'Oh,' I said. 'Oh, I'm sure I do; that is, I'm sure I approve of the menus. Just order what you like, Mrs Danvers, you needn't bother to ask me.'
'It would be better, I think, if you read the list,' continued the voice; 'you will find the menu of the day on the blotter, beside you.'
I searched feverishly about me on the desk, and found at last a sheet of paper I had not noticed before.
I glanced hurriedly through it: curried prawns, roast veal, asparagus, cold chocolate mousse — was this lunch or dinner?
I could not see; lunch, I suppose.
'Yes, Mrs Danvers,' I said, 'very suitable, very nice indeed.'
'If you wish anything changed please say so,' she answered, 'and I will give orders at once.
You will notice I have left a blank space beside the sauce, for you to mark your preference. I was not sure what sauce you are used to having served with the roast veal.
Mrs de Winter was most particular about her sauces, and I always had to refer to her.'
'Oh,' I said. 'Oh, well… let me see, Mrs Danvers, I hardly know; I think we had better have what you usually have, whatever you think Mrs de Winter would have ordered.'
'You have no preference, Madam?'
'No,' I said. 'No, really, Mrs Danvers.'
'I rather think Mrs de Winter would have ordered a wine sauce, Madam.'
'We will have the same then, of course,' I said.
'I'm very sorry I disturbed you while you were writing, Madam.'
'You didn't disturb me at all,' I said; 'please don't apologise.'
"The post leaves at midday, and Robert will come for your letters, and stamp them himself,' she said; 'all you have to do is ring through to him, on the telephone, if you have anything urgent to be sent, and he will give orders for them to be taken in to the post-office immediately.'
"Thank you, Mrs Danvers,' I said.
I listened for a moment, but she said no more, and then I heard a little click at the end of the telephone, which meant she had replaced the receiver.
I did the same.
Then I looked down again at the desk, and the notepaper, ready for use, upon the blotter.
In front of me stared the ticketed pigeon-holes, and the words upon them 'letters unanswered', 'estate', 'miscellaneous', were like a reproach to me for my idleness.
She who sat here before me had not wasted her time, as I was doing.
She had reached out for the house telephone and given her orders for the day, swiftly, efficiently, and run her pencil perhaps through an item in the menu that had not pleased her.
She had not said
'Yes, Mrs Danvers,' and
'Of course, Mrs Danvers,' as I had done.
And then, when she had finished, she began her letters, five, six, seven perhaps to be answered, all written in that same curious, slanting hand I knew so well.
She would tear off sheet after sheet of that smooth white paper, using it extravagantly, because of the long strokes she made when she wrote, and at the end of each of her personal letters she put her signature,
'Rebecca', that tall sloping R dwarfing its fellows.
I drummed with my fingers on the desk.
The pigeon-holes were empty now.
There were no 'letters unanswered' waiting to be dealt with, no bills to pay that I knew anything about.
If I had anything urgent, Mrs Danvers said, I must telephone through to Robert and he would give orders for it to be taken to the post.
I wondered how many urgent letters Rebecca used to write, and who they were written to.
Dressmakers perhaps —
'I must have the white satin on Tuesday, without fail,' or to her hairdresser —
'I shall be coming up next Friday, and want an appointment at three o'clock with Monsieur Antoine himself.
Shampoo, massage, set, and manicure.'
No, letters of that type would be a waste of time.
She would have a call put through to London.
Frith would do it.
Frith would say
'I am speaking for Mrs de Winter.'
I went on drumming with my fingers on the desk.
I could think of nobody to write to.
Only Mrs Van Hopper.
And there was something foolish, rather ironical, in the realisation that here I was sitting at my own desk in my own home with nothing better to do than to write a letter to Mrs Van Hopper, a woman I disliked, whom I should never see again.
I pulled a sheet of notepaper towards me.
I took up the narrow, slender pen, with the bright pointed nib.