A Woman of Independent Means (38 page)

All my love,
Bess

July 21, 1928
Tours, France

Dearest Dwight,

It was so kind of you to escort us to the ship, and I cannot thank you enough for the foreign currency computer you tucked into my pocket as you kissed me good-bye. I do not mind traveling in a country where I cannot speak the language as long as I can understand the money.

We have just concluded a strenuous three-day tour of the Loire Valley. To my delight Andrew and Eleanor have become fascinated by all the court intrigue contained within the walls of each chateau, and they have followed the checkered history of Catherine de Medici from one royal residence to another with as much interest as my laundress reads newspaper serials. They were thrilled to see the secret cabinet where she kept her poisons in a paneled room at the Château of Blois and applauded her audacity in banishing her husband's mistress, Diane de Poitiers, from the “dream palace” of Chenonceaux after his death and claiming it for her own. Though I cannot admire her I do envy her way of life. A woman of wit and intellect was much more appreciated in a royal court in Renaissance France than she is today in a living room in Texas.

Tonight we are staying at a country inn that is very much to your taste. I wish you were waiting below to join us for dinner.

My love,
Bess

August 5, 1928
Amsterdam

Dearest Sam,

We allowed a week on our itinerary for Amsterdam, so we would have time to enjoy the Olympic Games, but we all wish we were staying longer.

It is thrilling to see our flag raised when our athletes win. Unfortunately we will be leaving before the swimming finals but we were impressed by Crabbe's perfect form in the semifinals. I hope his Australian competition will not get the better of him in the finals.

We shared a sightseeing excursion with a group of Irish Olympic players, and one of them, a student of medicine at Trinity College, Dublin, was quite attentive to Eleanor. I invited him to join us for dinner and he came gladly. Unfortunately his team was defeated the next day—due largely to poor decisions by the referee, we felt.

Andrew has missed his weekly tennis game with you, but he found plenty of partners here—unfortunately all better than he is.

We miss you.

Love,
Bess

August 25, 1928
Villa d'Este
Cernobbio, Italy

Dearest Lydia,

From the day I discovered Byron, I have dreamed of the Italian Lakes, but my first glimpse of Lake Como convinced me that there are times when even the most unrestrained imagination fails to match the artistry of nature.

The enchantment of the setting was further enhanced by the unexpected appearance at our hotel here of my shipboard companion Richard Prince. He travels without an itinerary so is free to go wherever his mood takes him. I had furnished him with a copy of my itinerary when we parted in Paris, however, so I suspect he was not as surprised to see me as I was to see him.

By happy coincidence we have adjacent rooms with balconies overlooking the lake. Last night we shared the spectacle of a sunset whose splendor was doubled by its reflection in the lake. How wise we would be to multiply all our pleasure in life through the simple act of reflection, allowing memory to serve as the mirror in which the original moment can be recreated at will. I feel with Wordsworth that an event “recollected in tranquility” has an intensity it often lacks in the present. My stay in Europe is at an end but I expect to make the trip many times in memory, unencumbered by children and baggage.

Richard and I spent this morning rowing on the lake. Fortunately our children are happy in each other's company and old enough to plan picnics without us. It is a delight—and a new experience for me—to spend time in the company of a man who is better educated than I am. Most of the American men I know have been too busy earning a living to pursue any aesthetic goals, and my friend freely admits he devoted his early years to acquiring a fortune. But he is just as rigorously devoting the rest of his life to enjoying it.

His interests are unbounded and he approaches each new country as if it were a company he had decided to acquire. He studies its historical contribution and if he feels it merits his attention, he commits himself to learning the language. He is renting a villa in Fiesole this fall in order to attend the language institute in Florence. I have resolved to study Italian on my own when I return home, and we have sworn that the next time we meet we will converse only in the language of the country we are visiting.

I have missed Sam on the trip but if he had been with me, I would never have gotten to know Richard Prince. It seems unreasonable to expect—or indeed even to want—to share every experience in life with the same person. We are more complicated than that and capable of pledging lifelong devotion to any number of different people of different sex and age. Why does society restrict a man and a woman to only one such pledge per lifetime? I hope I will never break any promise once made, but if I were free and clear at this moment, I would never again promise my exclusive devotion to anyone.

I trust you are not shocked by the feelings I am expressing. I can assure you they were foreign to me when I was married to your brother, though perhaps the passing years would have tested even that seemingly perfect relationship. I am now married to a man I love and respect but that does not mean I would not enjoy a similar relationship with other men.

Sometimes I think the world would be a much more interesting place if on coming of age, everyone moved into a house of his own and shared his life with a variety of other people at mutually arranged times and places. Of course there are the children to consider, but I sometimes suspect monogamy is an invention of the male, designed to protect his exclusive claim to the children he fathers. Nature assigns no role to the father once conception takes place. It is a refinement of civilization to make the father an equal partner in the child-rearing process, and I wonder if this division of responsibility is in fact an improvement on the natural order of things. Any society depends on an acceptance of a twofold responsibility: to one's self and to others. Perhaps it is to enforce the second that nature denies the male any physical ties to his children. Could it be that the male is not given a demonstrable claim on his own children in the hope that he will assume a spiritual responsibility for all children?

Forgive me for this intellectual excursion into territory I have never dared explore in the past. But now that this physical journey is almost over, the only voyages ahead of me in the immediate future are in the mind, and in that area I am an intrepid traveler. But I trust that, like any traveler, I will enjoy my homecoming all the more because of the distance I have traveled in order to reach my point of departure.

A bientôt,
Bess

September 20, 1928
Dallas

Dear Lydia,

A state of armed truce has existed in our household since my return. Sam greeted me with the announcement that he had had me followed by a private detective from the time I left Paris. I was careful to avoid any mention of my friend Richard Prince in my letters to him, but it never occurred to me to censor the children's letters home and apparently they described our friendship in sufficient detail to arouse Sam's already suspicious nature.

We had no sooner stepped off the train than Sam triumphantly presented me with evidence of adjacent rooms at the Villa d'Este. I was so enraged by his lack of trust I went to my room without a word in my own defense and stayed there for five days, admitting only the children and having my meals brought to me on a tray. On the sixth day a letter arrived for me from Richard Prince in Fiesole.

Sam brought it to the door of my room and threatened to open it and read it aloud if I did not emerge at once. With all the dignity I could muster, I opened the door and demanded the letter. Sam finally agreed to relinquish it on the condition that any further correspondence between us would be subject to his scrutiny. I met his condition with one of my own: I would not reply to the letter if he would refrain from further accusations. He agreed, appearing grateful to have the matter closed, and that night, for the first time since our return, the dinner table was graced with my presence, if not my appetite.

The children are back in school and I have begun my independent study of Italian. I should soon know enough to conduct a private correspondence with someone who will understand what my wayward heart is saying despite my woeful grammar.

Ciao,
Bess

October 14, 1930
Dallas

Dearest Andrew,

I am glad you are so happy at Yale. Your letters home do more than your diploma to convince me Choate did a good job of preparing you for college. I was especially touched by your note of gratitude to me for everything I have done to make you feel the equal of anyone in your class, no matter how impressive his family background. From now on, you will be measured on the basis of your own achievements and that is the only standard you must employ to judge others.