satisfaction; he felt better for it, though he did not ask himself why,
nor wherefore, in the matter. As he approached his home he saw Sapphira
sitting at the window, her head bent over the work she was doing. She
heard her father’s step, she knew he was watching her, but she did not
lift her eyes, or give him the smile he expected. And when he entered
the room she preserved the same attitude. He lifted a newspaper and
began to read it; the servants brought in the dinner, and Mrs.
Bloommaert also came and took her place at the table. She was not the
usual Carlita at all, and the judge had a very depressing meal. As for
Sapphira, she did not speak, unless in answer to some direct question
regarding her food. She was pale and wretched-looking, and her eyes were
red with weeping.
The judge ate his roast duck, and glanced at the two patient, silent,
provoking women. They were making him miserable, and spoiling his
food,--and he liked roast duck,--yet he did not know how to accuse them.
Apparently they were perfectly innocent women, but unseen by mortal eyes
they had the husband and father’s heart in their little white hands,
and were cruelly wounding it. When dinner was over Sapphira lifted her
work and went to her room, and Mrs. Bloommaert, instead of sitting down
for her usual chat with her husband while he smoked his pipe, walked
restlessly about, putting silver and crystal away, and making a great
pretence of being exceedingly interested in her investigations. He
watched her silently until she was about to leave the room, then he said
a little peremptorily, “Carlita, where are you going? What, by heaven
and earth, is the matter with you!”
“You know what is the matter, Gerardus.”
“I suppose the trouble is--Leonard Murray again. Confound the man!”
“Mr. Justice, you will please remember I am present. I think you behaved
very unkindly to Sapphira this morning--and the poor little one has had
such an unhappy day! my heart bleeds for her.”
“Well, Carlita, I was too harsh, I will admit that; but I cannot tell
Sapphira that I was wrong. It was all said and done in a moment--the
sight of the flowers, and her joy in them----”
“I know, Gerardus. I must confess to the same temper. When I came
downstairs, and found you had gone without your proper breakfast, and
that you had neither come upstairs to bid me good-bye, nor yet left any
message for me, I was troubled. And I had a headache, and had to go to
Sapphira’s room to get her to come to the table, and the sight of her
crying over those tiresome rosebuds made me angry; and I said more and
worse than you did. I told her she ought to be ashamed to put her father
out for any strange man; and that the fuss she was making over Leonard
Murray was unmaidenly; and that the young man himself was far too free
and demonstrative--oh, you know, Gerardus, what disagreeable things a
fretful mother has the liberty to say to her child! And then, as if all
this was not enough, Annette came in about eleven o’clock, and I told
her Sapphira was not well, but she would go to her. And, of course, the
first things she noticed were the white roses and Sapphira’s trouble,
and the little minx put two and two together in a moment. What do you
think she said, Gerardus?”
“Pitied Sapphira, I suppose.”
“She clapped her hands and cried out, ‘Oh, you also got roses! White
ones! Mine were pink--such lovely pink rosebuds! My colour is pink, you
know.’ And Sapphira answered, ‘I thought it was blue,’ but Annette
dropped the subject at once and began to rave about Sapphira’s swollen
face and red eyes, and offered her a score of remedies--and so on.
Sapphira could only suffer. You know she would have died rather than
express either curiosity or annoyance. So, then, having given Sapphira
the third and cruelest blow, she went tripping away, telling her ‘to
sleep, and not to dream of the handsome Leonard.’ I generally go to
Sapphira after a visit from Annette, and when I went to the poor child’s
room she was sobbing as if her heart would break. She told me what
Annette said, and cried the more, because she had been scolded both by
you and me, and all for nothing.”
“Poor little one!”
“Yes, indeed, Gerardus. These young hearts suffer. We have forgotten how
little things seemed so great and so hard in our teens; but every heart
is a fresh heart, and made that it may suffer, I think.”
“I do not believe Annette got a basket of pink roses. I do not like
Murray, but I think there are things he would not do. I saw a letter
too--at the bottom of the basket. Oh, I do not believe Annette!”
