Folly Beach - Dorothea Benton Frank [58]
Before I met DuBose, he was here in Charleston running an insurance company he founded with a family friend Harry O’Neill, who was actually the artist Elizabeth O’Neill Verner’s brother. DuBose didn’t need a formal education. He was so naturally curious he educated himself. Then as you know, in 1920, he founded the Poetry Society with John Bennett, Hervey Allen, Josephine Pinckney, and some others. It was the founding of the Poetry Society that was the primary reason he was invited to MacDowell at all.
Well, while he was there that first summer building up a network of talent to invite to Charleston to speak, he got his head turned by that bohemian poet Elinor Wylie, just like the rest of the men there. This was before we were a couple. I mean, Elinor was beautiful and brilliant but she was a calculating vixen, always setting her sights on other women’s husbands and don’t you know, she got three for herself! She did! That’s quite a tally for the 1920s, when divorce was an absolute scandal. And according to the gossip, she also had more than a passing fondness for DuBose, explaining to him exactly what free love meant. Well, news of that little educational experience traveled back to Charleston and set the tongues on fire like a Pentecost Sunday and they’re still wagging today!
Here’s something most people don’t know. After DuBose and I were married, Josephine Pinckney told me about Elinor trying to seduce DuBose and I just kept that little gumdrop to myself. Like I didn’t know? I was there! I mean, it didn’t matter if Jo was really trying to rattle our trees, because despite Jo’s high opinion of herself, I knew DuBose. He wasn’t going anywhere. I’m sure he was very flattered by Elinor’s attention and if anything went on between them it was none of my business anyway. That’s what I politely said to Jo and for once, she closed her sassy mouth, blinked her big blue eyes, and had nothing more to say on the subject ever again. At least, not to me.
By October of 1922, DuBose was writing poetry, stunning poetry all the time, and together with his great friend Hervey Allen he published a small book of their poems together called Carolina Chansons. It sold so well everyone was absolutely astonished, especially Macmillan who was their publisher. That was the same time I got a letter from him asking if there was a chance for us. I must not have replied quickly enough because the next letter informed me he was escorting Josephine to a party! But I didn’t worry. I knew DuBose’s heart was mine.
By then, DuBose’s business was becoming rather successful, because my DuBose had wonderful natural instincts and he was keen on the details. But he was miserable. In all his letters and when we met the next time at MacDowell, all he could talk about was how he wanted to be a serious poet and that the business of insurance was suffocating him. All I could think about was when we went back to MacDowell, was Elinor Wylie going to pop out from behind the curtains, drag him into the hydrangeas, and have her way with him? After that summer, I encouraged him to quit, because I really and truly believed he was talented enough to make a living as a writer of poetry and maybe of prose as well.
But I can’t take all the credit for DuBose walking away from business, because I think life at the MacDowell Colony also played a huge part in stoking the fires of his ambition. I mean, there we all were—artists, writers, painters, composers, dancers—creative types of all kinds, summering together in the beautiful countryside of New Hampshire, practicing what we loved during the day and then getting together in the evenings, entertaining