Only in the waiting room does Daphne remember the tiny warning signs, picked up three years ago during Tessa’s wedding, during the party at the Savoy. She had not wanted to see them. She had taken refuge in her books, her glorified “Mena.” And yet there had been happy moments for Tommy and her, like the birth of Paul, Tessa’s son, in April 1956, and Flavia’s wedding, two months later, at the tender age of nineteen, with a captain in the Coldstream Guards, Alastair Tower: a church ceremony at St. Peter’s, near Eaton Square, Flavia looking divine in white tulle, wearing Daphne’s pearl tiara. And not forgetting her fiftieth birthday, celebrated last May. And that trip with Tessa, also in May, to Saint-Paul-de-Vence, in France, just the two of them, Tessa driving the car they had rented at the airport in Nice, and that charming hotel, La Résidence, in the hills, and that man who had called out to them while they were walking, they are such pretty young ladies—can he accompany them?
Daphne gets to her feet, looks through the window toward Weymouth Street. Big Ben tolls three o’clock. Why did she insist on her desire to be alone? Isn’t it her selfishness that is to blame for scuttling their marriage? Now she must face up to the truth, accept her share of the responsibility. She remembers the recent, irrepressible desire to paint that she hid from those around her, those garish, clumsy canvases that she produced, unbeknown to everyone, in her hut. She had felt obligated to surrender to her urge, buying materials in secret so she could reproduce in paint what she saw in her mind, most often vast expanses of reddish earth.
At last a nurse comes to fetch her. Daphne follows her through a warren of white corridors. Her husband is lying in bed, his face emaciated and exhausted, his body all skin and bone, looking suddenly ten years older. Tommy starts to sob. Daphne is dismayed: Boy Browning doesn’t cry. At a loss, she sits beside him, holds his hand, tries to comfort him. She questions him gently, but he doesn’t reply. He looks like a broken man. All Daphne can do is console him by repeating that she is there, he can count on her, she is his wife, she will look after him. He has, undoubtedly, worked too hard, driven himself to exhaustion. He must rest now and he will be fine, she is sure of that. In the meantime, they’ll have to see if they should cancel the party for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, planned for July 19 at “Mena,” for close friends and family only. Tommy has not spoken a single word. His gaunt cheeks are streaked with tears. Before she leaves, Daphne talks with the doctor in his office. It is a nervous breakdown, aggravated by Sir Frederick’s alcoholism and the poor state of his liver. Tommy will have to spend several weeks at the clinic and follow a treatment. Lady Browning can come back the next morning. Until then, no visits.
Stunned, Daphne heads for Whitelands House. It is hot and humid, this July day. She opens the windows wide to air the apartment. Why this sudden collapse? She knows how fragile her husband is, has not forgotten those nightmares he’s had since the beginning of their marriage, nor his psychological state after the loss of so many of his men during the disastrous Operation Market Garden, in 1944. But why now? What happened in the last few days? No matter how hard she searches, she can find no answer. Was he more “mopey” than usual? She didn’t notice, if so.
The sound of the telephone startles her from this reverie. A strange woman on the other end of the line. She doesn’t introduce herself and speaks in a jumbled rush, never taking a breath: she has been Sir Frederick’s mistress for more than a year, she loves him; she is worried about him; he collapsed because he could no longer bear living a double life and succumbed to the temptations of alcohol. All of this is Lady Browning’s fault.
Devastated, Daphne hangs up. She wants to throw up, and her legs give way beneath her. She collapses in a chair, her head in her hands. Tommy, unfaithful. Her Boy, in another woman’s arms. She looks at the unmade bed and disgust overwhelms her again. How many times has that woman come to this apartment? How many times has “Cairo”* taken place in this bed? Tears well in her eyes, and she lets them fall. Who is she, this mysterious woman? What is she like? Brunette, blonde, younger than her? Pretty, sensual, funny? Probably some toady whom he met in his amateur ballet circles, those shows she wouldn’t go to with him, out of boredom, indifference. Never has Daphne felt so humiliated, so hurt. What a fool she was, what an idiot, not to have suspected that this might happen, not to have understood that Tommy felt abandoned during those long weeks here, alone in this gloomy apartment that she hates even more now. And the separate rooms that she insisted on for the last ten years. What an imbecile! Racked with pain, she imagines her husband’s hands on the strange woman’s body; she sees them kiss, caress, flesh bared. Unbearable visions.
