Dearest Ralph,
I know you’ll want to know all about my trip. Beth met me at Grand Central Station and we drove out here to Hastings. Honestly, Ralph, when I saw the house, I had to blink my eyes. It looks as if it belonged right out on the North Shore at the Cove. The lawn sweeps down at the back to the cliffs where you can look right down at the Hudson. And inside the house it is summertime even now. They have flowers everywhere you look, because they raise their own. Beth says she’ll give me slips from her rosebushes and I can start a sunken rose garden.
A most interesting artist friend of Beth’s has come out to spend the weekend here. His name is Aldo Thomas—the Aldo because his mother is an Italian countess and the Thomas because his father is an American sculptor. He has been telling me all about Italy and his father’s statues.
Monday I begin my course at the Academy and I am so excited, although it seems as though I have forgotten all I have learned. I have to keep reminding myself that all of this is really happening to me. I woke up this morning completely bewildered for I thought I was still back in Elmhurst.
I hope to see Peg Moffat while I am here. Of course I shall probably see her at school, but I won’t have much opportunity to really talk to her there. She has a studio in Greenwich Village that I am simply dying to see.
Even with all these new things to do and see and learn I still miss you terribly. And June seems such a long way off. I wish it were tomorrow that you were coming back so that you could enjoy this with me. But since that is impossible I shall write you everything that happens while I’m here.
All my love,
Jeannie
8. Jean Meets a Contessa
“I’ve just had a telephone call from your aunt, the Contessa,” Beth said to Aldo at breakfast Saturday morning. “She sends an invitation to us for this afternoon, a private view of paintings and sculpture at Henri Morel’s studio. She knew him in Italy and France, and he leaves for the west coast on Monday. There will be a small reception and tea, nothing too formal, Jean, so dress well, hold up your chin and turn out your toes, and behave with credit to your chaperon. It is your debut.”
Aldo looked at her quite seriously, but Jean caught the flutter of fun in her eyes, and knew it would not be as ceremonious as it sounded. When she was ready that afternoon she slipped into Beth’s own bedroom, at the south end of the house. Here were three rooms, all so different, and each showing a distinct phase of character. One was her winter studio. This was a large sunny room, paneled in soft-toned pine, with a wood-brown rug on the floor, and all the treasures accumulated abroad during her years there of study and travel. In this room Jean used to find the girl Beth, who had ventured forth after the laurels of genius, and found success awaiting her with love back in Hastings.
The second room was a private sitting room, comfortable furniture, and window boxes filled with blooming hyacinths. Here were framed photographs of family and friends, a portrait of Elliott over the desk, his class colors on the wall, and intimate snapshots he had sent her. This was the mother’s and wife’s room. And the last was her bedroom. Here Jean found her dressing. All in black, with a bunch of violets pinned to her waist. She turned and looked at Jean critically.
“I only had this new green suit,” said Jean. “I thought with a sort of feminine blouse it would look all right.”
The blouse was white handkerchief linen with folded-back cuffs that were edged with Irish crochet lace. Above it Jean’s eager face framed in brown hair, her brown eyes, small imperative chin with its deep cleft, and look of interest that Kit called “questioning curiosity,” all seemed accentuated.
“It’s just right, dear,” said Beth. “Go get a yellow jonquil to wear.”
There was a clean smell of fresh snow in the air as they drove along the highway to New York that afternoon. Once Aldo called out in surprise. A pair of sparrows teetered on a fence rail, bickering with each other.