“That is so. I told Sapphira it was a lie--oh, yes, I will say the word
straight out, for I do think it was a lie. But she is a clever girl. She
took in all sides of the question as quick as lightning. She knew they
were from Leonard, and that there had been trouble, and she knew Sappha
would never name pink roses to Leonard. She was safe enough in Sappha’s
pride, for, though she gave a positive impression that Leonard had sent
her a basket of pink roses, she never said it was Leonard. If brought to
examination, she would have pretended astonishment at Sapphira’s
inference, modestly refused the donor’s name, and very likely added
‘indeed, it was only a little jealousy, dearest Sapphira, that caused
you to misunderstand me.’ You see, I have known Annette all her life.
She always manages to put Sapphira in the wrong; and at the same time
look so sweetly innocent herself.”
“What is to be done in this unhappy affair, Carlita? Sit here beside
me, wife, and tell me. For you are a wise, kind woman, and you love us
all.”
“God knows, Gerardus! I have been thinking, thinking, thinking, through
the livelong day, and what I say is this--let those things alone that
you cannot manage. Because you cannot manage them, they make you angry;
and you lose your self-respect, and then you lose your temper, and then,
there is, God knows, what other loss of love and life and happiness. My
father used to say--and my father was a good man, Gerardus.”
“No better man ever lived than father Duprey.”
“Well, then, he always said that birth, marriage, and death were God’s
part; and that marriage was the most so of all these three great events.
For birth only gives the soul into the parent’s charge for perhaps
twenty years; and then all the rest of life is in the charge of the
husband. As for death, then, it is God Himself that takes the charge.
Let the young ones come and go; they may be fulfilling His will and
way--if we enquire after His will and way.”
“But if Murray speaks to me for Sapphira, what then?”
“There is the war. Tell him marriage is impossible until peace comes.
War time is beset with the unexpected. In love affairs, time is
everything. Speak fairly and kindly, and put off.”
“Very good, Carlita. But if I should discover any reason why the
marriage should not be, this time plan is not the thing. If a love
affair ought to be broken off, it ought to be done at once--and if
there should be any truth in those pink roses!”
“Well, Gerardus, if you are expecting trouble, you may leave Annette to
make it. But my opinion is that Sapphira ought to be trusted. If you
believe that God gave her into our charge for her sweet childhood and
girlhood, can you not trust Him to order her wifehood and motherhood;
and even in old age, to carry her and direct her way? If He foresaw her
parents, also, He foresaw her husband. Are you not interfering too soon,
and too much? After all, what can we do against destiny?”
“You are right, Carlita. Go now and comfort the poor child a little. You
know what to say--both for yourself and for me.”
Then Mrs. Bloommaert rose, smiling trustfully and happily, but at the
door she turned. Her husband went toward her, and she toward him, and
when they met, she kissed him with untranslatable affection. Again she
was at the door, and the judge stood in the middle of the room watching
her. As she slowly opened it, he made up his mind about something he had
been pondering for a couple of weeks.
“Carlita,” he said, “you may tell Sapphira that to-morrow I will buy her
that grand pianoforte at Bailey & Stevens’, that she was so delighted
with.”
“Oh, my dear Gerardus!”
“It is not white rosebuds, but yet she may like it.” He could not help
this little fling.
“There is nothing in all the world she wanted so much, though she never
dreamed of possessing it.”
“We shall see, dear! We shall see!”
In about half an hour the door opened gently, and there was a swift,
light movement. Then Sappha was at his knees, and her face was against
his breast, and he bent his head, and she threw her white arms around
his neck and kissed him. There was no word spoken; and there was none
needed--the kiss--the kneeling figure--the clasping arms, were the
clearest of explanations, the surest of all promises. Verily “he that
ruleth his spirit is stronger than he who taketh a city.”
CHAPTER THREE
_A Sweetness More Desired than Spring_
In this sort of veiled truce the new days came, but the inheritance of
those other few days, following the declaration of war, was not disposed
of. On the contrary, its influence continually increased; though Leonard
received from Mrs. Bloommaert neither special favour nor special
disregard. As for the judge, he preserved a grave courtesy, which the
young man found it almost impossible either to warm, or to move; and it
soon became obvious to Mrs. Bloommaert that her husband’s frequent
visits to his friend, General Bloomfield, were made in order to prevent
all temptations to alter the polite reserve of his assumed manner.
