Only very belatedly did I discover that this week has been Daphne Du Maurier Reading Week, hosted by heavenali, so this, my contribution, is rushed. As it happens the last time I was in the UK I acquired a second-hand copy of Castle Dor; obviously it was destined for this moment. Appropriate, really, since the novel concerns a sort of predestination in the guise of the past replaying itself.
Castle Dor is set in Cornwall in the 1860s; events are set in motion when Linnet Lewarne, the beautiful young wife of a publican, first claps eyes on Amyot Trestane, a Breton sailor saved from a beating by a French notary. This notary, Ledru, has come to Cornwall seeking the ‘true’ locations of events in the story of Tristan and Iseult. With the local physician, Dr Carfax, he becomes convinced that in Castle Dor and its surroundings he has succeeded. But Carfax is increasingly concerned about the bond between Amyot and Linnet. Could the ancient story of Tristan and Iseult be repeating itself through them? And if so, can disaster be averted?
Like The House on the Strand, published eight years later, Castle Dor explores how the past affects the present, and how it is stored up in places. In The House on the Strand, Dick accesses the past by means of a drug, but it only transports his mind and not his body. If he takes the drug in an old farmhouse, he will witness what happened in that farmhouse. It is the place that holds the history. Amyot and Iseult, on the other hand, do not time-travel. They are possessed at certain moments by powers beyond themselves: they speak or even appear different to their normal selves but remain unconscious of the drama they are re-enacting. But their actions are governed by place and what happened in that place centuries before: were they not in this particular part of Cornwall, their behaviour would be quite different.
The genesis of the book is slightly unusual: it was started by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch and after his death his daughter gave the half-finished manuscript to Daphne Du Maurier to complete. I should love to know how much of the published book is his work and how much hers; certainly it hangs seamlessly together and is perfectly paced. Although it isn’t one of her best-known works it is really very good with Du Maurier’s trademark atmospheric setting, convincing characterisation and whiff of the supernatural (how much of a trademark of Quiller-Couch’s anything I cannot say since I’ve never read anything else by him).