Daphné Du Maurier

The air is doing you good, you’ve got more color.”
Color—rubbish! she thought, but did not say so. This was the sort of
crowd she’d always wanted. It had nothing to do with ozone or the fresh sea
breezes. This was the world of the pamphlets, the world of fashion, the
higher stratum read about since childhood, the world of the halfpenny
scandal sheets, the men and women she’d joked at, with nobody knowing.
Here they were in the flesh just as she’d pictured them—flashy, affected,
futile, and ripe for the plucking.
There went the drivers of the Four-in-Hand brigade, spanking along the
front with a call and a flourish. Bill Dowler pointed out the famous figures.
Lords Sefton, Worcester, Fitzhardinge, Sir Bellingham Graham, and wasn’t
that “Teapot” Craufurd and “Poodle” Byng?
“The best whip of the bunch is Barrymore,” he told her. “I met him once
at Almack’s. Not my sort—the devil of a rip. That’s the fellow there.”
The coach-and-four passed them at a smacking pace. The driver, with a
dahlia in his buttonhole the size of a cabbage, turned his head and stared,
then muttered a remark to his companion.
So that was Cripplegate, old Taylor’s client. Did he whip his women as
he whipped his horses, forcing the pace, hating his women slow? “All right,
my friend,” she thought, “not at this moment. I’ll meet you at number 9
Bond Street one of these days. But leave your buttonhole behind. I can’t
stick cabbage. Nor am I partial to a whip with thongs.”

- Et êtes-vous heureux ?

- Je suis content !

- Quelle est la différence ?

- Vous me prenez au dépourvu. Ce n’est pas facile à expliquer. Le contentement est un état où le corps et l’esprit travaillent ensemble harmonieusement, sans friction. L’esprit est en paix, le corps également, ils se suffisent à eux-mêmes. Le bonheur est fugace, n’apparaît souvent qu’une fois dans une existence ; il ressemble à l’extase. »

Rebecca, toujours Rebecca. Où que j'aille à Manderley, où que je m'assoie, même dans mes pensées et dans mes rêves, je tombais sur Rebecca. Je connaissais sa silhouette à présent, ses jambes longues et minces, ses petits pieds étroits. Ses épaules, plus larges que les miennes, ses mains expertes et habiles. Des mains qui savaient manœuvrer un voilier, maîtriser un cheval. Des mains qui composaient des bouquets, fabriquaient des modèles réduits de bateaux et écrivaient "Pour Max. Rebecca" sur la page de garde d'un livre.

Always contriving, pretending, covering up inefficiency. But if it
continued through the years, what then? There must be some way out, and
not stagnation. She remembered the old scandal sheets, a halfpenny a copy,
thumbed by grubby fingers in the taverns. Hot for a few nights only,
sniggered at, discussed, then used to wrap a cod’s head for the cat. Found
later, sodden, in the gutter. This was the stuff produced by Mr. Hughes, by
Blacklock in the Royal Exchange, by Jones in Paternoster Row, by
countless others up and down the town. Who wrote the smut? Some third-
rate scribbler with an ailing wife. Why not a woman? Easy enough to
persuade Joseph to an outing, to seek out eating houses where the
publishers met. Easy to mix with them, chat and throw out hints, discover
their dingy names, their drab addresses. And while Joseph rattled dice,
talked big and played the gentleman, she learned the tittle-tattle required,
the stuff which fed the market.

The important thing was to keep face, to show a bright façade, never to
betray how near they stood to bankruptcy. John had committed suicide; they
survived. Therefore profusion, painted panels, polished floors, silk
hangings, gay attire. Sprigged muslin for the children. A spinet, hired by the
month, not paid for, sheets of music, books with leather bindings,
candlesticks of plate. Fashion drawings spread upon a table, playhouse bills,
embroideries in frames, the latest pamphlet from the press, a gross cartoon.
A puppy with long ears, sporting a ribbon, two lovebirds in a cage. The
whole dolled to portray ease, prosperity, to suggest that Golden Lane bore
no resemblance to Bowling Inn Alley.
Take away the trimmings and the bones were bare. The skeleton of
poverty grinned from the walls. Cover the falling plaster with a damask
sheet—the neighbors saw the frills and not the fissure.
Alone, lying in bed beside a drunken husband, she saw her life merging
into that of her mother, repeating the same pattern. A baby every year.
Malaise, irritation. The four little faces round the table mimicking the past
—Mary Anne, Edward, Ellen, baby George—dependent upon her, never
upon Joseph. Joseph turning into her stepfather Bob Farquhar in nightmare
fashion, sleepy-eyed, blotched, always an excuse upon his lips. How break
away, escape? How defeat her mother’s image?