But the lover’s power is the poet’s power. He can make love from all the
common strings with which this world is strung. And this time was far
from being common; it was thrilled through and through by rumours of
war, of defeat and of victory, so that the sound of trumpets, and the
march of fighting men were a constant obligato to the most trivial
affairs. No one knew what great news any hour might bring. Expectation
stood on tiptoe waiting for the incredible. This was not only the case
in America. All over Christendom the war flags were flying, and the
nations humbling themselves before the great Napoleon. With an army of
more than half a million men he was then on his way to invade the
dominions of the Emperor of Russia, and at the same time he was waging
war with England and Spain, in the Spanish peninsula. The greater part
of the rest of Europe was subject to his control; and England was
necessarily at war, not only with Napoleon, but with all the other
powers of Europe, who were either allies or dependents of Napoleon.
Under such circumstances it was hardly likely that she would send any
greater force from her continental wars than she thought necessary to
maintain her possessions in America. Thus, as yet, there was all the
stir and enthusiasm of war, without any great fear of immediate danger.
Leonard came and went, as many other young men did, to the house of
Bloommaert; and their talk was all of fighting. But the eyes have a
language of their own; the hands speak, flowers and books and music, all
were messengers of love, and did his high behests. Moreover, New York
was even abnormally gay. She gave vent to her emotions in social
delights and unlimited hospitality. Tea-and card-parties, assemblies or
subscription balls, excursions up the river, visits to Ballston mineral
springs, riding and driving, and the evening saunter on the
Battery--when the moon shone, and the band played, and embryo heroes
brought ices and made honest love--all these things were part and
parcel of these early days of war, in eighteen hundred and twelve; and
Leonard Murray and Sapphira Bloommaert met under such happy
circumstances continually.
The Bowling Green was the heart of this festivity, for it was the
headquarters of the military commanders; and all the colour and pomp of
war centred there. Every morning Sappha awoke to the sound of martial
music; and every hour of daylight the sidewalks were gay with the
uniforms of the army and the militia. It was Annette’s misfortune to
live in Nassau Street; but then, as she said, “a great many officers
found Nassau Street a convenient way to the Battery.” Doubtless they did
so, for her pretty face among the flowers and tantalising shrubbery of
the house was an attraction worth going a little out of the way for.
However, both Annette and Madame Bloommaert spent much time at the house
on the Bowling Green; and no one was more interested in public affairs
than the judge’s mother. Her daughter-in-law had many other cares and
duties; but the war to Madame Jonaca Bloommaert was the pivot on which
all her interests hung.
She was sitting, one morning towards the end of July, eating breakfast
with her granddaughter. There was a little breeze wandering about the
old place, and madame wore her white Canton crape shawl, a sure sign
that she intended to go to the Bowling Green. Well Annette had prepared
herself for such a likely visit, and she looked with complacent
satisfaction at her figured chintz frock, and her snow-white pelerine of
the sheerest muslin.
“About that affair at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church last Sunday, I want to
ask your uncle Gerardus,” said madame. “I take leave to say it was not
respectable. I can hardly credit the tale--eh; what do you think?”
“It must be true, grandmother; I was at the dinner table yesterday when
cousin Peter came in and told us.”
“Told you? What then?”
“He said that after leaving church on Sunday morning, and seeing us
safely to our gate, he went up Nassau Street and crossed the City Hall
Park, intending to call on John Van Ambridge. Not finding him at home,
he took the Broadway to the Bowling Green, and as he was passing St.
Paul’s Episcopal Church an artillery regiment marched out of the church,
playing _Yankee Doodle_; and so up Broadway, to both the outspoken anger
and outspoken pleasure of the crowd. Many men called on them to cease;
others bid them go on, and there was a commotion that would likely have
been much greater, if it had not been Sunday.”
“What said Peter?”
“He did not like it; he said it never could have happened at the Middle
Dutch Church, and so he laid all the blame on Episcopacy.”
“And what said your uncle?”
“He did not like it either. He thought the officers should be
reprimanded. What do you say, grandmother?”
“I like it.”
Annette smiled with a pleasant anticipation. She rather enjoyed a
difference of opinion between the household powers. There was generally
some small advantage in one way or another as a result. Reconciliations
were sure to follow, and reconciliations brought laxities and
favours--not infrequently gifts. She did not forget Sappha’s new
piano--the white roses and the tear-stained face, and as a natural
sequence--the piano.
