The Belle of Bowling Green 7 – Barr · Verses Across
Literature · Romance
The Belle of Bowling Green 7Chapter 7
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Literature · Romance
The Belle of Bowling Green 7
Chapter 7
BarrEnglish
The Incident of Marriage
The interview so important to Leonard’s love affairs, and so eagerly desired by him, did not come as he had planned it should come. He had intended to speak to the judge when Mrs. Bloommaert was present and Sappha not far away, for he counted very largely on their personal influence for a favourable answer to his request. But one morning as he was passing the house the judge, who was sitting by the window, saw him; and by a friendly, familiar gesture, invited him to an interview.
“You see, Mr. Murray,” he said cheerfully, “I have fallen behind in all city news. Sit an hour and tell me what is going on.” And he held the young man’s hand and looked with pleasure into his frank, handsome countenance.
“Well, judge, De Witt Clinton is sure to be re-elected mayor.”
“Yes, yes; the majority of the council are Federalists.”
“I think the war party are equally in his favour.”
“No doubt, he has been a good mayor. Any war news?”
“There is a report that the Constitution captured the British war frigate Java about last Christmas Day. I believe the report, for it came by the privateer Tartar, Captain King.”
“I wish we could have any such news from the Niagara frontier. Nothing but disaster comes that way. The government has requested my son Peter to go there and assist Brown with the building of the lake fleet. I wonder if it will accomplish anything.”
“All it is intended to accomplish, judge. We must give the men up there time and opportunity. Before summer is over we shall hear from them.”
They then began a conversation upon the defences of New York, and Leonard described the work going forward on Hendrick’s reef, and at Navesink. “There are more than eight hundred Jersey Blues on the heights,” he said, “and the telegraph on the Highlands is ready to work. General Izard is an active and zealous officer.”
Having exhausted this subject, the judge suddenly became personal, and with an abruptness that startled Leonard, asked:
“How are you spending these fine winter days, Mr. Murray? Tell me, if my question is not an intrusive one.”
“Indeed, sir, I consider it a great honour. And advice from you, at this time, would be of more service than you can imagine.”
“If you will take it; but most people ask advice only that it may confirm them in the thing they have already resolved to do.”
“I will ask your advice, sir. It cannot but be better than my own opinion.” Then Leonard explained his intention with regard to the study of the law regulating real estate, and Judge Bloommaert listened with attention and evident satisfaction.
“It will be a good thing for you to do, Mr. Murray,” he answered, when Leonard ceased speaking. “You ought not to be idle, even if you can afford it; and this study will not only employ your time, it will eventually save you much money. Go and see Mr. Vanderlyn. Perhaps he may let you read with him. No one knows more about real estate.”
“I have been told, sir, that Mr. Burr is the greatest authority on that subject.”
“Mr. Burr is out of consideration.”
“I confess, sir, that I have already considered him.”
“Have you spoken to him?”
“Not definitely.”
“Mr. Murray, if you sit in Mr. Burr’s office, you will soon share his opinions. And in such case, I should be compelled to forbid you the society of myself and family. You cannot touch pitch and not be defiled.”
He spoke with rising anger, and Leonard answered as softly as possible:
“Judge, I ask your advice in this matter. I have already told you I would take it. Can we not talk of Mr. Burr as reasonably as of the war and our defences? I am open to conviction, and free to confess that I do not see what Mr. Burr has done to merit the ostracism he is receiving from certain parties. I suppose it is one of the accidents of his fate, a paradox--and life is full of paradoxes.”
“Mr. Burr’s ostracism is no accident, it is his own act. The man has committed a crime, and the interpretation thereof is written on everything he does.”
“You mean his duel with Mr. Hamilton? Sir, if Mr. Hamilton had killed Mr. Burr, would the Federalists have considered it a crime?”
“Mr. Hamilton’s case is out of our jurisdiction. It is gone to a higher court.”
“Is not that special pleading, judge?”
“It will do for the case.”
“Hamilton had publicly called Burr unprincipled, dangerous, despicable, an American Cataline--oh, many other derogatory epithets! Would not Mr. Burr have been generally held as despicable if he had not defended his good name?”
“By killing his defamer?”
“Well, sir, how else could he have done it?”
“In politics men call each other all sorts of ill names. They even invent new ones for their opponent. And though in Paradise the lion will lie down with the lamb, in Paradise they will not have to submit their rival political views to general elections. Say that Mr. Hamilton was vituperative--it was a war of words. Mr. Burr Had a tongue and a pen, as well as Mr. Hamilton. If Mr. Hamilton had insulted Mr. Burr’s wife, or run off with his daughter, there might have been some excuse for a bloody settlement, but words, words, words, the tongue or the pen would have answered them.”
