THE DANGEROUS INHERITANCE

THE DANGEROUS INHERITANCE

OR

The Mystery of the Tittani Rubies

BY IZOLA FORRESTER

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1920

COPYRIGHT, 1919 AND 1920, BY THE NEW IDEA PUBLISHING COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY IZOLA FORRESTER PAGE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

THE DANGEROUS INHERITANCE

THE DANGEROUS INHERITANCE

CHAPTER I

The town studio of Signor Jacobelli faced the west. It was situated on the top floor of an old eight-storied building in the West Fifties. Thirty years ago this had been given over entirely to studios, but now it was broken up into a more profitable mêlée of semi-commercial establishments and light-housekeeping apartments.

The signor, having no doubt the Old-World propensity for permanency, had maintained his studio here for over twenty years, without regard for the changing conditions around him, if indeed he were even conscious of them. His own immediate outlook and environment had remained the same. The view to the west and south from the deep, double-sized windows had varied little, and held a perpetual fascination for him. Thin red chimneys in neighborly groupings on adjacent roofs assumed delicate color values of amethyst and quivering saffrons from Jersey sunsets that turned even[4] the old buildings down towards the riverfront into mystical genii palaces in the early twilight.

Dust lay unnoted upon bookshelves and music-racks about the large, friendly room. The Turkish rug that covered its floor had long since lost all outline of pattern and was as exquisite a blur as the rose-flushed sea mist that hung over the lower end of the island city.

Carlota stood in a window recess, her back to the signor and his unexpected guest, her fingers tying and untying the faded purple silk cord of the shade. From where he sat in the old winged armchair by the piano, Ward caught a perfect silhouette of her profile against the glow of western light. Listening to Jacobelli’s fiery protest in his usual silent way, his mind dwelt upon the blossoming of this foreign flower of girlhood who had so strangely attracted him from the first time he had ever looked into her eyes.

The Marchese Veracci had called him up from the Italian Club two years before, and had besought his good offices for the granddaughter of Margherita Paoli. The following evening they had called on him by appointment. He half closed his eyes, recalling the picture of the girl as he had first seen her. They[5] awaited him in the Florentine room. Even then she had not thought of him, but had stood before a painting of Sorrento, a view through the ravine looking seaward, one hand laid on her breast, her eyes filled with the yearning of youth’s loneliness. She had met him silently, her hand cold as it rested an instant in his palm.

And the old Marchese had pleaded her cause with fervent eloquence.

“I have Jacobelli’s word on her voice,” he said. “What more would you? If you but speak Guido Jacobelli’s name to any European director, he bows to the old maestro’s dictum.”

“He has retired,” Ward returned.

“Retired, yes, from the money mart.” The Marchese had beamed upon the great international banker almost tolerantly. “You cannot comprehend his attitude. No amount of money could tempt him to teach the tyro, the climber, but he has heard Carlota. He knew Paoli well in Italy. It was her influence and friendship which first brought him fame and power. Now he has said that her voice lives again in the child, but there must be at least four years of incessant application and training. To keep her voice divine, she must never be troubled by material cares. She must have[6] an abundance of everything that she needs that her whole nature may relax and expand to give her the freedom to devote her whole life to her career.”

Ward had understood. He knew Guido Jacobelli. While the old maestro was a high priest of art, his price for teaching genius was in proportion to his faith. It had been Carlota’s own attitude of indifference which had dominated his decision. While the Marchese had argued and pleaded for her future, and Maria Roma, her guardian, had hung upon the final word from Ward’s lips, she had listened gravely, her attention wandering constantly to the rare art treasures of the room. Once she had met his eyes as he asked her a direct question.

“You are very young to study seriously. Do you realize the sacrifices you must make?”

“I have always studied to be a singer, signor,” Carlota had told him, her eyes even then disconcerting in their wide intensity. “There are no sacrifices when you love your vocation.”

Ward had smiled back at the Marchese, quoting lightly,

“My dear,” he added, “one of your own[7] countrymen has spoken so, Fra Lippo Lippi. No parallel, though, eh, Veracci? Here we have the consecration of genius. I will advance fifty thousand. Is it enough?”

