The accusations and legal letters had gone on for months, itemising everything he was supposed to have stolen, but Symington had remained robust in his written responses to the persecution, certain that he was right, and the Society wrong, for they were dullards who had no idea of how to care for such priceless treasures. It pained him, still, remembering that he had been forced to return several of Charlotte's letters and childhood writings, for these might have proved to be the key to unlocking Branwell's secrets, and not only that, they would have been indisputably safer with him as their guardian. Even so, some of the manuscripts remained in his safekeeping, despite those vultures at the Parsonage, who wanted to peck at the papers, tear them apart until all the life had gone from them.
Symington wished he could reassure himself that he had achieved some degree of triumph over his adversaries, but re-reading the solicitors' letters left a bitter taste in his mouth; far too bitter to be washed away with whisky. What angered him - a rising anger that made his head pound, so that he could feel the rage throbbing, like blood - was that the Brontë Society had never recognised his talents and his skill. They had cut him off in his prime, when he should have been promoted instead, for he would have made an excellent president of the Society, as Wise had been, before Brotherton; and why Wise and not Symington? Symington knew himself to be every bit as industrious as Wise, and as talented a collector.
Worse than the anger, though, or the bitterness, were the moments of panic. Where, exactly, was each of the hidden manuscripts that he had kept safe for so many years? He would not use the word 'stolen', for he was not a thief, but a guardian, and a rightful one. But could a real thief have gained access to his collection? Surely not; his locks were secure, and he checked them over and over again. But that manuscript of Emily's poetry - the little notebook of her poems he borrowed from the Law collection - must now be worth a fortune, for as far as Symington knew, only one other of her notebooks of poetry had survived intact, and that was presented to the British Museum over twenty years ago. It was so hard to keep track of everything, for some of his collection had been stored at the smaller house in Newlay Grove, next door to his own, which Symington had rented in 1926 to accommodate his office and library, an assistant and a secretary. That had been such a good year, when everything had been expanding and growing, when Elsie was still alive, and treasures were all around him.
But he had been forced to give up his tenancy there, eighteen months ago, when the last of his money ran out, and the bank refused to increase his overdraft, and he'd had to move everything out of it, boxes and boxes filled with sheaves of papers that had overflowed into his study and the basement and the attic of the main house, much to Beatrice's annoyance. There had been no assistant to help him with reorganising his collection, no secretary, and it was overwhelming, he had not known where to begin.
And now, he must begin at the beginning again, he must put everything into order, before it was too late; he could not allow himself to be defeated. He must write to Daphne once more, and prove himself to her, for time was running out, he felt it, like Branwell had before him. He must prove himself, as Branwell never did; but in doing so, he would prove Branwell's worth; Branwell and him, they were inseparable; entwined together like vines, and surely something fruitful would come of this . . .
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Hampstead, March
I knew that I shouldn't have gone into Paul's study today, but I told myself that I wasn't snooping, that I needed to check something in one of his reference books. And then when I was in the room, I couldn't help noticing that he'd left his laptop open on the desk, instead of taking it to work with him this morning, like he usually does. So I came up with a perfectly plausible excuse to look at it - an excuse that I could believe in, given that there was no one else in the house that needed to be convinced - which was that the Internet connection in my study was very slow, and it would be quicker to check the reference online on Paul's computer, rather than searching through his bookshelves.
I went over to his desk, which overlooks the back garden, and the laptop was already on, he hadn't shut it down last night, like he usually does, so it was impossible to avoid seeing what was already on the screen. Because there it was, just waiting to be read: a draft email to Rachel, dated from yesterday, though not yet sent, and beneath it some previous emails, as if he'd just pressed 'reply' to the last one that had arrived from her. I sat at his desk - how could I not? - and started scrolling down the screen, reading the emails in the reverse order that they'd written them to each other. I couldn't understand why he hadn't deleted the previous messages, and simply started a new one, but he hadn't - at least, not yet - so the entire correspondence was there, beginning with the draft of his most recent email.
Dear Rachel,
I hear that you may be returning to London in a few months' time, to return to your job in the English department for the start of the autumn term. If this is the case, then our professional paths will doubtless cross in due course, and we should probably talk before then. . .
Dear Paul,
Well, that was a remarkably quick turnaround, wasn't it? So much for your broken heart. It appears to have mended quickly, with the help of your new wife who is, by all accounts, half your age.
Good luck to both of you . . .
Rachel
Rachel. My divorce lawyer will be in touch with yours. Best wishes, Paul
Paul. Your problem is that you are jealous of me and my success as a poet. Don't worry, you won't be hearing from me again. Rachel
Rachel - if you have nothing more constructive than lies and denials to add to this conversation, then I don't want to hear from you.
Paul
Dear Paul,
You appear to mistake female friendship for lesbianism: a common trait in unreconstructed men, but an unworthy response in you, Rachel
Rachel,
I hardly think 'paranoia' is a truthful description of my feelings. Did you really think I wouldn't notice your flirtation with her? Give me some credit, please, for being able to interpret those covert glances and remarks.
