Daphne

by Justine Picardie

  She did not discuss the telephone call with Tommy; she wasn't even sure if the Palace had mentioned it to him. Perhaps he chose to stay silent on the subject, hoping it would pass over, preferring not to talk about the details of the evening, given that he had not returned home that night, or so Daphne suspected, for after that terrible, shaming phone call to the Palace, she'd tried to reach him on the telephone, ringing his Chelsea number repeatedly, every half an hour, then every five minutes, until finally, at four o'clock in the morning, she took a double dose of sleeping pills, to stop herself doing what she wanted to do, which was to dial the number of the Snow Queen's flat.

  The next day, she was exhausted, with a sinking sense of humiliation, yet at the same time she felt a strange chemical feeling of adrenalin pumping through her veins that kept her pacing up and down, unable to settle at her desk, unable to write or read or do anything other than circle the house. She rang the doctor in Fowey, and asked him to come and visit her at home. 'I can't leave the house,' she said to him on the phone.

  'Can't you get a taxi to the surgery?' he said.

  'No, you don't understand me,' she said. 'I cannot leave Menabilly.'

  He arrived in the early afternoon after the morning surgery was finished, and she told him that she couldn't think straight, because she couldn't sleep. 'It's not good for you to be alone in this empty house,' the doctor said to her, 'letting your worries prey on you, no wonder you can't sleep.'

  She nodded her head, and forced herself to smile at him, so as not to arouse his suspicions. 'You're quite right,' she said. 'But my son is back at boarding school, and our housekeeper -well, of course you know about Tod, she's over at Ferryside, helping Angela with my mother, who's not too good at the moment. So we're all at sixes and sevens for the time being, as they say . . . I just need a good night's sleep, and then all will be well again.'

  He took her pulse, and prescribed her some new sleeping pills, and an iron tonic for her nerves. After he'd gone, she took the dog for a walk, hoping to be soothed by the wild anemones in the woods, and the deserted, wind-scoured beach. But then a heavy curtain of rain swept in from the west, submerging the pale winter light, and the seagulls dived and shrieked, their beaks as sharp as knives, as if they might turn on her and pluck out her eyes, and she thought, 'There can be no more desolate place than this.' She trudged back up Rebecca's path to Menabilly, feeling the rain running down her face, like tears. That night, she ate sardines on toast, and drank a glass of wine that tasted too vinegary to finish. She went to bed early, having taken two of the new pills, and dozed, fitfully, between inexplicable yet dreary anxieties about the train timetable from Par to Paddington, and diversions and delays on the line. Eventually, she fell into a deeper sleep just as the birds started singing outside the bedroom window, and dreamt that she was setting off for London from Fowey harbour, determined to sail there in a boat, Tommy's boat, but when she was out at sea, the boat started filling with water, and however fast she tried to bail out, it was not fast enough to keep afloat, and she knew she was scuppered and done for.

  There was the same, odd chemical feeling in her bloodstream the following morning, and yet, despite her agitation, she forced herself to try to come to a rational judgement about her best course of action. When she felt the fear of a plot seeding itself in her mind again, and her thoughts running wild like the hydrangeas outside, she knew she must go back to London. She must do what the doctor told her, to get away from the silence of the empty house, and spend a little time with Tommy, and see Peter, who would understand what she meant if she were to talk to him about the darkness that seemed part of their inheritance, the vein of unhappiness that ran through the family's bloodline. Not that she would necessarily say these things to him, but the thought that she could, if need be, was a comforting one.

  When she arrived in London that evening, Tommy seemed surprised, but not unfriendly. 'What a lot of rushing up and down you're doing,' he said, as he opened the door to the flat. 'I got your telegram, saying you were on your way from Cornwall today, but I must say, isn't all this travelling a bit much for you? We should buy shares in the railway . . .' He looked at her, quizzically, and she wished he would put his arms around her, like he did in the old days, before they had started shrinking away from each other. But at least he was calm, back to his usual measured manner, with none of the shakiness of the summer, nor did he seem angry with her, and she wondered if her suspicions about the Snow Queen were unfounded, because after all, he was here in the flat, with no sign of another woman. Perhaps the worst was over . . .

