horn-rimmed glasses and was already the center of a little group. Jean
heard his name, and recognized it as that of a famous illustrator. Aldo
introduced her to a tall girl in brown whom he had met in Italy, and
then somehow, Jean could not have told how it happened, they drifted
apart. Not but what she was glad of a breathing spell, just a chance
to get her bearings. Morel was showing some recent canvases, still
unframed, at the end of the studio, and everyone seemed to gravitate
that way.
Jean found a quiet corner just as someone handed her fragrant tea in
a little red and gold cup, and she was free to look around her. A
beautiful woman had just arrived. She was tall and past first youth,
but Jean leaned forward expectantly. This must be the Contessa. Her
gown seemed as indefinite and elusive in detail as a cloud. It was
dull blue violet in color, with a gleam of gold here and there as she
moved slowly toward Morel’s group. Under a wide-brimmed felt hat, the
same shade of blue violet, Jean saw the lifted face, with tired lovely
eyes, and close waves of pale golden hair. And this was not all. If
only Doris could have seen her, thought Jean. She had wanted a princess
from real life, or a countess, anything that was tangibly romantic and
noble, and here was the very pattern of a princess, even to a splendid
white Russian wolfhound that followed her with docile eyes and drooping
long nose.
“My dear, would you mind coaxing that absent-minded girl at the tea
table to part with some lemon for my tea? And the Roquefort sandwiches
are excellent too.”
Jean turned at the sound of the new voice beside her. There on the same
settee sat a robust, middle-aged latecomer. Her black coat was worn and
frayed, her hat altogether too youthful with its pink and purple roses
veiled in net. Jean saw, too, that there was a button missing from
her dress, and her collar was pinned at a slightly crooked angle. But
the collar was real lace and the pin was of old pearls and amethysts.
It was her face that charmed. Framed in an indistinct mass of fluffy
hair, mixed gray and blonde, with a turned-up, winning mouth, and
delightfully expressive eyes, it was impossible not to feel immediately
interested and acquainted.
Before long, Jean found herself indulging in all sorts of confidences.
They seemed united by a common feeling of, not isolation exactly, but
newness to this circle.
“I enjoy it so much more sitting over here and looking on,” Jean said.
“Beth, my cousin, knows everyone, of course, but it is like a painting.
You close one eye, and get the group effect. And I must remember
everything to write home to the girls and Tommy.”
“Tell me about them. Who are they that you love them so?” asked her new
friend. “I, too, like the bird’s-eye view best. I told Morel I did not
come to see anything but his pictures, and now I am ready for tea and
talk.”
So Jean told all about Woodhow and the family there and before she knew
it, she had disclosed too, her own hopes and ambitions, and perhaps a
glimpse of what it might mean to the others at home, if she, the first
to leave, could only make good. And her companion told her, in return,
of how sure one must be that the career decided upon was what one
really wanted before one gives up all to it.
“Over in France, and in Italy, too, but mostly in France,” she said, “I
have found girls like you who before the war were living on little but
hopes, wasting their time and what money could be spared them from some
home over here, following false hopes, and sometimes starving. It is
but a will-o’-the-wisp, this success in art, a sort of pitiful madness
that takes possession of our brains and hearts and makes us forget the
commonplace things in life that lie before us.”
“But how can you tell for sure?” asked Jean, leaning forward anxiously.
“Who can answer that? I have only pitied the ones who could not see
that they had no genius. Ah, my dear, when you meet real genius, then
you know the difference instantly. It is like the real gems and the
paste. There is consecration and no thought of gain. The work is done
irresistibly, spontaneously, because they cannot help it. They do not
think of so-called success, it is only the fulfillment of their own
visions that they love. You like to draw and paint, you say, and you
have studied some in New York. What then?”
Jean pushed back her hair impulsively.
“Do you know, I think you are a little bit wrong. You won’t mind my
saying that, will you, please? It is only this. Suppose we are not
geniuses, we who see pictures in our minds and long to paint them. I
think that is the gift too, quite as much as the other, as the power to
execute. Think how many go through life with eyes blind to all beauty
and color! Surely it must be something to have the power of seeing it
all, and of knowing what you want to paint. My cousin Becky back home
says it’s better to aim at the stars and hit the fence post, than to
aim at the fence post and hit the ground.”
