Manderley Forever

  In the mornings, Daphne and her sisters have to be careful not to make noise in the nursery, as their parents’ bedroom is just below. Daddy gets back late from the theater, never before midnight. And then he has to eat supper, so he doesn’t go to bed until two in the morning at the earliest. Daddy can’t bear noise, especially not the racket made by children laughing and jumping about. He doesn’t like the sound of a dog’s bark either, or a car engine backfiring, or a bird singing too loudly in the park. While she waits, Daphne reads. When she gets up, she walks on tiptoes, and so does Angela. They have to wait for the maid to take Daddy’s breakfast to him in bed. Her footstep on the stairs, her cheerful Good morning, sir: these are the signals that the girls can go and say hello to their father. He wears a green bathrobe over his silk pajamas, and Daphne loves the pleasant scent that floats around him. Daddy is never in a bad mood. She once got her bottom spanked, when she stuck her tongue out at Nanny, but that was a long time ago.

  Daphne’s father is an actor. Every evening, he plays at being someone else, at the theater. To begin with, she doesn’t understand what this means: How can Daddy transform himself? It is only when she sees him onstage for the first time, in makeup and costume, that she grasps his mystery: Daddy is capable of being pompous Mr. Darling one moment and becoming scary Captain Hook the next. How does he manage to change his voice, his expressions, his mannerisms, even the way he walks, to such an extent? She is fond of the dusty smell of the theater, the bar she must push on the heavy door that leads backstage, the kindly stage manager, Bob, with his friendly winks. She enjoys watching these shadowy figures at work in the wings, the light show, the shifting backdrops, the last-minute details, the concentration in the eyes of Poole, the red-faced costumer who helps her father change his clothes. She never misses the chance to watch her father removing his makeup after the play is over. Daddy’s work is not like other people’s work. Her friends have daddies who go to the office each morning. Hers goes to the theater each evening. The theater is his life.

  Mummy tells her daughters that she too, was an actress when she was younger. That was how she met Gerald, in 1902, when they were acting in the same play, The Admirable Crichton. Daddy was playing the role of Ernest Woolley, while Mummy was Lady Agatha. The man who wrote it would become a very close friend of theirs: James Matthew Barrie, known as Uncle Jim, the author of Peter Pan. Daphne has seen a photograph of Mummy in that role: she was a beauty back then, with her thick dark hair in a bun and her eyes accentuated by eye shadow and mascara. In the play, they fell in love, and in real life, too. Mummy’s name was Muriel Beaumont, her maiden name and her stage name. She took to the stage very young, but she decided to stop acting after her wedding. Angela asked her why, and Daphne could guess what her response would be. She had already understood that there was only a place for one actor in the du Maurier clan, one person only who would shine, one person only who would call the shots at Cumberland Terrace.

  Gerald gets bored easily. He needs to be entertained; he needs a court. He likes to be applauded, admired, and Muriel knows exactly how to look after him, his house, his well-being, how to ensure he gets enough rest, the right meals, his afternoon nap. She invites lots of people, organizes outings, parties. She is the one who prepares his supper, in her bathrobe, late at night, when he comes home from the theater, starving; what he likes best is bacon and eggs, even at one in the morning. Everything revolves around Daphne’s father, and apparently it has been this way since he was born. When Daddy was a little boy, he was the favorite son of the du Maurier family, the last of five siblings, and his mother called him “ewee lamb.” Daphne finds it hard to imagine “Big Granny”—serious faced, imposing, always dressed in black—whispering “ewee lamb” to Daddy.

  Every day, Daphne’s father gets up late, in no rush, and the household waits on him hand and foot. He takes his time choosing his shoes, his suit, and then goes off to the theater for rehearsals. He has lunch at the Garrick Club, not far from Leicester Square, and in late afternoon—before taking his quick nap, before the curtain rises—he returns to the house and always gives his daughters a hug in the nursery, a cigarette perpetually between his lips. Daphne looks forward impatiently to Daddy’s arrival. This is the hour of games and tales, and her father is funny, sparkling: he makes them howl with laughter when he imitates the next-door neighbor with her stiff-backed gait, her pouty fish lips, the way she holds her umbrella. He adores making fun of other people behind their backs, while being perfectly polite to their faces. Daddy is skillful, creative; with his help, the girls start to invent a personal jargon, a sort of code that they add to little by little, and which enables them to communicate without anyone else being able to guess what they’re really talking about. Sitting on a “hard chair,”* “see-me,”* “tell-him,”* all have other meanings.* Daddy encourages them to put on plays at home. He watches enthusiastically, applauds them, calls Muriel over so she can encourage them, too. Daphne always insists on being given the role of a boy. No way will she play a girl. Angela prefers to remain a girl. Besides, with her curves, it would be difficult for Angela to pass for a boy. How boring, to be a girl. Wouldn’t Daddy have preferred a boy? Daphne is sure of one thing: she would have made an excellent son.

