All We Know: Three Lives

by Lisa Cohen

  “the most beautiful…outfit”: Patrick Woodcock to author, interview, London, January 25, 2002.

  “as if she…archive”: Selina Hastings to author, conversation, London, January 14, 1999.

  I ABSOLUTELY REFUSED

  “horrid, thick…dresses”: Madge Garland, “Children’s Clothes,” transcript, May 29, 1947, BBC Written Archives Centre.

  “My family didn’t…all”: MG to Flora Groult, interview, London, July 26, 1986.

  “I told them…‘no’”: MG to Shaunagh Ward-Jackson, conversation, London, n.d.

  “I thought, ‘No…won’t!’”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, London, October 8, 1979, IAP.

  “Millinery, Straws, Ready-to-Wears…Gloves”: Draper of Australia, February 27, 1920, 70.

  “very, very fond of clothes”: MG to Peter and Shaunagh Ward-Jackson, conversation, London, October 14, 1989.

  “just the stamp…colonist”: “Colonial Industrie: Mr. Thos. Aitken’s Victoria Parade Brewery, East Melbourne,” Carlton Advertiser and Trades Advocate, April 8, 1882, MHFP.

  “the wilds of Hampstead”: MG to Shaunagh Ward-Jackson, conversation, London, n.d.

  “always smelled delicious”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.

  “beautifully dressed, always…buttoned”: MG to Peter and Shaunagh Ward-Jackson, conversation, London, October 14, 1989.

  “pretty-mama” and…“neck”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.

  “My darling Mama”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, London, July 2, 1980, IAP.

  “many fringes, fish-tails…hats”: Garland, Fashion, 119–20.

  “at least I…home”: MG to Peter and Shaunagh Ward-Jackson, conversation, London, October 14, 1989.

  “It is hard…hint”: Garland, Fashion, 57.

  “for a Paris…weeks”: Ibid., 60.

  “my helpless youth…body”: Garland, “Children’s Clothes.”

  It was the claustrophobia…now: Gwen Raverat, writing about her childhood as a member of the (in many other respects unconventional) Darwin family, observed that “for nearly seventy years the English middle classes were locked up in a great fortress of unreality and pretence; and no one who has not been brought up inside the fortress can guess how thick the walls were, or how little of the sky outside could be seen through the loopholes.” Gwen Raverat, Period Piece (London: Faber, 1971 [1952]), 104.

  “If you want…Presbyterian”: MG to Peter and Shaunagh Ward-Jackson, conversation, London, December 28, 1987. She also said that her family attended church only in her early childhood.

  “Art and literature…all”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, London, October 8, 1979, IAP.

  “Victorian Gothic…nothing”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, London, July 2, 1980, IAP.

  The house was crammed…gadgets: An auction catalogue from the 1938 sale of the McHargs’ home in Melbourne gives an object-by-object view of Andrew McHarg’s passion for accumulation. “If you were making a joke about Edwardian taste this is what you’d compile.” Charlotte Gere to author, conversation, London, November 15, 2003.

  “extremely bad copies…for”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, London, July 2, 1980, IAP.

  “a delight…star”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.

  “Though married life…one”: The Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information, vol. 28 (Cambridge, U.K.: University of Cambridge, 1911), 782, 785.

  “a very much…baby”: MG to Shaunagh Ward-Jackson, conversation, London, n.d.

  “the problem…daughter”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.

  “silly books…girls”: Ibid.

  “I discovered that…going”: MG to Shaunagh Ward-Jackson, conversation, London, n.d.

  Cheltenham Ladies’ College: Founded in 1841, this school was run from 1858 to 1906 by Dorothea Beale, a pioneer of girls’ education (she was also the founder of St. Hilda’s Hall, later St. Hilda’s College, Oxford) and an activist for women’s rights who transformed Cheltenham from a school for the acquisition of the ladylike skills of music, dancing, and drawing to a place that emphasized rigorous academic training and had a reputation for scholastic excellence.

  “totally unaware of…girls”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.

  “difficult and unruly…improved”: MG to Shaunagh Ward-Jackson, conversation, London, n.d.

  “they always knew…minute”: Ibid.

  “jump through the window”: MG to Flora Groult, interview, London, July 26, 1986.

  “remote churches all over Paris”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, London, October 8, 1979, IAP.

