Daphne (24 page)

Menabilly, September 1959

Daphne possessed them, at last: Branwell's poems arrived in the post this morning from Mr Symington; the Brontë ink on the Brontë paper, there before her, laid out on the desk in her writing hut. She'd kept them hidden from Tommy, unwilling to share them with him, or anyone else; waiting until he'd driven off in his car to Fowey, coughing, like the engine, and so wistful looking, when she turned down his offer to take her out to lunch at the Yacht Club. 'Darling, I've got to work today, you know I have,' she said to him, and he had shrugged his shoulders, his mouth down-turned like a reprimanded child, looking just as he did when she reminded him to swallow his pills with a glass of milk every evening, and not to touch a drop of alcohol.

The sunlight slanted in through the window of her writing hut, making the dust motes dance in the rays like tiny fireflies. And the manuscripts themselves seemed almost made of dust, fragile, ashy, like the surviving remnants of an ancient conflagration. Yet all of them were clearly legible, unlike the hieroglyphic texts she'd studied in the British Museum; for these were poems written to be read. But Daphne found it hard to concentrate on the meaning of the words on the manuscripts, rather, it was Branwell's handwriting itself that fascinated her. It was less neat than his sisters' adult copperplate, but full of idiosyncratic flourishes and curlicues, forming an ornate yet slightly inconsistent pattern on the page.

As Daphne studied the handwriting, trying to imagine her path into Branwell's head, she suddenly felt a jolt of recognition, for she was reminded - in the most visceral way - of another morning, soon after her wedding, when she had sat and read a similar-looking ink copperplate. What had possessed her as a young wife to search through Tommy's desk that day, when she was alone in the house, knowing that her husband would not come home to disturb her? Daphne hadn't been entirely sure what she was hunting for then - though she remembered a strange compulsion, and a sense of excitement, as well as foreboding - but when she found the hidden drawer, with its key still in the lock (poor Tommy, never very expert at keeping secrets), she was certain that its contents were there to be read for a reason.

Inside, she discovered a small bundle of love letters to Tommy, written to him by his former fiancée, a beautiful dark-haired, almond-eyed girl called Jan Ricardo. Daphne had known her name and her face from a photograph, though not the details of her story - Tommy simply described her as 'highly strung', but always said it would have been 'ungentlemanly' for him to discuss why his engagement to Jan had been broken off, which made Daphne feel her curiosity to be repellent to him, and therefore something that must be kept secret, if not completely repressed.

What had struck Daphne then - and it had been as forceful as a physical blow - was not the contents of Jan's love letters, for the phrases were the usual conventional ones, but the handwriting itself, which seemed far more powerful than the sentiments expressed. It was confident, markedly individual, and the more Daphne had stared at it, the more it made her own writing seem cramped and halting, childishly unsophisticated, evidence of her lack of a university education. Daphne had never spoken of these letters to Tommy, because she felt it would be too humiliating to confess that she had been searching through his private papers, rifling through his desk like a common thief; but also because she had feared that if she'd admitted to finding the letters, then Jan might become an even more menacing presence in their marriage.

'Very menacing,' Daphne whispered to herself now, in the writing hut, remembering her father's voice. 'Are you menaced?' her father used to say to her, long before Tommy came along, using his idiosyncratic codeword for sexual attraction, trying to find out if Daphne had a new boyfriend, and somehow, the code had stuck, and she used it herself, without ever really thinking why. 'He's fearfully menacing,' she'd said to her sisters, soon after meeting Tommy for the first time; what a little fool she was, then, and what a fool she'd remained . . .

Of course, her anxiety about Jan's letters had worked its way out in the novel - in those pages that Daphne had written, almost without thinking, about Rebecca's handwriting; the second wife as transfixed as Daphne had been by the sight of her predecessor's bold, slanting strokes of ink, with the R of Rebecca standing out, black and strong, dwarfing everything around it, stabbing the white paper, so certain, so entirely self-assured. The second wife had tried to destroy the message to her husband from Rebecca, tearing out the flyleaf of the book of poetry that Rebecca had given Maxim, and then setting fire to it, the heavily inked 'R' the last to go, twisting in the flames. But no one could destroy Rebecca, she rose again, like a phoenix; she would always return, in the end. 'A blessing,' murmured Daphne, 'and a curse . . .'

