Mrss de Winter- Part I

No, the extra 's' in the title is NOT a typo!

This was really tough for me to work on. Finally, I've realised that I can't cover even Rebecca in a single post and would have to do so in parts. Maybe, if I can, I shall thereafter attempt the other favourite books of mine written by du Maurier. As I said with my HP post, theres no point in my writing about the story or describing the characters as those who haven't read Rebecca may not realise what the fuss is about.

How does one talk about a book with has such significance on ones life? A book which impacted me more than The Second Sex (which along with Beauvoir's other writings did impress me lots) or any other brand of chiclit as it is now referred to. A book so feminine and so feminist. A book so british & so universal. A book so dearly and widely loved and yet so casually ignored by the critics. I am waiting to share Rebecca with my daughter as I was initiated into it by my elder, smarter and cleverer sister.

All those who have read Rebecca, loved it & grown with it, here are a few (may seem a lot, but to me, just a few) of my favourite impressions. My takeaway from this treasure tome would appear as the next part of the post.

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.

... a companion is a friend of the bosom.

You're cheap at ninety pounds a year.

An empty house can be as lonely as a full hotel... The trouble is it is less impersonal.

... daffodils were in bloom, ... however many you might pick there would be no thinning of the ranks ... crocuses were planted, golden, pink and mauve ... bluebells ... they choked the very bracken in the woods, ... made a challenge to the sky. People who plucked bluebells from the woods were vandals; ... The primrose did not mind it so much; ... A rose ... looked better picked than growing. ... There was something rather blowzy about roses in full bloom, something shallow and raucous, like women with untidy hair. In the house they became mysterious and subtle. ... His sister, ... used to complain that there were too many scents at Manderley, they made her drunk.

... as though the writer, in impatience, had shaken her pen to make the ink flow freely. And then as it bubbled through the nib, it came a little thick, so that the name Rebecca stood out bold and strong, the tall and sloping R dwarfing the other letters.

An appalling tragedy, the papers were full of it ofcourse. They say he never talks about it, never mentions her name.

I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love.

... a little scrubby schoolboy with a passion for a sixth-form prefect, and he kinder, and far more inaccessible.

If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.

I wish I was a woman of about thirty-six dressed in black satin with a string of pearls.

This man was a stranger. I wondered why I was sitting beside him in the car.

I don't think you have met my wife. Mrs de Winter. I would be Mrs. de Winter.... Mrs de Winter. I would be Mrs. de Winter.... Mrs de Winter. I would be Mrs. de Winter.

I wished, for one wild moment, that none of this had happened, that I was alone somewhere, going for a walk, and whistling.

He had not said anything yet about being in love.

Tell me, have you been doing anything you shouldn't?

You mustn't mind a little bit of curiosity, everyone will want to know what you are like.

We were amongst the rhododendrons.

You could never tell you were within five minutes of the sea, from this room.

She doesn't bully me though. I'd have given her the sack long ago if she had tried.

This is his routine, this is what he always does: this has been his custom now for years.

This was a woman's room, graceful, fragile, the room of someone who had chosen every particle of furniture with great care, so that each chair, each vase, each small infinitesimal thing should be in harmony with one another and with her own personality.

...the rhododendrons, not content with forming their theater on the lawn outside the window, had been permitted into the room itself.

'I'm afraid you have made a mistake,' I said; 'Mrs de Winter has been dead for over a year.'

I think Mrs de Winter would have ordered a wine sauce, Madam.

...knowing that she was standing there above me, her eyes watching me.

Amazing woman, that Mrs Danvers, don't you think so?

I wondered why she said she hoped we would be happy, instead of saying she knew we would be so.

I thought you knew...She simply adored Rebecca.

...you are so very different from Rebecca.

Your hair?...Of course I like it.. Whats the matter with it?

...the vanished scent... of the azaleas in the Happy Valley.

That cottage is supposed to be locked...

The smile was my reward. Like a pat on the head to Jasper.

I can see her now, standing at the foot of the stairs on the night of the ball,...that cloud of black hair against the very white skin, and her costume suited her so. Yes, she was very beautiful.

...kindness, and sincerity, and ... modesty are worth far more to a man, to a husband, than all the wit and beauty in the world.

Of course we are companions. ... You know our marriage is a success, a wonderful success? ... We are happy, aren't we? Terribly happy? ... We are happy. All right then, thats agreed!

Nothing very much, why? ...you looked so serious, so far away. ... As a matter of fact I was wondering if they had chosen the Surrey side to play Middlesex at the Oval.

I was rather shocked at myself. I could not understand it at all. I had not wanted him to go. And now this lightness of heart, this spring in my step, this childish feeling that I wanted to run across the lawn, and roll down the bank. ... How lovely it was to be alone again.

Je Reviens- 'I come back.' Yes. I suppose it was quite a good name for a boat.

Tall and dark she was. She gave you the feeling of a snake.

Oh well, we mustn't lead the bride astray, must we, Jasper?

"Harder, Max, harder," ... and he would do as she told him.

Sometimes I wonder if she comes back and watches you and Mr de Winter together.

I want Rebecca, what have you done with Rebecca?

Breeding, brains and beauty.


A husband is not very different from a father after all. There is a certain type of knowledge I prefer you not to have.

Dresden shepherdess. Alice - in - Wonderland.

'Miss Caroline de Winter, ' shouted the drummer.

Its all over now. The thing has happened.

You thought I killed her, loving her?

She looked like a boy in her sailing kit, a boy with a face like a Botticelli angel.

"Haven't we played the parts of loving husband and wife rather too well?"

...that foot of hers in its striped sandal swinging forwards and backwards ... Still that foot of hers, swinging to and fro, that damned foot in its blue and white striped sandal.

When I killed her she was smiling still.

The peace of Manderley. ... could not be broken or the loveliness destroyed. ... There would be lilac and honeysuckle still, and the white magnolia buds ...

The woman who called herself Mrs Danvers was very seriously ill.

The last supreme bluff.

... it was not my small square handwriting at all, it was long, and slanting, with curious pointed strokes. ... A face stared back at me that was not my own. It was very pale, very lovely, framed in a cloud of dark hair. ... and Maxim was brushing her hair. ... and as he brushed it he wound it slowly into a thick rope. It twisted like a snake, and he took hold of it with both hands and smiled at Rebecca and put it round his neck.

But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea.