The Rare and the Beautiful: The Lives of the Garmans, by Cressida Connolly

Here’s a book with so many brazen characters in it I barely know where to start. The Rare and the Beautiful gives an insight into the lives of one infamous family. Mary, Kathleen, Douglas, Helen, Sylvia, Rosalind, Mavin, Ruth and Lorna. The nine siblings who together comprised the Garman family.

Several adjectives are used to describe them; ‘amoral’, ‘sadistic’ and ‘manipulative’ being but a few. The women of the family, especially Mary, Kathleen and Lorna, are particularly wild. I am, therefore, going to concentrate on these three. The more brazen the better here on WomenBetweenThePages. Mary, who married and had children, but nonetheless enjoyed lesbian flings, not least with her own brother’s wife; Kathleen, who enjoyed a longing running affair with a married man which resulted in a gun wound, four children and a ladyship; and Lorna, who is rumoured to have indulged in incest before seducing her husband aged just 14, topping this by having a child with another man then selflessly passing said man to her niece.

Mary, the eldest, escaped the family home, along with Kathleen, when they were 21 and 17 respectively. They fled to London right on the cusp of the flapping 20s, arriving there penniless in 1919.

Always rebellious, Mary and Kathleen had already defied their parents by taking to regularly drinking and smoking before making the decision to live in self imposed poverty in Bloomsbury, a stark contrast to the privileged lifestyle their upbringing had accustomed them to.

When Mary was twenty six she married Ignatius Royston Dunnachie Campbell, better known as the poet Roy Campbell. But settling down was not for her. Roy did try valiantly to quash her free spirit, even dangling her from a window from her ankles in an attempt to instil a bit of wifely obedience (something Mary didn’t seem to mind), but a hot blooded Garman she would remain.

In 1927 the Campbells’ paths crossed with that of Vita Sackville-West. Best remembered for her affair with Virginia Woolf, Vita proved irresistible to Mary, and the two embarked upon a passionate affair. When Roy found out, he was initially reluctantly accepting before flying into a rage about it. Roy demanded the affair be stopped. Mary promptly took not a blind bit of notice and continued sleeping with Vita whilst she and Roy continued living on Vita’s land.

Mary’s marriage to Roy produced two children; Tess and Anna. In what appears to be a family trait, Mary and Roy are described as negligent parents. Several times Cressida Connolly, author of this book, talks about how the two girls were left to wander free and fend for themselves. As their daughter Anna put it 'we were never told how to sit at a table... or how important it was to change our knickers every so often.'

The Garman siblings’ attitude towards their assorted offspring leads, or at least contributes, to a tragic outcome for many of the younger generation. Depression, anorexia and schizophrenia all make themselves known, more of which will be discussed soon.

Mary’s accomplice during her formative years was Kathleen. Like Mary, Kathleen found love with a man whose talents lay in the arts. Kathleen, arguably the most infamous of the Garman sisters, became embroiled in a long running affair with Jacob Epstein, the renowned sculptor. Jacob himself was involved in a somewhat laissez faire marriage, with his wife content for him to bring back beautiful women who would model for him and then sleep with him.

Mrs Epstein even raised two children Epstein had fathered with these models. However, her relaxed attitude did not extend to Kathleen. Mrs Epstein was bitterly jealous of her husband’s relationship with Kathleen, correctly believing it transcended his usual admiration for a beautiful woman. Mrs Epstein knew her husband was in love, and in a fit of completely understandable annoyance, invited Kathleen to the house she shared with Jacob.

Twenty two year old Kathleen, nothing if not brave, accepted the invitation, bringing along her brother Douglas as back up. He was needed when suddenly Mrs Epstein produced a pearl handled pistol, told Kathleen she was going to shoot her, and proceeded to fire a bullet through Kathleen’s shoulder. Panic stricken, Mrs Epstein fled, leaving Kathleen to struggle outside for help.

Apparently viewing this episode as a trifle inconvenient, rather than as a worrying attempt to end her life, Kathleen continued to see Jacob, eventually bearing him three children; Theo, Kitty and Esther. Decades later, Mrs Epstein passes away and the newly knighted Jacob finally marries Kathleen, making her the respectable Lady Epstein.

Here in the lives of the three young Epsteins the tragedy of the Garman siblings’ children once again makes itself apparent. Theo is diagnosed with schizophrenia and eventually dies aged just thirty of a heart attack. However, rumours still persist about there being poison found in Theo’s food…

Esther, devastated by her brother’s death, is pushed over the edge when she meets a man named Mike Rutherston. Mike falls in love with Esther and proposes to her. Esther turns him down, and, distraught by this rejection, Mike puts his head an oven, turns the gas on, and kills himself. Esther then visits France and Italy in an attempt by her friends to cheer her up but, upon return to England, she attempts to kill herself. She is found in time, hospitalised and saved. Once released from hospital, Kathleen, perhaps rather misguidedly, decides to give her some space and independence and installs Esther into her own flat. Esther once again attempts to kill herself, and this time she succeeds.

