The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll by Jean Nathan

Author:Jean Nathan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466845305
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

The cover and opening scene from a mock-up of “Spring Fever,” 1956, which would later become The Lonely Doll.

The photographs lend credibility to the proceedings, but an ambiguity remains. Is it possible that the arrival of the teddy bears—the entire story, for that matter—is the work of a lonely doll’s imagination? This ambiguity is reminiscent of other dream worlds made real in stories like The Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, and Alice in Wonderland. But while the characters in those books fear a wicked witch or an evil pirate or a pack of cards led by a queen with a decapitation obsession, Edith’s fear is far more concrete. She is terrified that Mr. Bear will take Little Bear and walk out the door.

* * *

In photography Dare had found her medium, and in Edith she had found her muse. The camera provided the necessary intermediary, not just a shield to block out the world but a filter. She could use the camera to invent a universe, to control and arrange it as she wanted it to be. To the universe Edie had constructed out of fabric and makeup, canvas and paint, Dare added the elements of camera, film, Edith, and two teddy bears. Dare was coming closer to finding herself than she ever had before. Edie’s muse had become an artist in her own right.

Engaged as Dare was with her book project, however, there was no thought of skipping the annual summer vacation with her mother. When Edie learned that the Seawells were headed to England that summer, she decided she and Dare, too, would go abroad; they would accept Gayelord Hauser and Frey Brown’s open invitation to their house in Taormina. Before heading to Sicily, however, Edie, who had not been overseas since the 1930s, and Dare, who had not been since the ill-fated trip to visit Philip a decade earlier, would occupy themselves in England. Edie wanted to visit Bristol, to meet with Sir Philip Morris—who still had not come through with the promised commission to paint the Queen—and she wanted to see her portrait of Churchill in situ. Dare wanted to introduce her mother to Marie and Brian Sandeman.

On July 25, 1956, the Wrights and the Seawells sailed out of New York harbor on the Île de France. That evening, as the Seawells lay in bed, Genie, who had never been on an ocean liner before, fretted because they had skipped the lifeboat drill. Despite Donald’s reassurances, she was unable to sleep. At 1 A.M., she wandered over to the cabin porthole. “A great ship is sinking,” she exclaimed. The Stockholm and the Andrea Doria had collided. The Seawells ran to tell Edie and Dare, and the foursome gathered with other passengers on deck to behold the Andrea Doria lying on her side, blazing with lights, and lifeboats plying back and forth, packed with stunned passengers in coats thrown on over their sleepwear.

As the Île de France staff worked frantically to bring Andrea Doria passengers aboard, the

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