As they took their way to the Bowling Green madame noticed an unusual
quiet in the streets, but Annette, to whom the Bowling Green represented
New York, thought everything very lively. The musical exit from St.
John’s supplied the conversation, or at least seasoned it with a just
interesting acrimony, till the dinner hour arrived. The judge was always
pleased to see his mother, and always placed her in his own seat at the
table when she eat with them, and this loyal respect and kindness,
though so often repeated, never failed to touch madame as if it was a
new thing that very hour. So she spoke far more tolerantly than she
intended, about the scene at St. John’s, and expended her little store
of wrath upon an ordinance which the Common Council had just passed,
making it unlawful for any one but those in actual service to beat drums
or play fifes on the streets, except under great restrictions as to
time. Madame indignantly declared such a law to be “a restriction on the
liberty of the individual;” and she reminded her son how much of a
sinner he himself had been, when the Revolutionary War was beginning.
“You were then a lad of only ten years old, Gerardus, yet the drum was
never out of your hands, unless you were playing the fife,” she said.
“I am sorry to hear this, mother,” he answered. “The suffering that has
been caused by such exhibitions of boyish patriotism is beyond our
counting. The healthy have been made sick, the sick have been made
worse, and in many cases, undoubtedly, they have died in consequence of
the perpetual noise. Latterly these bands have taken to beating drums
incessantly before the house of any one thought to be opposed to the
war, and the general distress has compelled householders to beseech the
Town Council for its interference.”
“An old woman am I,” said madame, “but the noise never annoyed me.”
“Mother, you are not an old woman, and you will never be old. If you see
one hundred years, you will die young.”
She put out her thin, brown hand towards her son at this compliment, and
he laid his own all over it. Then she added a little defiantly: “More
noise than ever we shall have in a day or two. Just nobody, is the
Common Council. The new disease is noise, and the boys all have it.”
“Well, then, mother, the law will make short work of it--there is a
heavy fine and the watch-house for those who do not mind the law.”
“Poor boys!”
“I think we have had enough of that subject,” said Mrs. Bloommaert; “is
there no other news, Gerardus?”
“Well, my friend General Bloomfield is to be relieved of his command
here; so my pleasant evening smoke and chat with him will soon come to
an end. I heard, also, that the company raised by Leonard Murray had
joined Colonel Harsen’s artillery regiment, and offered their services
as a body to the governor, and that it has been accepted. Some parts of
it will go to Staten Island, others to Bedloe’s Island and the Narrows.”
He did not raise his eyes as he made this statement, or he must have
seen the face of his daughter flush and pale at his words. She
understood from them that Leonard would leave New York, and she could
not imagine how long his absence might be. Mrs. Bloommaert did not
speak; but she looked curiously at the dropped countenance of her
husband. In some dim, undefined way, she came in a moment to the
conclusion that this bit of military movement had been effected by
General Bloomfield, in order to please his friend. Annette shrugged her
shoulders and said some one, or something, always carried off _her_
friends. She wondered what she should do without Leonard--he was so
obliging, so merry, so always on hand when she wanted him, and so
discreetly absent when she would have felt him a nuisance. She went on
in a pretty, complaining way, as if Leonard was her special friend, or
even lover, and though all present looked at her with a mild
astonishment, no one cared to contradict the position she had taken.
Madame even endorsed it by her unconscious affectation of sympathy. “You
have a trifle of eight or ten other admirers, child,” she said; “and
Leonard Murray is by no means unparagoned. A token give to him, and let
him go; a little discipline, that will be good for him.”
This discussion had given Sappha time for self-control, and Mrs.
Bloommaert looked with admiration at her daughter. She had feared some
scornful or passionate word, but the face of Sappha was as calm as that
of a sleeping child. She had taken possession of herself completely; and
she asked her mother for some delicacy she wanted, with an air of one
only concerned about her dinner. For by a strong mental effort she had
closed the door on Leonard for the time being: she loved him too well,
and too nobly, to babble about her relations with him--especially with
her cousin Annette.
She asked her father for no further information, and he was pleased at
her reticence; so much so that he gently stroked her hair as he passed
her seat in going out; and the smile she gave him in return made him
thoroughly respect her. It was a time when it was considered a mark of
refinement in a woman to weep readily; and if under the stress of any
unusual joy or grief or disappointment she fainted away, she was thought
to have done the right thing to prove her exquisite sensibility. But if
Sapphira had fainted on hearing of her lover’s departure, the judge
would never have stroked her hair, and she would also have missed that
comprehensive, kindling glance from her mother, which at once bid her
be brave for the occasion, and assured her of sympathy.
