This is the end… I will not be forced out of the double bed I have slept in for thirty-five years and seek asylum elsewhere. No heating switched on in the spare rooms, beds not aired, lamps lacking bulbs.
‘You too can enjoy the thrills of camping in Cornwall.’
I leap out on to the floor and, risking hernia, proceed to drag my double bed into the centre of the room. The floorboards groan. Moray, disturbed from sound sleep, sits up and stares at me, a look of intense astonishment on his face. ‘What on earth…?’
I fetch towels for the cascade to splash upon, and then, marooned on a flat surface, headboard gone, pillowless, install myself on the desert island that has become my bed. Moray continues to look astonished, even aggrieved.
Tommy’s photograph, beret at the familiar jaunty angle, smiles at me from the dry wall opposite. I am reminded, only too well, that it was always my berth, in our old sailing days, never his, which suffered the inevitable leaks from the deck above. My discomfort produced delighted chuckles, and although the following day the leaks would be stopped, with each successive craft we owned the one wet patch would invariably form itself, in an otherwise perfect boat, over my head.
The smile is infectious, and whether a happy echo from an unforgettable past, or a signal from the Isles of the Blest, it has the required result. Sense of humour returns. I make a long arm and switch off the light, reckoning up the follies of one more useless day, yet knowing in my heart that, but for the absence of the departed skipper, I would not change it for the world.
Sunday
[1976]
‘Six days shalt thou labour, and do all that thou hast to do; but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God. On it thou shalt do no manner of work…’
Yes, but even in the time of Moses animals had to be cared for and fed, the lost sheep sought and brought back to the fold, fires kindled in winter, water brought from the well. Farmers do the same today. Railwaymen drive trains for those who must travel. Seamen man ships. Pilots guide aeroplanes. These people labour, though many others take their ease. The Jewish Sabbath—still sacrosanct, I understand—became the model, through the centuries, of the Christian Sunday, when almost everybody, men, women, children, went to church to do homage to their Maker.
The numbers have decreased in the mid-twentieth century, and the faithful are mostly middle-aged. Why so? Churchmen, laymen, scholars, attenders and non-attenders argue the reasons, the more frequent excuse being that there is more to do for a family on Sunday nowadays than ever there was in the past. Outings, picnics, family gatherings, television, or simply rising late and reading the Sunday papers. The habit has been lost. Church bells are no longer a summons. Religious conscience is stilled. Belief in the Maker is dormant, if it exists at all.
As a writer, a widow, approaching seventy years of age, how do I look upon Sunday? Possibly the answer to this goes back into childhood.
At five or six Sunday meant putting on clean underclothes, which were prickly and uncomfortable. Woollen combinations and stockings that itched. A different dress from weekdays. And because it was my actor father Gerald’s day of rest, we children were bidden downstairs to shake hands with his friends before they departed for golf. This was shy-making, a penance. Then, at a slightly older age, came Going to Church. Matins was dull. But my aunt, who was also my godmother, was a fervent High Anglican, and when I accompanied her to high mass I thoroughly enjoyed it; there was plenty to watch, like going to the theatre. One thing worried me, however, whether at matins or at mass, and this was the humble, even obsequious attitude of all the adults to their Maker. ‘We are miserable sinners… there is no health in us.’ Why must they cringe and crawl? Surely this was not what God wanted? So later, when my father Gerald, who never went to church, suggested that I should go for a walk with him on Hampstead Heath instead, I readily agreed. His religion consisted of being kind and generous to people ‘down on their luck,’ and of kissing the photographs of all his dead family, father, mother, brother and sisters, before he went to bed. I saw the point of this. It made sense, perhaps, to God too.
Nowadays, with one sister a High Anglican like my godmother and the other a Roman Catholic, I still do not attend either matins or mass. But, because I have a deep respect for Christianity, I read a Catholic missal every Sunday morning after breakfast. A slight show-off, in a way, because I like to test my Latin. And this particular missal was published by Monseigneur Gaspard Lefebvre, who of late has been in trouble with the Pope.