And if Jan's letters had in some sense proved a blessing to Daphne - sowing the seeds of the book that made her fortune - then were both of them bound together by a subsequent curse? Daphne knew that Jan had gone on to marry someone else in 1937, and died a few years afterwards, towards the end of the war, when she threw herself under a train. Tommy was posted abroad at the time, and the Blitz was overshadowing everything; but still, Daphne had been terribly shocked when she read about Jan's death in a small piece in a newspaper. Yet something within her had also quivered in recognition when she saw the reference to a coroner's report, that gave no reason for why Jan had killed herself, aside from the standard explanation, that the balance of her mind had become disturbed.

Daphne shuddered, and tried to make herself concentrate on Branwell's handwriting, but it was no good, her mind was racing over the past with a terrible sense of dread at all that Jan had summoned up. Worst of all was the frightful court case in America over a decade ago, though now it felt as if it was creeping up on her again, to assail her with new persecutions. She had been called to the witness box to defend herself against accusations of plagiarism, brought there by another woman, a writer that she had never even heard of. The woman was dead before the case came to court, but her family had pursued the legal action, relentless as a pack of bloodhounds. She'd had to travel all the way to New York to appear in court, sailing there on the Queen Mary, feeling horribly sea-sick, and filled with anxiety that she would be bankrupted by the trial, that everything would come crashing down around her, that she would lose Menabilly, and all that she held dear.

It was nonsense, of course. How could she have stolen the story of Rebecca, when it came from deep inside her? It was her story, it had bubbled up like lava, overflowing and dangerous, though she had struggled to contain it. But she'd thought she would break down entirely, if she were to be forced to tell the judge the origins of Rebecca, of how she'd discovered Jan's letters to Tommy, and feared that he'd always found Jan more attractive than her; and then Jan's death during the war, that dreadful suicide, it would have been unbearable for this to have come up in court, and if it had got into the papers . . . imagine how they would have feasted on the story, like vultures on rotting corpses, imagine the horror of that?

It hadn't come to that, thank God, and the case against her had been dismissed, after Daphne had produced her original notebook from ten years previously, with its handwritten outline of the plot of Rebecca. But what no one knew - what no one must ever know - was that when Daphne had read the news of Jan's death, she said to herself, 'It could have been me . . .'

It could have been me
. . . The words ran through her head now, over and over again. She could have killed herself; God knows, she'd thought about it often enough, thought about what Michael must have felt, in those last hours, last minutes, last seconds, letting the water enfold him and his companion. Did they struggle, or was it peaceful, a slow dance to the bottom of the pool? Drowning seemed to Daphne a gentle way to let go; easier to contemplate than the violence of Jan's death . . .

And then Daphne was suddenly struck by an even darker idea. Did she, in fact, have something to do with Jan's death? Tommy's engagement to Jan had been broken off before he fell in love with Daphne, but she never knew which of the two of them had ended it. Jan must have known that he had married Daphne, of course, but then what did she make of the publication of Rebecca in 1938, just a year after her own marriage? Did she recognise herself as Daphne's beautiful predecessor, who had died and risen again? And what might she have heard of the echoes of Jane Eyre in Rebecca, a deranged first wife stalking through the nightmares of the second?

No, she must stop thinking like this, it would get her nowhere, and she had to stay on top of things, especially when Tommy was having bad days, again, when his hands shook and his face looked wan. But today was one of his good days, when the pills seemed to be working, and he was sufficiently robust to go out, so she must seize the moment, if she was to ever get ahead of Miss Gerin. Daphne put her head in her hands, rubbed her temples, which were throbbing, and forced herself to concentrate, to stop this wandering of her mind, which could only lead her to a more dangerous place.

She must drag herself away from thoughts of Jan's handwriting, and return to Branwell's poems, or rather, North-angerland's, for all three were signed with his flourishing signature. Not that there was much flourishing within their lines, she realised, after reading her way through them, for they could not have been more lugubrious, though there was an odd kind of vigour in their morbid examinations of death. Daphne decided that her favourite of the three was 'Peaceful death and happy life', once she'd come to terms with the fact that the title was somewhat misleading, given Branwell's point seemed to be that there was more misery in life than death. 'Why dost thou sorrow for the happy dead,' murmured Daphne, reading his opening lines aloud to herself, 'For if their life be lost, their toils are oer/ And woe and want shall trouble them no more . . .'

She wondered if this might be Branwell's message to her, from beyond the grave, to let him rest in peace. Why not leave him safely entombed within the pages of his manuscripts? But it was impossible to let go of Branwell, now that his handwriting was in her hands; hand in hand, they were together, for better or for worse . . .