Daphne is trembling less, but the nausea and the dizziness still trouble her. And what about her? She too cheated on her spouse. She was not a faithful wife. Did he suspect? Did he suffer because of it? She thinks again about the day Tommy read those words that Gertie had scrawled on the backs of the photographs taken in Florida. Guilt overwhelms her. It must have hurt Tommy so much. Daphne cries again, submerged in sorrow and shame. How can she speak to him about all this? What can she say? She paces the little apartment, her nerves raw.
There is only one thing to do. Write to him. That is all that is left to her now, her pen. Words on paper. Tell him everything, the truth, and don’t wait another second. Daphne sits at Tommy’s desk and, for a laborious moment, nothing comes. Then she forces it, and it’s as if a dam bursts under the pressure of her writing: everything surges out, everything she has to reveal. It is all her fault, the sadness that he has endured for years. She cheated on him with Christopher Puxley and she hates herself for it, as she does for her obsessive passion toward Ellen and then Gertie, both linked to writing. It is a very long letter, stained with her tears, which she concludes, despite herself, on a determined tone: they must overcome this crisis; they must get through this ordeal, they will do it, they love each other, don’t they? In spite of taking a double dose of sleeping pills, she spends a restless, infernal night.
The next morning, looking tired, Daphne takes a taxi to the clinic. Tommy is in the same state as yesterday, his green eyes filled with tears as soon as he sees her. He remains silent. Daphne cries with him, squeezing his hand as tightly as she can. She looks at his withered, handsome face, caresses his large, noble forehead, whispers to him that she loves him, that she will always love him. She forgives him, he must forgive her, too; they will find a solution, they have to. She slips her letter into his hand and, after one last kiss, leaves the room, leaves the clinic, as fast as she can, phones her friends and family, returns to “Mena” to gather her strength.
In the train that takes her to Cornwall, Daphne realizes how hard she is going to have to fight—not for herself, but for a loved one. For the first time in her life.
* * *
Taking refuge in the calm of her hut, on July 4, 1957, Daphne writes a long letter to Maureen Baker-Munton, Tommy’s assistant, one of the few in the inner circle to be aware of the real reasons behind Tommy’s moral and physical collapse. To the others, Daphne has given the “official” version: Sir Frederick is overworked and needs rest. To Ellen, her great epistolary confidante, she does not say very much, failing to mention her husband’s infidelity. The wedding anniversary party is canceled. Daphne confesses to Maureen that the only things keeping her going are swimming and spending time with her increasingly fragile mother. It was like being faced with a great jigsaw puzzle, or a pack of cards, and trying to fit the right bits into the right squares, and get the suits of cards right. Each of her books reflects part of her, she admits, and The Scapegoat is the story of her and her husband. We are both doubles. So is everyone. Every one [sic] of us has his, or her, dark side. Which is to overcome the other? Can Moper, and can I, learn from this? I think we can.46
Covent Garden is the code name Daphne gives to her husband’s London-based mistress, a woman who mingles with ballet circles, Boy’s passion. But what should she think about that young woman who works in a shop in Fowey and whom Tommy
has regularly taken with him on boat trips since last summer? At the time, Daphne paid no attention, mocking the shopgirl’s infatuation with her husband and cruelly baptizing her Sixpence as if to emphasize her humble origins. Daphne suspects her husband must have had an affair with her, too, and her paranoia goes up a notch. Even her heroine Rebecca returns to haunt her: Tommy could go mad with jealousy like Maxim de Winter, lose his mind, and shoot Daphne because she made the mistake of prioritizing her writing over her marriage. The evil in us comes to the surface, she writes to Maureen. Unless we recognize it in time, accept it, understand it, we are all destroyed, just as the people in The Birds are destroyed.47
After three weeks in the Weymouth Street clinic, where he is given electric shock therapy and massive doses of antidepressants, Tommy is taken by car to Menabilly in late July by Daphne’s cousin Peter Llewelyn Davies, whom she trusts. The doctors consider Tommy to be sufficiently recovered to start work again after a month’s vacation. Sir Frederick will need the permanent support of his wife, and he must not touch a drop of alcohol. Daphne waits for them, apprehensive. When Tommy emerges from Peter’s car, he looks stooped and dreadfully pale. He is also markedly silent. Is he really cured?
