Chapter 8
Author's Notes: My apologies for the delay. School’s been kicking my ass hard.
And welcoming angelic_amy aboard my beta team! Thanks go to her, megan_peta, ghostgirl13, dusty273, and therealmccoy1 for editing this for me.
The walls whispered behind her with every step. The portraits that hung in the corridors seemed to watch her, cruel eyes trailing her careless, awkward poise as she followed Mrs. Hart deeper into the labyrinth of Manderley. These were portraits of William’s people. A thousand different people who shared the name
de Winter. People who may or may not still be living. People who would recoil in horror if they saw the girl that had just married into their family.
Buffy tried hard to imagine herself as a portrait, but her unremarkable face and dull blonde hair could never emulate the royalty that hung on Manderley’s walls.
She found herself wondering if Drusilla had been immortalized in a portrait—perhaps painted on the veranda—holding flowers in one hand and a hat in the other. The acres of trees and the seaside setting would bring gentility, and Drusilla herself would look, in a word, glamorous. Her eyes would flare with life. Her smile would brighten the heavens.
“I will give you the broader tour later,” Mrs. Hart said, her voice chilling. The floorboards creaked with every step, as though moaning in agreement. Not even they thought she belonged. “However, I doubt that you will need more than a basic sense of direction. The Morning Room, for example, is where Mrs. de Winter always answered her mail and staffed out daily orders. I trust that you will find it most comfortable for your affairs.”
Buffy’s heart thundered and she swallowed hard, forcing a discomfited nod. “I don’t have any correspondents, Mrs. Hart,” she replied, hating the sound of her voice. She was far too mousy to belong in a place of such grandeur. “I’m sure that William told you that my parents have passed on.”
If possible, Mrs. Hart’s stone façade grew even icier. “Mr. de Winter is my employer,” she replied, her tone bordering on indignant. “He does not relate to me matters that are none of my concern.”
A sharp breath pierced through her body. “Oh,” she replied. “Oh, of course.” She went silent for a minute, her mind racing, her heart thundering louder than her obnoxiously clumsy footsteps. The walls resumed their silent appraisal of her childish misplacement. The portraits talked amongst themselves, whispering how very different she was from the woman that had come before her. Every creak in the hallway mocked her graceless weight.
Mrs. Hart led her quietly, and silence was enough to condemn.
Speaking with the woman was bad, but not speaking was even worse. Not speaking led her mind to an endless web of drawn conclusions.
William had said that she and Mrs. Hart would be friends. It was what William wanted. And for his sake, she was willing to try.
“Mrs. Hart?” Buffy asked before her throat could betray her. “What is it that William—that Mr. de Winter does during the day? This…this is new to me, you see. All of this is new to me. I might require…some guidance for a little while.”
She hoped against hope that her appeal wasn’t as pathetic as it sounded against her ears.
“Mr. de Winter is a writer,” Mrs. Hart replied, her voice a perfect, frozen cadence of repetition. “Occasionally, he leaves Manderley for various parts of Europe to engage in research.”
Buffy blinked in surprise. She had no idea that William was a writer.
“What does he write?”
There was a pause. Mrs. Hart hesitated just a hair of a second, and in that instant, Buffy felt the world of denunciation crush against her young shoulders. The old woman was undoubtedly thinking that William’s new wife was something of a joke, or at best, an idealistic fool. What sort of girl, Mrs. Hart might muse, would enter into marriage without even asking her intended what sort of work he did? Perhaps Buffy should have asked him in Monte Carlo. At the time, things like that hadn’t seemed to matter. Nothing had mattered. Her time with him had been finite. Not once—not until that last morning—had he given her cause to believe otherwise.
She couldn’t have predicted that she would be walking the whispering halls of Manderley in two short weeks. She couldn’t have predicted that her fairytale would come to life. She couldn’t have predicted the hole in her heart, either. Marrying William and
having William were two very different things. And the further she went, the deeper she walked into the maze, the colder she became.
“Mr. de Winter writes poetry,” Mrs. Hart said at last, her words crisp. “He writes under
Will Winter, which perhaps explains why you haven’t heard of him.”
Why she hadn’t heard of William. Why she hadn’t heard of her own husband.
“It was Mrs. de Winter who encouraged him to publish,” Mrs. Hart continued. The flippancy of her tone made Buffy wonder if she knew how her words could twist and hurt. “He stopped writing after she died.”
