Daphne (15 page)

Still, she kept trying, kept to a routine of mornings reading manuscripts at the British Museum and afternoons at her desk in the flat, and then dinner with Tommy, and sometimes Flavia and her husband, who were living nearby. Occasionally, Daphne realised that she was talking aloud to herself, which didn't matter when she was alone, but she often wasn't alone, she was on a bus or in the Reading Room, and people were staring at her. So she told herself to concentrate harder, to strain every sinew and nerve in her body, to keep on top of things. The strategy seemed to be working, until a letter arrived from Mr Symington, forwarded to the London flat by Tod, and as Daphne opened it, and the theatre programme slithered out on to the table, with Gertie's name on it in big, bold letters, she was suddenly consumed with panic. Tommy wasn't there at the time, thank God, but if he had been, what would have happened then?

Daphne said nothing to Tommy about the men at the Embankment, but she could feel them gaining ground again in her head; she knew she must be careful to keep ahead of them, and return to Menabilly. 'I can't keep track of you,' Tommy said to her, when she told him she was going back to Cornwall.

'Nor I you,' she said, but she kept her smile in place as she spoke the words, and patted his hand affectionately.

Could the watchers come to Menabilly? No, surely she was safe here, for the house remained hidden from view, from everyone, invisible from the road and the sea, even when the autumn leaves had fallen, for Menabilly was still protected by the impenetrable evergreens in the woods, the cypress pines and towering fir trees, the sharp bamboos and giant ferns thriving on the boggy ground between thickets of nettles and brambles, and everywhere the dense maze of tangled rhododendrons. The woods had protected Rebecca, for all these years, in her limbo-life; and perhaps Rebecca, too, would act as a kind of protection for Daphne, the gatekeeper to her secret world . . .

It was getting darker now, the nights were lengthening, and winter was upon Menabilly, irrevocable, those melancholy months that Daphne always feared. She must make a friend out of the darkness, she told herself, as another defence against the enemies that assailed her. She imagined Branwell in the midst of the long Yorkshire winters, writing by candlelight in the Parsonage, his face papery white against his fiery hair. Who, or what, had Branwell feared? Daphne did not know for certain, but sometimes she wondered if she might be at the beginning of a quest to rescue him from an abductor, like Gerda had been, the girl who freed her friend from the grip of the Snow Queen. Branwell had been similarly banished to the frozen wastes, distant from view, almost forgotten, deprived of everything that should have been his due.

But Gerda was young, and Daphne felt old. And Branwell was so remote, so far away, and how would she ever find him? Where was her map, and who would be her guide there? No, better to stay at home in Menabilly; let Branwell come to her here.

'Branwell,' she whispered in the darkness, in her writing hut. 'Branwell, speak to me . . .'

Newlay Grove, November 1957

No word from Daphne, still not a word, and Symington could feel the familiar leaden weight of disappointment. But he had work to do, as always, a rising tide of it that covered his desk and spread across the floor around him. 'I have my work cut out for me,' he said to himself, by way of encouragement, though it was hard not to feel oppressed. He was immersed in paperwork from 1930, unearthed when he was searching his files for several Brontë manuscripts; and though he did not find these particular manuscripts - there were so many boxes, so many hiding places - the letters that he came across instead were as absorbing as they were enraging, and he could not stop re-reading them. All concerned the dreadful months that followed his dismissal from the Brontë Parsonage Museum, when he had been accused of stealing various manuscripts, drawings, letters and books, and had been hounded by the solicitors appointed by the Brontë Society, demanding that he return everything.

Symington had kept the carbon copies of his replies to the solicitors as well as their letters to him, and he felt breathless as he re-examined the correspondence, over and over again, his chest tightening, until it was almost too painful to move. So he stayed very still at his desk, the sheaf of papers in front of him, fanned out like a deck of cards; yet whichever way he shuffled them, he always held the losing hand. His door was locked - he did not want Beatrice to come bursting in, not that she showed any sign of doing so, she was still keeping her distance from him.

