by Mike Read
By February 1913, Brooke was not yet in a relationship with Cathleen Nesbitt and possibly going through the motions a little with Phyllis Gardner. One suspects that the basis of the ensuing argument was that he wanted sex while she wanted marriage. Phyllis believed life to consist of ‘some sort of striving after nobleness’, while perceiving his philosophy was ‘an opportunity for pleasure-seeking’. It had reached the point where the flattery had stopped and mild contempt had taken over. Meeting at Raymond Buildings, Brooke gave her the key, but she couldn’t turn the lock and gave it back to him. As it is with doors, there’s often a knack. Asking him why it opened so easily for him, he replied, ‘That’s because you’re a rotten female … all women are beasts! And they want a vote – but they’ll never get it!’ This, of course, was a pattern for Brooke; romantic in pursuit; offhand in retreat. She refused when Brooke suggested spending the whole night together, later recalling, ‘My heart sank within me … where was my castle in the air, where my visionary child?’
He wrote to her saying that there were two ways of living - the normal and wandering:
My dear, I’m a wanderer. If you are, too – if you’re satisfied with taking what you can get, and giving in or not as it happens - then we can give each other things. If, as I suspect, you are disposed to normality - then I shall harm and hurt you too much.
He was backing off … unless of course there was intercourse involved. She remained resolute: ‘I wish you wouldn’t accept hedonism with acquiescence,’ she wrote to Brooke. ‘If you commit yourself to it, though, I’m afraid I’ll have to say I won’t see you … If you think I don’t care, you’re very wrong. It’s about the hardest thing to say I’ve ever said. It’d be less trouble to be dead.’ With the situation appearing to have made her ill, her mother sent Brooke a stern letter. It was a guilty young man who wrote to Phyllis’s mother in the early spring of 1913. ‘You hate me for my general character and for my behaviour towards her … rightly, I suppose … And if she is ill, in any way through me, I have failed; and deserve any blame.’ On 21 May, he wrote to Phyllis to tell her he was leaving England. ‘I gather you think me evil,’ he said. ‘Well, I’m sorry. And I think you’re wrong … But if I have hurt you: if you have suffered pain on account of me, I am very deeply sorry.’ Brooke then set off for America, from where he would travel to Canada and the South Seas, writing to her in November 1913 that she was made for marriage while declaring himself a wanderer and insisting, ‘Child, don’t love me.’
Not only was Cathleen Nesbitt on the scene, but early in 1913 he’d become friendly with the Prime Minister’s daughter, Violet Asquith, had a full sexual relationship with Taatamata during his time in Tahiti and on return from the South Seas had become close to Lady Eileen Wellesley.
Rupert’s final meeting with Phyllis was again orchestrated by a mother distressed at seeing her lovesick daughter pining for an unfulfilled relationship. In November 1914, Phyllis, her mother and Brooke met at a café in Charing Cross, Phyllis noting that he looked ill and tired. The conversation was light and trivial, Phyllis unable to put her feelings into words. ‘It might have been different if we had known this would be the last time we should see one another,’ she wrote. ‘I would have dearly liked to take him in my arms and say: “Poor boy, I’m so sorry for you.”’
A few months later, Phyllis suddenly felt so anxious she wrote in her diary, ‘Is R. all right?’ On 3 May 1915, her mother received a letter from Eddie Marsh telling her the news of Brooke’s death, from septicaemia, on April 23, on a hospital ship just off the coast of Skyros.
The news of her lover’s death seems to have unhinged Phyllis. ‘If R. wanted me I must come, but by what method I know not,’ she wrote, ‘and the sign was to be if I actually saw a waking vision of him.’ One night she was sitting on her mother’s bed, when the light cast by the gas onto the ceiling seemed to take his form, before melting away. ‘Therefore I am here to tell the tale,’ she wrote.
After Brooke’s death, Phyllis worked in Admiralty Intelligence during the war, then later as a wood engraver and a breeder of Irish wolfhounds. By the mid-1920s the family had moved to Maidenhead. She never married, and died, age forty-eight, on 16 February 1939, from breast cancer. Although little is known about her today, her legacy, through her unpublished memoir and letters, lives on.