Buffy thought of the poetry book that she had discovered in his car, the poetry book that he had given her. He’d told her that there were poems in that book that every young woman should read. Was it possible that his own work graced the book’s pages? She hadn’t read but a few poems—short, haunted works that left her heart aching. What sort of poetry would William write now?
Drusilla must have been his muse.
“Of course,” Mrs. Hart went on knowingly, her wicked eyes narrowing, “writing poetry is not a substantial method of maintaining one’s income.”
In fact, Buffy knew no such thing. She’d always imagined writing in any form to be terribly romantic. After all, Margaret Mitchell had written
Gone with the Wind. Jane Austen had penned
Pride and Prejudice. Shakespeare had been inspiring writers for centuries. Buffy’s education hadn’t expanded to the lives of the writers in question, but she was certain that those who created beauty couldn’t be made to suffer forever. Not
forever. “Mr. de Winter earned his money through the de Winter’s family business.”
Buffy wet her lips. “Family business?”
Mrs. Hart nodded stoically, and continued without elaborating. “Ten years ago, Mr. de Winter sold the family enterprise to Mr. Harris, his brother-in-law, but serves still as the silent partner.”
“Oh.”
Buffy didn’t know that William had a sister. Was she the only sibling? What of cousins? Parents? Had Drusilla had any children?
Was William a father?
The thought made her insides flush cold. Not because she thought he was—in fact, she was rather certain that he wasn’t. However, the immediate answer wasn’t forthcoming. She couldn’t say that she knew for
sure.An inner breeze chilled her bones.
She didn’t know him at all.
“And…Mrs. Hart, what is it that
I am to do?” she asked, fighting back a frown. They had finally come to the end of the corridor and the old woman’s hands were wrapped around twin handles that belonged to a dual set of doors. “This life…everything is so new to me.”
There was no reply. Instead, she opened the doors and stepped across the threshold. “This is the room that Mr. de Winter selected.” Some people spoke words; Mrs. Hart
hissed them. “He wished for the loveliest view over the rose garden.”
Buffy forced a nod, tagged with a strained smile. “You cannot hear the ocean,” she observed.
“No, madam. This is the east wing. We are standing in the furthest room from the bay.”
“You mean…this isn’t the room that William shared with Mrs. de Winter?”
There was nothing for a long minute. Mrs. Hart grew still, her inhuman eyes blinking once, narrowing as she met Buffy’s inquiring gaze. Then the air thinned and the room grew dark. Cold whispered against her skin, causing gooseflesh to spread along her arms. She felt layers peeling away. Felt the old woman’s invisible hands stripping her vulnerable and bare. Mrs. Hart just looked at her, and without saying a word, Buffy knew that she saw her as she was. She saw her as William must. She saw her as Manderley must.
A child in a fairytale-dream, and nothing more. Happily ever after didn’t happen twice. Buffy was nothing more than the coda. A way to spend out the rest of a sad man’s life with companionship. She didn’t belong here.
She didn’t belong anywhere.
“No, madam,” Mrs. Hart replied at last, her crooked lips twitching as though she struggled to fight off a satisfied grin. “Mister and Mrs. de Winter occupied the west wing, where the ocean’s sound is deafening. These quarters are rather small in comparison, but perhaps better suited for a woman of your standing.”
Buffy reeled as though slapped, her throat running dry. The only thing she could think to say was, “Oh…yes. Perhaps.”
Nothing more. There was nothing more.
“In the morning, I will call you with the day’s menu,” Mrs. Hart announced, halfway turning so that she was poised to exit the room in a flash. “The call will come to the Morning Room. If you prefer to take it elsewhere, just inform one of the servants, and they will relay the message to me.”
“Oh no, I do not wish to break your routine,” she replied hurriedly, her heart racing and her voice cracking as she struggled with words. “Really, Mrs. Hart, I don’t believe that I’ll be changing anything at all. William said that you run the house splendidly, and I trust his judgment.”
There was nothing at that. Nothing. Not a smile. Not a nod of gratitude. Not even a blink. The floor beneath Buffy’s feet suddenly felt weightless. She wondered if she was choking on air. How could she be saying all the wrong things when she’d barely said anything at all? Her need to please was insurmountable. She very much wanted Mrs. Hart to like her. To extract something from Mrs. Hart that resembled human emotion. To be accepted in whatever small form available to her. To be accepted in whatever fashion that Mrs. Hart saw fit.
After a long minute, Mrs. Hart inclined her head. “Very well, madam,” she said quietly. “I will have Giles bring up your things at once.”
“Giles?”
