"Monday, then--shall we call it Monday?" he pressed.
I could not be so churlish as to decline further. But I hardly knew why
a sense of uneasiness stole into my bosom after his subsequent words.
"The _fanciulla_," he went on, thoughtfully vehement. "She is all I
possess--all in the world. At my death she shall possess everything I
have. She has it now! For whom then do I work if not for Gina? As for
me, I could go back to Italy--maybe. I have enough. But Gina--she is
American girl--ah!" and he kissed his finger tips with unction. "She is
fine American girl!"
Having said that, he veered into talk about Belgium, Von Kluck and
general strategy.
But why should he so persistently sing the praises and prospects of his
daughter to me, a clerk in his office?
I had a sudden impulse to go to him and unbosom myself on the score of
my own _bambimi_ and my own aspirations for them--but somehow I could
not. That is an island girdled, not only by ordinary reticence, which
is with me a vice, but by a host of emotions like those flames that
circled the sleeping goddess. I am not a Latin; I cannot bubble forth
my inmost hopes or flaunt my heart upon my sleeve.
Sunday evening--after a wonderful walk with Alicia through the already
waning woods of Westchester. There has been a certain air of gravity
overhanging her, of contrition perhaps, that stabbed with pain. I
realized then to what degree her blithe spirit and the starry laughter
of her eyes had been the wine of my recent life. I could not tolerate
her seeming depression. Besides, there was the matter of her education
to be discussed. Jimmie clamored to go with us, but this time even his
privileged position did not avail him. I desired to be alone with
Alicia.
Was it my mood, I wonder, or do the woods in reality begin to whisper a
farewell in the decline of the year? Every tree, even to the youngest
sapling, seemed to nod to us as we walked and to rustle a murmur like
the leavetaking of a pilgrim bent on a lengthy journey. I have ever
been impatient of reading descriptions of nature and have chimed with
the scoffers at the pathetic fallacy. Nevertheless, I can bemuse myself
for hours listening to the wind among the tree tops or gazing at the
haze upon the hills; and in a slow measured rhythm, as if having endless
time before them, they invariably spell a message,--a message infinitely
sad, but for the creative laughing sun that rides triumphant, high over
all.
"Come, Alicia!" I broke out brusquely, joining the sun in his laughter,
"we have some bright things to talk over. Don't let us allow the woods
to lull us. They are going to sleep; we are not. Here you are ready
for college. Isn't that soul-stirring?"
She emerged from her reverie as a person shaken from a drowse and smiled
with, a distant look in her eyes.
"Bright things," she murmured pensively; "everything that has happened
to me since I came to you has been bright, and everything soul-stirring.
That's what makes it so hard, Uncle Ranny--I have been so useless. What
good am I?"
I laughed uproariously enough to make the woods shake. Did Alicia know
how much I enjoyed combating such statements or did she really mean it?
"You have been--" I wanted to tell her banteringly that she had been a
burden and a drag upon my household, a weight not to be borne--but I
perceived that she was more than serious. She was sad.
"Now you are, of course, talking nonsense," I answered flatly. "But
there is college before you; that ought to cure all that. Perhaps
you're a little morbid. Bright associations will change that."
"But how," she protested, "can you talk of sending me to college--with
all the expense? And I so worthless?"
"We won't discuss that, my child," I broke in. The expense had indeed
occupied my mind--but I had formed a plan for that. "Tell me what you
would like best to study--to be?"
"That's the trouble, Uncle Ranny," she replied pathetically. "What can
I be?--Perhaps I might work for Mr. Andrews?"
"Modern girls," I informed her, "judging by our fiction, invariably
develop literary, dramatic or histrionic talent. She must act, write
fiction, or preferably plays. Journalism and settlement work are no
longer fashionable. If the worst comes to the worst, they turn militant
suffragists, but even that is on the wane; but the two careers are not
incompatible. Don't you feel the urge in your young bones? Which of
the arts is it that is calling you? The pen? The stage? Speak,
Alicia--for this is the critical hour!"
She detected raillery in my voice and laughed softly.
"I know you are making fun of me, Uncle Ranny," she said, "but it's not
of me alone. All the same, I wish I did have some talent, but, oh, I
know I haven't! Sometimes--I wish--I think--oh, Uncle Ranny, I am
ashamed to tell you what I--" and without finishing her sentence she
covered her face with her hands and I noted that her neck was suffused
with a deep blush.
"But you must tell me, my dear," I gently took her hands from her face.
