She has to wait until November before she can see Fernande again. In the meantime, Mlle Yvon has opened her own school in Boulogne-sur-Seine, with two students, her new boarders. She has adopted a dog, a German shepherd named Schüller. Daphne feels at ease in the headmistress’s modest house on Rue des Tilleuls, close to the woods. She would rather stay there than at a hotel, taking advantage of her status as Ferdie’s favorite. Within a few days, she succeeds in winning over the fierce Schüller, and while Fernande gives lessons, Daphne goes out for walks. The two weeks pass quickly.
In Hampstead, faced with Gerald’s interrogations and her mother’s cool indifference, Daphne is relieved to be able to accept an invitation from the great family friend Edgar Wallace to spend the New Year holidays with his family in Caux, Switzerland, at the luxurious Palace Hotel. Angela goes with her. They have never tried winter sports before, and it is a revelation, especially for Daphne, who is naturally more athletic than Angela. Against a snowy fairy-tale backdrop, Daphne discovers the pleasures of skiing, sledding, and ice-skating. In the evenings, there are dances in the ballroom of the Palace Hotel, and the du Maurier sisters, free of the paternal yoke, prove immensely popular, Angela for her sense of humor and her contagious laugh, Daphne for her beauty and her talent as a dancer. They spend their nights at the bar, drinking, laughing, and dancing, along with all the other girls in their golden little world. The champagne flows, their heads spin, the boys flock to them, and kisses are distributed in a frenzy of casual flings. For the first time in her life, at nearly twenty years old, with admiring eyes watching her on the dance floor, Daphne feels beautiful, becomes aware of her seductive charms.
In March 1927, Daphne goes to Berlin with the actress Viola Tree, a close friend of her parents. Viola has professional engagements to attend during her stay: she has to meet a director, visit a few theaters. Though this is almost certainly a diversion deliberately created by her parents, Daphne submits without protest: Viola is a lovely woman, and the young writer is curious to discover Berlin. In her journal, she notes: Complete efficiency. Quiet. Little traffic in the streets. Enormous amount of people everywhere. Complete luxury at the Hotel Adlon, where Viola, excited as a child, turned all the taps on in the bathroom full blast. We dine at a bourgeois café. How the Germans love their food!2 The next day, a walk in the Tiergarten pales beside Daphne’s memories of the Bois de Boulogne: the passersby all look so dour and plain, and while the Kaiser’s former palace in Potsdam is undeniably impressive, as is Frederick the Great’s Sanssouci Palace, it still isn’t Paris. No other city could ever take Paris’s place in her heart. She goes back there in April, to stay with Ferdie for three weeks, and enjoys taking Schüller for walks in the woods, goes for solitary strolls along the Left Bank while Fernande gives classes, sits outside Le Dôme Café with the ghost of Kicky and drinks lemonade. Something has changed, though. Paris and Fernande both retain their appeal, but now Daphne is captivated by another place, a place she thinks about constantly. Fowey. The name of that town is on her lips all the time, Fernande complains, feeling abandoned. Daphne’s mind is elsewhere: she dreams of returning to Fowey, of seeing Ferryside again after eight months of renovation work carried out energetically by her mother, and Ferdie, saddened, can sense it.
A few days before her twentieth birthday—May 9, 1927—Daphne takes a train to join up with Muriel and Angela, who have moved into Ferryside with the help of Viola and dear old Tod, who has gone to visit them. Daphne is stunned by the transformation in their new second home; her mother has performed miracles. On the first floor, Daphne discovers a vast, light-filled, comfortable living room where boats used to be made, and on the second floor, in place of the sail storeroom, she admires several pleasant bedrooms and a modern bathroom. On the top floor are her parents’ bedroom, their bathroom, a large dining room, and a fully fitted kitchen.
