Gerald has paraded through his whole life, executing pirouettes, slaloming between crowds of admirers, assured and light-footed. So many times, Daphne sees him laugh too loud, admire himself in a mirror, spend without counting, leave extravagant tips, mock other people behind their backs, grovel hypocritically. This is who Sir Gerald du Maurier is: the actor, the theater director, the star, the idol. His detractors find him vain, full of himself, superficial; and the worst thing is, he knows this and couldn’t care less.
In the tranquility of her room, Daphne confides in her journal, continues down the path of her writing. A radio set arrives at Cannon Hall: it is incredible, amazing, she writes, to discover these voices, this music, coming out of this strange little box. She listens to it so much that she soon gets a migraine. In a letter to her darling Tod, still abroad, she tells how Angela is playing the role of Wendy in Peter Pan, directed by their uncle Jim, at Wyndham’s Theatre, with Gladys Cooper—a young actress and a great friend of the whole du Maurier family (and who bears a slight resemblance to Daphne)—in the role of Peter. Something disastrous yet funny happened during one of the shows: the harness that was supposed to make Wendy fly snapped, and Angela flew spectacularly straight into the orchestra pit, very luckily without serious injury.
Daphne also writes to her about the dance given at the Claridge Hotel for Angela, but what she fails to inform her former governess of is that it is she, Daphne, who is the belle of the ball in a pale blue velvet tunic, whereas her older sister, stuffed inside a white satin ball gown, looks more like a meringue; nor does she reveal that she is the girl whom most of the boys want to dance with and that she enjoys herself wholeheartedly while poor Angela remains a wallflower. However, she does not hold back from telling Tod about the feeling of permanent emptiness that continues to gnaw at her, and her increasing dissatisfaction at being born a girl: Why wasn’t I born a boy? They did all the brave things.8
There is one positive note, though: her father read a few of her poems and he liked them. She has discovered two writers she admires: Somerset Maugham and Katherine Mansfield. To write like them, as well as them, is that possible? Because that is all that interests her, and Tod knows it: Daphne wants to write; Daphne does write; Daphne is a writer. Other young girls look for husbands, think about starting a family, but not her; she doesn’t believe in marriage. Just look at her parents’ relationship—what a farce.
Each evening, when she draws her curtains, Daphne glimpses a light, not far away, on the edge of the Heath, a window lit late at night that seems to twinkle benevolently. Contemplating its golden glimmer pacifies her, fills her with hope. The vexations of the day fade away, like this morning when she had to pose for a photograph with Gerald, who wanted a portrait of himself with his favorite daughter. She hates the result. Her father is sitting to her left, turned toward her, staring at her possessively, his hand on hers, as if to prevent her moving, going away, leaving him. He holds her back, like a cuckolded husband might shut away an unfaithful wife, imprisoning her, bringing her to heel, and she—a prey, a victim—appears sullen under her cloche hat, her features frozen in an expression of gloom, looking away from him and from the lens, without even the hint of a smile on her face.
For the first time, Daphne feels oppressed by the atmosphere in Cannon Hall. The excessive love her father feels for her has become overwhelming, as has her mother’s coldness. She is only seventeen, but she feels as if she is suffocating. She watches the mysterious window shining in the night and thinks about her friend Doodie, who has already gone to France, to a finishing school near Meudon. For several weeks, every letter Daphne has received from Doodie has been eulogistic: the place, the teachers, the other students, it’s all so wonderful, so marvelous, so close to Paris, Daphne must absolutely come and join her here, as soon as she possibly can.
Paris. The city that draws her like a magnet.
Yes, of course, Paris.
PART TWO
FRANCE, 1925
I leave my heart behind in Paris.
—DAPHNE DU MAURIER1
Meudon, Hauts-de-Seine, France
November 2013
The biographies of Daphne du Maurier state that the finishing school she attended was “located in Camposena, a village near Meudon.” Camposena … As a Frenchwoman, I can’t help smiling at the Italian-sounding name. If there had been a village with that name anywhere near Meudon, I would know about it.