Kitty, the only child of Kathleen’s not to die young, married artist Lucien Freud, grandson of the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. Kitty was not the first Garman female Lucien had fallen in love with. The complex sexual relations of the Garman family drops into the younger generation here: Lucien had already enjoyed a lustful relationship with Kitty’s aunt, Lorna.

Lucien is not the only lover of Lorna’s who went on to marry one of her nieces. The poet, novelist, and screenwriter Laurie Lee had a long running relationship with Lorna. Utterly captivated by her, the two embarked upon a passionate, jealous, concupiscent relationship. They two even had a child together, who was raised as Lorna’s husband’s child.

After his relationship with Lorna came to an end, Laurie married Lorna’s sister Helen’s daughter, Kathy Polge. Ironically, Laurie’s child with Kathy was born on the same day as his grandchild with Lorna. It is strange that Lorna did not seem to mind Lucien and Laurie’s relationships with her nieces. She is spoken of as being very possessive of her men, writing to Laurie that she wished him to grow older as quickly as possible so no other women would be attracted to him.

Glamourous, charming and fascinating, Lorna is described as the most strikingly beautiful of the sisters. The youngest of the nine, it is suggested early on in the book that she, sister Ruth and brother Mavin were involved in an incestuous ménage a trois. Although this is denied by the family, Connolly writes that this is not due to taboo or any moral scruples, but rather that there being three of them prevented pairing. Their own mother admitted to Lorna that even she was apprehensive about their relationship. With a fondness for horseback riding in the dead of night, and a penchant for stripping naked and swimming wherever and whenever the mood took her, Lorna was utterly devoid of self consciousness and completely defiant of societal expectations.

All the sisters were.

They wore their hair long and straight instead of in the rigid up do popular at the time. They dressed in capes and cloaks, cutting startlingly different figures from the norm.

Even the men of the family are brazen. They oldest brother, Douglas, rejects his inheritance by settling on an ‘ungentlemanly’ career path and joining the communist party. His love life becomes inexorably linked with Mary’s when his sisters begins a relationship with his wife, continuing the trend of criss-crossing family relationships.

So, there we have it. Immoral, negligent, seductive and repulsive, the Garman sisters’ sordid world is spread out over 261 fast paced pages. Connolly seamlessly fast forwards and rewinds the decades, bringing the Garmans back to life in all their glory. In return for their lack of care of those around them, they were rewarded by having everyone fall in love with them due to their great lust for life.

Some parts of their story are fascinating; others bewildering, some parts sickening, but I doubt the sisters would have cared. They lived completely unconcerned with what anyone thought of them, be it their children, friends, parents or husbands. And it is that attitude rather than their personalities that leaves behind a trail of admiration at the sheer brazenness of it all.

Jennie Churchill: Winston's American Mother, by Anne Sebba

Jennie Churchill: Winston's American Mother reveals the life of the mother of Winston Churchill, arguably the United Kingdom's most famous Prime Minister. Born Jennie Jerome in 19th century America, Jennie blazed through life defying her friends, her family and the rest of her society.

Rumoured to have slept with over 200 men, Jennie eventually married three of them, each time in the face of staunch opposition. She embraced politics, driving both her husband and her son forward at a time when women were thought to know so little about politics that they were not yet entrusted to vote. She also had literary successes, if financial failures; failures which were compounded by her spendthrift ways and seemingly unfailing trust that somehow money would always be found to fund her lifestyle.

Yet for all of Jennie's failings, author Anne Sebba does an excellent job of making her appear a loyal and sympathetic character, as well as captivatingly interesting and, of course, brazen.

Jennie's first husband was Winston Churchill's father, Lord Randolph Churchill. Here the young couple faced opposition from both sides of their families: Jennie's parents felt that she could do better than marrying the second son of a Duke - perhaps she could marry someone with a bit more money? Randolph's family felt he could do better by marrying a girl whose father was willing to provide a larger dowry - perhaps he could marry someone with a bit more money?

However, when Jennie and Randolph made it clear they would be pressing ahead with the wedding, a financial settlement was finally hammered out between the two families.

It is through this financial settlement I got a glimpse of what helped shape Jennie's headstrong, independent character. Her fiancé, Randolph, wrangles for Jennie's father to put the financial contribution to the couple into his name rather than Jennie's. English law was still dictating that a married woman's possessions became the property of her husband, so Randolph would have been following convention by making this demand. Jennie's forward thinking father outright refuses Randolph's request, stating it is an archaic English custom he nor his daughter will be following and advises Randolph that some of the money given by him will be solely in Jennie's name, unable to be touched by Randolph.

