_The Last Lady of Mulberry_
[Illustration: Flowers for a Neapolitan of the Porto!
(See page 53.)]
_The Last Lady
of Mulberry_
_A Story of Italian New York_
_By Henry Wilton Thomas_
_Illustrated by Emil Pollak_
_New York_
_D. Appleton and Company_
_1900_
COPYRIGHT, 1900
BY HENRY WILTON THOMAS
_All rights reserved_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--A GODDESS SCORNED 1
II.--CASA DI BELLO 18
III.--A SPOT OF YELLOW PAINT 37
IV.--JUNO THE SUPERB 44
V.--THE FIRST LADY 57
VI.--CAROLINA RESOLVES TO GO COURTING 75
VII.--A FLUTTER IN THE TOMATO BANK 82
VIII.--JUNO PERFORMS A MIRACLE 94
IX.--THE PERPETUA MEETS A BEAR 102
X.--BIRTH OF THE LAST LADY 114
XI.--A RACE TO THE SWIFT 123
XII.--THE PEACE PRESERVED 143
XIII.--THE PEACE DISTURBED 153
XIV.--YELLOW BOOTS AND ORANGE BLOSSOMS 172
XV.--FAILURE OF BANCA TOMATO 186
XVI.--THE LAST LADY UNMASKED 211
XVII.--THE FALCON SAVES THE DOVE 228
XVIII.--AT THE ALTAR OF SAN PATRIZIO 238
XIX.--EVENTS WAIT UPON THE DANDELIONS 255
XX.--A HOUSE DIVIDED 268
XXI.--THE FEAST OF SPRINGTIDE 278
XXII.--CAROLINA CONSTRUCTS A DRAMA 292
XXIII.--A PARTNERSHIP IN TEN-INCH ST. PETERS 308
XXIV.--TWO TROUBLESOME WEDDING GIFTS 314
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
Flowers for a Neapolitan of the Porto! _Frontispiece_
Would Genoa be the same when his Juno and Peacock
should be there? 5
Bertino’s arrival at Paradise Park 20
The bear-tamer’s wife 109
“A broken leg! _Dio Santo!_” 111
It was a wild thrust 170
Bridget in _balia_ array 189
Jack Tar’s ignoble end 196
The Last Lady as Queen of the Feast 287
THE LAST LADY OF MULBERRY
CHAPTER I
A GODDESS SCORNED
ALL Armando knew of sculpture he had learned from his uncle Daniello, a
mountain craftsman who never chiselled anything greater than a ten-inch
Saint Peter. At night in the tavern on the craggy height, with a flask
of _barbera_ before him, the old carver would talk grandly of his
doings in art, while his comrades, patient of the oft-told tale, nodded
their heads in listless but loyal accord. They all knew very well
that it was young Armando who did most of the carving, yet they cried
“Bravo!” for old Daniello’s wine was good. And so it had been for a
long time. While the lad chipped all day in a little workshop perched
beyond the nether cloud shadows, his uncle passed the hours in Genoa,
where, by sharp wits and bland tongue, he transmuted the marble into
silver.
But Armando had a soul that looked far above the gleaming tonsures of
ten-inch Saint Peters. Wherefore he was unhappy. When his twentieth
birthday dawned it seemed to him that his life had been a failure.
One morning, after a night of much _barbera_ and noisy gasconade, old
Daniello did not wake up, and two days afterward they laid him to rest
in the sloping graveyard in the gorge by the olive-oil mill.
Gloomily Armando weighed the situation, standing by the mullioned
window of the room wherein he had toiled so long and ignobly. Far
in the western distance he could see the ships that seemed to glide
with full sails across the mountains. The serene midsummer vapours,
pendulous above the Mediterranean, were visible, but the sea upon
which their shadows fell and lingered was hidden from his view by a
thicket of silver firs. Southward the trees stood lower, and over their
tops, where tired sea gulls circled, he gazed sadly toward the jumble
of masonry that is Genoa.
