UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY
With whatever emotion Jane Blair had received the startling demand upon
her hospitality she rallied nobly to the family call. She left her
daughter in the Adirondacks where they were summering and descended upon
her husband in his New York office to rout him out to meet the girl with
her.
"An infernal shame--that's what I call it!" Jim Blair grumbled, facing
the steaming heat of the unholy customs shed. "It's an outrage--an
imposition----"
"Oh, not all that, Jim! Lucy--that's the mother--and I used to visit
like this when we were girls. It was done then," his wife replied with
an air of equable amusement.
She added, "I rather think I did most of the visiting. I was awf'ly fond
of Lucy."
"That's different. You'll have a total stranger on your hands. . . . Are
you sure she speaks English?"
"Oh, dear yes, she speaks English--don't you remember her in Rome? She
was the littlest one. All the children speak English, Lucy wrote, except
Francisco who is 'very Italian,' which means he is a fascinating
spendthrift like the father, I suppose. . . . I imagine," said Mrs.
Blair, "that Lucy has not found life in a palace all a bed of roses."
"I remember the palace. . . . Warming pans!" said Mr. Blair grimly.
His ill-humor lasted until the first glimpse of Maria Angelina's slender
figure, and the first glance of Maria Angelina's trustfully appealing
eyes.
"Welcome to America," he said then very heartily, both his hands closing
over the small fingers. "Welcome--_very_ welcome, my dear."
And though Maria Angelina never knew it and Cousin Jane Blair never
told, that was Maria Angelina's first American triumph.
Some nine hours afterwards a stoutish gentleman in gray and a thinnish
lady in beige and a fragile looking girl in white wound their way from
the outer to the inner circle of tables next the dancing floor of the
Vandevoort.
The room was crowded with men in light serge and women in gay summer
frocks; bright lights were shining under pink shades and sprays of pink
flowers on every table were breathing a faint perfume into an air
already impregnated with women's scents and heavy with odors of rich
food. Now and then a saltish breeze stole through the draped windows on
the sound but was instantly scattered by the vigor of the hidden,
whirling fans.
Behind palms an orchestra clashed out the latest Blues and in the
cleared space couples were speeding up and down to the syncopations,
while between tables agile waiters balanced overloaded trays or whisked
silver covers off scarlet lobsters or lit mysterious little lights
below tiny bubbling caldrons.
Maria Angelina's soft lips were parted with excitement and her dark eyes
round with wondering. This, indeed, was a new world. . . .
It was gay--gayer than the Hotel Excelsior at Rome! It was a carnival of
a dinner!
Ever since morning, when the cordiality of the new-found cousins had
dissipated the first forlorn homesickness of arrival, she had been
looking on at scenes that were like a film, ceaselessly unrolling.
After luncheon, Cousin Jim with impulsive hospitality had carried her
off to see the Big Town--an expedition from which his wife relievedly
withdrew--and he had whirled Maria Angelina about in motors, plunged her
into roaring subways, whisked her up dizzying elevators and brought her
out upon unbelievable heights, all the time expounding and explaining
with that passionate, possessive pride of the New Yorker by adoption,
which left his young guest with the impression that he owned at least
half the city and was personally responsible for the other half.
It had been very wonderful but Maria had expected New York to be
wonderful. And she was not interested, save superficially, in cities.
Life was the stuff her dreams were made on, and life was unfolding
vividly to her eager eyes at this gay dinner, promising her enchanted
senses the incredible richness and excitement for which she had come.
And though she sat up very sedately, like a well-behaved child in the
midst of blazing carnival, her glowing face, her breathless lips and
wide, shining eyes revealed her innocent ardors and young expectancies.
She was very proud of herself, in the midst of all the prideful
splendor, proud of her new, absurdly big white hat, of her new, absurdly
small white shoes, and of her new, white mull frock, soft and clinging
and exquisite with the patient embroidery of the needlewoman.
Its low cut neck left her throat bare and about her throat hung the
string of white coral that her father had given her in parting--white
coral, with a pale, pale pink suffusing it.
"Like a young girl's dreams," Santonini had said. "Snowy white--with a
blush stealing over them."
