by Jane Brown
She wrote to William in good time for his twenty-seventh birthday at the end of February:
It is strange how often you appear in my dreams as the person who saves me from some dire predicament. So often the situations are foolish and trivial – but always caused by anxiety – and almost always you are, somehow, there to pull me through. In my unconscious you must represent some sustaining and saving power – even as you do in my conscious mind. For it is always some kind of a miracle to me that Jerry and I should have a son who is so completely what we would want him to be – so perceptive in feeling, and so wise and mature in thought – and so deeply true to himself.379
At Dartington the Foundation Day of 1957 was a day to remember – ‘unbelievably warm, no wind but with soft airs’ – and the medieval pageant which filled the new Open Air Theatre and the tiltyard was full of colour with lively caparisoned horses (their protruding legs revealing trousers and socks). ‘Tremendous success,’ noted Dorothy, adding with a touch of gardener’s pride that her Sunny Border ‘looks nice’.
William had graduated from LAMDA and joined the company at Stratford, playing his first part as Peter of Pomfret, the ill-fated harbinger of bad tidings in King John. That September Dorothy spent ‘three heavenly days’ staying at the Arden Hotel and meeting William when he was free; one afternoon they drove out of town and found a sunny place to sit while William read from As You Like It. She wrote to Leonard:
I had never realised the startling beauty of certain lines and speeches until he brought them to life for me. He himself so completely absorbs Shakespeare’s thought and meaning that it is like seeing something for the first time to hear him read and expound. It was a wonderful experience for me, full of revelation.380
William’s acting was a surprise joy to his mother, a more delicate blooming than Biddy’s unstoppable flowering in whatever role she played; William’s father was perhaps less enthusiastic as he patiently endured the latest of the theatrical surprises that had erupted in their years of marriage ever since Journey’s End.
For Dorothy her intense and knowledgeable relationship with Shakespeare was the last stand of her independence. The programmes from her Stratford seasons are all covered with her comments, scrawled in the low light of the intervals: Ralph Richardson’s Macbeth made ‘every word clear but he lacks distinction of speech’, Anthony Quayle’s Caius Martius was ‘sincere but so lacking in style – his voice harsh, limited in range and unrhythmical’; that Coriolanus had ‘too much shouting’ and at least one member of the audience had her hands over her ears. That said, she enjoyed the scenery and costumes and came very near to being an ardent fan of the Motley threesome, theatrical designers Margaret and Sophie Harris and Elizabeth Montgomery.
She followed William through the 1958 season: he was the Sexton in the High Victorian Much Ado About Nothing and in the chorus for Peter Hall’s Jacobean – all ruffs and satin breeches – Twelfth Night. He went to Russia with the company and remembers the smart young KGB agent with impeccable English who came to their Leningrad hotel, and how Guy Burgess came to see a rehearsal.381 On their return there was talk of strike action among the spear carriers, which prompted William to leave for Scarborough and theatre in the round with Stephen Joseph and Alan Ayckbourn, where Dorothy saw some performances. She continued to seek out her Shakespeare; one of the last performances she saw was of Douglas Seale’s Old Vic King Lear, ‘which didn’t seem like Lear at all’ but was redeemed by Paul Daneman as the Fool – ‘I could never watch anyone else while he was on the stage – he has a wonderful face – a kind of tragic mask that reflects every tiny shade of thought and feeling – and his movements and gestures have a kind of internal beauty and expressiveness that just wrings the heart.’382
To their friends, Leonard and Dorothy were still the ‘kind, warm-hearted’ Elmhirsts; they had known the Huxleys, Julian and Juliette, at least since the early 1930s and the founding of PEP. He was the same age as Dorothy, seventy-two, and had been knighted for his work with UNESCO, but now suffered bad bouts of depression. Juliette, who was Swiss and still very pretty, had bravely accomplished forty years of an adventurous marriage, but was now utterly miserable, and they came to Dartington, to a lodging in the Courtyard, for a month of peace. It was the late autumn of 1959 and Juliette’s distress had clearly found a sympathetic listener in Leonard, who wrote:
My dear Juliette, I have, since you were here, been wanting to write to you about my own experience of living alongside persons with a strong sense of world-unity and mission, and so driven and confused by their imaginative tensions: these sometimes eliminate, almost entirely, from their field of consciousness the needs, hungers and feelings of those who, often at close quarters, try to serve and love – worship even; and yet, just at these moments when, like a faithful dog, they need a pat or a gesture, either draw an absolute blank or worse. In my own experience, and I have lived at close quarters with two world-conscious people in my time ‘they know not what they do’ – wrapped up in the world of their own imagination, locked-up in their contemplation of the universe; they can seem at moments as if they wanted to bite the helping hand they most need and even commit murder on the most sensitive part of one’s devoted care and respect for them. They don’t really mean it, and can be absolutely devastated when they discover of just what heinous crime they have been guilty – but it has somehow to be borne.
