“Still, there is some left,” she had told Maria at the time of her own departure. Strong in spirit and dominant, she had ruled to the end, planning and directing Carlota’s future. “I have given the child a heritage and training that are priceless. If you have to, sell the jewels in the cinque cento chest. They are for her. I have not even looked at them since he died. Take her to America, Maria. Find there Guido Jacobelli. He was a boy when I made my début, before your time, the gala performance of ‘Rigoletto.’ I was a wonderful Gilda, Maria. Later I gave him his first start. He is not one who forgets. You will go to him in New York and he will find you a patron. I have written to the Marchese Veracci to expect you and see that you are lodged fittingly. No economy. Surround her with beauty and comfort while she studies, but keep her from love until she has won success. Her mother sacrificed all for Peppino’s kiss. If I were able I would keep her here behind the wall of Tittani and never let her see the face of a man whom she might love. Dust and ashes all, Maria. The greatest and most enduring is the memory of a lost love.”
After the closing of the old villa, Carlota and Signora Roma had come to New York. Maria had been prodigal in her expenditures. She had taken an expensive studio and had lavished the tenderest care on her charge.
“The art quarters of Europe, cara mia,” she would say to her airily when Carlota protested, “have been filled for generations with what?—failures. Boy and girl aspirants, pitiful little garret Pierrots and Columbines, starving upon hopes that never materialized. Art is greedy. It demands all of your nerve, force and vitality. To come out of the training of the next four years a victor, you must pamper yourself. Dress well, eat well, feed your love of beauty as well as your stomach. Remember, ‘white hyacinths for the soul as well as bread for the body.’ You will be a slave to your art, and must keep the fires burning.”
“But you will use up all we have,” Carlota had protested.
“What then?” Maria had demanded proudly. “You have only a small fortune left. You must have thousands, tens of thousands before you bow to your first night’s audience.”
They had met the old Marchese Veracci the first week of their arrival. Few there were in the Washington Square section of the city who were not familiar with the stately Old-World figure of the Marchese. He was as welcome in the crowded Sicilian quarter below Fourth Street as in the corridors of the Brevoort or Lafayette. He held his court daily at the fountain in the center of the Square. Always with a fresh boutonnière and a smile and courtly word for every dark-eyed child who laughed back at him. Sometimes, when he strolled past the bust of Garibaldi, he would leave a little spray of flowers on the pedestal. After dinner he never failed to stroll out into the twilight and lift his soul in salute to the cross of light that gleamed on the memorial tower above the trees.
“It is the one spot in the whole city,” he told them, “that holds the Old-World glamour and charm, yet I would not have you and Carlota living down here. The lines of demarcation are too blurred between the workers and the dreamers. Then, too, there are the dancing shapes that come to stare and ridicule. There is a contagion of play here that breaks the concentration you must put into your study, my child. Keep away from it at this period. Later, I could wish you nothing better than to share in the spirit of comradeship in art and beauty, yes, and most of all, in humanity. That you will find down here, no matter how others try to detract from the atmosphere, like the very small boys who will ever toss pebbles at the stained-glass windows of the saints.”
Maria Roma had agreed fervently to anything he said. His delighted enthusiasm satisfied her that the old Contessa had chosen rightly in making him joint guardian with her over Carlota. Guido Jacobelli had retired, he had told her over their first luncheon en tête-à-tête at the Italian Club. Money would never tempt him to teach. Nothing but brilliant genius in a pupil could ever lure him from his retreat to give them the full benefit of his years of experience and study.
“I know him well, and of them all he is still the wizard, the maestro. Even now, his word on a voice would open the gates of opportunity to any singer. Casanova, of the Opera here, bows to his dictum. If it were anybody but Margherita Paoli who calls to me, I would say no, but as it is, ma bella, we will go. Two places I know where we may find him, at his old studio in town and his country home at Arrochar, on Staten Island. We will go there.”
The visit had proven Carlota’s crucial hour. Maria had hovered over her excitedly, feeling that upon the great old maestro’s verdict lay the entire future fate of her career. The Marchese had called for them and had accompanied them out to Jacobelli’s home. It was typical of his simplicity and love of nature. On the wooded heights above Kill von Kull at Arrochar, lay a small colony of Italian artists and musicians. Their homes were like miniature villas perched above a smaller bay of Naples when the myriad lights gleamed on the shipping and distant Jersey hills.