IV

Mrs. March observed George that night as they convened for dinner. He entered the room looking at his shoes and scratching his chin, distracted. She stiffened, smile in place for his first glance at her. When he failed to look up as he gripped the back of his chair and sat down, her smile drooped.

They ate in the small dining room, which was connected to the living room by sliding French doors. Chopin’s nocturnes played in the background. The table was lavishly set, a habit instilled in Mrs. March by her mother, who told her daughter, numerous times, that a healthy marriage is built from the outside in, not the other way around. A husband, upon returning home from work, should always be received by a wife looking her best, and by a house so thoroughly kempt as to maintain his pride in it. Everything else would spring from that. Her mother emphasized that if she couldn’t be a good homemaker, she would have to hire someone who was. Martha had been trained to set the table, every day and every evening, with the silver candlesticks, the monogrammed napkins, the black olive bread in the silver breadbasket, and the wide carafe for the wine. All of it was laid out atop the embroidered linen tablecloth that used to belong to Mrs. March’s grandmother (and part of a trousseau her mother was very disinclined to give her, seeing as how she was marrying a divorced man, and in a civil ceremony no less).

This was the default display even if it was just Mrs. March having dinner, which happened often. When George was immersed in his book-writing, he barely ate, except for a few sandwiches brought to his study by Martha. Otherwise he was away on book tours or at conferences or meeting for gourmet dinners and long lunches with his agent or editor. On those days, Mrs. March still played Chopin, and still used the silver platters and fine china, and sipped from her nut-molded wineglass under the watchful eyes of the Victorian oil portraits lining the dining room.

Mr. and Mrs. March sat mostly in silence. George seemed to find silence soothing. She glanced sideways at him, his belly protruding from his sensible gray cardigan, his beard growing out unevenly in irregular tufts along his jaw. He chewed his food audibly, even through a closed mouth. She could hear the snapping of the asparagus between his teeth, the way he rinsed the wine slightly before swallowing it, the saliva at the corner of his mouth when he parted his lips. It made her cringe, not to mention the way he would occasionally give one loud, startling sniff. He caught her looking, smiled. She smiled back. He asked, “Everything ready for the party tomorrow?”

“Hmm, I think so.” She added a hint of uncertainty to her answer, as if she weren’t completely sure the preparations were under control. As if she wouldn’t have a total and irreparable breakdown if they weren’t. Then, casually, serving herself more of Martha’s swordfish from the platter: “How is the novel doing? Any news?”

George swallowed as he patted his mouth with his napkin, which Mrs. March took for a tell. “Good, good,” he said. “You know, I think it might be my best one yet. Or at least my most successful one. That’s what Zelda says, anyway.”

Zelda was George’s agent. Chain-smoking, raspy-voiced, partial to square hairstyles and brownish lipsticks. A woman whose idea of a smile was baring her teeth. Mrs. March doubted that Zelda, who was always flanked by a flock of hardworking assistants, had ever actually read one of George’s novels. Certainly not from beginning to end.

“That’s wonderful, dear,” she said to George. “Would you . . .”—carefully—“would you like me to read it?” She could hear Martha having her own dinner in the kitchen, the clink of utensils against her plate echoing down the hallway and into the dining room.

George shrugged. “You know I always love your feedback. In this case, though, there’s not much I can change now that it’s out.”

“You’re right, of course. I won’t read it. What would be the point after all.”

“Now, that’s not what I said.”

“No, I know,” said Mrs. March, softening, “I mean, I’ll read it eventually. When I finish the one I’m on. You know I hate to read two books at once. Can’t concentrate fully on either one, and everything just begins to blur—”

She felt something on her hand and looked down. George had placed his hand on hers, reassuringly. “You’ll read it when you read it,” he said kindly.

She relaxed a bit but, unwilling to give up, knowing it would gnaw at her later, said, “I did read a bit of it, you know.”

“I know.”

“It was very . . . graphic.”

“Yes. That’s what it was like in those days. I did a lot of research. As you know.”

She did know: the trips to Nantes, the meetings with the historians at the Bibliothèque Universitaire, the books delivered to their apartment from helpful experts worldwide—she had been witness to a full year of research. And yet she had not paid attention, had never suspected the possibility of such a betrayal. She pursed her lips in preparation for one last prod. “Did you research the—the whores?”

“Of course,” he nodded. “Everything.”

He went on eating, unconcerned, and Mrs. March breathed in deeply. Perhaps Patricia had made a mistake. Perhaps the whore from Nantes, the wretched Johanna, wasn’t based on her at all. Perhaps, she considered with sudden relish, she was based on George’s mother! Mrs. March stifled a happy chortle.

After dinner they bade good night to Martha, who was waiting by the door, out of her uniform, square olive purse hanging from her wrist. They locked the front door after her, and as George slipped into his study, Mrs. March retired to the bedroom, to the freshly turned sheets and her white flannel nightgown and the hardcover copy of Rebecca on the nightstand.

She sank into her pillow, sighing with a relief she mistook for contentment. She held the novel with cautious fingertips so as to avoid staining it with hand cream, but as she tried to turn a page, her thumb slid across the paper, blurring the word cowardice to illegibility. She looked over morosely at the books piled high on George’s nightstand. She had always been jealous of George’s intimate relationship with books: how he touched them, scribbled on them, bent and folded them, their pages impossibly ruffled. How he seemed to know them so thoroughly, finding in them something she couldn’t, as much as she tried.

She turned back to her book, determined. After a few moments she found she was having trouble concentrating—thoughts of intimidating party guests and potential catering fiascos interrupting every phrase on the page, overflowing in every indentation—so she took some pills she had bought over the counter a couple of weeks ago. The pills were very light, the pharmacist had assured her; purely herbal, but they did the trick, and soon she was swimming into a deep sleep, not even noticing when George finally came to bed—or whether he ever did.