  And although being back in London was maddening, at least it was in a different way, in a more familiar, manageable form this time. Of course, she still felt swamped by the crowds, as always, but she did not believe herself to be pursued through them by a faceless man in a trilby hat. What continued to worry her, however, was that even if she could now recognise her paranoia as being irrational -which she did, except when she was in the throes of it - she could not predict when it might descend upon her again.

  So she decided that the only remedy was to concentrate on Branwell Brontë to keep hold of him, even when she was most distracted, to write her way out of the mess that she was in, by turning Branwell's chaotic life into a beautifully composed biography. She rang her publisher, Victor Gollancz, to arrange a date to talk to him about her idea for the book. 'I'd like to see him as soon as possible,' she said to Victor's secretary, 'tomorrow, preferably, as it's rather urgent.' Once that appointment was safely in her diary, she telephoned Peter, to ask him to meet her for lunch that day at the Cafe Royal.

  'Is everything all right?' he said, after they had ordered a bottle of wine, and she realised that she was tapping her foot, very fast, beneath the table.

  'Of course,' she said. 'Why do you ask?

  'It just seems slightly out of character,' he said, 'you being in London, instead of Menabilly. Though I'm delighted you're here, naturally.'

  'I needed a change of scenery,' she said. 'I was getting a bit jittery at home, and anyway, there's a tremendous amount of work that I have to get on with at the British Museum.' She started telling him about the Brontë manuscripts, and about all the misunderstandings that surrounded Branwell, though as she tried to explain her research, Daphne felt anxious that Peter wouldn't understand what she was saying, that she wasn't making her ideas clear. 'Do I sound like a lunatic?' she said.

  'Not at all,' he said. 'It sounds to me like you've got under Branwell's skin. Or has he got under yours?' She laughed, but then Peter suddenly looked more serious, and said, 'Go carefully, Daphne, don't lose yourself in Angria or Gondal.'

  'Don't worry, I'll leave a trail of breadcrumbs behind me, to find my way back.'

  'And where are you coming back to?'

  'To Tommy, of course,' she said, feeling a sob rising in her throat, and biting her lip, hard, to stop herself from crying.

  He reached his hand out to her, and said, 'You are very loyal to him.'

  'Am I? I'm not sure Tommy would agree with you.'

  'How is Tommy?'

  'Back at work, and apparently coping with the pressure, though under strict doctor's orders not to overdo it. A little less silent than when you saw him last, and looking himself again, but still not tremendously talkative . . .'

  'And into the silence steps Branwell?'

  'Yes,' she said, 'though he's apt to go quiet on me, too.'

  The next day, she lunched with Victor Gollancz, and he readily agreed to her proposal for a biography of Branwell. 'The story of the Brontë family always seems to me to be at least as dramatic as their novels,' he said.

  'I warn you, it's going to be a very serious, scholarly affair,' she said. 'I want to do something really worthwhile.'

  'Everything you write is worthwhile.'

  'If only the critics agreed with you,' she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

  'Who cares about them? You're the best-selling author in the country.'

  'I car
e,' she said. 'And I'm hoping that this will be the book that finally proves me.'

  'But you've already proved yourself, time and time again, to millions of readers.'

  'It doesn't feel like that,' she said. 'I'm feeling somewhat of a failure. And Victor, I do fret when you advertise me as a best-selling author, it puts the critics off, because nowadays it's something to be ashamed of, don't you think?'

  Victor looked at her, and laughed, as if she had just made a joke; and so she smiled back at him, though she worried that her right eye was twitching. It was hard to concentrate on what he was saying about the book trade, but she forced herself to do so, and then the conversation became a little easier, when she asked him if he knew anything about T. J. Wise, and the rumours surrounding his forgeries. Victor said he had come across some of Wise's faked first editions of Browning poetry, and there were stories that Wise had torn pages out of rare books at the British Museum, and then sold them in discreetly conducted deals to private collectors. Victor had never heard of Mr Symington, however, though he remarked to Daphne that any of Wise's former colleagues might perhaps be considered as unreliable, potentially untrustworthy. And Daphne rushed to defend Symington, determined that he should not be judged as harshly or unfairly as Branwell had been, and she felt an unexpected sense of protectiveness about both of them, almost as if any hostility expressed toward Symington or Branwell was also a challenge to herself.