“Mr. de Winter’s butler.”
Buffy nodded. “Oh.”
Had she known of Giles? William had told her so many things about Manderley, but for the life of her, she could barely recall her own name at the moment. Perhaps he had told her everything while she’d been daydreaming. Daydreaming what life at Manderley would be like.
“If there is anything else that you require, Mrs. de Winter, simply ring me on the telephone.”
“Telephone?”
Mrs. Hart’s beady eyes narrowed, and Buffy nearly sank to the floor in humiliation. However, instead of deliberately misinterpreting her question, the woman merely nodded and continued. “Yes. All the telephones in the home, save the one in Mr. de Winter’s private study, are interconnected. Manderley is too grand an estate to summon a maid simply by ringing a bell.”
She swallowed hard. “Of course.”
“There is no number to memorize. Pick up any line, and you will receive me. From there, I will staff out your orders.”
Her orders. Her
orders. As though she would ever give an order. Her voice shook whenever she tried to speak. She was playing the mistress of a house far too grand for her. She was sleeping next to another woman’s husband. She had stolen another woman’s name.
The thought was dizzying.
Mrs. Hart, of course, knew this, thus there was no reason to voice it. And when the old woman had retreated into the labyrinth again, when Buffy found that she was alone, she allowed herself to break.
She wouldn’t sob, but she would cry.
Alone in the only bedroom that William felt she was good enough to occupy.
On a bed that she didn’t know.
In a house composed of strangers.
*~*~*
When evening came and she saw William again, it felt as though they had been parted for years. Her first impulse was to bury herself in his arms and have a good cry, but her afternoon had been occupied wiping away her tears, and she didn’t want him to know that she was distressed. She didn’t want him to know that she was breaking after only a day.
Buffy hadn’t known what to expect. She hadn’t even the first inkling. She supposed, in some foolish fashion, that she’d thought her days would be spent at William’s side. That things would always be as they’d been at Monte Carlo, only without the shadow of Mrs. Kendall lurking down every otherwise sun-lit valley. Perhaps she thought that their time together would be filled with intelligent conversation about books, life, religion, politics—subjects that ensnared Buffy’s fascination. Things she’d never had the opportunity to study. Things that she would understand better with William’s guidance. Ideas that he would help her shape, philosophies he would guide her through. He would nurture her desire for knowledge. He would open her eyes and let her mind take flight. Then when the sky grew dark, they would retreat to their bedroom and make love until dawn.
That was the fantasy. The one she’d known not to trust the second that this part of her fairytale became real. The second that she’d realized his proposal was not a joke. That he was serious. That he truly wished for her to be Mrs. de Winter.
“Did you have a nice afternoon, love?” William asked, flashing a tired smile. “What do you think of Manderley?”
Haunting. But she didn’t say that. Instead, she replied, “Lovely.”
“Would you like a glass of wine?”
She nodded. She liked wine. At least, she liked the wine that William had thus far introduced her to; drinking, like so many things, was a new part of life. Mrs. Kendall had once allowed her to sip a tiny bit of alcohol from a large goblet, and she’d found the flavor so disagreeable that her first impulse, when William had asked, was to shake her head vehemently.
Then she’d stopped and realized that she was no longer a paid companion, and society expected different things from her now. As it was, she found the wine that William had provided more than agreeable; it left her to privately conclude that wine was another in a long list of subjects where Mrs. Kendall lacked refinement.
“It is a little disorienting at first,” William mused softly, his eyes flickering in the candlelight. It was all a little intoxicating. Buffy now lived in a world where her meals would be served on a candlelit table. “And I’m sorry that I couldn’t spend more of the day with you. My sister phoned and announced that she and her husband will be visiting tomorrow. And, as you will soon learn, once Anya begins talking, it’s bloody hard to shut her up.”
Buffy didn’t know what to say. She thought about saying nothing, but decided against it. In the end, the only thing she could manage was a small, “Anya is an unusual name.”
He grinned wryly. “She’s an unusual woman. I find it suits her.”
“You find your sister unusual?”
“Trust me, love, you will too. But she means well.” He paused, wiping his mouth with his snow-white cloth napkin. Like the one back at Monte Carlo. The one with a spot in the corner. “She means well,” he repeated. “Just…keep that in mind if she says something abrasive.”
“Is Anya usually abrasive?”
William chuckled. “But well-intentioned,” he agreed. “Do your best to remember that in the extremely likely occasion that she says something…odd.”
“Is her husband the same man that you sold the family industry to?”
