Cannon Hall, Hampstead, London
November 2013
As I emerge from Hampstead tube station, in the north of London, the first thing that comes to my mind is that I have been here before: I came when I was a teenager, to visit the house of the poet John Keats, on Primrose Hill. Hampstead hasn’t changed at all; with its narrow, sloping, tree-lined streets it is identical to the place in my memory. It feels like being in a small village, in spite of the signs for hip stores and restaurants that have opened up along Heath Street. There are few apartment buildings here; it’s mostly houses with gardens. I have read that it was in Hampstead, in the nineteenth century, that a community of avant-garde intellectuals was formed. The area still retains that bohemian-bourgeois atmosphere. Sigmund Freud, Agatha Christie, Liz Taylor, and Elton John all lived here. But Hampstead would not be so attractive, so sought-after, were it not for its park, known as the Heath, one of the largest in London, with a magnificent view of the capital. There are three open-air swimming pools, former drinking-water reservoirs, one of them a ladies’ pond. Marx liked to walk these rolling paths with Engels. A scene from the movie Notting Hill, starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts, was shot on the Heath.
Hampstead is built on a hill. The streets are calm, silent, the houses charming in their elegant gardens. One must climb and climb to reach the edge of the Heath. I have no trouble locating Cannon Place: it is accessible via the long, steep street of Christchurch Hill. I feel a strange emotion as I look at Cannon Hall for the first time. Situated at number 14 Cannon Place, it is a large, austere redbrick house in a Georgian style, purchased by Daphne’s father in 1916. It was constructed in 1710; George III’s personal physician lived here. Set back from a cobblestone courtyard with a fountain, it seems to hide behind its black gates and is surrounded by a high wall made of the same brick, encircling a vast garden. A round blue plaque is attached to the façade, announcing that the actor Gerald du Maurier, who was born in 1873 and died in 1934, lived in Cannon Hall from 1916 until his death. I approach the house and the wall to take photos. A woman watches me from a second-floor window. How many of us are there, I wonder, who come to Hampstead on a pilgrimage, following in the footsteps of a famous and enigmatic novelist?
* * *
Daphne already loves her new abode, much more spacious than Cumberland Terrace. The entrance hall is impressive, with its black-and-white checkerboard tiles, its marble fireplace, and the stately staircase covered with a red-and-gold carpet. The furniture and paintings bought by her parents are more spectacular than any she has seen before. On the wall above the staircase is a beautiful but sad profile of King Charles, a portrait of Elizabeth I, and a battle scene, fascinating when studied up close, with all sorts of gory details. Daphne counts four reception areas, eight bedrooms, four bathrooms, not forgetting an entire floor for the servants. There is space for three cars in the garage. And then there is the garden—a garden just for them, with a veranda, two greenhouses, an immense lawn, an orchard, and a tennis court. No need to put on her coat and hat to go and play outside anymore. The girls are intrigued by a rusty old locked gate on the other side of the brick wall, on Cannon Lane. Behind this, Gerald tells them, is an old cell constructed inside the wall itself, and it was here, in the previous century, that prisoners were locked up on a straw bed before being taken to court. Often, Daphne thinks about the sleepless nights those prisoners must have spent in this secret dungeon with its barred windows, hidden inside the thickness of the wall.
There are three different ways of getting into the games room. Daphne and Jeanne have fun running like mad through the long hallways, rushing up the main stairway, then hurtling down the other stairways, until the shouts of their parents put an end to their stampede. But they always start up again, to the despair of Dorothy, the young maid tasked with looking after them; there is no longer a nurse to watch over the three sisters. The new house provides the ideal stage to continue their theatrical performances. This time, it’s Shakespeare. Daphne plays Prince Hal, who tramples on poor Hotpsur, acted by Jeanne, incapable of saying no to her sister. Daphne is Macbeth, Daphne is Othello, while Jeanne is Desdemona, suffocated by her jealous husband. Angela condescends to take the role of Titania, queen of the fairies. Gerald takes part in these Shakespearian plays. He is capable of quoting interminable monologues. Well, he is an actor, after all! After a while, Daddy gives up on Shakespeare, takes his daughters out to the garden, and teaches them to play cricket. Muriel is worried that this might damage the beautiful lawn. Frowning, she watches them through the window. Gerald gives his daughters boxing gloves. Angela pouts at this. What a strange present; boxing is for boys! Daddy ignores his eldest daughter and explains to the two younger ones how to box without getting hurt. Daphne is in seventh heaven and shows her father what a perfect boy she can be in spite of the girlish appearance that annoys her so much. Why is she so delicate, slender, blond? Why are her eyes so blue (lavender blue, apparently) with such long lashes?
Since the family moved to Cannon Hall in that spring of 1916, Gerald has grown nostalgic. He wanted his children to live in the place where he spent his idyllic, pampered childhood with his parents, and in particular with his father. Daddy talks about him all the time: George du Maurier. Daphne gets the impression that the history of Muriel’s family, the Beaumonts, is of no—or certainly less—interest to Daddy. Why? In the Beaumont family, Daphne knows, her uncle Willie runs a famous magazine, The Bystander, read by the most elegant ladies. Perhaps Daddy is less interested in his in-laws because there are no actors in their family? The girls’ other grandfather, who came from East Anglia, was a notary in his youth, but his company went bankrupt and he lost almost his entire fortune. The Beaumonts are not as rich as the du Mauriers, as Daphne is quick to realize. The Beaumont grandparents’ modest house on Woodstock Avenue has none of the grandeur of Cannon Hall, and when she stays there Daphne has to share a room with her aunt Billy, Mummy’s sister. Not that this bothers Daphne; on the contrary, she enjoys the cozy atmosphere of this house. Her “Little Granny” does the cooking herself. There are no servants, as there are at Cannon Hall, and on Saturday mornings Daphne accompanies her grandmother when she goes grocery shopping in Golders Green, near Hampstead, then helps her knead the dough before the house is filled with the wonderful smell of freshly baked bread.