The real miracle, though, is that Daphne has been given the green light by her parents to stay at Ferryside alone for a month, after the others leave on May 14. She still can’t quite believe this. Did they give in to her pleas out of weakness? Have they simply accepted her obsession with Fowey? Whatever the reason, it is a demonstration of trust. A woman from the village will come and cook for her and clean the house, but apart from this nice, honest Mrs. Coombs and Biggins the gardener, Daphne will be alone for the first time in her life. The car leaves, with Muriel, Angela, Tod, and Viola inside, and the heavy wooden door closes. Daphne jumps for joy, stroking the rough walls at the back of the living room, formed by the cliff face, caressing their cool crevices, singing at the top of her voice, and going outside through the room on the second floor, which has a door that opens on to the garden. She gambols in the grass, turning her face up to the May sun, and thinks how wonderful life is. She turned twenty yesterday and she is alone in her favorite place in the world. This is the best birthday present her parents could possibly have given her: this freedom, here and now.
Before she does anything else, she must master her new kingdom, get to know every nook and cranny of it. Daphne wakes early to the sound of seagulls and ship horns, eats a quick breakfast, puts on her sea boots and a pair of pants (she can’t stand skirts, which she considers impractical) and a blue-and-white-striped sweater, not forgetting the cap pulled down over her short hair. She looks like a sailor, and this pleases her. She walks, stick in hand, up the slope behind the house, turns right after the ruins of the St. John chapel, climbs the path toward Pont Pill, the peaceful estuary of the River Fowey that winds through the greenness of the ferns. A sign warns that the area is private, but she pays no heed and walks through the copses, intoxicated by the smell of damp earth, crossing through St. Wyllow and heading for Polruan. The sunlight filters through the dense foliage, a stream babbles close by, and behind a bush she discovers a shady, sparkling pond. She passes old quarries, disused lime kilns, barley silos, piles of coal. Down below, on the layers of mud that dry when the tide is low, she spots the framework of a schooner, with a figurehead still fastened to its hull. Fascinated, she rushes down the slope to take a closer look at the remains of this abandoned ship and reads the name still visible on its stern: Jane Slade. What was this ship’s story? Where did it go? How dashing it must have been with this black-haired woman on its bow, her face lifted up in a smile, a bouquet of flowers held to her chest.
At the top of the steep path, in Lanteglos, on the road to Polruan, there is a little stone church that reminds Daphne of the simplicity of Notre-Dame-de-Kergonan, in Trébeurden. She likes to stop here and admire the old gravestones, the names of the dead overrun by a dogged orange lichen. One morning, she manages to decipher the name Jane Slade 1812–1885 on one of the tombs. The same woman the shipwrecked boat was named after? Who was this famous Jane Slade? How could she find out? Daphne pushes the thick oak door, which opens with a creak, and enters the silence of a sacred space she respects, even if she is not a regular churchgoer, feeling nourished by the sense of peace that emanates from these old yellow stone walls, these west-facing stained-glass windows that filter a hopeful light, these sculpted wooden benches worn away by the years. Here, as in Trébeurden, she can sense the fervor left behind by generations of sailing families who came to this church to pray.
When she goes back down to the village, the inhabitants she meets are all welcoming. They have come to recognize her slender, boyish figure, her long athletic stride, and they all wave to her, call her Miss Daphne. And she, in turn, is beginning to learn their names: the Bunnys, the Hunkins, Captain Bate, Miss Roberts … She goes by the dock, observes the boats, noting their names, their shapes, imagining what they might be carrying, where they might be going, where they might stop over on the way. Everything about this maritime world interests her, and she gulps down the details. Sailors come to Fowey from all over the world to fetch cargos of clay and kaolin, down there, at Carne Point, at the modern, fully equipped landing stage. She goes there and watches the operations, becoming covered in white powder. This makes her laugh. She likes n
othing more than listening to sailors, feeding on their stories of the sea, of storms, captivated by these men who spend more time on water than on terra firma.
There is one, in particular, whom she could listen to for hours: Harry Adams, a veteran of the Battle of Jutland, a big, strapping fellow, his features craggy with age, who is amused by this well-bred, angelic-looking young lady who dresses just like him. She wants to learn to sail? Perfect—he can teach her. He knows this estuary like the back of his hand. With his help, she learns in the space of a few weeks how to raise a sail, work out the strength and direction of the wind, steer, head out to sea. With him, she goes fishing, even in bad weather, and she doesn’t flinch when she has to pull the hook from the mouth of a wriggling fish, she isn’t afraid of the long eels they drag from the water near the jetties in the evening, after sunset. Sitting face-to-face in the fisherman’s boat, they talk: he tells her about the history of Fowey, about his youth, his love of the sea. Does he, by any chance, know the story of the Jane Slade, the wreck of the schooner that lies at Pont Pill? Know it? Of course he does! He’s married to a Slade, granddaughter of the famous Jane, and his brother-in-law, who runs a naval shipyard in Polruan, undoubtedly has some old letters lying around somewhere. Harry would be happy to find out, if she’s interested.