Carlota had met his appraising eyes with the aloof resentment of an influence that disturbed her.

“Speak, cara mia,” Maria Roma had cried, tears streaming down her plump cheeks, as she clasped her arms enthusiastically around her charge. “Have you no word of thanks?”

And Ward had never forgotten the flash of challenge in the girl’s dark eyes as she had given him her hand.

“I will succeed and pay you back, signor,” she had said. He might have been merely a money-lender to a princess of the de’ Medici.

He had made only one stipulation and that half in jest, though Maria and the Marchese had agreed most earnestly. She was not to marry nor become entangled in love affairs during the period of her tuition. The concession had completely escaped Carlota’s attention. She had wandered by them out into the wide corridor, stifled by the somber silence of the great closed rooms. Not a single fountain falling in the distance, not a living flower anywhere, nothing but age-old treasures in a palatial, modern museum. He had not spoken[8] to her again, only she had heard his last words to Jacobelli.

“May the fruit fulfill the promise. I will come to see you now and then.”

Through the two years of study he had kept his word. Every few months, unawares, he would come to the old studio and sit for a while, listening to Jacobelli and watching his pupil. Even while he never spoke a word of direct intent to her, Carlota felt a vague uneasiness in his presence, under the steady power of his gaze. He carried with him the impression of a compelling, dominant masterfulness, all the more irresistible through its silence and tireless patience. He was in the late thirties at this time, tall and heavy-set, his head, with its thick, close-cut blond hair, thrust forward from a habit of silent intentness. There was the strongest suggestion of the leonine about him. Once, when she was a child, Carlota remembered being taken to see a captive Algerian lion that had just been brought across for the royal zoo. With a city mob surging forward to stare at him, the lion had lain with an imperial languor and indifference, gazing with unblinking eyes beyond the crowd and the city, seeing only the desert that held his whole life’s desire. Sometimes, in

the studio, during one of Ward’s visits, she[9] would catch his eyes fixed upon her, while Jacobelli flamed out into some argument or dissertation, and she would shrink from the purpose that lay behind their patience.

To-day the voice of Jacobelli filled the studio, and Carlota’s delicate dark brows contracted sharply as she listened.

“What more can I do? I have given her all that I know of technique and harmony, and still her voice lacks that emotional quality which the greatest alone possess. The divine voice must have dramatic feeling, intensity. It must lose itself in the grandest passion of emotion. The child tries, but what would you? She does not understand the lack in her own nature. Her woman soul yet slumbers.”

Ward glanced at him with amused, quizzical eyes.

“Let it sleep, Jacobelli. Remember Paoli when she let love conquer her.”

For the moment the old maestro forgot the figure behind the window curtain. With arms thrown upward he turned on the banker.

“You know not anything about Paoli! I, Jacobelli, tell you that! You cannot speak of her with any understanding. She was a law to herself in her own generation. Few women can be that. But I, who know what lay behind the wall of Tittani, say to you I would rather this[10] child lay dead now, with no fulfillment in her life, than that she should know the agony and failure as an artiste that her grandmother did when she sacrificed her whole womanhood—for what? Love, pouf!”

“Can a woman’s nature reach its ripest fulfillment without love?” Ward’s tone was lowered. “History proves that the greatest geniuses have been those who suffered most.”

“But not the singer, signor.” Jacobelli paused in his march up and down the studio. “The singer is something different. It is instinctive. I have heard the most marvelous impassioned voices pour from the most commonplace peasant types. I have heard the greatest tenor of all times tear the emotions of thousands to pieces, and step into his dressing-room to rail at his wife for not providing his favorite dish for him after the opera, ravioli and lampreys. The most superb lyric voice of to-day comes from a little, stout contadina who picked up centimes around the flower-market in Naples when I was young. Do you think she acquired divinity of soul and utterance from some supreme emotion? Ridiculous. She is a gourmand, a virago, absolutely bourgeois, yet she sings like a seraph. Why, then, is it not in Carlota’s voice?”

Ward rose leisurely. The old silken curtains[11] hung motionless. The shadows were heavy in the corners of the studio.

“She is a higher type,” he said in a low voice. “When you agree with me, bring her to me.”