“Then, judge, you do not approve of the duel?”
“I do not. But I think that Mr. Burr’s fatal mistake will eventually put duelling as much out as witchcraft. We shall probably also have strong repressive laws against it.”
“Yet as long as public opinion respects duelling, no repressive law will be as strong as public opinion. We are as moral and intelligent now as any people can be, yet the duel is not obsolete, nor has Mr. Burr’s ostracism been a deterrent.”
“I know that. Last year two men quarrelled about an umbrella in the hall of Scudder’s Museum, and the next day one of them shot the other dead. Nine out of ten people called the dead man a fool for his pains. Mr. Murray, the duel has become perilously close to the ridiculous. Men may talk about blowing out brains for an angry word, but the majority quietly laugh at the absurdity. Such conduct is totally unworthy of American common sense. For no man of intelligence would fight a duel if he remembered that he would render himself liable to form the text for an article in The Morning Chronicle. To be treated either with its satire or its morality would be equally depressing--it would make him intensely ridiculous in any case. But we shall never give up duelling on moral and intelligent grounds.”
“Then on what other grounds?”
“The class duellists come from are the brainless class; and if the custom was strictly confined by this class to their fellows, it would be one of the most innocent of their amusements. We must make duelling ridiculous, for when mockery and satire are constant about any subject, you may know that thing is dead, and its shell only remains.”
“But, judge, if a man’s honour is assailed----”
“If we were all Hotspurs, Mr. Murray, and ready to plunge into the deep and pluck honour by the locks, we might count on sympathy; but when the majority think with Falstaff, that ‘honour is a mere scutcheon’ we get a chill, until we remember the divine law. For after all, sir, the Decalogue remains as a finality. Look up the sixth clause of that code.”
“There is nothing to add to it, sir.”
“Not on moral and intellectual grounds. Socially, you may remember the homely proverb which advises ‘Go with good men, and you will be counted one of them.’ Go with Mr. Burr, and you will be counted with him; held at the same price--nay, you will be only one of Mr. Burr’s satellites. If you want really to study law----”
“No, sir. I give up the idea. I have said sufficient to Mr. Burr to wound him if I go elsewhere. And just because he is down at present, I will not give him a coward’s kick.”
“There is no occasion to do so. It is not a chargeable thing to salute civilly. But Mr. Burr’s affairs are none of your profit, therefore why make them your peril?”
“I thank you for your good advice, judge.”
“Then take it.”
“I will, sir.”
“Now having interfered with your intention, I am bound to offer you something in its place. It is this: I can get you active employment with Gouverneur Morris, Simeon De Witt, and John Rutherford, who are busy yet in perfecting their plans for the streets of the future New York. I should not wonder if they map out the whole island. In fact, they have already provided space for a greater population than is collected on any spot this side of China. I cannot say I like their mathematical arrangement; they are making a city idealised after Euclid--straight, stiff, wearisome, without character or expression.”
“But it will be a most convenient arrangement. I would carry the plan out, even north of Harlem Flat.”
“There will be no houses there for centuries to come.”
“Oh, yes, sir, before this century goes out.”
The judge smiled. He liked the young man’s enthusiasm, and he answered: “So be it. You shall help to survey the ground. I will speak to De Witt to-morrow.”
At this point of the discussion there was a knock at the front door, followed by a little stir of entrance, and the sound of speech and light laughter. Both men were suddenly all ear. There was no more conversation, and after a few moments of silent expectation Mrs. Bloommaert and Sappha entered the room together. They were in happy mood, and Sappha was so lovely with the bloom of the frosty air on her smiling face that Leonard forgot everything and every one but her, and before either were aware he had taken her hands and kissed her.
The next moment they both realised their position, and Leonard, still holding Sappha’s hand, led her to the astonished father. “Sir,” he said, “we have loved each other since we were children. Will you now sanction our love, and permit our betrothal?”
The judge looked helplessly at his wife. She was watching the young couple with smiles on her face, and evident sympathy in her heart for their cause. If he wished to be adverse and disagreeable, he foresaw he would have no help from Mrs. Bloommaert. Yet to give up in a moment all the wavering feelings of dislike he had entertained for Leonard, and all his own settled purpose of no recognised engagement for his daughter until peace was accomplished, was a hard struggle. Perhaps it was well he had to decide in a moment. At that precise hour he was in a mood of liking Leonard, and he had no time to reason himself into another mood. Slowly, and with a little asperity, he answered:
“Mr. Murray, it seems to me you have not waited either for my sanction or my permission.”
“Ah, sir, consider the temptation.”
Involuntarily he looked into the face of “the temptation.” With clear, shining eyes she held his eyes a moment, and then her voice uttered the undeniable entreaty: “I love Leonard so dearly, father. And he loves me.”
