And yet there are happy moments, as when Kits, eighteen years old and just out of Eton, decides, with the support of his parents, to attempt a career in the cinema, beginning with an internship on the shoot of the new Carol Reed movie, Our Man in Havana. After that, young Kits will move into the London apartment with Tod, who will look after him. To celebrate this new departure, Daphne gives her son a camera, which he uses to shoot a short film at “Mena.” Tommy plays the bad guy and particularly enjoys murdering Tod. Another moment of happiness: the news of Flavia’s first child, due in August 1959. The new housekeeper at Menabilly is Esther Rowe, a twenty-eight-year-old brunette, lively and cheerful, always smiling, with a strong Cornish accent. She it is who takes breakfast in bed to Tommy and Daphne, who prepares their lunch, keeps the house clean. Mother to a little boy, she lives with her husband, Henry, in a cottage on the Menabilly estate. She is the house’s ray of sunshine. When, one day, Tommy finds her energetically scouring the kitchen stairs, he tells her off, remarking that slavery was abolished long ago!
Daphne agrees to take part in a long interview for a French magazine, Marie-France, due to be published in late June 1959. The article is set to be at least eight pages long. The journalist, Françoise Perret, is given permission to meet Daphne at Menabilly, along with her photographer. This is a rare privilege, as Daphne generally does not give interviews, hates telling journalists about her life. She has a reputation as a recluse, which she quite likes. But this proposal wins her over because the magazine is synonymous with France and the prospect of speaking French with Mme Perret seems a pleasant diversion in a trying time.
The interview lasts an entire afternoon. In front of the lens, Daphne relaxes, bursts out laughing, cigarette in hand, dressed in faded jeans, a white shirt, and a coral-pink cardigan. The photographer immortalizes her in the living room, on the main staircase beneath the portrait of Gerald that Daphne loves so much, and then, as it is a sunny day, outside in the garden, near her hut, where the relic of the hull of Tommy’s first boat, the Yggy, lies. The novelist admits with a laugh that she doesn’t know why her heroes are so tortured, because she herself is very optimistic. Maybe she is too happy? Has life been too generous to her? She talks about her childhood, about her adored father and his death in 1934, still the most terrible ordeal of her life. She mentions the positive influence of Tod, who is there for the interview, and divulges her love of Cornwall and Menabilly, which she must leave one day, because the lease comes to an end in three years’ time, in 1962—a tragedy for Daphne, who would love to be able to die within these walls. She won’t know how to live, she insists, away from Menabilly. She remembers her romantic first meeting with Tommy in Fowey, just after the publication of her first novel, The Loving Spirit, their private wedding ceremony, the simple blue suit she wore that day. All the things she has never told to any journalists she reveals now: her writing process, the long daily walks that allow her to think, the six hours a day she spends writing in her little wooden hut, her need for solitude, the fictional characters who come to meet her. She takes five days to write a short story, one year for a novel. As soon as a book is finished, she forgets about it, she explains, detaching herself from it and never reading it again.
Unabashedly, Daphne talks about her age—fifty-two on May 13—and the pleasures of being a grandmother. She describes her three children, of whom she is proud. She even talks about the pictures she paints secretly in her hut: I know my painting is really bad, but that’s all right. I need to paint what I love, to relax. In conversation with this Parisian lady, Daphne is only too happy to talk about her roots in Sarthe, her pride, and her family’s artistic heritage—her novelist grandfather, her actor father, her painter sister, her son beginning a career in the cinema. The quality she most values? A sense of humor! Another? Intuition. And the journalist’s final question: Why did she say yes to Marie-France when she has refused to speak to so many English magazines? A mischievous smile: because she hates them. They pigeonhole women, only talk about little feminine preoccupations. A man can read Marie-France, he can find something that interests him in it. Women’s magazines in England are unreadable for men. She is not a feminist but considers herself, quite simply, on the same level as men. Will there be a new novel soon? Daphne’s blue eyes cloud over. She doesn’t think she will write another novel. Stories, a biography, yes, probably. But who knows? Perhaps on some solitary walk, her fertile mind will be intrigued by an old mansion, a mysterious path, an enigma … Françoise Perret and her photographer leave with more than enough material for an article that Daphne is impatient to read.