CHAPTER II

After Ward had gone the old Italian maestro seated himself at the piano, improvising as he always did when he was disturbed. It was an enormous old ebony instrument, mellow and vibrant in its response to his touch. He did not even look up as Carlota leaned her elbows upon a pile of dusty folios, watching him anxiously. Finally she drew a quick, impatient breath.

“I wish he would never come here again.”

“It is customary,” Jacobelli shrugged his expansive shoulders. “You are too sensitive, my dear. It is you who are conferring a favor in permitting this person to provide the means for your education. You will return to him, in the hour of your triumph, every penny it has been his privilege to advance at this time.”

“Why does he come here and sit looking at me in such a way? In the courtyard at home there were little lizards that came out early in the morning, gray and cold, with eyes like his, green in the light. I was always afraid of putting my hand on one of them around the fountain.”

Jacobelli struck a minor chord, avoiding her eyes.

[13]“Because he is a man, and you are growing beautiful. You will become accustomed to this sort of thing. All men will love you, or seem to. It is the compliment paid to women who are great artistes. Your grandmother was adored in her day. Kings and princes knelt at her shrine, and fought for her favor. Even I was infatuated with her. You must learn to smile impersonally and receive homage.”

“Then it is not—love?” Carlota asked doubtfully. “I heard what you said to him about her. Why did you say that, about her suffering and sacrifice? I never remember her like that. She was wonderful. She seemed to give out radiance and warmth like the sunlight. Wasn’t she happy?”

Jacobelli’s hands were flung up suddenly, and he laughed at her.

“My dear, who may say when a woman is happy or when she is not. Sometimes they find their greatest happiness in their most supreme suffering. She was divine, that is enough. As for love, Carlotina mia, it is merely Life’s plaything. It is the toy we give to youth, but never, never to genius. The rabble amuses itself with what it calls love. But genius is sufficient unto itself. It is the celestial fire. It does not seek a mortal torch upon its altar.”

“You said you would rather see me dead—”[14] began Carlota slowly, when the little electric bell at the outer door rang lightly, announcing Maria Roma at her customary hour of five. As always, she followed it by half opening the door, peering around with an arch, reconnoitering glance.

“Do I intrude?” she asked, with her beaming smile, and entered impressively, always with the dramatic action as if the orchestra had sounded her motif. She shook one forefinger impressively at Carlota. “You loiter and take up the maestro’s time, gossip and loiter when you should be studying.”

But Jacobelli waved aside the admonition with one ample movement of his large, plump hand. As Carlota went to the inner room for her cloak and hat, he spoke in an undertone.

“Ward is becoming very much interested in her. She treats him with indifference. You must teach her diplomacy. She has too much arrogance of youth, and absolutely no gratitude for what he is doing for her.”

Maria’s brilliant dark eyes narrowed with comprehensive amusement.

“You ask the impossible, Guido. I who have known all three, Margherita, Bianca, and this glorious child, tell you the truth, and you will remember what I say. You can no more teach the heart of a Paoli to keep its temperament[15] within bounds than you can yoke the thunder-clouds and lightning that sweep down over our Trentino.”

“And the responsibility is ours,” said Jacobelli, with a deep exhalation of his cigarette. “Given this nature, we are to keep her a prisoner behind the wall of Tittani, eh?”

Maria sank deeply into the velvet-cushioned chair beside him, and the two smiled at each other reminiscently.

“It was a high wall,” she sighed at length. “I remember your last visit there, Guido, before the child was born, five years I think it was. Bianca was a flower then. Such flaming hair and dark eyes, the true Florentine type. She was more like Tittani in her looks. Carlota is a throwback to the grandmother. Ah, my Guido, was there ever a woman like her? Even at the last, before he died, when her heart was torn with agony of renunciation—”

“She lost her voice,” Jacobelli spoke with finality. “Yet Ward would tell me love is the great fulfillment. Did she ever sing again? No. She buried her art with her love in the grave of her poet after he had denied her to the world. You and I, Maria Roma, who know of this, must protect this child against the traitor in her own nature.”

