Trowchester

Trowchester is the market town in the next county where Maxim de Winter's sister, Beatrice Lacy, and her husband, Giles Lacy, live. It lies approximately fifty miles from Manderley, a distance that Beatrice mentions when she first meets the narrator, explaining that the hunting in her area is much better than around Manderley. The town functions as a geographical and social counterpoint to Manderley: it is the center of a more robust, horse-oriented country life, where Beatrice keeps her hunters, Giles plays cricket, and their son Roger is about to go up to Oxford. The narrator's first encounter with Trowchester comes through Beatrice's invitation, extended during that initial lunch visit, for the narrator to come over and stay, with a promise that Giles will mount her for riding—an offer that underscores the narrator's lack of equestrian skill and her sense of being out of place in this world.

Beatrice and Giles's Home

The Lacy residence in Trowchester is the setting for the kind of hearty, informal country entertaining that Beatrice describes with enthusiasm. She speaks of Christmas charades there, with Giles dressing up and becoming, after champagne, "the funniest thing you've ever seen," and of the house being filled with Roger's friends. The narrator, listening to these accounts, feels a sense of dread at the prospect of being invited for Christmas and mentally plans to feign influenza to avoid it. The house itself is never described in physical detail, but its atmosphere is conveyed through Beatrice's brisk, no-nonsense manner and her casual mention of the local social round—dining in one another's houses, playing bridge, and knowing everyone "frightfully well." This stands in contrast to the formal, ritualized life at Manderley, where the narrator feels like an interloper.

Journey to Visit the Grandmother

Trowchester also serves as the point of departure for the disastrous visit to Maxim's grandmother. Beatrice picks up the narrator from Manderley and drives them, in her characteristic fast, aggressive style, through the countryside to the old lady's house. The journey itself reveals Beatrice's personality: she drives with her foot permanently on the accelerator, takes corners at acute angles, and narrowly avoids other cars, while the narrator crouches low in her seat, feeling hot and embarrassed. During this drive, Beatrice questions the narrator about her health, her marriage, and her sketching hobby, and she also mentions that Giles saw Maxim at a dinner in London—a detail that connects Trowchester to the wider social network of the county. The visit ends badly when the grandmother, confused and senile, asks for Rebecca, and Beatrice, mortified, drives the narrator back to the lodge gates of Manderley rather than face another awkward tea.

Narrative Significance

Trowchester, though never directly visited by the reader, functions as a symbol of the conventional, uncomplicated country life that the narrator feels she cannot attain. It is the home of the blunt, practical Beatrice, who judges the narrator's appearance and clothes, and of Giles, whose hearty good nature is a foil to Maxim's brooding intensity. The town represents the world of hunting, cricket, and charades—a world that the narrator, with her shyness, her lack of riding skill, and her "little talent" for sketching, feels she does not belong to. It is also the place from which the first explicit comparisons to Rebecca come, as Beatrice tells the narrator, "You are so very different from Rebecca," a phrase that haunts the narrator throughout her time at Manderley.