Never be apprehensive. Never dread the future. A hopeful heart wins
three-quarters of the battle, and duplicity the rest.

Jogging back to Holborn in the hackney carriage Mary Anne decided
upon two things. The first, to remember in future that face value counted for
nothing, that every act of apparent generosity hid an ulterior motive, and
one motive only when the benefactor was male. The second, not to return
home until she was married, when, flaunting a ring and her marriage
certificate, she would have the whip hand of her mother. Mary Anne would
be the benefactress then. The daughter-in-law of rich Mr. Clarke of Snow
Hill would have a very different status from Miss Farquhar of Black Raven
Passage. No necessity for lodgers anymore. Her mother, Isobel, the boys,
would appreciate at long last the better days. Mrs. Joseph Clarke would
keep them all.

Injustice—there was always injustice between men and women. Men
made the laws to suit themselves. Men did as they pleased, and women
suffered for it. There was only one way to beat them, and that was to match
your wits against theirs and come out the winner. But when, and how, and
where?

“Behave yourselves, and I’ll take you out,” she commanded—but softly,
so that her mother in the bedroom upstairs would not hear. Later, when the
dishes were washed, the table set for the next meal and her mother tucked in
bed for an hour’s rest, Mary Anne picked up one boy and straddled him on
her hip, gave her hand to another, and let the third tag behind hanging on to
her skirt. Then away they went, out of the dark alley where the sun never
shone, through the maze of small courts adjoining, and so into Chancery
Lane and down into Fleet Street.
This was another world, and one she loved, full of color and sound and
smell, but not the smell of the alley. Here people jostled one another on the
pavement, here the traffic rumbled on towards Ludgate Hill and St. Paul’s,
the carters cracking their whips and shouting, drawing their horses to the
side of the road as a coach passed, spattering mud. Here a fine gentleman
would step out of his chair to visit a bookshop, while a woman selling
lavender thrust a bunch under his nose, and there on the opposite side a cart
overtipped, spilling apples and oranges, tumbling into the gutter a blind
musician and an old man mending a chair.
It came to her in gusts, the sound and the smell of London, and she felt
part of it, caught up in the movement and the bustle, the continual
excitement that must surely be leading to something, to somewhere—not
only to the steps of St. Paul’s, where the boys could play safely, out of the
stream, and she could stand, watching.
Adventure was here. Adventure was there. Adventure was in picking up
a posy dropped by a lady and offering it to an old gentleman who patted her
head and gave her twopence. Adventure was in gazing into pawnbrokers’
windows, in riding in wagons when the carter smiled, in scuffling with
apprentice boys, in hovering outside the bookshops and, when the
bookseller was inside, tearing out the middle pages to read at home, for
prospective purchasers never looked at anything but the beginning and the
end.
These were the things she loved, and she did not know why. So she kept
them secret from her mother, who would have scolded her and disapproved.
The streets were mentor and playground, teacher and companion.
Rascals picked pockets on the streets, beggars were given alms, goods were
bought, rubbish was sold, men laughed, men cursed, women whined,
women smiled, children died under wheels. Some men and women wore
fine clothes, some wore rags. The first ate well, and the others starved. The
way to avoid rags and starvation was to watch, to wait, to pick up the coin
dropped on the pavement before anyone else, to run swiftly, to conceal
quickly, to smile at the right moment, to hide at the next, to keep what you
had, to look after your own. The thing to remember was not to grow up like
her mother, who was weak, who had no resistance, who was lost in this
world of London that was alien to her, and whose only consolation was to
talk of the past, when she had known better days.

