how many grouse are killed, how many partridge, how many head of deer.
I know where trout are rising, and where the salmon leap.
I attend all meets, I follow every run.
Even the names of those who walk hound puppies are familiar to me.
The state of the crops, the price of fat cattle, the mysterious ailments of swine, I relish them all.
A poor pastime, perhaps, and not a very intellectual one, but I breathe the air of England as I read, and can face this glittering sky with greater courage.
The scrubby vineyards and the crumbling stones' become things of no account, for if I wish I can give rein to my imagination, and pick foxgloves and pale campions from a wet, streaking hedge.
Poor whims of fancy, tender and un-harsh. They are the enemy to bitterness and regret, and sweeten this exile we have brought upon ourselves.
Because of them I can enjoy my afternoon, and return, smiling and refreshed, to face the little ritual of our tea.
The order never varies.
Two slices of bread and butter each, and China tea.
What a hide-bound couple we must seem, clinging to custom because we did so in England.
Here, on this clean balcony, white and impersonal with centuries of sun, I think of half past four at Manderley, and the table drawn before the library fire.
The door flung open, punctual to the minute, and the performance, never-varying, of the laying of the tea, the silver tray, the kettle, the snowy cloth.
While Jasper, his spaniel ears a-droop, feigns indifference to the arrival of the cakes.
That feast was laid before us always, and yet we ate so little.
Those dripping crumpets, I can see them now. Tiny crisp wedges of toast, and piping-hot, floury scones.
Sandwiches of unknown nature, mysteriously flavoured and quite delectable, and that very special gingerbread.
Angel cake, that melted in the mouth, and his rather stodgier companion, bursting with peel and raisins.
There was enough food there to keep a starving family for a week.
I never knew what happened to it all, and the waste used to worry me sometimes.
But I never dared ask Mrs Danvers what she did about it.
She would have looked at me in scorn, smiling that freezing, superior smile of hers, and I can imagine her saying:
'There were never any complaints when Mrs de Winter was alive.'
Mrs Danvers.
I wonder what she is doing now.
She and Favell.
I think it was the expression on her face that gave me my first feeling of unrest.
Instinctively I thought,
'She is comparing me to Rebecca'; and sharp as a sword the shadow came between us…
Well, it is over now, finished and done with.
I ride no more tormented, and both of us are free.
Even my faithful Jasper has gone to the happy hunting grounds, and Manderley is no more.
It lies like an empty shell amidst the tangle of the deep woods, even as I saw it in my dream.
A multitude of weeds, a colony of birds.
Sometimes perhaps a tramp will wander there, seeking shelter from a sudden shower of rain and, if he is stout-hearted, he may walk there with impunity.
But your timid fellow, your nervous poacher — the woods of Manderley are not for him.
He might stumble upon the little cottage in the cove and he would not be happy beneath its tumbled roof, the thin rain beating a tattoo.
There might linger there still a certain atmosphere of stress… That corner in the drive, too, where the trees encroach upon the gravel, is not a place in which to pause, not after the sun has set.
When the leaves rustle, they sound very much like the stealthy movement of a woman in evening dress, and when they shiver suddenly, and fall, and scatter away along the ground, they might be the patter, patter, of a woman's hurrying footstep, and the mark in the gravel the imprint of a high-heeled satin shoe.
It is when I remember these things that I return with relief to the prospect from our balcony.
No shadows steal upon this hard glare, the stony vineyards shimmer in the sun and the bougainvillaea is white with dust.