Beatrice knew nothing of this; she had no idea of his troubles then, of course, she never had. When he had been ordered to resign as curator and librarian at the Parsonage, Symington told Beatrice that it was because Lord Brotherton had asked him to make a choice between his work for the Brontë Society, or for the Brotherton Collection, as there were insufficient hours in the day for him to do both. And in fact, the story was a plausible one, for Symington had been increasingly overwhelmed by his responsibilities, by the enormous quantity of material to be acquired and archived and catalogued (not just the papers, but the Brontë relics too - the dog collars and lace handkerchiefs, the slippers and mittens -all of them as precious as if they had belonged to a family of saints, and been touched by the hand of God Himself). Not that Brotherton would have ever known the full exent of Symington's workload; nor asked him to give up his responsibilities at the Parsonage, for after all, Brotherton was a stalwart supporter of the Brontë Society, which ran the museum, and was also its president until shortly before his death.

And what a terrible loss that had been, leaving Symington defenceless against his enemies, who had moved in, like hyenas, a vicious pack of them, and no one had come to his aid, not even those who should have done, fellow Masons, who knew that he had been a loyal lodge-member for many years, like Brotherton. But it had meant nothing, in the end: freemasonry had done him no more good than it had done Branwell before him.

The accusations and legal letters had gone on for months, itemising everything he was supposed to have stolen, but Symington had remained robust in his written responses to the persecution, certain that he was right, and the Society wrong, for they were dullards who had no idea of how to care for such priceless treasures. It pained him, still, remembering that he had been forced to return several of Charlotte's letters and childhood writings, for these might have proved to be the key to unlocking Branwell's secrets, and not only that, they would have been indisputably safer with him as their guardian. Even so, some of the manuscripts remained in his safekeeping, despite those vultures at the Parsonage, who wanted to peck at the papers, tear them apart until all the life had gone from them.

Symington wished he could reassure himself that he had achieved some degree of triumph over his adversaries, but re-reading the solicitors' letters left a bitter taste in his mouth; far too bitter to be washed away with whisky. What angered him - a rising anger that made his head pound, so that he could feel the rage throbbing, like blood - was that the Brontë Society had never recognised his talents and his skill. They had cut him off in his prime, when he should have been promoted instead, for he would have made an excellent president of the Society, as Wise had been, before Brotherton; and why Wise and not Symington? Symington knew himself to be every bit as industrious as Wise, and as talented a collector.

Worse than the anger, though, or the bitterness, were the moments of panic. Where, exactly, was each of the hidden manuscripts that he had kept safe for so many years? He would not use the word 'stolen', for he was not a thief, but a guardian, and a rightful one. But could a real thief have gained access to his collection? Surely not; his locks were secure, and he checked them over and over again. But that manuscript of Emily's poetry - the little notebook of her poems he borrowed from the Law collection - must now be worth a fortune, for as far as Symington knew, only one other of her notebooks of poetry had survived intact, and that was presented to the British Museum over twenty years ago. It was so hard to keep track of everything, for some of his collection had been stored at the smaller house in Newlay Grove, next door to his own, which Symington had rented in 1926 to accommodate his office and library, an assistant and a secretary. That had been such a good year, when everything had been expanding and growing, when Elsie was still alive, and treasures were all around him.

But he had been forced to give up his tenancy there, eighteen months ago, when the last of his money ran out, and the bank refused to increase his overdraft, and he'd had to move everything out of it, boxes and boxes filled with sheaves of papers that had overflowed into his study and the basement and the attic of the main house, much to Beatrice's annoyance. There had been no assistant to help him with reorganising his collection, no secretary, and it was overwhelming, he had not known where to begin.

And now, he must begin at the beginning again, he must put everything into order, before it was too late; he could not allow himself to be defeated. He must write to Daphne once more, and prove himself to her, for time was running out, he felt it, like Branwell had before him. He must prove himself, as Branwell never did; but in doing so, he would prove Branwell's worth; Branwell and him, they were inseparable; entwined together like vines, and surely something fruitful would come of this . . .

Hampstead, March

I knew that I shouldn't have gone into Paul's study today, but I told myself that I wasn't snooping, that I needed to check something in one of his reference books. And then when I was in the room, I couldn't help noticing that he'd left his laptop open on the desk, instead of taking it to work with him this morning, like he usually does. So I came up with a perfectly plausible excuse to look at it - an excuse that I could believe in, given that there was no one else in the house that needed to be convinced - which was that the Internet connection in my study was very slow, and it would be quicker to check the reference online on Paul's computer, rather than searching through his bookshelves.

