I stopped breathless, already a little ashamed of my outburst, feeling that now at any rate I had burnt my boats for all time.
He turned to me looking very concerned and troubled.
'Mrs de Winter, please don't think that,' he said.
'For my part I can't tell you how delighted I am that you have married Maxim.
It will make all the difference to his life.
I am positive that you will make a great success of it.
From my point of view it's — it's very refreshing and charming to find someone like yourself who is not entirely — er — ' he blushed, searching for a word 'not entirely au fait, shall we say, with ways at Manderley.
And if people around here give you the impression that they are criticising you, it's — well — it's most damnably offensive of them, that's all.
I've never heard a word of criticism, and if I did I should take great care that it was never uttered again.'
'That's very sweet of you, Frank,' I said, 'and what you say helps enormously.
I dare say I've been very stupid.
I'm not good at meeting people, I've never had to do it, and all the time I keep remembering how — how it must have been at Manderley before, when there was someone there who was born and bred to it, did it all naturally and without effort.
And I realise, every day, that things I lack, confidence, grace, beauty, intelligence, wit — Oh, all the qualities that mean most in a woman — she possessed.
It doesn't help, Frank, it doesn't help.'
He said nothing.
He went on looking anxious, and distressed.
He pulled out his handkerchief and blew his nose.
'You must not say that,' he said.
'Why not?
It's true,' I said.
'You have qualities that are just as important, far more so, in fact.
It's perhaps cheek of me to say so, I don't know you very well.
I'm a bachelor, I don't know very much about women, I lead a quiet sort of life down here at Manderley as you know, but I should say that kindness, and sincerity, and — if I may say so — modesty are worth far more to a man, to a husband, than all the wit and beauty in the world.'
He looked very agitated, and blew his nose again.
I saw that I had upset him far more than I had upset myself, and the realisation of this calmed me and gave me a feeling of superiority.
I wondered why he was making such a fuss.
After all, I had not said very much.
I had only confessed my sense of insecurity, following as I did upon Rebecca.
And she must have had these qualities that he presented to me as mine.
She must have been kind and sincere, with all her friends, her boundless popularity.
I was not sure what he meant by modesty.
It was a word I had never understood.
I always imagined it had something to do with minding meeting people in a passage on the way to the bathroom… Poor Frank.
And Beatrice had called him a dull man, with never a word to say for himself.
'Well,' I said, rather embarrassed, 'well, I don't know about all that.
I don't think I'm very kind, or particularly sincere, and as for being modest, I don't think I've ever had much of a chance to be anything else.
It was not very modest, of course, being married hurriedly like that, down in Monte Carlo, and being alone there in that hotel, beforehand, but perhaps you don't count that?'
'My dear Mrs de Winter, you don't think I imagine for one moment that your meeting down there was not entirely above board?' he said in a low voice.
'No, of course not,' I said gravely.
Dear Frank.
I think I had shocked him.
What a Frankish expression, too, 'above board'.
It made one think immediately of the sort of things that would happen below board.
'I'm sure,' he began, and hesitated, his expression still troubled, 'I'm sure that Maxim would be very worried, very distressed, if he knew how you felt.
I don't think he can have any idea of it.'
'You won't tell him?' I said hastily.
'No, naturally not, what do you take me for?
But you see, Mrs de Winter, I know Maxim pretty well, and I've seen him through many… moods.
If he thought you were worrying about — well — about the past, it would distress him more than anything on earth.
I can promise you that.