  “freedom of thought”: MG to Flora Groult, interview, London, July 26, 1986.

  “prison-like after…Paris”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.

  “was strictly limited”: Glynn, “50 Years On.”

  “You see my…21”: MG to Flora Groult, interview, London, July 26, 1986.

  “the most violent…secret”: MG to Shaunagh Ward-Jackson, conversation, London, December 28, 1987.

  Virginia Woolf later argued: Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1966 [1938]).

  “After some months…implored”: MG memoir drafts, MGP. The college was founded in 1849 by social reformer Elizabeth Jesser Reid.

  And she spent…: Andrew McHarg may well have forced her to leave Bedford College, but if so, it was probably before 1917. The college records indicate that she completed the Cambridge Higher Local, a one-year course to prepare for a qualifying examination that would allow her to apply to Cambridge and Oxford; grades are recorded for her for each of the three terms in 1914/15. There is no evidence that she took the exam, however, and no record of her at the college beyond 1915. Her name does not appear in the surviving Newnham College files, but it is still possible that she applied and was accepted there. There is a family story that she attended Melbourne University, and while there is no record of her in the university’s files, she might have enrolled in a course or two. Certainly it is easy to imagine her exacting this concession from her father in exchange for her company during those years.

  “clad in silken…wardrobe”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.

  John Francis Queeny…: Long before Monsanto was committed to plant biotechnology, it was making money on two of its earliest products, saccharin and caffeine—and when the war cut the United States off from European manufacturing, business boomed. In 1917, Monsanto started manufacturing aspirin; until the 1980s it was the world’s largest producer of the drug. Queeny offered Andrew McHarg the Australian rights to the formula for acetylsalicylic acid, but the latter demurred and suggested some Australian colleagues, the Nicholas Brothers, who made their fortunes from it.

  “American girls…wanted”: MG to Flora Groult, interview, London, July 26, 1986.

  “I wanted to…nothing”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.

  “the piles of dead birds”: Ibid.

  “She would talk…aborigines”: Sarah Stacey to author, interview, London, December 7, 1997.

  I WAS FREE

  “must make a…century”: Virginia Woolf, The Diary of Virginia Woolf, vol. 2: 1920–24, Anne Olivier Bell, ed., Appendix 3, “The Intellectual Status of Women,” 341. It is a letter to the editor of the New Statesman, October 16, 1920.

  “all the miseries…suffered”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.

  “One of the…McHarg”: “Miss McHarg of England, on Way Home from Australia, Is Much Entertained by Miss Queeny and Other Friends Here.” St. Louis, Sunday Morning, December 1, 1918, no source, Olguita Monsanto Queeny Berington scrapbook, private collection.

  “rather special rather…more”: Olguita M. Q. Berington to MG, n.d. [1945], MGP.

  “a relationship so…unique”: Untitled, MGP.

  “the youngest Flight…horror”: Ewart Garland war diary, courtesy of Patrick Garland.

  “Oh no, Ewart…that”: Patrick Garland to author, interview, London, December 9, 1997.

  “not a matter…nothing”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.

  “Well, it was…all�
��: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, London, October 8, 1979, IAP.

  “the suffragette generation…idol”: MG to Flora Groult, interview, London, July 26, 1986.

  “It was quite…that”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, London, October 8, 1979, IAP. 230–231 “wanted somehow to…job”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.

  “became an organization…editor”: Edna Woolman Chase, Always in Vogue (New York: Doubleday, 1954), 150.

  “in a very dingy little office”: MG to Flora Groult, interview, London, July 26, 1986.

  “I must go…o’clock”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.

  “You see, I…pressed”: MG to Flora Groult, interview, London, July 26, 1986.

  “replied that he…me”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.

  “And that,” she…“that”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, London, October 8, 1979, IAP.

  “I was free…time”: MG to Flora Groult, London, interview, July 26, 1986.

  “He never really…all”: MG to Shaunagh Ward-Jackson, conversation, London, n.d.

  “What I did…hours”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, London, October 8, 1979, IAP.

  “as a messenger boy”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.

  “to get proofs…actress”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, London, October 8, 1979, IAP.

  “I was very…England”: MG to Flora Groult, interview, London, July 26, 1986.

  “I grew into…it”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, October 8, 1979, IAP.