I find the answer in the Hauts-de-Seine departmental archives. The Villa Camposenea (not Camposena) was located at 25 Rue de l’Orphelinat (formerly the main street of the village of Fleury), now known as Rue du Père-Brottier, in Meudon. I also obtain a list from the 1926 population census providing me with the name of each person working at the finishing school at that date. Meudon’s communal archives send me a precise description of the place and the land registers, as well as some photographs: the property was constructed in Fleury in the eighteenth century; it belonged to Armand-Gaston Camus, the founder of the national archives, and then to the famous printer Charles Panckoucke. The mayor of Clamart, Jules Hunebelle, took possession of the house in 1860 and had it extended.
The dancer Isadora Duncan, states the same document, lived there in 1902, and the finishing school, directed by Mrs. Hubbard, and then by Mrs. Wicksteed, was situated there between 1921 and 1934. After that (and this greatly amuses me) it was taken over by a community of nudists. The lot, consisting of “a main residence, a large circular greenhouse, an orangery, a stable, a shed, a concierge’s house, in very poor condition, surface area of three hectares 47 acres,” was sold by the Hunebelle heirs in 1943 to the commune of Meudon. The entire place was razed to the ground in 1950 in order to construct the apartment buildings of the “Fleury park.”
I walk past these unattractive, gray, cubic buildings and wonder if the wide driveway lined with lime trees was saved at the last minute before the demolition took place. A pair of stone angels decorates the gardens of Meudon’s art and history museum. In the old days, the angels sat atop pillars at the entrance to the Panckoucke-Hunebelle property. Apart from them, nothing remains of the original residence. Daphne would not have liked what Camposonea has become, nine decades later.
* * *
Here, they don’t call her Daphne, but Madamoiselle du Maurier. She loves hearing her name pronounced this way, à la française, and she thinks that Kicky would have loved it, too. She arrived at the station in Bellevue on January 19, 1925. Meudon and Fleury reminded her oddly of Hampstead, with its steep slopes, its affluent houses, its well-kept gardens. What does she know about Meudon? Not much, except that her compatriot Alfred Sisley never tired of painting the changing reflections on the Seine and that Wagner composed his Flying Dutchman here. Obviously, it is not Paris, but the capital city and its wonders are only a half-hour train journey away.
Inside a wooded garden, the Villa Camposonea, situated at the end of a long driveway bordered by lime trees, is a tall, pale house with a small clock tower and a bartizan. Daphne instantly likes its Gothic appearance. Mrs. Wicksteed, the manager of the establishment—a cheerful, gray-haired lady in her fifties—welcomes her new student warmly. It is a beautiful day, not too cold, and Mrs. Wicksteed decides to make the most of this to show the young lady around the park. Mrs. Wicksteed tells her about one of the house’s previous owners, Mrs. Panckoucke, first name Ernestine, a pretty brunette painted by Ingres who used to receive celebrities here such as Alfred de Musset and Berlioz. Daphne listens, blank faced. No doubt Mrs. Wicksteed guesses that, behind this new student’s haughty, almost arrogant appearance (that determined chin raised like a shield!) lies a pathological shyness. This is the first time, she knows, that Daphne has left home. Mrs. Wicksteed embarks on a story, explaining that the Panckoucke household entertained their guests with “constructions” set up in the park, few of which remain. She describes the Tell chapel, the Polynesian hut, the grotto built with rocks from Fontainebleau, the Chinese pavilion with dragons and pagodas at the top of the h
ill, and she congratulates herself when Daphne finally smiles, charmed by this nostalgic description.
In the long room on the first floor, which must have witnessed the most glorious moments of Mrs. Panckoucke’s era, and whose stained-glass windows are now faded, its tapestries tattered, its chandeliers covered with dust, Mrs. Wicksteed eagerly introduces her team: the servants, and the twenty-five young boarders, most of whom are English. The school’s headmistress, Mlle Yvon, her right-hand woman (pretty green eyes); Mrs. Evans, the (rather stiff) governess; Miss Engler, the (somewhat strict-looking) music teacher; Mr. Baissac, the guard; Mr. and Mrs. Sassisson, the cooks; Miss Chassagniole, the tough laundrywoman; Marcel, the groom (watch out for him); then Yvonne, Adrienne, Lucienne, Marguerite, the maids, and other, more humble servants who are not named. Next come Daphne’s new classmates, all so bland and nondescript, so lacking in panache and style. Thank goodness her dear Doodie is there, with her impish smile.