“I see! I see!”
“We only wish to please you, father; that is best of all.”
“Indeed, sir, that is best of all!” said Leonard eagerly.
“Well, well! In this country the majority rules. What can a man do if there are three against him, especially when one of the three is his wife?” and he shook his head, and looked somewhat reproachfully at his wife.
Then Sappha slipped her arms around his neck, and laid her cheek against his, and he embraced his daughter and stretched out his hand to Leonard.
Thus Fortune often brings in the boats we do not steer, and by what we call a happy accident guides our dearest and most difficult hopes to a sudden fruition. It is then a good thing to leave the door wide open for our unknown angels. They often accomplish for us what we hardly dare to attempt.
After this settlement Sappha and Leonard felt that they might revel in the joy of life and take their pleasure where-ever they found it. And they found it both in public and private affairs. Annette’s marriage was to take place in June, and there were preparations without end going on for that event. Her grandfather De Vries had given her, as a wedding gift, the Semple place, a beautiful old home set in a fine garden which had once sloped down to the river bank.
“It is not exactly what I should have chosen,” said the bride-elect; “but it is valuable property, and grandfather would not have given it to me if I had not promised to live there.”
“It is no hardship to live in the Semple house,” said Sappha. “The rooms are so large, the woodwork so richly carved, and the garden is the sweetest, shadiest place in New York, I think.”
“Grandmother is going to furnish it, and she lets me choose exactly what I want. I declare, dear Achille and I have no time for love-making, we are so worried about chairs and tables and wedding garments.”
“I never should have thought Achille would worry about anything. He is always so deliberate, and so calm.”
“Oh, but a man in love is a different creature, and I can tell you that Achille is distractingly in love. I am not quite ignorant about the queer ways of men in a fever of infatuation. Why, he scarcely ever goes to see the pastry cook now.”
“Oh, but De Singeron was a gallant officer of King Louis! He is in exile and misfortune, that is all. The pastry business is but an emergency--and he manages it splendidly----”
“Certainly. I have always liked his good things. And he is going to make us the most wonderful wedding cake. However, when Achille and I are married Achille will have to give up many things, and Monsieur Auguste Louis de Singeron will be one of them. At present I have too many things to worry about to interfere.”
“You have nearly half a year in which to do your worrying. Why not take things more easily?”
“Oh, the fun is in the fuss! Did you hear that General Moreau is going back to Europe to join the allies? The emperor of Russia has sent for him, and now he will have the chance to pay Napoleon back for his nine years’ exile. But I shall never pass 119 Pearl Street without a sigh. No one ever gave such princely entertainments as the Moreaus. The general is to have a great appointment, but what he likes best is the chance of fighting the world’s big tyrant. Achille is going to see him embark--and many others. But this is not my affair. There is my wedding gown, for instance.”
“Have you decided on it?”
“It must be white--everything about me must be white. Achille says so. I think grandmother will send to Boston for the silk or satin; there is none here of a quality fit for the most important gown a woman can ever wear. You would think it was grandmother’s wedding, she is so interested in every little thing about it.”
Indeed, Annette did not much overstate madame’s interest in her granddaughter’s marriage preparations. She lifted the additional work, and even the additional expense, with a light-hearted alacrity that was wonderful. And in many ways her cheerfulness brought her a rich and ready reward. She had been almost a recluse for some years, she was now seen constantly on the streets and in the stores, and not infrequently in this way she became a delighted spectator of public parades and military drills and movements. Achille usually accompanied her, and his respectful attentions were a source of wonder and speculation to those who forgot to consider that Frenchmen are specially trained to give honour, and even reverence, to old age. So it was not remarkable that madame put on a kind of second youth; how could she be in constant, affectionate accord with four loving young hearts and not do so?
For the next half-year, then, Annette was the centre of interest in her own little world. The judge and Mrs. Bloommaert, Sappha, and Leonard gladly entered into the spirit of this generous service for, and sympathy with, the exultant little bride. And at this period of her life, even her foibles and selfishness were pleasantly excused. It was her last draught of the careless joy of girlhood; no one wished to spill, or spoil, one drop of it.
Leonard and Sappha were much of their time at the Bloommaert House in Nassau Street; although Leonard, in the City Commissioner’s office, was making some pretence of mapping out streets and lots of ground in the wilderness round Harlem Flat. But this business hardly interfered with his attentions to Sappha and Annette; nor yet with the military spirit which took him very regularly to the guard-room of some of the volunteer companies. He was also a recognised dependence when the city wished to entertain some hero whom it delighted to honour; for then both his purse and his natural genius for method and arrangement made him an invaluable surety for success.
