Exile and Memory

The second Mrs de Winter reflects on the present, living abroad with Maxim. They have found a kind of peace, but the past is still close. Maxim sometimes looks lost and puzzled, and she knows he remembers. She has learned to avoid topics that hurt him, like wood pigeons, which recall Manderley. She reads English news and sports to him, and they live by routine. She thinks of Mrs Danvers and Jack Favell, and of the expression on Mrs Danvers' face that gave her first feeling of unrest. She remembers her own younger self, shy and gauche, trailing after Mrs Van Hopper in Monte Carlo.