Rebecca- Max de Winter's perspective

Maybe I miss Manderley. Maybe. I wish I could ease her mind, my little girl’s. But I do not know. I think I cannot talk about it as yet. For, I need to find out for myself.Not talk to the ‘companion of my heart’ with her ridiculous little-girl-all-grown up, grave air. She, who is so like Manderley, dear to me, like the sea, the mown lawn, the roses. I love her. No wild stirred passion this, just fact and the comfort of everything being right. Not like Rebecca, who blighted even Manderley.Yes, she shall learn slowly and teach me too – my little girl will. Her innate sense of what is the right and what is the truth shall serve us. The same sense that made her cringe for Mrs. van Hopper’s shrill tones – louder even than her clothes. Something that even made me take her to that dreadful cliff and stare into the stark depths. Did I pity her? No, it was the other way around. She was my rescue. I felt that if I took her with me to the cliff, she would help erase Rebecca’s shadow.
Would I care for how she dressed, she wondered. Did I even notice, I asked myself? It was enough to have her comforting awkwardness about me. Dowdy, plain, wren, yes; but birds of paradise are a cruel illusion. Beauty in name only like that of Rebecca – rotting like a maggoty apple – you cannot even throw a sham marriage away after biting a bit of it. That much I had learnt. I saw her struggle through her role. Stumble, pause, learn and yet let her core remain unspoilt, untouched. No one to help her. Not even me, insensitive me, yet so deeply hurt. So hurt that I would try to ease my pain through this child and heap so much trouble on her. All that which I took for granted, alien to her. And I saw but did not notice. Or even if I saw I was so wrapped up in the magnitude of what I had done that I did not see her sinking in the same bitter fascination as Rebecca.Fred, ever gentlemanly, and the neighbours all wrapped up in their own lives. Company for her? No, the dogs were better, their concern more genuine. And I was so cruel at times like that incident at the ball. Where I stared just because that evil Mrs. Danvers forced her into Rebecca’s costume. Thank God for Beatrice, my sister is a rock. How could I have been so unfeeling? And she blamed herself – and still loved me on – like Jasper by the fire. Faithful, clinging but mine – entirely mine.
And then worse calamity in the shape of Rebecca’s former lover and her body. The turning point that threw us together. Is it not funny, we grow more bitter to those whom we love when we need them the most? Until it is the breaking point. A dead Rebecca at least brought us together. My little girl became in reality my wife, my help, my friend, my own.
The inquest – a nasty blur. What I do remember is the shocking truth the doctor told us.
Even in death that fiend did not leave me – she had made me bear the guilt of killing her when she had wanted to end her own pain.Rebecca, my Nemesis. But her acolyte did some good by burning up Manderley. I am free at last. Free of Rebecca.