Gifford The Mischief Makers

'As compelling as any of du Maurier's own works' Sunday Times
Main
ISBN: 978-1-83895-984-5
Verlag: Corvus
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 336 Seiten

'AS COMPELLING AS ANY OF DU MAURIER'S OWN WORKS' SUNDAY TIMES She wrote her stories in his shadow. Now Daphne's past is catching up with her... In a beautiful house in the wilds of Cornwall, Daphne du Maurier is on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Tangled in a self-destructive love affair that threatens to unravel her marriage, she is also distracted by worry for the family friend whose shadow looms over her childhood: J. M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan. Daphne tries to escape into writing her new book, but the line between fiction and reality blurs dangerously when her own characters start manifesting before her eyes - in particular a woman called Rebecca who looks suspiciously like her husband's alluring ex-girlfriend. Daphne must confront the dark truth that lurks beneath the fantasy of Peter Pan and the secret life that has plagued her since she found fame. Unless she can solve these mysteries and reckon with who she truly is as an artist, her next great work may be lost to history . . . 'Fascinating' Elizabeth Buchan 'Elegant and immersive' Essie Fox 'Glorious' Jane Johnson

Elisabeth Gifford grew up in a vicarage in the industrial Midlands. She studied French literature and world religions at Leeds University. She has a Diploma in Creative Writing from Oxford OUDCE and an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway College. She is the author of five previous historical novels, including The Good Doctor of Warsaw and The Lost Lights of St Kilda. She is married with three children, and lives in Kingston upon Thames.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gifford, Elisabeth

