An odd sort of empty feeling came when he’d gone, tempered with perplexity and surprise. Last seen as a gay young sprig with a roving eye, he was now bull-necked and stout, with graying hair. Something had gone amiss. Some link was broken. That ageing bachelor wasn’t the boy she knew. Were all her friends and contemporaries just as heavy, slow-chewing of their food, pompous, deliberate? Had the vital spark been extinguished with the years? If that was the case, then better be blown like a candle, snuffed in an instant, lost in the empty air. Cast a lovely light for one brief moment only, an incandescent glow; then out—and finish.
One January morning the papers arrived from England solemn and black-edged, the columns lined; and Mary and Ellen, quick and intuitive, wished to keep them from her so as to spare emotion, the sudden switch of mood they knew and feared. It was no use. Those searching eyes had seen the darkened print and guessed what it had to tell—rumors had reached her—but even so the news came as shock, and she went and sat upstairs, alone in her bedroom, locked the door and opened up her Times.
“January 5th 1827.
“At ten minutes past nine o’clock last night in Rutland House, Arlington Street, died His Royal Highness Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, in the 64th year of his age.”
Just that, and nothing else. And thinking back she remembered how in the old days she would scan that page and see some brief announcement of his program. “His Royal Highness, the Commander-in-Chief, today inspected the 14th Light Dragoons, and later called upon His Majesty”—and later still, she used to tell him laughing, on Mrs. M. A. Clarke at Gloucester Place. She had dozens of scrapbooks somewhere with those cuttings, and, underneath, additions by herself scribbled in pen and ink and unrepeatable.
She turned to the summing-up, the final judgment. “The deceased Prince, whose kindness of disposition rendered him popular in his lifetime and will make him generally lamented, had been what is termed a good liver.
“He liked wine, he loved play, and he had other tastes unfortunately too often indulged in, of which the cultivation is more excusable in many other walks of life than in that of a Prince.
“Besides the Duke of York’s attachment to the pleasures of the table, to gambling on the Turf and elsewhere, and to another class of immoral indulgence which, without being named, may be sufficiently comprehended, His Royal Highness was weakly—we are bound to say culpably as well as most unhappily—insensible to the real use of money. We should hardly here have touched upon the painful Investigation in which the Commons of England were unfortunately engaged seventeen years ago, were it not, first, that the singular occurrence to which we allude must, in spite of us, live in our history and blot our Parliamentary records; and second, that the result proved strikingly beneficial to the Army, and to the kingdom at large. Disappointment itself has ceased to clamor, and envy to whisper, that promotions have been obtained through secret and impure interference.
“The Duke of York in private society was warmly and justifiably beloved; cheerful, affable, open, generous, a steady and cordial friend, grateful for kindness, placable in his few resentments, human and compassionate to all whose distresses he had the means of relieving.
“The memory of His Royal Highness will long be dear to all who take serious interest in the honor, welfare and efficiency of the British Army.”
A later edition gave a further item.
“The King’s Guard at the King’s Palace, St. James’s, mounted and dismounted in solemn silence, for thousands were in attendance in consequence of the demise of the Duke of York.
“We understand the remains of the Royal Duke are to lie in state two days in the King’s Palace, St. James’s, and the days are to be Thursday and Friday the 18th and 19th instant, and the following day the remains are to be removed to Windsor, to be interred in the royal vault. The funeral of the lamented Duke will be conducted as Heir Presumptive to the Throne and Commander-in-Chief, and not as Field Marshal.”
She told neither Mary nor Ellen of her plan. They would have tried to prevent her. That ban on England, imposed by the Trustees, adhered to ever since leaving King’s Bench prison, mattered no longer. Charley had gone alone to his suicide’s grave, and Bill to rest with his parents in Uxbridge village; Will Ogilvie, shot in the back by an unknown hand, had passed without a prayer; but this was different.
Some stubborn, fundamental English pride drove her to cross the Channel once again, to brave the tossing sea and the leaden skies, call herself Madame Chambres, assume an accent, mask the face that no one would remember with a long mourning veil and widow’s weeds.
She lost identity among the crowds, swayed backwards, forwards, pushed and fought and struggled. No one controlled the people in Pall Mall, the plunging horses, the broken line of carriages; all was confusion, turmoil and distress. Ten thousand men and women, twenty thousand, and still they came and would not be turned back, and bobbing among the heads were the somber banners inscribed with the words “The Soldier’s Friend” in purple, followed by marching soldiers, followed by the cadets from the Chelsea school, five hundred little boys, white-faced and solemn, the younger children accompanied by their nurses, wearing their black straw hats and scarlet gowns like those Martha used to wear in 1805.