Growing up with the influence of a father who did not abide by all of the UK's repressive customs regarding women must have nurtured, if not bred in Jennie her defiant spirit with regards to her husbands and her lovers, none of whom were able to control or calm her.

When her marriage to Randolph was still in its infancy, Jennie was quite openly engaging in a number of affairs. It is rumoured her second son, Winston's younger brother Jack, was not fathered by Randolph. The Churchills were leading increasingly separate lives, and London society was openly discussing the possibility of divorce between Lord and Lady Churchill, at a time when divorce was considered scandalous and divorced women ran the risk of being forever shunned by society.

However, divorce Jennie would. Though not from Randolph. The Churchills remained married until Randolph's death, even when he was completely aware she was sleeping with and sometimes even living with other men. No, the man she divorced was named George Cornwallis-West, having married him when she was aged forty six and George, twenty years her junior, was twenty six.

This marriage too was once again met with opposition from both sides. Surprisingly, her sons, who were almost the same age as George, did not lead the cries of horror when their mother’s engagement was announced. They were not thrilled, but they were accepting.

Instead, the protests came from Jennie's friends and George’s family, led by his mother. The then Prince of Wales, who  went on to become King Edward VII, was one of the friends who put into words his opposition to the marriage. The Prince of Wales himself was one man Jennie had already been rumoured to be enjoying an affair with in years previous; as too, ironically, had George’s mother. In any case, Jennie did not care. She went ahead and married George.

The marriage was not a success and eventually Jennie would divorce George and replace him with a younger model, Montagu Phippen Porch. This last marriage took place when Jennie was sixty four. This time Jennie defied convention in a different way, refusing to take Porch as her married name.

In the background of this illustrious personal life was her husband’s, and later her son’s, political career. Randolph, like Winston, was a Member of Parliament. Ambitious and determined until illness took hold of him (it is said Randolph had contracted syphilis), behind Randolph was Jennie, persuading and advising him, campaigning for him and raging at him when he made his rash decision to quit government. Years later, her concentration shifted to her previously attention deprived sons, especially to her eldest, Winston. She threw herself into Winston’s future prospects, writing numerous letters to male acquaintances who she felt could advance his career, trying with all her power to get Winston noticed.

In later years one of Winston’s adversaries is reported to have commented that his ‘politics are as rotten as his mother’s morals’. The two go hand in hand more than the speaker imagined. Jennie executed determined, hell bent behaviour of a woman who seethed with ambition for her son. And, however she done it, her plan to get Winston noticed undoubtedly worked. I wonder, though, what Jennie would have become with today’s opportunities, in a world where women do not need to seek to fulfill their political ambitions through male family members.

Last weekend I visited the House of Commons in London, where political debates take place in the UK. On the ground floor is the politicians’ seats, above which is a spectator’s gallery. This is where Jennie would have sat when visited the House. I was interested to hear that the knee high curtain surrounding the gallery was a ‘modesty curtain’, introduced to prevent the male MPs catching a glimpse of ladies’ legs. I wonder if Jennie, such a passionate, forward speaking woman, wished she could step in front of the modesty curtain and join the political debate herself. If she could have, imagine what she, the driving force behind one of the most successful political careers ever, may have become. Alas, we will never know.

During her years supporting Winston she also started writing, eventually founding her own magazine, Anglo-Saxon Review. Unfortunately, it had to be scrapped after ten issues due to the financial loss it was incurring. It was not the first time she was faced with money worries. Jennie Churchill contains many references to Jennie’s money problems as she struggles to reconcile being frugal with spending £200 (a small fortune at the time) on a dress. In fairness to her, her assumption that money would always be found does tend to come to fruition.

Jennie lived her life knowing what she was doing wrong, recognising the opposition towards it and realising she was garnering a reputation. Yet she tossed those thoughts aside and done it anyway.

Jennie Churchill was clever, beautiful and ambitious, rushing through life engulfed in a cloud of scandal, about which she did not give a damn. A brazen women indeed.

Coming Soon...

Find out about Jennie Jerome. More famously known as Lady Churchill, Winston's mother, she is rumoured to have slept with more than 200 men. Jennie was a driving force behind Winston's political success. Or rather, her colourful love life was...

In the mean time, check out my other posts for more brazen women.

Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier

Well, Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. A huge bitch or a (brazen) heroine? Manipulative, spiteful and insane? Or independant, clever and intriguing? Perhaps both? 