In the euphoria of these first weeks, Daphne almost forgets what she has come to Ferryside to do: write. She gets down to work, writing a poem inspired by Jane Slade, then a short story, “And Now to God the Father,” about a conceited London priest, every bit as dark and disturbing as her previous tales. In her journal, she writes: I walk back by the loveliest lane imaginable, absolutely filled with peace and beauty. I could cry and laugh with happiness. I walk slowly, taking it in. Tired when I get back, and I read.3 She feels guilty, though: she is behind in her letter writing, she hasn’t written to Fernande since she arrived here, nor to her parents, and the latest letter she receives from Aunt Billy only intensifies her guilt: It’s rather selfish of you, darling, not to write home and tell them what you are doing, when it’s so kind of them to let you be down at Ferryside on your own.4
Thankfully, Daddy isn’t there—he is absorbed by his latest play—because Geoffrey, the dark handsome cousin she hasn’t seen since that summer when she was fourteen, writes to her from Plymouth, where he is staying with his brother. Could he drop by and see her one day? She doesn’t need to be asked twice. She picks him up at the train station, noting that he has aged—he is nearly forty-two now, after all—but the blue sparkle in his eyes is as flirtatious as ever. Immediately they strike up the same kind of naturally complicit relationship they enjoyed before, and which so worried Gerald: they laugh, joke, have fun together, going for a long, exhausting walk around Fowey and then having a drink outside the house as night falls. They don’t touch each other, don’t hold hands, but Daphne knows the old attraction is still there, even if the feeling between them has become more fraternal. Her cousin comes to spend the afternoon with her on several other occasions. When Gerald finds out about this, he phones his daughter, suspicious and inquisitive: What did they do? Where did they go? When is he coming back again? Later, she recounts this conversation to Geoffrey, who has a good laugh: Old Uncle Gerald, on the warpath again, they should make him believe the worst; that would be funny, wouldn’t it? Daphne scolds him: he’s crazy, irresponsible, her father would be furious. Suddenly Geoffrey grows serious: oh come on, she knows he’s always been like that; it’s in his nature, that irresponsibility, that lightheartedness, it’s because of their cursed French blood, and that phrase makes his cousin smile, despite herself.
Her month of solitude comes to an end. In mid-June, Angela arrives from London with her Pekinese dog, Wendy, to take her sister back to Cannon Hall. Daphne is devastated at the idea of leaving Fowey. She must wait until the family vacation in July to sleep at Ferryside again, with her younger sister, Jeanne, when they go down to open the house up for the summer. There is an exciting surprise waiting for her: the gardener, Biggins, gives her a young dog—a cross between a spaniel and a sheepdog—named Bingo, who accompanies Daphne on her daily walks.
Gerald is going to visit Ferryside for the first time. The rest of the family worries about this. Will he love this house as much as his wife and daughters do? Won’t he be bored, far from his club, his “stable,” his theater, his garden? In readiness for the summer, and to please Daphne, Gerald has bought a motorboat, the Cora Ann. While she waits for her father to arrive, Daphne learns to pilot the boat with her new friend, Harry Adams. She manages quite well, he tells her. In fact, his brother-in-law does have a packet of letters and other documents relating to Jane Slade, and he can show them to her if she’s still interested: it all relates to the history of the Slade family and the construction of the ship. Daphne joyfully accepts, but she doesn’t have time to read them because her parents arrive, along with their usual stacks of suitcases, their friend Viola, and their servants. The peacefulness of Ferryside is shattered.
