While she is still savoring this trip, Daphne is shaken by some unexpected news. With the death of old Dr. Rashleigh, “Mena” has been inherited by his nephew and heir, Philip. Until this point, Daphne had closed her eyes to the end of the Menabilly lease in 1962, knowing that she has been living in the manor for seventeen years as if it belonged to her. What will she do if Philip Rashleigh, who is only in his thirties, wants to move in earlier than expected? Leaving “Mena” is unthinkable, and yet she knows she must prepare herself for it. To overcome her anguish, Daphne agrees to a proposed book idea from her old friend Foy Quiller-Couch, who suggests she complete Castle Dor, Foy’s father’s unfinished novel, an adaptation of the legend of Tristan and Iseult, which ended abruptly at chapter 17 when he died in 1944. This literary challenge is an honor, and Daphne only hopes she is up to the task, in terms of the great Q’s style and prose. She is bewitched by this project, which is extremely time-consuming, and even manages to rope in Tommy, as fascinated as she is, to help her research it. Q’s novel has its roots in the Cornish fable by the medieval poet Béroul, a tragic love story set in the Castle Dor, a glorious Iron Age fort, of which only a few ruins remain, just above Fowey. Equipped with old maps and binoculars, the Brownings go for long walks in the footsteps of Tristan and Iseult. Esther, the new housekeeper, watches them leave “Mena,” thinking how elegant and classy they look, how slender and tanned and energetic. Tommy is interested in strategies of war, in battles, in troop advances on land and sea. His knowledge is of great help to Daphne, who is able in this way to rebuild the setting of another age. When the book is published in 1962, by J. M. Dent, Arthur Quiller-Couch’s old editor, the reviews are kind, although the book is generally regarded as an exercise in style rather than a novel in its own right. Sales figures remain undisclosed. The only positive aspect Daphne is able to draw from this is the feeling that she has not betrayed Q. She has also grown closer to her husband, even if there are still painful moments, such as the evening in September 1961, described in a letter to Oriel: I’ve had a frightful time with Moper again. Another frightful bout came on, so bad, I could hardly get him to bed.56
Tommy has started drinking again. The only way out is hospitalization, a round of treatment, and then a nurse at home. Adding to this weight are the endless negotiations between Philip Rashleigh and Daphne’s lawyer regarding the Menabilly lease. The Rashleigh heir has every intention of getting his family mansion back and Daphne realizes, to her chagrin, that her days at “Mena” are numbered. Her loved ones are more philosophical, quietly suggesting to her that the moment to find another house—smaller, more practical—has perhaps arrived. Daphne does not want to hear it. “Mena” is her muse, her inspiration, her passion. It is unimaginable for her to write anywhere else. She will fight tooth and nail to extend the lease, she will talk to the press about it, she will kick up a fuss. She refuses to be expelled without a fight. In a letter to Oriel, Daphne confides her secret method, the source of her well-being: she imagines that she is being mentally transported to Paris, to the traffic circle at the Champs-Élysées, that junction she loved so much, and that she is watching the faces of the passersby as she used to do at nineteen. But a new novel will be the key to her happiness, and at last it is to France that she looks for it.
Dear Mademoiselle,
I was enchanted to receive your very friendly letter, and to hear your news.
It is May 27, 1962. Daphne types a two-page letter in French to Mlle Marguerite Verrier, proprietor of the Les Glycines hotel-restaurant in Saint-Christophe-sur-le-Nais, in the Indre-et-Loire département. She had spent a few days with her sister and Noël there in 1955 and began a correspondence with Mlle Verrier, a woman her own age with a lively personality, who was interested in the research Daphne was carrying out to find her ancestors. As the old Underwood does not have any keys that would allow her to type French accents, she adds them by hand, in blue ballpoint. She politely asks Mlle Verrier for her help in obtaining further information about her family, in particular Mathurin Busson, born in 1720 in Coudrecieux, in Sarthe, and his wife, Madeleine Labbé, born in 1725 in Saint-Christophe-sur-le-Nais. These are the parents of Robert-Mathurin Busson, born at Le Maurier, in Chenu, on September 7, 1749.
