I've no time to hang about at this hour of the day.
Running a place like Manderley, you know, is a full-time job.
The coffee and the hot dishes are on the sideboard.
We always help ourselves at breakfast.'
I said something about my clock being slow, about having been too long in the bath, but he did not listen, he was looking down at a letter, frowning at something.
How impressed I was, I remember well; impressed and a little overawed by the magnificence of the breakfast offered to us.
There was tea, in a great silver urn, and coffee too, and on the heater, piping hot, dishes of scrambled eggs, of bacon, and another of fish.
There was a little clutch of boiled eggs as well, in their own special heater, and porridge, in a silver porringer.
On another sideboard was a ham, and a great piece of cold bacon.
There were scones too, on the table, and toast, and various pots of jam, marmalade, and honey, while dessert dishes, piled high with fruit, stood at either end.
It seemed strange to me that Maxim, who in Italy and France had eaten a croissant and fruit only, and drunk a cup of coffee, should sit down to this breakfast at home, enough for a dozen people, day after day probably, year after year, seeing nothing ridiculous about it, nothing wasteful.
I noticed he had eaten a small piece of fish.
I took a boiled egg.
And I wondered what happened to the rest, all those scrambled eggs, that crisp bacon, the porridge, the remains of the fish.
Were there menials, I wondered, whom I should never know, never see, waiting behind kitchen doors for the gift of our breakfast?
Or was it all thrown away, shovelled into dustbins?
I would never know, of course, I would never dare to ask.
"Thank the Lord I haven't a great crowd of relations to inflict upon you,' said Maxim, 'a sister I very rarely see, and a grandmother who is nearly blind.
Beatrice, by the way, asks herself over to lunch.
I half expected she would.
I suppose she wants to have a look at you.'
'Today?' I said, my spirits sinking to zero.
'Yes, according to the letter I got this morning.
She won't stay long.
You'll like her, I think.
She's very direct, believes in speaking her mind.
No humbug at all.
If she doesn't like you she'll tell you so, to your face.'
I found this hardly comforting, and wondered if there was not some virtue in the quality of insincerity.
Maxim got up from his chair, and lit a cigarette.
I've a mass of things to see to this morning, do you think you can amuse yourself?' he said.
'I'd like to have taken you round the garden, but I must see Crawley, my agent.
I've been away from things too long.
He'll be in to lunch, too, by the way.
You don't mind, do you?
You will be all right?'
'Of course,' I said,
'I shall be quite happy.'
Then he picked up his letters, and went out of the room, and I remember thinking this was not how I imagined my first morning; I had seen us walking together, arms linked, to the sea, coming back rather late and tired and happy to a cold lunch, alone, and sitting afterwards under that chestnut tree I could see from the library window.
I lingered long over my first breakfast, spinning out the time, and it was not until I saw Frith come in and look at me, from behind the service screen, that I realised it was after ten o'clock.
I sprang to my feet at once, feeling guilty, and apologised for sitting there so late, and he bowed, saying nothing, very polite, very correct, and I caught a flicker of surprise in his eyes.
I wondered if I had said the wrong thing.
Perhaps it did not do to apologise.
Perhaps it lowered me in his estimation.
I wished I knew what to say, what to do.
I wondered if he suspected, as Mrs Danvers had done, that poise, and grace, and assurance were not qualities inbred in me, but were things to be acquired, painfully perhaps, and slowly, costing me many bitter moments.
As it was, leaving the room, I stumbled, not looking where I was going, catching my foot on the step by the door, and Frith came forward to help me, picking up my handkerchief, while Robert, the young footman, who was standing behind the screen, turned away to hide his smile.
I heard the murmur of their voices as I crossed the hall, and one of them laughed — Robert, I supposed.
Perhaps they were laughing about me.
I went upstairs again, to the privacy of my bedroom, but when I opened the door I found the housemaids in there doing the room; one was sweeping the floor, the other dusting the dressing-table.