Leseproben

CHAPTER 1
LONDON 1911
Daphne watches Nico tear a bit of paper from the Peter Pan programme and drop it over the edge of the royal box. It twirls down like a tiny feather and lands on the head of a lady below, lodging on her little tiara. Daphne giggles. Nico tears off another bit, gives it to Daphne. She leans over the edge with its ormolu embellishments, ready to drop it on the people in evening dress below, but Michael frowns and shakes his head. ‘You’ll make people look up at us,’ he says. Daphne takes her hand back. Michael has shrunk down in his seat as if the whole theatre is glaring at them. Of her five boy cousins, Nico may be nearest to her in age, but it’s Michael with his elfin features and that way he has of seeming to guard a secret from another place that Daphne is most in awe of. She glances behind to see if Mummy has noticed anything but she is chatting with the older cousins, oblivious. The three older boy cousins are almost grown-ups now, George and Peter in white tie and tails, Jack in his naval cadet’s uniform. Peter smiles at her. He’s seen but doesn’t tell Mummy. Something changes in the air and Daphne realizes that the lights in the theatre are beginning to dim. She feels a prickle of anticipation as the people in the rows below begin to fade away into darkness. The heavy curtains part as if by unseen hands and the brightness of the stage eclipses all else. She can see a nursery spread out below, a large dog very like Uncle Jim’s Porthos trying to herd three children into their beds. She blinks as Daddy comes on to the stage to a round of applause. He’s dressed as if about to go out for the evening but his face has been emphasized with paint, his hair shiny with pomade. He sends Nana the dog off to her kennel outside for barking too much. Daphne’s chest tightens. She knows this is a mistake. Nana can feel that the children are in danger – that Peter Pan is coming. And yet at the same time Daphne’s longing to see him appear. Her heart gives a jump because there he is, outlined in the window just as the children are falling to sleep. He leaps down into the room in all his brazen glory, dressed in a green tunic and cap, crowing around the nursery because he’s captured his shadow again, then furious and tearful because he can’t stick it back on to the ends of his feet. Wendy wakes up and helps him sew his shadow back on – as the jealous fairy Tinkerbell rings out angrily in the background. Daphne grips the edge of the box, because the best bit is about to happen. There’s a sprinkling of fairy dust and she’s no longer sure if she’s still sitting in her seat or down on the stage with Peter Pan and the children. She can feel the lightness in her body as her feet leave the stage and she flies through the darkness of the theatre with them, swooping over the lights of London and away into Neverland. Two hours of adventures pass as quickly as a dream. Daddy appears in Neverland too, only this time he’s a sneering pirate in a red frock coat and curly wig, who gets eaten up by a crocodile – which makes Daphne scream even though she knows it’s coming. At last, the children fly back to their nursery, Mummy and Daddy and Nana all waiting for them, but when Peter Pan leaves, this time for ever, it’s Peter whom her heart follows as he flies away to a land where children never have to grow up. The lights come on and she’s shepherded out of the theatre among a moving forest of long skirts, grey trouser legs and polished shoes, dazed by the cold and the hurrying crowds outside, snow falling, cold slush seeping into her satin shoes as she and Angela hold hands and look up into the swirling flakes and Mummy in her fur cape and long dress frets about finding their cab. Her five cousins wait with them on the pavement, tall and glamorous in their cashmere coats and white opera scarves, the older ones holding top hats. George goes off to find their cab. Nico, and even Michael, put their tongues out to catch the falling snowflakes and Daphne copies them, tasting the drops of coldness that almost seem sweet. Mummy clucks around the boys as she always does since they have no Mummy or Daddy of their own – are they getting cold? where is that carriage? – in a way that gives Daphne a feeling she can’t name. The same feeling she gets when she sees how Mummy clucks around Baby Jeanne. Mummy never fusses around Daphne in that cosy way. Daphne shivers and Cousin Peter with his long, serious face bends down and wraps his white silk opera scarf around her neck. Uncle Jim appears from across the street, a small figure in a too-big coat, his bowler hat and shoulders sprinkled with snow, a twinkle in his eye and a drooping moustache. ‘So was it terrible?’ he asks, looking towards Michael. ‘It was awful,’ says Michael, laughing. ‘Worst play ever.’ ‘It was wonderful,’ says Daphne indignantly. ‘Didn’t you come in to see it, Uncle Jim?’ ‘Jim never comes in to see a first night,’ says Peter. ‘He paces up and down in front of the theatre, smoking, don’t you, Uncle Jim?’ ‘That way, I can have a head start on everyone when they chase me down the street wanting their money back.’ She catches a wink from him that no one else sees. So it’s a joke and she’s in on it. ‘It was magnificent,’ Mummy tells Uncle Jim. ‘It gets better each year.’ ‘Well, your opinion means everything, Muriel. I think the changes worked. Tell Gerald I’ll pop by tomorrow afternoon and discuss another idea I had.’ Daphne jumps up and down. ‘And you’ll come and see us in the nursery, Uncle Jim?’ ‘Don’t be impertinent, Daphne. Jim’s a busy man. He can’t be expected to entertain you children every time.’ But? Mummy’s wrong. He does have time for her. Daphne and Uncle Jim share many secrets. Daphne’s had lunch and her boring nap, but still he hasn’t come. She can’t bear to think that he might not come at all. She’s even been taken downstairs in a clean dress, her hair brushed, to say hello to Mummy and curtsey to her friends in the drawing room – ladies in smelly perfume who insist on kissing her. Eight-year-old Angela is good at this – she enjoys charming everyone, shaking hands and smiling – but Daphne hates the way people say how sweet she is, such pretty blonde hair and blue eyes. She stares back at them angrily. ‘Don’t be rude, Daphne. Shake hands with people,’ Mummy hisses in her ear. Afterwards, Daphne stomps back up to the nursery, longing to be left alone with her books and her toys. She opens the door and stops in surprise. There’s Uncle Jim, sitting on the nursery fender. He looks too small for his crumpled suit, his dome of a forehead gleaming amid a cloud of pipe smoke. ‘Thought I’d sneak up without anyone seeing me, before those fancy women can get me tangled up in their chit-chat.’ Daphne runs across the room and throws herself on him with her biggest hug. And so it begins. Jim and Daphne taking it in turns to spin the story, Daphne brandishing the wooden sword that Uncle Jim gave her as she leads the Lost Boys around the rocking horse, or swims across the floor rug, completely caught up in a breathless dream of pirates and mermaids. Angela arranges the dolls’ tea set in the corner of the nursery, long dark curls, a neat bow on one side, her pinafore always clean. Older and more sensible than Daphne by three years, she’s the perfect Wendy. Daphne, however, is always and only entirely Peter Pan, fair hair cropped short, the tilt of her little square chin, a challenge in her blue eyes as she flies from island to island, leaping from sofa to chair, until she swoops out of the window in the thick blue air of dusk, gliding out over the rooftops, the gas lamps and the dark trees of Regent’s Park below, the rush of air against her skin. ‘Can you see me flying, Uncle Jim?’ ‘Oh yes. That’s the thing about you, Daphne,’ he murmurs in his sing-song Scottish burr. ‘You’re one of the very few children who can remember back to when you were a bird. When you lived on the little island in the middle of the Serpentine where birds turn into babies. All babies start life as birds.’ Daphne pauses on the sofa, reaches down her back, trying to feel her shoulder blade. ‘Yes, and I can still feel the itch on my shoulders where the wings used to be, can’t I?’ ‘Ah little Daphne. And you know you were very nearly born a boy back then. Should have been a boy.’ Daphne nods solemnly. There’s nothing better than to be a boy, like Peter Pan or her five cousins. Then she could live with Uncle Jim and the Davies boys in a house filled with jokes and pranks and hallway cricket, nobody minding about the paint, and ping-pong tables and stories told by Uncle Jim. Sometimes Daddy comes up and joins in before his evening performance, the girls squealing with laughter as he roars round the nursery with his coat-hanger hook and a scarf for an eyepatch. Uncle Jim sits quietly watching, writing in his notebook, deep-set eyes peering out of the fug of tobacco smoke, giving his deep wheezy coughs, so alarming that each one sounds as though it might be his last. The door opens. Daphne looks up, but it’s not Daddy, only Nurse in her stiff white cap and...