He ends by saying that in the world ‘there simply are not more than a few of these far-reaching people at a time, and they are immensely precious’. (In 1924 when Dorothy was recovering from her breakdown he had told her ‘that the world can’t afford to lose you again and you know it’.) He sums up his own ‘martyrdom’: ‘they need all we can give and be, to give of their best; and so through bitterness we learn, if possible without becoming bitter in return’.
Juliette Huxley was modestly conscious of her own effort, ‘often a poor job, with nothing to boast about; only a sense that there was a next day and a new hope for halcyon times between the clouds’. She and her husband had fifteen more years together and with her support he wrote two volumes of distinguished memoirs.383 Dorothy could never have known of Leonard’s letter for it would surely have rocked the foundations of all that they had done. Juliette published the text as an epilogue to her own Leaves of the Tulip Tree memoir in 1986.384
In early 1960 Dorothy stayed with Michael and Belinda, as was now her habit, before she went on to Harbour Island; in her birthday letter to William she wrote of the ‘happy days’ with her grandchildren, the youngest her namesake Dorothy Straight aged two ‘who has a way of bending down her head to be kissed which completely melted my heart’.385 Michael’s first novel Carrington was about to be published and he was politically on the inside track once more as a friend of the Kennedys and of the still influential Walter Lippmann. Lippmann gave a dinner party for Dorothy and invited ‘about ten interesting people’ that he thought she would like to meet, among them Senator Hubert Humphrey. In her report to William she wrote:
After dinner we all gathered in a group and put questions to him, and I must say, I was very impressed by his sincerity and true liberal attitude. He is Michael’s – and Walter’s favourite candidate, but I’m afraid that Kennedy – being such a shrewd politician, will win out in the primaries.386
Leonard arrived from India in time for them to go to Harbour Island together, to Pink Sands Lodge for main meals but otherwise on their own in their ‘cottage’, taking long walks on the ‘whitest, finest beach in all the world – and of course welcoming in all its aspects this brilliant turquoise sea’. They read a great deal, Leonard reading Dante’s Il Purgatorio aloud, until Dorothy had had enough and resorted to her Proust or W.B. Yeats. Michael had given her some volumes of Yeats whom she had adopted as ‘the most important poet of our age – I study him for at least four hours a day while Jerry works at his recorder – and plays sweet little tunes nearby.’387
Home at Dartington her Arts Department was now the Arts Centre, and
evolving into the Dartington College of Arts, with the trustees and Peter Cox working to resign their core values of teaching and practice, of professional performance and community entertainments, to the demands of Ministry accreditation. March brought the debut of the Dartington String Quartet – Colin Sauer, Keith Lovell, Alexander ‘Bobby’ Kok and Peter Carter – with their concert in Exeter Cathedral. Whether in celebration of this landmark, or in appreciation of the complex demands made upon him, Dorothy wanted to give Peter Cox and his wife Bobbie a present. For the second time in her life (the first at Hull-House more than fifty years ago) her bounty was declined, or perhaps it was politely suggested that it could be put to another use? Dorothy’s hand-written confession is dated 21st March 1960:
Dearest Peter... of course I couldn’t take it back – because you see, it helps me so much to be able to give something away. I suppose I have always had a sense of guilt about my privileged position – and at one time in my early life I came very close to dispossessing myself completely of my wealth – I resolved then to try never to use my money in order to exert power – and though I realise this is not possible in any ultimate sense I have tried – perhaps unwisely – to withdraw from positions of authority that were too strongly buttressed by the all too obvious financial power behind. However, this is a long story and a devious way of saying that you must allow me to make such a very small gift – I could then feel less guilty if I bought myself a whole collection of new hats! Blessings on you, Dorothy.388
Her ‘long story’ riffles back through the pages of this book and her ‘confession’ explains some of her enigmas: how, in 1925, Leonard’s long absences from England and his very detachment from English life seemed as virtues, allowing them to settle in a remote place where she was unknown; how her, and their, disdain for English coteries and nepotism led them to reject the progressive school pioneers and the legacy of the Arts and Crafts Movement so richly deposited in the countryside of south-west England; and why she accepted the role of mere dinner-party giver to PEP when her political experience matched the best of them, and then ran in almost indecent haste from the Arts Council, the English Opera Board and any committee of the great and the good.
