The second Mrs de Winter and Mrs Van Hopper

The second Mrs de Winter and Mrs Van Hopper are bound by an employer-employee relationship that defines the narrator's circumstances at the opening of the story. Mrs Van Hopper, a wealthy, snobbish American widow, hires the narrator as a paid companion for ninety pounds a year, a position the narrator describes as "training me to be a thing called a companion" . The narrator looks up the word "companion" in a dictionary and finds it defined as "a friend of the bosom," a description that underscores the ironic gap between the ideal and the reality of her role . The relationship is fundamentally unequal: Mrs Van Hopper treats the narrator as a subordinate, using her as a prop in social schemes and a buffer against boredom. The narrator, young and inexperienced, endures this arrangement because she has no family and no other means of support, confessing that "ninety pounds is a lot of money to me" .

Mrs Van Hopper's Character and Treatment of the Narrator

Mrs Van Hopper is portrayed as a vulgar, intrusive woman whose primary pastimes are bridge and claiming notable acquaintances. She is described as a "short body ill-balanced upon tottering, high heels" with a "fussy, frilly blouse" and a "new hat pierced with a monster quill" . She carries a lorgnette, "the enemy to other people's privacy," and uses it to survey dining rooms for famous faces . Her method of introduction is a form of self-protection: she presents the narrator as a "youthful thing and unimportant" so that others feel free to ignore her . The narrator is acutely aware of her subordinate status, noting that waiters sense her inferior position and serve her inferior food, such as "a plate of ham and tongue that somebody had sent back to the cold buffet half an hour before as badly carved" . Mrs Van Hopper's condescension extends to open criticism: after the narrator's first conversation with Maxim de Winter, Mrs Van Hopper rebukes her, saying, "your efforts to monopolise the conversation quite embarrassed me" . The narrator feels like a "whipping boy" who must bear her employer's social clumsiness, watching people laugh behind Mrs Van Hopper's back or leave rooms upon her entrance .

The Narrator's Resentment and the Breaking Point

The narrator resents the role she must play in Mrs Van Hopper's schemes, comparing herself to "a juggler's assistant" who produces props and waits on cue . When Mrs Van Hopper decides to sail for New York, the narrator is devastated, thinking "the thought was worse than prison" . She locks herself in the bathroom, sitting on the cork mat with her head in her hands, imagining the miserable journey ahead . The breaking point comes when Maxim de Winter proposes marriage. The narrator, desperate to escape, accepts immediately. Mrs Van Hopper reacts with shock and then a bitter, knowing cynicism. She tells the narrator, "you know why he is marrying you, don't you? You haven't flattered yourself he's in love with you? The fact is that empty house got on his nerves to such an extent he nearly went off his head" . This final, cruel assessment encapsulates the transactional nature of their relationship: Mrs Van Hopper sees the marriage as a practical arrangement, not a romantic one, and she resents the narrator's escape from her control. The narrator is glad to be rid of her, grudging the months spent "taking her money, trotting in her wake like a shadow, drab and dumb" . The relationship ends with Mrs Van Hopper traveling alone to Paris, leaving the narrator behind to marry Maxim de Winter.