lovelier woman than Sapphira Bloommaert on the day of her wedding. The
little company invited were gathered in the ordinary sitting-room of her
father’s house, but the June sunshine flooded gloriously the homelike
place; and Annette, who had been freely forgiven, had made it a bower of
white roses. On the hearthstone stood the domine, and the bride’s mother
and grandmother were on either side of him. Mr. and Mrs. Livingston, Mr.
and Mrs. Morris, Annette and Achille, Peter and his betrothed, Josette
Genaud, were the witnesses.
It was on her father’s arm the lovely Sapphira entered. Every one
instinctively felt her approach; conversation ceased, laughter was
hushed, all were at pleased attention when they heard the light
footsteps and the gentle rustling of the silk wedding gown. A kind of
radiance came in with her; came from her tall bright beauty, from the
glow in her eyes, from her fresh, sweet face, from the warm lights about
her shining hair, and the scintillating glory of the gems around her
white neck. In her hand she held a perfect white rose, and either of
design or by some fortunate accident she stood exactly on the spot where
she had parted from Leonard with the rejected, scattered rose between
them. But true love knows not rejection; from the ends of the earth it
returns to its own; it cannot retain a memory of offence for ever and
ever; it not only gives, but forgives.
Three hours after the ceremony the Bloommaert household were on their
way to England, and Peter had charge of the house on the Bowling Green.
“We shall be back in the fall of the year,” the judge said to his son,
“for I have much to attend to in New York this coming winter.”
* * * * *
The judge kept his promise, but Leonard and Sappha did not return with
him. Sappha had accompanied her husband to Scotland, and after his
mission to the Highlands had been accomplished they lingered a while in
Edinburgh. Here they met an old acquaintance who was going to Holland
and Belgium, and they went with him to these countries. Then, the
wander-fever being still upon Leonard, they travelled southward to
France and Italy, returning to England by the usual tourist route
through Switzerland. And, as at that day the facilities for travel were
small, and its difficulties and hindrances for travel many and
perplexing, it was more than a year before they again reached London,
and turned their faces westward and homeward.
Homeward! The word tasted sweet in Sappha’s mouth. She said it over and
over, and the first sight of the open arms of the low-lying American
shore brought happy tears to her eyes. The Bowling Green at last! After
so many strange lands, after so many wonderful days in the old, old
world, here was the fresh young world, with all its splendid hopes
again! The flag they loved, the homes they knew, the people who belonged
to them--these things were best of all; dearest of all were the
contentful sum of all their future hopes and desires. The great cities,
the fairest spots in Europe, were now only as picture books and
memories; but Home, Sweet Home was on Bowling Green.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
_Afterward_
If any of my readers believe marriage to be the completion and
consummation of individual life, they will be willing to consider the
story of Sapphira finished when she married Leonard Murray. But if they
rather believe it to be the open portal to a grander and wider life,
they will find the few following pages a sufficient index to a future
which they can unfold and amplify from their own knowledge and
experience. So that I need only say that when Sapphira Murray entered
the beautiful home which her father built for her on the south side of
the Bowling Green she could have had no dream of its future destiny. She
dwelt there in sweet contentment for many years, and died in its lofty
front chamber just before the war of 1860. Leonard Murray did not long
survive his beloved wife. He wandered disconsolately around the Green,
or strolled slowly in the Battery Park for a few months, and was then
laid beside her in that aristocratic little graveyard on Second Street,
which, though surrounded by the tumult of the city, keeps to this day
its flowery seclusion.
With the removal of these well-known figures the Bowling Green suffered
a distinct social loss; and when Stephen Whitney, who was a near
neighbour of the Murrays, died in 1861, the prestige of its wealth
departed, for Mr. Whitney was the richest man in New York, with the
exception of some members of the Astor family. From that date the
Bowling Green began to assume a business character, and the homes of the
Bloommaerts and Murrays no longer sheltered their descendants. Lawrence
Bloommaert, the son of Captain Christopher Bloommaert, remained a while
in the house of his grandfather, Judge Gerardus Bloommaert, but his
family were all girls, and they married and scattered through the
Madison Square district, and even still further north. Leonard and
Sapphira’s three sons had fine homes in the Murray Hill locality, and
their only daughter Sapphira, who had married the eldest son of Peter
Bloommaert, was in 189--living in a spacious mansion on the Riverside
Drive. She was born in 1827, and therefore at the period of these
reminiscences nearing seventy years of age. But she still kept the dew
of her youth, and her children and children’s children filled her
splendid home with the living splendour of youth and beauty and
affection.