She felt herself borne forward towards St. James’s, and now her shawl was slipping, her veil had gone, while somebody was shouting in her ear and a fainting child was lifted overhead, followed by another and another, and a woman in stockinged feet was trodden down.
A murmur rose from behind. “They’ll close the doors… they’ll never let us in.” More panic, confusion, heads turned in all directions, bodies swaying. “Go on… turn back… they’re calling out the Guards…” And still she fought her way towards the front, her shawl torn from her back and one shoe missing, not caring, set, determined. “Let ’em call!”
Now they were in the courtyard of St. James’s, surging towards the stairs. The stairs were lined with mutes and soldiers, Yeomen of the Guard, crêpe on their hats and halberds, crêpe on their swords.
The crowd became strangely hushed, became strangely solemn, and in St. James’s Palace all was still, the State apartment dimly lit by candles. She found herself staring suddenly at his sword. It lay on the pall with his coronet and baton, but they were regal things, belonging to duty; the sword was personal, part of the man she’d known.
She thought, “I used to hold that in my hands,” and found herself surprised at recognition, for it looked forbidding there by candlelight, austere and oddly lonely, out of place.
She heard it clanking down the stairs at breakfast time, or sounding in the hall, or tossed aside; she saw it thrown to Ludovick to clean, or standing upright in the dressing room, or taken from its sheath to show to George. It had no business there upon the pall—the sword was part of life and not of mourning.
There were his Orders, there was his Garter ribbon, but somebody pushed her past and she could not turn. There were too many people pressing, urging her forward—on with a hundred others down the stairs. One glimpse of his sword, and no more… a strange farewell.
She found herself in the open air once again, carried by aimless crowds towards Charing Cross, and she thought, “What now? I’ve done what I came to do. There’s nothing left to stay for, the visit’s over.”
She went and sat on the steps of St. Martin’s Church, hemmed in by grumbling men and weary women, crying children pressing against her knees, all of them huddled together for greater warmth, defeating the gusts of wind and the slanting rain.
A woman beside her offered her bread and cheese, and a man on the other side a swig of beer. “Here’s luck all round,” she said, and somebody laughed, and the sun came out and one of them started singing. She thought of her vestal virgins in Boulogne and George in his regimentals, stiff and pompous, and suddenly none of them mattered, not even George; she was home where she belonged, in the heart of London.
“Come far?” asked her next-door neighbor, sucking an orange.
> “Only from round the corner,” she said, “from Bowling Inn Alley.”
The bells of St. Martin’s began to toll but she went on sitting there, eating her bread and cheese, tossing the rind to the pigeons that spattered the steps, and watching a million starlings span the sky.
About the Author
Daphne du Maurier (1907–1989) was born in London, the daughter of the actor Sir Gerald du Maurier and granddaughter of the author and artist George du Maurier. Her first novel, The Loving Spirit, was published in 1931, but it would be her fifth novel, Rebecca, that made her one of the most popular authors of her day. Besides novels, du Maurier wrote plays, biographies, and several collections of short fiction. Many of her works were made into films, including Rebecca, Jamaica Inn, My Cousin Rachel, “Don’t Look Now,” and “The Birds.” She lived most of her life in Cornwall, and was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1969.
Books by Daphne du Maurier
Novels
The Loving Spirit
I’ll Never Be Young Again
Julius
Jamaica Inn
Rebecca
Frenchman’s Creek
Hungry Hill
The King’s General
The Parasites
My Cousin Rachel
Mary Anne
The Scapegoat
Castle Dor
The Glass-Blowers
The Flight of the Falcon
The House on the Strand
Rule Britannia
Short Stories
The Birds and Other Stories
The Breaking Point: Stories
Don’t Look Now and Other Stories
Nonfiction
Gerald: A Portrait
The du Mauriers
The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë
Golden Lads: A Study of Anthony Bacon, Francis, and Their Friends
The Winding Stair: Francis Bacon, His Rise and Fall
Myself When Young
The Rebecca Notebook and Other Memories
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Foreword
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part 2
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Part 3
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part 4
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
About the Author
Books by Daphne du Maurier
Newsletters
Copyright
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 1951 by The Estate of Daphne du Maurier
Foreword copyright © 2004 by Time Warner Books UK
Cover design by Susan Zucker
Cover photograph by Trevillion
Cover copyright © 2013 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at
[email protected] Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
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First ebook edition: December 2013
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ISBN 978-0-316-32371-0
E3
Daphne Du Maurier, Mary Anne
(Series: # )
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