Part 5

“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.”

“Ah, but, Leonard, love reckons days for years, and every little absence is an age! The tedious hours will move heavily away, and every minute seem a lazy day.”

“Where have you learned all this?”

“You taught me.”

“Oh, love! love! love! How sweet you are! When I return, then you will be my wife. Let me speak to your father and mother to-night. Why should we wait?”

“Leonard, I have promised my father and mother that I will not engage myself to any one, until the war is over.”

“But that was before this happy hour. Such a promise cannot now stand, darling.”

“It cannot be broken. How could you ever trust me if I was false to the dear father and mother who love me so much?”

“But we are engaged, Sappha. No mere ceremony of asking consent can ever make us more truly one.”

“Then, my love, be content with that knowledge.”

“The war may last a lifetime.”

“It may be over in a year—or less.”

The love-light in her eyes, her tremulous smiles, her penetrative loveliness, her confident heart’s still fervour, filled him with an inward gladness that was unspeakable. His eyes dilated with rapture; he felt as if he was walking on air, and breathing some diviner atmosphere. The joy of love had gone to his head like wine.