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.
CHAPTER EIGHT
_The Rose of Renunciation_
As Leonard dressed himself he recollected the guard-room quarrel and
smiled. It seemed really so ridiculous and ineffectual; yet he resolved
to avoid Gilson as much as possible. “The man was drunk,” he thought,
“but sober or drunk, he has an envious nature, and a tongue ready for
ill words. Perhaps he may seek me out and continue his offensive
behavior. What then?” He pondered this likelihood a few moments, and
then asked himself cheerfully:
“Why should I worry about the probability of such a thing? As if it
mattered.” But it is hard to tell what matters, though safe enough to
say that in conduct it is best not to make trifles of trifles. For there
is an amazing vitality in some trifles, and we know not which may
abortively pass and which may become of momentous importance.
Yet, for two days Leonard hardly thought of Gilson and his drunken
abuse; or if it entered his mind it was only as an annoying and
commonplace event that he was in no way responsible for. He had not one
fear that it could possibly have any serious effect upon his life. And
as it happened the two days following Annette’s dinner party were
exceedingly happy ones to Sappha and Leonard. One of them was spent with
Madame Bloommaert in Nassau Street, and another with Annette at the
Semple house. Then came Saturday, and Leonard went early in the
afternoon to the Bowling Green. It was a very warm day, the parlour
windows in Judge Bloommaert’s house were open, and Sappha was sitting in
the sunshine happily indolent. She smiled a thousand welcomes as he
entered, but did not move, for her lap was full of knotted embroidery
silks, and Leonard seated himself at her side, and together they began
to slowly unravel and sort the tangled skeins. So happy, so merry, were
they! their hands touching, their heads touching, light laughter and
loving whispers feeding their hearts with a full content.
When the judge came home Sappha and Leonard rose gaily to meet him, but
they were both chilled by his manner, which was constrained and
unfriendly. A sense of something unpleasant swept out of cognisance the
innocent mirth that had pervaded the room; and in a moment its mental
atmosphere was changed. It was embarrassing, because Leonard did not
like to presume there was an offence--it might be only a passing mood,
and the mood might be caused by something or by some person outside of
their interference. So the suddenly checked lovers sat silent, or only
made whispered remarks about the condition of the silks.
One of these remarks attracted the judge’s attention, and he turned to
the apparently busy young man and said: “Sappha has given you a pretty
tangle to straighten out--Leonard.” He spoke Leonard’s name with a
hesitation that was almost like a withdrawal of the position that had
been given him, and Leonard felt the reluctance keenly, yet he answered
with much cheerfulness.
“Patience will win her way, sir--she does in every tangle. One by one
the knots are being untied.”
“You might cut them,” said the judge.
“That would be wasteful and foolish, sir. No one would be the gainer,
and no one would be satisfied. I will unravel them--with Sappha’s help.”
“Well, Leonard,”--this time the name was spoken a little more
pleasantly--“well, Leonard, I can tell you there is an ugly tangle up
the street for you either to cut, or to unravel. And I must say, I am
astonished, not to say displeased, at your neglecting it for three
days.”
“A tangle up the street, sir,--a tangle I have neglected!”
“You certainly have not forgotten your quarrel with Horace Gilson?”
“Oh, I had no quarrel with the fellow! How could I? He was drunk.”
“Not too drunk to tell you that you had only three months’ worth of
patriotism; not too drunk to bid you buy a little dog-courage with your
dirty dollars. Sir, you ought to have stopped such remarks as quickly
as they were made--yes, sir, they ought to have been stopped
peremptorily, whether they were drunk or sober remarks.”
“But, judge, you cannot talk to a drunken man--you cannot reason with a
drunken man----”
“Well, then, you can knock him down. That is an argument even a drunken
man will understand.”