Menabilly,
Par,
Cornwall

24th September 1959

Dear Mr Symington,

Unfortunately, it seems that I will be forced to postpone our meeting, yet again. It has been the old trouble, my husband's ill-health, which keeps me from settling to any uninterrupted spell of constructive work. I have to be in constant attendance upon him, whenever he is poorly, and my longed-for visit to Yorkshire looks further off than ever. It really is too disheartening for words. I feel rather like Charlotte Brontë when she was nursing her father, during his convalescence from an eye operation, and she was finding it difficult to get on with 'Villette'.

Nevertheless, I will not retire from the race with Miss G, and am therefore attaching a list of queries that I hope you will be able to answer for me, either from your existing files, or from your next trip to Haworth and the Brotherton Collection. Apologies for the lengthy list - enough to give you ten headaches, I fear - but I will, of course, reimburse you for your time and expenses.

I do very much look forward to meeting you in due course, despite all the delays, and finally having the opportunity to be able to talk in person about Branwell, the Brontës, and other shared passions!

Yours sincerely,

Newlay Grove, September 1959

Another envelope arrived in the morning delivery for Mr Symington, bearing the now familiar postmark of Par in Cornwall, and his address written in Daphne's spidery hand. Inside, along with the letter and a handsome cheque, there were two more densely typed pages, filled with a list of her queries; lots of them, he could already tell, by the question marks that punctuated the lines, some of them punching through the paper itself, as if Daphne had hit that particular key with intense urgency. Symington's heart sank at the prospect of yet more of her impossible demands, though he took some comfort from the fact that her remarks in the letter were conciliatory ones, apologising for postponing, once again, her trip to see him in Yorkshire.

Symington was torn between feelings of disappointment about the fact that he had still not met Daphne, and relief. He had imagined, with intense pleasure, a scene in which he would escort her into the Brontë Parsonage, past a crowd of sightseers, everyone there admiring him for being her chosen guide, the scholarly advisor to the famous lady novelist. He would graciously acknowledge Mr Mitchell, his friend the custodian, but sweep past everyone else, all those jumped-up busybodies at the Brontë Society who had shunned him for so long. And it would be as satisfying to visit the Brotherton Collection at Leeds University with Daphne on his arm, showing her where his big octagonal office had been when he was in charge there, and brushing aside the current librarian, explaining to Daphne that it had all been his work, the amassing of Lord Brotherton's collection, showing her the treasures, the original Brontë manuscripts that were the crown jewels of the library.

But then at other times, most often when he was sleeping, these triumphant scenes would turn into nightmares, in which he was humiliated in front of Daphne, turned away with jeers at the doors to the Parsonage and the Brotherton Library. In one of these most vivid nightmares, which woke him before dawn this morning, Daphne's husband had been there, Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Browning, dressed in full military uniform, and he had turned on Symington, barked at him that he was a disgrace. 'You're not only a thief and a scoundrel,' the general said, flourishing a buff-coloured file of papers in his hand, 'but a coward as well. I have your military records here, and they show you were too lily-livered to serve your country in the Great War.'

'But I had poor eyesight, sir,' Symington stammered in his dream, a feverish panic overcoming him.

'A likely story,' Daphne's husband said. 'Call yourself a man? You're a little yellow-eyed rat, not a blind mouse.' And as the general spoke, Symington felt himself shrinking, dwindling while everyone loomed above him, larger and larger as he was reduced to a nonentity on the ground. And as he shrank, his voice became inaudible, but he still kept trying to explain himself, even as he felt the words shrivel inside his mouth, fading into nothingness. 'My eyes were bad from the library work,' he whispered, struggling to speak. 'I was appointed an assistant at the Leeds University Library in 1910, when I was twenty-two, you'll see it in my records, sir, should you care to look . . .' But Daphne's husband had simply ignored him, looked away in contempt.

The news of Browning's ill-health in Daphne's latest letter was, therefore, almost reassuring to Symington; he felt a strange sense of well-being, as he reread this news, though he tried to check this in himself, knew it to be shameful. Her letter, he noted, was dated 24 September; the anniversary of Branwell's death, one hundred and eleven years ago, though she made no mention of this coincidence, presumably it had passed her by, unnoticed, overshadowed by her concerns for her husband's health. Symington felt a pang of sympathy for Branwell, his death-day ignored even by his putative biographer, and also for himself; for all in his life that had gone unnoticed by the outside world.

