Summer 2000
The Soldier, a re-evaluation
S. Lermitte (1986)
Steady Drummer
Stanley Casson (1935)
Trip to Skyros
Richard Barter
William Dennis Browne
Pamela Blevins
A Canadian Memory
R. H. Hathaway
St Georges Day at The Orchard
Mike Read
Rupert Brooke at Eighty
H. D. Ziman
Rupert Brooke in Canada
Nan Gray
The Memoir of Phyllis Gardner
Lorna Beckett
|
The Memoir of Phyllis Gardner
Lorna Beckett
"..he was A and all the others, Alpha and Omega of
my life."
News broke dramatically in the newspapers on March the 10th
of this year, when the British Library unearthed "the most
exciting documents ........ ever dereserved"1.
These were a powerful correspondence between Rupert Brooke and
Phyllis Gardner, along with an emotional ninety-two page Memoir
entitled "A True History", written by her during
1918, recounting their love affair. The discovery's importance
was intensified by the fact that until now hardly anything was
known about Phyllis Gardner, let alone her relationship with
Brooke, only a platonic letter written to her from the South
Seas in 1914 had been published in Sir Geoffrey Keynes's much
edited edition of Brooke's letters2, and an incorrect
reference to her as "a friend of the Fabian days" in
Christopher Hassall's biography of Brooke3, indeed
it was as if she had been carefully erased from his life.
My fascination in the relationship between them had begun
some five years earlier when I had started to research their
connection and depth of involvement after having the great good
fortune of purchasing a copy of Stanley Casson's "Rupert
Brooke and Skyros".4 Phyllis Gardner had
been his chosen illustrator, but this copy was unique as it contained
two manuscript love poems and an original woodcut tipped onto
the front end paper of the book, all by Phyllis herself, beneath
the woodcut she explains that apart from this "only my own
copy has one in". It depicted what I was soon to realise
was Phyllis, sitting naked, head in hands, in a state of grief
on the edge of Skyros looking out across the Aegean Sea towards
the sinking sun. It became evident after reading the emotional
poems, in particular the one entitled 'Sonnet', and looking at
the woodcut that the intensity of the emotion expressed was far
more than that of a "friend". My theory was increasingly
qualified by information I discovered during my research, but
of course I could never have hoped for or foreseen the kind of
information and documentation that was to appear in the form
of the letters and Memoir, released from the bowels of the British
Library after being placed there in 1948 by Phyllis's younger
sister, Delphis5, to remain sealed for a period of
fifty years due to the "very intimate character" 6
of the papers. It was with conflicting emotions that I waded
through the newspaper articles, where I was told repeatedly in
varying language but with identical meanings that "she claims
he tortured her emotionally, was sadistic, selfish and threatening."7
How could I equate this with the depth of love and loss expressed
in the woodcut and poems in my possession? So it was with these
opposing impressions that I went to read the Memoir myself at
the British Library, wanting to know what her innermost feelings
towards Brooke really were, love or bitterness? Some two hours
later I left the reading room feeling deeply moved yet upset
if not angry, primarily for Phyllis, but also for Brooke, for
the way her words had been so misused, but satisfied that I now
knew the answer, for the Memoir had been written by a woman as
much in love with Rupert Brooke in 1918 as she had been in 1912,
with no feelings of reproach or resentment as had been suggested.
It is important to state clearly at this point that this article
is based entirely on the Memoir, due to the fact that the letters
have not, as yet, been made available, so it is therefore only
one side of the story the events as perceived by Phyllis,
however this does not necessarily mean that Brooke is given unfair
treatment, to the contrary, in this instance I found myself at
times thinking whilst reading her assertions that Rupert Brooke
was a truly good and beautiful person whom "it seemed not
possible that any evil thing should go hand in hand with the
glory of his personality", that these were the words of
a woman whose judgement had been blurred by her love for him,
unrealistically thinking he was above human frailities, attributing
any darker or more unpleasant aspects of his character to his
friends, "people whose point of view I did not like, who
liked in him only parts that I felt to be an excrescence and
a marring of his perfection the perversions and bizarreries
that were superimposed upon his childish receptive nature by
this queer world he had fallen into".
In truth he was far less virtuous. Had she known what he himself
described as "the poor truths"8, namely
his messy affair with Ka Cox which ended in August 1912, during
his time with her, she would have been devastated.
Part of the Memoir's true value is that it explains the many
undercurrents of their relationship, giving us an in-depth, retrospective
impression of how someone who knew Brooke intimately perceived
him, unlike the letters which deal only with the issues and emotions
of the moment. There are no wiser or truer words than those of
Virginia Woolf when she wrote:
"If the legend of Rupert Brooke is not to pass altogether
beyond recognition, we must hope that some of those who knew
him when scholarship or public life seemed even more his bent
than poetry will put their view on record and relieve his ghost
of an unmerited and undesired burden of adulation."9
In this I feel Phyllis Gardner's Memoir is a great success.
I was given an insight into Brooke as never before, because of
the immense impact he had on her, she remembers events, and more
remarkably dialogue in great detail, giving the reader a sense
of being an onlooker of these captured moments in time. She describes
the occasion whilst they lay in hammocks at her family home in
Tadworth, Surrey, when Brooke wrote his letter of condolence
to Denham Russell-Smith's father:
"We lay silent for a while, looking up at the leaves,
and then he said:- 'I've rather a difficult thing to do, and
I don't much want to do it. I've got to write to a man; his son
was a friend of mine, and he's dead ....... That sort of thing:
it reminds one Did you ever read a story, a sort of allegory,
- one by one they fall through, and the others go on without
them ....... But I've got to write this letter."
There is also a vivid picture painted of the relationship
between Brooke and Edward Marsh:
"I never saw a worse-assorted pair. To this day, I cannot
think how they managed to exist together at all; R with his wild
golden hair and keen blue eyes and habit of going about in grey
flannels and soft collars; Eddie with his uncomfortable-looking,
over-neat shoes, spats and collars, his man-of-the-world face
and manners and his evident preoccupation with the things of
this life. They seemed to look upon one another with a sort of
friendly amused toleration".
It is of course her impressions of Brooke that are of key
interest, throughout she charts with great clarity the stages
and events of their relationship, the first time she saw him
was in Kings Cross Station's refreshment room on the 11th
of November 1911.
"He had a red scarf knotted about his neck the
evening being a chilly one in November and he had a mop
of silky golden hair that he ran his fingers through; and his
face appealed to me as being at once rather innocent and babyish
and inspired with an almost fierce life and interest and keenness".
Fate played its part when Brooke chose to sit in the same
train compartment as Phyllis and her mother as they travelled
towards Cambridge. Phyllis, who was at this time a student at
the Slade School of Art, spent her time drawing him "the
more I drew him the better I liked him". She later used
this sketch as a means of identifying him, showing it to acquaintances
in Cambridge and London, all instantly recognising it as "Rupert
Brooke". She was determined that they would meet again,
in fact it seems that she felt it was her destiny to be with
him, at once feeling an instant connection. She recalls the moment
of watching him leave the train at Cambridge station, "I
felt at the time that this was not final, that I should see him
again", an emotion echoed again after her first proper meeting
with him at a party held at her mother's club in London:
"I could not get him out of my head. There was his extreme
beauty of physical type to start with, but that was only a small
part of the hold he had on people. I felt as if I knew him well,
wonderfully well, as if I had always known him. I felt that here
was a person cut out on a colossal scale, one who would go much
further than ever I could know of, and yet that I knew of it
all the same by a kind of instinct."
This 'chance' meeting had been arranged by Phyllis's mother,
Mary Gardner, herself a minor Poet, inviting him on the grounds
that she had enjoyed his book of verse 'Poems' 1911
and would like to meet the Poet. This was a highly successful
tactic, as Brooke accepted the invitation and in June 1912, on
meeting her daughter the attraction became mutual. After several
meetings both at Edward Marsh's flat at 5 Raymond Buildings,
Gray's Inn, where Brooke took residence during his stays in London,
and at Phyllis's family home at Tadworth, they arranged to meet
at the Old Vicarage in Grantchester, in what was then late September
1912.
Much has been made of this particular day in the newspapers,
the main part of their coverage being wholly incorrect, they
would have you believe that Brooke attempted to strangle her,
after which they made passionate love on the banks of the Cam,
in all fairness this inaccuracy is not the fault of the reporters,
rather that of the Publicity Department of the British Library,
who in their press release used this sensational angle to gain
publicity for their 'Chapter and Verse' exhibition, not allowing
any of the journalists to see the manuscripts, the only exception
being Andrew Wilson who was given exclusive access, therefore
it was only he who wrote an accurate article on the subject10.
In fact the events of that day ultimately reflect favourably
on Brooke's conduct.