C'était le bruit de la mer. Le sentier descendait jusqu'au rivage.
Mary savait maintenant pourquoi une douceur s'était insinuée dans l'air et pourquoi la bruine qui tombait légèrement sur sa main avait une saveur salée. Les hauts talus donnaient une fausse impression d'abri, par contraste avec la lande à découvert, mais, hors de leur ombre trompeuse, l'illusion disparaîtrait et la tempête s'élèverait avec plus de force que jamais. Il ne pouvait y avoir de calme là où la mer se brisait sur un rivage hérissé de rochers. Le bruit était incessant : d'abord un murmure et un soupir tandis que l'eau se répandait sur la grève et se retirait à regret, puis une pause pendant que la mer se ramassait pour un nouvel effort - petite parcelle de temps - et, une fois de plus, le grondement et le fracas des vagues sur les galets et le bruit des pierres entraînées par les eaux.
Mary frissonna. Quelque part dans l'obscurité, au-dessous, son oncle et ses compagnons attendaient la marée.

Je ne pouvais pas demander pardon d'une chose que je n'avais pas faite. Le bouc émissaire ne peut que porter la faute.

Le bonheur n’est pas un objet à posséder, c’est une qualité de pensée, un état d’âme.

Je vous le répète, la balle est dans votre camp. Soit vous allez en Amérique avec Mme Van Hopper, soit vous rentrez à Manderley avec moi.
- Vous voulez dire que vous avez besoin d'une secrétaire, ou quelque chose comme cela ?
- Mais non, petite sotte, je vous demande de m'épouser.

Il n’y avait pas de lune. Le ciel au dessus de nos têtes était d’un noir d’encre. Mais le ciel a l’horizon n’était pas noir du tout. Il était strié d’écarlate, comme éclaboussé de sang. Et les cendres volaient vers nous, portées par le vent sale de la mer.

Je ne pouvais les retenir, elles venaient toutes seules, et si j’avais pris un mouchoir dans ma poche il les aurait remarquées. Je devais les laisser couler sans réagir, et supporter leur sel amer sur mes lèvres, au paroxysme de l’humiliation.

En tout cas c’est terminé à présent, fini et bien fini. Je ne suis plus tourmentée, et nous sommes libérés l’un de l’autre. Même mon fidèle Jasper a rejoint le paradis des chiens, et Manderley n’est plus.

La terrasse descendait vers les pelouses, et les pelouses couraient jusqu’à la mer. En me retournant, je distinguais la nappe d’argent, placide sous la lune, tél un lac que ne troublait jamais ni le vent ni la tempête. Aucune vague ne devait jamais rider cette onde de rêve, ni aucun cumulus, poussé par le vent d’Ouest, obscurcir la clarté de ce ciel pale.

J’ai rêvé la nuit dernière que je retournais à Manderley.

Il y avait quelque chose de monstrueux, de repoussant, dans cette fécondité, et, en même temps, de pitoyable pour l'arbre soumis à un tel supplice, car c'était un supplice, il n'y avait pas d'autre mot. Le pommier était torturé par ses fruits, brisé par leur poids, et le plus affreux était qu'aucun d'eux n'était mangeable.

Il n'avait pas l'air d'un arbre, il ressemblait plutôt à une tente abandonnée sous la pluie par des campeurs, ou encore un plumeau, un plumeau géant décoloré par le soleil. La floraison était trop épaisse, trop lourde pour le long tronc maigre, et l'humidité qu'elle contenait l'alourdissait encore. Déjà, comme épuisées par l'effort, les fleurs des basses branches se tachaient de brun ; pourtant il n'avait pas plu. Voilà. Willis avait raison. L'arbre avait fleuri. Mais, au lieu de fleurir en vie, en beauté, il s'était, par quelque trait profond de sa nature, mal développé, et avait produit un monstre. Un monstre qui ne connaissait ni sa texture ni sa forme et s'imaginait plaire. Il avait l'air de dire avec une grimace un peu timide : « Regarde, tout cela est pour toi. »