That was so like dear Papa! What dreams did he think his daughter was to
have in this New World upon her golden quest? And yet, though Maria
Angelina's mocking little wit derided, her young heart believed somehow
in the union of all the impossibilities. Dreams and blushes . . . and
good fortune. . . .
Strange food was set before her; delicious jellied cold soups, and
scarlet lobsters with giant claws; and Maria Angelina discovered that
excitement had not dulled her appetite.
The music sounded again and Cousin Jim asked her to dance. Shyly she
protested that she did not know the American dances, and then, to her
astonishment, he turned to his wife, and the two hurried out upon the
floor, leaving her alone and unattended at that conspicuous table.
That was American freedom with a vengeance! She sat demurely, not daring
to raise her lashes before the scrutiny she felt must be beating upon
her, until her cousins returned, warm-faced and breathless.
"You'll learn all this as soon as you get to the Lodge," Cousin Jim
prophesied, in consolation.
Maria Angelina smiled absently, her big eyes brilliant. Unconsciously
she was wondering what dancing could mean to these elders of hers. . . .
Dancing was the stir of youth . . . the carnival of the blood . . . the
beat of expectancy and excitement. . . .
"Why, there's Barry Elder!" Cousin Jane gave a quick cry of pleasure.
"Barry Elder?"
Cousin Jim turned to look, and Maria Angelina looked too, and saw a
young man making his way to their table. He was a tall, thin, brown
young man with close-cropped curly brown hair, and very bright, deep-set
eyes. He was dressed immaculately in white with a gay tie of lavender.
"Barry? _You_ in town?" Cousin Jane greeted him with an exaggerated
astonishment as he shook her hand.
Maria Angelina noted that he did not kiss it. She had read that this was
not done openly in America but was a mark of especial tenderness.
"Why not?" he retorted promptly. "You seem to forget, dear lady, that I
am again a wor-rking man, without whom the World's Greatest Daily would
lose half its circulation. Of course I'm here."
"I thought you might be taking a vacation--in York Harbor," she said,
laughing.
"Oh, cat!" he derided. "Kitty, kitty, kitty."
"Don't let her kid you, Barry," advised Cousin Jim, delving into his
lobster.
"But since you _are_ here," went on Cousin Jane, "you can meet my little
cousin from Italy, which is the reason why we are here. Her boat came in
this morning and she has never been away from home before. Mr. Elder,
the Signorina Santonini."
"Welcome to the city, Signorina," said the young man, with a quick,
bright smile, stooping to gaze under the huge, white hat. He had odd
eyes, not large, but vivid hazel, with yellow lights in them.
"How do you like New York? What do you think of America? What is your
opinion of prohibition and the uniformity of divorce laws? Have you ever
written _vers libre_? Are----"
"Barry, stop bombarding the child!" exclaimed Mrs. Blair. "You are the
first young man she has met in America. Stop making her fear the race."
"Take him away and dance with him, Jane," said Mr. Blair. "This was
probably prearranged, you know."
If he believed it, he looked very tranquil, the startled Maria Angelina
thought, surprised into an upward glance. The two men were smiling very
frankly at each other. Mrs. Blair did not protest but rose, remarking,
"Come, Barry, since we are discovered. You can have something cool
afterwards."
"I'll have little Cousin afterwards," said Barry Elder. "I want to be
the first young man she has danced with in America."
"You won't be the last," Mr. Blair told him with a twinkling glance at
Maria Angelina's lovely little face.
"One of Jane's youngsters," he added, explanatorily to her. "She always
has a lot around--she says they are the companions her son would have
had if she'd had one."
Then, before Maria Angelina's polite but bewildered attention, he said
more comprehensibly, "You'll find Jane a lot younger than Ruth . . .
Barry's a clever chap--special work on one of the papers. Was in the
aviation. Did a play that fluked last year. Too much Harvard in it, I
expect. But a clever chap, very clever. Like him," he added decisively.
Maria Angelina had heard of Harvard. Her mother's father had been a
Harvard man. But she did not understand just why too much Harvard would
make a play fluke nor what a play did when it fluked, but she asked no
questions and sat very still, looking out at the dancing couples.
She saw her Cousin Jane whirling past. She tried to imagine her mother
dancing with young men at the Hotel Excelsior and she could not. Already
she wondered if she had better write everything.
