Daphne (27 page)

Menabilly, August

I don't know how long I sat in the Menabilly woods; it could have been hours, but it was hard to tell, everything seemed like a dream in there, like an enchanted forest, though the smell was real: damp moss and earth and bark. The rain stopped, and a white mist descended, reaching out to me through the trees, which was reassuring. I felt that I was safely hidden, not that anyone seemed to be in the house or the gardens or the woods, it was just the birds and me. After a while, I realised that I was sitting to one side of the house, well away from the drive that led through the parkland from the West Lodge, curving towards Menabilly. The curtains were not drawn at any of the windows, but the house had a closed look, and I began to think that the windows were like blank, unblinking eyes; not blind to me, just impassive.

I tried to imagine what it would have been like the first winter that Daphne spent here with her three young children, when the war was still being fought, and Daphne was fighting her own war, to stop Menabilly falling into ruin. It was the beginning of 1944, the year that Tommy was appointed the Allied Commander of the Airborne Division, preparing his troops for the terrible battle of Arnhem. I remembered that from watching A Bridge Too Far on the television when I was about fourteen, and my mother had explained to me that Dirk Bogarde was playing Daphne's husband, Boy Browning -she knew I'd be interested, because I was already obsessed by Daphne's novels. And then I started wondering what my mother would say to me, if she could see me now, crouching behind a rhododendron bush, looking for ghosts in the mist around Menabilly. I didn't see any ghosts, as it happens. I didn't see Daphne or Tommy or Rebecca, though I wondered if they could see me.

Eventually, I decided that I'd have to start moving again if I was to find my way out of the woods and back along the cliff-top path before it became too dark to see anything. The mist was beginning to darken in the dusk, and bats were flying between the house and the trees; and I realised then that I'd always lived in a city, that London was what I understood, however alone I felt there, and that this place was absolutely not mine, that I was a trespasser here. I didn't like the thought of being among all those flitting, quivering bats - I felt blinder than they were, as I started walking back along the path that I thought had brought me here. But it was difficult to be sure, because all the trees looked the same in the twilight, and the rhododendrons seemed even bigger than I'd remembered them - too large for life, somehow; too big to be true. I was half-running by now, but the path wasn't going downhill, like it should have been, back towards the sea, and though I thought I could hear the waves in the distance, it might have been the sound of the wind in the highest branches of the trees. Eventually, I knew I must have taken the wrong path, because there was no sign of the witch's cottage that Paul had shown me earlier today, and I seemed to be going slightly uphill again, away from the sea, though it was hard to tell in the mist, I was losing all sense of direction. And then suddenly I came to a clearing, and I could see that five paths led to it, including the one I had taken, like the spokes of a wheel, and that one of them must lead to the sea. I was just about to run across the clearing to the other side, when I realised that the ground gave way to a dark pool, larger than the one I'd seen by the path to the cottage, black and still . . . just like Daphne's short story. And I remembered a line from that story, almost as if someone had spoken it out loud to me: 'To show fear was to show misunderstanding. The woods were merciless.'

I began to wonder if I was dreaming - because it was beginning to seem as if the whole day had been a nightmarish dream, and that if I could only force my eyes open, I'd wake up in the bedroom in Hampstead, but my eyes were wide open, I was looking all around me, not sure of which way to go. The girl in the story heard a voice saying, 'This isn't a dream. And it isn't death, either. It's the secret world.' And then she'd seen a child by the pool - a little blind girl, only two years old, trying to find her way. And pity had seized her and she had gone to the child, and bent down and put her hands on the child's eyes, and as they opened, the girl in the story had realised that she was looking at herself, her younger self, at two years old, when her mother had died.

