After seven weeks of marriage, Maxim and his second wife arrive at Manderley in early May. The young narrator feels unsuitably dressed as usual, wearing a too-large mackintosh because of the rain when they departed London. Maxim eagerly looks forward to returning home, mistaking her silence for fatigue, not realizing that his new bride “dreaded this arrival at Manderley” as much as she “had longed for it in theory” (62). As they pass by villages, she imagines a simpler cottage life with Maxim “demanding no set standard” (62). He tells her that she must not mind the curiosity about her—she only needs to be herself and everyone will adore her. She ought to leave everything about managing the house to Mrs. Danvers. The narrator nervously hears the gates shut “with a crash behind us” (64) as they proceed along the drive to Manderley. The drive “twisted and turned as a serpent” and “the length of it” begins to nag at her nerves (64). She is startled by the walls of blood-red rhododendrons that flank them on either side before they come to the exquisite Manderley of her long-ago postcard.

Mrs. Danvers, against Maxim’s wishes, collected the entire staff in the house and on the estate to welcome them.