A Woman of Independent Means (40 page)

All my love,
Mummy

August 10, 1932
Dallas

Miss Eleanor Steed
Cas' Alta
Firenze, Italia

 

Darling,

Your last letter assaulted our placid horizon as unexpectedly as a bolt of lightning and I am braced for the thunder to follow.

I can understand the emotions Italy has awakened in you but your impulsive decision to remain in Florence for the winter has taken all of us by surprise. Your chaperone wrote me that you had stayed behind in Florence to recover from a sore throat but she fully expected you to rejoin the tour in Rome for a final week of sightseeing (paid in advance, I might add) before returning home.

It was very responsible of you to write Vassar that you would not be returning in the fall, though I regret that you did not consult me before arriving at this decision. I agree that the purpose of college is to teach an individual to think for himself but you seem to have acquired that ability sooner than I expected.

Any argument I could offer in opposition would be contradicted by the choice I made twenty-three years ago to leave college and marry your father. I must admit in all honesty I never regretted my decision. I can only hope you will not regret yours. Too many college graduates regard their diploma as proof that their education is complete. I will never cease to be haunted by all the things I have yet to learn.

I am impressed with the arrangements you have made for living and studying in Florence this winter, but I trust you will confirm them with your art professor while she is still on the continent. Even though she will not have the pleasure of your company for the rest of the tour, I am sure she will be happy to give you the benefit of her advice and experience.

I have always had the utmost respect for your ability as an artist and I cannot help being thrilled by your response to the great works of art you have seen this summer. Though I have no talent in that sphere, I must admit that the sculptures of Michelangelo have made even me want to seize a chisel and attack the nearest block of marble. And your decision to leave school, as ill-considered as it first appeared to me, can clearly be traced to the afternoon you spent staring at Michelangelo's unfinished sculptures for the Medici tombs. Who could fail to identify with those figures struggling to free themselves from the stone which gives them substance and at the same time denies them form? All of life for me is contained in those emerging figures—for what is life but a brief assertion of a unique identity between womb and tomb?

Forgive me, my darling, for being so angry when I began this letter. Sometimes being a good mother gets in the way of being a good person. I will close now and start packing a trunk with your winter clothes. I have never been in Italy in the winter but I understand it gets very cold. Please do not go out alone at night—but do go out.

All my love,
Mummy

October 12, 1932
Dallas

Mr. Richard Prince
Greenhill Estate
Atlanta, Georgia

 

Dear Richard,

I have just learned of the death of your wife last summer, and I did not want you to think I would let such a loss go unacknowledged. Though your separate interests often kept you apart, I am sure the pride you shared in your son was a bond to the end, and it is sad your wife will not be at your side for all the happy occasions your son is sure to provide in the future.

I suppose Henry told you that Eleanor has forsaken a college education in favor of independent study in Florence. Though she is living with a family who have been highly recommended, I cannot help worrying about her. I know you have many close friends in Florence and I would be very grateful if you would ask one of them to call on her and make sure she is all right. Is there any chance you will be traveling to Europe this year?

It was a pity Henry had to cancel his trip abroad last summer, but I am sure his presence at home was a great comfort to his mother. He has many fine qualities but the one I find most impressive is his devotion to his family, and I hope Eleanor has profited from his example. It gave me great joy to see the close friendship he and Eleanor formed last year and I trust her decision to study abroad will not cause any unnecessary estrangement. She does not discuss her correspondence with me, but I know she would enjoy hearing from Henry, if he has not written already. I am enclosing her address along with a snapshot taken this summer at the Villa d'Este. As you can see, she has changed quite a bit since the summer we met. I flatter myself that I have not, however—and that at the age of forty-one, I look at least as young as I did when we met four years ago.

Again, please accept my sympathy for your loss—and my abiding affection.

March 1, 1933
Dallas

Miss Eleanor Steed
Cas' Alta
Firenze, Italia

 

Darling,

Just received your letter announcing plans to spend spring vacation in Sicily with Count d'Annunzio Fabrini and his family. I am sure he is as anxious to meet your family as you are to meet his so I am joining you in Rome for Easter and we will travel to Sicily together.

