Rebecca Part IV

Maxim and the companion marry and go on honeymoon. After several weeks, they return in early summer to England and travel to Manderley. The young Mrs De Winter is nervous of the place, and finds that it is even bigger than she imagined. She knows that she's not accustomed even to staying in large country houses nor to managing a large staff of servants. The two senior servants are Frith, the elderly butler and Mrs Danvers the middle aged housekeeper. Mrs De Winter likes Frith but feels nervous with Mrs Danvers who seems unfriendly. Maxim seems different when they return. He had been warm and affectionate abroad, but now, he takes up his routine life managing the estate. He leaves his wife to settle in at Manderley, with little support from him. Mrs De Winter is unnerved by paying calls on the local gentry but it is a part of country social life that she cannot avoid. She is shocked at the expensive way they live, the waste of food, and the fact that she's expected to have a lady's maid. Maxim seems impatient with his wife's shyness, her fear of the servants and she begins to feel ignored. She meets the estate's agent, the shy clumsy bachelor, Frank Crawley, and then meets one of Max's few relatives, his sister Beatrice... who comes for a visit. Beatrice is hearty and horsey and blunt and tactless but Mrs De Winter senses her good nature. However, she is shocked when Beatrice tells her that Mrs Danvers "simply adored Rebecca". She has begun to fear Rebecca's memory more and to feel that perhaps Maxim did marry her because he wanted a companion but that he does not love her as he cared for his first wife.

Rebecca Part III

As Mrs Van Hopper recovers, the companion grows more unhappy. She has fallen in love with Maxim, but he is too old, too grand, to pay much attention to a "child" like her. She is afraid that her employer will find out that she has been spending her time with him. Then Mrs Van Hopper gets a wire to say that her daughter has to return to America. She decides to travel with her, so she urges her companion to get their things packed for a voyage to the US. The companion is very upset, since she knows she may not even have time to say goodbye to him. she doesn't want to go to America. She manages to find a few minutes to go to his suite. She says that they are going away and won't be back in Europe for some time. He startles her by asking her to marry him. She is shocked as she never seriously believed that he might be attracted to her. She regards herself as a cut above Mrs Van Hopper socially, but she knows that she's not on the same level as him, in terms of class. Amazed but happy, she accepts his proposal. He suggests that they marry quickly and privately in France and go on honeymoon to Italy. Mrs Van Hopper is not pleased to find that her companion is leaving her at such short notice and is making a marriage far above what might be expected. She reminds her that she has always been shy and awkward and asks how she thinks she'll manage to become the hostess in a grand home like Manderley. She further upsets her by a spiteful parting remark that Maxim is clearly marrying again so suddenly because he is desperately missing his wife and wants someone to be a companion to him in England.

Rebecca Part II

The young companion meets Maxim de Winter, a wealthy upper class Englishman who comes to stay at their hotel in Monte Carlo. 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 famous 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 is confined to bed. While she is laid up, the companion starts to become friendly with Maxim. He seems to like her and takes her out driving. 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. 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 has no relatives and few friends. Although she is of genteel middle class birth, she's conscious that she's much less grand than the De Winter family, who are landed gentry... She is shy and gauche and not that long out of school. He is rather cool with her and she wonders if he is still missing his wife and she tries to warn herself not to fall for him.

Rebecca Part I

I am re reading Rebecca which is the most famous work by Daphne Du Maurier. I've read almost all her books and they vary a good deal in quality. Rebecca is loosely based on Jane Eyre, a Gothic novel where a young girl marries an older man. The man usually seems to have something sinister in his past. The heroine is famously not named in the book. Du Maurier did not give her a name which emphasises her shyness and lack of a strong personality. Mrs De Winter is only 19 or so and when the novel opens she's living in Monte Carlo as the companion of a rich American woman, Mrs Van Hopper. Mrs Van Hopper is a caricature American, stupid, vulgar and not very nice. Mrs De Winter comes from a "good" middle class family but is left alone after the death of her parents and has to earn her own living. She is so shy and awkward that she dislikes having to socialise with her boss's friends and feels that they patronise her. She is not very happy in her job, feeling also that because of her lack of wealth, even the hotel servants think poorly of her. She wishes that she was older and more confident.