I want to know so desperately how my Bussons lived, Daphne writes to Oriel, instead of being content to “Gondall”* them. I’ve been looking into my grandfather’s Peter Ibbetson again, and it’s queer how he had these same feelings about forebears that I have,-an almost agonized interest. I can’t think how he did not go out to Sarthe and find out about them truly, instead of “Gondalling”* them, because he got them wrong, making them aristocrats instead of bourgeois, I s’pose a natural Victorian reluctance to be a bit “honky”*!57
The French literary agent Michel Hoffman has found Daphne a Parisian student to do further research for her—a Mlle Fargeaud—but Daphne knows how precious Mlle Verrier’s aid could be, particularly as she is in situ at Saint-Christophe. She had been so welcoming, and Daphne had appreciated the comforts of the little hotel with its terrace under the wisterias, and the moving visit to the twelfth-century church, under whose vaults her forebears Mathurin Busson and Madeleine Labbé had walked ceremoniously, on their wedding, September 18, 1747.
Despite her very real worries about Menabilly, Daphne decides to begin The Glass-Blowers, her next novel. She is excited by the prospect of writing about her unusual great-great-grandfather, Robert-Mathurin Busson, the one who was born on the little Le Maurier farm, seven and a half miles from Saint-Christophe. She recalls perfectly this building with its pale walls and steep roof, surrounded by green fields, a stone’s throw from the Château de Chérigny. Robert-Mathurin is the family’s adventurer, the gambler, the black sheep. Like his father, Mathurin Busson, he becomes a glassblower and engraver of crystal, but Daphne knows from his letters to his sister, Anne-Sophie Busson, maiden name Duval, unearthed from Kicky’s archives, that he was a pretty boy, blond with blue eyes, with a turbulent life.58 A flamboyant, novel-like character, who first marries a Parisian woman, Mlle Catherine Fiat, and becomes the young manager of a glassworks in Loir-et-Cher. His excessive spending and his taste for luxury precipitate the company’s bankruptcy, and he moves to Paris, where he opens an art and crystalware boutique near the Arcades du Palais-Royal, at 255 Rue Saint-Honoré. It is here that his first child, Jacques, is born and here too that he loses his wife, who dies in childbirth. But Robert-Mathurin’s lifestyle is not moderated by his becoming a widower; on the contrary, he marries a second time, in 1789, as the revolution is rumbling in the background. His bride is Marie Bruère, from Dourdan. The boutique collapses beneath the weight of its debts, and the couple disappears soon after their wedding in order to escape their growing financial troubles. They go to London, where six children will be born between 1791 and 1800.
And this is the detail that so amuses Daphne: Robert-Mathurin Busson decides that it would be more distinguished, in this new English life, to be called Busson du Maurier, in secret tribute to the farm in Chenu where he was born. Of course, he leads people to believe that his family owned a château, a glassworks, and lots of land and that he lost it in the revolution. His children bear this new aristocratic-sounding surname, but only two of them will have a descendant: James, born in 1793, and Louis-Mathurin, born in 1797, Kicky’s future father. Daphne makes other discoveries concerning her strange great-great-grandfather. In 1802, Robert-Mathurin decides to visit France, briefly, but on the boat there he swaps his identity papers with a man who dies during the crossing. His wife, who has remained in London, thinks she is a widow, and the young children mourn their father for a long time, because he has simply invented a new life for himself, in Tours, where he founds a school and where he dies, in 1811. Now Daphne understands why Gerald’s grandfather, Louis-Mathurin Busson du Maurier was convinced that his father was an aristocrat from Sarthe. A legend transmitted from Kicky to Gerald, along with the crystal tumbler, then from Gerald to his own daughters. Daphne remembers t
he distant stories of châteaux and aristocrats that her father used to tell her at Cumberland Terrace, when she was a little girl. And to think that their real surname is simply Busson!
Daphne constructs her novel around this irresponsible yet somehow endearing protagonist, Robert-Mathurin Busson. In this account, it is Robert’s sister, Sophie Duval, who tells her young nephew Louis-Mathurin, the truth about his vanished father: that he was not an aristocrat who fled from the threat of the guillotine and took refuge in England. No, he was an ordinary man, from a family of artisans, ruined by debt and delusions of grandeur. It is not the tragic trajectory of the revolution that interests Daphne here—in spite of her precise, masterly descriptions of the Vendée uprising, the massacres of the Terror, the gratuitous acts of violence, the sufferings of the people—but the daily life of a family: her family, the Bussons. She feels convinced that she owes them so much, these Sarthe ancestors, this clan united by the love of family and land, by their respect for nature and tradition. And to that scatterbrained great-great-grandfather of hers, who built castles in the air, she probably owes her overflowing imagination, her youthful rebelliousness, and her love for France.