Miles below in the sun glare the city lay this morning as Heine found
it decades ago, like the bleached skeleton of some thrown-up monster
of the deep. And a monster it was in the sight of the poor lad who
looked down from the heights of Cardinali--but a monster that he would
conquer, even as Saint George, champion of Genoa, had conquered the
dragon in ages far agone. Yes, he would strike off for evermore the
chains that fettered him to ten-inch Saint Peters, and mount to the
white peaks of art! In the Apennine hamlet he had lived all his days,
and never heard of Balzac; but he clinched his fist, and, with eyes set
upon the cluster of chimney pots at the mountain’s foot, made his vow:
“In this room, O Genoa! will I bring forth a marble that shall make
you do me honour.”
Then he felt uplifted--as though he had burned the bridges that hung
between his old ignominy and the straight path to fame and riches. The
vow was still fervid and strong within him when, two days afterward,
he beheld in a shop window of Genoa a photograph of Falguière’s great
marble, Juno and the Peacock. Before the divine contours of Jupiter’s
helpmeet the simple-hearted graver of saintly images stood enchanted.
Presently, as though spoken by a keen, mysterious voice from the upper
air, there pierced his consciousness the word “Replica!” Again and
again was it repeated, each time with a new insistence. Ah, a copy of
this in marble! Yes; with such a masterpiece he would begin his ascent
to the white peaks. He bought the photograph, put it in his pocket and
kept it there until he was beyond the city’s bounds and trudging up the
causeway toward Cardinali. Now and then he took out the picture,
regarded it fondly, and, peering back at the town, asked himself if
Genoa would look the same when his Juno and the Peacock should be
there. Would the soft murmur of that drowsy mass have the same note?
Would the people move with the same pace, eat, sleep, and drink as they
had always done? He was inclined to think they would not.
[Illustration: Would Genoa be the same when his Juno and Peacock should
be there?]
For a twelvemonth, through early tides and late shifts, he modelled and
chipped: in winter, when the demoniac mistral, raging all about him,
shook the workshop and snapped the boughs of the cypresses; in summer,
when the ortolan and the wood-thrush cheered him with their song. And
the little group of neighbours, from whom he guarded his great artistic
secret, marvelled that no more Saint Peters came forth from their
time-honoured birthplace.
Only two persons in Cardinali besides Armando had knowledge of the
momentous affair that was going forward. One was Bertino, a fair-haired
youth of the sculptor’s age, who busied his hands by day plaiting
Lombardian straw into hats, and his head by night dreaming of America
and showering cornucopias of gold. He was Armando’s bosom friend. The
other confidant was Bertino’s foster sister Marianna, somewhat demure
for a mountain lass, and subject to thinking spells. Beauty she had,
notably on feast days, when she walked to church with a large-rayed
comb in her braided chestnut waterfall, a gorgeous striped apron, and
clattering half-sabots, freshly scraped and polished to a shine. She,
too, plaited straw, and with it wove many love thoughts and sighs for
Armando.
At last the stately goddess and her long-tailed companion stood
triumphant in all the candour of marble not wholly spotless. The hour
of unveiling it to the astonished gaze of Bertino and Marianna was the
happiest that the ruler of Armando’s fate permitted him for many a day
thereafter. The bitterness and crushing disillusion came on the day
that he loaded the carved treasure on the donkey cart of Sebastiano
the carrier, and followed Juno and the Peacock down the mountain pass
to the haven of his sweet anticipation.
“He has been saving up his Saint Peters,” said Michele the Cobbler to a
group of mystified neighbours as the cart passed his shop. “See, he has
a box full of them. I wonder how many saints one can cut out in a year.
Ah, well, it was not thus that his uncle Daniello did, nor his father
before him. Shall I tell you what I think, my friends? Well, I think
that boy is going wrong.”
“Ah, _si_,” was the unanimous voice.
“May your success be great, Armando mine!” said Bertino when they
parted at the first curve of the pass. “Perhaps against your return I
shall have famous news from America. Who knows? Good fortune be with
you. _Addio._”
“The saints be with you to a safe return,” said Marianna. “_Addio_, and
good fortune.”