Paul
Dear Paul,
Your paranoia about my alleged betrayals of you has always undermined our relationship - far more so that any physical separation through work. You use the word 'fact' about my alleged infidelities, but there are no facts, only your destructive fantasies.
Rachel
Rachel,
If you still can't see why your move to Rutgers constitutes the latest in a series of betrayals, then I'm not sure how I can be expected to explain, yet again. We have talked and talked and talked about this, and the endless arguments are wearing me down. Surely you must understand by now that if I truly believed that your move to America was simply for professional reasons, then of course I would support it. But given the fact that you have used geographical separation on previous occasions as a cover for your infidelities to me, then I see no reason why you won't do the same in America.
Paul
Dear Paul
As partings go, that was as bad as it could be. I don't understand why you have precipitated this crisis. Surely you should support my opportunity to take the fellowship at Rutgers? It's only for two years, and I will be coming back to London in the holidays, which are, after all, as long as the term times. Why do you seem intent on turning my acceptance of a very good career move into a marital separation?
With love, as always,
Rachel
It only took a few minutes to read the emails, and of course, reading them should have changed everything, for wasn't this reassuring proof that Paul didn't love Rachel, that he didn't want her back again, and didn't regret marrying me? It was almost as if he'd left his computer for me to find, accidentally on purpose, as evidence that their marriage was over.
But there was something strangely unsettling about seeing the visual, concrete evidence of their relationship - the undeleted letters on the screen - and whichever way I read
them, both forwards and backwards, I still felt as if I'd been stung by the words on the computer, by those bitter little sentences that loomed large in my mind, yet seemed too small to chronicle the enormity of an unravelling marriage. Yes, I knew that the emails were simply the shorthand account of what had doubtless been months of convoluted arguments and tortured negotiations and prolonged misery. Even so, when all that emotion was reduced into this email correspondence, it seemed so mundane and petty and . . . and childish. Because they were supposed to be the grown-ups around here, weren't they?
As for that small yet deadly grenade contained within the correspondence, that Paul suspected Rachel of a flirtation with another woman, well, I didn't want that ticking away in my head. I didn't want to look at those emails ever again; I wanted to forget all about them. I told myself they were none of my business - but it was impossible, they rooted themselves inside me, like fungus spores in the dark.
I went straight upstairs to my own study, not stopping to look at anything of Rachel's in the house - not her mirror, not her candle, not her bed, not her bathroom - and I shut the door behind me, to keep the scent of Rachel out. As I switched on my computer, all I wanted was to concentrate on my work - my stuff, nothing to do with Rachel and Paul -and I started reading my PhD notes, determined to lose myself in these, and sweep everything else aside. But there was nothing of any real merit in the notes, just a jumble of disconnected ideas about the Brontës and du Maurier, and a title, 'Self-Interrogation', which I can't use, because Rachel has already used it as the title for one of her poems; she got there first, just like she did with my husband.
I wanted to hate Rachel, and her poem, to dismiss it as a clever-clever re-appropriation of the Emily Brontë poem that provided Daphne du Maurier with the title of The Loving Spirit. But then I reached into my bottom drawer for Rachel's book of poetry - which is a strange thing to do, isn't it, if you are intent on ignoring something, or someone? - and when I reread her 'Self-Interrogation', I was reminded, again, of how intriguing it is. She takes Brontë's seventh stanza as an epigraph for her poem ('Alas! The countless links are strong/ That bind us to our clay;/ The loving spirit lingers long,/And would not pass away!'). But then she does something quite different, because she seems to use the idea, suggested by Emily Dickinson, that one might read a poem backwards. No one knows if Dickinson was definitely referring to Emily Brontë as a poet whose lines could be reversed, but Rachel flips one of Brontë's phrases, so that it reads, 'long lingers spirit loving'. If I were still a student at Cambridge, I'd say Rachel's poem was about literary identity, and how elusive and slippery it can be, but now, I'm not so sure about trying to pin a writer down in that way, especially one apparently intent on not being captured.
Anyway, after I reread Rachel's poem, I got out my old copy of The Loving Spirit, and started flicking through it again, which I haven't done for years, because it's not my favourite of Daphne's books. And on the last, blank pages of this paperback edition, there are some of my handwritten notes, which must date back to my first year at Cambridge, when I was brooding over du Maurier, as usual, instead of getting on with writing an essay on someone more academically respectable. So what I scribbled was this:
Daphne wrote her debut novel - at twenty-two - during a winter at Ferryside, the house that her father had bought in Cornwall, overlooking the harbour at Fowey. Imaginative reworking of the history of a local boatbuilding family, beginning with the story of Jane Slade, a real woman, and the original matriarch of the family, transformed by Daphne into Janet Coombe, the fictional heroine of The Loving Spirit. Janet's passionate love for her son Joseph continues beyond death, and borders on an incestuous version of Cathy and Heathcliffs tempestuous union. Check: Is the real Jane Slade buried in the church where Daphne married her husband?