She was sitting alone one night in the fall of 189--. She looked a
little weary, her figure drooped slightly, her hands lay as motionless
as if they were asleep; but there was a flush of excitement on her
cheeks, and her eyes were full of dreams. She was seeing with them, but
seeing nothing within their physical horizon. They had backward vision
at this hour, and she smiled faintly at the scenes they flashed before
her memory.
In a short time the door was noiselessly opened, and a much younger
woman entered. She came toward the elder one with a slow, easy grace,
and taking her passive hands between her own said: “Mother, you have
wearied yourself. I fear you have been foolish to-day.”
“No, no, Carlita,” was the quick response. “I have had a happy day. I am
glad I took my desire. I did not expect you. It is a _Faust_ night; why
are you not at the opera?”
“The opera will not miss me. Gerard has gone with the little Van Sant
girl; and of course Agatha Van Sant will be present. I do not suppose
the conductor would lift his baton until he saw Mrs. Agatha Van Sant
enter her box; then, he would nod his satisfaction, and say with a
lordly air, ‘Let the opera commence.’ I shall see enough of opera this
winter; and I want so much to hear about your expedition. What time did
you start?”
“About eleven o’clock. Gerard wanted to go with me, but I wished to be
alone. There was really no danger. Dalby knows the city, and the horses
obey his word or touch. I went to my old home. I was in every room of
it.”
“It must be much changed.”
“In accidentals, yes, very much changed; but the large sunny rooms and
the grand seaward outlook are the same. I went first to the nursery on
the top story, and, Carlita, I could replace every chair and table. I
could see James and Leonard and Auguste busy with their books and
playthings; and there was one back window that had a little embrasure,
which was very dear and familiar to me. In that nook I read ‘Robinson
Crusoe,’ and the ‘Exiles of Siberia,’ and best of all, ‘The Arabian
Nights.’ I sat down there and tried to recall the long, long, happy days
in which it was my favourite retreat. I stood and looked downward over
the balustrade, and fancied I saw again my beautiful mother, clothed in
white and sparkling with gems, going out with father to some dinner or
ball; and I remembered how I used to thus watch for her coming, and call
her; and how she would stand still and lift her face full of love and
smiles to bid me a ‘good-night.’ Once at a little ceremony of this kind
I dropped her a white rose, and she put it in her bosom, and my father
laughed and called me ‘darling’ and I went to bed that night more happy
than I can tell you. I stayed some time in the nursery, and longer in my
mother’s room. It had only sweet memories, for I never went into it
without meeting a smile, no, not even on that last day of her beautiful
life, when she called us all to her side for the long farewell. She
died, as I have often told you, singing. She had sung, more or less, all
her life long; and she went away faintly and sweetly singing,
“‘Hark, they whisper, angels say,
Sister spirit, come away;’
and after a pause, still more softly--
“‘Tell me, my soul, can this be death?’
See, Carlita, I brought some sprays from the honeysuckle she planted on
the seaward porch. Though November, it is in bloom. My father put
flowers from this same vine in her hands after she was dead. It was a
lovely, happy memory, Carlita. In a little sitting-room I found a window
pane on which Annette St. Ange and my mother had written their names,
enclosing them in a very perfect circle, and I brought the glass away
with me. I could not bear to think that some stranger, in the
destruction of the room, might perhaps tread the names beneath his
feet.”
“Grandmother must have loved Mrs. St. Ange?”
“They were close friends, especially after the disappearance of Mr. St.
Agne.”
“Mother, what was the meaning of that disappearance--death?”
“People generally spoke of it as death; but my father and mother knew
better; and when Annette had passed beyond mortal care and suffering
something occurred--I think the marriage of her granddaughter in
Paris--that led my mother to tell me the truth. To-day, Carlita, I saw
Annette St. Ange again, though not as I recollected her in life.”
