Folly Beach - Dorothea Benton Frank [72]
“Got a minute?” I said.
“Sure. How’s it going?”
“Well, I have to say, it’s a little overwhelming! I mean, just how poor were the Heywards?”
“Good question. I know it’s been said that many nights DuBose went to bed hungry. But in those days, around the Depression, Charleston was still dealing with the poverty from the Civil War. People said the Great Depression went almost unnoticed in Charleston.”
“That’s poor.”
“Yep. But most people were in the same boat.”
“Mary Jo?”
“Hmmm?”
“Do you think DuBose’s mother encouraged him to drop out of school?”
“Well, there’s nothing in these papers that directly says that but I’ve always thought so. I mean, he wasn’t a very good student and he was sick all the time, so what was the point of going to school? And she needed help.”
“I guess. I’m just trying to get a sense of who they really were, Dorothy and DuBose, I mean.”
Mary Jo put her books on the table and sat down in an old oak chair opposite me.
“Well, their reputation was that they were both terribly shy and self-deprecating. Very sweet.”
“Oh, please. I’ve read enough here to know that isn’t entirely so. I mean, they were diminutive in stature . . .”
“Between us? I think he might have had a food issue.”
“Yeah, there wasn’t enough to go around.”
“That, too. Although in those days, thinness was definitely equated with chic.”
“It still is. For women anyway.”
“Yes, well, I’ve thought about them a lot. Seems like he sure wanted to look dapper. But then there was the health thing, with both of them really.”
“How bad was it?”
“Well, he had typhoid fever, dengue fever, terrible polio, and a whopping case of arthritis. Plus his left arm was a fright. Check out the boxes of pictures with Gershwin. And she had some very high blood pressure and impressive rheumatoid arthritis. She was frequently on bed rest because of exhaustion. I think they thought in those days that less weight on your joints would ease pain.”
“You also go to bed if you’re weak from hunger.”
“True. You know, it’s like they’re still here, in these walls.”
“No. They’re out on Folly Beach. And I have this peculiar feeling that Dorothy is trying to tell me something. I’m living in the Porgy House on Folly. Did I tell you that?”
“No! Oh my! Is that what brought you here?”
“Yes. That and I’ve made friends with a fellow from the College of Charleston who thinks I’d find them fascinating and I do,” I said and Mary Jo stood then. “Do you think I could have a box of letters from Dorothy to DuBose?”
The afternoon was fading and soon I would have to leave but I wanted to take a fast look at Dorothy’s letters first.
“There are none.”
“What?”
“Yep. DuBose didn’t save her letters. She saved his.”
“Oh no.” The son of a bitch, I thought, isn’t that just like a man?
“Well, it is actually interesting, because it might suggest that he never thought her letters would be the subject of any research or debate.”
“Or maybe because he didn’t want the world to see how brilliant she was?”
“Now, there’s a thought. Who knows? Maybe she destroyed them after he died? Remember she outlived him by twenty years.”
“Why would she do that?” I said, a little saddened by the suggestion.
“Who knows? Maybe because she wanted the world to remember him as the genius, not her?”
I sat there for a moment, considering the weight of what she suggested. Then I began gathering up my notes and pencils but was suddenly overcome with surprise and confusion. Had Dorothy Heyward destroyed her own letters because she loved DuBose Heyward that much? What was she trying to do? Control the spin? Why, when she seemed to me, at least thus far, to be such a bold and liberated woman for her time . . . why would she hide her light under her husband’s bushel?
Had I just stumbled on the greatest love story in Charleston’s literary history? If so, just how could I prove it?
Later, as I drove to my son’s house, I tried to shift my attention to the evening but the truth was that I was almost completely preoccupied with my search