by Jane Brown
In public she withdrew gracefully – ‘Glyndebourne can obviously provide greater facilities and considerably more prestige’ (which sounded like Leonard) – but privately Dorothy had never missed Chris Martin more. Eric Crozier came to see Cicely Martin, and Peter Cox took him over to Leonard and Dorothy who ‘listened graciously and seemed on the surface to accept the situation’. Next morning Dorothy summoned Peter Cox, saying, ‘Please tell Ben that I am withdrawing my offer for this scheme but will be happy to discuss with him any alternative project he likes to propose.’ Cox saw Ben and Peter in London, and was met with ‘implacable hostility’.337
The affair of Lucretia (another maltreated woman) found Dorothy in a quandary: should she not have given way? Long ago, before Glyndebourne’s first season, she and John and Audrey Christie had agreed that they were doing very different things, but had the territories become confused? She invited the Christies to Upper Brook Street, perhaps to apologise for the ‘muddle’, perhaps to tell them how much she loved Glyndebourne and to wish them the very best for their reopening. She went to some lengths, and had to steel herself, to see Anne Wood, the former BBC singer who was managing English Opera, and found her ‘very understanding of the difficulties created by these emotionally erratic and unpredictable artists’. She relented and agreed that her ‘original pledge would hold good, under the present circumstances’ so that Lucretia would get her backing, but she could not consent to join the Opera Board (just as she had declined the Arts Council). She was pleased that English Opera had a promise of £3,000 from the Arts Council and ‘that a number of eminent people are obviously deeply impressed’ but of course she could not give Dartington’s money to the lavish and elitist Glyndebourne in future.338
Her puzzlement went beyond the opera. She had visited Toynbee Hall and her old friend Albert Mansbridge, pleased to find an increase in government funding for his WEA, but disappointed at the talk of post-war apathy, that people were ‘glad to sit at home’ rather than pursue outside interests. The Arts Council’s first motto ‘The Best for the Most’ had to be scrapped as it quickly became clear that the heirs of the new Socialist landslide Britain did not want ‘high culture’, opera and ballet at any price.339 As she sat surrounded by the red plush and gilt of Covent Garden, did the voice of Jane Addams whisper in her ear that there was ‘a crucial distinction between doing good to or for people and doing good with them’? She wrote to Peter Cox who had borne the brunt of all the ill tempers, thanking heaven for his moral courage: ‘I love to see the way you face things out and tell people the truth and never shirk the unpleasant things that have to be said – it’s a grand quality.’
Michael Straight had managed to get passages home for Miss Jefferies, Ruth, Dorcas and Eloise and they all arrived on 3rd May, a Friday. Driving across the New Forest and through Dorset to Exeter and Dartington was an emotional journeying according to Michael, seeing ‘England green and beautiful and come through’. Dorothy had arranged for Miss Jefferies to have a house of her own, where Dorcas Edwards and Eloise Elmhirst would live in her care while finishing their schooling. It was Ruth Elmhirst who had the most difficult homecoming. She was now twenty and had spent her seven most formative years in America; she was very musical, and at Sarah Lawrence College she had studied with the composer William Schuman, a brilliant beginner in the world of Copland and Barber, and something of an idol to the college girls. Ruth’s holidays were mostly spent with Biddy at Ridgefield among Biddy’s Actors Studio familiars including Lee Strasberg, Marilyn Monroe and Marlon Brando, and Ruth had been romancing with the still hirsute Yul Brynner. Devon, Dorothy feared, would seem very tame.340
After seeing Glyndebourne’s opening Lucretia, redeemed for Dorothy by the singing of the young Kathleen Ferrier, and going on to Leeds Castle, where Olive Baillie’s daughter and Dorothy’s great-niece Susan Winn married Geoffrey Russell, the summer melted into pleasantries. In late July she went to London to try a new travel experience, leaving on the 26th from the Victoria Terminal on a swish coach for the new Heathrow Airport. She was with Biddy for her 2nd August birthday, her thirty-second, and spent most of her time getting to know her grandson Willard Dolivet, whom she quickly came to adore. Louis Dolivet was working for the United Nations in New York, and had just published a Handbook on the New World Organization, describing the structures and purposes of the leviathan body of fifty-one states. She was relieved to see that the book demonstrated his considerable ingenuity and charm in earning the confidence of the highest officials, and carrying him behind the scenes of the Secretariat, the Security Council and the International Court of Justice.341 Unfortunately the handbook no sooner appeared than the ‘New World Organization’ found itself wrestling with the fragmenting Middle East and the ‘iron curtain’ coming down across eastern Europe. Louis now wanted his mother-in-law’s backing for his United Nations World magazine, his presentation of UN current affairs to a still mystified public.