I think it’s quite good, not wildly exciting or suspense-making, but rather nostalgic and mellow, she writes to Oriel upon finishing the book in June 1962. I hate the idea of it being put into a garish yellow cover and boosted as the story of a Revolution, which only comes into the middle part. It’s the story of a family, plain and simple, written with compassion.59 Passion and fever seem to have been removed from her writing—through a lack of “peg,”* perhaps? Is it possible that as she gets older those “pegs”* no longer have the capacity to overwhelm her mind with such tumultuous fervor? Sadness and resignation.
The Busson du Mauriers beat a retreat from Daphne’s mind when Tommy announces that Elizabeth II will come to take tea at “Mena” on July 23, 1962. Action stations! This is even worse than the visit of P.P. twelve years earlier. The queen will come from the royal yacht, moored at Fowey, with her bodyguards, her chauffeurs, her entire retinue. How shall we manage? Daphne writes to Oriel. It’s ruining my summer! Piffy says I ought to do up the house, but really, one can’t!60 Every detail induces panic: to wear or not to wear a hat, which dress to choose (she no longer fits in the most elegant ones), and what to serve at this royal tea? Daphne loses her head, so it is Tommy who takes charge of everything, with military precision. Lady Browning’s only task is to arrange flowers in the twenty-eight vases, and even that exhausts her.
The weather is good for the royal visit. The young queen, dazzling in white, descends from the Rolls-Royce outside the manor. The silverware shines, and an opulent feast is spread out on the dining room table, but though the queen does accept a cup of tea, she will not touch a single salmon and cucumber sandwich, to the disappointment of all. Angela, wonderfully chatty and adept at conversation, entertains the monarch, even making her laugh, while Daphne is paralyzed by nerves, just like the gauche second Mrs. de Winter. Thank goodness for Piffy: you can always count on her in difficult moments. Despite her ongoing lack of success, Angela is working on her eighth novel, The Road to Leenane, which takes place in Ireland, where she recently went with a friend. Angela radiates good humor and joie de vivre, despite a few minor health concerns. As for Jeanne, even the visit of the Queen of England is not enough to tempt her from home. Bird plays the recluse in her Dartmoor cottage with its thatched roof, where—between a few glasses of very good wine, the music of Bach, Mozart, and Chopin, a vegetable garden that she tends enthusiastically, five horses, seven dogs, and an indefinite number of cats, chickens, and rabbits—she devotes herself to her art, in the company of her partner, Noël. She moves her easel around the house, wherever inspiration takes her, and Noël has learned not to disturb her.
Some good news arrives: Philip Rashleigh finally agrees to let the Brownings stay at Menabilly for a few years longer, to Daphne’s great relief. Even though Tommy tells her she is just delaying the inevitable, Daphne refuses to accept that she must, one day, leave her beloved home. The owner suggests they rent the little manor, Kilmarth, located on the grounds of Menabilly, with a view of the sea and St. Austell Bay. Tommy would be happy with this, but Daphne digs her heels in. Absolutely not! Not now!
Moper is enjoying a more peaceful period, in the summer of 1962. He continues to sail the Jeanne d’Arc, as well as a faster and more mobile boat, the Echo. He renews his interest in photography, taking out an old camera that he brought back from Asia. His three grandchildren entertain him, despite the ruckus they make. His favorite seems to be the youngest: Flavia’s three-year-old son, Rupert. As for Daphne, her editor’s announcement that the Times Literary Supplement is preparing a long profile on her for October both thrills and terrifies her. Daphne is still pained by the lack of critical recognition for her work, twenty-four years after Rebecca. The article, written anonymously, as is often the case in that newspaper, is something of a mixed bag: while the author finds remarkable qualities in Rebecca and The Scapegoat, he mercilessly slates Daphne’s historical novels: “Miss du Maurier’s historical sense is execrable.” Victor is vexed, Tommy furious, but Daphne, surprisingly philosophical, is consoled by the article’s positive conclusion: that it is time to stop underestimating her work. Critics who persist in demeaning her novels as “a glossy brand of entertaining nonsense”—to quote Ronald Bryden in last April’s Spectator in his scathing article “Queen of the Wild Mullions”—are simply wrong.
