The young companion meets Maxim de Winter, a wealthy upper class Englishman who comes to stay at their hotel in Monte. Mrs Van Hopper is thrilled that there is someone socially grand staying there, and in her pushy manner, she scrapes acquaintance with him.
He is polite but stiff and clearly not pleased by Mrs Van Hopper's behaviour. The companion is attracted by him. He is suave, and handsome, if over 40. She learns that he owns a large grand house, Manderley, in Cornwall, and she remembers reading about it as a child and wishing she could visit it...
Mrs Van Hopper catches a bad cold and ends up confined to bed for a week or two and during that time, the companion starts to become friendly with Maxim. She has learned from her employer that he is a widower, that his wife was drowned less than a year ago in the sea in Cornwall and that he was said to be passionately in love with his wife. During their outings, the companion tells him about her own father, who has died and how she is on her own in the world. Although she is of respectable middle class birth, she's conscious that she's much less grand than the De Winter family, who are landed gentry... and she does not expect him to take her very seriously, especially as she is shy and gauche and not that long out of school.
He is at times rather cool with her and she wonders if he is still missing his wife and she tries to warn herself against becoming infatuated with him.
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