“Ah, so, and one of your English poets says too, ‘A man’s aim should
outreach his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?’ Maybe, you are quite
right. The vision is the gift.” She turned and laid her hand on Jean’s
shoulder, her eyes beaming with enjoyment of their talk. “I shall
remember you, Brown Eyes.”
And just at this point Beth and Aldo came toward them, the former
smiling at Jean. “Don’t you think you’ve monopolized the Contessa
long enough?” she asked. Jean could not answer. The Contessa? This
whimsical, oddly-dressed woman who had sat and talked with her over
their tea in the friendliest sort of way, all the time that Jean had
thought the Contessa was the tall lady in the ethereal dress with the
Russian wolfhound at her heels.
“But this is delightful,” exclaimed the Contessa, happily. “We have met
incognito. I thought she was some demure little art student who knew no
one here, and she has been so kind to me, who also seemed lonely. Come
now, we will meet with the celebrities.”
With her arm around Jean’s waist, she led her over to the group around
Morel, and told them in her charming way of how they had discovered
each other.
“And she has taught me a lesson that you, Morel, with all your art,
do not know, I am sure. It is not the execution that is the crown of
ambition and aspiration, it is the vision itself. For the vision is
divine inspiration, but the execution is the groping of the human
hand.”
“Oh, but I never could say it so beautifully,” exclaimed Jean,
pink-cheeked and embarrassed, as Morel laid his hand over hers.
“Nevertheless,” he said, gently, “success to thy fingertips,
Mademoiselle.”
9. Letters from Home
Jean confessed her mistake to Beth after they had returned home.
There were just a few minutes to spare before bedtime, after wishing
Aldo good night, and she sat on a little stool before the fire in the
sitting room.
“I hadn’t the least idea she was the Contessa. You know that tall woman
with the wolfhound, Beth--”
Mrs. Newell laughed softly. “That was Betty Goodwin. Betty loves to
dress up. She plays little parts for herself all the time. I think
today she was an Austrian princess perhaps. The next time she will be a
tailor-made English girl. Betty indulges her whims, and she has just
had her portrait done by Morel as a sort of dream maiden, I believe. I
caught a glimpse of it on exhibition last week. Looks as little like
Betty as I do. Jean, paint if you must, but paint the thing as you see
it, and do choose apple trees and red barns rather than dream maidens
who aren’t real.”
“I don’t know what I shall paint,” Jean answered with a little quick
sigh. “She rather frightened me, I mean the Contessa. I don’t think she
has much use for my kind of art. She thinks only real geniuses should
paint.”
“Nonsense. Paint all you like. It will train you in form and color and
that you can apply later to your designing. You’re seventeen, aren’t
you, Jean?”
Jean nodded. “Eighteen in April.”
“You seem younger than that. If I could, I’d swamp you in paint and
study for the next two years. By that time you would have either found
out that you were tired to death of it, and wanted real life, or you
would be doing something worthwhile in the art line. But in any event
you would have no regrets. I mean you could live the rest of your life
contentedly, without feeling there was something you had missed. It was
odd your meeting the Contessa as you did. She likes you very much. Now
run along and good night, dear.”
When Jean reached her own room, she found a surprise. On the desk lay
a letter from home that Mathilda had laid there. Mathilda was Beth’s
standby, as she said. She was tall and spare and middle-aged, with a
broad serene face, and sandy-red hair worn parted in the middle. It was
just like her, Jean thought, to lay the letter from home where it would
catch her eye and make her happy before she went to sleep.
One joy of a letter from home was that it turned out to be several as
soon as you got it out of the envelope. The one on top was from her
mother, written just before the mail truck came up the hill.
Dear Princess,
You have been much on my mind, but I haven’t time for a long
letter, since Mr. Ricketts may chug up over the hill any
minute, and he won’t wait. I am ever so glad for you that you
have had this opportunity to study again. Dad is really quite
himself these days, and Becky has lent me Mrs. Gorham, so the
work has been very easy for me, even without you.
Becky says it looks like an early spring this year, although
how she can tell when it is still so bleak and barren is
beyond me. The roads are still piled with snow and the river
is frozen over. The girls, Tommy, and Jack have been skating
almost every day.
Have you everything you need? Let me know otherwise. You
know, I can always find some way out. Write often to us, my
dear. I feel very near you these days in love and thought.