But the harm is done. The label has stuck, to Daphne’s dismay. Younger, more modern novelists like Iris Murdoch and Ivy Compton-Burnett are treated as serious authors, but not her. Perhaps she has become outdated, old-fashioned? She remembers an anecdote told her by her friend Clara Vyvyan, who was complaining about her books’ modest sales figures, in spite of the critical acclaim they received. Her editor told her: No one sells nowadays, not even Daphne du Maurier!61
* * *
When The Glass-Blowers appears in the spring of 1963, the press either ignores it or treats it as a dull historical romance. Kirkus Reviews considers it well below Daphne du Maurier’s usual standards, and sales are poor, too. Even the naturally optimistic Victor is disappointed. The best remedy for Daphne’s disillusion is to go off to Italy with Tessa, who is herself going through a difficult period with her unfaithful, alcoholic husband. At nearly thirty, she is a mature, intelligent young woman, and Daphne enjoys this trip with her eldest daughter, knowing that Tommy is being well looked after by Esther, at Menabilly. Once again, it is Tessa who drives, as soon as they land at Rome airport, and Daphne who reads the map. They spend four days in the capital before heading for the wonders of Perugia: its large square, its palace, its cloisters, its cathedral. The city is full of rowdy students in costumes, an entertaining spectacle for Daphne, who loves sitting in cafés and watching them. Mother and daughter laugh together like young girls at the hotel, where Daphne discreetly mocks the English tourists, inventing fantastical stories to amuse Tessa. Then they go to Urbino and are fascinated by its medieval alleyways and impressive castle. If only this agreeable trip could give birth to a new book! Surely there is a story to be told about Urbino, its university, its ducal palace.… She takes a few notes: a professor, a family secret, a tragedy linked to the city’s history, a murder, a mystery, two brothers who lose touch with each other … Daphne feels sure she is on to something, and she burns with the desire to write about Italy.
Back in England, Daphne sees Alfred Hitchcock’s adaptation of her short story “The Birds,” which received an ovation at the Cannes festival. The movie was shot in the San Francisco area, at Bodega Bay, with Tippie Hedren, a blond newcomer, in the central role. Hitchcock radically changed the plot, a fact that Daphne deplores even if she is impressed and frightened by the special effects. The viewer must wait over an hour to see the birds’ first attack. Nevertheless, the film is an international success. Daphne, however, is irritated that her name is so rarely mentioned in interviews with the d
irector. Hitchcock has adapted three of her stories in twenty-four years but has never paid tribute to her and has tended to minimize or even denigrate her work.
Daphne’s morale is bucked up by the announcement of her son Kits’s wedding. At twenty-two, he has fallen madly in love with an extra he met while shooting Carol Reed’s latest movie. Olive White is eighteen, the daughter of a plumber, the former Miss Ireland 1961, a model and TV presenter, and Kits finds her terribly “menacing.”* She is not a fool and reads Yeats!62 he writes to his mother. When she meets her son’s fiancée at Menabilly in the summer of 1963, Daphne immediately feels reassured. Tall, blond, serene, and charming, Olive is an instant hit with her future parents-in-law. She has never been to Cornwall before and is impressed by the house when she arrives at night, by the endless-seeming number of gates that must be opened and passed, the long driveway, and Sir Frederick and Lady Browning waiting for them on the threshold. Olive has read Jamaica Inn but still has no idea just how famous her fiancé’s mother really is. The next morning, Olive discovers the garden, the path to the sea, and falls in love with Menabilly. She feels at ease with Daphne, who is cheerful and amusing and shares Kits’s ironic, facetious sense of humor. The wedding is set for January 1964, in Dublin, Ireland. Daphne has a few concerns. Aren’t they a little young to be getting married? Olive is Catholic and Irish, which seems an added complication, and Kits still does not have a secure job. But he is absolutely determined to marry his beauty queen, come what may.
In the run-up to the wedding, Daphne must deal with another crisis involving Tommy, who is still in thrall to alcohol. She tries to show herself patient and understanding, and Tommy, racked by guilt, confesses his drinking: he knows he shouldn’t do it, but he can’t help himself, it is beyond his control. And he is back in the downward spiral. This tension is eclipsed by the shock of President Kennedy’s assassination, on November 22, 1963. Daphne and her husband sit in front of the television, too stunned to finish their dinner. He was one of the few leaders for whom I had an enormous respect, she writes to Oriel. I can’t tell you how it has moved me, and Moper too.63