As soon as she finished talking with Louis she moved to Old Westbury and a day with ‘Mike and I alone’, undoubtedly talking politics for part of the time. Some of her concerns at the loss of FDR must have been grounded in the unknown abilities of the ‘failed haberdasher’ now President Truman as the leader of the free world. Truman’s work on civil rights legislation, a cause she had supported for more than thirty years, encouraged her and now she heard from Michael that their friend Henry Wallace was to lead the Progressive challenge in the 1948 campaign. Some light relief came with Leonard’s arrival for a short holiday, and then a concert at Tanglewood, tea at Willard Straight Hall, a meeting with Bruce Bliven and Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun on Broadway were fitted in before their flight home.
Mary ‘Mamma’ Elmhirst died on Sunday 6th October and they went north for the funeral on the Tuesday. In the afternoon Dorothy noted ‘a ploughing match’, undoubtedly long planned but not unsympathetic as a tribute gathering in the memory of a countrywoman. Back at Dartington Peter Cox introduced Dorothy to Clifford Ellis of Bath School of Art, who along with Elmslie Philip, the director of Education for Devon, offered their approval of the mix of artistic practice and teaching that she and Peter hoped to continue at Dartington. Dorothy had asked Frances Hodgkin and Sven Berlin to become resident artists but they had declined. Once again when things were not quite as she hoped she turned to ‘a new beginning’ at something she could control, becoming increasingly engrossed in preparations for her Thursday evening Shakespeare classes. These were originally started to give the music students the context for many of their song settings, but they grew in popular appeal and were now open to all. The musician John Wellingham remembers how highly organised she was at allotting roles and plotting the scenes. The students read their parts with strict observance to Shakespeare’s texts, and acted out the movements, much as in theatrical rehearsals though without any costumes or an end performance. These were intense two-hour sessions held in her house, with Thomas serving tea to the exhausted players afterwards, while Dorothy conducted the debriefing discussions. She was adapting things she had learned from Mischa Chekhov, that the words, phrasings, intonations and meanings were paramount, they were the keys to the characters and events, whereas the scenery and stagecraft were optional overlays. She read the newspaper critics, looked out for interesting productions and her timing was perfect, for she caught Peter Brooke’s Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon, and discovered a lasting joy.342 The extravagant pre-war film Mutiny on the Bounty, starring Clark Gable and Charles Laughton, and Tom Eliot’s play The Family Reunion gave her pleasurable autumn evenings, then it was time for the Christmas tree, carol singing and the other festivities of ‘our Christmas’ at home.
Dorothy had seen little of Whitney, but she had had lots of quiet talks with Daphne. He had come out of the RAF garlanded with medals for a brilliant flyer’s war, one of the surviving heroic ‘Few’, and a stranger to the grim greyness of austerity London. He decided to study for his Commercial Pilot’s B Licen
ce, an arduous business, and finding that his friend, the Spitfire flyer and ferry pilot Diana Barnato Walker, had the same ambition they agreed to share an instructor. As Diana later wrote, because of the bitterly cold weather they also shared her mother’s house in Tite Street, Chelsea, where there was prized central heating, which inevitably led to what Diana called their ‘wonderful friendship’.343
The Chalet at Portwrinkle had been returned from the Ministry of Defence, and so the family were there again for the New Year, of 1947, with a new face in the party, Ruth’s beau Maurice Ash, a friend of Michael Young’s from the LSE. William Elmhirst, who had been learning letterpress printing and bookbinding under Charles Inman at Dartington, was due for his National Service but decided that he would rather be a ‘Bevin Boy’ and go down the mines; he was to work at Betteshanger Colliery in Kent, and live in lodgings at Deal. Dorothy’s sixtieth birthday was approaching, and by then that notorious winter had set in, recorded in her Garden Notebook:
January – returned from London at 2 a.m. in the midst of an American blizzard. Today in walking about the snow came above my Wellingtons. And yet the air is warm – that devastating east wind has ceased to blow. Papers say this is the coldest spell for 60 years or so. We’ve been feeding the birds – would we could do the same for our tender trees and shrubs.