  One summer evening, Daddy turns up at the nursery along with a small man with intense eyes, a high forehead, and a big black moustache: the famous J. M. Barrie, the man who created Peter Pan, the author of several plays starring their father. Uncle Jim speaks with a rough Scottish accent. He is the legal guardian of their five cousins, the Llewelyn Davies boys, the sons of their aunt Sylvia, Daddy’s favorite sister. Daphne does not remember Aunt Sylvia, who died tragically of cancer when Daphne was only three. She doesn’t remember her uncle Arthur either, Sylvia’s husband, who also died of cancer, a few years before his wife. All Daphne knows is that Barrie adopted the five orphans and he is now raising them himself. It was for them that Uncle Jim invented Peter Pan, the adventure of a boy who didn’t want to grow up. The handsome and charming George, Jack, Peter, Michael, and Nico were his inspiration for the Lost Boys.

  Sitting by the fire in the nursery, Uncle Jim asks the girls to perform his own play, Peter Pan. They know it by heart, performing it almost every night for their own pleasure, but they never tire of it. They are even capable of singing him the musical opening. Of course, Daddy will play both Captain Hook and Mr. Darling, as he’s done so brilliantly onstage many times. Angela plays Wendy and Mrs. Darling. Jeanne takes the roles of Tinker Bell and Tiger Lily. Daphne does all she can to make sure she plays Peter Pan; no way is she letting either of her sisters take “her” Peter! They leap from chair to chair, pretend to fly, wriggle on the floor in imitation of swimming mermaids, mimic perfectly the tick-tock of the crocodile that frightens Captain Hook so badly. It’s such a success that Gerald insists his daughters put on their plays for guests downstairs, in the living room. Daphne understands why her father loves becoming someone else: it’s true, she thinks, how intoxicating it is to put on a costume and change one’s appearance. She no longer feels shy at all when she acts in front of her parents’ friends. Mrs. Torrance, the governess, helps the sisters to rehearse. The guests clap and cheer. And what if life was, ultimately, about pretending? For Daphne’s father, this seems to be exactly the case, and he does it with such ease that she wonders if she might not manage it, too. As well as ridding herself of her shyness, she could, at last, be something more than a mere girl. She could become a boy.

  Gerald looks so handsome in his makeup; she loves to watch him onstage in his various roles, season after season: Arsène Lupin, elegant and cunning, the audacious Raffles, Hubert Ware, sinisterly attractive, and Jimmy Valentine, the safecracker with the eventful life. Daphne notices the way the girls in the audience devour her father with their eyes. They seem to be in a trance from the moment he appears; they breathe differently, faster, as if they are in love with him.

  One day, Daphne gets some sense of Daddy’s aura. It is Angela’s ten
th birthday, and Gerald takes the family to lunch at the Piccadilly Hotel. On the sidewalk in front of the building, two passersby turn around. They look excited, thrilled. Inside the restaurant, it’s the same story: the insistent stares, the complicit smiles. Daphne reads their surname on everyone’s lips. Du Maurier. Du Maurier. She watches her father while he chooses his meal, the wine, while he leans down to reply to little Jeanne. Gerald is not really handsome, with his long, thin face and his large ears, but he has a godlike radiance that attracts the gaze of everyone near him. She observes the waiters’ obsequiousness, the bowing and scraping of the hotel manager who comes out to greet them, and, all the way through their lunch, the eyes of the other customers turned toward her father. Daphne is only seven, but for the first time she realizes how famous her father is, and how famous, too, is her French-sounding surname.