"Haven't I just become your parent and guardian by ironclad legal
adoption? And a terribly stern parent and guardian I am--make no
mistake about that!"
"Well," she gazed downward shamefacedly, still exquisitely blushing, "I
suppose I must, then. Sometimes I think, Uncle Ranny," she went on with
deliberate firmness, "that there is one thing girls always think of, but
never talk about--that is more important than any of the others. Oh, I
suppose I am terribly improper and immodest, but if I am, it's
because--I don't know any better--so you'll have to forgive me. But,
oh, I suppose--he'll come some day and--to--to make a home and--and to
bring up children seems--more wonderful than anything else! You've made
me say it, Uncle Ranny!" she turned away with tears of vexation--"I
suppose I am horrid--but you've made me tell you and I told you. Can't
a girl study to be--for that--as for anything else?" And still
tormented by her brazen immodesty, she plucked yellowing leaves
agitatedly and scattered them to the winnowing breeze.
As she was turned from me, she could not have seen my arms going out
suddenly as if to take her, and then falling again to my sides. I
longed to embrace her and to crown her with all the glory of womanhood.
But my conscience warned me away. In my heart, however, happiness
leaped up like the lark I have never seen and warbled joyously a divine
melody that I had never heard. It required courage for Alicia, a young
girl, to confess what she had confessed. And courage joined to all the
other qualities I knew her possessed of must produce the best that is in
womanhood.
It is a commentary on our times that Alicia, a girl ready for college,
was ashamed of what she had told me!
I was a fool to press her further, I suppose, but then and there I
determined to be at least as brave as was Alicia.
"Have you," I asked, hoping my voice was not shaking, "have you already
some one in mind?" She shook her head vehemently, still plucking at the
leaves, I could not repress a profound sigh. "What does he look like in
your mind's eye, Alicia? What is your vision of him?" I knew I was
courting pain, but there are moments when even torture is irresistible.
"I hope he will be strong--and fine--and manly," she murmured as if to
herself--"and have at least some of your--goodness, Uncle Ranny." Every
attribute of that hypothetical "he" was a reproach to my infirmities--a
blow at my peculiar weaknesses. But I had invited it. The ideal of a
girl never errs. It is her emotions that may lead her astray. Oh,
yes--she credited me with some "goodness." Few are the women, however,
who choose a man for his goodness. In my quality of "Uncle Ranny" I was
"good." I stood for a moment in silence, writhing with anguish,
alternately conjuring up and banishing the hatefully magnificent
creature of Alicia's dreams. But at last I gripped my soul with sudden
resolution. Now at least she was mine; and I must accustom myself to
the idea of her being some one else's at the earliest moment--to the
inevitable renunciation. She had innocently and adorably honored me with
her greatest confidence: For the present, at least, I must make the most
of my little happiness.
"Come, dear," I gently touched her on the shoulder. "You have told me
what I wanted to know." I put her hand through my arm and we strolled
on slowly. "We are horrible old fogies, Alicia, and we mustn't tell a
soul about our views--or we should be ostracized and possibly jailed.
But nothing you could have said would have made me happier than what you
have just told me. I know of no greater career than the one you have
chosen. And college, much or little as you like of it, can serve you for
a finer womanhood no less than it can for anything else. In fact, more,
I think." From still swimming eyes she gave me a sidelong glance
mingled so much of gratitude, shame and pride, that I laughed aloud.
"There is one thing you've got to make up your mind to, Alicia." I drew
her close to my side. "You must come and tell me everything that's on
your mind without repression. Don't forget, my dear, that I am your
father, mother and most intimate friends. Think how sorry we should
both have been if you had suppressed and hidden what you have told me."
"Yes, Uncle Ranny," she breathed and very sweetly in a way to melt the
heart of a man, she lifted my hand to her lips and kissed it. I was
irreparably "Uncle Ranny!"
I dared not make a movement in return. At that moment I might have
betrayed more than ever again I could hide. But the woods were now of
another hue; the invisible lark was still singing, albeit a sadder
strain.
We decided that Alicia is to enter Barnard next week and commute with me
on the daily train.
*CHAPTER XXI*
Dear God! How I cry out for peace, and there is no peace!
Who would have looked for disaster at the plump hands of Gina Visconti?
Yet, as though she had willfully shut the door of my livelihood in my
face, that innocent girl has abruptly cut me off.
I cannot go back to Visconti's. That accursed dinner, which instinct
made me shun, was the cause and occasion of it all.
I had begun foolishly to feel myself at home in the Visconti household.
