Rebecca: Manderley and the flowers

I like the way Daphne du Maurier describes Manderley, Maxim de Winter’s house. 
Here’s the way to the house: 

“This drive twisted and turned as a serpent, scarce wider in places than a path, and above our heads was a great colonnade of trees, whose branches nodded and intermingled with one another, making an archway for us, like the roof of a church. Even the midday sun would not penetrate the interlacing of those green leaves, they were too thickly entwined, one with another, and only little flickering patches of warm light would come in intermittent waves to dapple the drive with gold. It was very silent, very still. On the high road there had been a gay west wind blowing in my face, making the grass on the hedges dance in unison, but here there was no wind. Even the engine of the car had taken a new note, throbbing low, quieter than before. As the drive descended to the valley so the trees came in upon us, great beeches with lovely smooth white stems, lifting their myriad branches to one another, and other trees, trees I could not name, coming close, so close that I could touch them with my hands. On we went, over a little bridge that spanned a narrow stream, and still this drive that was no drive twisted and turned like an enchanted ribbon through the dark and silent woods, penetrating even deeper to the very heart surely of the forest itself, and still there was no clearing, no space to hold a house.” (Ch.7) 

Dark, ominous. 
For anyone who is unfamiliar with the story of Rebecca (what rock did you live under?), the novel has a very interesting premise. The narrator, a young, shy, inexperienced, awkward, and unnamed woman (who I believe is 21 at the time of the events, and who is nevertheless said to have an unusual name) marries a rich, 42-year-old widower named Maxim de Winter and moves to his house Manderley, only to realise that in every corner of the house is the phantom of his 1st wife, the beautiful and accomplished Rebecca. 
The gardens have the rhododendrons Rebecca cultivated, the house has her items, the furniture and style of the rooms have a stamp of her personality, and her influence continues to be felt among the employees, who continue running the house the way Rebecca ordered and still refer to her as Mrs de Winter. 
Rebecca’s vitality beyond the grave swallows up our barely alive narrator. 
In the novel, Manderley isn’t simply a house, a setting—it’s a character, it’s the narrator’s Overlook Hotel, driving her mad. 
Daphne du Maurier therefore starts the novel with the house (the famous opening line “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again”). Through Mrs Van Hopper, she introduces Max de Winter as the owner of Manderley. The narrator associates him inextricably with Manderley, a house she has dreamt of since young, thanks to a cheap picture she got. 
Du Maurier describes the house in detail—from the surrounding areas, to the structure of the building, to the different rooms and its particulars. Everything has meaning, or at least, everything seems to have meaning to the narrator’s neurotic mind. For example, upon arrival she discovers that her new room is in the East Wing, redecorated from a room previously for occasional visitors, where she can’t hear the sea, whereas the old bedroom of Max de Winter and Rebecca is in the West Wing, a large, old, and beautiful room that views the sea. The narrator sees hers as a second-rate room for a second-rate person. 
The flowers also have meaning. The 1st chapter of the book already mentions the rhododendrons, as quoted in an early blog post. 
Here’s how they appear the 1st time the narrator comes to Manderley: 

“Suddenly I saw a clearing in the dark drive ahead, and a patch of sky, and in a moment the dark trees had thinned, the nameless shrubs had disappeared, and on either side of us was a wall of color, bloodred, reaching far above our heads. We were among the rhododendrons. There was something bewildering, even shocking, about the suddenness of their discovery. The woods had not prepared me for them. They startled me with their crimson faces, massed one upon the other in incredible profusion, showing no leaf, no twig, nothing but the slaughterous red, luscious and fantastic, unlike any rhododendron plant I had seen before.
I glanced at Maxim. He was smiling. "Like them?" he said.
I told him "Yes," a little breathlessly, uncertain whether I was speaking the truth or not, for to me a rhododendron was a homely, domestic thing, strictly conventional, mauve or pink in color, standing one beside the other in a neat round bed. And these were monsters, rearing to the sky, massed like a battalion, too beautiful I thought, too powerful; they were not plants at all.” (ibid.)

The rhododendrons have a strong presence in Rebecca—they are not only in the gardens, but also in Rebecca’s morning room. But I won’t write more about them. A simple Google search shows that there have been lots of essays and blog posts out there about their significance, symbolising Rebecca’s vitality and strong personality, and her presence everywhere in the house. 
Instead, look at this passage: 

"Suddenly he began to talk about Manderley. […] The daffodils were in bloom, stirring in the evening breeze, golden heads cupped upon lean stalks, and however many you might pick there would be no thinning of the ranks, they were massed like an army, shoulder to shoulder. On a bank below the lawns, crocuses were planted, golden, pink, and mauve, but by this time they would be past their best, dropping and fading, like pallid snowdrops. The primrose was more vulgar, a homely pleasant creature who appeared in every cranny like a weed. Too early yet for bluebells, their heads were still hidden beneath last year's leaves, but when they came, dwarfing the more humble violet, they choked the very bracken in the woods, and with their color made a challenge to the sky.
He never would have them in the house, he said. Thrust into vases they became dank and listless, and to see them at their best you must walk in the woods in the morning, about twelve o'clock, when the sun was overhead. They had a smoky, rather bitter smell, as though a wild sap ran in their stalks, pungent and juicy. People who plucked bluebells from the woods were vandals; he had forbidden it at Manderley. Sometimes, driving in the country, he had seen bicyclists with huge bunches strapped before them on the handles, the bloom already fading from the dying heads, the ravaged stalks straggling naked and unclean.
The primrose did not mind it quite so much; although a creature of the wilds it had a leaning towards civilization, and preened and smiled in a jam-jar in some cottage window without resentment, living quite a week if given water. No wildflowers came in the house at Manderley. He had special cultivated flowers, grown for the house alone, in the walled garden. A rose was one of the few flowers, he said, that looked better picked than growing. A bowl of roses in a drawing room had a depth of color and scent they had not possessed in the open. There was something rather blowzy about roses in full bloom, something shallow and raucous, like women with untidy hair. In the house they became mysterious and subtle. He had roses in the house at Manderley for eight months in the year. Did I like syringa, he asked me? There was a tree on the edge of the lawn he could smell from his bedroom window. His sister, who was a hard, rather practical person, used to complain that there were too many scents at Manderley, they made her drunk. Perhaps she was right. He did not care. It was the only form of intoxication that appealed to him. His earliest recollection was of great branches of lilac, standing in white jars, and they filled the house with a wistful, poignant smell…” (Ch.4) 

(my emphasis)
This is a curious passage, is it not?  
Daffodils, crocuses, bluebells, primroses, violets, lilacs…This is a man who cares about flowers. In my previous blog post, I pointed out the detail of Max de Winter taking an emery board out of his pocket and filing his nails, a clear hint of an eccentric personality, but after some thinking, I’ve realised that it shows the difference between him and his new wife—the narrator is a nail biter. Max de Winter is particular about his nails (after all, he calls hers disgusting), and he’s particular about his flowers. 
At the same time, look again at the passage—at the lines I highlighted. I can’t help wondering if there’s any meaning there—Rebecca’s morning room views the rhododendrons, whereas the narrator’s new room in the East Wing views the rose garden.