As Daphne predicted, Tommy’s retirement from the service of Prince Philip in May 1959 is an ordeal. Tommy struggles with his new status, feeling useless and elderly, and tells his godson Ken Spence that he worries he is a burden to Daphne, who is so strong and courageous. His wife never complains, always smiles; she seems to take everything in her stride. In private, however, Daphne is full of doubts: Is Tommy still seeing Covent Garden and Sixpence? Will he ever come out of his spiral of depression? He only ever looks happy with his grandchildren or on his boat, which he spends hours navigating.
Robert Hamer’s movie version of The Scapegoat is a flop, both critically and commercially. The New York Times Film Review regrets that “Daphne du Maurier’s dazzlingly cunning puzzler is now a stately charade: handsome, curious and untingling.” Apart from Rebecca, she has been unlucky, Daphne laments, when it comes to movie adaptations of her books. She has not enjoyed any of the others. What will Hitchcock make of her short story “The Birds”? It is more than seven years since he bought the film rights. Given the coldness between them, she fears the worst.
But, in the summer of 1959, there are far worse things in Daphne’s life than a bad movie. One evening, she finds Tommy lying in bed in his room, his service revolver in hand. Ken Spence, his godson, had found him in the same posture a few months before in London and had talked to Daphne about it, but to see him like this, his face ravaged by suffering, holding the pistol, is a terrible shock for her.
This is the point of no return. I just know I have to give, and give, she writes to Oriel. I’ve been right down in the depths of horror. I cannot write a long letter because at this moment part of Tommy’s cure is for me to do everything I can for him, be with him.53 Doctors, nurses, antidepressants … Daphne makes sure that her husband has everything he needs. She knows she is not alone; she is surrounded by her children, her sisters, her friends.
How ironic that that issue of Marie-France should come out now, with her looking so serene under a headline that makes her shiver: “Obviously Happy.” Françoise Perret describes her as “the most secret and most famous novelist of our age, who receives letters from all over the world,” and sketches her in a few words: “Very slim, white hair cut short, face of a young girl, snub nose, small but determined chin. And blue eyes, bluer than any I have seen before.” Daphne thinks she looks older than her fifty-two years in the photographs: her skin is lined, and her tightly permed hair makes her look like an old granny. But who cares! It is horrible to see these images of her looking so cheerful when she is going through hell. The magazine is filed away on a shelf and forgotten.
Now Tommy is at home full-time, on medication and still fragile, Daphne dreams of fleeing Menabilly for a breath of freedom. Rather a surprising reversal, as for sixteen years she has found it unbearable to be away from “Mena.” The few trips she makes require organizing very precisely with Esther, the presence of a nurse, and the help of close friends who take turns looking after Daphne’s husband while she is away. Thankfully, Tommy has decided to write an account of Queen Elizabeth’s life, between her wedding and her ascension to the throne, with the cooperation of Buckingham Palace, so at least that will keep him busy for a while.
In the fall of 1959, there is only one person who can save Daphne. A tormented poet, harmed by alcohol and fits of madness, solitary and misunderstood, overshadowed by his famous sisters, and dead at thirty-on
e.
Branwell Brontë.
* * *
To follow him into his downward spiral, in order to escape her own, to understand and explain the nature of his decline. This is Daphne’s aim when she heads back to Haworth, in Yorkshire, in December 1959. She is accompanied by Tessa, a good driver and ideal traveling companion. They have dealings with Mr. Mitchell, a fastidious man who runs the “Parsonage” museum, where the Brontë family once lived. I nearly died from his endless “Tell-Hims”*!54 she writes to Oriel. But this is the price that must be paid when you want to narrate someone’s life, going into the tiniest details, casting your nets wide, leaving no stone unturned. They also go to the Black Bull Inn, the three-hundred-year-old pub where Branwell first began drinking to excess. Daphne wants to write a real biography, rigorous, perfectly documented, that will reveal everything about the little-known Branwell, a book that at last will show his talent, a book that will stand the test of time. No one has ever written about him before. She will be the first. Daphne must travel frequently to London and Yorkshire for her research, the ideal excuse for getting away from “Mena” from time to time. John Symington, editor of works on the Brontës’ youth, is thrilled at the prospect of helping the famous novelist to complete her project.