Exa Banks is accompanying me abroad with her new green Lincoln and her chauffeur, so we will be traveling in a manner befitting friends of Italian nobility. Since her husband's death she has little interest in staying home and who can blame her?

I have made reservations at the Hassler, so we will meet you on Easter Sunday at the top of the Spanish Steps. How glorious it will be to put my arms around you again. This year I will have my own reasons for singing Hallelujah!

All my love,
Mummy

 

APRIL 1 1933
DALLAS TEXAS

MISS ELEANOR STEED
CAS ALTA
FIRENZE ITALIA
IMPOSSIBLE TO DELAY TRIP TILL SUMMER ARRIVING AS
SCHEDULED ON EASTER SUNDAY DO NOT LEAVE FOR
SICILY WITHOUT ME

MOTHER

 

 

April 18, 1933
Hotel Hassler
Rome, Italy

Dearest Sam,

I doubt if my lifetime will offer a more historic opportunity for visiting Rome than this nineteen-hundredth anniversary of the crucifixion of Christ. I would swear all of Italy was standing in St. Peter's Square on Easter Sunday, waiting for the Pope to appear on his balcony and give his blessing. We were fortunate to have rooms waiting for us since we hear tourists are quartered in bathrooms and closets all over the city.

The drive down from Genoa took longer than we expected. From the moment it was unloaded on the dock our green Lincoln attracted admiring hordes, and we caused a traffic jam in every small town en route to Rome. We arrived here exhausted from our ordeal, but our spirits revived at once at the sight of my beloved daughter. She brought a bouquet of flowers to our hotel room, but the blossom I cherished was her own smiling face. She seems so much older and self-assured than the young girl we kissed good-bye last summer—and yet much more open in her affections. No wonder she has captured the heart of an Italian count—I have fallen madly in love with her myself.

Count Fabrini is a charming young man and fortunately not nearly as forbidding as his title. I do not know how we would have made our way around the city this week without his able assistance.

On Easter Sunday he managed somehow to steer us through the mob that packed St. Peter's and to procure a place for us across from Michelangelo's
Pietà,
where we waited almost two hours for the Pope to arrive to celebrate Mass. Though the Catholic ritual is as foreign to me as the tongue in which it is conducted, I could not help being moved by the devotion of the crowd and the reverence in which they hold “Il Papa.” I envy the faith that allows them to submit so completely to the authority of a man who is only human in spite of his high position. There is something so touchingly childlike about the Catholic faith. We all long for an infallible father figure but finally come to realize our parents are no more perfect than we are.

Still, despite my doubts, I shared with the adoring masses an overwhelming sense of awe and mystery as the Pope was carried down the center aisle of the cathedral on his white-and-gold canopied throne. Whether it was the sight of his noble features or the sculptured devotion of Michelangelo's Madonna across from me I do not know, but I was filled with the love of parent for child which is as close as we come on this earth to experiencing the love of God for man. I felt blessed to have my child beside me, and for the first time since she sailed last summer I dared admit to myself how much I have missed her.

Thank you for your Easter cablegram. It was very thoughtful of Mrs. Perkins to invite you to share their Easter dinner. She has been rather distant with me ever since my last trip abroad. I am sure she thinks I have abandoned you once again. I trust you do not agree.

Exa has not been abroad since her honeymoon and although she is a more timorous traveler than I am, her curiosity about life on the continent grows hourly. At the end of the week we are driving down to Sicily with Eleanor and her Italian count. From there we will make our way back across the continent, ending in England in time for the Ascot Races. It is my fervent hope that Eleanor will come with us, but I have not dared broach the idea. I am so happy to have found her again, I cannot risk losing her. So for now we maintain the illusion that we will be parting again after our trip to Sicily. But in my heart I have made a secret vow not to return home without her.

My love,
Bess

April 24, 1933
Sorrento, Italy

Dear Lydia and Manning,

To see the Blue Grotto is never to be satisfied with a picture postcard again. The one I am enclosing does not begin to do it justice (but save it for me anyway—at least it will prove I was there).

Exa and I are traveling in great comfort in her green Lincoln, but Eleanor prefers to travel at faster speeds with her friend Count Fabrini in his open sports car. We say good-bye at breakfast and meet again each night for dinner at a new destination. I miss her company during the day but at least I have the comfort of knowing where she is at night.