“_Addio, carissimi amici._”
Sebastiano the carrier lifted the block from the wheel and the donkey
moved on. Armando walked behind, keeping a watchful eye on the thing
in the cart, which was in every shade of the term a reduced replica of
Falguière’s inspiration.
“You must be very careful, Sebastiano,” said he. “Never in your life
have you had such a valuable load on your cart.”
“Bah!” growled the driver. “Valuable! How many have you there? Are
they all the same size? Do you mean to say that I never had a load as
valuable as a boxful of Saint Peters? Oh, _bello_! Only last week did I
haul a barrel of fine _barolo_ to the Inn of the Fat Calf. Ah, my dear,
that is a wine. Wee-ah! wee-ah!--Go on, you lazy one. That donkey is
too careful.”
They reached their destination in Genoa without mishap. When the art
dealer who had consented to look at it had bestowed on Armando’s work
of a year a momentary survey, he turned to the sculptor, who stood hat
in hand, and regarded him earnestly.
“Who told you to do this, dear young man?” he asked, removing his
eyeglasses.
“Nobody, signore. It was my own idea.”
The merchant turned to Juno with a new interest.
“Not so bad as it might have been,” he shrugged, moving aside to view
the figures in profile. “What is your name? Signor Corrini. Well--but,
my dear young man, it will be a long time, perhaps years, before you
are able to do work of this kind. Naturally, I could not permit it
to remain in my place. What else have you done? Something smaller, I
suppose.”
Armando strove hard to keep them back, but the sobs choked him.
While the merchant stood by, offering words meant to comfort, but which
added to his anguish, he replaced the marble in the box and nailed the
lid before rousing Sebastiano from his _siesta_ in the cart.
“It all comes of keeping the saints too long,” grumbled the carrier,
as he helped lift Juno and the Peacock back into the cart. “Never did
your uncle Daniello have any thrown on his hands--not he. Ah, there was
a man of affairs!”
The donkey tugged at the chain traces, moved the wheels a spoke or two,
then stopped and looked around at the driver, wagging his grizzled ears
in mute but eloquent disapproval of hauling a load skyward. But after
duly weighing the matter, assisted by several clean-cut hints from a
rawhide lash, he set off at his own crablike pace.
The first turning of the highway attained, Armando paused and gazed on
the city below, his heart aflood with bitterness. Far to the westward
the sun, in variant crimson tones, lay hidden under the sea, like the
last, loftiest dome of some sinking Atlantis. In every white hamlet of
the slopes the Angelus was ringing. Night birds from Africa wheeled
around the towering snares set for them by the owners of the olive
terraces and villas, whose yellow walls in long stretches bordered the
steep route. With his little group of living and inanimate companions
Armando trudged along, his head bowed, silent as the marble in the
cart. The gloaming quiet was unbroken, save for the gluck of the wheels
and the distant chant of the belfries.
They were yet a long way from the outermost cot of Cardinali when
a resounding shout brought the donkey to a standstill and startled
Sebastiano into a “_Per Bacco_!”
It was the voice of Bertino. He was rounding a curve in the road,
brandishing a piece of folded paper, and clattering toward them as fast
as he could in his heavy wooden shoes. His radiant face proclaimed that
something had happened to fill him with gladness. A few paces behind
came Marianna, but in her eyes there was no token of joy. She had
beheld the loaded cart.
“Long live my uncle!” cried Bertino, grasping Armando’s hand. “The
letter has come, and I’m off for America. Think of it, Armando _mio_,
I, Bertino Manconi, going to America! It is no longer a dream. I am
to go--go, do you understand? The money is here, and nothing can stop
me. But come, you do not seem happy to hear of my great good fortune.
I know, dear friend, you are sorry to lose me. Bah! one can not live
in the mountains all his life, and perhaps you too will be there some
day--some day when your Juno is sold. To-night all my friends shall
drink a glass of _spumante_ to my voyage--yes, the real _spumante_ of
Asti. At the Inn of the Fat Calf will I say _addio_, for I set sail
to-morrow. Tell me, now, do you not count me a lucky devil?”
