Footnote to Rebecca

San Paper and Layabout Books
www.sansap.com
san2paper@gmail.com
ZINE
Chapbook

I started my tale of Rebecca with
the last line at the beginning: Last
night I dreamt I went to Manderley
again. Yet, my story is not quite
done; there is a footnote to
append—the true last word.
Who might care to read it? No one,
I suspect. No one will read this. I
know no one. Did I ever? I never
had friends of my own but kept up
appearances of friendship to please
Max. Now there is no one to please
or impress, so I please myself - here
where I linger alone on this almost
island of Desenzano which appears
filled with rag dolls. Indeed,

fashions in clothes may change but
the people inside them never do.
It is the festival of Carnevale. Shall
I wear a mask and pretend to be
young again?
I look across the lake from my
balcony. Snow is withering on the
Alps in a glitter of cold decay. The
word 'yesteryear' comes to my
mind.
'Colazione,' announces Marta the
housekeeper. Francesca, the new
domestic girl, serves rolls and
frothy coffee clumsily. I eat little
these days and cannot sleep.

What is the note I meant to add? It
is trivial but puts my mind at ease.
Max brought me here. Count
Galeazzo Ciano, who insisted we
call him Gian, became a friend. Life
passed in a whirl of amusement.
Even the War did not distract us at
first. Then Gian fell from power
and Max took to binging drink.
He would not have lasted long on a
diet of gin. A bullet from a
communist spared him his final
decline. Like Rebecca, he feared a
lingering death. I became a widow
and kept a small portion of my

estate but the villa was seized. My
circumstances are modest. I do not
repine. Here I am and here I stay
for the duration. There is nowhere
else to go. There is no one I know.
Looking across the lake at that land
of cuckoo clocks, I remember the
head of the Swiss National Bank
who observed: 'When you have
money, there is nothing to say; and
when you do not, there is no one to
talk to.'
The note - the promised footnote -
it is neither a revelation nor a
resolution. It is a brief encounter

after the War.
I saw a group of concentration
camp survivors arrive to be trucked
to a resettlement centre for
Displaced Persons. An older woman
stared at me curiously. I recognised
her. She was much changed but
clearly the dark housekeeper of
Manderley, Mrs Danvers, the last
person in the world I knew; but I
had not known she was Jewish.
Without thinking I blurted out
'Danny!' She stared back at me
savagely. I did not know what to
do. 'Can I help in any way?' I asked
foolishly and reached for my purse.

She dismissed me with a sneer.
'Unlike you, I have not led a sad life
- though lonely, perhaps, since
Rebecca died. I was brought up to
expect little and am not
disappointed.'
She climbed into the back of the
truck and disappeared. I knew I
would never see or speak to her
again.
Stephen Colbourn
2022

Who was Rebecca?
Rebecca is a 1938 Gothic novel
written by English author Daphne
du Maurier. The novel depicts an
unnamed young woman who drifts
as a lady’s companion in upper class
circles at Monte Carlo.
She impetuously marries a wealthy
widower named Maxim de Winter
who is twenty years older than
herself. At his country house
Manderley in Cornwall she
discovers that both he and his
household are haunted by the
memory of his late first wife, the
title character Rebecca whom Max
may have murdered.

Last night I dreamt I went to
Manderley again . . .