Then the dancing pair came back to them and the young man sat down and
talked a little to her cousins. But at the music's recommencement he
turned directly to her.
"Signorina, are you going to do me the honor?"
He had a merry way with him as if he were laughing ever so little at
her, and Maria Angelina's heart which had been beating quite fast before
began to skip dizzily.
She thanked Heaven that it was a waltz for, while the new steps were
unknown, Maria could waltz--that was a gift from Papa.
"With pleasure, Signor," she murmured, rising.
"But you must take off your hat," Mrs. Blair told her.
"My hat? Take off?"
"That brim is too wide, my dear. You couldn't dance."
"But to go bareheaded--like a peasant?" Maria Angelina faltered and they
laughed.
"It doesn't matter--it's much better than that brim," Mrs. Blair
pronounced and obediently Maria's small hands rose and removed the
overshadowing whiteness from the dark little head with its coronet of
heavy braids.
She did not raise her eyes to see Barry Elder's sudden flash of
astonishment. Shyly she slipped within his clasp and let him swing her
out into the circle of dancers.
Maria Angelina could waltz, indeed. She was fairy-footed, and for some
moments Barry Elder was content to dance without speaking; then he bent
his head closer to those dark braids.
"So I am the first young man you have met in America?"
Maria Angelina looked up through her lashes in quick gayety.
"It is my first day, Signor!"
"Your first American--Ah, but on the boat! There must have been young
men on that boat, American young men?"
"On that boat? Signor!" Maria Angelina laughed mischievously. "One reads
of such in novels--yes? But as to that boat, it was a floating nunnery."
"Oh, come now," he protested amusedly, "there must have been _some_
men!"
"Some men, yes--a ship's officer, some married ones, a grandfather or
two--but nothing young and nothing American."
"It must have been a great disappointment," said Barry enjoying himself.
"It would not have mattered if there had been a thousand. The Signora
Mariotti would have seen to it that I met no one. She is a _very_ good
chaperon, Signor!"
"I thank her. She has preserved the dew on the rose, the flush on the
dawn--the wax for the record and the--er--niche for the statue. I never
had my statue done," said Barry gayly, "but if you would care for it, in
terra cotta, rather small and neat----"
Confusedly Maria Angelina laughed.
"And this is your maiden voyage of discovery!" He was looking down at
her as he swept her about a corner. "Rash young person! Don't you know
what happened to your kinsman, Our First Discoverer?"
"But what?"
"He was loaded with fetters," said Barry solemnly.
"Fetters? But what fetters could I fear?"
"Have you never heard," he demanded of her upraised eyes, "of the
fetters of matrimony?"
"Oh, Signor!" Actually the color swept into her cheeks and her eyes fled
from his, though she laughed lightly. "That is a golden fetter."
"Sometimes," said he, dryly, "or gilded."
But Maria Angelina was pursuing his jest. "It was not until Columbus
returned to his Europe that he was fettered. It was not from the--the
natives that he had such ill-treatment to fear."
"Now, do you think the--the natives"--gayly Barry mimicked her quaint
inflection--"will let you get away with _that_? Or let you return? . . .
You have a great many discoveries before you, Signorina Santonini!"
Deftly he circled, smiling down into her upturned face.
Maria Angelina's eyes were shining, and the smooth oval of her cheeks
had deepened from poppy pink to poppy rose. She was dancing in a dream,
a golden dream . . . incredibly, ecstatically happy. . . . She was in a
confusion of young delight in which the extravagance of his words, the
light of his glances, the thrill of the violins were inextricably
involved in gayety and glamour.
And then suddenly the dance was over, and he was returning her to her
cousins. And he was saying good-by.
"I have a table yonder--although I appear to have forsaken it," he was
explaining. "Don't forget your first American, Signorina--I'm sorry you
are going to-morrow, but perhaps I shall be seeing you in the
Adirondacks before very long."
He gave Maria Angelina a directly smiling glance whose boldness made her
shiver.
Then he turned to Mrs. Blair. "You know my uncle had a little shack
built on Old Chief Mountain--not so far from you at Wilderness. I always
like to run up there----"
"Oh, no, you won't, Barry," said Mrs. Blair, laughing incomprehensibly.
"You'll be running where the breaking waves dash high, on a stern and
rock-bound coast."