During this half-year there were not many warlike events to influence New York, and her citizens had become quite used to the guns at the different forts signalling “the British fleet off Sandy Hook.” Many false alarms also contributed to this sense of security. They were well aware, too, that the already numerous forts were being steadily increased and strengthened, and in April the Battery parade was fortified. This park was then a strip of greensward about three hundred feet wide, between State Street and the water’s edge. It had no sea wall, only a low wooden fence on the edge of a bluff two or three feet high; then loose sand and pebbles to the water’s edge. There was a dock at the foot of Whitehall Street, and at Marketfield Street the water came nearly to the middle of the block between Washington and Greenwich streets. About the centre of the southeastern part of this park there was a public garden and a charming little hall, where coffee, cakes, ice cream, and other delicacies were served; and on summer evenings some of the military bands made excellent music there for the visitors.
Of course, the erection of a breastwork around this water line of the park was an interesting event to all the dwellers on the Bowling Green, and Sappha and Leonard, during the lovely days of April and May, took their walks about the Battery fortifications, and thus thrilled their love through and through with the passion of patriotism and the glow and excitement of its warlike preparations.
It was while these Battery defences were being constructed that the city gave one of its usual great entertainments to Captain Lawrence, who in the Hornet had captured the British brig-of-war Peacock. Two circumstances made this dinner one that brought the war very close to the people of New York--the first was the fact that Lawrence was a citizen of New York; the second was the marching of the one hundred and six survivors of the sunk ship Peacock through all the principal streets of the city to their prison in Fort Gansevoort, thus affording the populace a very visible proof of victory. It was, however, noticeable that few of American parentage offered any insult to the depressed-looking sailors, while many men of the first consideration raised their hats as the unhappy line passed. Leonard and Achille were among this number. “Honour to the vanquished!” said Achille with emotion; and Leonard, remembering who had taught them that sentiment, repeated it. And this courtesy was the more emphatic, because at that very time a large number of British war vessels had entered the Chesapeake and Delaware bays.
But did war ever stop marriage? On the contrary, it seems to give a strange vitality and hurry to love-making; and in the midst of all its alarms Annette’s wedding preparations went blithely on to their determined crisis. On the seventh of June Annette, being of age, became mistress of her estate, and on the seventeenth of the same month she married Achille St. Ange.
It was an exquisite summer day, and the old house in Nassau Street had never looked more picturesquely homelike. Every rose tree was in bloom, and doors and windows were all open to admit the scented air. For the company far exceeded the capacity of the parlours; it filled the hall, the stairway, and the piazzas, and even in the garden happy young people were wandering among the syringa bushes and the red and white roses. And presently there was a little wistful, eager stir, and Annette, followed by her grandmother and Sappha, came softly down the stairway. Then the girls sitting there rose and stood on each side of the descent, and Achille hastened to meet the snow-white figure, and ere she touched the floor took her hands in his own. And never had Annette looked so fair and so lovely; from the rose in her hair to the satin sandals on her feet she was in lustrous white. The faint colour of her cheeks, the deeper red of her mouth, and the heavenly blue of her eyes were but the tender tints that gave life to the bright, slow-moving, bride-like beauty.
Many a time Annette had consciously assumed a pensive, thoughtful expression, for Achille admired her most in such moods; but there was no necessity for the pretence this day. Those who had any penetrative observation might see beyond the light of her sweet smiles and glances the shadowed eyes that both remember and foresee. She was not a girl at all inclined to reflection, but feeling and intuition go where reason cannot enter, and Annette felt that this very day was the meridian day of her life. Having gained this, the height of her hope and desire, she wondered--even against her will--“if she must henceforward tread the downward slope until the evening shades of life found her?” Was this day to give a future to her past and change girlhood’s simple hopes into the richer joys of wifehood? Or would this new self that had just taken possession of her bring kisses wet with tears, waste remembrance of vanished hours, and forlorn sighs for the days eventual? Not these words, but the sentiment of them, insinuated itself into the bride’s consciousness. It was uncalled, and unwelcome; and Annette, frowning at the intrusion, dismissed it. She had always found “change” meant something better, and that there was ever a living joy, ready to take the place of a dead one, even as--
“The last cowslip in the fields we see
On the same day with the first corn poppy.”
Fortunately, after any great domestic vicissitude, there is generally a suspension of everything unusual. The family in which it has occurred refuse to be drawn into further changes. They instinctively feel that marriage, as well as death, makes life barren, and they say in many different ways, “It is enough. Leave things as they are; at least, for a little while.”