The vacation begins in the worst possible way. It pours with rain. Muriel twists both her ankles and has to stay in bed. Viola slips on the docks outside the house, falling into the water and catching pneumonia. Gerald, who has never piloted a boat in his life, almost crashes the Cora Ann against the rocks. Daphne has the impression that her sanctuary has been invaded; she submits in silence to the permanent flow of elegant visitors who come and go all summer. Every morning, she escapes, going out to sea with Adams, sailing to Polperro with him, living the life of a sailor, in pants and sweater, her hair a mess, her face tanned, to the despair of her mother, who wishes she would wear dresses and keep her skin nice and pale.
In October, when the time comes to leave Ferryside, Daphne writes in her journal, sitting by the window of her second-floor bedroom: I’ve just realized that I think of nothing nowadays but fishing, and ships, and the sea, and a seaman’s life. Adams and I go out and catch mackerel until after seven, and after dark we go up to the jetties and I catch a monster conger-eel, I’m sure it weighs about 30 lb. The river, the harbour, the sea. It’s much more than love for a person. I don’t know how I’m going to exist back in London. It’s heart-breaking. To go away from this, the place that I love. I gaze for a long while at the sea. I tell the garden, the sea, that I shall be back soon. It all belongs to me now.5
* * *
Twenty years old, and so impatient. She is dying of boredom in this damned city, London, when she could catch a train and escape to Fowey! How futile it all seems, accompanying her mother to Selfridges, carrying parcels, standing on a crowded Tube, rushing everywhere. Daphne daydreams that she is on the boat with Adams, feeling it sway on the rolling sea, hearing the shrill cry of the seagulls, breathing the salty odor of the breeze, imagining Bingo’s joyous barking when she sets foot onshore again. There is only one way out: she must leave Cannon Hall. Winter arrives, with its gray skies. Ferryside is shut up. But there is still Paris. Yes, there will always be Paris. On an impulse, Daphne spends all her savings—more than thirty-five pounds—on a round-trip train ticket from Victoria to the Gare du Nord. She announces to her parents that she is going to France for a few weeks, and she says it so firmly, good lord, jutting out that bold chin of hers, that they don’t dare say a word. She just packs her bags and goes. Rue des Tilleuls is waiting for her with open arms. How happy she is to see Fernande and Schüller again, and four new students. One unpleasant surprise is the presence of a certain Joan, an elegant, thin-faced brunette, American, a former boarder at Camposenea. Daphne remembers her, one of those snooty members of the “elite” who did not at all appreciate Daphne’s entry into the back room. Now Joan is strutting around, leaving an affectionate hand on Ferdie’s shoulder, whispering languorously into her ear. Daphne’s enjoyment of this getaway is due less to Fernande than to the pleasure of rediscovering France. In her journal, Daphne writes in French, after a walk to Boulogne, on Rue des Menus, describing her freedom, strolling hatless along the streets of the Italian quarter.
&nbs
p; The return to Hampstead in mid-December is, as always, painful. Her mother and her sisters have gone to Fowey to prepare Ferryside for the Christmas festivities. What has happened to her father? As soon as he gets up in the morning, his breath reeks of alcohol. He hangs around the house, whining self-pityingly. At a birthday dinner for Gladys Cooper, their actress friend, he gets drunk, and Daphne has to take him back in the car, alone, while he blubbers on her shoulder. She entrusts him to the servants, unable to bear his shamefaced expression when she leaves the room. Why has her mother burdened her with such a responsibility? It isn’t up to her—his daughter—to look after him. Gerald is fifty-four, his hair is thinning, his long face is gaunt, the numberless cigarettes have wizened his skin, yellowed his teeth, and yet he still he thinks he’s Peter Pan. He is a child. He is pitiful, even if the love she feels for him is unaltered. Her father, so vain, so self-centered, and at the same time so endearing and fragile. This complex personality simultaneously fascinates and repulses her.
Daphne takes the train with Gerald to Cornwall on December 21, 1927, to join the rest of the family. He is in a better state, but his blue eyes fill with tears as he watches the landscape speed past, his hands tremble, and he cries during lunch, though she has no idea why. She doesn’t dare ask (does she really want to know the answer, after all?). Shouldn’t he see a doctor? She doesn’t know how to describe these recent days to her mother, how to put words to the crisis that her father is going through, how to disclose the drunken incident at Gladys’s house. How can her mother bear such behavior? What a farce marriage is! How do people manage to spend the rest of their lives together?