Ms. Bell (despite countless admirers, she never married) was born in Boston to the famous Bell clan, in a five-story brownstone facing the Vincent Club, to Abbott Wentworth Ford Bell and Victoria Pendleton Theale Whitin. Her ancestors on both sides were painted by John Singer Sargent, and it was said that Ms. Bell’s tall, dark chiseled beauty suggested the elegance of another era.
She first made a reputation for being rebellious by getting kicked out of Miss Wilcox’s Academy for Girls in the tenth grade; she refused to show sufficient team spirit during volleyball practice, and encouraged other girls to follow her example. She was admitted to Radcliffe several years later, only to have Esquire magazine vote her “the most sought after date in the Ivy League.” She was also on the cover of Mademoiselle’s “College Girl” issue in 1962. After Radcliffe she was a runway model in Paris. Later on when she moved back to New York she modeled for Richard Avedon. In his series of photographs of her she wears a floor-length black velvet gown and has a stuffed swan perched on her shoulder. The late sixties took her to Hollywood, where she had bit parts in several notable movies of the period.
Some of these adventures appear in her highly autobiographical novel, Made in Paris (Random House, 1972).
In more recent years, Ms. Bell kept residences in Greenwich Village, Paris, and Sag Harbor, NY. She was a plucky world traveler and charmed flocks of friends and admirers on two continents. Her witty letters and slashing black handwriting were legendary among her correspondents. “One always looked forward to receiving her letters,” said Ellery Jones, a longtime friend of Ms. Bell’s and a New York City gossip columnist. “Her writing style was absolutely delicious.”
Longtime New Yorkers may recall Ms. Bell as that tall, striking, dark woman who used to conduct tango lessons every Wednesday afternoon in front of the angel at the Besthesda Fountain in Central Park. Her signature outfit when doing the tango was a black chiffon dress and red satin ballet pumps, from the French fashion house Lanvin.
Ms. Bell leaves numerous cousins on both the Bell and Whitin sides, but is survived by no children.
“So that explains why we all did the tango that night!” exclaimed Valentine on reading this.
“The tango?” repeated Mom and Dad. “You actually did the tango?”
“Why yes, let me show you,” said Valentine, and struck a Spanish-style pose.
A couple of months after this, I got a package from Clover.
Dear Franny, Now that Theo’s dead, maybe you’ll know why I agreed to meet Digby for that foolish sentimental lunch at the Oyster Bar last summer. I’ll tell you: because I knew that Theo was dying and he was a link to what remained of my girlhood, my past. (Which is also why I was such a wreck when Carlo my little turtle died, if you remember. Weeping over a turtle at MY advanced age!) Now, I’m afraid, nothing remains of my past all. But I’m so happy to have my memories of you and Valentine this past summer. I told you girls once that there will always be “one summer” you’ll remember. Now I have two!
I hope you find the enclosed pretty. I made it just for you, Franny, with your own style of beauty in mind.
All my love, Clover Inside the package there was a dear little box, two bluish-pink oyster shells with a tiny gold hinge. A jewelry box! How sweet of Clover. All my life I hoped to be able to look at it and think to myself those ravishing words: That was the summer when—
Epilogue
Boucher’s Seasons
Three years later I’m visiting New York City again.
Now, at seventeen, I’ve come East to look at schools; my first choice is Sarah Lawrence. I thought of going to Bennington, like Clover, but I just don’t think I could stand being in Vermont. I’m still a city girl. I also came to New York to visit Val, who is a now junior at Barnard.
Val is dating someone new—she’s always dating someone new, or so it seems to me—and I have a boyfriend back in San Francisco I met at music camp. After that summer in New York, our parents sent us straight back to that camp—no more adventures for a while. But something had happened to me that summer and forever afterward I knew I didn’t want to be a singer; after coming back from New York, I wanted to be a writer. What had happened to Valentine eventually happened to me. I filled out, rejected the pixie cut Clover had insisted I get that summer, and grew my hair long again. Even if it is not quite as “sophisticated” long, Teddy—my boyfriend—likes running his fingers through it, and I’m at the age where things like that are much more important to me.