Daphne (28 page)

And yet . . . she had not given up on Branwell, or Symington, or her book. If these were hopeless causes, she would be cutting short her trip, and leaving for London early tomorrow morning, then catching the night-train home to Cornwall. But instead, she was staying in Yorkshire for another two days, as planned, determined to make use of the library at the Parsonage, and to walk in the footsteps of the Brontës, along the cobbled streets of Haworth, and up across the moors behind their home. She'd fantasised about meeting her rival biographer on the doorstep of the Parsonage - looking directly into Winifred Gerin's eyes, and telling her that Branwell was hers, and hers alone. But there had been no sightings so far of Miss Gerin, and Daphne wondered whether the woman was avoiding her.

The church bells chimed once, and Daphne shivered, and climbed back into bed. Nothing would be gained if she caught cold; she must be practical and level-headed if she was to edge ahead of Miss Gerin. Tomorrow morning, she had an appointment with Mr Mitchell, the custodian of the Parsonage, and the opportunity to study more of Branwell's manuscripts. She'd already had one encounter with Mr Mitchell, soon after arriving at Haworth, three days ago - he had spent a great deal of time telling her about his difficulties with the workmen who were building his new quarters at the Parsonage, and how his wife did not want the stove where they had put it. Daphne had felt like crying with frustration, thinking of the manuscripts waiting for her, but not wanting to offend Mr Mitchell, who was their guardian. She had hoped that Mitchell could tell her some interesting stories about the Brontës, given that he was born and bred in Haworth. But when she had tried to steer his conversation away from the builders and towards John Brown, the sexton who had been Branwell's friend and fellow Freemason, Mitchell started talking about one of Brown's descendants, a great-grandson who went to Australia and had three children out there.

Daphne was struck, suddenly, by the idea of a putative biographer coming to Fowey in a hundred years' time, to seek out information about herself . . . The biographer would doubtless end up talking to the great-nephew of a long-dead housemaid at Menabilly, who'd say something about Lady Browning writing in a hut in the woods, and then it would get all confused, the biographer would think this referred to the cottage in the woods, the one where the old ladies had lived -a pair of spiritualists, according to the housemaids, Miss Phillips and her companion, Miss Wilcox, in their witch's cottage down the hill from Menabilly. And then the story would get round that Daphne had called up the spirits, and got them to write her books, while she was in a trance or something.

She laughed to herself, as she huddled under the eiderdown, and switched out the bedside light. But in the darkness, she wished that she could call up the spirits, out of all those dried-up manuscripts. If only Branwell's ghost could appear to her now, and Emily and Charlotte and Anne. She would not be frightened of them, however wraith-like and consumptive their appearance; she would greet them as they stepped out of the shadows. But the Parsonage had just been redecorated with new wallpaper and fresh paint, and Daphne feared that the Brontës had fled from the workmen and the tourists and the endless intrusions. So be it. She could wait for them, at least for a little while longer . . . And perhaps they were lying in wait for her, still.

Newlay Grove, January 1960

Symington felt that he was burning up with anxiety, and his throat was constricted, his stomach twisted. He still could not understand why he pretended to be someone else when Daphne came to visit him last month; it was inexplicable, given how much he had been looking forward to meeting her. And yet, perhaps he had never believed that the meeting would actually happen; for why else had he kept it a secret from Beatrice? Why else had he ensured that Beatrice was out of the house when Daphne arrived, for he had been intent that the two women should not meet.

He could not remember when he took the decision to say that he was Morrison, a name that he had plucked out of the air, like a passing feather, though it was his mother's maiden name, of course, now that he came to think of it, and the name of her father's printing firm. But the more that he thought of the moment when Daphne arrived at his front door, the more it seemed to him that his assumption of another identity was not a decision; the words had simply floated out of his mouth, before he could stop them and stuff them back down his throat again.

She had looked so fine, standing there on his doorstep, in her grey flannel trousers and glossy blonde hair; so expensive, with that silk scarf knotted at her neck, and the pearl earrings, and a big diamond ring on her wedding finger. And he had felt shabby and provincial and inconsequential, when he had wanted to appear before her as a lofty scholar, authoritative and urbane, like a professor giving a tutorial to a nayve young girl.

'Lady Browning . . .' As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he had forgotten himself, forgotten everything. She was Lady Browning, the wife of a war hero, and he was an impoverished, unemployed librarian. Worse, he was disgraced. He was a disgrace. He had nothing, and she had everything.

Except Emily's notebook: he had that, but Daphne had not known he had it. That was what had made him behave so foolishly: he wanted her to know that he possessed something of such value. It was priceless, and it was his. But now he was filled with panicky dread: for in showing her Emily's notebook, he had given away his secret. Had Daphne realised that the notebook was not his to show? Had her research been thorough enough - had she delved deep enough - to know that this was the notebook that had gone missing from Sir Alfred Law's collection at Honresfeld, and that modest Mr Symington, a man as quiet as a mouse, was the last person to have it in his possession?

