Part 6

In a little while Mrs. Bloommaert came into the room, and though she was sleepy and distrait, she could not but notice the couple who stood up hand-in-hand to meet her. Sappha was eighteen years old, but her radiant face looked almost childlike in its innocent joyousness; and Leonard at her side was the incarnation of young manhood; endowed with strength and grace and beauty, and crowned with the glory of fortunate love.

Leonard wished her to understand, but she smiled away all explanations, and pretended a little worry over her long sleep, and the late hour; and there was nothing left for Leonard but to say “Good-night.” They both went to the door with him, and when he was out of sight, the door was shut and the mother said, “I must have been asleep! Your father will be here soon, Sappha. You had better go to bed. I suppose Leonard is going with the men he raised.”

“Yes, he is going.”

“He ought to be glad to go. It is good for a young man to have some experiences. Well, dear one, the day is over; and you must be tired.”

Then Sappha perceived that her mother did not wish to know authentically, what she understood clearly enough; and a little saddened by this want of sympathy, she went quietly into solitude with her joy.

The three months that followed this interview were filled with incident. New Yorkers needed no theatre; the war supplied every emotion of dismay and triumph of which the human heart is capable. “On to Canada!” had been the slogan at its commencement; and General Hull with over two thousand fine troops quickly took peaceable possession of the little village of Sandwich, on the Canadian shore. His first dispatches threw New York into a tumult of excitement and delight. The American flag was flying on both sides of the Niagara River, and from the grandiloquent proclamation Hull had made the Canadians, and his first dispatches, it really appeared as if Canada had fallen. But even while bells were ringing and cannons firing jubilates for this news, Hull himself had thrown out the white flag from his fort at Detroit, and surrendered the stronghold and all his forces without firing a gun. The anger and mortification of the people were in due season, however, turned into triumph; for if General Hull surrendered on the nineteenth of August, Captain Hull of the frigate Constitution on the tenth of August took the British man-of-war Guerrière on the coast of Newfoundland; and the news of this victory, which arrived in New York about the first of September, roused the wildest enthusiasm.

This circumstance indicates very well the progress of the war. The army operations on the Canadian frontier were everywhere disastrous to America; on the ocean her ships vindicated by constant brilliant victories the descent of her sailors from that great maritime power whose flag had braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze. There is not in all history a more splendid naval record than the United States made during these ninety days of alternate dismay and triumph. And no city felt these wonderful sea victories quite as New York did. Her great ship-yards on the East River had sent out the armed frigates and brigs, that were covering the nation, even in the eyes of her enemy, with a great and unexpected glory. The Constitution! the President! the Essex! the United States! these gallant ships had a kind of personality to New Yorkers. They had seen them grow to perfection in Christian Bergh’s and Adam Brown’s yards. They had stood godfathers at their christening, and they watched their valiant careers almost as a father watches his son’s course to a glorious success.

On the fourth of September Sappha and Mrs. Bloommaert were in Greenwich Street shopping, when they suddenly heard a wild shout of joy. “The Constitution! the Constitution!” From mouth to mouth the two words flew like wild-fire. The whole city was roaring them. The bells clapped them out. The cannon sent them thundering over land and sea. Men meeting, though strangers, clasped hands; and women threw themselves into each other’s arms, weeping. Was there feeling enough left for a maid to be lovelorn or melancholy? Not in Sappha’s case. She gave her whole heart to rejoice with her country first, and then proudly remembered the dear youth who must at that moment be rejoicing with her.

Letters from him came more frequently than she had dared to hope. Some one available as a messenger was frequently at the Narrows fort, and Leonard never missed an opportunity. There was no restriction on this correspondence by her father and mother, though at the beginning of it the judge strongly advised restriction.

“Written words cannot be denied or rubbed out, Carlita,” he said. “I know what young men are. Suppose Leonard should show Sappha’s letters to some companion.”

“Suppose an impossibility, Gerardus.”

“Not so. A man in love is always a vain man, if his love is returned. He has conquered, and he puts on all the airs of a victor. He usually wants some one to admire and envy him, and a love letter is a visible proof of his prowess among women. I would not allow Sappha to write.”

“Then you are in the wrong, my dear one. Nothing is better for a lover than a course of love letters. It is the finest education for marriage.”

“They say so many extravagant things.”

“Very well. That is good. They get used to saying fine things, then they feel them, and ’tis no harm at all for a lover to write down his mistress ‘an angel.’ He may treat her the better for it, all their lives together.”

“So! so! Take thy own foolish way, wife. I do not forget thy dear little love notes—and ever the few leaves of sweet brier in them. I can smell it yet.”

So Sappha had her love letters, and she also wrote them. Leonard’s were like himself, frankly outspoken, full of extravagancy, both in love and war. “He loved her as never man loved before;” and she saw the words shine on the paper, and believed in them with all her soul. “He longed for those unspeakable English tyrants to come within reach of their guns, they would be sunk twenty fathoms deep in no time—then, then, then, oh, then he would fly to her, as a bird to its nest!” Love and glory mingled thus, until love took entire possession; then the conclusion was a passionate exploiting of that yearning word “why?” “Why could they not be married when he returned? Why should they wait? Why did she not think as he did? Why consider the war at all? Why let that old tyrant of a motherland called England interfere in their happiness? Why let anything? Or anybody?” There had been little parties of visitors at the Narrows, “Why had she not persuaded her father and mother to sail so far with her? Why, in short, did she not understand that life was dreadfully dull in the fort, and that a sight of her would be heaven to him? Why? Why? Why did she not love him as wildly and fondly and eternally as he loved her?”