  “so-called English…snapshots”: Ibid.

  “dreamt up by…artists”: Garland, Fashion, 107.

  “who wore the…results”: Ibid., 140.

  “though the First…predecessor”: Garland, Fashion, 119–20.

  “immense and far-reaching…her”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.

  “first editor British Vogue, 1916–22”: “Who’s Who in Vogue 1916–66,” British Vogue, October 1966.

  “the only Englishwoman…Paris”: Madge Garland, typescript, slide lecture to the Design and Industries Association [circa September 1979].

  “a beautiful dress…Paris”: MG to Flora Groult, interview, London, July 26, 1986.

  “a tea girl”: MG to Flora Groult, interview, London, July 26, 1986.

  “the hideous laced-up…boots”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.

  “Are you dressed…that?”: MG to Flora Groult, interview, London, July 26, 1986. “Aldous had great eye trouble,” Madge said, “but he managed, like a lot of people with eye trouble, to see what he wanted to see.”

  “walking about and…little”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.

  “‘Oh you won’t…ill’”: MG to Flora Groult, interview, London, July 26, 1986.

  “COME AT ONCE AND MARRY ME”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.

  WHO NEED NEVER BE MENTIONED

  “in anything as…parted”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.

  “Madge has gone…do”: Patrick Garland to author, interview, London, December 9, 1997. “He was very crushed by this episode,” said Patrick Garland, Ewart’s son by his second marriage; “he felt it as…a tremendous insult to his masculinity.”

  “the absolute making…love”: Chloe Tyner to author, telephone interview, May 19, 1997.

  “the only two…life”: Chloe Tyner to author, June 5, 1997. Tyner was citing Madge’s correspondence to her.

  “inexpressibly painful,” she…“case”: MG to Hilary Spurling, conversation, March 29, 1989.

  “When Miss Todd…mentioned”: Gertrude Stein, A Novel of Thank You (Normal, Ill.: Dalkey Archive Press, 1994), 13. This book, written in 1925–26 but not published until 1958, is so full of names that when Carl Van Vechten edited The Yale Gertrude Stein, he felt compelled to “identif[y]” some of them. Todd’s is not among these.

  “the bucket in…loneliness”: Cecil Beaton, unpublished diaries, cited in Hugo Vickers, Cecil Beaton (Boston: Little, Brown, 1985), 80.

  “tremendous mind,” remembered…“amusing”: Chloe Tyner to author, telephone interview, May 19, 1997.

  “a shimmer of…it”: Woolf, Diary, Saturday, February 18 [1928], 3:176.

  “a wasp’s nest…character”: MG to Hilary Spurling, conversation, London, March 29, 1989.

  his second wife: They married in December 1881.

  “All that belonged…well”: Olivier Todd to author, interview, Paris, September 23, 1997.

  “by friends or…life”: MG to Hilary Spurling, conversation, London, March 29, 1989.

  “I never heard…things”: Chloe Tyner to author, telephone interview, May 19, 1997.

  “the innumerable young…us”: Helen Todd, unpublished ms., private collection.

  “accustomed to drunkenness…age”: Ibid.

  “People disapproved of…hard”: Rebecca West, in George Plimpton, ed., Women Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews (New York: Modern Library, 1998), 76.

  “normal” family life…“niece”: Helen Todd, unpublished ms., private collection.

  “I see Dody’s…niece”: Hilary Spurling to author, conversation, London, September 25, 1997.

  “should have felt”: Helen Todd, unpublished ms., private collection.

  “Other people will…repay”: MG to Hilary Spurling, conversation, London, March 29, 1989.

  “It was entirely…London”: Ibid.

  “for about four…London”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, London, October 8, 1979, IAP.

  “two very remarkable…arts”: Rebecca West, in Joan Russell Noble, ed., Recollections of Virginia Woolf (London: Peter Owen, 1972), 90.

  “not only [to]…Group”: Chase, Always in Vogue, 151.

  “helped Roger Fry…Marais”: West, Recollections, 90.

  “Vogue…is going…her”: Woolf, Diary, October 17 [1924], 2:319.

  an “enthusiastic” article: Alice B. Toklas, What Is Remembered (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1985), 118.

  their initial exposure: As Rebecca West put it, Madge and Dody “gave young writers a firmer foundation than they might have had by commissioning them to write articles on intelligent subjects at fair prices.” West, Recollections, 90. In Madge’s words: “Dody had…an overwhelming generosity. In that way, she was a wonderful editor—she would give someone his head.” MG to Hilary Spurling, conversation, March 29, 1989.