But he had never intended to steal the Honresfeld notebook; just as he had never meant to keep the fragments of poetry bound together in green morocco leather, that little volume he had taken from the Brontë Parsonage nearly thirty years ago, in an attempt to prove that the handwriting was Branwell's rather than Emily's. It was Wise's fault, not Symington's, for attributing Branwell's verse to Emily in order to sell it to the highest bidder; and sold it was, to a rich man foolish enough to accept Wise's authentication, when anyone with an ounce of sense could see that it was Branwell's handwriting, not Emily's; and Branwell, therefore, who had written 'The Heart which cannot know another'.

That is what he had wanted to tell Daphne; and to show her Branwell's poem, alongside Emily's verses, so that together they could compare the handwriting, becoming collaborators in their endeavours. But when it came to it, he had made a mess of the meeting. 'Just like you make a mess of everything,' hissed his mother's voice into his right ear, which was hurting, like the rest of his feverish, aching body.

And now Daphne was back in Cornwall, silent and distant, no letters sent between the two of them since the meeting last month, as though a veil had been drawn over it, to cover up their mutual embarrassment.Unless, of course, she'd fallen for his cover as Morrison, but that would mean she had never seen a photograph of him, and she must have come across a picture somewhere, in an old magazine article about the Brontë Society, perhaps. . .just as she must have encountered a reference to the missing Honresfeld notebook of Emily's poetry.

As his thoughts spiralled in upon themselves, Symington's head felt as if it would crack open; something had to give, for the tension was intolerable, it felt as if there was a boiling steam inside him. 'You have always been full of hot air,' whispered his mother.

Meanwhile, Beatrice was grumbling and nagging him about their debts, insisting that they must sell the house; her demands that he pay attention to her growing ever more shrill, but she would have to wait, he would not move, he could not move from his chair in the study. 'Go to bed, Alex,' she was saying to him. 'Go to bed, and I will ring for the doctor.'

'There is nothing a doctor can do for me,' said Symington, but he did not know if she could hear him; his voice was drowned out by his coughing, and he was burning up, everything was burning, everything consumed at last . . .

Hampstead, 1 September

I've spent so many years in education that September always seems like a beginning, but I know it's an ending, as well. This year, there's no fresh start of a term, though I've found a new job, at a local bookshop. I've got to earn some money - I've got to start supporting myself, instead of relying on Paul - and I'm about to move out of his house, and start paying the rent on a room of my own. It was his suggestion that I go, but he was right; I can't go on living with him, like a sleepwalker. That was his description for our marriage - 'sleepwalking' - and at first, I didn't understand what he meant, but now I do, and I can see it was a bit like dreaming, though not in a good way; it was like one of those dreams when you're watching yourself, as if you have no control over the narrative, and things just happen . . .

Everything unravelled between us after I came back from Menabilly. Paul was in the hotel, waiting for me, white-faced and angry. He said he had been worried, that he was just about to call the police and report me as missing. 'We can't go on like this,' he said, and I thought, what a cliché, but it was true. I was too tired to cry, or to argue with him; I just nodded my head, and had a shower, and got into bed. He put his arms around me, and said he was sorry, that he shouldn't have got involved with me so soon after Rachel leaving him, and he was too old for me, anyway. 'What you mean is I'm too young for you,' I said, and he said, 'It doesn't matter which way you phrase it, we're just not meant to be together.'

'Did you ever love me?' I said to him, resting my head against his shoulder.

'I thought I did,' he said. 'But I was still in a mess over Rachel, and I couldn't think straight. I thought I was falling in love with a girl who was completely different to Rachel - you were so young and guileless, such an innocent. And then after we got married, and you came to live with me, I wondered if I'd fallen in love with a young Rachel, as if you were what she had once been, before it all went wrong.'

'But I'm not like Rachel,' I said. 'You must be able to see that?'

'I don't know whether I'm seeing anything clearly,' said Paul. 'I'm too confused to trust myself, or anyone else, including you.'

Everything felt so broken that night - even the words we said to each other, all of it broken-down and impossible to fix; even when we were making love, and he was as passionate as the first time, but I knew it was the last. Afterwards, in the darkness, I said, 'I've got something to tell you.'

'I already know what it is,' he said. 'I've already spoken to Rachel. I rang her tonight, because I couldn't think of anyone else to talk to.'

'Rachel told you we'd met?' I said.