“You are lucky,” said Armando sadly. “I wish I could go. My own country
does not want me.”
Marianna walked at the tail of the cart. While her brother was talking
she had lifted the box in the hope that it might, after all, be only
the empty one that he was bringing back; but the weight of it told her
the truth she had read in Armando’s face.
“The beast!” she said, “to refuse such a fine thing as that. What
did----”
Armando signalled silence, and pointed to Sebastiano, who walked ahead.
By this time Bertino understood, and he too exclaimed:
“The beast!”
“Who’s a beast?” asked the muleteer.
“That art merchant, whoever he is. Bah! What would you have? In this
country a fellow has no chance. What a fool one is to stay here!”
“No, no; the country is good,” said Sebastiano, shaking his head and
jerking a thumb toward Armando. “But what can you expect when one keeps
his Saint Peters a whole year?”
The others exchanged knowing glances and followed on in silence. The
rest of the way it was plain to all who saw Bertino pass that he was
thinking very hard, and with the product of this mental exertion he was
fairly bursting by the time they reached Armando’s home, for he had not
dared to speak in presence of the carrier. When Juno and the Peacock
had been restored to their birthplace he began:
“Now, listen to me, _amici_, for I have an idea. I am going to America.
Is not that so?”
“Yes; you are going to America. Well?”
“Patience. You know that as the assistant of my uncle in his great shop
in New York I shall be rather a bigger man than I am here. Who knows
what I may become?”
“Ah, _si_; who knows?” said Marianna.
“Listen. Now, let us have a thought together. Here is Armando. He is a
fine sculptor. We know that. The proof is here.” He tapped the big box.
“But in Genoa they are too stupid and too poor to buy his magnificent
work. Now, in America people are neither stupid nor poor. Why can he
not make a fortune in America?”
“I can’t go to America,” said Armando.
“No; he can’t go to America,” chimed in Marianna. “What a foolish
idea!”
“Excuse me. Who wants him to go to America? He stays in Cardinali and
makes statues. I go to New York and sell them. Now, my dears, do you
see which way the swallow is flying?”
“But----”
“But----”
“But nothing. Do you think that I, who sail for America to-morrow, do
not know what I am about? Listen. What do you suppose I was doing on
the way up? Well, I was thinking. I have thought it all out. I ask you
this, Armando: Juno and the Peacock you made from a photograph? Very
well; can you not make other things from photographs? From New York I
shall send you the picture of some great American; some one as great
as--as great as----”
“Crespi,” suggested Armando, now interested in the project.
“Crespi? No, no. Some one greater, like--like----”
“D’Annunzio,” Armando ventured again.
“Bah! Who is he? I mean some one very great, like----”
“I know!” cried Marianna. “Like the Pope!”
“No, no,” persisted Bertino. “It must be some man as big as Garibaldi.
That’s it. But not a dead Garibaldi. He must be alive, so that I may
sell him the bust that you will make of him. What would you do with a
man like that, for example?”
“Well,” said Armando, pausing and looking up at the ceiling, as though
weighing the matter carefully, “I should make a very fine bust of such
a man.”
“Bravo!” cried Bertino. “With a piece of your best work for a sample,
how long should I be getting orders for more? Not many days, I promise.
And the Americans have gold. What say you, my friend? Is it not a grand
idea?”
“_Si, si_; a grand idea.”
In truth it loomed before Armando as the chance of his life. Now as
ardent as the other, he agreed to begin work upon a bust in marble
so soon as he should receive from America a photograph of the chosen
subject. When finished he would send it to New York, there to be put on
exhibition and offered for sale.
That afternoon the Saale steamed from Genoa Bay with Bertino a steerage
passenger. Some time after the ship had swung from her quay Armando and
Marianna looked from the studio window over the cypress fringe toward
the gap in the mountains that shows the sails of ships but conceals the
Mediterranean’s waves. Presently a black bar of smoke moving lazily
across the aperture told them that he was on his way.
Near the window a block of Carrara marble glistened pure and white in
the sunlight. Armando wondered what manner of being he should release
from it--a President, a money king, or a great American beauty?