I went over to his desk, which overlooks the back garden, and the laptop was already on, he hadn't shut it down last night, like he usually does, so it was impossible to avoid seeing what was already on the screen. Because there it was, just waiting to be read: a draft email to Rachel, dated from yesterday, though not yet sent, and beneath it some previous emails, as if he'd just pressed 'reply' to the last one that had arrived from her. I sat at his desk - how could I not? - and started scrolling down the screen, reading the emails in the reverse order that they'd written them to each other. I couldn't understand why he hadn't deleted the previous messages, and simply started a new one, but he hadn't - at least, not yet - so the entire correspondence was there, beginning with the draft of his most recent email.

Dear Paul,
Well, that was a remarkably quick turnaround, wasn't it? So much for your broken heart. It appears to have mended quickly, with the help of your new wife who is, by all accounts, half your age.
Good luck to both of you . . .
Rachel

Paul. Your problem is that you are jealous of me and my success as a poet. Don't worry, you won't be hearing from me again. Rachel

Dear Paul,
You appear to mistake female friendship for lesbianism: a common trait in unreconstructed men, but an unworthy response in you, Rachel

Dear Paul,
Your paranoia about my alleged betrayals of you has always undermined our relationship - far more so that any physical separation through work. You use the word 'fact' about my alleged infidelities, but there are no facts, only your destructive fantasies.
Rachel

Dear Paul
As partings go, that was as bad as it could be. I don't understand why you have precipitated this crisis. Surely you should support my opportunity to take the fellowship at Rutgers? It's only for two years, and I will be coming back to London in the holidays, which are, after all, as long as the term times. Why do you seem intent on turning my acceptance of a very good career move into a marital separation?
With love, as always,
Rachel

It only took a few minutes to read the emails, and of course, reading them should have changed everything, for wasn't this reassuring proof that Paul didn't love Rachel, that he didn't want her back again, and didn't regret marrying me? It was almost as if he'd left his computer for me to find, accidentally on purpose, as evidence that their marriage was over.

As for that small yet deadly grenade contained within the correspondence, that Paul suspected Rachel of a flirtation with another woman, well, I didn't want that ticking away in my head. I didn't want to look at those emails ever again; I wanted to forget all about them. I told myself they were none of my business - but it was impossible, they rooted themselves inside me, like fungus spores in the dark.

I went straight upstairs to my own study, not stopping to look at anything of Rachel's in the house - not her mirror, not her candle, not her bed, not her bathroom - and I shut the door behind me, to keep the scent of Rachel out. As I switched on my computer, all I wanted was to concentrate on my work - my stuff, nothing to do with Rachel and Paul -and I started reading my PhD notes, determined to lose myself in these, and sweep everything else aside. But there was nothing of any real merit in the notes, just a jumble of disconnected ideas about the Brontës and du Maurier, and a title, 'Self-Interrogation', which I can't use, because Rachel has already used it as the title for one of her poems; she got there first, just like she did with my husband.

Daphne wrote her debut novel - at twenty-two - during a winter at Ferryside, the house that her father had bought in Cornwall, overlooking the harbour at Fowey. Imaginative reworking of the history of a local boatbuilding family, beginning with the story of Jane Slade, a real woman, and the original matriarch of the family, transformed by Daphne into Janet Coombe, the fictional heroine of
The Loving Spirit
. Janet's passionate love for her son Joseph continues beyond death, and borders on an incestuous version of Cathy and Heathcliffs tempestuous union. Check: Is the real Jane Slade buried in the church where Daphne married her husband?