Daphne is disappointed to discover, during the first meal in the freezing-cold dining room, that the illustrious du Maurier name carries no weight at Camposonea—no one seems impressed by it—because there are a plethora of aristocratic young ladies here, princesses, countesses, heiresses, and she feels invisible. Not easy, either, to become accustomed to this communal life, particularly for a girl such as Daphne, who has known only the quiet comforts of her childhood homes and the occasional luxury hotel. She must get used to her noisy classmates with their jokes, their cliques, their barely interesting manners.
She is not bothered by sleeping with Doodie, but by the room itself, which is, she complains in a letter to Tod, as bare as a maid’s quarters: no carpet, and the drawers in the chests all squeak. As for the temperature in the building here, she finds it icy cold, and they don’t even have the right to light a fire. She has always been sensitive to the cold: How will she survive? As it is, she has to jump up and down every night before she goes to bed just to warm herself up a bit, watched by the giggling Doodie, and to sleep all bundled up in her fur coat.
The first few nights go badly. A distant, but still too loud, bell rings every fifteen minutes, and the roosters on a neighboring farm crow their heads off at the crack of dawn. Weary and drawn, Daphne stares through the window. It is not yet daylight. She has a view over the white cottages of Fleury’s winemakers and, beyond those, the roofs of a large manor house that is home to the Saint-Philippe orphanage. How is she going to adapt to this new life? The morning ablutions are unspeakably barbarous: cold water in a cracked basin, and each boarder must make her own bed! Never in all her life has Mlle du Maurier made her own bed. And she’s not about to start now.
In the room next door are two younger girls, one of whom is a clumsy oaf named Henrietta, one of the few to have been impressed by the du Maurier name. In the blink of an eye, Daphne sweet-talks, charms, and enslaves her. From that point on, Henrietta will, very discreetly, make Daphne’s bed for her every morning. As for the cold, Daphne complains about it so much to Muriel that her mother pays a supplementary fee to the school’s management in order that Daphne and Doodie be allowed to light a fire in their room. Adrienne, the young maid, comes in to light it every morning.
Another downer is the formal prohibition on walking anywhere other than in the Camposenea park. An enthusiastic walker, used to invigorating hikes on the Heath, Daphne rails against this confinement. And her list of grievances grows longer: she doesn’t like Mr. and Mrs. Sassisson’s cooking and barely touches her meals. Is she being difficult in order to get attention? Maybe. She also complains about the timetable: the “inhuman” wake-up call at 7:15, prayers at 7:50, breakfast at 8:00, music at 9:45, classes from 10:15 until noon, the too-early lunch, and all those bells ringing at the most ungodly hours. An affectionate telegram sent by the actress and close family friend Gladys Cooper makes her smile: Fondest love darling, thinking of you, Glads.
But the worst thing is the humiliation Daphne suffers in her French course. There are four classes in Camposenea. In the First group are the “elite,” the five or six most brilliant students, who speak perfect French. Next is the Second A class for those just below this level, then Second B for those with “passable” French, and Third for girls whose French is below average. After a test, which Daphne thinks she has aced, she finds herself in Second B. This is a blow to her pride. She, a du Maurier, with French blood flowing in her veins! It’s unbelievable.
The only parts of this new existence that excite her are the weekly outings to Paris. The young boarders, accompanied by Mlle Yvon and Miss Engeler, take the train to Bellevue in a group and go to visit the Louvre, the Comédie-Française, the Opéra. Daphne, who is not especially musical, gets a shock when she hears Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, conducted by the composer himself. That evening, in their room, while Doodie dances to a ragtime tune on the gramophone, Daphne writes in her journal, attempting to describe this strange, modern music that seemed to transport her to another world, then begins a letter to Tod. Don’t you love Paris? With its cobbled streets, shrieking taxis and wonderful lights and chic little women and dago*-like men with broad-rimmed trilby hats? I think that the Place de la Concorde, at night, after it’s been raining, with all the lights, is too wonderful, it’s all quite divine.2
One evening in February 1925, on the train back to Versailles, Daphne sits opposite Mlle Yvon, the headmistress, a small, plump woman in her thirties with very dark hair and green, almond-shaped eyes. She speaks fluent English, with a strong French accent, and this only adds to her charm. A lively, sophisticated woman, she attracts a court of admirers from among the girls; in fact, Daphne realizes, the majority of the students seem spellbound by Mlle Yvon’s ironic humor and sparkling smile. To begin with, after Daphne arrived at Camposenea, the headmistress’s charm somehow passed her by, but now, here on the train, as Mlle Yvon’s eyes rest on her—just for a few seconds—Daphne feels a strange pang, a sensation she had forgotten.