‘Yes, some day I’ll die: so will you,’ she wrote to Brooke, in November 1912,
But I’d rather not think of it … I don’t think I’m afraid at all, only puzzled … You’re built of fire, and you must be perfectly free: you belong to nobody, as you said. But when all’s said, I feel as if I too were built of fire and for liberty.
In 1921, eleven of Phyllis’s woodcut illustrations adorned Stanley Casson’s publication, Rupert Brooke and Skyros, with one of them, Trebuki Bay, also being featured in the Imperial War Museum’s 1991 book, Rupert Brooke’s Death and Burial.
Bibliography
Abercrombie, Lascelles Poems (Oxford, 1930)
Adcock, A. St John For Remembrance (Hodder and Stoughton, 1918)
Asquith, Lady Cynthia Diaries 1915–18 (Hutchinson, 1968)
Babington Smith, C. John Masefield (Oxford, 1978)
Belloc, Hilaire The Four Men (Nelson, 1912)
Benson, A. C. Men and Memories (John Murray), 1924)
Betjeman, John Letters 1951–1984 (Methuen, 1995)
Brooke, Rupert Collected Poems (Sidgwick and Jackson, 1918)
Democracy and the Arts (Hart-Davis, 1946)
Letters from America (Scribners, 1916)
Letters to His Publisher 1911-1914 (Octagon, 1975)
Browne, Maurice Recollections of Rupert Brooke (Alexander Greene, 1927)
Casson, Stanley Rupert Brooke and Skyros (Elkin Matthews, 1921)
Cheason, Denis The Cambridgeshire Rupert Brooke (Plaistow, 1980)
Eliot, Sir Charles Turkey in Europe (Edward Arnold, 1908)
Eckert, Robert P. Edward Thomas (Dent, 1937)
Garnett, David The Golden Echo (Chatto and Windus, 1953)
Gibson, W. W. Friends (Elkin Matthews, 1916)
Graves, Robert Goodbye to All That (Cape, 1929)
Handley-Taylor, G. John Masefield – A Bibliography (Cranbook and Owen, 1960)
Harfield, Alan Blandford and the Military (Dorset Publishing, 1984)
Harris, Pippa (ed.) Song of Love (Crown, 1991)
Hassall, Christopher Edward Marsh (Longmans, 1959)
Rupert Brooke (Faber and Faber, 1964)
Hastings, Michael The Handsomest Young Man in England (Michael Joseph, 1967)
Henley, W. G. Poems (D. Nutt, 1912)
Henderson, James L. Irregularly Bold (André Deutsch, 1978)
Hillier, Bevis John Betjeman (John Murray, 1988)
Holroyd, M. Lytton Strachey (Heinemann, 1968)
Keynes, G. Bibliography of the Works of Rupert Brooke (Hart-Davis, 1954)
Letters of Rupert Brooke (Faber and Faber, 1968)
Mackail and Wyndham Life and Letters of George Wyndham (Hutchinson, 1914)
Marsh, Edward Rupert Brooke – A Memoir (John Lane, 1918)
Meredith, George Poems (Constable, 1910)
Muggeridge, Kitty and Adam, Ruth Beatrice Webb (Secker and Warburg, 1967)
Olivier, Sydney Letters and Selected Writing (Allen and Unwin, 1948)
Pimlott, Ben Hugh Dalton (HarperCollins, 1995)
Potter, R. M. G. Rupert Brooke Fragments (Hartford, 1925)
Rice, F. A. The Granta 1889–1914 (Constable, 1924)
Rupert Brooke’s Death and Burial (Imperial War Museum, 1992)
Speaight, Robert Hilaire Belloc (Hollis and Carter)
Spender, Stephen Journals 1939–1983 (Faber and Faber, 1985)
Willmor, E. N. Old Grantchester (Birds Farm, 1976)
The following periodicals and newspapers have also been consulted: New Numbers, The Times, the Times Literary Supplement, Granta, Meteor
Index
All works referenced are by Brooke unless otherwise state
d.