After having tea at the Old Vicarage they walked to Byron's
Pool and followed the Cam until they reached a point where they
wanted to cross, "the other side was lovely wreathed
in dim moonlight, and the soft wind coming over it". Each
undressed behind separate trees and Brooke waded across "the
water ..black and cold" carrying their clothes, leaving
Phyllis to bring his boots. Whilst crossing she accidentally
slipped and dropped his boots into the water, "look what
I've done! Will you kill me:" and he answered: "Perhaps".
At this moment Phyllis was struck by his appearance: "he
looked like a beautiful statue, and I could keep away from him
no longer, and came out of the water beside him: and we ran and
raced across the great meadows and in trying to catch me he knocked
me over: and then we came back to our clothes and sat by the
water. And he offered to dry me with his hair: it was wild and
tousled and standing on end like a mop, and I could see his keen
eyes burning under the shadows of his brows.
" She reciprocated by letting her hair down before rubbing
her head up and down his back - "in a kind of ecstasy",
they sat and talked for a while then he crouched down and looked
at her "Aren't you afraid? One's so primitive ".
Her reply was that she wasn't, so he reacted by gripping her
round the neck with both hands, "Supposing I were to kill
you?" and I smiled up at him and said: "Supposing you
did? Then I should be dead". They played at this game for
a little longer, throughout which she openly admits "I was
in a sort of heaven", but they both became cold and ended
the tussle, at this point it seems that Brooke became conscious
that the situation was rapidly galloping out of control and chided
her for being so trusting and putting herself into such a vulnerable
situation: he said to me:- "You are a fool." And I
said:- "I can't help it or can I?" And after
an interval I leaned down across his knee and said: "Are
you cross with me for being silly?" and he said:- "A
little ....... it isn't fair to yourself, to be so silly."
And I said:- "I trusted you." And he answered:- "But
it's mad to trust people." ....... And then I lay
down again, and he said:- "I want to see you", and
spread me out flat. And he looked at me, and felt me, and then
said in an off-hand sort of way:- "You've rather a beautiful
body". And then quite suddenly he bent over and kissed me."
They then dressed and returned to the Old Vicarage. This day
marked the burgeoning of their love affair, a confirmation of
their feelings for one another, each being left with their own
powerful memory. Phyllis recalled the moment she left Brooke
that night in a particularly moving passage:
"I protested that my mother would probably think I was dead.
And at last we rose and came to the door, and I found my bicycle
and he lighted the lamp for me and then suddenly we kissed
one another again: and then he looked grave and said:- "
....... It would be so dreadful if you were hurt in any way ......."
"Don't you worry!" said I. "I shan't be hurt!".
And jumped on the bicycle and rode off in the pouring torrents
of rain.
"I shan't be hurt". It kept re-echoing through my mind.
I had not so much meant that I should not be hurt; I knew that
there were in the circumstances the possibilities of untold and
unmeasurable pain but I meant that it was worth it. If
he should ever come to love me, I should be more happily placed
than can well be imagined; if not, I had a little already of
a wild joy that nothing could take from me. The whole world was
reeling around me and bright with amazingly beautiful colour,
like some tremendous soap-bubble: the heavy drops of rain that
whacked down upon my waterproof were so many precious jewels,
and the sound of their falling a Symphony in my ears. I could
not believe that real life could be like this", whilst Brooke
immortalised their time together in the fields of Grantchester
with his sensual poem "Beauty and Beauty":
Beauty and Beauty
When Beauty and Beauty meet
All naked, fair to fair,
The earth is crying-sweet,
And scattering-bright the air,
Eddying, dizzying, closing round,
With soft and drunken laughter;
Veiling all that may befall
After-after-
Where Beauty and Beauty met,
Earth's still a-tremble there,
And the winds are scented yet,
And memory-soft the air,
Bosoming, folding glints of light,
And shreds of shadowy laughter;
Not the tears that fill the years
After after
By this time Phyllis was very much in love: "I never
thought of him a B to my A; he was A and all the others, Alpha
and Omega of my life", and many tender moments are described,
such as the first meeting they had since the heady day in Grantchester,
at Marsh's flat:
"There was a large armchair. I sat in it. He wandered about
aimlessly for a while, and then came and sat on the floor near
my feet. And then the next thing I know is that his head was
on my knee and I was running my fingers through his hair..there
was a strange gripping of my heart, and the feel of him made
my blood run fire."
"You don't know how your touch burns me", I said: and
for answer he rose up a little and put his arms around meThe
chief part of the picture is himself, radiant, beautiful, at
once pathetically helpless and full of a wild irresistible driving
force. I "didn't know if I were on my head or my heels:
the Cambridge affair might have been an isolated accident, but
here was his beautiful silky golden head on my knee to prove
the contrary."