Mlle Yvon teaches only the Firsts, the elite students, an exclusive club over which she reigns supreme. The Firsts have the right to eat dinner at the same table as Mrs. Wicksteed, Miss Engeler, and Mlle Yvon, while all the other students must sit with one another. After the meal is over, Mlle Yvon and her favorites go to the “back room,” a space reserved especially for them. The other students have to content themselves with dancing on the mezzanine or stifling their yawns as Mrs. Wicksteed reads to them out loud.
Above the sound of the music and Mrs. Wicksteed’s quavering voice, Daphne pricks up her ears toward the “back room,” listening out for every burst of laughter, every shout. Often one of the elite girls runs out in tears, face bright red, and another quickly follows to console her and bring her back. But what are they up to? Daphne wonders in a whisper directed at Doodie and her friend Sheila. It’s the truth game, which they play with Mlle Yvon. Apparently, it’s pretty strong stuff: you need nerves of steel.
Weeks pass, and Daphne quietly seethes. Why isn’t she part of the group that goes to the “back room” after dinner? Why must she make do with these deadly dull evenings listening to Mrs. Wicksteed’s readings? Because she’s not in the group of Firsts? It’s so unfair. Doodie is friends with two of the elite girls, but according to her it’s impossible to even try to get into that closed group. Not that she minds: Doodie and Sheila seem perfectly happy with their dances on the mezzanine and their meaningless chatter with the Seconds and Thirds.
Daphne looks at herself in the mirror one morning, standing proudly at five feet three inches tall. She is a du Maurier, after all: her grandfather and her father would never have been afraid to enter that famous back room, to take part in their game, so what is she waiting for? Her father would have gone in nonchalantly, all charm. A boy’s voice whispers in her ear. The voice of Eric Avon, ousted so long ago. Go on, Daph; you can do it. What do those girls have that you don’t? You’re the prettiest of all of them, and you’ve seen how Mlle Yvon looked at you, on the Versailles train. She’s watching you with those cat eyes
of hers; you know she is; you can see it; she’s waiting for you to go and join them. Don’t be frightened.
That evening, with a supreme insouciance that Gerald would have approved of, Daphne carefully chooses a book from the library—Women in the 18th Century by the Goncourt brothers—and makes a spectacular entrance into the “back room,” walking in calmly, sitting on one of the chairs, and beginning to read. The conversation comes to a halt and the little group sitting in front of the fireplace stares at her. Their gazes are openly hostile. All of them wait for Mlle Yvon to ask this interloper to leave. But the headmistress’s deep voice sounds welcoming, amused. Come close to the fire, my child.
It’s a triumph.
Daphne is now part of the elite, and the other young girls must simply accept it, because Mlle Yvon seems to consider her the favorite of all her favorites. In Daphne’s private journal, Mlle Yvon’s first name appears very often. Fernande. Daphne’s lessons, the outings to the Louvre and the Opéra … all these things are relegated to the background. The essential thing, from now on, is to be close to her, at meals, during visits to Paris, to be next to Fernande, at her right or her left, and what does it matter if the others notice this devotion and giggle about it? Half the girls in Camposenea have a crush on Mlle Yvon, after all. To comfort her, Doodie admits to having a weakness for Miss Vincent, the new red-haired teacher. Daphne questions herself, pouring her heart out in her journal. Crushes are the kind of thing her sister Angela has, rather ridiculously falling under the spell of almost everyone she meets, male or female.