But the weariest river finds the sea somewhere, and the time and the
hour run through the longest day. There were visitors after dinner, and
then tea-time came and went; and the judge prepared himself to see his
mother and niece safely to their home.
“And, Carlita, my dear,” he said, “I may not be home until late. There
is to be a meeting at Tammany Hall to approve the war, and considering
our conversation to-day at dinner, one thing about the call is worth
telling you--it is ‘recommended to citizens of forty-five years of age
and upward.’”
Madame laughed and gave her long mitts an impatient jerk--“these
greybeards of ‘forty-five and upward’ are going to talk very wisely, no
doubt,” she said; “but the young men it is, who will man the ships and
the batteries, and the real fighting do.”
“The old men will lead them, mother.”
“Sixteen were you when you went to the front in the last war, Gerardus;
and Aaron Burr, who was no older, if as old, carried messages between
Arnold and Montgomery through the thick of the fight at Quebec; and when
Montgomery fell, little Burr it was who caught his body and carried it
out of the line of fire through a very rain of bullets--a boy, mind
you!”
“Mother, I have divested myself of all community of feeling with the
man called Aaron Burr, and of all interest whatever in his sayings and
doings.”
“There it is! However, the sayings and doings will talk for themselves
some day. Come, let us be going. Carlita looks worn out with our
chatter.”
Carlita did not deny the imputation, and as soon as the echo of their
footsteps had died away in the distance, she said, “Sappha, carry the
candles into the other parlour. I want to lie down on the sofa. I want
to be quiet and dark, and find out where I am, and what I am. The strain
has been very hard. Nassau Street always leaves me feeling fit for
nothing but sleep.”
“And then to end it, that weary Aaron Burr controversy. Can’t people let
him alone?”
“No! When he did well, he heard it never; now they say he has done ill,
he hears of it day in and day out.”
So Sappha went to the best parlour, where the piano still stood open,
with the new music scattered over it. She put it in order, and the very
act brought her a restful, thoughtful mood. Then she closed the
instrument, and drawing a comfortable chair before the window she sat
down to commune with her own heart. If what her father had said
concerning Leonard’s company was correct--and she had no doubt of
it--then it was almost certain Leonard would himself call and tell her.
He might call that very night; she was finally sure he would call, and
her ears took intent note of every sound, and of every coming footstep.
Very rarely are our hopes and wishes accomplished! But this hour was
favourable to Sappha’s love. In a very short time she heard the strong,
quick steps she was waiting to hear; and her face grew luminous with
pleasure, and a sweet smile made her little red mouth enchanting. She
did not go to meet him--the front door stood wide open these summer
evenings, and there was a distinct luxury in sitting still and waiting
for the approach of happiness. It was approaching so surely, so swiftly,
and as the steps came near, and more near, she heard in that scarcely
broken silence the oracle of her heart.
He entered softly, with a grace half-mystical and half-sensuous; and
without a word stood over her. Then she lifted her eyes, and he saw
their bright light turn tender, and he stooped and laid his cheek
against hers, and whispered: “Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you
love me, Sappha? Speak, dearest! Speak quickly! Oh, speak kindly!”
And her soul flew to her lips, and there was no need of words. Love
found a sweeter interpretation.
“Thy little white hand, give it to me.”
She had no will to refuse it, almost of its own will it slipped between
the two strong hands that held it fast. Then he found out those happy
love words that are so glad that they dance as they burn; those words at
once so simple and so wise, so gentle and so strong.
And the great marvel of love is ever this--the slenderness of the
knowledge and experience which compels one human being to say to
another, “I love you!” which compels souls to rush together, as if they
were drawn by some such irresistible attraction as compels planets to
follow their orbits. Both were so young and so happy that they made each
other seem lovelier as they sat with clasped hands, speaking of
Leonard’s company and its destination.
“How shall I endure your absence, Leonard? I know not. You are my life,
now, dear one,” said Sappha.
“But, Sappha, my sweet, I shall be in your thoughts, as you in mine; and
we shall not know that we are apart. Besides, it will be only for ninety
days.”