'She told me that she had come to the house, to collect her books and that you went with her to Haworth.' His voice sounded flat, not angry, just exhausted. I wanted to say, 'Is there anyone else?' But of course there was, it was pointless asking; I knew that Rachel was on his mind, that he'd not yet had a chance to work out what he felt about her, because he'd thought that by convincing himself he was in love with me, that would obliterate all of his misery and uncertainty about Rachel. It didn't work, and how could it? I was just a red herring, a wrong turning on his map. I was a forged signature, and Rachel was the real thing.

And I got everything mixed up when I was with Paul -getting obsessed with the relationship between Daphne and Symington, when I should have been paying more attention to what was going on between Paul and me; or maybe between Paul and Rachel. I still don't understand the state of their relationship; when I think about it now, it seems like a nation state, and I'm an illegal immigrant who somehow stumbled across their borders.

I'm mixing up my metaphors, aren't I? And I know I'm probably still not thinking straight, and although there's a certain liberation in that, I don't want to let my thoughts twist in on themselves. That's why my first instinct was to start working as a librarian, after Paul told me I needed to get a job and find somewhere else to live, and, by implication, someone else to love. I thought it would be soothing, to spend my days putting books in alphabetical order; that indexing and filing would be a useful way to smooth out my problems. But when it came to it, I decided I didn't want to fall into following my parents, not without trying something else first. I can see that working in a bookshop might not seem the boldest of alternatives to librarianship, but it's a start. And unlike libraries, you have to talk in a bookshop, and that's been good for me, though it's a struggle sometimes. Customers come in and ask for advice on what they should buy as a birthday present for a melancholy teenage daughter, or an irritable great-uncle, and I do my best to be helpful, to make useful suggestions.

This morning, a woman said to me that she was looking for something to read when she went into hospital for an operation. 'I need a book to save my life,' she said, half-smiling. 'And I don't mean the Bible, or any religious tract.'

I looked at her and I said, 'What about Jane Eyre?'

'What about it?' she said.

'Well, it's about being a survivor, isn't it?' I said.

She laughed, and shook her head. 'I want something slightly more cheerful.'

'So that rules out
Wuthering Heights
,' I said. 'And probably
Rebecca
and
My Cousin Rachel
, as well.'

'Daphne du Maurier?' she said. 'That's not a bad idea. I could do with a bit of romantic escapism.'

I thought about telling her that Daphne du Maurier wasn't necessarily escapist, nor was her writing particularly romantic - it's much too menacing for that - and that actually,
Jane Eyre
has a very happy ending, which most people found cheering in some way. But I stopped myself, and went off to the far corner of the shop to find a copy of
Frenchman's Creek
, du Maurier's most straightforwardly romantic novel, and when I came back, the woman said, 'Thank you, my dear, that looks just what the doctor ordered.'

So I was feeling reasonably pleased with myself and wondering if I might turn out to be quite a competent bookseller, after all. And then I saw Rachel walk into the shop. I don't think she had expected to find me there - because she looked as surprised as I did; her cheeks flushed red, and she put her hand to her forehead, almost as if she were taking her own temperature, to see if she was feverish. And as I looked at her, looking at me, I suddenly guessed that she'd come from Paul's house - their house - and they had been talking about me. Perhaps that was just me being childishly self-centred; they might have had better things to talk about, or maybe she hadn't been with him, and the entire episode was coincidental. But anyway, once the thought had lodged itself in my head, it wouldn't go away.

'Hello,' I said to Rachel, because it wasn't a big enough shop for us to pretend that we hadn't seen each other. 'Can I help you?'

She raised an eyebrow, as if trying to regain her usual composure and self-possession. 'I don't know,' she said. 'Can you?'

Suddenly, I found her incredibly annoying. 'Rachel, don't be arch with me,' I said, 'and please stop manipulating me.' Which struck me as one of the bravest and boldest things I've ever said to anyone; pathetic, I know, but you have to start somewhere. 'I suppose you've already heard that Paul and I are separating. It wouldn't surprise me if you've just come from his house, and the two of you have been discussing me. I must seem like a problem that needs to be got rid of.'

'It's not like that,' she said.

'Like what?' I said, and folded my arms, to stop them from trembling.

'Look, do you want to talk?' she said, and I said no, I was at work, and it wasn't appropriate. 'Inappropriate because you're at work, or because my ex-husband is now your ex-husband?' she said, and smiled at me.

There was something about that smile that was so beguiling and seductive that I wanted to laugh and to be seduced again, even though I'd hated her a minute ago. But I stopped myself because I knew that if I fell for Rachel's charm, I'd be back where I started again; which would be hopeless - it would be like falling into someone else's scheme of things, instead of my own. Not that I have a scheme, but even so . . .

'Well?' said Rachel, reaching out to touch my cheek.

'I just don't get you,' I said, which wasn't a very elegant turn of phrase, but I was feeling flustered. 'I don't see why you dragged me into your burglary of the Symington papers from the Brontë Parsonage.'