Percy Cane managed his January visit, and on 6th February the Princess Royal and Lord Harewood, undaunted, arrived for tea. ‘February – four days of deep snow – food brought up by sledge – no cars, no buses, only Joe Maitland’s van to do the essentials. Floods in the house at 3 a.m.’
Dorothy was closeted with her typewriter, reporting to Peter Cox, who was in America. They were planning a memorial to Christopher Martin and the previous autumn Dorothy had seen and bought Henry Moore’s bronze maquette Reclining Figure from the Leicester Galleries, and Peter had arranged with Moore for the large figure to be installed. They had chosen the site at the top of Cane’s steps, though at a discreet distance, and in dappled shade. ‘I’ve had a good talk, by the way, with Henry Moore, and everything is going ahead rapidly,’ Dorothy now told Peter. ‘Bill Foote is making the concrete foundation and Mr Miller in the sawmill is producing the wooden pedestal – and soon, very soon, we shall be ready to receive the figure – but actually we should wait, I think, till you return.’ She continued:
Have you been reading about our difficulties here?... there’s a sense of crisis not unlike certain periods of the war – and we all rush to the wireless for the latest news... At present [15th February] though the snow is gone, there is a kind of paralysing blight of cold lying on the land, that dead grey stillness that penetrates everything and reduces activity to a low ebb. And all these poor people, with dwindling fuel supplies, with blackouts and shut-downs, with two million out of work and possibly more drastic measures to come are enduring hardships that one imagined could not recur once the war was over – but once again Dartington is favoured beyond all deserving, for, being outside the main current of life, we escape the cruellest blows of fortune.344
The winter clung on, but immediately before Easter, on the first weekend in April she was diverted as ‘Mike arrives’. On Easter Day after church she was at her typewriter because Michael wanted schedules and notes typed for Henry Wallace’s imminent arrival on a speaking tour. Together they caught the London train on Easter Monday, and saw Carol Reed’s film Odd Man Out, starring James Mason. Wallace arrived the next day, she gave a lunch for him on the Wednesday, they all went to a reception at the Savoy on Thursday, and Wallace spoke at Central Hall in Westminster on the Friday. On Saturday Michael and Wallace headed north for Manchester, and Dorothy escaped to Stratford-upon-Avon.
Michael was so like his father, with all Willard’s vivacity and kindness to others which made him so endearing, and also Willard’s impetuosity and flow of ideas which she now found exhausting. Henry Wallace, an amiable farmer at heart, pacifist, radical and somewhat mystical, qualities which meant he had been ousted from the vice-presidency in favour of Harry Truman just in case FDR died, now found himself at odds with Truman in office, and sacked by him. Michael had played some part in persuading Wallace that he might revive a Progressive Party, with an idea that The New Republic – also in need of a revival – should be his vehicle. Wallace was to be installed as puppet editor, with Dorothy coaxing agreement from the mild-mannered Bruce Bliven, and Michael as his ghost-writer. Later Bliven revealed that Michael – putting Wallace’s face, or half of it, on the cover – wanted to make The New Republic into a liberal version of the semi-glossy Time magazine, but it soon became clear that the readers wanted to keep their old highbrow version printed on ‘butcher paper’ and written by journalists they knew. Notwithstanding, the candidate and his backer, with his mother’s money, were sounding out views on Progressivism in Europe to relay to Americans at home.345
In late spring Henry Moore’s Reclining Figure arrived – ‘in a tatty old lorry with an old man and a boy’ – and Peter Cox watched with some amazement as they levered the giant figure into place using old railways sleepers. ‘She’ seemed immediately at home and everyone was pleased. Moore wrote:
I tried to make a figure which could rightly be called a memorial figure. I wanted the figure to have a quiet stillness and a sense of permanence as though it could stay there for ever to have strength and seriousness in its effect and yet be serene and happy and resolved, as though it had come to terms with the world, and could get over the largest cares and losses.346
With the Third Programme restored to life Dorothy finds new radio joys. Love’s Labour’s Lost is broadcast in April, and Macbeth on 1st May, and then as if to recompense for that dreadful winter, the summer’s pleasures: the Chelsea Flower Show, her grand-daughter Camilla for the holidays, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, a trip to Glyndebourne and on to Sissinghurst, then to see William at Deal and explore Walmer and Sandwich. Another magical tour takes her to Stratford via Hidcote Manor garden, coming home via Westonbirt, which she finds it impossible to pass by. In late June she makes a diary note, ‘Biddy must not finance United Nations World ’, and when Biddy arrives there is a harrowing trip to the London lawyers where they are told that Louis Dolivet is not Louis at all, his real name is Ludovic Brecher and he was already married before he met Biddy. Dorothy does not record her reaction – they cheer themselves with Flanagan and Allen and The Crazy Gang at the Victoria Palace Theatre immediately after the news, and as little Willard is her chief concern she hopes Biddy will not do anything in a hurry.