He tried to imagine what it would be like to talk to Daphne, telling her more about his past, instead of Branwell's; about the momentous events that he had hidden for so long; about his emotions that were as powerful as any expressed in a Brontë novel, as passionate as those in Daphne's own novels, behind his locks and shutters. He would speak to her of his marriage in 1915 to Elsie Flower at Pocklington Parish Church; 'a wedding of meat and books,' his mother had said, straight-faced, referring to the fact that Elsie's father was a local butcher. Afterwards, someone had thrown a handful of white feathers at him, along with all the confetti, as they'd come out of the church. Or was it just an accident? Had the feathers floated down from the sky, or been carried from a bird's nest in a sudden flurry of autumnal wind, on that October wedding day? And then twelve years later, just a couple of days after their wedding anniversary, Elsie had died, unexpectedly, and in great pain. 'Ulcers in the gall bladder,' the doctor said, but it was too late, there was nothing that could be done for her, and there had been another church service, but at a different church this time, for they were living in Newlay Grove by then, in this house; she had died in this house, and gone from here in a coffin, and as Symington had followed after it, a feather had floated before his eyes, not a white one, but pale grey, like the sky, like Elsie Flower's eyes.

How little Daphne knew of him . . . how little anyone knew. Even Beatrice seemed like a stranger at times, even after their thirty years together, for she had never been interested in Branwell, nor had he wanted her to be, not really. . . As for his sons, those five little boys who'd grown up when he wasn't watching, he'd not known what to do with them after Elsie's death, he'd not had a clue where to begin, had buried himself in his work, instead; that was the thing to do, to bury oneself . . . Not that he had been lonely, in those days, for there was work to be done, and he had preferred the conversations of men to the clatter of domesticity at home. He had believed Lord Brotherton and Wise to be his friends then, even though neither of them had appreciated his true worth, nor Branwell's, come to that.

Still, Daphne had proved herself to be different, at least in her persistence. And she was alive, unlike Brotherton and Wise, though sometimes they seemed almost more real to him than the living, and it felt as near as yesterday, the Saturday afternoon that Lord Brotherton had walked into his father's bookshop and Symington had seized the opportunity to introduce himself. Such a fortuitous encounter for a young librarian, and later built upon in lodge meetings at the local Masonic Hall, and so Lord Brotherton had turned to Symington for advice in building up his library; but Wise muscled in, of course, Symington could see that now, though at the time, he had been in such awe of Wise, who was at the height of his fame and authority as a bibliographer, and President of the Brontë Society, as well. How much money had Wise made out of Brotherton, selling him thousands of pounds' worth of manuscripts and rare books for his growing library at Roundhay Hall, and how much had Symington spent, too, on his own private collection? It was so hard to resist Wise, and to resist the little treasures he offered him on the side, particularly when they related to Branwell. Not that Wise could ever leave him feeling fully sated, for the Branwell manuscripts that Symington bought from him seemed always fragmentary; crumbs from a rich man's table, rather than the feast itself.

And now Daphne was filled with the same desire, Symington knew that from her letters, he could feel it, seeping through the paper like an inkblot. Well, let her share another of his meagre crumbs, though she must buy it from him, as he had bought it from Wise. Symington delved into a box beneath his desk, and pulled out a letter written by Branwell to one of his friends, Francis Grundy. 'My Dear Sir,' he had written, on an undated page, though he gave his address as Haworth, 'If I have strength enough for the journey and the weather be tolerable I shall feel happy in calling on you at the Devonshire Hotel on Friday 31st of the month. The sight of a face I have been accustomed to see and like when I was happier and stronger, now proves my best medicine.'

The letter was signed by Branwell, and Symington noticed that his signature was less flamboyant than when he used Northangerland's name, the writing more cramped and subdued; there was a resignation to his words, a tacit acceptance of his fate.

Well, let Branwell's letter be sent on another journey, in an envelope to Menabilly in Cornwall, not far from Penzance, where the Brontë children's mother and aunt had lived, their birthplace by the sea, hundreds of miles away from the inland graveyard where they had been buried. Symington had always wanted to go to Penzance, to see where Branwell's maternal relatives had lived - the Cornish Branwell family, for whom the Brontë boy had been named. He had imagined driving down there with Beatrice, even planned a route on his maps, tracing the roads he would take, all the way down to Bodmin Moor, and beyond, to the very edge of England. But it was too late now, and he was too tired to make that journey, though he would send Branwell to Cornwall, instead.