This was certainly the feeling in the Bloommaert family, and it was made more sensible by the unsatisfactory condition of the country. The campaign on the northern frontier had been, all the year, one military disaster, and the president designated the ninth of September as “a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer, and for an invocation for divine help.” On the eighth of September the British men-of-war captured thirty coasters within twelve miles of New York city, and the citizens who knelt in the pews of Trinity the next day not only felt the need of divine help, but were also wonderfully strengthened and comforted by the appropriate selection designated in the Prayer Book for the ninth day of the month. These were so remarkably suitable and encouraging that several of the newspapers called attention to the circumstance.
The very day after this public entreaty for help Commodore Perry in his flagship Lawrence won his victory on Lake Erie, and on the twenty-second of the month the news reached New York City, and turned fear and sadness into hope and triumph. General Harrison’s victory over Tecumseh followed, and these two successes had a special claim on the thankfulness of New York City and State; for “they gave security and repose to two hundred thousand families, who a week before then, could not fall asleep any night, with the certainty of escaping fire or the tomahawk until morning.”
Never since the white man first trod Manhattan Island had food and clothing been so difficult to obtain; and yet the great mass of the people of New York City did not seem to be at all anxious about national affairs. They had become accustomed to the war, and domestic life went very well then, to its triumphs and excitements of many kinds. For, if the prices of all the necessities and conveniences of life were high, there were plenty of treasury notes to pay for them; and very frequently valuable cargoes were brought, or sent, into port as prizes of some of the American privateers that were then swarming on the ocean.
Harrison’s victory and the approach of winter gave New York a feeling of present security, and the city was unusually gay. General Moreau’s princely entertainments were hardly missed, for the St. Anges’ dinners and balls were even more frequent, and more splendid; and Annette presided over these functions with a marvellous grace and tact. She seemed, at this time, to have realised her utmost ambition, and to be happy and satisfied in the actuality. Even the judge was more hospitable than he had ever before been; and madame was in a perpetual flutter between the dinners of her son Gerardus and the dances of her granddaughter, Annette.
So to the thrill of warlike drums and trumpets and the witching music of the dance fiddle Sappha’s wooing went happily forward. There was constant movement between the Bowling Green, Nassau Street, and the Semple house; and it was just as well Leonard had not opened any law book, for in these days all his reading and research was in the light and love of Sappha’s eyes. Certainly in the City Commissioner’s office his work was trifling and inconstant, for the greater part of his time was spent in the civil services necessary for the comfort of the many militia companies then in the city. In this respect he held a kind of non-official over-sight; for he was always ready to personally supply, at once, comforts which otherwise would have been delayed. Consequently he was welcome in every guard-room, and no young man in New York was more popular or more respected.
Judge Bloommaert was well aware of this fact, and yet there were times when the old dislike would assert itself; and, strange as it may seem, this feeling was usually caused by Leonard’s overflowing vitality, his almost boisterous good humour, and his confident conversation.
“The fellow never knows when he has ceased to be interesting,” he said one night fretfully, “and you and Sappha hang upon his words as if they were very wisdom. I am astonished at you, Carlita.”
“And I at you, Gerardus. Why cannot you two talk an hour together without getting on each others’ prejudices?”
“Leonard is always so cock-sure he is right.”
“Convince him he is wrong.”
“You cannot handle his arguments any more than you can handle soap bubbles; both are so empty.”
“I think he is very interesting. He knows all that is going on, and he tells us all he knows.”
“To be sure! He is a walking newspaper, and the leading article is always Leonard Murray. Whatever does Sapphira Bloommaert see in him? I am sure, also, that he keeps up his acquaintance with Mr. Burr. Yet he knows my opinion about that man.”
“Well, you see, Gerardus, though you may interfere somewhat in Leonard Murray’s love affairs, you cannot dictate to him concerning his friends. Suppose he should tell you that he did not approve of your friendship with Mr. Morris?”
“The impertinence is not supposable, Carlita. What are you thinking of? Such remarks are enough to make any man lose his temper.”
“Very likely, but if you lose your present temper, Gerardus, do not look for it; it is not worth finding. Do you really wish to separate Sappha and Leonard, after all that has been said and granted?”
“I do not say that. Cannot a man grumble a little to his wife? And must she take every fretful word at its full value? People complain of bonds they would never break. As the Dutch proverb has it, ‘The tooth often bites the tongue, but yet they keep together.’”
“Dear husband, all will come right in the long run. Leonard is in a very hard position. He desires to please so much that he exceeds, and so offends. He loves Sappha with all his heart; that should excuse many faults.”
“I do not see it in that way. It is not a favour to love Sapphira, nor yet a hard thing to do. What are you talking about?”
“I am saying that we both need sleep. We are tired out now. In the morning things will look so different.”
Such little frets, however, hardly ruffled the full stream of the life of that day. There were plenty of real worries for those who wished to complain; and for those inclined to take the fervour and faith, the courage and self-denial of the time, there were plenty of occasions for happiness and hope. And so the winter grew to spring, and the spring waxed to summer, and June brought roses and the most astonishing news.