He met the sally with answering laughter a trifle forced.
"I'm flattered you think me so constant! But you underestimate the
charms of novelty. . . . If I should meet, say, a _petite brune_, done
in cotton wool and dewy with innocence----"
"You're incorrigible," vowed the lady. "I have no faith in you!"
"Not even in my incorrigibility?"
"I'll believe it when I see you again. . . . Love to Leila."
He made a mocking grimace at her.
Then he stooped to clasp Maria Angelina's hand. "_A rivederci_,
Signorina," he insisted. "Don't you believe a thing she tells you about
me. . . . I'm a poor, misunderstood young man in a world of women.
_Addio_, Signorina--_a rivederci_."
And then he was gone, so gay and brown and smiling.
Sudden anguish swept down upon Maria Angelina, like the cold mistral
upon the southlands.
He was gone. . . . Would she really see him again? . . . Would he come
to those mountains?
But why would he not? He had spoken of it, all of himself . . . he had
that place he called a shack. That was beautiful good fortune--all of a
part of the amazing fairy story of the New World. . . . And he had
looked so at her. He had made such jokes. He had pressed her hands . . .
ever so lightly but without mistake. . . .
And his eyes, that shining brightness of his eyes. . . .
"Why rub it in about York Harbor?"
Cousin Jim was speaking and Maria Angelina came out of her dream with
sudden, painful intensity. Instinctively she divined that here was
something vital to her hope, and while her young face held the schooled,
unstirred detachment of the _jeune fille_, her senses were straining
nervously for any flicker of enlightenment.
"Why not rub it in?" countered Cousin Jane briskly. "He'll go there
before long, and he might as well know that he isn't throwing any sand
in our eyes. . . . This sulking here in town is simply to punish her."
"Perhaps he isn't sulking. Perhaps he doesn't care to run after her any
more. He may not be as keen about Leila Grey as you women think."
Maria Angelina's involuntary glance at Mrs. Blair caught the superior
assurance of her smile.
"My dear Jim! He was simply mad about her. That last leave, before he
went to France, he only went places to meet her."
"Well, he may have got over it. Men do," argued Cousin Jim stubbornly.
"Yes," echoed Maria Angelina's beating heart in hope, "men do!"
Cousin Jane laughed. "Men don't get over Leila Grey--not if Leila Grey
wants to keep them."
"If she wanted so darn much to keep him why didn't she take him then?"
"I didn't say she wanted to keep him _then_." Mrs. Blair's tones were
mysteriously, ironically significant. "Leila wasn't throwing herself
away on any young officer--with nothing but his insurance. It was Bobby
Martin that _she_ was after----"
"Gad! Was she?" Cousin Jim was patently struck by this. "Why, Bobby's
just a kid and she----"
"There's not two years' difference between them--in _years_. But Leila
came out very young--and she's the most thoroughly calculating----"
"Oh, come now, Jane--just because the girl didn't succumb to the
impecunious Barry and did like the endowed Bobby----! She may really
have liked him, you know."
"Oh, come now, yourself, Jim," retorted his wife good-humoredly. "Just
because she has blue eyes! No, if Leila really liked anybody I always
had the notion it was Barry--but she _wanted_ Bobby."
For a long moment Cousin Jim was silent, turning the thing over with his
cigar. Maria Angelina sat still as a mouse, fearful to breathe lest the
bewildering revelations cease. Cousin Jane, over her second cup of
coffee, had the air of a humorous and superior oracle.
Then Mr. Blair said slowly, "And Bobby couldn't see her?"
He had an air of asking if Bobby were indeed of adamant and Mrs. Blair
hesitated imperceptibly over the sweeping negative. Equally slowly, "Oh,
Bobby _liked_ her, of course--she may have turned his head," she threw
out, "but I don't believe he ever lost it for a moment. And after he met
Ruth that summer at Plattsburg----"
The implication floated there, tenuous, iridescent. Even to Maria
Angelina's eyes it was an arch of promise.
Ruth was their daughter, the cousin of her own age. And the unknown
Bobby was some one who liked Ruth. And he was some one whom this Leila
Grey had tried to ensnare--although all the time Mrs. Blair suspected
her of liking more the Signor Barry Elder.
Hotly Maria Angelina's precipitous intuitions endorsed that supposition.