“What do you mean, mother?”
“I saw her picture; the one taken soon after her marriage, and in her
marriage garments--I was at the Loan Exhibition.”
“Oh, mother, why did you not wait for me to go with you?”
“Well, my dear, the bit of glass in my hand made me remember the
exhibit; and as I had heard Gerard say the Van Sants were going to send
some portraits, I suddenly resolved to visit the rooms and see if
Annette St. Ange’s was among them. And there I saw it--very
conspicuously placed also; a wonderfully lovely presentment of a lovely
girl.”
“But was it like her?”
“It was not like the Mrs. St. Ange I remember. The portrait represented
a fairylike beauty, dainty, exquisite, with the bluest eyes and the
palest golden hair imaginable; an air of indefinable coquetry and grace;
and a slight, girlish figure clothed in white from head to feet. But the
Mrs. St. Ange that used to visit my mother was very different. She was
always in black, her eyes were not pretty or expressive, her hair had
lost all its glow, and her slight figure became round and heavy. She was
also sad-looking. I do not recollect her smiling. She seemed full of
care. Still there were points of resemblance, when you looked for them;
and you may be sure the bright, lovely girl did not become the sad,
hard-looking woman without many and long-continued trials.”
“She ought not to have married a foreigner. They do not understand
American women; and then one or the other goes to the wall.”
“In the St. Ange case, it was Annette. Her husband was soft as velvet
and hard as iron. In some way she lost her grip of the situation, and
when men go one step beyond their right they go too far. He never said
an impolite word to her; also, he ceased saying a loving word. She
became afraid of him, nervous, diffident, and suspicious. He had only to
remark in the blandest way that she was losing her fine manners, and she
lost them. In his presence she did herself no justice. He looked
critically at her, slightly shrugged his shoulders, and she was as
awkward as he considered her. In five years no one would have known the
once sarcastic, clever, authoritative Annette de Vries. She had
subsided. She was forgotten; and she hardly knew how to frame a
complaint of the way in which this condition had been brought about.
“Fortunately, she found some comfort in her house and her children, but
Mr. St. Ange took no apparent interest in either. It was a lonely
pleasure. He was disappointed because the three girls were not three
boys. He spent very little time in his home, preferring one or other of
the clubs of which he was a member.”
“I think he was simply--a brute.”
“Not quite that--he did not intend to be brutal. He had taken a distaste
to Annette. My mother told me that in the days of their first
acquaintance he had periods of this distaste; a kind of repulsion which
was overcome by the fascination of her great physical beauty. But the
physical beauty faded, lost its charm, and you can see, Carlita, what
would then happen. But he was never rude or actively unkind; and in
public he treated her with marked attention and respect. If Annette had
complained, no one would have believed her; even her grandmother was
sure in her heart that Annette had managed badly a very good man.”
“Poor Annette, I am sorry for her.”
“My mother was sorry for her. She understood. My mother, in matters of
the heart, had a sort of clairvoyant perception; and she never would
listen to any one who blamed Annette. This kind of life between Mr. St.
Ange and his wife went on for nearly ten years; and then one day he
reached home in a strangely excited condition. He said he had received a
request, that was in reality a command, to return to France and look
after the affairs of his family. He was going at once. He expected to be
away at least a year. Annette made no objection, nor did she ask any
questions about the business. She was quite aware that all inquiries
would be answered only as it suited her husband’s views. However, before
he went he made over to her in the most absolute way every dollar he
possessed, both in property and money. He said the ocean voyage was a
life risk; that he had always been unfortunate at sea, and that he
wished his wife to have no difficulty, in case of his death, in
realising his fortune. He himself took nothing away but some changes of
clothing. ‘If he lived to reach Paris he would have no difficulty
concerning money,’ he said, ‘and if not--the thing he had done was well
done and only an act of justice.’ And every one thought his conduct
beautifully thoughtful and unselfish. He went away on a night tide,
when no one was aware of his intention, and again people said, ‘How
considerate!’ and Annette affected to agree with them.”
“Well, at least, she was clever. I should have done the same, mother.
Did she really grieve at his departure?”