Lindsey Davies

Lindsey Davies was born in Birmingham in 1949 and is a writer of historical detective stories. Like Rosemary Rowe, her novels are set in the days of the Roman Empire. Her first series of novels are set in Rome, though she has also set a new series in Britain. Her hero is Marcus Didius Falco, a former soldier, who works in investigation. Marcus is not from a well to do family. His family make a living, but he has a ladyfriend, Helena, who is from a rich background. He undertakes jobs finding out things, and gets involved with murders. Davies went to Oxford and did a degree in literature. She then worked in the British civil service for many years but wrote historical novels in her spare time. When she began to have some success with her writing, she left the Civil service and became a full time writer.

Hazel Holt

Hazel Holt was a well known light novelist, who died a few years ago in 2015. She was born in 1928 but didn't start writing novels until she was in her 60s. She was educated at a good school in Birmingham and went to college. After college, she worked in the the African Institute which had been set up for the study of African languages.... She met Barbara Pym there. Pym became famous for writing about older women... Later, Hazel wrote her biography. She also wrote television criticism.... She married in her 20s and had a son Tom, who later became a novelist, writing science fiction and "Mapp and Lucia" novels. She started to write crime novels where the detective is a middle aged widow, Sheila Malory, living in a small town in Devon. Sheila has a son, and has a career as a writer, writing literary criticism. She then finds that through her day to day activities, doing charity work and keeping house in a small country town, she gets involved in detective investigation. Her son is a lawyer so she has access to legal knowledge and to the police. The Sheila Malory books are an easy read, about an ordinary woman, and have a good deal of comedy... I wish there were more of them.....Sheila leads a quiet but pleasant life in her small town, writing literary criticism, helping with charity work and going to church. One of her friends, Rosemary, has an elderly mother, Mrs Dudley who domineers over the little town's social gatherings although she is very old. Possibly her friendship with Pym, who was I think one of the first writers to write about older people... gave her the idea of writing about an older woman as detective..

Antonia By Brenda Jagger

I've just been re reading a book I read years ago, but found hard to find again, as I could not remember the author. It took me a while to find the right one. I ended up buying 2 books that turned out to be wrong. It is called Antonia, and is set in Rome in 69 AD which was known as the "Year of the Four Emperors". After Nero, the Empire was claimed by Galba, and within a year, there were coups and overall 4 emperors ruled. Brenda Jagger wrote this novel in the late 1970s and then wrote several other family sagas set in Victorian Yorkshire. She worked as a probation officer.. Although I'm not an expert on Roman history I enjoyed this book and it seems to be quite an accurate historical novel. Antonia is the daughter of a wealthy patrician family and a relation of the Emperor. Although she is very young, she has already been engaged more than once; her family arrange alliances for their children in order to further the family's interests and arrange divorces if the marriage proves unsuitable for the family. Her brother Clarus has insisted on marrying for love, to Corellia, a girl who is flighty and unfaithful. She does not love Clarus.. but she and her mother have been living on charity as poor relations. Clarus and Antonia's father go to war in Judea, leaving the women of the family to manage their business interests in Rome.. which was considered more of a woman's role. Antonia's mother manages the household, the social events like attending chariot racing and parties and the family businesses.. with efficiency. Antonia however has always found her unmotherly, and seemingly obsessed with money and social position. Antonia falls in love, experiences the death of one of her suitors in one of the coups, and also fears being murdered or raped when soldiers are running riot. She takes a lover, Camerinus, and takes care of him when he is wounded. She is learning about running a household and managing the family's properties. She also finds that her seemingly cold mother was once deeply in love with one of the claimants to the Imperial throne. Corellia decides that she should not remain married to Clarus, when she does not care for him.. so she leaves him. Antonia loses the man she loved but she decides to marry Camerinus, whom she is fond of....so it is a muted happy ending.