Your character is developing so fast and I want to watch so
carefully. There is always a curious bond between the firstborn
and a mother, to the mother especially, for you taught me
motherhood, my darling. Some day you will understand what I
mean, when you look down into the face of your own. I must
stop, for I am getting altogether homesick for you.
Tenderly,
Mother.
Jean sat for a few minutes after reading this, without unfolding the
other letters. Mothers were wonderful persons, she thought. Their
loving arms stretched so far over one, and gave forth a love and
protectiveness such as nothing else in the world could do.
The next was from Doris, quite like her too. Brief and beautifully
penned on her very own pink notepaper.
Dear Jeannie,
I do hope you are having a wonderful time. Have you met any
glamorous people yet? If you have, I hope you write us all
about them. I want to know everything.
School is very uninteresting just now and it is cold walking to
school. But I do have that one teacher that I’m crazy about,
you know, Miss Simmons. She wears such nice clothes and her
voice is so beautiful. I can’t bear people with loud voices.
When I see her in the morning, it just wipes out all the cold
walk and everything that’s gone wrong.
I wish I could have gone away to school like you and Billie, or
at least I wish Billie was back home. Kit says it’s time to go
to bed.
Your loving sister,
Doris.
“Oh, Doris, you crazy kid,” Jean laughed to herself. The letter was
entirely typical of Doris and her vagaries.
Tommy’s letter was hurried.
Dear Jean,
We miss you awfully. Jack got hurt yesterday. His foot was
jammed when a tree fell on it. He is better now because I
helped to take care of his foot. He wasn’t hurt badly.
We go skating every day for the river is frozen over. Jack and
I and some of the other boys have been playing hockey with my
new puck that you gave me for Christmas.
Mrs. Gorham made caramel filling today the way you do and it
all ran out in the oven. She said the funniest thing. “Thunder
and lightning.” Just like that. And when I laughed, she told
me not to because she ought not to say such things, but when
cooking went wrong, she just lost her head completely. Isn’t
that funny? Bring me home a puppy. I’d love it.
Love,
Tommy.
The letter from her father was gay and cheerful and full of advice. He
did sound better, just as her mother had said.
Jeannie dear,
Although we all miss you, we seem to be getting along pretty
well. With Mrs. Gorham to help, your mother does not have too
much to do.
The Judge dropped in last evening for a visit. He says that
Billie is getting along splendidly at school. He has many new
friends and seems to like the work. Becky and the Judge, of
course, miss him as we do you, my dear.
I am in the middle of an interesting new book on world
economics. I wish you were here so that I could read parts
of it to you. Even though your art work is very important,
it is equally valuable to be well-informed on the affairs of
the world in which you live. I hope you will keep this bit of
advice in mind, for in order to be fully successful, you must
keep abreast of the times and not be so completely engrossed in
your work, that you fail to recognize what goes on around you.
But I didn’t mean to start preaching. You shall learn all this
as you study and grow older, I am sure. I expect to see great
changes in you when you return. But do not change too much so
that we won’t know you. We love you as you are, darling.
With all my love,
Dad.
Jean was quite moved by this letter, for her father was making her
responsible for her own future. It made her feel quite different
somehow, as though she was entrusted with the power to make or break
her own career.
Last of all was Kit’s letter, two sheets of penciled scribbling,
crowded together on both sides.
Hi, Jean,
I’m writing this the last thing at night when my brain is
getting calm. Any old time the poet starts singing carelessly
of the joys and beauties of the country in the wintertime, I
hope he lands on this waste spot during a January blizzard.
He’d change his mind in a hurry.
If you get your hands on any of the current fashion magazines,
be sure to send them home to us. Even if we can’t indulge,
we can dream, can’t we? I’m getting awfully tired of skirts
and sweaters. It’s high time I was allowed to burst forth in
something really stunning that would knock everybody cold.
I have a new friend, a dog. Jack says he’s just a stray, but
he isn’t. He’s a shepherd dog, and very intelligent. I’ve
named him Mac. He fights with Tommy, which is strange for that
brother of ours usually has a way with animals. I guess he’s
just a one-man dog, for he likes me alone.
I miss you in the evenings an awful lot. Doris goes around in a
sort of moon ring of romance nowadays, so it’s no fun talking
to her, and Tommy spends most of his time fooling around with
those blasted airplanes of his. His attitude toward Jack is
really wonderful, it’s almost fatherly. Did you ever wish we
had another boy in the family? I do now and then. I’d like one
about sixteen, just between us two, that I could be pals with.
