The American Lover

by Rose Tremain

  ‘No, I’m not. Not a bit cold.’ Then she laughed. ‘Look at us!’ she said. ‘We’re like naughty children, trying on things that don’t belong to us.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I suppose we are.’ But then – perhaps because Miss du Maurier looked so strikingly pretty and vulnerable with the heavy fur draped about her shoulders – I ventured to say: ‘I know a little about good clothes, for my father was a tailor in Warsaw until the family left for England in nineteen twenty-three.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘a tailor! What a beautiful profession. Clothes that are made just for oneself and for no one else feel as precious as jewels. Don’t you agree? Or like friends, even, and when you put them on, it’s like slipping your hand in theirs.’

  I smiled, in thrall to a sweet remembrance: how, when I was a young child, my father used to make me little dresses out of offcuts of tweed and grey flannel and how my schoolmates envied me these clothes, because they were heavy and lined and warm in our bitter winters. And I allowed myself to sit on the bed – a thing I would not normally ever do – and tell Miss du Maurier about these garments from my past. She stared at me with rapt attention, as though I, and not she, had suddenly become a marvellous teller of stories.

  ‘What a lovely thing,’ she said. ‘I can just imagine the dresses. Did he put a little lace or velvet on the collars?’

  ‘Yes, sometimes. Or silk, from a linings remnant. For he didn’t like waste. He used to say to me: ‘When you grow up, you must take care of things. And I suppose I never forgot this because here I am, a housekeeper, and this is where I’ve put my soul – into the care of objects and the well-being of the people they belong to.’

  ‘Well, I am sure that Lord de Whithers values you enormously. And the house is so immaculately ordered. I suppose you might be the best housekeeper of all time!’

  She laughed when she said this and with the sudden movement of her body, the fur coat slipped to the floor.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, stooping to pick it up, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to let it fall. We’d better put the fur away. And perhaps we could go out into the garden, into the sunshine.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I said, taking the mink coat from her and replacing it on its padded silk coat hanger. ‘We can go wherever you like. Would you like to see the summer-house down on the beach?’

  ‘Yes, I would, very much. Is there a kettle there? Could we make a cup of tea?’

  What I liked most about descending the steep pathway to the beach was the onrush of sound as one came nearer and nearer to the sea. From the west-facing terrace of Manderville Hall, although the view of the bay was very fine, the power of the ocean seemed muted, as though the house, in its lofty ­position above the steeply sloping lawns, would always domin­ate it and never be harmed by it.

  Then, as you came down towards the sea, you felt the thrill of the harm that it could do. In my time at Manderville Hall, there had been drownings here: bodies which nobody recognised or knew, strangers in our world, whose last trespass had been upon our paradise.

  When I told Miss du Maurier about these drownings, she said: ‘Oh, how extraordinary! People nobody knew. Somebody must have known them. Did detectives come?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose they did, madam.’

  ‘But none of them ever questioned you?’

  ‘Me? No. I’m only the housekeeper.’

  ‘But you might have seen or heard something.’

  ‘Yes, I might. But I shall tell you what else a housekeeper is, besides being a guardian of objects. A housekeeper is one who sees and hears everything, but pretends to know nothing. That is her role in the world, to keep everything closed and shuttered away within her.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Miss du Maurier, ‘is that really true? What a fascinating thought. And the role of the writer, of course, is to prise open those shuttered and closed places and see what lies inside them. I could be dangerous to you and you would not notice it.’

  I did not know what to say to this, so I kept silent. We were standing near the place where the breakers came in and I, who knew the tides, could tell that in a few moments, we would not be safe there. But I didn’t move, or suggest that we move; it was as though I was challenging the water to come surging over our feet. It was Miss du Maurier who stepped back, just as a tall wave broke and came rushing upon the dry sand.

  ‘Do let’s go into the summer-house and make that cup of tea,’ she said. ‘And you can tell me about the tailor’s shop in Warsaw and why your father chose to leave it. You can tell me what a Polish winter was like. You can tell me who or what you love.’

  ‘Oh, I love no one,’ I said quietly. ‘I learned early, exactly as you said, that love lays “ghastly traps for the soul”.’