“No. She turned all her attention to her money affairs. One of her great
troubles had been Achille’s refusal to interfere in the management of
her fortune; or even to permit her to make any change in its
disposition, however profitable such change would be. ‘Your most
sensible grandfather De Vries invested your money, and neither you nor I
can improve upon his financial foresight,’ was the usual answer. But
times had changed, and Annette knew well that her investments needed
change of the most radical kind. She made them without a day’s delay.
She called to her assistance the son of the man who had been her
grandfather’s lawyer, and with his advice speedily nearly doubled her
income. All that Achille had left her was closely secured in real
estate, and she found in this business such pleasant satisfaction, that
she regained much of her beauty and old-time spirit.”
“She had thrown off the incubus, mother.”
“Yes, and regained her self-appreciation. Her lawyer praised her
financial insight, her friends praised her appearance, she took the
reins of household management again, and held them with such strict
method and discipline that her servants, from being the most idle and
insolent in the city, became the most respectful and obedient.”
“Did she ever talk of her husband?”
“She never spoke of him until the year which Mr. St. Ange had named as
the period of his absence was more than over. No word of any kind had
come to her, and she said to my father, that she expected none. Achille
had told her he would be too busy to write letters, and that she must
accept ‘no news’ to be ‘good news.’ But he had given her the address in
Paris where she might write to him, if there occurred anything worth
writing about. My father advised her to write and inquire as to the
health and welfare of Mr. St. Ange, and the date of his probable return.
Annette did so, and after the lapse of four months received a short note
from the lawyer she had addressed, saying: ‘The ship in which Monsieur
St. Ange sailed from New York was lost in the Bay of Biscay, and all on
board perished. It is possible, but not likely, that Monsieur St. Ange
was picked up by some vessel, whose course would take her round the Cape
to India or China, and thus prevent all intelligence reaching us for a
year or two. Madame is advised to consider this probability, but not to
place much hope upon it.’”
Carlita laughed scornfully, and her mother continued: “Annette took the
information with a blank calmness; no one could tell what her feelings
were. She continued her busy life for three more years, and then one day
a fashionable gentleman, called Van Tienhoven, visited her. In the most
guarded and respectful manner he told her that he had just returned from
France; that while there he had, through the influence of powerful
friends, visited the Court of Versailles several times, and that on two
occasions he had seen there, in close attendance upon the King, Mr. St.
Ange, or, he added, if not Mr. St. Ange, the most perfect duplicate of
that gentleman that can be imagined. Annette preserved her composure
until his confidence was closed, then gave it an unqualified denial. She
told Van Tienhoven that St. Ange’s lawyer had assured her of the death
of her husband; and begged him not to give publicity to the suspicion
that he still lived. She showed him how painful it must be to her, how
unfortunate for her daughters, and she emphatically declared her own
belief in Mr. St. Ange’s death. He gave her his word of honour to
observe strict silence on the subject; and the Van Tienhovens are all
gentlemen. I have no doubt the promise of secrecy was kept.
“But Annette became restless and unhappy, and both her grandmother and
my father advised her to go to Paris. She went, taking with her Jonaca,
the eldest of her daughters, who had always been the favourite of St.
Ange. In less than four months she was in New York again. She came back
without Jonaca, and dressed in the most pronounced widow’s costume. She
said unequivocally that her husband was dead, and that she had left
Jonaca at a fine Parisian school; her father’s friends having strongly
urged her to do so, promising to care well for the girl. No one had any
right to doubt Annette’s statement, but mother told me that from the
first there was a doubt. It was undefined and unspoken, but it permeated
society; and Annette soon felt it. One day after some particularly
disagreeable incident, she came to my mother and told her what had
occurred; and mother said, ‘Dear, what does it matter? _You_ know that
Achille is dead, do you not?’ And she answered in a sullen, angry way,
‘Sapphira, he is as dead to me as if he lay at the bottom of the Bay of
Biscay. There is no truer widow in all America than Annette St. Ange.
And then she pulled the widow’s veil from her bonnet, and the widow’s
cap from her head, and flung them with passionate scorn far from her.