1914 and Other Poems 1
‘A young Apollo, golden-haired’ (Darwin) 1
Abercrombie, Lascelles 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
‘Afterwards’ 1
‘Ah Pink ah Pub of my desire’ 1
Aldington, Dick 1
Apostles Society 1, 2, 3, 4
Asquith, Herbert 1
Asquith, Violet 1
‘At Grantchester (from Jonny Alleluia)’ (Causley) 1
Atkinson, Mabel 1
Austen, Jane 1
Austin, Alfred 1, 2
Bacon, Leonard 1, 2
Barrett Browning, Elizabeth 1
Barrie, J. M. 1
Basileon (magazine) 1, 2, 3
‘Bastille, The’ 1, 2, 3
Beardsley, Aubrey 1
‘Beauty and Beauty’ 1
Becky Falls 1
Bedales 1, 2, 3
‘Beginning, The’ 1
Bekassy, Ferenc 1, 2, 3, 4
Bell, Clive 1
Bell, Vanessa 1, 2
Belloc, Hilaire 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Bennett, Arnold 1
Benson, A. C. 1
Benson, E. E. 1
Betjeman, John 1
Bloomsbury group 1
‘Blue Evening’ 1
Blue Review (magazine) 1, 2, 3, 4
Bournemouth 1, 2
Bridges, Robert 1, 2, 3
British Museum 1
Brooke, Alfred (brother) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Brooke, Frances May (Fanny) (aunt) 1, 2, 3
Brooke, Harriet Elizabeth (Lizzie) (aunt) 1, 2
Brooke, James 1
Brooke, Justin 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Brooke, Richard (brother) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Brooke, Richard England (grandfather) 1
Brooke, Rupert: and the arts 1
and Belloc 1, 2
and breakdown 1
and Cambridge 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
and Canada 1, 2, 3
and Cox, Ka 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
and daughter 1
and death 1
and early poetry 1, 2, 3, 4
and early years 1, 2, 3, 4
and engagement 1, 2
and Europe 1, 2
and Gardner, Phyllis 1, 2
and Grantchester 1, 2, 3
and homosexuality 1, 2, 3
and legacy 1
and looks 1, 2, 3, 4
and Lulworth Cove 1
and memorials 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
and Nesbitt, Cathleen 1, 2, 3, 4
and Olivier, Noel 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
and politics 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
and publication 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
and South Seas 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
and USA 1, 2, 3
and will 1
and World War I 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Brooke, Ruth Mary (mother) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and Brooke’s death 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Browne, Denis 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Browne, Maurice 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Browning, Oscar 1, 2
Browning, Robert 1
Bucklers Hard 1
‘Busy Heart, The’ 1
Café des Westens 1
‘Call, The’ 1
Cambridge Review (magazine) 1, 2
Campbell, Mrs Patrick 1
Canada 1, 2, 3
Capponi, Marchesa 1, 2, 3, 4
Carbonari society 1, 2, 3
Carey, Clive 1
Casson, Stanley 1
Causley, Charles 1
Champions, The 1, 2
‘Channel Passage, A’ 1, 2
Chesterton, G. K. 1, 2
Chicago Little Theatre 1, 2
‘Chilterns, The’ 1
Churchill, Winston 1, 2, 3, 4
Clevedon 1
‘Clouds’ 1
Collected Poems 1, 2, 3
Comus (Milton) 1
Conrad, Joseph 1
‘Corinna’s Going a-Maying’ (Herrick) 1
Cotterill, Clement (uncle) 1, 2
Cotterill, Erica (cousin) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Cox, Ka 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
Crane, Stephen 1
Crown Inn, Everleigh 1
Dalton, Hugh 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Darwin, Frances 1
Darwin, Gwen 1
Davidson, John 1
Davies, W. H. 1, 2, 3
‘Dawn, The’ 1
‘Day That I Have Loved’ 1
De la Mare, Walter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
‘Dead, The’ 1, 2, 3
‘Dining Room Tea’ 1
Dobson, Austin 1
Dodd, Frank Lawson 1