  I knew that Lord de Whithers would get up from his rest towards half past four and that I should be back at the Hall by then, in case he sent for me. He was a fair but strict employer and seemed to expect the staff to be available to him at all times. It was as though he could not imagine us having any life beyond that of serving his needs.

  Normally, I would respect his wishes. I knew that I was very fortunate to have a position in such a substantial house and I never wished to do anything to put my job in jeopardy.

  But that afternoon, in the summer-house, I lost all track of time.

  Miss du Maurier and I talked for a long while. She lay on the daybed where I had once dreamed away an extra­ordinary night.

  Her head was on a cushion and she fanned out her fair hair till the cushion was almost covered by it. I sat on the hard, wooden floor, faded almost to whiteness by the salt air. We drank tea and smoked cigarettes from Miss du Maurier’s silver cigarette case.

  And, then, without wishing it, I found myself caught in a vibrant reverie of the past, and I found that I wanted my revelations about this past to come out in a torrent, as though I believed that if they did, I might be liberated from my own history.

  I told Miss du Maurier how my mother had died of consumption in the winter of 1923 and that her dying had been horrifying to witness – more horrifying than anything I thought I would ever know – and how, from that terrible day onwards, my father had become inflamed with the idea of getting away from Poland.

  ‘I can well understand that,’ said Miss du Maurier. ‘If a beloved person dies, it’s very hard to stay in the places they occupied.’

  ‘It was not only that,’ I said. ‘It was because he couldn’t conquer his fears for the future. He couldn’t deceive himself. He always looked things in the eye and never pretended that what he saw was not really happening.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Miss du Maurier. ‘I think I know what fears you’re talking about: the worst that one can imagine.’

  I nodded. Then I asked for another cigarette and Miss du Maurier lit it for me, because she saw that my hands were trembling. She gave it to me and I took a long pull of the smoke and felt it stir in my blood and make me bold. And so it was that I poured out the revelation that the Danowski family, along with all the other Jewish families we knew in Warsaw, lived with the understanding that they were despised.

  Miss du Maurier sat very still and regarded me with her tender blue eyes. ‘Was that how it felt,’ she asked, ‘that you were despised?’

  ‘Despised. Hated. These are the words. There are no milder ones to convey it. And they – we – we all knew that the day would come when we would be driven away, cast out from everything that was familiar to us, and that all that would survive of us would be our longing and our sorrow. And so my father brought me to England.’

  Miss du Maurier said nothing for a moment. I smoked my cigarette. Then she brought her hand to her brow and said: ‘Mrs Danowski, I know this is very forward of me, but would you care to do me a charming little favour? I have a slight headache from the sherry I drank with Lord de Whithers at lunchtime. Would you kneel down by me, here, and stroke my forehead? I trespass upon dear women friends sometimes, to ask them to do this for me. They know I suffer fearfully from headaches and this
always soothes them and makes them go away. Would you mind terribly? Men cannot do it; their touch is too heavy, you see. Even my husband, though he tries, it is never successful, and I have not been alone with a woman for a long time.’

  I do not know exactly what time it was when I kneeled down beside her. I know the tide was in and the sea very loud and almost at our door. But I could not make myself think about anything that afternoon except the person who lay before me, the beautiful Miss du Maurier who had brought forth all the memories I had hardly ever spoken of, but who had also woken in me feelings I had not experienced since I was a teenage girl.

  I did as she asked, stubbing out my cigarette, kneeling by her and putting my hand gently on her brow and stroking it. Her skin was smooth and soft and the perfume of her body heady and strong. After some while, I dared to put my face close to hers and whisper in her ear: ‘I cannot do this, Miss du Maurier, without wishing to do more . . .’

  ‘More?’ she said. ‘What more might one do? I expect you may have some wonderful suggestions?’

  I could not answer her. I knew in that moment that I was her creature, that she could ask anything of me and I would do it. I felt as though I would be hers for the rest of time.

  I put my arms around her and lifted her towards me. She was smiling her heartbreaking smile and did not pull away, but reached up and began to take out pins from my coiffure, so that my thick, dark hair cascaded around my shoulders and fell towards her face.