But I couldn't see anybody, just the dark trees and the dark water. There didn't seem to be any meaning to me stumbling to the edge of this pool. I had not found myself like the girl in Daphne's story, I was lost and alone and I didn't know what I was doing here. I couldn't even see my reflection in the water, it was too dank and opaque. And then I started panicking, not about finding my way out of the woods (though there didn't seem to be an end to them), but about why I had come here, and what I thought I would find. It seemed like such a crazy thing to have done; to be looking for my reflection here, to have hoped to find meaning in this place. And it wasn't just coming here that was crazy, but everything leading up to it -the search for Daphne's letters, and for Symington's, the adventure in Haworth with Rachel, wanting to be Rachel's friend, because I was so lonely. And as for marrying Rachel's husband - because that's what he still seemed to me to be, when it came down to it - well, what on earth had possessed me? How could I have thought that it was ever going to work out between us, when we couldn't even talk to each other? He'd kept his secrets from me, and I had from him; because I still hadn't told him about Rachel coming back to the house, let alone our trip to Haworth together. So I had behaved just as badly - as irrationally - as him.

It was then, thinking about Paul, that the panic began to subside, and I just started feeling incredibly tired, and I began to wonder if I should sleep here for a while, like the girl in Daphne's story. Not that I felt like that girl - she had been filled with wonder and a sense of oneness with the woods and the sky and the world around her, and I just felt exhausted, too tired to walk. It would be so peaceful, really, if I could get over being scared of the dark and the bats. 'I wouldn't stay here, if I were you,' murmured a voice in my head, soft, like my mother's voice, and I tried to keep my eyes open, tried not to give in to the longing to lie down. But it was impossible, like trying to keep your eyes open on a motorway, when someone else is driving, and you can't stay awake. . .

So I suppose I fell asleep, though I don't remember it happening, I don't remember that moment of lying down. But I must have been dreaming when I saw a woman by the pool, a cloud of dark hair around her face, not blonde like Daphne, and she was smiling at me. 'The one who got away,' she said to me.

'But I'm here,' I said. 'I haven't gone away.'

'You will,' she said. 'You must.'

'I want to stay here,' I said. 'I haven't got anywhere else to go.'

'You must find a place of your own,' she said.

And then there was a screaming, but it wasn't her that was screaming, and it wasn't me, either; I was awake again, the scream had woken me, and it was high and unearthly, coming from somewhere in the woods. 'It's an animal,' I said to myself, out loud, to make sure I wasn't still dreaming, and as I spoke, I made myself get up from the ground. The moon had risen - not a full moon, but a crescent bright enough in a cloudless sky for me to be able to see my way to the path that would lead me back to the beach. Once I was walking along it, towards the sound of the waves, it seemed easier not to get lost again; it was just a question of staying calm, that was what I told myself as I kept walking, eyes ahead, not looking into the shadows between the trees and the uprooted rhododendrons. Eventually, the path joined another, wider one, and the waves were getting louder and louder, and at last I could see the beach again, high tide now, the moon shining on the water, and the surf churning up the shingle.

But at least the path to Fowey looked clear enough in the moonlight, well worn by all those people who had been here before me, so I set off again, back up the slippery steps that I'd come down earlier today, and then out in the open, the sea to my right, the fields to my left, and a huge starry sky above me. Suddenly, I felt braver, almost exhilarated. I was on my own, and I didn't know where I was going - well, I knew I was walking back to the hotel, but I didn't know whether Paul would be waiting there for me. And it didn't seem to matter. I was suspended in time, inconsequential, and therefore free; and I started running, down a slope with the wind behind me, in the warm air of an August night, my feet steady, my legs strong, but feeling so light, as if I might lift off from the ground, wings unfurling, up and over the cliff tops, flying high into the darkness above the ocean.

Newlay Grove, December 1959

Daphne arrived, as arranged, at three o'clock, having taken a taxi from the station, and stood on the doorstep, feeling as shy and nervous as a sixteen-year-old girl; which was absurd, of course, but the meeting with Mr Symington had been a long time in the coming, after nearly two and a half years of correspondence. The house was a substantial one - a redbrick Victorian villa, with a large garden surrounding it, all rather tangled and overgrown, unlike its more manicured neighbours. Ivy climbed up the front, the tendrils reaching into the roof, and entangled with a Virginia creeper, its fallen leaves still lying unswept in the drive, sodden and slippery, and the house looked as chilled as Daphne, on this grey wintry day, sunk in the early dusk of dark enveloping clouds.