It is clear that on at least two occasions their mood and
actions were highly charged sexually, but I feel certain they
never actually slept together, especially as it was ultimately
this issue that was to blow their relationship apart.
As emotions became more intense, Phyllis wanted commitment,
she says they had spoken of marriage and children but Brooke
would never be pinned down as to when this would all come about,
saying: "There is no future. No past. Only the present.
Isn't that good enough?" Tension began to build and she
sensed the beginning of a rift, increasingly becoming aware of
their differing opinions on sex and faithfulness, her belief
being that life should be "some sort of striving after nobleness",
whereas she thought his philosophy was "an opportunity for
pleasure seeking".
As before mentioned, not being able to accept this could be
an unfortunate facet of his personality, she instead blamed it
on what she saw as the corrupting influence of his friends:
"I knew that he had been drawn into a vortex of would-be
original people, who to satisfy their own base natures had made
inconstancy a principle, and went as much as possible on the
negative morality that he who breaks a rule is greater than he
who makes it".
Feeling that even if she had to sacrifice their relationship
it would be worth it if she could loosen their grip on him, trying
to convince him to turn his back on them and their ways, to be
true to the pure spirit of being she believed him to be. Unfortunately
this was naïve of her and it was more love than logic speaking,
she admitted that "somehow I always seemed either to be
fighting shadows or running my head against a brick wall."
All was to come to a head when he returned in January 1913
from Cornwall, where he had been staying with the Cornfords11.
Unbeknown to Phyllis, Brooke by this time had met the actress
Cathleen Nesbitt in December of the previous year, and was obviously
much taken by her, writing to Jacques Raverat from Cornwall "P.S.
Did I tell you that I'm, oh, so much in love with Cathleen, and
she simply won't look at me?"12
Phyllis was nervous about meeting Brooke at Marsh's flat on
his return, "And now, not for the first time, a sickening
fear came upon me," the anxieties she felt vaguely in the
past now came to the fore: "I knew that there were things
about him that I could not go much further without running against.
In the back of my mind, I suppose I wondered where we were getting
to. What would we have? One of two things: Keep me for good and
all, or throw me away"
When they met they sat and spoke about their schooldays, and
he told her of his plans to go to the South Seas asking if she
would come if he were to wire her, to which she said she would.
He then suddenly asked her: "Do you understand about things?"
she had an idea of what was next to follow ....... "I
must have you, here," he said, laying a hand over
what is delicately referred to by artists as "the central
part of the figure". "Yes some time", I
said "it had occurred to me" ....... and I thought
of myself as the happy mother of his child, - our child, - perhaps
more than one, lovely, passionate creatures, the offspring of
our physical and spiritual selves."
They talked for a while longer about unimportant things and
then parted, agreeing to meet in two days time, "I left
him, feeling sore and rubbed up the wrong way. Nothing was definitely
wrong, but I felt his attitude and mine coming into collision."
At their next meeting, again at Marsh's flat, there were signs
of Brooke feeling increasing frustration. He gave Phyllis the
key so she could open the door, but it would not turn in the
lock, so he took the key back and opened the door in an instant.
When she asked why the door had not opened for her he snapped:
"That's because you're a rotten female". When after
a while she asked: "Why did you call me a rotten female?"
"I don't know," said he. And then ruminatively, "All
women are beasts! And they want a vote but they'll never
get it!"
She knew he was being deliberately provocative, but let it
pass, then came the fatal words, the 'coup de grâce': After
a long caress, he said: "I must have you. If you could come
away for a night somewhere ".
"But it would hardly do!" said I.
"The world need never know," said he.
"What do you mean?" said I
"There are ways ".
My heart sank within me, where was my castle in the air, where
my visionary child? Was this the way to look at things? Was this
what came of holding the doctrine that there is no future?"
This was to mark the end of their relationship, though Phyllis
did not realise it was to be as final at this time: "The
next little while was a while of utter agony to me. I would not
go and see him I suppose partly from fear that I should
see all things from his point of view, and surrender myself unconditionally
to him."
But the break proved too much for her and she became ill,
just as she began to recover news reached her that he had left
for the South Seas, she wrote to him "the letters of a passionate
lover", and received back letters which made her believe
he had found himself by being away from his "unwholesome
set" and had "through the influence of great open spaces
and kindly primitive people and sunshine and sea-waves,"
gained "sanity and naturalness".
All this was probably very true, but of course she did not
know that during this time Brooke had been enjoying a physical
relationship with Taatamata, a native girl of Mataia.