Every month, come rain or shine, Gerald takes his daughters on a pilgrimage to New Grove House, where he grew up. The house is occupied by other people now, so they can’t go inside, but Daddy insists on telling them all about the façade. That downstairs window is where your grandfather had his studio. He would draw there every day, and he didn’t mind if we played while he worked. Through Gerald’s words, Daphne builds a strong impression of her grandfather: a good, gentle man, a man who loved his family, and whose family loved him. Once, Gerald tells them, when a dog was drowning in a pond on the Heath, their grandfather jumped right in to rescue it. The next stage of the pilgrimage takes place on the Heath, at the base of a tall tree. Gerald always sits in the same spot, in the hollow of a branch. This is where I used to come with my father when I was your age, and the two of us would sit up here. Afterward, he goes to the cemetery at the bottom of the hill, next to the church, where his parents and his sister Sylvia are buried, and where there is a memorial for Uncle Guy. Daphne likes the peacefulness of this place, but she thinks her father spends too much time here, and his face takes on a melancholic expression that pains her. She prefers sitting in Daddy’s study to look at the photographs of her grandfather, at all his drawings and books. She is now able to recognize the face of that relative she never knew, his fine features, his straight nose, his little goatee. Daddy shows her a very old glass tumbler, the family’s lucky charm, which he guards jealously in his desk, inside a worn leather case, and removes only at Christmas. He touches the glass ritually before every premiere in order to ward off bad luck. It was given to him by Kicky, his father. Gerald tells his daughters the story of his paternal family, the Bussons du Maurier, and when he speaks about this his eyes seem to shine with satisfaction at belonging to this clan; and he makes them, too, feel proud to bear the family name. Their grandfather’s father was named Louis-Mathurin. He was part-French, the son of émigrés from the French Revolution, from a great aristocratic family of glassblowers, originally from Sarthe, who had a château, lands, a factory. But it all burned down during the revolution, and the family lost everything.
Listening to her father, Daphne finds this tale almost too novel-like. Is it possible Daddy is embroidering the facts, exaggerating? Quite possibly: he’s an actor after all, and actors exaggerate everything, as she is beginning to understand. What is true, however, what cannot be denied, is that French blood flows through her veins. Her grandfather was born in Paris, in a second-floor apartment on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, at number 80. His mother was Ellen Clarke, an Englishwoman. Louis-Mathurin and Ellen were married at the British embassy, a handsome building on Rue du Faubourg–Saint-Honoré with a private garden. Her ancestor’s full name stirs something in Daphne: George Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier, although he was known simply as Kicky. Why Kicky? she asks. Because he was given that nickname by a Flemish nurse, inspired by the Manneken-Pis, the statue in Brussels of a little boy peeing, and the name stuck. His younger brother, Alexandre Eugène, born two years after him, was nicknamed Gygy. The du Maurier family lived in Paris, on Rue de Passy, at the corner of Rue de la Pompe, in the 16th arrondissement. Kicky and Gygy would play near the Auteuil pond, catching tadpoles, and in winter they would skate on the lake in the Bois de Boulogne and eat roasted chestnuts. It was a radiant Parisian childhood, despite the family’s financial difficulties. The father of Kicky, Gygy, and their little sister, Isobel, was an inventor of genius, according to Daddy. Louis-Mathurin had a superb voice—and Kicky inherited that extraordinary musical range—but he was also a man of ideas. He invented portable lamps, and he attempted all sorts of scientific experiments in his laboratory in the Poissonnière neighborhood, but alas, no one believed in him, no one wanted to invest in his inventions, and he never had enough money to bring them to fruition.
Daphne always looks forward to these privileged moments on the second floor of Cannon Hall, when Gerald—sitting by the fire with a cup of tea and a cigarette—would tell stories about his father’s childhood. At the age of seventeen, Kicky failed his exams, the famous baccalaureat. All he enjoyed was reading and drawing. His specialty was sketching caustic, funny family portraits, executed in three pencil strokes. Under pressure from his parents, Kicky moved to London to study science in a laboratory. Daphne feels the pain Kicky must have felt at being torn away from his beloved Paris; she feels his homesickness, exiled in London with its gray skies and thick fogs. Listening, captivated, Daphne falls under the charm of a city she has not yet seen; just like her grandfather, she yearns to devour a piece of cheese with a still-warm baguette, to taste a cup of chicory, to stroll along the embankment near Notre-Dame. Like Kicky, she dreams of Paris at night, understands why he feels more French than English: after all, wasn’t he born in the City of Light? Weren’t his ancestors French aristocrats of a noble lineage? His parents became alarmed: What is Kicky doing, daydreaming all day long instead of concentrating on his scientific studies? The girl guesses the reason: Kicky wants to return to Paris! After the death of his father, a few years later, the young man goes back to the city he loves so much. He is twenty-two. In the meantime, Gerald explains, Paris has changed: the prefect Haussmann has left his mark, the man nicknamed the Attila of the Straight Line or the Ripper Baron, the man who modernized Paris with the construction of long, rectilinear boulevards. Kicky no longer recognizes his medieval Paris with its damp, twisting alleys. But who cares? He makes friends; he feels happy; he takes art classes in Montparnasse, on Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. Life is beautiful.
One day, Daphne will go to Paris. She makes this promise to herself. She will see all those places with her own eyes; she will be the first du Maurier to follow in the footsteps of her grandfather.
* * *
One new element in Angela’s and Daphne’s lives is the school where they go each day, in Oak Hill Park. Gerald has very specific ideas about his daughters’ education. For him, the most important subjects are art, music, French, and literature. To this must be added algebra, alas, a subject loved by no one in the du Maurier family. To reach the school, the girls must walk, alone, down a deserted path. They are big girls now—thirteen and ten—and their parents have decided they no longer need to be chaperoned. One morning, a soldier in his blue uniform is lurking on the path. He is wounded: his leg is in plaster. Daphne pays no attention to him, but her sister, more fearful, thinks him suspicious. As the two girls pass, the soldier unbuttons his pants and exposes himself. Angela runs off at top speed, and Daphne follows her, though she doesn’t understand why, and her elder sister is too shocked to explain.
Angela works harder than her sister, receives better grades. In the end, Daphne starts imitating Muriel’s signature on the weekly report in her notebook, which she is supposed to show to her parents. Miss Druce, her teacher, eventually notices that Mrs. du Maurier’s signature never looks the same. She hands the notebook to her student and asks, Daphne, did your mother sign this? Daphne replies, without batting an eyelid, that it wasn’t her mother, but her. But don’t you realize, my child, how dishonest that is? It’s forgery! Did you know that people go to prison for that? No, Daphne didn’t know. She won’t do it again. It’s not really so important, after all. The most important thing is to make friends at Oak Hill Park, to have fun, to forget the war.
One morning, Miss Druce makes a solemn announcement to her students: Daphne du Maurier has written an excellent essay, by far the best. Unfortunately, her handwriting and spelling are atrocious. Consequently, Daphne is not top of the class; she is beaten by another girl. Daphne smiles to herself: Who cares about being top of the class? She was the one who wrote the best essay. She is so proud! Later, Daddy congratulates her warmly, while Mummy seems slightly disappointed. Why is there always this invisible barrier between Daphne’s mother and her, like a sort of strange shyness, a mutual reserve? The barrier seems as high as the redbrick wall that encircles Cannon Hall. Is it possible that Mummy is a bit jealous of the obvious complicity between Daddy and his middle daughter?