Tommy’s too little. Buzzy comes the nearest to being a big
brother that I’ve ever had. That guy really had a marvelous
sense of fairness, Jean, do you realize that? I hope being out
West hasn’t changed him too much. I liked him the way he was.
I am impatient for his return. Do you feel the same way about
Ralph?
Well, my dear artistic close relative and beloved sister, it is
almost ten, so it’s time for Kathleen to turn into her lonely
cot. Give my love to Beth, and write to me personally. We can’t
bear your inclusive family letters.
Yours,
Kit.
If it hadn’t been so late, Jean felt she could have sat down then and
there, and answered every one of them. They took her straight back to
Woodhow and all the daily round of fun there. In the morning she read
parts of them to Aldo.
“Ah, but you are lucky,” Aldo said quietly when she had finished. “I am
just myself, and it’s so monotonous. I wish I could meet your family
and know them all.”
“They are a wonderful family, although I rather envy you in a way.
Sometimes it seems as if one loses individuality in a large family.”
“You shouldn’t feel that way,” replied Aldo. “Why, look, here you are
in New York about to start studying again. Isn’t that proof enough that
there is room for individuality even in a big family?”
Jean thought of this later when she was getting ready for the next day
at school and decided that Aldo was probably right. “I’ll work so hard
these next two months, that the family will be convinced that the time
was well spent. I’ll make them proud of me, or at least I’ll try.”
10. At the Art Academy
The next morning Jean took the commuter’s train into New York and found
her way to the Art Academy. The first person she ran into after she had
enrolled was Peg Moffat.
“Gosh, it’s good to see you again, Jean. I was so excited when you
wrote to say you were coming back. How long will you be here?”
“Just a couple of months, Peg. I’m taking that special course in
textile designing.”
It was now nearly a year since Jean had been a student at the art
school. She had gone into the work enthusiastically when they had lived
at the Cove on Long Island, making the trip back and forth every day.
It thrilled her to be back again for it represented so much to her, all
the aims and ambitions of a year before.
As they walked upstairs to Jean’s classroom, some of the girls
recognized her and called out. Jean waved her hand to them, but did
not stop. She was too busy looking at the sketches along the walls,
listening to the familiar sounds through open doors, Pop Higgins’ deep
laugh, Miss Weston’s clear voice calling to one of the girls, Pierre
the Frenchman, standing with his arm resting on a boy’s shoulders,
pointing out to him mistakes in underlay of shadows. Even the familiar
smell of turpentine and paint made her unbearably happy to be there.
Margaret Weston was the girls’ favorite instructor. The daughter of
an artist herself, she had been born in Florence, Italy, and brought
up there, later living in London and then Boston. Jean remembered how
delightful her talks with the girls had been when she had described her
father’s intimate circle of friends back in Italy. It had seemed so
interesting to link the past and present with one who could remember,
as a little girl, visits to all the art shrines. Jean had always been a
favorite with her. The quiet, imaginative girl had appealed to Margaret
Weston perhaps because she had the gift of visualizing the past and its
great dreamers. She took both her hands now in a firm clasp, smiling
down at her.
“Back again, Jean?”
“Only for this special course, Miss Weston,” Jean smiled a little
wistfully. “I wish it were for longer. It seems awfully good to be here
and see you all.”
“Have you done any work at all in the country?”
Had she done any work? A swift memory of the real work of Woodhow swept
over Jean, and she could have laughed.
“Not much.” She shook her head. “I sort of lost my way for a while,
there was so much else that had to be done, but I’m going to study now.”
So for two months, Jean could make believe that she was back as a
“regular.” Every morning she went to class, getting inspiration and
courage even from the teamwork. Later that first month, she was
surprised to see Aldo waiting for her at the main entrance.
“I’ve come to take you away. It is not good to bury yourself completely
in your work. It is time that you thought of something besides paint
and warp and woof.”
Jean suddenly remembered the words of her father’s first letter to her.
How he had warned her of forgetting everything but her work. “Where are
we going?” she asked.
“I have tickets to the latest Broadway play. It’s a musical and very
good, from all I hear and have read about it. But first we are going to
lunch at the Waldorf.”
Jean never forgot that afternoon with Aldo. She forgot the art school
completely while she listened to the gay tunes and witty dialogue
coming from the stage. When she returned to Elmhurst, she often
remembered that day and it made it easier for her to work at home at
everyday chores.