  ‘Danni,’ she whispered. ‘Can I call you Danni? For I think, if you spell it with an “i” at the end, that is rather a beautiful name.’

  ‘Call me anything you wish,’ I said.

  I have never before set down what happened that afternoon in the beach-house. When, in the dusk, we walked out from there, I knew that I was transfigured. I would never again be the person I had been before.

  And then we parted. We walked up to the house and she got into her car and drove away from Manderville Hall and I did not know whether I would ever see her again.

  As I went into the servants’ hall, one of the kitchen maids, Patsy, came in and stared at me with a terrified look, as though she’d seen a ghost.

  ‘Whatever have you done to yourself, Mrs D?’ she said.

  ‘Done? I’ve done nothing,’ I replied. ‘Get on with your work, Patsy.’

  But then I rushed up the back stairs to my room and looked at myself in the small mirror hanging beside my bed. My mouth was bleeding. And I realised I was clutching something in my hand, also spotted with blood. It was a gossamer-soft linen handkerchief with the initials DdM embroidered upon it.

  As the days unwound towards September, unvarying in their routine, devoid of any word or any sight of Miss du Maurier, I began to pine like a dog. I cried in my bed. I walked about Manderville Hall with a slow step.

  Often, I took out the embroidered handkerchief, which I had tenderly washed by hand in the mildest soap, and held it against my cheek. I considered sending it to Miss du Maurier’s house at Fowey. I thought I would send it with some short note asking whether I might be able ‘to cure you of a headache when next you suffer in this way’. But pride prevented me from writing.

  I knew that I had to wait. I was Miss du Maurier’s servant.

  I had to wait for her to send word to me.

  And then, on one of my days off, a fine September afternoon, I decided to go down to the beach-house. I had not gone there since the afternoon with Miss du Maurier, not wishing to find myself alone in the place where I had been transfigured by another. But something drew me there on this day and I told myself that I might lie on the daybed where I had lain with her and dream my way into a solitary rapture that might still my feelings and let me return to being the person I had been before I laid my hand on her pale brow.

  The sun glinted gold on a calm sea and as I neared the little cove, I saw a small motor boat pulled up upon the sand and anchored in the shallow water. I stopped and stared. This was Manderville Hall’s private beach and every soul who lived round about knew that they should not trespass there. I considered returning to the house to fetch Lord de Whithers, but I knew that he would be taking his habitual afternoon rest and I had no wish to disturb him. So I went on. People have often observed that, being very tall and dark, I have ‘an intimidating presence’ and I seldom feel afraid of an encounter – even with strangers who might be in the throes of some wrong-doing. My heart was beating a little fast, but on I went, down and down, rehearsing in my mind a firm but polite invitation to the owner of the motor boat to weigh anchor and depart.

  On the dry sand, footsteps were visible, leading from the boat to the door of the beach-house. I stopped for a moment and looked at them, but could deduce nothing from them. Setting back my shoulders and walking with a firm step, I strode to the door and opened it.

  Miss du Maurier lay on the daybed. She had covered her body with an old blanket Lady de Whithers had always kept nearby, and she appeared to be fast asleep. One arm reached down towards the floor. Near her hand was an ashtray with several cigarette butts in it, each one tenderly marked with her scarlet lipstick.

  I stood quite still and looked at her. No angel in paradise could have appeared more beautiful to me than she appeared at that moment.

  Very quietly, I slipped off my coat and kneeled down by the bed. Miss du Maurier sighed and opened her eyes and saw me and bathed me with her radiant smile.

  ‘Danni,’ she whispered. ‘Here you are. I came here on your day off last week, but you never appeared. Do you like my little boat? I’m rather good at navigating and using the tides, and luckily it’s not very far from—’

  I put my hand on her mouth, then put my lips where my hand had been. And I felt, in the next moments, that her yearning for me had been as great as mine had been for her. And we were a long time at this wicked loving of ours, not being able to let go of it, but always searching for more, until we lay exhausted on the bed and the light at the window began to fade.