When the housemaid informed me that the _signorina_ would be down
directly, I strolled into the drawing-room leisurely, not in the least
surprised that I was apparently the only guest, and gazed again at the
shining new furniture, costly and glistening, for the _n_th time
wondering how it continued to stay so new. There is a scattering of
saccharine pictures on the walls that invariably make me smile: Cherry
Ripe, the Old Oaken Bucket, Sweet Sixteen; a glittering small marble of
Cupid and Psyche and a crayon enlargement of the very stout lady that
was Gina's mother. Why, I wondered, do not modern Italians stick to
their own old masters? I once bought a very fair copy of Pope Julian II
in Florence for fifty lire. Even Gina's energetic modernism, however,
seemed unable to exorcise the peculiar airless odor of an Italian's
drawing-room, due largely, I suppose, to hermetically sealed windows and
constantly lowered shades.
Gina came down directly, as had been promised, in a very pretty satin
evening frock that struck me as too light for a girl as full-bodied as
she. That is a detail, however, which was superseded in my mind by the
query as to why she should feel it necessary to romp into a room rather
than walk. But I know she aspires to be hyper-American. Her greeting
is always warm and her energy was the one touch of ozone in that stuffy
drawing-room. A moment later entered her father, his dark-red face
pardonably gleaming like a moon through the haze at the charms of his
only daughter. For Gina is not only pretty--she is eminently modish, to
the last wave of her rich black hair.
"Is she a fine American girl--or is she not, eh?" Visconti's half-proud,
half-defiant look seems to challenge all present.
The dinner was more than usually exuberant with a wealth of champagne
for so small a company and hothouse grapes; indeed the exuberance itself
seemed of the hothouse variety. We jested, we laughed at nothing, we
were gay as old friends at a reunion. At the Visconti's I am always
foolishly like that Byron-worshiping lady who could not long abstain
from referring to Missolonghi. Somehow I find myself caressingly
touching the subjects of Dante or Petrarch or even Leopardi, and
invariably Gina caroms against me with a thrilling cabaret, a new dance
or the latest "show"--and I am nowhere.
After the coffee Visconti, whose mind seemed preoccupied, rose abruptly
and with one of his gleaming smiles left us on the hackneyed plea of
letters to be written.
Gina was restless for a minute or two after her father's departure. She
walked over to the piano, struck a chord standing, then suddenly sheered
to the phonograph and asked would I dance if she turned on a lovely fox
trot. Apologetically I was compelled to inform her that the fox trot
was as foreign to my accomplishments as an act on the trapeze.
"I know you could learn to be a lovely dancer," said Gina, She then sat
down beside me on the expensive tapestry davenport, with one foot under
her and one ankle to the wide world and leaned forward on her elbows so
that the slender shoulder straps of her frock pressed upward four little
mounds of pink flesh toward her ears. She has very pretty ears, has
Gina. A very engaging child, I thought. Holding this soulful attitude,
Gina queried softly,
"Don't you love the movies?"
"Yes," I said.
"What have you seen lately?" she pursued.
"I have only seen one--it was a series of pictures of the South Sea
Islands."
"You mean you've never seen any others?"
"No--I'm afraid not."
"Oh," she gasped, "I've loved the movies since I was that high"--and she
pointed to a somewhat excessively oily portrait of herself painted at
about the age of ten or eleven.
"I believe in having a lively time," she ran on. "When I was in public
school some of them called me the 'little guinea girl.' I cried
terribly--but I made up my mind I wasn't going to be a 'guinea girl.' I
was going to be an American. Wasn't I as good as any of them?" she
demanded passionately. "What was the matter with me? Then I found out
what was the matter with me--American girls are always having good
times. So I thought I'd have as good a time as anybody.
"I cried until my father let me go to the movies nearly every afternoon
and twice on Saturday. And I always treated some other girl--an
American girl--to a ticket to go with me. They were friendly then, you
can bet. They stopped calling me a guinea girl."
Gina could not possibly know how pathetic that sounded to me. The
curious savagery of children toward those alien of race, I reflected, is
one of the last survivals of the tribal state of mankind. The somewhat
overpowering scent she used struck me as a survival also, though I could
not remember of what.
"There is my cousin, Jennie--her name is really Gemma"--the girl warmed
to her story--"she tried to be American, too, but she gave it up. When
I went to finishing school in Darien, she was already married. Four
years she's been married and has three children. Now what's the use of
that? She can't have a good time now! Babies--babies--babies!--she
hardly ever goes out. And her husband's quite well off, too. He's a
contractor. But he's an Italian--and thinks that's the right way for a
girl to live. Uh-h!" and she shuddered slightly. "I'm going to marry
an American!"