It came to the Bloommaert’s one morning as they were sitting at the breakfast table. The meal was over, but they lingered together discussing a dinner party which Annette was to give that day, and their order of going to it. It was a special dinner, to which only relatives of the family were invited, and was given in honour of Annette’s little daughter, then six weeks old. Madame was present, and took an eager interest in the affair, for the child had been called by her name; and she had with her the deed of a house in Cedar Street, which she was going to put into the little Jonaca’s hand.
Leonard had promised to call for Sappha at twelve o’clock, but the judge was advising them to go early, when the parlour door was thrown open with some impetuosity, and Leonard stood looking at the group with a face full of conflicting emotions. In a moment every one had divined that he had important news, and the judge rose to his feet and asked impatiently:
“What is it, Leonard?”
“Two hundred thousand French troops are prisoners of war. Paris is in possession of the allies. Napoleon has been exiled. The Bourbons are again on the throne of France.”
“My God! Is all this true, Leonard?”
“There is not a doubt of it.”
“Then I must go and see Gouverneur Morris at once. Tell Annette I will be on time for dinner.” And he hurried away with these words, and left Leonard to discuss the news and the dinner with the three excited women.
There was now no unnecessary delay, for the streets were already in a state of commotion, the news having spread like wildfire. Nor could they escape the influence of the fervid atmosphere through which they passed; the glowing sunshine was not more ardent than the passionate rejoicing and the passionate hatred that challenged each other at every step of their progress. Even the shadowy stillness of the Semple gardens and the large, cool rooms of the house were full of the same restless antagonising spirit. Annette’s cousins, the Verplancks and the Van Burens, and her aunt, Joanna de Vries, speedily followed them, but it was only the women of the families that entered the house; the men hastened back to Broadway and the Battery to hear and to discuss the news. And it was hard for Annette to keep a smiling face over her angry heart. Who were the Bourbons that they should interfere with her affairs? Indeed, she complained to her grandmother bitterly of Achille’s strange conduct. He had left her in the midst of their breakfast, left her as soon as he heard the news, without one thought as to the family duties devolving on him that day. And madame had not been too sympathetic. “You have been crying, Annette,” she said. “I am afraid you have a discontented temper. For the dinner, your husband will return.”
“I know not, grandmother. When that pastry cook flung open our parlour door and cried out ‘Achille! Achille! Napoleon is in exile! The Bourbons are on the throne of France again!’ Achille flung himself into the man’s arms, and they kissed each other. Grandmother, they kissed each other, and then went off together as if they were out of their senses.”
“But to you also, Achille spoke? Of the dinner he spoke; I know it.”
“He said he would return in time for dinner; but he will forget--he was beside himself----”
“Come, come, let not Joanna de Vries see that you are vexed at any thing. Too much she will have to say. Here comes Madame Rutgers! Shall we go to them?”
Then Annette went to welcome her guests, and, with longer or shorter delays, the company gathered. Every one had something strange to add to the general excitement, but it was only the women that chattered and quarrelled until near two o’clock. Then the judge and Leonard came in together, and were soon followed by the young Verplanks, Commissioner Van Buren and his two sons, and Cornelius Bogart, Annette’s favourite cousin.
But Achille at two o’clock had not arrived, and the dinner was ready, and the company waiting--the men very impatiently, for at “high ’Change” they had taken their usual nooning of a piece of raw salt codfish and a glass of punch, and they knew that the ordinary at the Tontine Coffee House, in Wall Street, would have at three o’clock a dinner very much more to their mind, considering the news of the day and the disturbance and the agitation it had caused. Annette, under these conditions, had nothing to offer as attractive. The women, fair and otherwise, were the women of their own family connections; and relations must be taken as found; there is no choice, as in friends. Which of us has not relations that would never be on our list of friends?
So there was an uncomfortable hour of waiting, and as Achille came not Madame Bloommaert proposed to serve dinner without his presence. “For one laggard,” she said, “to keep twenty-eight people waiting is not right, Annette. At once, now, the dinner ought to be served.”
Annette agreed to this, but it was hard for her to smile, and to keep back tears. However, just as Judge Bloommaert was going to take Achille’s place the laggard entered. And he was in such a radiant mood that he passed over as insignificant his delay. “He was a little late--he had forgotten--but then it was remarkable that he should have remembered at all. Such news! Such glorious news? Oh, it had been a wonderful morning!”
In further conversation he said his friend Monsieur de Singeron had presented his business to a poor French family. “He is going home! He is beside himself with joy!” he continued. “He will be restored to his rank, and to his command in the royal guards! Ah! it is enough to have lived to see this day. It atones, it atones for all!” And Achille, who could neither eat nor drink, sat smiling at every one. He was sure all reasonable people must feel as he did.