Rebecca tells the story of a young, naive girl whisked off her feet by a haughty middle aged man, Maximilian de Winter. This girl narrates the story throughout the book. Maxim, as he's usually called, marries her and installs her as mistress of his stately home, Manderley. From the moment she meets him, she is plagued with the fear that she will never measure up to his deceased first wife, Rebecca.

Quite understandable. We are told Rebecca was sophisticated, charming, 'well bred', and, time and time again, remarkably beautiful. She is described as having long black hair, a slim figure and the white skin so fashionable in those days (around the 1920s). By contrast, our narrator believes herself childish, plain and shy. She is convinced Maxim is still completely in love with his late wife, still longing for Rebecca, besotted with her.

So what a shock our narrator receives when her new husband reveals Rebecca was actually a rather despicable character, so much so that Maxim was unable to resist murdering her and dumping her body in the ocean.

Maxim tells his new bride of Rebecca's crimes; they'd started mere days after he and Rebecca were married. Maxim describes how Rebecca had agreed to run his house as long as she was allowed a free rein to do as she pleased. That is, lead a life completely separate to Maxim's, including having as many lovers as she desires (undertones of the book suggest male and female), taking a house in London for her own use during the week, while also having as much money as she requires courtesy of Maxim.

Maxim explains how Rebecca finally tips him over the edge a few years into their marriage, by telling him that she is pregnant with someone else's baby. Rebecca mocks that this baby will grow to inherit Manderley without there being anything Maxim can do to prevent it. Aside from shooting her in the heart of course, a course of action he duly takes. Our narrator understands and sympathises with what her new husband has been through, and she realises he's truly in love with her, not Rebecca. This realisation apparently completely overrules a murder confession, so naturally she vows to stand by him.

So far, so straightforward romance. Rebecca is the devil woman, Maxim the wronged husband and our narrator the romantic heroine; Rebecca's foil and Maxim's saviour.

And yet, it is Rebecca I am drawn to, whilst struggling to find any empathy towards the narrator. When Maxim asks the narrator to marry him, he does so by saying 'I'm asking you to marry me, you little fool'.

Not the most romantic of propositions, despite what our young narrator seems to think.

Then, once the newly married couple are back at Manderley, Maxim treats her like a small child, or a puppy. He disciplines her, patronisingly encourages her, and comments several times how pleased he is that she's not mature or sophisticated.

So, that leads me to wonder what Maxim may have been like with Rebecca. The same? If so, I can absolutely understand Rebecca being a bit put out. Maxim himself admits to marrying Rebecca because he was assured by other people she had the right combination of 'beauty, brains and breeding.' And it is evident she did indeed have all three of those things, but clearly not the kind Maxim wanted.

It seems he quite fancied a show wife, one who his society would approve of and who would competently be able to run Manderley for him. When Maxim realises Rebecca is not content with a life waiting on him, but instead is brazen enough to want to pursue her own life, he gets annoyed and feels rather cheated. Cheated enough to kill her.

Our narrator is, in Maxim's words, 'young... lost', desperate to please at all costs the husband she never dreamt she could attract. Indeed she barely blinks an eye upon hearing that her husband not only murdered his wife and her unborn child, but then launched a large scale cover up. She accepts Maxim’s story without question, never considering it may either be untrue, or, even if it is factual, that Rebecca perhaps did not deserve to be murdered for her ‘crimes’. When Rebecca was first published it was classified as a romance, with the narrator assuming the part of the romantic heroine.

But Rebecca is more my kind of heroine, and, I believe, the one du Maurier intended to be thought of as such. She is confident, beautiful, brazen and unwilling to sacrifice her own life for the sake of Maxim's. Her story is exciting and intriguing, I wanted to know more about Rebecca’s history and why she was the way she was. I think I considered the narrator’s equally mysterious background only once until I began writing this. Even Rebecca’s own murder was one of her successes - she baits Maxim into shooting her in order to escape the long drawn out death from the terminal illness she has discovered she has.

The unnamed narrator is cut from the same cloth as Twilight's Bella; Rebecca has a cloth all of her own. Rebecca does not actually ever appear in the book at all, she is spoken of only through other characters, yet she haunts every page and is the one that stays in the mind long after the narrator is forgotten. For a character to do this must surely secure Rebecca's position as the rightful heroine of this gothic, mysterious and excellent novel.

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Happily, author Sally Beauman has written a book authorised by the du Maurier estate, Rebecca’s Tale. Hopefully it will provide a closer look at Rebecca’s background. I’ll be ordering it soon, and it will be featuring on here in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

Next Up...

Why Rebeccca is the true heroine in Daphne du Maurier's 'Rebecca'. A more brazen woman would be hard to find! (Though womenbetweenthepages will do its best to find her.) Stay tuned.