  'Don't forget,' she said to Victor, 'Symington has been open with me from the start - he's the one who suggested that Charlotte and Emily's signatures could have been forged on Branwell's manuscripts.'

  'Perhaps,' said Victor, 'or might that not be a double-bluff? Because if it was Symington who was responsible for the forgeries in the first place - or if not him, then Wise, with Symington's full knowledge - he could be trying to put you off the scent.'

  'That sounds like a rather overly complicated conspiracy theory,' Daphne said, and Victor smiled, saying, 'My dear, you're the expert on literary conspiracies and fictional plots -the consummate mistress of them all - so I have no doubt in your ability to find your way through this one.'

  She laughed, which was what he wanted, but that night, Victor's words niggled at her, like whining mosquitoes. m y , exactly, did he mention plots to her? Was he sending her the subtlest of messages? And if so, what was the message?

  'You're looking tired,' said Tommy to her, over breakfast the following morning. 'Why not try and have a break from working?'

  'I need to have a break from not working,' she said. But the trouble was, every time she sat down at her desk to read through her notes from the British Museum, or to sketch out an early plan for the form her book might take, she found herself returning to her meeting with the Snow Queen, reliving it, reworking their dialogue. She wondered whether their conversation could have taken a different direction; whether she might have been more forceful with the Snow Queen, and proved herself to be as implacable as her adversary.

  Still, she kept trying, kept to a routine of mornings reading manuscripts at the British Museum and afternoons at her desk in the flat, and then dinner with Tommy, and sometimes Flavia and her husband, who were living nearby. Occasionally, Daphne realised that she was talking aloud to herself, which didn't matter when she was alone, but she often wasn't alone, she was on a bus or in the Reading Room, and people were staring at her. So she told herself to concentrate harder, to strain every sinew and nerve in her body, to keep on top of things. The strategy seemed to be working, until a letter arrived from Mr Symington, forwarded to the London flat by Tod, and as Daphne opened it, and the theatre programme slithered out on to the table, with Gertie's name on it in big, bold letters, she was suddenly consumed with panic. Tommy wasn't there at the time, thank God, but if he had been, what would have happened then?

  Daphne skimmed Symington's letter, with its odd little reference to September Tide, and then threw it into the dustbin in the kitchen, along with the theatre programme. She went out of the room, but it was no good, she couldn't leave the letter or the programme in the bin; what if Tommy noticed them there this evening, and suspected her of something? So she fished them out, and the envelope that they had arrived in, and cut all of it up into tiny slithers of paper. Then she put these into another, unmarked envelope and hurried downstairs to the street, and turned left, past the Chelsea Hospital Gardens, and down to the Embankment. She was about to dump it in a litterbin, but then she saw a man watching her from the other side of the road. So she kept hold of the envelope, and went to the parapet that separated the pavement from the river. She glanced over her shoulder, to see if the man was still staring at her, but he was pretending to look in the other direction, so she quickly threw the envelope into the Thames, and watched it float away with the tide, white and frail; but not sinking, why was it not sinking into the water? Daphne held her breath, leaning further over the parapet to see what was happening, and eventually the envelope disappeared, beneath Chelsea Bridge. She wondered if she should walk along there, just to check that it was gone, but then she noticed another man standing on the bridge, a man in a trilby hat, and so she strolled away, and only started running when she had crossed the road, and she ran all the way back to the flat.

  Daphne said nothing to Tommy about the men at the Embankment, but she could feel them gaining ground again in her head; she knew she must be careful to keep ahead of them, and return to Menabilly. 'I can't keep track of you,' Tommy said to her, when she told him she was going back to Cornwall.

  'Nor I you,' she said, but she kept her smile in place as she spoke the words, and patted his hand affectionately.

