"My faux-pas was so palpably obvious..."

Mrs. de Winter feels out of place! She awakes and joins Maxim in the kitchen for breakfast. She finds a wide array of foods spread out for them to eat. She realizes that she was sitting there for far too long, as the clock struck ten. She apologies to one of the butlers for sitting there for such a long time, and excused herself from the table.

During breakfast, Maxim told her that he has a very busy day arranged for him and she must amuse herself. He also says that Beatrice, a curt, to the point women, has invited herself to lunch with Mrs. de Winter. Mrs. de Winter goes to the library after she leaves the kitchen only to find that it is intolerably cold. When she goes to light a fire, Frith informs her that the old Mrs. de Winter never lit a fire in the library until the afternoon, and she should find the morning room as a more suitable place to relax.

The new Mrs. de Winter cannot find the morning room on her own, and is too embarrassed to ask her way. Frith ultimately ends up telling her the way, but it seems as though Mrs. de Winter feels exceptionally out of place. In the morning room she says that the dog, "...sniffed the air for a moment, and found I was not the one she sought, she turned her head away with a grunt..."(84). Poor Mrs. de Winters is so neglected! Even the blind dog doesn't want any part of her. Will this neglect and cold-feelings toward the new Mrs. de Winter change her attitude and/or her relationship with Maxim? Not really. It affects her psychologically but not to the point where it affects her relationship directly. It causes her to be self-conscious, but Maxim always reassures her whenever she asks him something about her.

She takes notice to the extreme details of the room. She assumes that a women must have designed it because of it's sheer perfection, in her eyes. She notices a desk that letters were to be written at. She starts going through it's content and sees how incredibly organized it was, which all relates back to the first line of this chapter, "I had never realized, of course, that life at Manderely would be so orderly and planned" (80). There were certain pigeon holes docketed unanswered letters, letters to keep, household, estate, menus, and miscellaneous.

Mrs. de Winter is startled when the phone rings and Mrs. Danvers asks her what she would like for dinner that night. She tells Mrs. Danvers whatever she chose would be find; however, Mrs. Danvers detests. Finally, after agreeing on a meal, Mrs. de Winter has to choose a sauce, in which she tells Mrs. Danvers to prepare her whatever Rebecca would have chosen.

It seems as though Mrs. de Winters feels like an outcast in the Manderely estate; the new girl in school. She's trying exceptionally hard to fit in and find her place, but she keeps failing. Although she is the second most important person on the estate, Maxim being the first, those who keep the house in running order seem to abhor the idea that she is there, replacing someone who they obviously admired greatly, Rebecca. I'm exceptionally curious to see the outcome of this rapport between the servants and the new Mrs. de Winter, and to see if they plot against her in anyway.

Vocabulary: 

nib (89)- the pointed end of a pen