The following year when the College of Arts was being established and Peter Cox was thinking of leaving, her valedictory letter to him from far-away Pink Sands explains even more:
When I stop to realize what you have created for us I feel quite overwhelmed; at the end of the war when you took over from Chris [Martin] there was virtually no Arts Department left – the buildings were dilapidated, the artists themselves scattered to the winds – and the possibility of reviving any kind of activity in the field of the arts looked a hopeless undertaking. But you did it – and not only did you build again a centre for the arts but you gave direction and purpose to the whole undertaking making it essentially an educational enterprise.
Her affection for Peter bolstered her regard for the truth as she acknowledged ‘the indifference or hostility on the part of the outside world’ which he ‘gradually changed to one of respect and admiration for the work carried on at Dartington’, and ‘within the organisation you managed to create an atmosphere of generosity, goodwill and kindly humanism that has affected hundreds of students – not to speak of visitors, staff, and everyone who comes into contact with you – so that the influence you exert, even indirectly, extends far afield’. She warmed to her ending, ‘And just think of the opportunities you have brought to the whole of Devon to participate in the concerts, the plays, the ballets, the exhibitions, the Christmas Festivals, the short courses – in fact all the rich and varied aspects of life you have brought to us – there is just no end to the contribution you have made.’389
She found it extremely hard to let him go, and fortunately he did not leave, but that is another story.390
In May 1962, in her Garden Notebook:
Bluebells a thick mass – lovely. Returning from London after 4 days absence the whole scene has changed – everything has come at once. I think this is the most utterly moving and beautiful moment I have ever known here. Oaks, beeches, even the chestnuts and planes are coming now – and the great beech at the top of the steps – from the terrace looking down I wondered how everything could be so overwhelming yet real. Davidia and Eleagnus wonderful – and the Dell – oh – what richness. I am amazed at the success of the colour – I can’t find anything to change!
Walter Thomas her tall butler, and ‘Tommy’ to everyone but Dorothy, died that year – he was an irreplaceable loss. She was still surrounded, cocooned in the devotion of her household staff and her secretaries, Kathleen Hull-Brown who shuttled between Devon and New York, and the young Mary Bride Nicholson, who would become the loyal guardian of her legacy. She had given up her Dartington trusteeship in favour of Ruth – people said their voices were indistinguishable when heard across the garden – and Maurice Ash was also a trustee. He and Ruth had ‘come home’ from Essex and were settling into the most outrageously elegant Palladian villa called Sharpham House sited on a ‘too heavenly’ bluff above the Dart at Ashprington.391 Maurice shared Leonard’s experimental streak where stewardship of the land was concerned – he believed that ‘the paradigm has shifted’ from the traditions of the West ‘now running into the sands’ towards the philosophy of the East, and Sharpham was to be part of that shift.
