I went on standing there, waiting for something to happen. It was the clock ticking on the wall that brought me to reality again.
The hands stood at twenty-five past four.
My watch said the same.
There was something sane and comforting about the ticking of the clock.
It reminded me of the present, and that tea would soon be ready for me on the lawn.
I walked slowly into the middle of the room.
No, it was not used.
It was not lived in any more.
Even the flowers could not destroy the musty smell.
The curtains were drawn and the shutters were closed.
Rebecca would never come back to the room again.
Even if Mrs Danvers did put the flowers on the mantelpiece and the sheets upon the bed, they would not bring her back.
She was dead.
She had been dead now for a year.
She lay buried in the crypt of the church with all the other dead de Winters. I could hear the sound of the sea very plainly.
I went to the window and swung back the shutter.
Yes, I was standing at the same window where Favell and Mrs Danvers had stood, half an hour ago.
The long shaft of daylight made the electric light look false and yellow.
I opened the shutter a little more.
The daylight cast a white beam upon the bed.
It shone upon the nightdress-case, lying on the pillow. It shone on the glass top of the dressing-table, on the brushes, and on the scent bottles.
The daylight gave an even greater air of reality to the room.
When the shutter was closed and it had been lit by electricity the room had more the appearance of a setting on the stage. The scene set between performances.
The curtain having fallen for the night, the evening over, and the first act set for tomorrow's matinee.
But the daylight made the room vivid and alive.
I forgot the musty smell and the drawn curtains of the other windows.
I was a guest again.
An uninvited guest.
I had strolled into my hostess's bedroom by mistake.
Those were her brushes on the dressing-table, that was her dressing-gown and slippers laid out upon the chair.
I realised for the first time since I had come into the room that my legs were trembling, weak as straw.
I sat down on the stool by the dressing-table.
My heart no longer beat in a strange excited way.
It felt as heavy as lead.
I looked about me in the room with a sort of dumb stupidity.
Yes, it was a beautiful room.
Mrs Danvers had not exaggerated that first evening.
It was the most beautiful room in the house.
That exquisite mantelpiece, the ceiling, the carved bedstead, and the curtain hangings, even the clock on the wall and the candlesticks upon the dressing-table beside me, all were things I would have loved and almost worshipped had they been mine.
They were not mine though.
They belonged to somebody else.
I put out my hand and touched the brushes.
One was more worn than its fellow.
I understood it well.
There was always one brush that had the greater use.
Often you forgot to use the other, and when they were taken to be washed there was one that was still quite clean and untouched.
How white and thin my face looked in the glass, my hair hanging lank and straight.
Did I always look like this?
Surely I had more colour as a rule?
The reflection stared back at me, sallow and plain.