The Belle of Bowling Green · Amelia E. Barr

Part 24

Chapter 24 of 24 · 14 min read

“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?”

“No; my mother’s song of love had discords, and often fell into the minor key. No one can tell in what particular way a man will try the heart of the woman that loves him. My dear father had some failings that might have made sorrow enough, but mother knew how to accept the discipline; and in some cases we are reaping the benefit this day, both of my father’s foibles and my mother’s wise acceptance of them.”

“I have always believed Grandfather Murray to have been a nearly faultless man.”

“Under some circumstances his failings would have been virtues; but when a man marries he assumes duties which are paramount, and which demand a sacrifice of things in themselves innocent and even commendable. He had a love for travel, adventure, and even fighting, that at times became a hunger that must be satisfied; and these periods were often of long duration, and caused my mother infinite alarm and anxiety. I will only give you two instances, and these two, because they are prominent factors in our present life.”

“One of them is, of course, Castle Murray in Scotland?”

“Yes. You know the story of its loss and redemption. But that was but the beginning. The old place seemed to draw father like a magnet, and he doubtless spent a great deal of money on its improvement; for he built additional rooms and inaugurated industries which I believe are still in progress.”

“He was making the land valuable, mother. Was not that wise?”

“It did not look like wisdom to my anxious mother, and when my eldest brother James died it looked still less prudent. But my brother Alexander was then ‘Murray of Castle Murray,’ and he was as fanatic as his father and elder brother had been. His son David was equally proud of the old grey walls, and you know how Gerard plumes himself on being heir to the place.”

“Yes, I know; but, mother, the Scotch place is now a very distinctive and valuable property. You are as proud as any of us, when the newspapers announce ‘Mr. Gerard Murray and a party of friends en route to Castle Murray, his ancestral home in the Scotch Highlands, for the shooting season.’ And the years Gerard does not himself go there he rents the place for an almost incredible sum to some rich American or Englishman. I am sure we should miss the money, as well as the distinction, Murray Castle brings us if it was no longer ours. For my part, I think my Grandfather Murray did a very wise thing in buying back and renovating the old home, I do believe it will prove one of his best speculations.”

“I do not doubt your faith, Carlita; and you must remember, I am now giving you instances of good results from your grandfather’s wandering fever. For you know wherever he went the lust for land went with him. He had also the strangest instinct concerning its value. In some occult way he divined the fortune of land, just as some fishermen point out to the fleet of boats exactly where the school of herring swim, though no ripple on the water and no shimmer of the fish show to the ordinary eye—or, as I myself have seen, a man step out from his comrades and say ‘You may dig here, there is water beneath our feet.’ In some such way, your grandfather could pick out the corners of certain streets, and even plots and parcels of unplanted lands, as future desirable locations.”

“I do wish, mother, such an instinct was hereditary, and that it had come my road.”

“It was a special gift, and perhaps was allied to the second-sight that was not uncommon among his people. I was going to tell you that about 1850 he went to New Orleans. He had property there, and always kept it, my mother thought, because it gave him a plausible excuse for a journey when he could find no other. Well, on this journey he met, in New Orleans, General Sam Houston. The two men loved each other on sight, and your grandfather went back with him to Texas. He was infatuated with the country. He wrote mother the most extravagant love letters, all inspired by the skies, and the prairies, the wonderful sunshine, the intoxicating atmosphere, and the seas of flowers nodding, even at his bridle reins. And my dear mother affected an equal enthusiasm; she told him to enjoy the trip in all its fulness—not to hurry home. She assured him all was well—and that she was able to manage affairs a little longer without him.”

“I suppose she knew that he would stay until the fever of wandering had exhausted itself?”

“Perhaps she did; but even if so, her sympathy made him more happy. He remained in Texas nearly a year, and, of course, bought land there. Some of this land has been very advantageously turned into cash; but there was one tract he would never part with. To be sure, no one seemed to want it; and I have heard Texans who came to our house—where they were always welcome—ask him what motive he had in buying land so valueless. He always laughed a little, and said, ‘It was a fancy of his.’ Then they would laugh, and tell him that ‘he was rich enough to buy a fancy.’ All the same, it was easy to see they thought either that my father had been cheated or else that he was a mighty poor judge of land and localities. But nothing altered his opinion of the Texas property, and he took a promise both from my brothers and myself that we would not sell it for fifty years. Well, Carlita, you know how it turned out?”

“Mother! You mean the oil lands? Good gracious! How could grandfather know? There was no oil found below ground in his day—how could he know?”

“So you see, though mother had these periods of loneliness and trial, we are reaping their harvest; and I am sure she is glad of it.”

