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flurried by the booming summons of the gong, I found he had nearly
finished, he was already peeling his fruit.
He looked up at me and smiled. ”You mustn't mind,” he said, ”this
is something you will have to get used to. I've no time to hang about at
this hour of the day. Running a place like Manderley, you know, is a full
time job. The coffee and the hot dishes are on the sideboard. We always
help ourselves at breakfast.” I said something about my clock being
slow, about having been too long in the bath, but he did not listen, he
was looking down at a letter, frowning at something.
How impressed I was, I remember well, impressed and a little
overawed by the magnificence of the breakfast offered to us. There was
tea, in a great silver urn, and coffee too, and on the heater, piping hot,
dishes of scrambled eggs, of bacon, and another of fish. There was a
little clutch of boiled eggs as well, in their own special heater, and
porridge, in a silver porringer. On another sideboard was ham, and a
great piece of cold bacon. There were scones too, on the table, and toast,
and various pots of jam, marmalade, and honey, while dessert dishes,
piled high with fruit, stood at either end. It seemed strange to me that
Maxim, who in Italy and France had eaten a.croissant and fruit only, and
drank a cup of coffee, should sit down to this breakfast at home, enough
for a dozen people, day after day probably, year after year, seeing
nothing ridiculous about it, nothing wasteful.
I noticed he had eaten a small piece of fish. I took a boiled egg.
And I wondered what happened to the rest, all those scrambled eggs, that
crisp bacon, the porridge, the remains of the fish. Were there menials, I
wondered, whom I should never know, never see, waiting behind kitchen
doors for the gift of our breakfast? or was it all thrown away, shovelled
into dust-pans? I would never dare to ask.
"Thank the Lord I haven't a great crowd of relations to inflict upon
you,” said Maxim, ”a sister, I very rarely see, and a grandmother who is
nearly blind. Beatrice, by the way, asks herself over to lunch. I half
expected she would, I suppose she wants to have a look at you.”
"Today?” I said, my spirits sinking to zero.
"Yes, according to the letter I got this morning. She won't stay
long. You'll like her, I think. She's very direct, believes in speaking her
mind. No humbug at all. If she doesn't like you she'll tell you so to your
face.”
I found this hardly comforting, and wondered if there was not
some virtue in the quality of insincerity. Maxim got up from his chair,
and lit a cigarette. ”I've a mass of things to see to this morning, do you
think you can amuse yourself?” he said, ”I'd like to have taken you round

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