There was an abrupt silence. He paused and arched a brow, and Buffy felt foolish enough to duck under the table.
“Yes,” he replied after a long minute. “Sorry, love, you caught me off guard. Were you hitting Mrs. Hart up for information all afternoon?”
Her cheeks burned. “I had some questions, yes.”
“I’d wonder about you if you didn’t. What else did she tell you?” William paused again, tilting his head curiously. “Nothing too inflammatory, I hope. You’re redder than our rose garden.”
Our. The word sent shivers down her spine. But which
our did he refer to? Did he mean her, or the woman that used to live in the west wing?
“I just…I don’t know, William.” She dropped her gaze to her plate and swallowed hard. “This is just…everything is so new.”
His eyes softened. “I know.”
“She said that you’re a poet. And that…that the first Mrs. de Winter encouraged you to publish.”
The words, once they left her lips, formed into a storm cloud and quickly rose to the ceiling. She could barely believe herself. She could barely believe that she’d dared to mention Drusilla. William, as she knew, never spoke her name. Never spoke of her
at all. And here she was, his new bride, their first night at home, making his face drain of all color. Making the light in his eyes recede into the dull gray that haunted her nightmares. She watched his Adams-apple move when he swallowed. She felt certain that he could hear her heart thundering. And despite the screaming in her head, Buffy eventually found that looking at him was too difficult, thus she cast her eyes to the table again.
She remembered how he’d looked on the ledge. Staring into the ocean beneath his feet. How angry the waves had been that he hadn’t jumped.
Finally, after an eternity had ticked by, William cleared his throat. She glanced up just as his eyes landed in his lap. And she found herself swallowing apologies, biting back a fresh surge of tears. She wanted to leap up and rush to his side and beg forgiveness. Implore that he forget her carelessness and tell her that all would be well. Just never to mention, never to even hint at Drusilla’s ghostly presence again.
“I’ll have to show you some of my poems,” he said at last, his voice slightly strained. “No one has ever been able to convince me that they’re anything but drivel, but if you wish to see them—”
“I do,” she said fervently, biting back another frown. It would be painful to read love poems dedicated to Drusilla, but she was eager for any information about her—about
them, about their marriage—poisonous as it was to her happiness. William wouldn’t talk about her, perhaps, but he could not keep her from reading his thoughts before Drusilla was taken from him.
A smile ghosted across William’s lips. “And you will have to share all of your artwork with me,” he replied. “All of it. Even the sketches you did of me and thought I didn’t know about.”
Her face flamed again.
“I think, perhaps, we’ll save dissecting my work for after my sister’s visit. You might need a laugh after she and Xander head back to town.”
Buffy paused, her brow furrowing. Certainly he wasn’t suggesting that she would laugh at his poetry. “William—”
“My colleague, Wesley, will be here tomorrow, as well. Coincidence, but perhaps it’s best that you meet them all at once. They’ll likely be the people you see the most.”
“Coincidence?”
“I’d already arranged his visit before Anya phoned me this afternoon. Wesley is my property manager, and the closest thing to a friend that I’ve had in as many years.” William took a long sip of wine. “He’s eager to make your acquaintance. Everyone is.”
Eager to make her acquaintance.
Eager to compare her to Drusilla.
Tomorrow she would meet William’s family and his closest friend. Tomorrow she truly had to be Mrs. de Winter.
She just didn’t know how.
*~*~*
That night, William kissed her softly, and the world around her, for all its harsh beauty, fell away. There was no Manderley, with its whispering halls and portraits with disapproving eyes. There was no Mrs. Hart sucking at her soul through every glance. There was no Drusilla; no phantom screaming at her from afar. There was only William, and his hands undoing her dress. His hands wandering across her body, caressing her skin with the illusion of feeling. With the illusion of something beyond fondness and affection. Something she could dream was real.
They made love in their bed. Their bed in the east wing. Their bed in her new home. Their bed in Manderley.
And as he had every night of their honeymoon, in his sleep, he whimpered for Drusilla, and the dream shattered. It came in short spats. Sometimes he would gasp, “No,” and nothing else. Sometimes he would stretch against the mattress. Sometimes he would reach for something—or someone. Sometimes he would just moan.
But every night, Drusilla’s name lived on his lips.
And now that they lived in Drusilla’s house, Buffy felt her presence as she never had.
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ghostgirl13's prompting. Therefore, I lovingly dedicate this story to her. She kept me on my toes, even when I didn’t want to be kept.