And after reading the Mass for the Day, what then? I do my weekly accounts and pay all outstanding bills, which at least puts me right with any debts. Then, as my housekeeper has the day to herself, I cook my lunch, so testing my culinary talent. Sometimes a great success. Sometimes a slight failure. But no matter whichever way it goes. And observing the old Sabbath rule, I never ‘work’ on Sundays. By working I mean writing, which has been my profession for forty-five years. But I do clear up my mail and answer outstanding letters. Then a walk, or in summer a swim, and afterwards long hours with the Sunday papers. Starting, naturally enough, with the Sunday Telegraph.
It is a day which, unless members of my family happen to be staying with me, I invariably keep to myself. I give no invitations and accept none. A day for privacy, except for neighbouring cattle and sheep, with which I am on excellent terms, speaking to them in their own language. (I baa better than I moo, nevertheless they appear to understand the drift of my conversation; even Romany of Trill, the bull, acknowledges my presence with a courteous inclination of his horns.) As to the birds, they flock to the bird table in winter for their food, ignoring my welcoming twitter. I can hear them chattering amongst themselves: ‘Silly old fool, eat up and don’t take any notice of her, she’s quite harmless,’ upon which I tactfully withdraw, and observe them from the cover of a window.
It may be thought, by churchgoing readers, that during the course of this peaceful Sunday I continue to neglect my Maker. On the contrary, conversing with beast and bird is my way of giving thanks. And if anything deepens belief in a Creator, it is by watching wildlife in the countryside, a constant miracle, and noting the changes in their routine through the four seasons; something that applies equally to the colour and growth of trees, plants and shrubs, even weeds. They all obey natural law, which is surely God’s law.
One of the greatest miracles of all is the migration of swallows. The first week in May I stand in my small front garden and wait and watch. They never fail to arrive, though not always on a Sunday. I wave ‘Hurrah, and welcome!’ and they make for my roof, or the old nest inside my garage that was their home the preceding year. Here they rear their young, generally two broods, and by September they begin to prepare for the autumn flight. They fly overhead in a restless manner. ‘Safe journey, and a good winter!’ I call. The following day they have gone. They are obeying natural law.
There are several questions I would like to ask the Creator, though—and this is one fault I find in my missal, that nobody asks a question—and one of the questions is, ‘In prehistoric days, before You thought of man, were You evolving too, and occasionally making mistakes? If not, why create species like the brontosaurus, like the mammoth, like other gigantic beasts, and let the species die, unless at the period of their creation and development You had a thing about size, and thought big was best? Then gradually realised You had made an error of judgement. Yes or no?’
A simple question, but a direct answer would be helpful. If an error is admitted, then there must have been others through the ages. Faulty genes, chromosomes, in man, which cannot be blamed on man himself. And what about the million million stars? Have some of them life? Must they be swallowed up eventually, and our world too, by something called a black hole? Someone will say that it is not for us to question the mind of the Creator. I disagree. Curiosity is a fundamental instinct within all of us. So these are some of the things I ponder about upon a Sunday afternoon, sitting, perhaps, at what I call the Look-Out, staring down acr
oss the fields to the sea. Then I come indoors and make myself a cup of tea, the hall sadly empty since the death of my faithful dog companion in the summer heat wave, my constant shadow for twelve years. I will replace him in the spring with a couple of pups, and life, along with natural law, will continue.
Telephone calls to my family follow. Everybody well and happy? Good. I can settle with an easy mind to television for the rest of the evening, switching channels at whim; the faster the police chase in New York or San Francisco the more relaxed I am, sloping into my chair, only to sit up with a jerk and realise I have missed the dénouement. Time for bed, for filling hot-water bottles, for saying my prayers. Sunday is over.
‘Give peace in our time, O Lord. And may those who by Thy counsel lead the peoples of this earth give a right judgement.’
