Imagine your life being so overwhelmed by other people’s memories of a woman that her name is emblazoned over your story — and still worse, you don’t have a name in your story, only the title that both you and she share. The future Mrs. de Winter is a young woman in service to a loud American one, serving as assistant while the American vacations in Monte Carlo. The young woman happens to meet a handsome stranger who takes an interest in her, and before her client can even recover from a cold, the lass and her mysterious gent are married. Upon arrival at her new home, Manderly, the new Mrs. de Winter finds herself not only horribly out of place — she has no idea how to be the lady of a great house — but feeling like an intruder. The staff all loved the former Mrs. de Winter, whose quarters are now closed, and the present Mrs DW finds herself trapped in the gravity of the hole the former’s death left. She has no idea, however, how deep and dark that hole can be. Rebecca is another immersive novel with a ‘stand up in shock’ type twist and a heck of an ending.

Although Rebecca has a slow start — our unnamed narrator hanging around enduring her boss talking down to her, then developing a friendship of sorts with Mr. de Winter, the man with the tragic past — once the action moves to Manderly it pulled me completely. Our narrator is a woman from humble circumstances; she wears flannel skirts, not crinolines, and even if the circumstances weren’t what they are, she’d be out of place. She’s a bit like Mr. Branson in Downton Abbey, the mechanic who had to suddenly adapt to living “upstairs”: many of the servants don’t take her seriously, especially the former maid to the late Rebecca de Winter, Mrs. Denvers. In addition to living in this grand home, made all the more intimidating by how the memory of Rebecca is an active presence within it, our narrator also has to try to fit into Cornwall society. They, too, remember Rebecca, and it’s not long before the narrator is an emotional wreck convinced she’s made the worst mistake of her life. And then, dear reader, it gets….all kinds of interesting, and turns into a mystery-thriller instead remaining a relationship drama. Many characters take on a new life in the second half, and those that were already mildly interesting become much more so — and the atmosphere at Manderly grows thick.

I wish someone had told me earlier that du Maurier was this fascinating! I’ve already started listening to “The Birds”, her short story that Hitchcock adapted into the famous movie, and am planning on giving The Scapegoat a look.

Quotations

We all of us have our particular devil who rides us and torments us, and we must give battle in the end.

“I suppose your ancestors often entertained royalty at Manderley, Mr. de Winter?”
This was more than I had hitherto endured, even from her, but the swift lash of his reply was unexpected. “Not since Ethelred,” he said, “the one who was called Unready. In fact, it was while staying with my family that the name was given him. He was invariably late for dinner.”

It was an ancient mossy smell, the smell of a silent church where services are seldom held, where rusty lichen grows upon the stones and ivy tendrils creep to the very windows. A room for peace, a room for meditation.

Dear God, I did not want to think about Rebecca. I wanted to be happy, to make Maxim happy, and I wanted us to be together. There was no other wish in my heart but that. I could not help it if she came to me in thoughts, in dreams. I could not help it if I felt like a guest in Manderley, my home, walking where she had trodden, resting where she had lain. I was like a guest, biding my time, waiting for the return of the hostess. Little sentences, little reproofs reminding me every hour, every day.