Maria sighed doubtfully. She was the large,[16] vivid type of the Italian peasant, richly developed by success and circumstance. Years before, Sforza, director of La Scala, had journeyed with friends to a mountain section of the Trentino. In the purple twilight a voice had drifted down to them from a band of vintage workers, homeward bound. It was Maria Roma at eighteen, a buoyant, deep-breasted bacchante, her black hair hanging in thick clusters of curls around her radiant face.

Enrico Sforza had loved her, more perhaps for her ardent faithfulness and responsiveness. She had achieved a sensation in contralto rôles and he had interested La Paoli in his peasant love. In middle age, after his death, Maria had retired to live at the Villa Tittani with the old diva. Here she had shared with her in the tragedy of her final years. Fifty years before, the story of Margherita Paoli and her love for John Tennant, the English poet, had been part of the romance of Italy. Her beauty and genius had opened every door of success to her. Even on the threshold of womanhood she had been given all that ambition could demand from life, and turning in the highest hour of her triumphs, she had forsaken the world for a year, giving the full gift of her love to Tennant.

[17]Suddenly she had returned, restless and hungering for her art. As Maria knew, Tennant had been jealous of her voice and the life which he could not share, had demanded that she give up her career for the sake of their love, and return with him to England. And she had laughed at him. Love could not bring full completeness and happiness to a woman of genius, she had said. It could not satisfy her for the loss of the divine fire. Tennant had left Italy, and five years later she married Count Tittani. Bianca, the mother of Carlota, had been born at the old villa overlooking the Campagna. She had spent her childhood here, and in the convent of Maria Pietà at the head of the ancient ilex avenue leading up from Mondragone. Tittani had died when she was nine, leaving La Paoli the prestige of his name and wealth combined with her own full measure of maturity in her art.

It was at this time that Maria had come nearest to her confidence. Word came from England to them that Tennant had been stricken blind, and in the midst of a gala performance of “Traviata,” La Paoli had left all and gone to him. He had refused to see her when she reached London. Bertrand Wallace, his closest friend, had told her simply enough that he was without means, that he longed to[18] go to Italy where “he might feel the sun on his face,” and she had entered into the splendid conspiracy that glorified the end of her life.

The Villa Tittani faced the Campagna with a lofty, blank wall. Beyond it stretched terraced gardens, winding alleys of cypress and ilexes, a place of enchantment, with the never-ending music of falling waters in the distance, of hidden fountains in grottoes, and cascades that fell over ancient steps in ripples of silver. Yet all its beauty was dominated by its wall, blank on one side, terraced on the garden side into long, steep depths of mystery, of infinite green vistas that lost their way in the cypress gloom of the lower distances.

Here Wallace brought his friend, the blind poet, to the little house near the end of the wall where the view opened seaward. Two old servants of the Tittani had cared for him until his passing, and here La Paoli could come and watch him from a distance, unseen or suspected in the largesse of her love by the man whose faith she had betrayed for fame. It was characteristic of her that even in her grief and isolation from him, she seemed to find a supreme, almost fierce, satisfaction in the tragic immolation of her own happiness for his sake. He had died finally, unconscious, on her breast, and she had never sung again.

[19]“You see, Maria, I have proved the truth of it in my own heart’s blood,” she had said, “A woman cannot serve two gods. If Bianca has my voice, help me to teach her this: no man is content with half of a woman’s love or nature. If she desires to attain to the highest art, she must sacrifice love.”

Within six months after she had left the shelter of the convent Bianca had married Peppino Trelango, son of a dead patriot. The Contessa had cared for him through his boyhood, because she had heard him playing on his violin once on the old quay at Pontecova where centuries before the body of the boy count, Giovanni Borgia, had borne witness against his brother in the dawn. When Bianca came home, she had met him in the old gardens, a boy of nineteen, like one of the marble fauns come to life to teach her youth’s heritage. When the Contessa returned from a trip to her favorite midsummer retreat at Isola Bella, she had found the two gone, and Maria desolate with despair.

It was from this romance that Carlota had been born. After the death of Peppino in an Algerian skirmish, Bianca had returned to the villa behind the old rose-colored wall with her child. She had lived in the gardens with the memories of her love, a silent, smiling, stately[20] girl who baffled the vivid, emotional La Paoli by the elusive sensitiveness of her nature.