'I thought you'd be interested,' she said, letting her hand drop again, by her side.

'Well, of course I'm interested,' I said, 'but then you disappeared. So I'm an accessory to your crime, but with none of the proceeds.'

'I'm surprised at you,' she said, 'I thought you'd be more enterprising, and come after me.'

'I don't want to come after you,' I said. 'That's the point. It's been bad enough coming after you with Paul. I'm not going to chase you over some old manuscripts. Did you find what you were looking for, anyway? The notebook of Emily Brontë's poems?'

'The Honresfeld notebook,' she said, and a wistful look passed over her face. 'There are some very interesting references to it in those papers that I borrowed from the Brontë Parsonage.'

'
Borrowed?
' I said. 'I imagine that's how Symington would have explained his thefts. "Borrowed in the interests of academic research . . ." '

'Don't be such a boring child,' said Rachel. 'And I returned the Symington file on the same day that we were there, as it happens, before anyone had noticed that it had gone. Anyway, aren't you interested to know that Symington was the last person to have the Honresfeld notebook? He borrowed it from the Law collection, supposedly in order to have it copied as a facsimile for his Shakespeare Head edition. He mentioned it in several letters in the 1930s, and then it disappears from sight. Sir Alfred Law died childless in 1939, and no one knows what became of his collection - whether it was sold and dispersed to other private collectors, or whether it was passed down to another branch of the family. But wherever the Law collection went, Emily's notebook never turned up again, and I'm desperate to find out what Symington did with it. As far as I can see, he didn't return it to the Law collection at any point . . .'

As she talked, I was finding myself getting interested, despite my vow not to be sucked in again. 'I already knew that Symington had taken the notebook,' I said, not wanting Rachel to think that she'd discovered something new to me. 'But I wonder if Symington sold it to Daphne du Maurier, along with the other Brontë manuscripts that she bought from him?'

'That's what I've been wondering,' said Rachel, 'so it's a shame you didn't tell me you were going to be making an expedition to Menabilly. We could have gone together, and done a bit more research . . .'

When she said that, I felt angry again, thinking of how Paul had told her that we'd been to Cornwall last month; and that they
had
been talking about me. And yes, I know that sounds childish, because I should have been the one who told Paul about my encounters with Rachel; I shouldn't have let him discover that from her, rather than me. 'Rachel,' I said, trying to keep my voice steady, 'you can't possibly believe that we would find a lost Brontë manuscript in Menabilly. Daphne moved out of the house in 1969.'

'Apparently she had a huge bonfire of papers when she was forced to leave Menabilly,' I said, slowly. 'I've always thought it sounded a bit like a re-enactment of the end of
Rebecca
, like Mrs Danvers setting the house on fire, or Mrs Rochester in
Jane Eyre
. . .'

'Surely you're not suggesting that Daphne du Maurier burnt a priceless Brontë manuscript?' said Rachel.

'No, I'm not,' I said, 'but I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the letters she had from Symington are missing, and I've sometimes wondered if she burnt those.'

'Why?' said Rachel. 'It doesn't make sense, when she kept the other letters from him. Which I'd still very much like to read, by the way.'

'I bet you would,' I said. 'I suppose you need them for a new book.'

'As a matter of fact, I do,' she said. 'I was going to dedicate it to you.'

'Why would you do that?' I said.

'I love the idea of the scandal it would cause in academia,' she said. 'And it seems fitting, as well. You know how interested I am in exploring the idea of literary influences - of what has been passed from the Brontës to du Maurier, and of what passes between women.'

'I don't think I do know,' I said.

'Oh yes you do,' she said. 'You just haven't realised it yet.'

And then she scribbled down her phone number on a bit of paper - a London number, I noticed, not American. 'Keep in touch,' she said, over her shoulder, as she walked out of the shop, 'and don't forget to tell me your new address.'

I didn't say anything - I couldn't fit the words together in my head, let alone my mouth. But now, I'm thinking of all the things I should have said to Rachel. What did she want from me, apart from Symington and Daphne's letters to one other? Why had she involved me in her relationship with Paul? Was it some sort of strategic move, which formed part of a larger plan that would bring them together again? Or had they ever really given up on each other? Was I just a temporary interloper?

As for talking to Paul about all of this: well, I want to, but he hasn't come home yet, and it's late, past midnight. I imagine he's with Rachel, wherever she might be; her dark glossy hair swinging over her face, over the curves of her lips and cheekbones, so that I can't see her properly, even in my mind's eye. It's probably just as well, though, that Paul isn't here to answer my questions. If I started talking to him about Rachel, I'd be part of her triangle again, and I know that it would be better to stay out of it. Actually, I'm probably still in it, but edging my way to a different place; slowly, slowly, but I'll get there, eventually.