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.