It took a few minutes for anyone to answer her knock on the door, though she was aware of the sounds of movement within, the shutting of doors, and a creaking that might indicate footsteps. She tried ringing the bell, but it seemed to be broken, so she knocked again, harder, feeling her knuckles against the peeling black paint. And at last the front door opened, to reveal a man that Daphne assumed must be Mr Symington: bespectacled, greying, though still with a thick head of hair. 'Ah, Lady Browning, how good of you to come,' he said, holding out his hand, which emerged from a frayed shirt cuff and the threadbare sleeve of an ancient brown suit.

'Mr Symington-' said Daphne, but the man stopped her by shaking his head. 'Unfortunately, Mr Symington could not be here today,' he said.

'How very odd,' said Daphne. 'We had arranged to meet at three o'clock - he wrote to me last week, confirming this.'

'Yes, most unfortunate,' said the man, stepping back, yet at the same time seeming to shrink into himself, like a tortoise.

Daphne felt annoyed and confused and embarrassed. She very much wanted to see inside the house, and to see Mr Symington. Indeed, it occurred to her that the grey-haired, tortoise-like gentleman might be Symington, yet why on earth would he pretend not to be? She asked the man on the doorstep if she could leave a message for Mr Symington, and then, overcome with a sudden irritation, asked him his name.

'I am Mr Symington's assistant,' said the man. 'He has been called away on important business regarding a rather precious manuscript.'

'And your name is?'

'Mr Morrison.'

He said it with such finality that it seemed to mark the end of their conversation, at least as far as he was concerned, but Daphne was not giving up so easily, not after travelling 400 miles from Cornwall to Yorkshire. She asked the man if she might come inside to write a note for Symington, and to ring for another taxi to take her back to the station; a request he agreed to, with some reluctance, but it was beginning to sleet by now, and he could hardly send her back to Leeds station by foot. Daphne followed him into the hall, before he could change his mind, and removed her coat, in an attempt to take charge of this curious situation. 'May I wash my hands?' she said, and the man flushed, slightly, and pointed her to a door at the end of the dimly lit hall.

The cloakroom was clean - it smelt of disinfectant, like the hallway - but it was terribly cold and damp, as if it had been unheated for a very longtime. Daphne glanced at her face in the mirror; a greenish-grey reflection gazed back, with a frowning down-turned mouth and slightly puzzled eyes, as if the woman in the looking glass did not recognise Daphne. 'What on earth are we doing here?' she murmured to herself.

When she returned to the hallway, the man had gone, but she heard his voice in another room, and followed it through an open doorway, into a large study, overlooking the garden, yet filled with so many cardboard boxes and wooden packing cases that very little light came in from the windows. The man was sitting at a mahogany desk, speaking on the telephone to what Daphne presumed must be a taxi company. 'No, that's far too long to wait,' he was saying. 'I'll need a driver within the next half an hour, as a matter of some urgency.' He put the telephone down with a sigh, but remained seated, so Daphne sat down too, in a sagging armchair beside the unlit fire.

'What a great many books,' she said, gesturing to the shelves that lined the walls of the study, from floor to ceiling.

'As you know, Mr Symington is a leading bibliophile,' said the man. 'And his collection has been described as the Bodleian of the North.'

'I thought that was the term applied to Lord Brotherton's collection?' said Daphne, who had visited the Brotherton Library at Leeds University the previous day to examine some of Branwell's manuscripts held there.

'I think you'll find that it was Mr Symington who assembled Lord Brotherton's collection in the first place,' said the man, with a sniff. 'And of course, Mr Symington has a great many treasures of his own.'

'Might I see them?' said Daphne.

The man regarded her from behind his spectacles.