Phyllis believed that her "protests against his attitude
had not been wasted ....... even though I had lost him personally
....... All the same, I hoped against hope that we might be lovers
again." When Brooke returned to London he tried to meet
her again, but she was in Arran, and could not get back to see
him. The War broke out and he became a sub-lieutenant in the
Royal Naval Division, and left for Antwerp before she had the
chance of seeing him again.
They met only once more before his death, and then only briefly,
just after his return from Antwerp, but she felt unable to express
her true emotions to him, he looked tired, unwell, and was suffering
from "pink-eye" a condition he had throughout
his time at Rugby. Phyllis wrote in hindsight of that last meeting:
"I ....... could not bring myself to mention anything to
him that would remind him of any past troubles or difficulties.
I would have dearly liked to take him in my arms and say:- "Poor
boy, I'm so sorry for you." And this again I might have
done, no, certainly should have done, had I known that I would
never see him again."
After he had left for Gallipoli she felt regret for saying
some of the things she had in a letter written in haste directly
after that last day together in Marsh's flat.
"I was by now abjectly sorry for having been so brutal
and silly before. I made a little wooden carving of a person
sitting crumpled up in an attitude of despair: I thought he would
perhaps understand that better than a written thing. I did it
up in a little parcel and sent it to him".13
Brooke's death a few months later had a massive effect on
her, in fact it seems that she sensed his death, writing in her
diary on Saturday the 24th of April 1915 "is
R all right?" not finding out until several days later
that he had actually died on 23rd of April.
Phyllis threw herself into work, helping run a canteen for
a soldiers' camp in Tadworth "so that I had little time
to worry during the day and when night came was tired enough
to fall into bed and go straight to sleep". After seeing
a news placard reading "Heavy fighting in Gallipoli"
she felt Brooke's presence was with her, telling her "You
are not to worry: he wanted to go:- he's better off where he
is." which brought her peace of mind and convinced
her "of the survival of the soul after death", but
then she became agitated that perhaps she should be with him,
"but by what method I knew not: and the sign was to be if
I actually saw a waking vision of him". then one night
whilst lying on her mother's bed she watched in fear as the shadow
cast by the gas light on to the ceiling "very nearly began
to take his form ....... However, the likeness took no further
form, and I did not consider it definite enough to take for a
sign. Therefore I am here to tell the tale".
Phyllis Gardner went on to become a talented wood engraver,
and much respected breeder of Irish wolfhounds to which she dedicated
the latter part of her life. She never married and died aged
forty-eight on the 16th of February 1939 from breast cancer.
It is my belief that Rupert Brooke was to remain the love of
her life, this being evident in the last three lines of the 'Sonnet'
contained within my book, which was written in 1926, some eleven
years after his death, I feel these words show both the lasting
love she felt for Brooke and the way she would have wanted her
enduring legacy of the Memoir to be read and remembered by people
of today:
"Though you face forth into Earth's uttermost end,
And though in Time we may not meet again,
Eternally we two fight side by side."
Notes
| 1. |
From Andrew Wilson's article in
'The Daily Telegraph', 11th March 2000, - the words of Ann Payne,
head of manuscripts at the British Library. |
| 2. |
'The Letters of Rupert Brooke',
edited by Sir Geoffrey Keynes (London: Faber and Faber, 1968) |
| 3. |
Christopher Hassall, 'Rupert Brooke.
A Biography' (London: Faber and Faber, 1964) p. 435 |
| 4. |
Stanley Casson, 'Rupert Brooke and
Skyros' (London: Elkin Mattthew, 1921) |
| 5. |
Delphis Gardner wrote a letter on
the 2nd of November 1948, to accompany the Memoir, it stated:
"If when this Memoir is opened in November 1998, the Trustees
of the British Museum consider that it should not be made available
for the public, I give them authority to reserve it for a further
period of years or to destroy it". |
| 6. |
From the British Museum's minutes
in November 1948, describing the Memoir. At this time the British
Library was part of the British Museum. |
| 7. |
From 'The Guardian' March 10th 2000 |
| 8. |
Brooke 'Letters' p 671 |
| 9. |
A review of John Drinkwater's 'Prose
Papers' in 'The Times Literary Supplement', December 27th 1917. |
| 10. |
'The Daily Telegraph', 11th March
2000 |
| 11. |
Frances Cornford (poet) and her
husband Francis Cornford (classicist) |
| 12. |
Brooke, 'Letters' p 418 |
| 13. |
This description of Phyllis Gardner's
woodcarving was of particular interest to me, as it sounds almost
identical in appearance to the depiction of herself in the woodcut
placed within my book. |
|