“Grandfather was a strange ‘mixture of the elements’; so shrewd and worldly-wise, and yet so romantic.”

“You may add sentiment to the romance. When he first entered Castle Murray he saw it exactly as it had been left. No one had touched anything. The old chief’s chair, as he pushed it from the table when he had eaten his last meal in the home he was leaving, remained just at the angle taken; a half-bottle of usquebaugh and an unbroken glass stood on the bare oak table. The dust of generations lay an inch thick, and on the hearthstone were a few remnants of half-burnt wood. These remnants your grandfather carefully gathered, and when the first fire in the Bowling Green house was lit they kindled it. But no one who ever saw Leonard Murray buying or selling land would have dreamed that he had room in his heart for a bit of sentiment like that.”

“I have heard him called a shrewd, hard man.”

“I know. Listen again. You have complained of the superabundance of white roses at our old country home up the river?”

“Well, mother, they are absurdly out of proportion. They cover walls and fences and over-run the garden, and ought to give place, in part, to other flowers.”

“Not while I live. My mother and father carefully reared the first growth from the seeds of one white rose, which in some way was vitally connected with their love. There was a quarrel, and my mother rejected the rose; and father kept it, and then after they were married they planted the seed, and watched and nourished it, until it became a tree bearing white roses. From slips of that tree the garden has been garlanded with roses. I do not wish it changed, until you have put the last earthly rose in my cold hands.”

“Dear mother! Dear mother!”

They talked over these incidents until Gerard returned; and then as they took some slight refreshment together fell into speculations concerning the past and present Bowling Green. Gerard was sympathetic with its past, but enthusiastic as to its future. And when Mrs. Bloommaert spoke feelingly of the dignified men who in early days had been the familiar figures on its pleasant sidewalks, Gerard answered:

“Dear auntie, these dignified old merchants in breeches and beavers and fine lawn ruffles have most worthy successors in the clean-shaved men of to-day, sensibly clothed from their soft hats to their comfortably low-cut shoes. Would it not be delightful to show some of these old, dignified merchants over the new Bowling Green? Take them through Nassau Street and way up Broadway? I think they would need all the training they have been having since they died to bear it.”

“You ought not to speak so lightly of the future life, Gerard.”

“Auntie, your pardon! But do you think that only the incarnated improve? May not the de-incarnated be progressing also?”

“Of that condition I have no knowledge; but we all know that the first builders of New York had the hard part. They laid the foundation of all that has been done.”

“All right, aunt; but the men of to-day have built well and loftily on their foundation. If they could see the Bowling Green to-day, and the magnificent commercial city of which it is the centre—if they could see the elevated roads, the motor cars, the railways, telegraphs, and ocean cable service and all the rest of our business facilities, I am sure they would have no words for their astonishment and delight.”

“Well, children, I have lived a long time to-day. I belong to the—past. I am tired. Good-night, Gerard.”

“Good-night, aunt. Dream of the past, but be sure that however enterprising, energetic, patriotic, and far-seeing those old-time New Yorkers were, there is just as much enterprise and energy, just as much patriotism and prudence, with the New Yorkers of to-day, for

“The bold brave heart of New York Still beats on the Bowling Green!”

THE END

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FOOTNOTES:

Proverbs xxxi. 22.

In November, 1829, twenty-five years later, Judge Lansing left his hotel in New York to take steamboat for Albany, and was never seen or heard of afterward.

This marvellous production remained on the Bowling Green until 1843, when the city’s art critics had advanced so far as to allege the brilliant statue was not a work of art; and in deference to their opinion it was sold to a collector of antiquities, who kept it forty years. Then he died, and it was sold at auction for $300. It is now in a cigar store on One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, where it fills the position usually given to the wooden Indian. These facts are noticed in the hope that the millionaire patriots congregating round the Bowling Green may find it in their hearts not only to release the historic statue from its degrading position, but also to place upon the empty pedestal a statue of Washington worthy of the situation and of the great city it appeals to.

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

but it any one=> but if any one {pg 17}

Three hours after luck=> Three hours after lunch {pg 27}

But Judge Bloomaert=> But Judge Bloommaert {pg 36}

and Mrs. Bloomaert=> and Mrs. Bloommaert {pg 40}

The perparations for this=> The preparations for this {pg 41}

with envy and jealously to-night=> with envy and jealousy to-night {pg 51}

she did not life her eyes=> she did not lift her eyes {pg 54}

themeselves before=> themselves before {pg 62}

New York and Lousiania=> New York and Lousiana {pg 105}

having bought Louisiania=> having bought Louisiana {pg 106}

camillas and voilets=> camillas and violets {pg 135}