One night, before Gerald has returned from the theater, the household is woken by the screaming of a siren. The deafening sound of cannon fire, close by, makes everyone jump. The maid, young Dorothy, cowers under her bed in terror. Muriel, wearing a bathrobe, makes hot chocolate and attempts to reassure her daughters. Daphne can see clearly that her mother is worried: she keeps looking out of the window. Where is her husband? She appears to pray silently that nothing has happened to him. Daphne prays, too, in her head. She feels suddenly afraid, sensing the vulnerability of her family, of this whole city. At last, the headlights of Daddy’s car sweep the façade of Cannon Hall. So he has come home. The little girl breathes easily again. During another air-raid warning—this one in mid-morning—the sirens strike up their familiar howl, and the cannon booms so loudly that they decide to take shelter in the dusty cupboard under the stairs. Gerald, in pajamas, announces from the top of the stairs, with a hint of provocation, that he is going up to the attic. Perhaps he will see a zeppelin from up there: wouldn’t that be splendid? He’s never seen one: it must be an impressive sight. Although Muriel continues smiling, Daphne can tell that her mother does not find this at all amusing. Daphne feels faint at the thought of her father going up to the roof—he might die; she would never see him again—and an unbearable pain bores into her stomach. She has never felt so frightened, so sick, in her life. She reaches out her arms to him, crying at the top of her voice, Daddy, don’t go, don’t go, don’t ever leave me! Her father stares at her in silence, then looks at his wife’s pale face. Slowly, he walks downstairs and joins them in the cupboard. Finally, the sirens stop screaming. The air-raid warning is over.
Despite their country being at war, Londoners continue going to the theater. Gerald has never been in such demand. He triumphs in Dear Brutus, a hit play penned by Uncle Jim. Gerald plays Will Dearth, a failed artist and alcoholic. During one magical night, Will, who has no children, finds himself the father of a ten-year-old girl and his existence is transformed. At dawn, this chimerical child vanishes. At the premiere, Daphne is overwhelmed by emotion: the relationship between father and daughter onstage is so like the real-life complicity between Gerald and Daphne. She has to leave the box, in tears. Once again, she feels her mother’s disapproving stare trained on her.
* * *
Milton Hall … Daphne looks up at the sand-colored cut-stone façade. The huge house rears up amid green fields. It is impossible to imagine anything altering its age-old beauty. Daphne, with her mother and sisters, traveled to Peterborough by train, and there was a chauffeur waiting for them at the station. It is September 1917 and they have been invited for a short stay by friends of the family. As the car entered the driveway, Muriel whispered proudly that the Fitzwilliam family had lived at Milton for four hundred years. Muriel and the girls are inside the mansion now, but Daphne lingers outside, admiring the porch with its pillars, the clock at the top of a turret, the rows of lattice windows. In the entrance hall, the mistress of the house, Lady Fitzwilliam, welcomes them, her white hair in a bun. Next to her are a lady’s companion with a chow chow, and a shy adolescent boy who hops up and down. Behind them are two lines of servants, from the little chambermaid, whose task it is to light fires, to the self-important butler. Daphne sees only the splendor of the setting, the high ceilings, the wood-paneled walls, the portraits of gentlemen in frock coats and jabots. Why does she feel so at ease in Milton Hall? What a strange sensation.… Usually she hates visiting her parents’ friends, all those strangers whom she has no desire to know, those hands to be shaken, those forced smiles, when all she wants to do is disappear into a book.
For ten days, Daphne lives at Milton Hall as in a dream. She will remember the large bedroom in the north wing that she shares with Angela, and the even more spacious room in the south wing where Jeanne and her mother sleep. She will recall the breakfast served in the dining room by a dedicated servant, the silent ballet of silver platters, poached eggs and bacon, smoked herring, the white napkins, and their host’s welcoming smile at the other end of the table. She will think about those hushed moments in the morning room with the mistress of the house, at teatime, leaning over a jigsaw puzzle.
On rainy days, Daphne plays with her sisters in the unused rooms of the north wing, where there are dustcovers on the beds and chairs, where the closed shutters keep out the light of day. During these games, as her sisters are used to by now, she always plays a boy. He has a name, this boy. Eric Avon. He is ten years old, like her. Her little sister plays one of his friends, whom they name David Dampier. What could be easier than becoming a boy in these dark rooms where no one can see her? Her skirt, pulled up and slipped inside her tights, becomes a pageboy’s puffed pants, the sweater draped over her shoulders is transformed into a cape, and the stick in her hand is brandished as a sword. Eric Avon is afraid of nothing, of no one. He is radiant, glorious, pure hearted. He roams the hallways of Milton, a scout, protecting his family.
At a bend in the hallway, Eric Avon hears a whisper of clothes rustling along the parquet floor, the clinking of a bunch of keys. He flattens himself against the wall and signals to those following him. Watch out, danger, enemy. Hide behind the curtains. It’s the housekeeper of Milton Hall, a tall, thin woman in a black dress. She wears her keys on a belt and never smiles. Her face is scarily white. Her name is Mrs. Parker. Everyone is afraid of her, but apparently Mrs. Parker is a remarkable housekeeper and Milton would not be Milton without her. From his hiding place, holding his breath, Eric Avon watches her pass. His eyes follow the train of her dress as it skims over the floorboards.
At the end of their stay, when the time comes to leave Milton, Daphne feels distraught. She turns around to admire the immensity of the house one last time. Why does she feel she is leaving behind a friend? She will never forget Milton Hall, nor Mrs. Parker’s long black dress.
* * *
Every Saturday, for a month, the sisters pose in an icy cold studio for an artist friend of their parents, Frederic Whiting, who paints a portrait of the three du Maurier girls. The only amusing aspect of the picture is that it features Brutus, their new dog, a little fox terrier. Other than that, posing is deadly dull. Not only do they have to take the tube from Hampstead all the way to Kensington, but they then have to remain utterly still for hours on end. The huge portrait, when it is finally completed, is a source of pride and pleasure for the family and their friends, but Angela, on the right of the image, continues to think she looks ugly, with a red nose and a behind that she considers too plump. Jeanne, cuddling Brutus, is adorable. But Daphne, on the left of the picture, with her blue dress and slender figure, is the one who catches the eye. Daphne hears the whispered compliments; she doesn’t know what to do with them, but she understands—how could she not?—that she is prettier than her sisters. Not that she thinks so. The idea is meaningless to her anyway. In her mind, she is a boy, she is Eric Avon, who couldn’t care less what anyone says about him, because there’s a damsel in distress to be rescued, a villain to arrest, a cricket match to play.
