REBECCA - CHAPTER THREE

I wonder what my life would be like today,

if Mrs Van Hopper had not been a snob

Her curiosity was a disease,

almost a mania

Somehow she would manage to introduce herself, and beforee her victim

had scented danger she proffered an invitation to her suite

I would be sent across the lounge with a verbal message, the loan of a book or paper, 

the address of some shop or other, the sudden discovery of a muual friend

Not for the first time I resented the part that I must play in her schemes.

Like a juggler’s assistance I produced the props, then silent and attentive I waited on my cue

Tact was a quality unknown to her, discretion too, and because gossip was the breath of life to her

this stranger must be served for her dissection

like a large, complacent spider, spun her wide net of

tedium about the stranger’s person

Mr de Winter is having coffee with us, go and ask the waiter for another cup

she said her tone just casual enouygh to warn him of my footing

FOr a moment she looked annoyed-

this was not what sje had intended -

His face was arresting, sensitive, medieval in some strange inexplicable way,  and I was reminded of a portrait in a gallery

I had forgotten where, of a certain Gentleman Unknown 

I heard Mrs Van Hopper give her fat

complacent laugh

This including of me in the coversation found me at my worsr, the

raw ex-schoolgirl, red-elbowed and lanky haired

the english winter gets me down, and my constitution just won’t stand it. What brings you here?

Your not one of the regukars. Are you going to play ‘Chemy’, or have you brought your golfclubs

I suppose you know a crowd of people here, thogh I must say Monte is very dull this winter. One sees so few

well-known faces. the Duke of Middlesex is here in his yacht but i haven’t been aboard yet

the face was stiff and life-less, and the lace collar

and beard were like props in a charade