  * * *

  There is a word that sounds constantly in the mouths of the grown-ups, a word that Daphne dislikes. It is short and hard. It is the word “war.” They say it every day. Since when? She can’t remember, but she understands that something serious is happening in the outside world, far from Regent’s Park, far from this city where she was born. This word is like a cloud moving toward her, casting a shadow over her tranquil life. On the face of it, nothing changes: the walks in the park, the games, the reading, the meals, the lessons with Mrs. Torrance. What changes is the expression on the adults’ faces. It looks like fear. But why are they afraid? And why do people hate the Germans so much? What have they done? Around the table, during meals, with cousins, uncles, and aunts, everyone vehemently criticizes the Germans. She has to come to their defense. One evening, Daphne takes advantage of a pause in the lively conversation to proclaim in a loud, clear voice that she, personally, likes the Germans and that it would be wonderful if a German could come to tea at their house. All eyes turn to her. Icy silence. Muriel’s face is red as a brick. You stupid little girl, how dare you talk about things you don’t understand? Daphne falls silent, stares at her plate. The conversation resumes, the subject changes. She feels ashamed. But behind her embarrassment, she feels a new sense of pride. Because she has made the grown-ups notice her.

  Soldiers appear all over the neighborhood. Daphne sees them each time she goes for a walk with the nurse. They are dressed in khaki uniforms, marching proudly along Albany Street, across Regent’s Park. The passersby applaud them, wave at them. One morning, the family accompanies Uncle Guy—Gerald’s older brother—to Waterloo train station. The platform is crowded with people. Uncle Guy is going off to war. She doesn’t know where the war is, but she notices the sadness in her father’s eyes, the sorrow and the fear, too. Big Granny’s face crumples when she embraces her son the soldier for the last time. When the train has left the station, when Uncle Guy’s waving hand can no longer be seen, Big Granny suddenly collapses on the ground. Daphne sees her dress and her cape spreading out beneath her like a huge black flower, her hat tipped sideways to reveal her white hair. Gerald and Muriel rush over, they fetch her a glass of water, and Big Granny regains consciousness, but the tears roll ceaselessly over her wrinkled cheeks.

  The sadness stains each passing day. Big Granny falls sick and dies a few months later. Daphne’s cousin George, the eldest of the Llewelyn Davies boys, dies at the front. He was only twenty-one. And then there is that day in March, even darker, when, climbing the staircase in Cumberland Terrace, Daphne sees her sister standing outside her parents’ room, her eyes swollen and full of tears. Between sobs, Angela whispers that Uncle Guy has been killed, Daddy is inconsolable.

  Daphne has to wear a black armband around her left arm. In the park, she is not the only child with an armband, but she is one of the few to have lost two members of her family; three, if you count her grandmother. The only thing that brightens up her days is the arrival of Jock, their first dog, a Westie. Jock likes Daphne more than her sisters—she is his mistress—and this makes her very proud. When she runs with him in the park, she becomes once again the carefree little girl she used to be; she forgets the war, the dead, the sadness of adults. She forgets her black armband.

  The conflict rages, but in a family of actors the show must go on. Gerald performs to packed houses. The sisters’ allegorical plays in the nursery take on more importance. Daphne deigns to play a girl only if she is heroic and wears armor, like Joan of Arc. For The Three Musketeers Angela is Athos, Jeanne is Aramis, and Daphne takes the role of the bold d’Artagnan. Nobody wants to get stuck with gormless Porthos. Treasure Island becomes a favorite, with Daphne as Long John Silver or Jim Hawkins. They are inspired by William Harrison Ainsworth’s historical novels for children, gripping and stuffed full of fascinating details. It is Daphne who leads her sisters into her imaginary world, Daphne who hands out roles and directs scenes. Angela and Jeanne submit to her initiatives, but when Angela grows older and becomes more interested in her friends and in birthday parties Jeanne proves herself willing to take on any role her sister assigns her, never complains, and dies divinely at the hands of Daphne, dressed as an executioner with a bloody axe.

  One October morning, when Daphne returns from a walk in the park with her sisters, Daddy is waiting for them, a smile on his lips. He spins Jeanne around like a top and, in a singing voice, announces that he has a surprise for his daughters. Daphne wants to know what it is. She pulls at his sleeve. The family is going to move to a new house. The girls are not babies anymore—they are twelve, nine, and five years old—so farewell Cumberland Terrace, Albany Street, Regent’s Park, farewell the nursery on the top floor. The girls are ecstatic, they jump up and down and applaud. But where is this house? Gerald looks dreamy, almost at peace. Their new house is large, beautiful, and it is located close to the place where he grew up. Its name is Cannon Hall.