Daphne has already made quite a lot of progress when she learns through the press that a famous and respected biographer, Winifred Gérin, a specialist on the Brontë sisters, is also working on a book on Branwell. Panic and consternation. This is very bad news, according to Victor, because if Daphne’s book on Branwell is published after Miss Gérin’s it will effectively be stillborn. Daphne must pull out all the stops in order to finish it as soon as possible. Miss Gérin, already the author of a highly acclaimed biography on Anne Brontë, will be favored by the press, and Daphne has no illusions about this. My novels are what is known as popular, and sell very well, she writes to John Symington, but I am not a critic’s favourite, indeed I am dismissed with a sneer as a bestseller.
During the months that follow, Daphne works assiduously on her text. Each time she discovers that her rival is studying the same clues as her, she grows enraged. Don’t tell Miss G!55 she orders Symington as soon as she comes upon a new scent. She has never been in this kind of delicate situation before and begins to see the writing of this book as sort of fierce single-handed combat. And yet the fact remains that this competition galvanizes her: the book occupies her mind completely, allowing her to devote herself to Tommy in a more detached and patient way.
Finishing the book in March 1960, Daphne sheds a few tears as she rereads the final part, recounting the tragic end of the only Brontë son. She is proud of the completed work, of having been able to retranscribe the brilliant and ambidextrous teenager’s youthful writings, unpublished tales of Angria and Glass Town, the imaginary worlds he created with Charlotte, Emily and Anne’s response in the form of Gondal, as well as many poems and articles that she managed to unearth. Branwell was also a painter, but few of his canvases remain, apart from the best known, that of his three sisters Anne, Emily, and Charlotte, in which he painted himself and then painted over it, leaving only a vague silhouette. Daphne reveals his early addiction to alcohol and opium, his inability to deal with reality, his retreat into the world of imagination and fantasy. From his childhood, affected by the deaths of his elder sisters Elizabeth and Maria, subjected to the moralizing sermons of his father, the Reverend Brontë, Branwell forged his own personal hell that Daphne explores discerningly. Despite his prolific talent, he will never find success, discredited by his own family and outshone by his sisters. Every profession he attempts—portraitist, tutor, accountant—ends in failure. At twenty-eight, Branwell falls in love with a married woman fifteen years his senior, who also happens to be the wife of his boss, Mr. Robinson. The scandal has far-reaching consequences. But as Daphne suggests, might there not also have been a furtive, shameful episode with Edmund, the Robinsons’ young son? Three years later, Branwell dies—of bronchitis, officially. His work will be forgotten, next to the immense literary success of his sisters. Daphne succeeds in bringing back to life this short, bespectacled young man with his thick, red hair and his aquiline nose. The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë will be published in October 1960, just ahead of Miss Gérin’s, which is set for publication the following year. As she waits for her book to appear, Daphne congratulates herself: thanks to poor Branwell’s torments, she has survived her first winter at Menabilly with the retired Tommy, something she wasn’t sure she would manage. And she has an amusing adventure to look forward to: a trip to Italy with Kits, for three weeks in June. She is thrilled by the prospect.