The war is over, and the heavy atmosphere is transformed into floating bubbles: the champagne flows once again in Cannon Hall. Daphne hears the guests all uttering the same phrases: The war changed everything, Nothing is like it was before, We’ve lost our points of reference. She wonders what has changed exactly: The dead who will never return? The sadness that has left its stain forever? Whatever! Gerald and Muriel have decided to travel, and there is nothing too wonderful for the du Maurier family: Monte Carlo, Beaulieu, Cannes, the Hotel Saint-Georges in Algiers, Lake Como in Italy.
In the days leading up to their departure, 14 Cannon Place is in a state of feverish excitement. Why do their parents need so many suitcases? The two taxis are weighed down under mountains of bags stuffed with tweed coats, blankets, pillows, stacks of novels that no one will ever read, Gerald’s precious pair of binoculars for bird-watching … and now here come other servants, bravely carrying hatboxes and walking sticks, newspapers and packets of playing cards, tennis rackets and golf clubs, Fortnum & Mason picnic baskets filled with delicious snacks for the journey.
Gerald’s personal assistant becomes agitated. She is the person responsible for looking after passports, tickets, and customs declarations. Good God, Gerald has forgotten something at the house; quick, they must send a taxi back to Cannon Hall; they’re going to miss the train. Gerald sulks. Really, what is the point of insisting on going on a trip? It’s complicated and exhausting, and besides, they’re perfectly happy at home. Muriel sighs, patiently asks him to stop bellyaching. Daphne knows her father will calm down once he’s on the boat, crossing the English Channel. He loves walking along the deck, in a raincoat, face whipped by the wind. Muriel locks herself in her cabin, curtains drawn, and lies down on the bed, moaning softly. The sisters are horribly seasick, throwing up and generally wishing they were dead. Only Gerald holds up in the face of the elements, like a stoical captain.
When they reach French soil, Gerald and his assistant take care of the customs process, which always takes ages. Gerald has hidden bottles of wine and cartons of cigarettes in one of the bags, but he can’t remember which one. The French customs officers are suspicious of this elegant English family with their French-sounding name and their heaps of luggage. The officers are methodical, opening every bag, every suitcase. Sometimes the keys to the padlocks have gone missing and Muriel grows impatient while Gerald distributes generous tips (which will prove very useful when the cigarettes and wine are discovered) and remains curiously calm.
The long trek is far from over. Now they must find their seats on the train, but there are problems with their reservations. Daphne watches Muriel busying herself again, the assistant brandishes the tickets, Gerald repeats his routine with the tips and his hesitant French (which makes the girls giggle), and in the end everything is settled. Daphne’s father turns his sleeper carriage into an exact replica of his bedroom in Cannon Hall: the same lotions, toothpaste, powders, little sponges, cologne, pajamas, and bathrobe are neatly laid out, while in the neighboring compartment he keeps his books, his newspapers, fruit, cigarettes, cushions. What Daphne likes best about these long journeys to sunnier climes is the meals in the restaurant carriage, because Gerald very skillfully ridicules the other travelers behind their backs, giving perfect imitations of their snobbish airs, the way they chew their food or wipe their lips on their napkins, and the girls choke with laughter under the affable but somewhat irritated gaze of their mother.
It is only when they arrive at the hotel that things turn sour. Gerald’s hopes are dashed: his room does not have an attractive view, overlooking some boring road rather than the sea; what’s worse, it faces northeast, not southwest, and he came here for the sunlight! The hotel manager is hastily summoned, and Gerald puts on a distressed face as he expresses his disappointment. The manager listens and offers him a south-facing room with a prettier view.
So they have to pack everything up again, the clothes, the books, the cards, the binoculars, the cushions, the newspapers, Muriel’s knitting. But, as Daphne suspects, Gerald will, the next morning, continue his litany of complaints: this cold wind on the terrace, this over-salted food; the place is “shilling,”* there are too many people, and—what a bore!—all of them “Witherspoons.”* And it’s like that for the entire stay. Daphne is used to it by now. The local cuisine holds no interest for Gerald, who makes do with a slice of roast beef, a romaine salad, but absolutely no garlic! He hates chicken, veal, coffee, figs, and grapes. Even the best vintage wines leave him cold; he would rather drink champagne any day. And he must have his big cups of Indian tea with six sugar lumps in each.
Why go on vacation, when their house is perfect? Gerald whines, and Muriel smiles at him, indefatigable, just a bit tense, comforting him, trying to keep him entertained. Each morning, Daphne watches her mother as she anxiously checks the weather, because if by any chance the day is overcast or, even worse, rainy, Gerald will be unbearable for the rest of the vacation.
* * *
No more school. From now on, a private tutor will come every day to give lessons to the sisters at Cannon Hall. Her name is Maud Waddell. Behind the comforting, maternal appearance of this well-rounded, blue-eyed brunette, however, there lurks an iron will. She begins every sentence with My dear, but you mustn’t be fooled: she always gets what she wants. The sisters come up with a nickname for this new governess with her opera-singer voice: Tod, from the verb “toddle,” derived from Maud’s surname, which sounds like “waddle,” but also based on one of their favorite Beatrix Potter characters, Mr. Tod the fox. Tod is appalled by Daphne’s substandard grammar and spelling, which must be dealt with, and quickly. There is a connection between them, despite Tod’s authority—to which Daphne submits—because the two of them share an insatiable appetite for reading, which Angela and Jeanne do not possess. Tod is thrilled by Daphne’s enthusiasm for literature and provides her with a succession of books. Daphne likes the kinds of poetry collections that adolescents usually don’t appreciate—Shelley, Browning, Keats, Swinburne, and Donne—then she devours the novels by her grandfather George du Maurier. Daphne has been told by her father that Kicky wrote these books quite late in life, in his late fifties, after he had returned to England, after the loss of his left eye (which put an end to his career as a painter), after his marriage with Emma Wightwick (Big Granny) and the births of their five children, of whom Gerald was the youngest. Kicky began writing thanks to his friend the famous novelist Henry James, who advised him one day to tell his own stories using the written word rather than simply drawing them. Before the publication of his books, Kicky was known for his illustrations: he was a renowned caricaturist who worked for the Victorian satirical magazine Punch. Daphne drinks in every detail of her grandfather’s drawings: the comical way he sketched the hassles of family life and society life, the subtleties of class distinctions, the bitter moments of everyday existence.