Seeing my note reminded me that actually, there's a lot of near-incest in du Maurier's work - like the love affair between the stepbrother and sister at the heart of her novel,
The
Parasites, which also has a faint echo of Cathy and Heathcliff. And then there are those sly, curious passages that she slips into her biography of her father, which is written almost like a novel, with Daphne as a character in it; the oddest of all - a clue, or a joke? - is her story of Gerald's engagement to Ethel Barrymore, several years before he met Daphne's mother, Muriel. I took down my copy of
Gerald
from the shelf, and turned to the page that I'd already marked with a pen ages ago, then put to one side, trying to forget about it. It's Daphne's description of Ethel, a pretty, nineteen-year-old actress, who 'looked elfin, and adorable, and never more than fourteen'. But instead of calling her Ethel, Daphne refers to her by her middle name - Daphne - a decision that creates a disconcertingly perverse effect. So there's a scene in Ireland, when Daphne-the-daughter writes about how Gerald begged Daphne-the-lover to marry him as soon as possible, 'but she was very wilful, and would not make up her mind, and asked if they couldn't be like brother and sister . . . Whereupon Gerald, dramatising the situation at once, threatened suicide, and, rushing down the Kerry beach, waded in water up to his neck, fully aware that Daphne was sobbing wildly, "Gerald, Gerald, come back!" '

If I were forging ahead with my PhD, I suppose I'd be piecing together these suggestive hints in her writing and turning them into a solid theory for my dissertation, but somehow, when I try, it all seems to unravel in my hands. For a start, I'm not sure if my speculations about her relationship with Gerald can be linked, in any meaningful way, with her research into the Brontës. But also, what right do I have to try to make connections between her books and her life? It's dangerous territory - like all those dated, sentimental Brontë biographies, spinning the myth about saintly Charlotte and spiritual Emily and bad Branwell and gentle Anne. Those kinds of books make me feel uncomfortable; it's the literary equivalent of catching butterflies, and then killing them, in order to pin them down and display them in a box. But what's odd is that I get the same uneasy sensation when I think about that weirdly unsatisfactory email exchange between Paul and Rachel, and also about Rachel's poem, and the less certain I am of the meaning of her 'Self-Interrogation' the more I want to understand it, yet the harder I try, the quicker it slips away. Which is, perhaps, the point: that what we read into things may not be the truth, or that the truth is not a solid and immutable substance. And that's the problem with the original Emily Brontë poem, though it's only a problem if you're looking for a definitive answer within it. It's about whether to live, or die, or at least I think it is - about loving life at the same time as longing for death. It's suicidal, and yet vividly alive - a dangerous poem, if you're feeling at all unbalanced.

As it happens, I was feeling a bit unbalanced after I'd been staring at my computer for several hours, trying to make sense of all this stuff. It's no wonder that my head started hurting, and everything was getting muddled up, Emily's poem and Rachel's poem; du Maurier's first novel and her biography of her father; Paul's accusations and Rachel's denials; all of it a stew of knowing and not knowing. I should have been sensible and gone out for a walk to get some fresh air, but it was raining - not much of an enticement for a stroll on the heath - so I opened the little door from my attic to the balcony. I don't go out there very often - it's less of a balcony, more of a ledge, really, and so high above the street that it makes me feel dizzy. But it seemed like a good idea, today, so I gave the door a shove - the wooden frame had warped and swollen this winter after all the rain - and there I was, looking into the gardens of Cannon Hall. It was like being on the prow of a boat - I felt slightly sea-sick - but I also realised that if I was just a little higher, if I climbed up on to the parapet itself, I might be able to see more, I might even be able to see into the windows of Cannon Hall, into the rooms where Gerald told Daphne that he loved her. And I actually started climbing - I reached out my hands to pull myself up, at the same time as finding a foothold in the crumbling brickwork - and then suddenly, I thought, what the hell are you doing? You could fall so easily, it's not safe. But even as I was thinking that, there was another voice inside my head that said, go on, don't be frightened, it will be amazing - you'll be able to see as far as you want, further than you've ever seen before. So I just stayed there, hovering, one foot still on the balcony, another halfway up the parapet, uncertain of whether to climb up or back down.

I don't know how long I was out there, but eventually I started shivering. I looked down and glimpsed a dark-haired woman turning the corner at the end of the street, and for a second, I thought it was Rachel. But I don't think it was actually her, I just wanted it to be her, like when my mother died, and in the months that followed, I'd see the back of her old beige raincoat, rounding a corner ahead of me, or her face behind a misted window on a bus, swooping past me when I was crossing the road.

And it was the thought of my mother - or her ghost - in that familiar old raincoat that made me feel somehow ashamed, but also more myself again.