It is a stormy, rain-lashed summer. Tessa arrives with husband and children in tow, followed by Flavia and her new spouse, then the beaming Kits, the only one who can give their mother her smile back. At nearly seventeen, he is a handsome, mischievous prankster, the spitting image—according to Daphne—of Gerald, the grandfather he never knew. It is a blessing to have the house filled with the sound of children’s laughter, in spite of the bad weather. Daphne devotes herself to the little ones, showing herself to be a patient, attentive grandmother, reading them stories, taking them to the beach. The children call her Track or Tray, after the funny nicknames given her by Kits, when he was small. Their grandfather is Grampy.
Tommy continues to be a serious concern. He has never stopped secretly drinking and spends a lot of his time in front of the television, which Daphne bought in 1956. She describes him to Oriel in a letter as being like Kay, hero of the story that frightened her so much when she was a child, The Snow Queen. Moper is like the little boy with the sliver of glass in his eye, seeing reality through a distorted lens. But for Daphne, too, this is a turbulent period. She frightens Oriel with a few incoherent phone calls, whispering to her that a major attack is brewing in London, that unknown people want to harm the royal family, that she must avoid public places, no longer take the Tube. Oriel does not know how to react to these unexplained anxieties. It is Kits, with his clownish personality, who ends up poking fun of his mother and making her aware of her ramblings. She should just write a novel, instead of bothering them with her nonsense!
At the end of summer, Daphne agrees to spend more time in London to be close to her husband when he returns to Buckingham Palace. The doctors have made her understand that he is no longer in a fit state to be left alone. It is a painful choice, as she hates the capital and that apartment, which she nicknames the Rat-Trap. Moper seems better and more cheerful, she writes to Oriel. But he’s still what I call very “quiet”, and one doesn’t know if he’s just plain tired or has things on his mind. I know I am doing the right thing.48 It isn’t easy to give up Menabilly. It also means giving up writing, solitude, and freedom. Daphne also suffers from having to dress like a city dweller, in suits and high heels. One day, unable to bear the hat she is wearing anymore after returning from a cocktail party, she throws it in the Thames, watched by dumbstruck passersby.
Daphne has not written anything since the publication of The Scapegoat. In a letter to Oriel, she confesses: No, I have no writing plans at the moment,-can’t, but there is always Bramwell waiting, and after what has happened lately, I should say material for a dozen ’tec or crook novels!* I told old Victor work was on the way, but I could do nothing at the moment, because my family life was a bit disorganized with being backwards and forwards to London. I didn’t go into details, and did not say Moper had not been well.49
Since July and the crisis she is going through with Tommy, Daphne has not felt at ease, as if a dark cloud were hovering just above her head. She still dreams of the high tide swallowing her and wakes up each morning with her stomach in knots. And then, at the end of November 1957, the news comes that her mother has passed away. After lying in a coma for several weeks, Muriel finally dies at Fowey, nearly eighty years old, after seven years of illness. Already afflicted by what she is suffering with her husband, Daphne is deeply upset by the death of her mother, to whom she had grown closer in recent years. Muriel had mellowed with age, finding a way to show her tenderness toward the daughter who was always Gerald’s favorite. After a private funeral in Cornwall, Daphne and Angela take her urn to Hampstead, to the little cemetery where the du Mauriers lie. Though upset, Daphne manages to say her farewell to Lady Mo, whose Narcisse Noir perfume still lingers in the air at Ferryside.