A fierce light of resolution leaped to her liquid dark eyes and I own I
felt terrified.
"But--but aren't you young to think of marriage?" I murmured lamely.
"Young!" repeated Gina in surprise. "I've been thinking about the kind
of man I'm going to marry since I was thirteen years old!"
Obviously that was one subject she had given mature reflection.
"Haven't you?" she demanded.
"No," I laughed, "not as young as that."
"Do you like Italian girls?" she leaned toward me abruptly, wistfully.
"Yes, indeed!" I answered her, laughing. "There is Dante's
Beatrice--and Petrarch's Laura--and even Raphael's Fornarina must have
been--"
"Oh, I don't mean those," she cried, flushing excitedly. "I mean
Italian-American girls--I love American men! The man I'm going to marry
is--something like you."
I like simplicity, and disingenuousness in the young--or in the old, for
that matter--but her attitude was now so--so unconventional, with her
large ankle rocking to and fro and her bosom, as she leaned forward,
almost touching my shirt front--that I feared her father might be
displeased were he to enter the room suddenly. The scent, moreover, was
clouding my wits. With my hand to my forehead I rose ponderously.
"Let me see--" I mused with heavy facetiousness, as though cogitating a
deep problem, "do I like them?" I walked a step or two and faced her.
"You are the only one I know--and I certainly like you," I added mildly.
She uncoiled herself, rose up swiftly and took a step in my direction.
On a sudden she stumbled, gave a little cry and pitched forward, so that
I barely had time to catch her.
"Did you turn your ankle?"
"No--yes," she gasped and lay for a moment in my arms breathing heavily,
her bosom pressing against mine.
"Let me lead you--" I began.
"It's all right," she whispered thickly. "Just let me rest a minute."
And then that astonishing girl suddenly lifted up her hand, passed it
lightly over my head and murmured that she loved the color of my hair!
"It's light brown," she explained, "not pitch black like mine," and then
she rested her head lightly on my shoulder. "And I love your name--it's
so nice--_Randolph_!"
"Let me lead you," I murmured, as though I were the helpless one.
"_Ecco!_" I suddenly heard the voice of Visconti laughing behind me,
and Gina's hand clutched my shoulder convulsively. I confess that at my
heart was a clutch of sheer blue funk.
"She has just turned her ankle!" I exclaimed mechanically.
"It's all right, papa," put in Gina's cheerful voice. "It's these old
slippers. I'll go and change them." And to my amazement she
straightened up, flashed a radiant smile at both of us, and walked to
the door with only the slightest of limps.
"Sure you can walk alone?" I managed to stammer.
"Oh, yes!" Gina waved her hand at the door. "I'll be down soon."
The father laughed loudly and put his hand upon my shoulder.
"Come, _caro mio_, let us have a little smoke." I followed him dazedly.
"Wonderful girl, Gina!" he exclaimed. "High spirits, eh?"
"Er--yes, indeed--very high." I felt as though I had emerged from a
severe physical struggle.
"I can see--oh, even an old man like me can see," he chuckled jovially,
as he held his cigar box toward me in the smoking room, "that you young
people like each other--eh? Oh, sit down, sit down, _amico mio_. It is
all right--all right. I must get used to the idea of the bambino, being
grown up," and forcing me down into a leather chair, he continued to tap
my shoulder by way of emphasizing his words. "I have been young--yes!
I understand--and trust me, my boy, you cannot do better. Gina--Gina is
one treasure for a man. Ah--yes! No love like the Italian woman's love.
She will make you the best--"
"But wait--for God's sake, Mr. Visconti, wait," I cried in agony,
leaping from my chair. "I can't--I mustn't even pretend to think of
such a thing. Gina is far too--"
"Say no more!" he interrupted vehemently, tapping me with the back of
his hand on the chest. "You are a fine, gooda young man!"
"Thanks!" I gasped, "but you don't understand. I am in no position to
marry any woman at this time. I'm--"
"Hold on!" he flung me back into the chair with an exuberant force that
would have made me laugh if my vitals had not been chilled by terror.
"Is it that I do not know? Do I not know how your capital did go--pouf!
like that? But all that I have--Gina has it. She will have enough,"
and he nodded his head with pregnant emphasis, "enough, my friend. And
Gina's husband--he will be my son!" He struck his large chest a mighty
blow and threw back his head with triumphant finality.