“I suppose,” said Judge Bloommaert, “most of the French exiles will return, as soon as they can, to their native country.”
“They will make no delays,” answered Achille. “It was a good sight to watch them on the ship and the river bank. They were unhappy, uncertain, until they saw with their own eyes the frigate that had brought the glad news, and her captain understood. He permitted the crowd to tread her deck. He flew over them the lilies of France. He spoke to them in their own tongue. Ah, my friends, you will sympathise with these sad exiles; you will not wonder that they knelt down and wept tears of joy!”
Indeed, Achille was so transported with his own sympathies that he failed to perceive the atmosphere of dissent among his guests. True, the judge’s fellow feeling was evident, also that of the Verplanks, but the De Vries family and the Van Burens were in hot opposition to anything, or any one, whom the Federalists favoured. So the element of the room was not conducive to domestic rejoicing; and the dinner was virtually a failure. The men of the party were all anxious to return to their clubs or gathering-places; and the women, left to themselves, soon exhausted their admiration for the little Jonaca, and remembered their own homes and household affairs. And as the day waned, the thick trees surrounding the Semple house filled the rooms with shadows, and Annette--a little dismayed by Achille’s conduct--could not lift her flagging spirits to the proper pitch of hospitality. Then Joanna de Vries opened the way for an early retreat. She spoke of the restless streets, and of her father’s great age and loneliness, and immediately every one recollected duties equally as important. And as madame intended to remain with Annette, Mrs. Bloommaert and Sappha also took their departure.
It was a beautiful summer evening, and the streets, though neither crowded nor boisterous, were full of life. The happy French residents had illuminated their houses, and through their open windows came joyful sounds of rejoicing and song. Federalist orators were addressing small gatherings of people at the street corners, and Democratic orators contradicting all they said at the next block. Applause, laughter, derision, enthusiasm of one kind or another thrilled the warm air, and the joy and pang of life assailed the heart or imagination at every step.
On the Bowling Green there was a very respectable audience listening to Gouverneur Morris, who was speaking in such passionate accord with Achille’s sentiments that it was astonishing not to find Achille at his right hand.
“Mr. Morris is the most eloquent speaker of the age,” said Leonard; “let us listen a few minutes to his words.” And as they did so, they heard the embryo utterance of that remarkable “Bourbon speech” which he made a few days afterwards in Dr. Romeyn’s church in Cedar Street:
“The Bourbons are restored. Rejoice, France, Spain, Portugal, Europe, rejoice! Nations of Europe, ye are brethren once more! The family of nations is complete. Embrace, rejoice! And thou, too, my much wronged country! my dear, abused, self-murdered country! bleeding as thou art, rejoice! The Bourbons are restored. The long agony is over. The Bourbons are restored!”
“Let us go home, Leonard,” said Mrs. Bloommaert. “I never heard so much praise of the Bourbons before. My father did not approve of them. If Napoleon is done with, why did not the French people insist on a republic? They had Lafayette--and others.”
Leonard answered only, “Yes.” He did not wish to open the subject of the helplessness of France, nor point out how absurdly irrational it would be for the allied kings of Europe to found a republic in their midst. He felt weary of the subject, and the sense of the evening’s failure affected him. It had been a disappointing day, what was the good of prolonging it? Sappha and Leonard might have fallen into the mistake of doing so, but Mrs. Bloommaert knew better. At the doorstep she positively dismissed Leonard, who could not quite hide the fact that he was willing to obey her. But Sappha, who had hoped to charm away this feeling of tediousness and lassitude when they were alone, was vexed at losing her opportunity.
“It was not kind of you, mother, to send Leonard off as soon as we had done with him. He was weary, too,” she said.
“Weary! I should think he was,” answered Mrs. Bloommaert; “he must be worn out with women to-day. Such a crowd of us as Annette got together.”
“The women were not more disagreeable than the men, mother,” said Sappha. “And I believe Leonard has gone straight to the militia guard-rooms--there are nothing but men there, and so he can rest.”
“I hope he has not gone to any guard-room. Every one will be quarrelling with his neighbour to-night.”
Leonard had, indeed, gone to the guard-room of the Jersey Blues, but his visit was decidedly against his inclination. He was as weary as Mrs. Bloommaert had supposed him to be--weary of the Bourbons, and of the passionate fratching about them; weary of men, and of women also; weary of companionship of all kinds; weary of noise and strain of the restless city; weary of life itself. Vital and large as his nervous force was, it had become exhausted; feeling had wasted it, and disappointment been equally depleting. He resolved when he turned from the Bloommaert house to go direct to his rooms in the City Hotel and seek in solitude and sleep a renewal of strength and hope. On the steps of the hotel an old acquaintance accosted him, and Leonard rather reluctantly asked “if he had come to see him?”