She begins with Kicky’s first novel, Peter Ibbetson. From the raw material of his memories, her grandfather resuscitated the lost Paris of his youth, depicting its former splendors, its rose-colored hues, the enclosure at the end of the fence on Rue de Passy, the Auteuil pond, the building with green shutters where he grew up. It is more a fable than a novel, Daphne notes, an autobiographical account soaked through with a touching nostalgia. Kicky expresses himself through his protagonist, Gogo, who has also not forgotten his childhood seasoned with the odors of cabbage soup and beef boiled in vinaigrette. Daphne has the impression of being transported to Paris in 1840, of finding herself on Rue de la Pompe and seeing Kicky’s characters as they savor a glass of red wine on their doorstep, while Gogo plays and sings with Mimsey, the little girl next door. But upon the sudden death of his parents, Gogo is torn away from his enchanted garden to live with a cruel uncle under the gray skies of London. His name is no longer Gogo Pasquier, but Peter Ibbetson. After killing his horrible uncle, he ends up in a lunatic asylum. And it is there, to Daphne’s stupefaction, that his real life begins, thanks to the magic of “dreaming true,” the capacity that the book’s two heroes—Peter and Mary (the Mimsey of his childhood)—have to use to find each other through daydreams. Despite their physical separation, they succeed in loving each other, joining together in their dreams, visiting the Paris of their youth, building an imaginary house, diving into the past of their ancestors, and discovering an aristocratic glassblowing forebear. “Dreaming true”: Daphne is enraptured by this idea. Could she do the same thing? Her grandfather did it, after all, while her father pretends to be someone else every single evening, so why shouldn’t she do it, too? That way, she could escape, she could dream up, imagine, truly become, Eric Avon.
She follows this book up with Trilby, Kicky’s second novel, which was, she knows, an immense success, even in the United States. It is the story of Trilby O’Farrell, a half-Irish girl working as a laundress and artist’s model, who falls under the magnetic spell of Svengali, the darkly seductive pianist and hypnotist. The action takes place in Paris, where Kicky took his art classes, on Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs in Montparnasse. Under hypnosis, Trilby becomes a famous opera singer. Svengali turns her into his puppet and manipulates her as he pleases in order to obtain fame and fortune. The fall of poor Trilby will thus be all the harder. Unlike Peter Ibbetson, this is no sweet tale of family and childhood memories; Svengali casts his evil shadow over everything. But while Daphne prefers the first novel for its gentle nostalgia and its invitation to dreaming, she is nevertheless marked by the captivating darkness of Svengali, who attracts her despite herself.
The months pass, and Daphne’s craving for books still isn’t sated. Tod suggests other novels: Dickens, Thackeray, Scott, Stevenson, Wilde and his Portrait of Dorian Gray, Sheridan’s plays, the complete works of the Brontë sisters, particularly Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. The magic of books is a drug, an enchantment, an escape route, as powerful and bewitching as Peter Pan’s Neverland. While her sisters go on with their lives (tea dances for Angela, tennis and cricket for Jeanne), while Muriel reigns supreme as the exemplary mistress of Cannon Hall, while Gerald makes his fans swoon on the boards of the theater, Daphne reads.
One spring morning is engraved into her memory for the rest of her life. Her mother had asked her to come to her morning room on the first floor, next to Gerald’s study, a sunny room with a brick and ceramic fireplace and a view of the rose plants and greenhouses. Muriel is sitting in her bergère chair, concentrated on her knitting. Daphne darling, I have to talk to you. It is never a good sign when her mother uses that voice. She thinks quickly, as she admires the knitting needles continuing their metronomic ballet: What could she have done or said to earn Mummy’s wrath? Did she make a blunder? Behave rudely? Forget something? Now that you are twelve, you mustn’t be surprised if something not very nice happens to you in a few weeks. You have had backaches recently, and this may be a sign. Daphne replies that her back does not hurt at the moment and feels relieved: A backache, is that all this is about? But her mother goes on in the same serious voice, No, perhaps not, but what I have to tell you is this. All girls, when they turn twelve, begin to bleed for a few days every month. It can’t be stopped. It’s just something that happens. And it goes on happening, every month, until they are middle-aged, and then it stops. Daphne, speechless, stares at her mother. What on earth is she talking about? Bleeding, every month, for forty years? Muriel attempts to reassure her, It’s all right, it’s not an illness, and it’s not even like a cut. It doesn’t hurt. But you can have tummy ache. I myself have bad headaches at the time. Angela bleeds, but I have told her never to talk to you about it and you must promise never to tell Jeanne.
Closing the door of her mother’s room, Daphne feels dazed. Perhaps, with a bit of luck, this dreadful thing will never happen to her? If she were a boy, she wouldn’t have to put up with this humiliation. How lucky boys are! She does her best to forget the whole story, but one morning Alice, the young maid, whispers to her that “the thing” has arrived. Daphne has just finished eating breakfast and is feeling a little under the weather. What thing? Alice asks her to follow her to the bedroom, hands her a pair of pajama bottoms, and points out a strange stain. What a nightmare, being a girl, having to trouble yourself with these thick bands of cloth that must be changed every four hours, having to endure this painful heaviness in your lower abdomen, this stiff back, the compassionate and oddly tender looks of adults who, nonetheless, say nothing, not even a word of reassurance, because they must think of little Jeanne, the poor little girl, the innocent, utterly clueless about the horror that awaits her. Is this what it means—no longer wanting to play cricket, to kick a soccer ball, to run in the garden, being reduced to curling up on the sofa with a hot water bottle on your belly—is this what it is to be a woman? Because if it is, then Daphne wants none of it. She curses her feminine gender; she wants to continue playing the role of the glorious Eric Avon, the young man, the conqueror, the hero, who will never be reduced to bleeding into diapers. If only she had been the son her father wanted so much, the boy he dreamed of producing, who would pass on to his own son the French surname of which he was so proud, she would never have become stuck in this shameful, pathetic situation. Code name: “Robert.”* That is how the du Maurier sisters jokingly rechristen menstruation.
In the mirror of the third-floor bathroom at Cannon Hall, Daphne has not changed in spite of this damned Robert: she has the same fine features, the same blond hair that she refuses to curl, cut short like a boy. She persists in dressing like a schoolboy, in shorts, shirts, ties, sweaters, long wool socks, clumsy clodhoppers on her feet.
She is a boy in a girl’s body. The only person who suspects this ambiguous situation is Tod. The two of them have been close for two years now. For two years, Tod has been reading, every night, the notes Daphne leaves in her homework, the letters stuffed with spelling mistakes that make her roll her eyes in despair, but how can she fail to be touched by these intimate confessions, by the trust that Daphne shows her? I really don’t know why I feel like this. You don’t know how I long to have a good talk with you and pour everything out. I must be an awful rotter as we have a ripping time always, and no kids could be more indulged and made more a fuss of, yet I long for something so terribly and I don’t know what it is. The feeling is always there and I don’t think I shall ever find it. It’s no good telling the others, they wouldn’t understand, everyone thinks I’m moody and tiresome. People say I’m acid and bitter, it’s terrible at my age to get bored with life.2
Eric Avon is gradually erased from Daphne’s days as she grows into a woman. And he fades away when Gerald proudly leaves a sealed envelope on Daphne’s plate one lunchtime. A letter from her father? Delighted, she rushes up to her bedroom to read it. It is a longish poem, which she deciphers slowly.