  “She…could have…water”: West, Recollections, 90.

  “perfectly repellent Bayswater…Square”: MG to Flora Groult, interview, London, July 26, 1986.

  “downright forthright manner”: Ibid.

  “her curly hair…back”: Frances Spalding, Vanessa Bell (New Haven and New York: Tichnor and Fields, 1983), 243. “In 1930 Clive and Benita spent six weeks at Cannes, at Madge Garland’s villa in the rue d’Antibes, where they frequently entertained Raymond Mortimer Brian Guinness and John Banting who were staying near by.”

  “a very forcible lady”: Raymond Mortimer to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, London, March 21, 1979, IAP.

  “looked charming…well”: Cecil Beaton, unpublished diaries, Thursday, October 21, 1926, CBD.

  “was received as…importance”: Beaton, Photobiography, 40.

  “the Vogue gang”: Cecil Beaton, unpublished diaries, January 23, 1926, CBD.

  “he concentrated…Garland”: Hugo Vickers, Cecil Beaton, 67.

  “one or two…Bloomsbury”: Cecil Beaton, unpublished diaries, February 21, 1926, CBD.

  “She absolutely knocked…star”: Anne Scott-James to author, interview, London, December 9, 1997.

  “almost like an agency”: Chloe Tyner to author, telephone interview, May 19, 1997.

  “Because I am one”: Madge Garland, in Noble, ed., Recollections of Virginia Woolf, 174.

  “You’d never go…somebody”: A Salute to Marcel Boulestin and Jean-Emile Labourer: An Exhibition of Artists Associated with the Restaurant Boulestin (London: Michael Parkin Fine Art, 1981), 26.

  “a beautiful house for parties”: MG to Hugo Vickers, interview, London, March 8, 1980.

  “charming & very…out”: Cecil Beaton, unpublish
ed diaries, Sunday, November 7, 1926, CBD.

  “impromptu wild parties”: Patrick Balfour [Kinross], Society Racket: A Critical Survey of Modern Social Life (London: John Long, 1933), 64. In this long list of some of the parties he attended in the 1920s—“Parties for the Blackbirds; an unforgettable Russian party in Gerald Road, with a Negro band, where a whole house and studio had been specially redecorated for a single night; the swimming party in the St. George’s baths; David Tennant’s Mozart party, where the eighteenth century was recaptured for a night;…impromptu wild parties, in fancy undress, in the Royal Hospital Road”—he is echoing Evelyn Waugh’s catalogue in Vile Bodies: “Masked parties, Savage parties, Victorian parties, Greek parties, Wild West parties, Russian parties, Circus parties, parties where one had to dress as somebody else, almost naked parties in St John’s Wood, parties in flats and studios and houses and ships and hotels and nightclubs…—all that succession and repetition of massed humanity…. Those vile bodies.”

  “it was like…family”: MG to Flora Groult, interview, London, July 26, 1986.

  “Several ultra smart…pearls”: Cecil Beaton, unpublished diaries, Sunday, November 7, 1926, CBD. Wyndham was working with the American Curtis Moffat in his photography studio. During the war, after she moved to New York, she enlisted in the WACs and again worked as a photographer.

  “the thinnest person…waist”: Anne Scott James to author, interview, London, December 9, 1997.

  “the people one…bacchanals”: Vernon Duke, Passport to Paris (Boston: Little, Brown, 1955), 163–64. Duke was an old friend of Ewart Garland’s.

  “The ’twenties in…dancing”: MG to Flora Groult, interview, London, July 26, 1986.

  “the vein of poetry”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, London, October 8, 1979, IAP.

  “eventually swept every…done”: Garland, Fashion, 50.

  Yet it was…time: As the philosopher and sociologist Georg Simmel observed at the turn of the twentieth century: “It is peculiarly characteristic of fashion that it renders possible a social obedience, which at the same time is a form of individual differentiation.” Georg Simmel, “Fashion,” International Quarterly 10 (1904): 130–55, 141. See this essay also for more on the relationship between fashion and shame.