Family affairs take over her life. The young people come and go through August at the Chalet or at home where Leonard is preparing for his International Conference of Agricultural Economists, a biennial affair which he now regards as his most important venture, and which runs from late August into early September. They go with Ruth to meet Maurice’s parents, Mr and Mrs Gilbert Ash, for lunch in London, seeing Donagh MacDonagh’s Happy as Larry afterwards. On 6th November they have a family lunch for Whitney’s thirty-fifth birthday, and Ruth and Maurice are married the following day, with dinner at the Connaught in the evening. About a week later Dorothy leaves for New York and Old Westbury where they celebrate little Willard’s third birthday on 25th November and she has ‘a talk with Louis and Biddy at midnight’. For Thanksgiving on the 27th Michael and Belinda and their children arrive, and they ‘rescue hemlocks’ in the now sad and declining garden. She has to give a lunch at The New Republic where Henry Wallace is still the figurehead but disaster looms as the American Communist Party are giving him ‘bear hugs’ for his pro-Russian opinions, which even the Progressives won’t like. A session with Miss Evison, Anna Bogue’s successor at the William Collins Whitney Foundation, is her last duty; the Foundation’s work continues but now the annual distribution is about $55,000 a year. She has adopted a policy of always leaving on a high note, and this time it is the young Marlon Brando in Elia Kazan’s A Streetcar Named Desire who is the toast of Broadway, then seeing Ethel Derby and the Delano
s before ‘a wonderful flight’ home, to be met by Whitney and Daphne who take her out to dinner. Their daughter Camilla loves to be with her grandmother for the holidays, so it is a united ‘our Christmas’ that ends the year.
For the New Year of 1948 the Chalet sports a new telephone, but Dorothy spends a great deal of time in bed. Biddy arrives in mid-January, presumably to disentangle herself from Louis/Ludovic with her mother’s help. Three days later William comes home from the coalmine at Betteshanger, released because months underground have badly affected his lungs; he will work on one of the Dartington farms. He is nineteen at the end of February – the age at which Dorothy made her debut – so she arranges a significant ‘Birthday Cake’. Arthur Waley and Beryl de Zoete are her most frequent visitors; some of their Bloomsbury friends dubbed them professional weekenders, but Dorothy is so different, loyally uncritical, and she unearths her memories of China for Arthur (who has never been there) and loves Beryl’s tales of the dance. It is the coming of spring that really cheers her, her garden is the best medicine: ‘April – a dream of beauty – the 8 Tai Hakus on the White Hart lawn. They really are something quite apart – even more wonderful than [Prunus x] yedoensis.’
The ‘Tai Haku’, the Japanese Great White Cherry is the newest and best for English gardens, and these had been planted on the advice of her gardening friend, the painter Will Arnold-Forster.347 Dorothy also sees the more subtle effects:
I realized yesterday that it is shadows which add so much to the beauty of everything. Now that the beech leaves are out the trees are beginning to cast shadows – and it gives immediately a kind of variety and subtlety and mystery to the whole scene. I think this must be the perfect moment – just when the beeches burst into leaf.