Beatrice: The Untold Story of a Legendary Woman of Mystery By Sheldon Bart. Buy the book.
CHAPTER TWO EXCERPT CONTINUED:
Andrew Turner died in Philadelphia at the end of the summer season of 1913. He had returned to Philadelphia on a Saturday late in September to open the Spruce Street townhouse; his wife and daughter remained in Newport. He was found dead the next day. Before he died, he had written a poem:
I dreamed I dwelt in a house of black
Located in the land of Arcadia
And absolutely nothing did it lack
For I was with my two sweethearts
I awoke and found I was in a house of brown
Far from loving glances and melodious voices
O when we are so far from those that we love
Don't such dreams last until we meet again?
The "house of brown" was obviously the brownstone townhouse at 2322 Spruce Street. But the "house of black" must have seemed inexplicable to the Turner women. Newport, carefree and bucolic in the years prior to World War I, was the "land of Arcadia" where Andrew had left his "two sweethearts," but Cliffside was patently not a "house of black." Why did he picture it that way? Did he know he was going to die? Spiritualism was very much in vogue in polite society in this period. Could mother and daughter have been persuaded that these lines were written after he died? In any event, for reasons that have not been clarified to this day, the Turners apparently interpreted the poem to mean that Cliffside must become a "house of black" and had it painted black.
Their Newport neighbors were aghast. Naturally, they were unware of the poem. Matters weren't helped by the fact that Beatrice had painted a portrait of her father in death. She was then 25. There were rumors that she had had the embalmed remains propped in a chair and supported by pillows to accomplish this, and that she would not permit the burial to take place until the portrait was finished. The house was not repainted in Beatrice Turner's lifetime.
Life With Mother ... "Beatrice" Continues (Coming Soon) . Buy the book.