In 1963 Michael Straight’s friendship with the Kennedys resulted in his being offered the chairmanship of the National Endowment for the Arts, the best job he could possibly dream of, matching his own Camelot-style interests (his second novel was shortly to be published) and vindicating his father’s failed ambitions. He thought carefully, and declined, fearing ‘something in his background’ that the necessary security clearance would uncover. His friends who knew were amazed, the president was mystified and reported as raising his eyebrows and asking bluntly, ‘Is he a queer?’392
It seems unlikely that Michael mentioned this to his mother, though Dorothy could have heard from others, even perhaps Daisy Harriman, now over ninety and a favourite of the president. Michael was reputedly most upset when the bright young agent from the FBI sent to interview him turned out to be the son of their Old Westbury gardener – shades of his embarrassment as a boy in the chauffeur-driven limousine deposited at the Lincoln School and told to mix with ‘ordinary’ children.393 Soon, however, this mattered not a jot as the attentions of the FBI and the rest of the world were consumed by the events on Dealey Plaza in Dallas on that 22nd November.
There was a small postscript later when Michael agreed to travel to England to meet Sir Anthony Blunt, now director of the Courtauld Institute and Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, in the presence of secret service observers. It was all very undramatic, Michael’s formal unmasking of Blunt as a ‘talent spotter’ for the Russians at Cambridge in the 1930s. Blunt’s biographer Miranda Carter has revealed that the ‘upper section’ of Courtauld students, and their parents, gossiped about their mysterious director being the Fourth Man to Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess and Kim Philby long before Michael’s ‘unmasking’.394 Dorothy had other friends – Sir Philip Hendy, director of the National Gallery, and his wife Cicely, and Stephen and Natasha Spender – who would have calmed her fears. Nothing transpired, Michael returned to his Green Spring Farm and his novel writing, the Queen was apparently informed but Sir Anthony retained his positions. The matter would not be aired in public again in Dorothy’s lifetime.
There was, though, a slight connection to the last mystery of her life, the fate of her collection of paintings, once her treasures. On that distant sunny Sunday before the war the young Anthony Blunt had encouraged her to buy her Picasso, the small square oil of the face of Girl with Head on Table with rosebud mouth and pink dot cheeks on a green check ground – people always remarked how ‘it lit up the room’. On that even more distant day when Mark Tobey had introduced her to the work of Ben Nicholson as ‘the real thing’, she had bought two paintings, as she reported to Leonard, ‘
for us and for Dartington’. Nicholson’s and Kit Wood’s works fired her ambition that Dartington’s old grey walls should wear a modern face, that students and visitors would be aware of youth and creativity, their minds stretched and conditioned to new forms and new ways of seeing their world. Her collection had grown throughout the 1930s, she had more than a dozen (known to be the best) works by Kit Wood, including his pencil sketch of Jean Cocteau, almost as many by Winifred Nicholson, and some by Ben, who courted her as a sympathetic collector on behalf of his friends. She was buying the elixir of youth, as befitted the Dartington ethos, but she was also supporting artists making their way without any public subsidies; she bought works by Edward Bawden, William Roberts, Jacob Epstein, David Jones, Roger Fry, Eric Gill, Clare Leighton, Alfred Wallis, the Dartington residents Mark Tobey and Cecil Collins, and another favourite Frances Hodgkin, all the ‘Modern British’ flowering. She was a wonder to the gallery world, someone who bought for her belief in the transformative qualities of the paintings and drawings, rather than for an investment. From Jim Ede, then a curator at the Tate Gallery, in whose judgement she had faith, she acquired two small pieces by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, a little naked Alabaster Boy and a small bronze torso, both treasures she kept near her. Augmented by Leonard’s collection of studio pots from Bernard Leach and Lucie Rie, and juxtaposed with her Chinese prints, some botanical studies, a landscape by Peter De Wint that had been her father’s, and the flamboyant paintings of Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta (a favourite of Willard’s), her collection had drawn gasps of wonder and delight from so many of Dartington’s visitors. Graham Sutherland had come, having heard the gossip, and found what he called ‘a myth come to life’.395