My very slender one
So brave of heart, but delicate of will,
So careful not to wound, never kill,
My tender one–
Who seems to live in Kingdoms all her own
In realms of joy
Where heroes young and old
In climates hot and cold
Do deeds of daring and much fame
And she knows she could do the same
If only she’d been born a boy.
And sometimes in the silence of the night
I wake and think perhaps my darling’s right
And that she should have been,
And, if I’d had my way,
She would have been, a boy.
My very slender one
So feminine and fair, so fresh and sweet,
So full of fun and womanly deceit.
My tender one
Who seems to dream her life away alone.
A dainty girl
But always well attired
And loves to be admired
Wherever she may be, and wants
To be the being who enchants
Because she has been born a girl.
And sometimes in the turmoil of the day
I pause, and think my darling may
Be one of those who will
For good or ill
Remain a girl for ever and be still
A Girl.
What did her father mean? That he wishes she weren’t a girl? Or that he is, ultimately, happy about it? Daphne does not understand. She doesn’t dare ask him. The other day, playing cricket with her in the garden, he whispered in her ear, I wish I was your brother instead of your father, we’d have such fun.3 In Kicky’s novels, his heroines Trilby and Mary are tall, robust, they look and act like lads, possessing the masculine grace of Peter Pan, his boyish agility. Peter Pan, her hero, who does not want to grow up. She would have liked so much to be like him, adventurous, magnificent, like her Llewelyn Davies cousins, all so remarkable, so full of vigor. Her father’s poem, which she recognizes as being tactless and awkward in spite of the love that throbs beneath it, brings back her unease. Feeling disoriented, she puts it in a drawer of her bedside table and, later, thanks her father with a tense smile.
* * *
What she dreads most are Sundays. Her father’s day of rest. The lunches given by Muriel at Cannon Hall are unmissable events to which only the cream of the theater world and London high society are invited. In summer, these gatherings can sometimes last the entire day, to Daphne’s dismay. The garden is a profusion of multicolored dresses and roses, the murmur of voices and laughter rise above the high brick wall, and the neighbors feel certain that, once again, a party is in full swing at the du Mauriers’ house. Muriel welcomes everyone with grace and poise, but the king is Gerald, spontaneous, elegant, irresistible. Even the famous playwright Sacha Guitry and American composer Melville Gideon come one Sunday to tread the impeccable lawn of Cannon Hall, applaud the rallies on the tennis court, and taste the mountains of food served by a silent army of servants dressed in gray alpaca uniforms.
The endless lunch mutates into afternoon tea, with cucumber sandwiches, sweets and tiered cakes, frappé coffee, and Earl Grey tea, before blurring into aperitifs. Daphne withdraws, hiding behind a bush, book in hand, while her sisters mingle with the guests, Jeanne shining on the tennis court, Angela chatting loquaciously. Good God, why is she so different? Why can’t she enjoy herself with the others? Why is it such torture for her to speak to people, to answer questions? She is shy, but so what? People seem to mistake her timidity for arrogance. It is true that she has a very determined chin. Daphne pretends not to listen to those never-ending comments about her beauty, those disparaging whispers about her two sisters; it’s tiresome and unfair. And now Muriel is calling her, insisting that she put her book down and come over to talk to Madeline, Audrey, Gladys, Leslie …
In every season, there are crowds at Cannon Hall on Sundays, a parade of elegant men and women, actors and actresses, producers and directors. It is difficult to be alone so she can read, can daydream, even in such a big house. Dinner on Christmas Eve is a sumptuous affair, more festive than religious, with eighteen people seated at the table in the vast first-floor dining room, wrapped gifts left on every chair, a magician who performs after the meal, and games of chance—roulette, Ludo—to end the evening. There is a succession of dishes, each more delicious than the last, then Muriel, standing straight-backed in her pretty party dress, cuts the twenty-five-pound turkey with such speed and skill that the guests always feel obligated to applaud.
Amid the opulence of the presents, there is one for Daphne that will prove especially important. You wouldn’t guess it, though, to look at it. It is a simple notebook, long and black, containing fifty or so pages. A private journal.
To write. To dream true. To escape into her own world, her own personal Neverland. Peter Pan holds out his hand. Kicky urges her on. A pencil. Silence. The table in her bedroom, on the third floor. The view over the Heath. The closed door. Begin with the date …
January 1, 1920. Her age: twelve and a half. New Year’s Day. I oversleep myself. We go for a long walk in the morning and stay indoors in the afternoon. It’s my teddy-bear’s birthday. I give a party for her. Angela is very annoying. Jeanne and I box, and then I pretend I am a midshipman hunting slaves. Daddy says I have a stoop. I begin to read a book called With Allenby in Palestine. (very good).4
She does not reread it. What’s the point? No one will read it. It is a private journal, after all.
January 7th. We give a dance. It is from 7 to 11. We have great fun. There are lovely refreshments. I only have to dance with two girls, all the rest, I dance with boys. Marcus Stedall is very nice. I believe he is gone on me.5
From now on, Daphne wanders around the house with a pencil behind her ear, the journal under her arm. If anyone asks her why she has that suspicious look on her face, she replies unblinkingly that she is writing. And what is she writing? That is none of their business. She writes that she is going to dance, that she adores the fox-trot, that she has a best friend, Doodie, that she plays cricket, that she is crazy about the theater. She admits that Dr. Playfair (who spends his life at Cannon Hall, dedicating himself to eliminating even the slightest health concern for the du Maurier girls) has told her to stop biting her fingernails: she has hurt her thumb, and she must wear a sort of poultice. This makes it impossible for her to write. Well, almost impossible. She relates that one rainy day in November she went for a walk alone in Hampstead, and that when she got home she began to write something other than her journal, in a pretty Italian notebook edged with green ribbon.
After four years of service with the du Maurier family, Maud Waddell leaves to educate the children of a sultan in Istanbul. Her departure greatly saddens Daphne, who sends letter after letter to her one and only confidante—she announces proudly that she has finished writing a book and the name of her hero is Maurice—and Tod replies every week. Since the loss of her governess, writing has become her favorite pastime, along with reading, but despite the arrival of a new governess, she still feels lonely. Miss Vigo is a pleasant person and an excellent tutor, but she will never replace Tod in Daphne’s heart. The title of her book is The Searchers. She describes the story in detail to Tod. Maurice’s father is dead, and his mother is still in love with her first boyfriend, Tommy. Each day, Maurice walks alone, barefoot, by a lake, far from any city with its noisy traffic, he listens to the wind, observes the waves that break on the sand. The more desolate, windy, and rainy a landscape is, the more he likes it. One day, Maurice gets lost during a hike and he is taken in by a pipe-smoking man with brown, sparkling eyes, a strange, capricious character, at once a friend and an enemy, a storyteller with a fertile imagination, capable of great irony. Daphne considers him a cross between Uncle Jim and Gerald, and this makes Tod smile, because she thinks secretly that Maurice resembles Daphne. At the end of the story, we discover that this man is none other than the famous Tommy, the former lover of Maurice’s mother.
