the engagement diary
The engagement diary is a small, red leather book that once belonged to Rebecca de Winter. It is a methodical record of her daily life, containing appointments, notes, and telephone numbers written in her distinctive, slanting hand. After her death, the diary was kept by Mrs Danvers, who preserved it among Rebecca's personal effects, never surrendering it to Maxim de Winter. The diary surfaces during the climactic confrontation in the library at Manderley, when Jack Favell, Rebecca's cousin and lover, accuses Maxim of murder. Colonel Julyan, the local magistrate, suggests consulting the diary to verify Rebecca's movements on the day she died, hoping to find an explanation for the cryptic note she left Favell, which read, "I've got something to tell you, and I want to see you as soon as possible."
Discovery of the Baker Appointment
Mrs Danvers retrieves the diary from her locked room and presents it to Colonel Julyan. He examines the page for the date of Rebecca's death and finds a meticulous record of her appointments: a hair appointment at twelve, lunch at her club, and then, at two o'clock, an entry reading simply "Baker," with a heavy black cross beside it, as though she had pressed the pencil down with force. The name "Baker" means nothing to Mrs Danvers, who insists Rebecca knew no one by that name and kept no secrets from her. Favell dismisses the entry as a trivial shopping errand, perhaps a merchant selling stockings or face cream. However, the diary also contains a telephone number, 0488, with a faint, hurried letter beside it that might be an "M." Frank Crawley, Maxim's agent, deduces the exchange is likely Mayfair and telephones the number. The call reaches a night porter at a Bloomsbury address that turns out to be a doctor's consulting rooms. The porter reports that a Doctor Baker had practiced there but had retired six months earlier, and he provides Baker's current address in Barnet, north of London.
The Diary's Role in the Investigation
The discovery of the Baker appointment transforms the investigation. Colonel Julyan, Maxim, and Favell drive to Barnet the following day to confront the retired doctor. Doctor Baker, after consulting his files, confirms that a woman calling herself "Mrs Danvers" — Rebecca's alias — had visited him twice. On her second visit, he informed her that she was suffering from a deep-rooted, inoperable cancer that would kill her within a few months, requiring morphia for the pain. The diary's entry, therefore, reveals the true motive for Rebecca's death: she had learned she was terminally ill and, unable to face a slow, painful decline, had deliberately provoked Maxim into killing her, or, as the inquest ultimately concluded, had taken her own life by scuttling her boat. The diary thus provides the crucial piece of evidence that destroys Favell's blackmail attempt and secures Maxim's freedom, proving that Rebecca had a compelling reason to end her life and that her death was not a murder born of jealousy.
Significance and Aftermath
The engagement diary functions as a silent witness, a repository of truth that Rebecca herself had unknowingly left behind. It is the object that breaks the deadlock of suspicion and accusation, shifting the narrative from a murder investigation to a tragic suicide. Its discovery also precipitates Mrs Danvers's disappearance from Manderley; having guarded the diary for a year, she realizes its contents have exposed the secret she never knew, and she flees the estate. The diary, therefore, is not merely a record of appointments but a key that unlocks the past, revealing the hidden illness that had driven Rebecca's final, desperate actions and allowing Maxim and the second Mrs de Winter to begin their life together, free from the shadow of the dead woman.