“Yes,” answered the man. “I am in trouble, Mr. Murray, and I could think of no one but you to give me some advice. It is about Miss Martin. You remember pretty Sarah Martin? We were engaged, and she has broken the engagement. I am very unhappy. I do not know what to do. I think you can tell me.”
“I am going to my rooms now. Come upstairs with me, McKenzie.”
“I cannot. I must be back at the guard-room in half an hour. Will you not go with me? We can talk there well enough.”
Then Leonard went with McKenzie, and after the little formalities with the men present in the guard-room were over, Leonard and McKenzie took chairs to an open window and began their consultation. And very soon Leonard threw off his lassitude and became heartily interested in his friend’s trouble. Suddenly a voice, blatant and dictatorial, fell upon his consciousness. It was the voice of a man who had been a member of the company raised by Leonard, and who during the whole term of its service was a source of annoyance and disputing--a man of low birth and of a mean, envious nature, who had neither a good education nor good breeding, and, indeed, who affected to despise both. Leonard’s youth, beauty, fine culture, and fine manners, added to his great wealth and popularity, roused at once Horace Gilson’s envy; and envy in the close companionship of a military fort quickly grew to an almost uncontrollable hatred. And in Gilson’s nature hatred had its proper soil; he was insensible to the nobler qualities of humanity, and persuaded himself--and other of his kind--that Leonard’s gracious forbearance was not the fine courtesy of an officer to his subordinate, but the fear of a timid and effeminate spirit. Indeed, Leonard’s three months’ service had been made an hourly trial by the hardly concealed mockery and contempt of Horace Gilson. Of all men in the wide world he was the very last Leonard wished to see. He moved his chair a little nearer to McKenzie, and by so doing faced the open window only. McKenzie continued talking, unmindful of Gilson’s entrance, but Leonard heard above all he said the sneering taunt and scoffing laugh of the man he despised and disliked. Every one and everything appeared to provoke his disdain, and it was not long before he turned his attention to the two men sitting apart at the window.
“Secrets! Secrets!” he cried with effusive familiarity. “We will have no secrets in a guard-room. Out with the ladies’ names--if you are not ashamed of them.”
Leonard looked indifferently out of the window; it was McKenzie’s affair, not his. And McKenzie, laying his hand upon his pistol in an almost mechanical way, merely glanced at the bully and said: “You had better mind your own business, sir.”
“I am not speaking to you, McKenzie,” Gilson answered. “I am addressing Captain Murray, the great New York Adonis and lady killer! Come, captain, your latest victories?”
“Mr. Gilson,” answered Leonard, “my friend and I are discussing private concerns. When we desire your company, we will let you know. In the meantime, we wish to be alone.”
“Now, captain, no more airs from you. You have left the militia, you know--three months used up your patriotism,” answered Gilson scornfully.
McKenzie rose in a passion. “Damn your impertinence, Gilson! I’ll give you a----”
“Be quiet, Mac,” interrupted Leonard. “The fool is drunk--you can’t even horsewhip a drunken man.” Then he took McKenzie firmly by the arm and both rose to leave the room.
“Drunk, eh?” cried Gilson in a rage. “Drunk! It is well for you both to get out of my way, for I’ll pay you all I owe you yet, Murray--you, and your damned dollars! Go and see if you can buy a little common dog-courage with them.”
“Let me knock the ranting bully down, Murray.”
“He is not worth it.”
By this time the men present were on their feet, some urging Murray to leave the room, some trying to talk reason into Gilson, who became more and more defiant as the objects of his abuse passed out of the hearing of it.
It was a wretched ending to a disagreeable day, and Leonard sat half through the midsummer night fretting and fuming over the incident. He was not a quarrelsome man, and a quarrel with Horace Gilson was an affair too low and despicable to contemplate. Why had McKenzie come to him with his trouble? He felt the injustice of the visit. If he had been a few minutes later he would have missed the man and the annoyance that had grown out of his sympathy with him. He looked wistfully out of the window towards the Bloommaert house, and remembered Sappha, but speedily exiled her from his thoughts, because he could not keep the scene at the guard-room out of them; and it seemed a sacrilege to have both in his consciousness at the same time.
However, after an irritating vigil of some hours he fell asleep with sheer weariness, and when he awakened near noon on the following day Nature had accomplished her renovating work. The Unseen Powers had cradled his soul into peace, cleared away the rack and wreckage of an unfortunate day, and filled his exhausted spirit with the miraculous strength of Faith and Hope.