  Could the watchers come to Menabilly? No, surely she was safe here, for the house remained hidden from view, from everyone, invisible from the road and the sea, even when the autumn leaves had fallen, for Menabilly was still protected by the impenetrable evergreens in the woods, the cypress pines and towering fir trees, the sharp bamboos and giant ferns thriving on the boggy ground between thickets of nettles and brambles, and everywhere the dense maze of tangled rhododendrons. The woods had protected Rebecca, for all these years, in her limbo-life; and perhaps Rebecca, too, would act as a kind of protection for Daphne, the gatekeeper to her secret world . . .

  It was getting darker now, the nights were lengthening, and winter was upon Menabilly, irrevocable, those melancholy months that Daphne always feared. She must make a friend out of the darkness, she told herself, as another defence against the enemies that assailed her. She imagined Branwell in the midst of the long Yorkshire winters, writing by candlelight in the Parsonage, his face papery white against his fiery hair. Who, or what, had Branwell feared? Daphne did not know for certain, but sometimes she wondered if she might be at the beginning of a quest to rescue him from an abductor, like Gerda had been, the girl who freed her friend from the grip of the Snow Queen. Branwell had been similarly banished to the frozen wastes, distant from view, almost forgotten, deprived of everything that should have been his due.

  But Gerda was young, and Daphne felt old. And Branwell was so remote, so far away, and how would she ever find him? Where was her map, and who would be her guide there? No, better to stay at home in Menabilly; let Branwell come to her here.

  'Branwell,' she whispered in the darkness, in her writing hut. 'Branwell, speak to me . . .'

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Newlay Grove, November 1957

  No word from Daphne, still not a word, and Symington could feel the familiar leaden weight of disappointment. But he had work to do, as always, a rising tide of it that covered his desk and spread across the floor around him. 'I have my work cut out for me,' he said to himself, by way of encouragement, though it was hard not to feel oppressed. He was immersed in paperwork from 1930, unearthed when he was searching his files for several Brontë manuscripts; and though he did not find these particular manuscripts - there were so many boxes, so many hiding places - the letters that he came across instead were as absorbing as they were enraging, and he could n
ot stop re-reading them. All concerned the dreadful months that followed his dismissal from the Brontë Parsonage Museum, when he had been accused of stealing various manuscripts, drawings, letters and books, and had been hounded by the solicitors appointed by the Brontë Society, demanding that he return everything.

  Symington had kept the carbon copies of his replies to the solicitors as well as their letters to him, and he felt breathless as he re-examined the correspondence, over and over again, his chest tightening, until it was almost too painful to move. So he stayed very still at his desk, the sheaf of papers in front of him, fanned out like a deck of cards; yet whichever way he shuffled them, he always held the losing hand. His door was locked - he did not want Beatrice to come bursting in, not that she showed any sign of doing so, she was still keeping her distance from him.

  Beatrice knew nothing of this; she had no idea of his troubles then, of course, she never had. When he had been ordered to resign as curator and librarian at the Parsonage, Symington told Beatrice that it was because Lord Brotherton had asked him to make a choice between his work for the Brontë Society, or for the Brotherton Collection, as there were insufficient hours in the day for him to do both. And in fact, the story was a plausible one, for Symington had been increasingly overwhelmed by his responsibilities, by the enormous quantity of material to be acquired and archived and catalogued (not just the papers, but the Brontë relics too - the dog collars and lace handkerchiefs, the slippers and mittens -all of them as precious as if they had belonged to a family of saints, and been touched by the hand of God Himself). Not that Brotherton would have ever known the full exent of Symington's workload; nor asked him to give up his responsibilities at the Parsonage, for after all, Brotherton was a stalwart supporter of the Brontë Society, which ran the museum, and was also its president until shortly before his death.

  And what a terrible loss that had been, leaving Symington defenceless against his enemies, who had moved in, like hyenas, a vicious pack of them, and no one had come to his aid, not even those who should have done, fellow Masons, who knew that he had been a loyal lodge-member for many years, like Brotherton. But it had meant nothing, in the end: freemasonry had done him no more good than it had done Branwell before him.