  Cannon Hall, Hampstead, London

  November 2013

  As I emerge from Hampstead tube station, in the north of London, the first thing that comes to my mind is that I have been here before: I came when I was a teenager, to visit the house of the poet John Keats, on Primrose Hill. Hampstead hasn’t changed at all; with its narrow, sloping, tree-lined streets it is identical to the place in my memory. It feels like being in a small village, in spite of the signs for hip stores and restaurants that have opened up along Heath Street. There are few apartment buildings here; it’s mostly houses with gardens. I have read that it was in Hampstead, in the nineteenth century, that a community of avant-garde intellectuals was formed. The area still retains that bohemian-bourgeois atmosphere. Sigmund Freud, Agatha Christie, Liz Taylor, and Elton John all lived here. But Hampstead would not be so attractive, so sought-after, were it not for its park, known as the Heath, one of the largest in London, with a magnificent view of the capital. There are three open-air swimming pools, former drinking-water reservoirs, one of them a ladies’ pond. Marx liked to walk these rolling paths with Engels. A scene from the movie Notting Hill, starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts, was shot on the Heath.

  Hampstead is built on a hill. The streets are calm, silent, the houses charming in their elegant gardens. One must climb and climb to reach the edge of the Heath. I have no trouble locating Cannon Place: it is accessible via the long, steep street of Christchurch Hill. I feel a strange emotion as I look at Cannon Hall for the first time. Situated at number 14 Cannon Place, it is a large, austere redbrick house in a Georgian style, purchased by Daphne’s father in 1916. It was constructed in 1710; George III’s personal physician lived here. Set back from a cobblestone courtyard with a fountain, it seems to hide behind its black gates and is surrounded by a high wall made of the same brick, encircling a vast garden. A round blue plaque is attached to the façade, announcing that the actor Gerald du Maurier, who was born in 1873 and died in 1934, lived in Cannon Hall from 1916 until his death. I approach the house and the wall to take photos. A woman watches me from a second-floor window. How many of us are there, I wonder, who come to Hampstead on a pilgrimage, following in the footsteps of a famous and enigmatic novelis
t?

  * * *

  Daphne already loves her new abode, much more spacious than Cumberland Terrace. The entrance hall is impressive, with its black-and-white checkerboard tiles, its marble fireplace, and the stately staircase covered with a red-and-gold carpet. The furniture and paintings bought by her parents are more spectacular than any she has seen before. On the wall above the staircase is a beautiful but sad profile of King Charles, a portrait of Elizabeth I, and a battle scene, fascinating when studied up close, with all sorts of gory details. Daphne counts four reception areas, eight bedrooms, four bathrooms, not forgetting an entire floor for the servants. There is space for three cars in the garage. And then there is the garden—a garden just for them, with a veranda, two greenhouses, an immense lawn, an orchard, and a tennis court. No need to put on her coat and hat to go and play outside anymore. The girls are intrigued by a rusty old locked gate on the other side of the brick wall, on Cannon Lane. Behind this, Gerald tells them, is an old cell constructed inside the wall itself, and it was here, in the previous century, that prisoners were locked up on a straw bed before being taken to court. Often, Daphne thinks about the sleepless nights those prisoners must have spent in this secret dungeon with its barred windows, hidden inside the thickness of the wall.

  There are three different ways of getting into the games room. Daphne and Jeanne have fun running like mad through the long hallways, rushing up the main stairway, then hurtling down the other stairways, until the shouts of their parents put an end to their stampede. But they always start up again, to the despair of Dorothy, the young maid tasked with looking after them; there is no longer a nurse to watch over the three sisters. The new house provides the ideal stage to continue their theatrical performances. This time, it’s Shakespeare. Daphne plays Prince Hal, who tramples on poor Hotpsur, acted by Jeanne, incapable of saying no to her sister. Daphne is Macbeth, Daphne is Othello, while Jeanne is Desdemona, suffocated by her jealous husband. Angela condescends to take the role of Titania, queen of the fairies. Gerald takes part in these Shakespearian plays. He is capable of quoting interminable monologues. Well, he is an actor, after all! After a while, Daddy gives up on Shakespeare, takes his daughters out to the garden, and teaches them to play cricket. Muriel is worried that this might damage the beautiful lawn. Frowning, she watches them through the window. Gerald gives his daughters boxing gloves. Angela pouts at this. What a strange present; boxing is for boys! Daddy ignores his eldest daughter and explains to the two younger ones how to box without getting hurt. Daphne is in seventh heaven and shows her father what a perfect boy she can be in spite of the girlish appearance that annoys her so much. Why is she so delicate, slender, blond? Why are her eyes so blue (lavender blue, apparently) with such long lashes?