Tod’s letters are affectionate and encouraging. What would Daphne do without the support of this correspondence? Solitude grips her, gnaws at her. She mopes about, thinking how unfair it is: she has no reason to be sad; she is a young, funny girl. She likes to laugh, like her father, laugh about anything, stupid things, silly things, but it seems to her that other people know how to live better than she does: Angela takes acting and singing classes, while Jeanne is passionate about painting, piano, and tennis. What does Daphne have? Words, and that magical, enchanting world where she locks herself away, day after day.
* * *
May 13, 1921. Today is Daphne’s birthday. She is fourteen. Not yet a woman, but no longer a little girl. She is given a nice party, a celebratory meal in an upmarket London restaurant, lots of presents. And then, seven days later, seven days after the sweetness of these shared moments, while the sun shines down on Cannon Hall, tragedy strikes. Daphne has gone to greet her parents in their bedroom, as she does every morning. Her father looks appalled, her mother weeps softly. It’s Michael, the fourth of the five Llewelyn Davies cousins. He is dead. He was only twenty. Daphne doesn’t understand. Dead? How did he die? Uncle Jim came to see Gerald in his dressing room at Wyndham’s Theatre late last night, to bring him this terrible news. Michael drowned. Drowned in a reservoir, in Sandford, near Oxford University, where he was a student. Twenty years old. To die at twenty. There’s no war anymore. His older brother George was already killed in combat. How is it possible that a second Llewelyn Davies should die so young?
Of her adored, cherished, divinely handsome cousins, Michael was the most handsome of all, the one she had dreamed of kissing, Uncle Jim’s favorite, a beautiful boy, with his oval face, his smooth black hair, his dark eyes. But how did he die? What happened? He was swimming with a friend, Rupert, who also drowned. One tried to save the other. Daphne does not understand. In a state of shock, she imagines the scene: she sees the wide expanse of water, the two young men in bathing suits, their lifeless bodies. Later, when she is going up to her room, she hears the discreet whispering of the servants and pricks up her ears. Apparently, they died in each other’s arms, clasped together. She doesn’t know what to make of this. Who can she talk to about it? The only thing she knows is that Michael has gone forever, he has gone to join Peter Pan in a magical lagoon peopled with mermaids, Indians, and pirates, he is flying with Peter and Tinker Bell, for eternity.
A few days after the funeral, during a walk in town with her sisters and Miss Vigo, Daphne gives them the slip and runs down Heath Street until she reaches the little green cemetery on Church Row where her cousin lies, alongside his brother George, his parents, Sylvia and Andrew, close to Uncle Guy, to Kicky, to Big Granny. With her pocket money, she buys violets at the florist’s nearby. She is alone, standing in front of the gravestones of her family. The sun is shining; the air is warm. Gently, she places a few flowers on her cousin’s grave. Her voice rings out in the empty cemetery. They’re for you, Michael.
It is difficult to get over such a tragedy. Apparently, Barrie, in despair, locks himself in his apartment on Adelphi Terrace and suffers nightmare after nightmare. When summer comes, Gerald takes his family to the seaside in Devon, southwest of London. It does them good to get away from the city, the world, their sadness, to recharge their batteries. They rent a large house with a sea view in Thurlestone for the month of August: From its bay windows, they can see the two huge rocks standing in the middle of the water, each leaning toward the other, as if they are embracing. Gerald invites his nephew Geoffrey (his sister Trixie’s youngest son) and his wife, Meg. The three du Maurier sisters spend their days on the fine sand beach, paddling in a canoe, fishing for shrimp, building sand castles. Daphne can stay for hours in the sun, and her skin turns a lovely golden color—to the dismay of her mother, who exhorts her to take shade under an umbrella. The combination of sunlight and iodine turns her hair blond, and her eyes seem even bluer. She is gorgeous, and she knows it, tall and slender in that cumbersome one-piece bathing suit, which she dreams of stripping off so she can go swimming, naked, behind the rocks, savoring the caress of the water on her skin. She is so pretty that one day, coming out of the sea, she feels the eyes of her cousin Geoffrey upon her, a man’s gaze that checks her out from head to toe, and a slow smile, only for her, a smile that says everything: she’s a beautiful girl; she’s not a child anymore.
Geoffrey is thirty-six. Old enough to be her father. Twice divorced, tall, sturdily built, dark haired, with harmonious features, a sensual mouth. An actor, like his uncle Gerald. A real “menace.”* Daphne does not look away. Her heart pounds, but she is not afraid, she does not feel intimidated, she smiles back at him, a pact between them; no one else has seen, no one else knows, just her, just him, that day, on the beach, a shared moment of exclusive complicity. She has always liked Geoffrey, despite the twenty-two-year age difference, but that day, on the sand, there is something more than sympathy between them, a sensation she has never felt before, that heat running through her, a feeling of risk, of entering a danger zone.
The summer days pass, sun filled and languorous, and the secret understanding between Daphne and her cousin intensifies, without a word being spoken, purely through their eyes, which meet, draw each other, magnetized. On the golf course, he waves at her behind Gerald’s back. After lunch, it is time for coffee on the terrace. Daphne and her sisters lie on the grass in bathing suits, half-covered by their beach towels, faces turned toward the sun like sunflowers eager for light. Geoffrey sits down on the grass between Daphne and Jeanne, while Meg, Muriel, and Gerald have a conversation higher up on the terrace. Daphne smells Geoffrey’s aftershave—a moment of panic—she keeps her eyes closed: above all, don’t say a word, don’t move a muscle; her sisters are just there, next to her; her entire body tenses, she knows that something is going to happen, she waits for it, shivers, doing her best not to betray her feelings, then suddenly her cousin’s hand is under the towel, that man’s hand furtively searching for hers, the touch of warm skin seizing her, she almost cries out, moans, but she controls herself: above all, she must not let it show; she must act as if nothing is happening.