  The motor boat had no running lights. Miss du Maurier at last stood up and adjusted her clothes and told me that she would have to leave, or be drowned in the dark.

  ‘Do not drown, madam,’ I said.

  She came to me and touched my face. ‘I’ve asked myself if I should resist you,’ she said. ‘I know that I should. I know that we are terrible sinners. But, God forgive me, Danni, you are too strong to be resisted. So I shall not try.’

  So began the great and only love affair of my life.

  The beach-house was our hiding place, our refuge, the place where no other soul ever came. On Thursday afternoons (except for those when Miss du Maurier had to go to London on business or attend some military function with her husband), I would come down the steep path at two o’clock and see the boat pulled up on the sand and then I would see my own shadow going before me on the sand as I went to the door and opened it and my beloved called to me.

  There was a darkness in it. The darkness made us faint with such great fear that sometimes all we could do was cling to each other and weep and I knew it was a darkness such as my father had felt when he decided to leave his country. He saw what Time might bring, and Miss du Maurier and I saw it. Though she confessed to me that she rejoiced in the ‘boy within her’ and was only truly happy when she gave that ‘boy’ his passionate rein, she also knew that the day would come when she would have to bury him again, put him back in what she called his ‘box’ or his ‘coffin’. ‘And then, Danni,’ she said, ‘we will have to part and never see each other again.’

  She told me about her soldier husband, whom she admired, but whose embrace she only submitted to and did not like. But she venerated her own married state. ‘That,’ she said, ‘is what the world sees: that I am the wife of Major Browning. And what the world sees must not be obscured. I know you understand.’

  I understood. But I didn’t wish to talk about this. One day, when Miss du Maurier was describing her life with Major Browning and her pride in his bravery and the sweet sol
itude he allowed her in which she wrote her books, I had a violent urge to put my hand on her pale neck and tighten its grip. I began talking in Polish. In this remembered language that she could not understand, I told her that I would kill her rather than allow her to leave me. And I heard her laugh. She laughed at my pain.

  ‘Danni,’ she said, ‘sometimes you look as though you could be very cruel, but of course this is thrilling beyond measure. I shall have to use it.’

  A year passed. During that time, I was the fortunate recipient of many gifts from my lover, including a chinchilla coat, which I wear to this day, because I love it so. And, though I’m now cast out from Miss du Maurier’s heart, I still remember that only two people in my life truly clothed me with care: my father and Miss du Maurier. And it seems to me that in all the time when I was not clothed by them, I was naked and cold and my flesh knew only suffering.

  Towards the end of that year, on a Thursday afternoon in September, when Miss du Maurier and I lay in each other’s arms on the daybed, I on my back and she above me, with her breasts and her thighs soft against mine and only the thin blanket covering us, I saw a shadow of a woman approaching the door of the summer-house.

  I put my hand on Miss du Maurier’s mouth, to prevent her from saying a word. I stared at the door. On came the shadow, silhouetted against the slanting sun. And then we both heard footsteps, firm upon the sand.

  The door was locked. We always took this precaution, making the summer-house appear to be as shuttered and empty as it had been after Lady de Whithers’ death. And the curtains to the small window were also drawn, giving to our sanctuary a soft and mellow light in which we both, to each other, seemed to be creatures of ravishing beauty. But these curtains were thin and I had never been certain that they fully concealed the interior of the summer-house.

  Whoever it was who now stood at the door, rattled the door handle. Miss du Maurier buried her head in my neck and I held her fast against me and I could feel her frantic heartbeat betraying her fear. The door handle was tried again and the door itself shaken. Then the woman went to the window and tried to see through the drawn curtains. Her head moved this way and that, trying to find a tiny gap in the curtains. There was no gap. (As a housekeeper, I knew exactly how to close curtains and fold one side gently over the other at the centre, so that no gap existed.) But the head kept moving – as though the woman knew that something was occurring in the summer-house, and the notion that she could see us, even as indistinct figures shrouded in our blanket, made me feel faint, the more so because I now recognised who the woman was: it was Miss Adelaide Waverley, future chatelaine of Manderville Hall.