'I have come a very long way,' she continued. 'As you may know, I have travelled here from Cornwall, which is quite an expedition to undertake.'

'Yes,' said the man, 'Mr Symington was most upset not to meet you today.' He stood up, walked over to one of the packing cases, and proceeded to rummage through its contents, while coughing into the box with such violence that Daphne feared he might vomit. At last, he pulled out a small, mildewed leather notebook, and passed it to Daphne with a shaking hand.

She took it, with some hesitation - not because of its obvious fragility, but because of her distaste at touching the visible evidence of the man's coughing fit that was left on the book. Such was her disgust at his coughed-up phlegm that it took her a little while to read the name written on the first page of the notebook. 'Emily Brontë?' she said, hardly able to believe what she saw before her. 'This is Emily Brontë's notebook?'

'Yes,' said the man, with some pride. 'Hence my description of Mr Symington's library as the Bodleian of the North.'

Daphne carefully turned the pages, counting them to herself. Twenty-nine pages, thirty-one poems. 'What an extraordinarily precious document,' she said to the man. He reached out to take it back from her, but she said, quickly, 'Might I just see if one of my favourite of Emily Brontë's poems is here? There was one in particular that inspired me to write my first novel . . .'

The man nodded, and she turned the pages again, her hands trembling, as his had done, until she reached the fifteenth poem, about halfway through the notebook. 'It's here,' she said, '"Self-Interrogation",' and she scanned the verses until she reached the seventh stanza - so familiar that she could have read it easily, even if Emily's handwriting were as illegible as Branwell's, which it was not - and read the lines aloud:

When she came to the end of the verse, the man took the notebook from her hand, and wrapped it up in a damp and grubby brown-paper shroud. 'Should this not go to the British Museum for further study?' asked Daphne.

'And leave it to the mercy of thieves and scoundrels?' said the man. 'You are aware, perhaps, that precious manuscripts such as these have been mutilated, both in the Reading Room of the British Museum and elsewhere? The security in these places is abysmal, and the curators are shoddy.'

Daphne felt uncertain of how to proceed with this conversation; for she did not want to offend the man by pointing out that it was Mr Symington's former colleague, T. J. Wise, who had been rumoured to have stolen pages by surreptitiously tearing them out of manuscripts and rare books at the British Museum. 'I do see your point,' she said, carefully. 'But surely a museum would be able to conserve such a precious manuscript in more suitable conditions than a packing case?'

'That, dear lady, is where you are entirely mistaken,' said the man. 'I can assure you that Mr Symington's knowledge of conservation techniques is second to none. Indeed, Miss Brontë's notebook will be far safer here than it would be, say, at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, where there is a flagrant disregard for proper procedure. And I must ask you, of course, to keep this matter confidential.'

'What matter?' said Daphne, more confused than ever.

'The little notebook that you have just seen. Or not seen,' said the man, tapping the side of his nose. 'Now, if I am not mistaken, I hear the sound of your taxi outside.'

Daphne heard nothing; the house was silent, save for the distant banging of a door in the wind. She turned her head, as if listening, and then shrugged. 'Surely the taxi driver will ring let us know when he arrives?' she said.

'Oh no, I think not,' said the man, but Daphne remained seated.

'I must write a note to Mr Symington,' she said, reaching into her handbag for a pen.

'If you have any message for Mr Symington,' said the man, 'you may give it to me in person. There are no secrets between Mr Symington and myself. We work as one together.'

'Well, then tell him that I am most disappointed not to meet him today,' said Daphne. 'And tell him, also, that I would like to buy any Brontë manuscripts in his collection, if they are available.'

'I am authorised to act on Mr Symington's behalf in commercial transactions, as well as literary matters,' said the man.

'Is the notebook of Emily Brontë's poems for sale, then?' said Daphne.