Seeing my note reminded me that actually, there's a lot of near-incest in du Maurier's work - like the love affair between the stepbrother and sister at the heart of her novel, The Parasites, which also has a faint echo of Cathy and Heathcliff. And then there are those sly, curious passages that she slips into her biography of her father, which is written almost like a novel, with Daphne as a character in it; the oddest of all - a clue, or a joke? - is her story of Gerald's engagement to Ethel Barrymore, several years before he met Daphne's mother, Muriel. I took down my copy of Gerald from the shelf, and turned to the page that I'd already marked with a pen ages ago, then put to one side, trying to forget about it. It's Daphne's description of Ethel, a pretty, nineteen-year-old actress, who 'looked elfin, and adorable, and never more than fourteen'. But instead of calling her Ethel, Daphne refers to her by her middle name - Daphne - a decision that creates a disconcertingly perverse effect. So there's a scene in Ireland, when Daphne-the-daughter writes about how Gerald begged Daphne-the-lover to marry him as soon as possible, 'but she was very wilful, and would not make up her mind, and asked if they couldn't be like brother and sister . . . Whereupon Gerald, dramatising the situation at once, threatened suicide, and, rushing down the Kerry beach, waded in water up to his neck, fully aware that Daphne was sobbing wildly, "Gerald, Gerald, come back!" '
If I were forging ahead with my PhD, I suppose I'd be piecing together these suggestive hints in her writing and turning them into a solid theory for my dissertation, but somehow, when I try, it all seems to unravel in my hands. For a start, I'm not sure if my speculations about her relationship with Gerald can be linked, in any meaningful way, with her research into the Brontës. But also, what right do I have to try to make connections between her books and her life? It's dangerous territory - like all those dated, sentimental Brontë biographies, spinning the myth about saintly Charlotte and spiritual Emily and bad Branwell and gentle Anne. Those kinds of books make me feel uncomfortable; it's the literary equivalent of catching butterflies, and then killing them, in order to pin them down and display them in a box. But what's odd is that I get the same uneasy sensation when I think about that weirdly unsatisfactory email exchange between Paul and Rachel, and also about Rachel's poem, and the less certain I am of the meaning of her 'Self-Interrogation' the more I want to understand it, yet the harder I try, the quicker it slips away. Which is, perhaps, the point: that what we read into things may not be the truth, or that the truth is not a solid and immutable substance. And that's the problem with the original Emily Brontë poem, though it's only a problem if you're looking for a definitive answer within it. It's about whether to live, or die, or at least I think it is - about loving life at the same time as longing for death. It's suicidal, and yet vividly alive - a dangerous poem, if you're feeling at all unbalanced.
As it happens, I was feeling a bit unbalanced after I'd been staring at my computer for several hours, trying to make sense of all this stuff. It's no wonder that my head started hurting, and everything was getting muddled up, Emily's poem and Rachel's poem; du Maurier's first novel and her biography of her father; Paul's accusations and Rachel's denials; all of it a stew of knowing and not knowing. I should have been sensible and gone out for a walk to get some fresh air, but it was raining - not much of an enticement for a stroll on the heath - so I opened the little door from my attic to the balcony. I don't go out there very often - it's less of a balcony, more of a ledge, really, and so high above the street that it makes me feel dizzy. But it seemed like a good idea, today, so I gave the door a shove - the wooden frame had warped and swollen this winter after all the rain - and there I was, looking into the gardens of Cannon Hall. It was like being on the prow of a boat - I felt slightly sea-sick - but I also realised that if I was just a little higher, if I climbed up on to the parapet itself, I might be able to see more, I might even be able to see into the windows of Cannon Hall, into the rooms where Gerald told Daphne that he loved her. And I actually started climbing - I reached out my hands to pull myself up, at the same time as finding a foothold in the crumbling brickwork - and then suddenly, I thought, what the hell are you doing? You could fall so easily, it's not safe. But even as I was thinking that,
there was another voice inside my head that said, go on, don't be frightened, it will be amazing - you'll be able to see as far as you want, further than you've ever seen before. So I just stayed there, hovering, one foot still on the balcony, another halfway up the parapet, uncertain of whether to climb up or back down.
I don't know how long I was out there, but eventually I started shivering. I looked down and glimpsed a dark-haired woman turning the corner at the end of the street, and for a second, I thought it was Rachel. But I don't think it was actually her, I just wanted it to be her, like when my mother died, and in the months that followed, I'd see the back of her old beige raincoat, rounding a corner ahead of me, or her face behind a misted window on a bus, swooping past me when I was crossing the road.
And it was the thought of my mother - or her ghost - in that familiar old raincoat that made me feel somehow ashamed, but also more myself again.
I thought of how she'd taught me to cross the road - I could almost hear her voice saying, 'Look left, look right, look left again' - and how she always used to say to me, 'Take care, sweetheart' before I went to school in the morning. And she said it to me in our last conversation. 'Take care of yourself,' she said. 'I will,' I said, and afterwards, when she was dead, I was so sorry that I hadn't told her that I loved her before putting the phone down, that those should have been my last words to her. Now, when I remembered her again, I thought, well, the least I can do is keep my promise, instead of hanging over a parapet. 'I love you, Mum,' I whispered, and then I came back inside, closing the door behind me, but I didn't lock it; I didn't like the idea of being locked in.
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