Donne, John 1, 2, 3
Drinkwater, John 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
‘Dust’ 1
Dymock Poets 1, 2, 3, 4
Eckersley, Arthur 1, 2
English Association 1
English Review (magazine) 1
‘Exstasie, The’ (Donne) 1
Fabian Society 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and summer school 1, 2, 3, 4
Ficke, Arthur Davison 1
Fiji 1
‘Finding’ 1
Firbank, Ronald 1
‘Fish, The’ 1
Flecker, James Elroy 1, 2
‘Flight’ 1
‘Flowers and Weeds: a Garden Sequence’ (Tennant) 1
‘For Mildred’s Urn’ 1
Ford, Ford Madox 1
Forster, E. M. 1, 2, 3, 4
Four Men, The (Belloc) 1, 2, 3
‘Fragment Completed’ 1
Franz Ferdinand, Archduke 1
Freyberg, Col Bernard 1
Frost, Robert 1, 2, 3
Froxfield 1
Fry, Geoffrey 1, 2
Fry, Roger 1
‘Funeral of Youth: Threnody, The’ 1
Gardner, Phyllis 1, 2
Garnett, David ‘Bunny’ 1, 2, 3, 4
Georgian Poetry 1, 2, 3, 4
Germany 1, 2
Gibson, Wilfred 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
Gill, Eric 1
‘Going, The’ (Gibson) 1
‘Golden Room, The’ (Gibson) 1
Goodyear, Frederick 1, 2
Gosse, Edmund 1, 2
Gow, Andrew 1, 2
Grant, Duncan 1, 2
Grantchester 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
Grantchester Dene 1, 2, 3
Grantully Castle, SS 1, 2
Graves, Robert 1, 2, 3
Gray’s Inn 1
‘Great Lover, The’ 1
Green Dragon inn 1
Grey, Sir Edward 1
Hall, Norman 1
Hamilton, Sir Ian 1, 2, 3, 4
Hardy, Thomas 1, 2, 3
Hargreave, Ronald 1
Hastings 1
Hastings, Francis, Viscount 1
‘Hauntings’ 1
Hawaii 1
Headlam, Walter 1, 2
‘Heaven’ 1, 2, 3
Henley, W. E. 1
Herbert, Aubrey 1
‘Hill, The’ 1
Hillbrow school 1
Holland, Vyvyan 1
Hughes, Thomas 1
Hullo, Rag-Time! (musical) 1, 2, 3
Hull’s Tower 1
‘I love a scrabbly epithet’ 1
‘I saw the shore’ (Leland) 1
‘In January’ 1
‘In Memoriam’ (Tennyson) 1
Ireland, John 1, 2
‘Island of Skyros, The’ (Masefield) 1
Italy 1, 2
James, Henry 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
John, Augustus 1, 2
Keats, John 1, 2
Keeling, Ben 1, 2
Kelly, F. S. ‘Cleg’ 1, 2, 3, 4
Keynes, Geoffrey 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and Cambridge 1, 2
Keynes, John Maynard 1, 2, 3
King’s College, Cambridge 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Kinsman, Winifred 1, 2, 3
Kipling, Rudyard 1, 2
Lamb, Henry 1, 2, 3
Lawrence, D. H. 1, 2, 3
Le Gallienne, Richard 1, 2
Leland, John 1
Letters from America 1
Leylands 1, 2
‘Life Beyond, The’ 1
Linder, Estrid 1
‘Lines on a monument to Mary Lisle (d. 1791) in Sidmouth churchyard’ 1
Lithuania (play) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Lizard, the 1, 2
‘Lo! in the end the pure clean-hearted innocent throng’ 1
Loines, Russell H. 1, 2
Lowes Dickinson, G. 1, 2
Lucas, St John 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
Lulworth Cove 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Lupton, Geoffrey 1, 2
‘Lust’ 1
MacCarthy, Desmond 1, 2
Magee, John Gillespie 1
Mamua see Taatamata
Mansfield, Katherine 1, 2, 3, 4
Marlowe Society 1
Marsh, Edward 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and Brooke 1, 2, 3
and Brooke memoir 1, 2, 3, 4
and World War I 1, 2
Masefield, John 1, 2, 3, 4
‘Memory, A’ 1
Milton, John 1, 2, 3
Monro, Harold 1, 2
Montague, Pauly 1, 2
Moore, G. E. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Morris, William 1, 2
‘Mummy’ 1
Murry, John Middleton 1, 2, 3, 4
‘My heart is sick for several things’ 1
‘My Song’ 1
Nesbitt, Cathleen 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
New Forest 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
New Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
New Zealand 1
Newbolt, Henry 1
News From Nowhere or an Epoch of Rest (Morris) 1, 2
‘Night Journey, The’ 1