Her joy is short-lived. On April 5, 1960, Daphne learns about the suicide of her cousin, and Angela’s editor, Peter Llewelyn Davies, at sixty-three. Peter had seemed sullen and depressed for a few months before this, Daphne knew, devoting all his time to gathering and filing personal documents in a collection of letters that he ironically nicknamed The Morgue. His family had suffered a series of tragedies, with the deaths of his parents, both of cancer, then the loss of two of his brothers: George at the front and Michael, who drowned in mysterious circumstances in 1921. Daphne got along well with her cousin, ten years her senior; they would regularly meet for lunch in the stucco-and-mirrors décor of the Café Royal in Piccadilly, where they would talk about their parents, Gerald and Sylvia, brother and sister, and Kicky, their legendary grandfather, who died at sixty-one, whispering in French, If this is death, it’s not very cheerful. Their conversations ceaselessly revisited the past and their childhoods. The day of his death, Peter had gone for a drink, alone, at the Royal Court Hotel, then went straight off to throw himself under a Tube train at Sloane Square. He did not leave any message for his wife and children. The next day’s newspapers were full of headlines that Daphne found in dubious taste: “Peter Pan Killed by London Subway Train” and “Peter Pan’s Death Leap.” Poor Peter! He could no longer bear being asked about Barrie, his guardian, or about Peter Pan, who haunted his youth, just as he haunted Daphne’s. For him, Barrie’s play was that terrible masterpiece, which pursued him and his brothers throughout their lives. Barrie even admitted in 1928 that he had created Peter Pan by rubbing the five brothers together like sticks, the way early humans made fire. Each time the press mentioned George, Jack, Nico, or Michael, one of the Lost Boys, it was always with reference to that damned Peter Pan. George went to war in 1914, and it was “Peter Pan Joins the Army. Michael in 1919: “Peter Pan Fined for Speeding.” Nico’s wedding in 1926: “Peter Pan Gets Married.” And when Peter set up his own publishing house: “Peter Pan Becomes a Publisher.” Sickened, Daphne does not read any of the obituaries. Peter’s suicide affects her very deeply. What drove him to throw himself under that train? Reading those moving letters, with all their mentions of death? Or simply the du Mauriers’ black ribbon, handed on to Peter by his mother, Sylvia, the hereditary gift of melancholy and sorrow that ran through their veins? Two weeks later, Daphne looks visibly lined and grief-stricken as she inaugurates the blue plaque fixed to the house where George du Maurier lived, on Great Russell Street, in London: an event that should have been a celebration reduced to a brief ceremony, no press, no speech, in spite of the presence of Ellen Doubleday, who has flown over for the occasion.
The best cure for this sadness is Italian sunshine and Kits’s irrepressible good humor. Venice and Rome in his company proves simultaneously exhausting and relaxing. Daphne’s son has no interest in culture or tourism; what he likes best is driving his sports car around at top speed, shopping, and people-watching while sitting tranquilly on a café terrace, like his grandfather Gerald. Kits makes his mother weep with laughter with his imitations of Italian accents and “Witherspoons”*-style English tourists. Daphne returns to “Mena” reinvigorated, ready for the publication of her biography of Branwell Brontë. She notes that Nancy Mitford is publishing a novel in the same week, Don’t Tell Alfred, the last volume of a highly successful trilogy, which discourages her, par
ticularly as Victor is being unusually prudent, printing fewer than ten thousand copies of her biography. A disappointment for Daphne, who gave everything for that book. She could never rival the mastery and experience of Winifred Gérin, but her solid research and the finesse of her psychological approach are points in her favor. The book is well received, the reviews positive, but sales remain disappointing. One slight comfort: her friend Alfred Leslie Rowse, the eminent historian, believes it is her finest book.
* * *
Dear Monsieur le Vicomte,
I wanted to thank you for you great kindness in receiving me at the Chateau de Chérigny last Monday, and in allowing my son to take photographs of the old glass factory. It was a great pleasure for us to see “Le Maurier,” and to contemplate the same scenery and landscape that our ancestors must have known so well more than two hundred years ago.
On April 22, 1961, Daphne writes to Viscount Foy, owner of the Château de Chérigny, in Sarthe. She has just taken a trip with Kits in France, a badly needed breath of fresh air. Her twenty-year-old son does not speak a word of French, unlike Tessa, but this family pilgrimage amuses him, and he takes dozens of photographs, including one of Le Maurier farm, which Daphne will use as a Christmas card later that year.