Of course this Leila liked that Barry Elder. Of course. . . . But she
had not taken him. He was an officer, then--without fortune. Maria
Angelina was familiar enough with _that_ story. But she had supposed
that here, in America, where dowries were not exigent and the young
people were free, there was more romance. And now it was not even
Leila's parents who had interfered, apparently, but Leila herself.
What was it Mrs. Blair had said? Thoroughly calculating. . . .
Thoroughly calculating--and blue eyes. . . .
Maria Angelina felt a quick little inrush of fear. If it should be
blue eyes that Americans--that is, to say now, that Barry
Elder--preferred----!
And then she wondered why, if this Leila with the blue eyes had not
taken Barry Elder before, Cousin Jane now regarded it as a foregone
conclusion between them? Was it because she could not get that Signor
Bobby Martin? Or was Barry Elder more successful now that he had left
the army?
She puzzled away at it, like a very still little cat at an
indestructible mouse, but dared say not a word. And while she worried
away her surface attention was caught by the glance of candid humor
exchanged between Mr. Blair and his wife.
"Ah, Jane, Jane," he was saying, in mock deprecation, "is that why we
are spending the summer at Wilderness, not two miles from the Martin
place----?"
Mrs. Blair was smiling, but her eyes were serious. "I preferred that to
having Ruth at a house party at the Martins," she said quietly.
At that Maria Angelina ceased to attend. She would know soon enough
about her Cousin Ruth and Bobby Martin. But as for Barry Elder and Leila
Grey----! Had he cared? Had she? . . . Unconsciously her young heart
repudiated her cousin's reading of the affair. As if Barry Elder would
be unsuccessful with any woman that he wanted! That was unbelievable. He
had not wanted her--enough.
He could not want Leila now or he would not have spoken so of coming to
the mountains to see _her_--his direct glance had been a promise, his
eyes a prophecy.
Dared she believe him? Dared she trust? But he was no deceiver, no
flirt, like the lady-killers who used to come to the Palazzo to bow over
Lucia's hand and eye each other with that half hostile, half knowing
swagger. She had watched them. . . . But this was America.
And Barry Elder was--different.
She was lost to the world about her now. Its color and motion and hot
counterfeit of life beat insensibly upon her; she was aware of it only
as an imposition, a denial to that something within her which wanted to
relax into quiet and dreaming, which wanted to live over and over again
the intoxicating excitement, the looks, the words. . . .
She was grateful when Cousin Jane declared for an early return. She
could hardly wait to be alone.
"_What did I tell you?_" Jane Blair stopped suddenly in their progress
to the door and turned to her husband in low-toned triumph. "She's with
him. Leila's with him."
"Huh?" said Cousin Jim unexcitedly.
"She's pretended some errand in town--she's come in to get hold of him
again," went on Cousin Jane hurriedly, as one who tells the story of the
act to the unobservant. "She's afraid to leave him alone. . . . And he
never mentioned her. I wonder----"
Maria Angelina's eyes had followed theirs. She saw a group about a
table, she saw Barry Elder's white-clad shoulders and curly brown head.
She saw, unregardfully, a man and woman with him, but all her eagerness,
all her straining vision was on the young girl with him--a girl so
blonde, so beautiful that a pang went to Maria Angelina's heart. She
learned pain in a single throb.
She heard Cousin Jim quoting oddly in undertone, "'And Beauty drew him,
by a single hair,'" and the words entered her consciousness hauntingly.
If Leila Grey looked like that--why then----
Yet he had said that he would come!
Maria Angelina's first night in America, like that last night in Italy,
was of sleepless watching through the dark. But now there were no
child's tears at leaving home. There was no anxious planning for poor
Julietta. Already Julietta and Lucia and the Palazzo, even Papa and
dear, dear Mamma, appeared strangely unreal--like a vanished spell--and
only this night was real and this strange expectant stir in her.
And then she fell asleep and dreamed that Barry Elder was advancing to
her across the long drawing-room of the Palazzo Santonini and as she
turned to receive him Lucia stepped between, saying, "He is for me,
instead of Paolo Tosti," and behold! Lucia's eyes were as blue as the
sea and Lucia's hair was as golden as amber and her face was the face of
the girl in the restaurant.