Later, while they were having dinner in a small Italian restaurant that
Aldo frequented often, she told him of her work. How her designs were
progressing and how she was learning to weave and how wonderful it was
to see her own designs come to life in the threads of the material on
her loom.
In return, Aldo told her of his own work. He was now working in clay
and hoped to do some real sculpture before he was through. “I want to
work in marbles, the way my father does,” he said simply. In those few
words his own ambitions were exposed.
They parted at Grand Central, Jean to go back to Beth’s in Hastings and
Aldo to take the subway uptown to his aunt’s apartment.
A few days later, Jean went home with Peg Moffat to spend the weekend
with her in her Greenwich Village studio. “Yet you can hardly call it
a studio now, since Mom came and took possession,” Peg said. “We girls
had it all nice and messy, and she keeps it in order, I tell you.”
“Somebody was needed to keep it in order,” Mrs. Moffat put in. They
were all sitting around the table after dinner that evening.
“Eloise and Janet and I kept house,” Peg put in significantly. “And,
really, talk about temperament! We had no regular meals at all, and
Eloise says if you show her crackers and pimento cheese again for a
year, she’ll simply die in her tracks. Mom has fed us up beautifully
since she came back from Miami. Real substantial food.”
“Yes and they didn’t think they needed me at all, Jean. Somehow a
mother doesn’t go with studio equipment, but this one does, and now
everyone in the block comes down to visit us. They all need mothering
now.”
Jean found the studio delightfully attractive. The ceiling was beamed
in dark oak, and a wide fireplace with a crackling wood fire made
Jean almost feel as if she were back home. There were wide shelves
lined with books on painting all around the room. At the windows hung
shrimp-colored draperies that could be pulled across on transverse rods
to shut out the night. A small spinet piano took up one corner of the
room and now Peg walked over to it and sat down to play. In the middle
of a Mozart sonata, Jean sighed heavily.
Peg stopped playing, turned around, and asked, “What is it? Tired?”
Jean’s lashes were wet with unshed tears.
“I was wishing Mother were here too,” she answered. “She loves all this
so--just as I do. It’s awfully lonesome up there sometimes without any
of this. I love the hills and the freedom, but, oh, it is so lonely.
Why, I even love to hear the horns of the cabs blowing impatiently and
the sound of the busses releasing their air brakes.”
Jean slept late the next morning, late for her at least. It was nearly
ten when Mrs. Moffat came into the large room to pull back the curtains
and say that breakfast was nearly ready.
“Did you close the big house at the Cove?” Jean asked while they were
dressing.
“Rented it furnished. With Brock away at college and me sharing this
studio with Eloise and Janet, Mother thought she’d let it go, and stay
with me when she came back from Florida. She’s over at Aunt Win’s while
I’m at classes. They’ve got an apartment overlooking Central Park
because Uncle Frank can’t bear commuting in the winter. We’ll go over
there tomorrow afternoon. Aunt Win’s up to her eyebrows in hospital
work.”
“Know something, Peg?” Jean said suddenly, “I do believe that’s what
ails Elmhurst. Nobody up there is doing anything different this winter
from what they have every winter for the last fifty years. Down here
there’s always something new and interesting going on.”
“Sure, but is that good? After a while you expect something new all the
time, and you can’t settle down to any one thing steadily. Coming,
Mom, right away.”
“Good morning, lazy things,” said Mrs. Moffat as she poured the coffee.
“I’ve had my breakfast. I’ve got two appointments this morning and must
rush.”
“Mother always mortgages tomorrow. I’ll bet anything she’s got
appointments lined up for a month ahead. What’s on for today?”
“Dentist and shopping with your Aunt Win. I’m going to have lunch with
her, so you girls will be alone. There are seats for a recital at
Carnegie Hall if you’d enjoy it. I think Jean would. It’s a Chamber
Music group. Peg only likes orchestral concerts, but if you go to this,
you might drop in later at Signa’s. It’s not far, you know, Peg, and
not a bit out of your way. Aunt Win and I will join you there.”
“Isn’t she the dearest, bustling Mother?” Peg said placidly, when they
were alone. “Sometimes I feel ages older than she is. She has as much
fun dashing around to everything as if New York were a steady sideshow.
Do you want to go?”
“I’d love to,” Jean answered frankly. “Who’s Signa?”