Her cousin’s touch awakens hundreds of sensors inside her, tiny particles of emotion and desire with the power of an electric shock, but she manages to stay silent. Geoffrey’s wife is sitting there, only a few feet away, drinking coffee with Daphne’s oblivious parents. Now she knows that, every afternoon, for the rest of the vacation, Geoffrey will grab her hand beneath the towel, without a word, and she will stay silent, too, intoxicated, dazed, she will wait for this moment with a nameless delight. She knows instinctively that she must say nothing, must never breathe a word, and it is this that most excites her: the power of the secret, the forbidden.
I think Daphne is old enough now to come dancing this evening at the Links Hotel. It is cousin Geoffrey who says this, and everyone seems to agree. She chooses a pretty dress, blue, to match her eyes, and finds herself in his arms, against him—how tall and muscular he is—and all this under the eyes of Meg, his wife, who doesn’t notice a thing. Geoffrey embraces Daphne as they dance to Paul Whiteman’s lively fox-trot “Whispering,” which seems almost to have been written for them: “When I’d like to lean in close … Gorgeous and dressed in blue…”
The final day of the vacation arrives. The summer hours have lost their golden aura; it is nearly September. On the morning of his departure, Geoffrey asks Daphne to come with him to the sea one last time. They stand facing the waves, the two rocks leaning in together, and they remain silent, untouching. I’m going to miss you terribly, Daph. She agrees, in a quiet voice. Suddenly he turns around. Oh, look up there, on the cliff. Uncle Gerald is spying on us. It really is her father standing there, hands on hips, seemingly watching them, with a scowl on his face. In her journal, Daphne notes: It is a lovely day. Geoffrey goes. I feel terribly depressed. We bathe and play tennis. I read also.6
Return to London. Something has changed inside her. That sensual—possibly even amorous—awakening? The sudden death of Michael? She doesn’t know. As if to forget all this, she throws herself into a whirlwind of outings to the theater, books to be read (Thackeray, Stevenson, Galsworthy, Swinburne), long bicycle rides or horse rides on the Heath with her sisters; she gorges herself on dances and travels. Gerald is knighted at Buckingham Palace, a moment of glory he takes very seriously. Muriel thus becomes Lady du Maurier, which she doesn’t mind one bit. Gerald affectionately calls her Lady Mo. The award of this knighthood is fully deserved, Daphne knows. Gerald has altered the way actors perform on the stage; he is the first to break with the stiff, affected style of his predecessors, the first to dare light a cigarette while performing, to wear his own clothes. Now nothing can slow down Sir Gerald du Maurier’s lavish lifestyle: he hands out gold coins as tips, obtains the best seats for the Ascot horse races, for the Wimbledon tennis tournament, for operas in Covent Garden. The life of the outside world does not pass over the high wall surrounding Cannon Hall; little mention is made of the massive upheaval left by the war, the uncertain times ahead, the financial difficulties that other, less privileged people must endure.
Angela leaves for Paris, where she will attend Miss Ozanne’s finishing school near the Eiffel Tower. She is not happy there. Gerald, Muriel, Daphne, and Jeanne go to visit her in the spring; it is the first time Daphne has been to the French capital. She is there only a few days, and the time goes by too quickly. How she would have loved to walk alone in the streets, not to be accompanied by her parents, to shake them off and explore those avenues, those boulevards where part of her already belongs, a legacy of her grandfather.
* * *
On Sunday evenings in the first-floor dining room, Gerald likes to have conversations alone with his older daughters. Angela is back from Paris after several sad terms, thrilled to recapture her social life of balls, galas, and dates. Gerald likes to confide in his daughters, while smoking and savoring his Cointreau, and the later it gets, the more animated, audacious, and irreverent the conversations become. In all seriousness, what did they think of the outfit worn by the Countess of T., who came to eat lunch earlier; that material makes her look fat, don’t you think? Hysterical laughter. And that moron Charles P. with his idiotic smile (mimicked). Good God, did they know that Viscount B. has had a baby with Miss H.? Yes, truly! Unbelievable. What is it that makes James R. so attractive, do they think? Ah, you’re very like me (a remark most often addressed to Daphne). Sometimes they argue, have tiffs, but they always kiss and make up afterward.
The conversations go on long into the night, until Muriel, infuriated, bangs her foot on the floor of the living room above. So Gerald lowers his voice and asks Angela to pour him another glass of Cointreau. The subject matter becomes mischievous, risqué; it is a sort of farce between father and daughters. They joke about Gerald’s imaginary “stable,” a very special stable in which the young actresses who share billing with him are cataloged like “fillies,” judged according to their physique, the length of their legs, their complexion, their teeth. It is comical to think of these young debut actresses, blissfully unaware of what the du Maurier sisters, in collusion with their devilish father, are capable of saying about them.
Aided by the alcohol, Gerald lets slip confidences that are very far from paternal, and which fascinate the girls, eager to know about the latest “filly” to have joined the stable and how Daddy will go about “breaking her in,” but of course they must keep their voices down because if Mo, upstairs, hears any of this, there will be a drama. Little by little, Daphne understands that her father is in the habit of wooing his young partners, that something more goes on between them than mere hugging and kissing. “Cairo,”* “waxing”* … these things do not happen only in the conjugal bed with a spouse, but elsewhere, with others. This disgusts her, revolts her; she thinks it ugly.
In that case, why get married? Daphne vents in her letters to Tod. How can Mo close her eyes to all this, how can she display that same calm face day after day, when everyone knows that Gerald is cheating on her? One day, however, Mo does fly off the handle, outraged to see that Gerald’s Sunbeam is parked for an entire afternoon outside the home of a pretty young supporting actress. All hell breaks loose. The thunder rumbles. Doors are slammed in Cannon Hall. As he is about to escape to the theater that evening, a sheepish Gerald whispers into his daughter’s ear, Mummy’s so angry with me, I don’t know what to do.7 Daphne feels simultaneously embarrassed and touched by these manly confidences, which should not be entrusted to his own daughter.
And yet this is the same man who waits up for Angela when she comes home late from a dance, who traps her in the entrance hall and aggressively interrogates her. Has she seen what time it is? Who brought her home? Did he try to kiss her? She had better tell him the truth! Daddy the enchanter, the imp, the charmer, the clown, is transformed into an intransigent father figure who cannot bear the idea that his darling daughters are growing up, that they have a social life, that they are attractive, that they seduce, and Angela is the first of the three to suffer from this.
Why can’t his beloved daughters remain children, like Peter Pan, the family hero? Angela sobs as she confides in Daphne: How can he change in a flash into this unpleasant stranger, this cutting, nervous authoritarian, when that very morning he was all smiles? Gerald has always done whatever he likes, with no regard for others: you only had to see him at the casino in Monte Carlo, during the previous Christmas vacation, when he feigned to forget that he’d won the pot, leaving the table with supreme nonchalance, cigarette dangling from his lips, jacket slung over his shoulder, purely to enrage the men who had lost to him.
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.