"The housekeeper" by Rose Tremain

An audio book.

Danni, Polish, has a little shop in Truro called "Dani's Invisible Mending". She likes measuring the women. She recalls when she was housekeeper of Manderville Hall, showing Daphne du Maurier about the house in 1936. They liked each other straight away, and nearly got caught having sex in the boat house. Her mistress Edwina had died. Her master (who Danni had serious chats with, talking about grief) wanted to hand the house over to Miss Adelade, his unladylike neice. The staff didn't like her. Danni recalls her Jewish childhood, her mother dying. "Learn from them," her father had said to her, seeing patient mules awaiting to be loaded up.

Daphne said "the drought has ended. And now the river flows." She neglected her 2 daughters. She said "I had drowned in the ocean, and the ocean was you." They spent a weekend in Hampstead, London, Danni pretending to be a poet published in Poland. Back at Manderville, they opened a room that had been closed since Edwina's death. Miss Adelade wanted to hold a masquerade for her London friends. When it was held, Miss Adelade saw Daphne and Danni together, blaming Danni for Edwina's death, and insisting on Danni's resignation. Daphne recommits herself to her marriage. War is in the offing. Nothing will be the same again.

Danni, now in her shop, imagines Daphne writing Rebecca based on the manderville characters. She finishes the book and cuts it into pieces, feeling betrayed. She decides that Daphne saved herself by making Mrs Danvers (based on her) into a monster. She tells Emerald, a well-off customer about to marry, to run off with her artist female friend and start a new life. Rolly and Florence, other ex-staff, have started a sweet shop. Rolly's seen Danni and Daphne in the boathouse and demands that Danni gets money from Daphne. Later, Florence apologises. She tells Danni that all the servants knew. Danni's touched they they were so nice to her anyway. She moves her sewing machine into the shop's front window. Poland's invaded, Rolly apologises. Danni hires a fisherman to take her to Manderville cove. Soldiers are putting barbed wire there. She has to turn back.

Reviews I read after said it was an expansion of a story she'd written. That's the feeling I often had - sometimes the rendering of an episode added little to what a summary could have said. There's quite a lot about class - the constraints, but also the freedom afforded by being in a different class to someone else.

Other reviews

• Clare Clark (the story has fattened, its devastating reserve giving way to something softer and less substantial. Peripheral characters, evoked with discomfiting economy in Tremain’s original story, swell into caricature)
• shereadsnovels (I felt that Danni and Daphne’s relationship began very suddenly with no real build and I just didn’t feel very convinced by it. I know quite a lot about Daphne du Maurier’s history and background, ... and the impression I got from those books is that she was a complex person – shy, private and reclusive, which could make her come across as distant or aloof, but also loyal and affectionate towards her close friends. There’s not much of that complexity in Tremain’s novel; her Daphne is cold, manipulative and selfish, caring more about her reputation than Danni’s feelings.)
• whatcathyreadnext