'I think not,' said the man, sadly, pressing his fingertips together in a steeple. 'But Mr Symington did leave a package that he thought you might be interested in purchasing.' He opened one of the desk drawers, and pulled out another small brown-paper parcel, which he passed over to Daphne. She unwrapped it, heart racing, hoping for something even more extraordinary than the last discovery, the original manuscript of
Wuthering Heights,
perhaps, with Branwell's signature on it, alongside Emily's; but she was quickly disappointed. Inside was a bound schoolbook, a Latin primer by the look of it. 'Branwell's schoolbook,' said the man, 'with his drawings inside, on the opening frontispiece.' He gestured to Daphne to open the book, and she did so, to discover a couple of roughly drawn sketches of a pugilist.

'Yours for thirty-five pounds,' said the man, briskly. Daphne shook her head, and handed it back to him, and he looked suddenly stricken, even paler than before, yet with beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. He returned to the packing case, and pulled out another parcel, wrapped in brown paper, and Daphne stifled a laugh, for it was absurd, like a tombola at a village fete; yet at the same time she wanted to cry, for there was something so dreadfully sad about the man. 'Perhaps you might be interested in taking Branwell's schoolbook, if I also included another manuscript of his poetry?' he'd said. 'Together, they offer an insight into his extraordinary intellect, at a very reasonable combined price of seventy-five pounds.'

He unwrapped the manuscript, and placed it in her hands, as tenderly as if it were a baby bird. There were four pages, entitled 'Morley Hall', written in what Daphne recognised as Branwell's legible adult handwriting, rather than the microscopic childhood print of the Angrian chronicles. As before, she read the opening lines aloud:

As she spoke, the man had nodded, as if in agreement with Branwell's melancholic poetry. 'Too true, too true,' he said, and then began to cough again. Daphne, alarmed and yet also feeling herself sinking into depression, put down the manuscript, and told the man that she would pay the seventy-five pounds; though her purchase did not fill her with much enthusiasm. She felt, as she wrote out the cheque, that Symington had trapped her into tacit complicity, so that she was party to this ridiculous pretence that he was not the man in the study with her; yet at the same time, she retained a sliver of hope that the man might be telling the truth when he said his name was Morrison.

By the time the taxi had arrived to take Daphne back to the station, she was relieved to be escaping from the house. The man's cough was worsening, and he looked feverish, which made Daphne anxious that he might be infectious with a horrible, consumptive disease, as virulent as that which had killed Branwell, then Emily and Anne, within a few months of each other. But it wasn't just a fear of physical infection taking hold of her, in that dim, cold study; she was beginning to think that his failure would be contagious. For it seemed to Daphne that a smell of failure lingered around him, and the house, a kind of mouldering dampness, against which his fever fought in vain. When he had shaken her hand in farewell, his palm felt clammy, and Daphne wiped her hand with a handkerchief once she was safely in the taxi, but his clasp remained with her tonight, his breath seemed to have stayed with her, even after she had bathed and changed her clothes.

It was now past midnight, but Daphne lay awake and restless in her single bed at the Brontë Guest House, the frost creeping in through the crack in the window. She got up, shivering, and pulled back the curtain, so that she could see the view of the Parsonage, its stone outlines still visible in the starlight. Daphne was trying to imagine the events of the last century - Branwell staggering back to the Parsonage after an evening at the Black Bull, past the graves of his mother and aunt, buried far away from their Cornish birthplace; and were they restless, still, waiting to return to the sea, but caught here, as loving, lingering spirits?

Branwell would be drunk, but not so much so that he did not think of his dead mother; nor was he immune to the disapproval of his sisters and father, waiting at home for him. Daphne stared into the darkness, hoping to summon up a wild-eyed, red-headed ghost, weaving his way through the graveyard, but there was no sign of him, nor any other creature, dead or alive. As for those purchases of Branwell's schoolbook and poem that now sat on the spindly bedside table: she could find nothing within the pages that redeemed either Branwell or Symington's faith in him. The boy who had doodled over his Latin primer turned into the fourth-rate writer of 'Morley Hall', an introductory fragment of a presumably unfinished epic, all lamely rhyming couplets and drearily interminable, even in these initial pages.