What confidence followed this act mother never fully told me; but I
gathered from what she said that she had been compelled to give up
Jonaca, who had been placed in a convent for proper education, and that
the interview with her husband had been extremely painful. But he kissed
her hand at the close of the negotiations, and he sent servants in
magnificent livery to attend to her luggage and passports and all the
other formalities of travel; and they waited on her as if she was a
princess, until they saw her safely on board the American-bound vessel.
“Gradually I learned more of this domestic tragedy. Judge Bloommaert
told my father and mother that Annette was in receipt of a large income
from France. Later, I heard that the notes authenticating this income
were signed by the Duc de Massareene. A few years later Jonaca St. Ange
was introduced to French society of the highest rank, and in about half
a year we heard of her marriage to the Marquis de Lauvine. Annette was
proud of the alliance, and announced it in all the New York newspapers.”
“Now, mother, I begin to see how it is all the Van Sants go to Paris
‘for their luck,’ as they say.”
“You see only in part. Annette never spoke plainly to any one, unless it
was to my mother and her lawyer. Her second daughter, Clara, went to
Paris in her fifteenth year, remained in the convent two years, and was
then introduced to society by her sister, the Marquise de Lauvine. But
Clara refused all French alliances; she had a child love for George Van
Sant, and she came home and married him. The youngest daughter, Annette,
also went to Paris, and returned home to marry Fayette Varian. Their
children have all friends in Paris, and some Americans wonder at the way
they succeed socially. To me it is no wonder. The de Massareenes and De
Lauvines are sensible of their right, and rather proud of their rich
American kindred.”
“I understand now, mother, why the Van Sants and Varians still crown
Annette St. Ange as the most remarkable of women.”
“She was a remarkable woman. My father did not hesitate to say to my
mother and self, that she had done wisely in accepting money in place of
a very doubtful recognition. You see the marriage laws were uncertain to
her, and she knew well if her husband was a Roman Catholic that
circumstance alone might invalidate her own marriage.”
“But was he a Roman Catholic?”
“Yes. Always had been, I suspect.”
“Then I think he was very dishonourable, and----”
“We will not discuss that question. It involves too many of our own
kindred. Madame Jonaca, her grandmother, her uncle, Judge Bloommaert,
and her Grandfather de Vries ought perhaps not to have taken the young
man’s ‘conformity’ for reality. That is past. The atonement made was
very real and lasting. Immediately on her return from Paris Annette
bought a beautiful home, she had the finest horses and carriages in New
York, and she brought from far and near the very best teachers for her
daughters. But in spite of this apparent extravagance she kept a strict
account of every expense, and made every dollar earn its fullest
percentage. Besides which, she speculated wisely, and was fortunate in
every money transaction she touched. The Van Sants owe to her prudence
all the luxury they enjoy to-day. They do well to praise her. I was
thinking of her bride picture, and of the sad, sombrely clothed woman I
remembered, when you came into the room. And I had just come to the
conclusion that her husband’s withdrawal was a fortunate thing for
Annette and her daughters.”
“She gave up all for her children. She was a good woman.”
“I do not believe she would have given up the crossing of a ‘t’ if it
had not been for her children. She had spirit enough to have fought
every court in France,--when she was from under her husband’s
influence,--but motherhood was Annette’s passion, and if the Van Sants
and Varians knew Annette St. Ange’s true story they would give hearty
thanks and praise to the self-effacing woman who chose for them wealth
and honour in America rather than a foreign nobility, with perhaps the
bar sinister across it.”
“I am going to take a good look at Annette St. Ange’s picture to-morrow,
mother. I have been rather worried lately at our Gerard’s attentions to
Clara Van Sant, but if she has any share in her grandmother’s reticent,
self-respecting, prudent, far-seeing nature, Gerard has my blessing. He
can marry Clara to-morrow. What have you done with that square of glass,
mother?”
“It is in my desk.”
“I would have it fitted into one of the windows in your private
sitting-room.”
“Thank you for the suggestion, Carlita.”
“I cannot help wondering at fate, or whatever you call the power that
orders our lives. Here were two women brought up in the same kind of
loving, orderly homes, and surrounded by just the same influences, and
the marriage of one is a living tragedy, and the marriage of the other
is a song of love. How did the difference come to pass?”
“There were personal reasons in both cases to account for the
difference--if there was all the dissimilarity you suppose.”
“Was there not?”