The traumatic events of the last six months have exhausted Daphne. I don’t know who I am, she writes to Oriel at the year’s end. I can cope when I am here, but once home, it’s such torture to come back to the Rat-Trap. I always seem to be in a train. Moper’s physical self is better, but I don’t think his mind is all right. I dread him getting into the hands of the psycho boys again.50 For Daphne, Tommy-Kay still has the fragment of glass in his eye, and that scares her. He is not as he was before. In London, he spends hours sitting at his desk, methodically filing his papers, and when he finds himself at “Mena” he seems at a loose end, silent and preoccupied. Daphne wonders how she will hold up if things stay as they are. She is overwhelmed by melancholy. Perhaps she should have chosen to live with Tommy in London after the war ended? If she’d done that, might she have avoided this situation? Would she have been able to write The Parasites, My Cousin Rachel, Mary Anne, The Scapegoat, her short stories and plays, away from “Mena”? She feels incapable of working in the Rat-Trap. Her artistic output here consists solely of strange paintings, always produced in secret, when Tommy is at the palace. My only pleasure is to paint the horrible view from my bedroom at the flat, all strident and screaming, because of my hate, with glaring chimneypots and those awful Power Station Battersea things, belching evil smoke. Bing’s paintings are very out of proportion, like paintings done by madmen. (Perhaps I am!)51
Since her mother’s death, she has had no more “Robert.”* A strange, hesitant sensation, like being in limbo, a feeling she detests. Her life seems less intense, more nebulous, without the lure of a new “peg”* to excite her. Is this what it is to be in one’s fifties? A dreary, arid plain devoid of fermentation, and the prospect of living with a husband in decline, soon to be retired, driven to drink, not forgetting the depressing spectacle of those once-radiant Llewelyn Davies cousins transformed into potbellied, gray-haired whiners? And she herself must now note the spread of wrinkles in the mirror, must sigh over her white hair. How distant it seems, her ebullient youth! What does she have left? Her sense of humor, thank goodness, most often resurrected by Kits, the only person capable of making her laugh hysterically. Bitterly, Daphne understands the melancholy her father felt as he aged; she sees him again in Cannon Hall moping around in front of his bedroom window, looking out at the view of London he loved so much.
The short stories hatched from this discontent, published in 1959, are as disturbing and troubling as those that appeared in 1952; this time, they do not explore the characters’ relationship with death, but the meanderings of madness and the unconscious mind. Daphne abandons herself to them, convinced that if she does not get them down on paper she will lose her mind. Writing becomes her life jacket, her way of fighting against paranoia and the anguish that has invaded her life. In fluid, often chilling prose, wavering between dreamlike fancy and pitiless introspection, each text highlights a breaking point, and that is what Daphne titles the collection: The Breaking Point. Daphne writes the stories in London, at the Rat-Trap, and at “Mena,” taking refuge in her hut. “The Blue Lenses
” describes the terrible side effects suffered by a patient who is given temporary lenses after an eye operation. When she wakes up, the vision she has of other people is terrifying. “The Chamois” explores the intimacy of a marriage in crisis during a hunt in Greece, so subtly disguised that even Victor doesn’t guess it is about the Brownings. An amateur painter tips over into murderous insanity; an old man falls for a young waiter on vacation in Venice, leading to disaster; a girl becomes a woman one stormy night and loses the key to her childhood. Even if some of the themes are familiar—psychological duality, the blurred border between reality and imagination, rich animal symbolism—Daphne opens the door for the first time on the unknown by using mystical and supernatural elements. She boldly explores this new vulnerability, like a submarine plumbing the dark depths of the ocean, as if these stories were shields to keep madness at a distance, confining them to the safety of pages in a book. Writing as the ultimate protection, a guardrail.
* * *
Is it a good idea, this trip? One year after the crisis of July 1957, Daphne and Tommy go on vacation together in France, to witness the filming of The Scapegoat in Sarthe, near La Ferté-Bernard. The director is Robert Hamer, an Englishman who already worked on Jamaica Inn. The casting is impressive: Alec Guinness, Nicole Maurey, and Bette Davis, in the role of the elderly mother. It is the first time Daphne has visited a movie set, and she is awed by the sight of all these actors, set managers, technicians, all here because she wrote a novel. But her enthusiasm does not last long, because she realizes how far the screenplay has strayed from the book. The atmosphere between Bette Davis, acting like a diva, and the rest of the cast is turbulent. Annoyed and disappointed, Daphne writes to Ken Spence, Tommy’s godson and Tessa’s ex-boyfriend, who has become a close friend: Not one word of mine in the screenplay, and the whole story changed. I think it will be a flop.52 Their vacation is a flop, too, with Tommy lost in sadness and silence. Is this how the rest of their life together will be: dark, morose, apathetic? What happened to Boy and Bing, hair blowing in the wind as they sailed on their boat, magnetized by their love of the sea? This melancholy, sixty-something man is her husband, the man she will have to learn to live with again, because the plan is for Tommy to leave Buckingham Palace and retire to Menabilly. The prospect fills Daphne with dread.