By July 1945, Daphne du Maurier’s wartime attachment to Christopher Puxley was drawing to a close as her husband, Tommy ‘Boy’ Browning, prepared to return from service in the Far East.
The novelist had spent much of the war living with her children at Langley End, the Hertfordshire home of Puxley and his wife, Naumai, known as Paddy. Browning’s military duties kept him away for long periods, leaving du Maurier increasingly close to the couple who had provided her family with a place to stay.
Puxley, whose formal name was Henry Waller Lavallin Puxley, had been unable to serve in the armed forces because of ill health. His relaxed manner and availability contrasted with the demands placed on Browning, a senior Army officer whose wartime responsibilities kept him frequently absent.
The relationship became sufficiently close to alarm Paddy Puxley. Du Maurier eventually left Langley End and moved back to Cornwall, where she continued writing and began restoring Menabilly, the secluded estate that became central to her life and work.
Her time with Puxley nevertheless influenced two of her best-known novels. Frenchman’s Creek, published in 1941, carried elements of the escape and romantic fantasy that had developed during her stay in Hertfordshire. Hungry Hill, published in 1943, drew heavily on the history of the Puxley family, whose Irish ancestors had owned copper mines and a grand estate in County Cork.
The Puxley family’s story was transformed into fiction, but several details remained recognisable. The novel’s family saga reflected the fortunes of the real family, while its central male character was understood by biographers and literary historians to have been based partly on du Maurier’s host.
Du Maurier’s marriage to Browning had begun in 1932 and produced three children. Their relationship continued, but the strains created by wartime separation and their different lives were increasingly apparent. Browning’s return marked a decisive change in the circumstances that had allowed her intimacy with Puxley to develop.
The end of the attachment did not bring an end to du Maurier’s complicated emotional life. In 1947, while travelling to the United States to defend Rebecca against a plagiarism claim, she met Ellen Doubleday, the wife of her American publisher, Nelson Doubleday.
Letters held in university archives indicate that du Maurier developed romantic feelings for Ellen, although the relationship was not reciprocated in the same way. The two women remained close, and Doubleday later became associated with the character of Rachel in du Maurier’s novel My Cousin Rachel.
Du Maurier was known privately to describe the competing sides of her personality as a dutiful wife and mother on one hand and a more assertive, masculine creative force on the other. Her correspondence suggested that she struggled to reconcile those identities, particularly as her writing drew on experiences she could not openly discuss.
After Browning’s death in 1965, du Maurier continued to write about the lasting effect of their long marriage. She died in 1989, aged 81, leaving behind a body of work in which emotional secrecy, divided loyalties and forbidden attachments were recurring themes.