Poems
The Writer
[1926]
Not for me the arrow in the air,
Nor the mountain snows,
Nor the dumb ocean,
Nor the wind on the heath,
Nor the warm breath
Of the bare bright sun upon my hair.
Not for me the mist of the white stars,
Nor the singing falls
Nor the deep river,
Nor the flung foam
Upon the hard beach,
Nor the other mountains that I cannot reach.
Mine is the silence
And the quiet gloom
Of a clock ticking
In an empty room,
The scratch of a pen,
Ink-pot and paper,
And the patter of the rain.
Nothing but this as long as I am able,
Firelight—and a chair, and a table.
Not for me the whisper in the ear,
Nor the touch of a hand,
And that hand on my heart,
Nor the quick pattering of feet
Upon the stair, nor laughter in the street,
Nor the swift glance, intangible and dear.
Not for me the hunger in the night,
And the strength of the lover
Tired of his loving,
Seeking after passion the broken rest,
Bearing his body’s weight upon my breast.
Mine is the silence
Of the still day,
When the shouting on the hills
Sounds far away,
The song of the thrush,
In the quiet woods,
And the scent of trees.
Always the child who loved too late,
The poet—the fool—the watchman at the gate.
I am the actress mother who must make
A pretended cradle of her arms, lifeless and bare,
Who has never borne a child.
I am the deaf musician, calm and mild,
Singing a battle symphony, who has never heard the guns,
Nor the thunder in the air.
I am the painter whose blind gaze defiled
Would conjure an ocean, who has never seen the sea break
On the wild shores of Finistère…
Not for me the shadow of a smile,
Nor the life that has gone,
Nor the love that has fled,
But the thread of the spider who spins on the wall,
Who is lost, who is dead, who is nothing at all.
Another World
[1947]
Last night the other world came much too near,
And with it fear.
I heard their voices whisper me from sleep,
And could not keep
My mind upon the dream, for still they came,
Calling my name,
The loathly keepers of the netherland
I understand.
My frozen brain rejects the pulsing beat;
My willing feet,
Cloven like theirs, too swiftly recognise
Without surprise.
The horn that echoes from the further hill,
Discordant, shrill,
Has such a leaping urgency of song,
Too loud, too long,
That prayer is stifled like a single note
In the parched throat.
How fierce the flame! How beautiful and bright
The inner light
Of that great world which lives within our own,
Remote, alone.
Let me not see too soon, let me not know,
And so forgo
All that I cling to here, the safety side
Where I would bide.
Old Evil, loose my chains and let me rest
Where I am best,
Here in the muted shade of my own dust.
But if I must
Go wandering in Time and seek the source
Of my life force,
Lend me your sable wings, that as I fall
Beyond recall,
The sober stars may tumble in my wake,
For Jesus’ sake.
A Prayer?
[1967]
Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
Look upon a little child.
His the agony, the loss,
His the burden of your cross.
Mocked and scourged, with garments torn,
He must wear your crown of thorn.
Look upon his vale of tears
Flooded for two thousand years.
Hatred, bitterness and strife
Promise him eternal life.
In the tomb where you were lain,
Jewish boy and Arab slain
Kick the earth and bite the dust,
Victims of the law of lust.
Water once was changed to wine
In your name in Palestine,
Wine to blood flows merrily
On the shores of Galilee.
Falsely listened he who heard
Heaven’s kingdom in your word.
This your message, blessed Lord,
Peace I bring not, but a sword.
Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
Look upon a little child.
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
The Rebecca Notebook and Epilogue Introduction
The Rebecca Notebook
The Rebecca Epilogue
Memories Introduction
The Young George du Maurier
The Matinee Idol
Sylvia’s Boys
My Name in Lights
Romantic Love
This I Believe
Death and Widowhood
The House of Secrets
Moving House
A Winter’s Afternoon, Kilmarth
Sunday
Poems The Writer
Another World
A Prayer?
About the Author
Books by Daphne du Maurier
Newsletters
Copyright
Copyright
Copyright © 1981 by The Estate of Daphne du Maurier
The Rebecca Notebook Page 14