All this exaggeration was the most beautiful truth to Sapphira. She adored her lover for the very prodigality of his pleas and protestations. It was right and proper that lovers should suffer all the pangs of separation; she was rather proud of Leonard’s wailing and complaining; and careful not to comfort it too much, by comparing it with her own. Indeed she rather affected the style of a sweet little mentor, bound to remind him that he must love honour, even before herself. And she so blended their own hopes and happiness with domestic and public affairs as to make her letters all that a daily paper might be to a man shut up in prison, or in a fort in a wilderness. Leonard saw through them, the New York he loved, the busy, hopeful people, talking, trading, singing, smoking, loving, living through every sense they had; and he felt with the keenest delight all Sappha’s sweet self-disparagements and compunctions for her own happiness and good fortune in being beloved by him.

“I cannot tell you, my own dear friend,” she wrote on the sixth of November, “how happy your assurances of affection make me. People who are very, very happy do not know how to write down their joy. I have no words but the old, old ones—I do so love you! If I but think of your name, I bless it forever. When your letters come, I kiss the seal before I open them; when I write you a letter I look love into every word I write. My father does not speak of you—oh, there is so much else for him to talk of! My mother looks only the sweet sympathy she will not utter, until my father wills it—and in that she is right, I think. Annette may suspect, but she knows nothing certainly; our secret is very much our own yet, and the dearer for it. You would say so also, if you could see and hear New York at the present time. In spite of our small deprivations, we are all very happy. The militia stationed here are having a most sociable time, and there are parades and reviews constantly in progress. The theatre is now filled every night it is open, and if only some gallant privateer, or some sailor from the ships comes in, the performance has to stop until he has been cheered to the skies. I am sorry, my dearest friend, that you did not join the navy; for just now sailors are the idols of our city—I do not mean that—oh, no! I could not bear to think of you at sea. I am counting the days and the hours now. I heard mother tell Annette that the men at the Narrows would be home for the great parade on Evacuation Day, Annette clapped her hands and said ‘then Leonard Murray will return to us; and I shall ask grandmother to give him a dinner. He will be so glad to see me,’ she added, ‘and I shall be so glad to see him.’ She put me out of calculation, and I did not mind; for if you remember, what care I if all the world forgets me? It is too bad the English ships will not give you a chance of glory, we have almost forgot how to fear them. Every one is in high spirits; we have no doubt of God, nor our country, nor of our brave sailors and soldiers. And, oh, Leonard! dear, dear Leonard, I have not one doubt of you. So then I send you my heart; for I do trust you, Leonard, for all the joy that life shall bring me. Yes I do! I do! Sappha.”

Such foolish words! Ah, no! Such words of delightful wisdom! And happy indeed is the woman who in her youth hides such letters away in her Book of Life. They will sweeten every page of it—even to the very end.

CHAPTER FOUR

Introduces Mr. Achille St. Ange

On the afternoon of November the twenty-fifth Annette was sitting with her grandmother in the comfortable, large living room which the elder woman loved. Outside the day was extraordinarily beautiful for the season. The sky was nearly cloudless, the balmy air had just that snap of early frost which made it exhilarating, and there was not a breath of wind. The tall, straight Michaelmas daisies stood radiantly still in their late purple glory; the golden marigolds glowed at their feet; every twig, and every blade of grass might have been cut out of stone. It was a speechless, motionless, spell-bound garden, lit up with a flood of winter sunshine.

Madame had her knitting in her hand, but she was not busy with it; her gaze was fixed upon Annette, who was fastening more carefully the silver spangles on a gown of blue gauze. “Madame Duval barely catches them,” she said plaintively, “and I suppose there will be dancing to-night.”

“I do not think there will be anything of the kind, Annette. Your aunt will have to use the largest room for dinner, and dinner dishes are not moved by magic. Also, I do not intend to remain there all night; so fine is the weather we can easily return home. It has been such a tumultuous day that I shall need sleep, and out of my own bed I never get it.”

“But the parade was splendid, grandmother; and I am sure you are glad you saw it.”

“Oh, my child, my years it made me count. So well I remember the first Evacuation Day parade. General Washington and the victorious army led it. Then I wept because your grandfather was not among living heroes—to-day I did not weep—so soon we shall meet again.” A sound of distant music arrested speech, and they listened in silence till it died away. Then Annette said: “There are to be so many public dinners, and the theatre is to be brilliantly illuminated. Oh, grandmother, I wish you would let me go with the Westervelt party to the theatre. What excitement there will be there! What cheering and singing and fine acting! and at uncle’s!—well, you know what uncle’s Evacuation dinners are—ten or twelve old men who were in his company will be there; and they will tell the same stories, and sing the same songs, and pay the ladies the same compliments. I would like to go to the theatre.”

“To your uncle’s dinner party you will go to-night; and I think the dress you are spangling is too light. You had better wear something warmer.”

“Grandmother, I saw Sappha’s dress yesterday—it is a white gauze with brilliant crimson roses scattered over it; and it is to be worn over a rich, white satin slip. Do you want me to look a dowdy beside her?”

“Like a dowdy you could not look, not if you tried to, Annette. Of your health I want you to take good care. Your mother had very weak lungs.”

“My lungs are strong enough, grandmother, it is my heart that is so dangerously weak. It is always giving me sensations. Leonard Murray has come back so handsome, I felt my heart as soon as I saw him.”

“Annette, in such a way as that a good girl should not talk, even to her grandmother. I do not think it is respectable. I am too lenient with you, and you are too free with me.”

“Grandmother, who is that? He is coming in here. I never saw the man before. How handsome! how genteel! how simply noble he looks! I must send Lucas to open the door.”

In a minute or two the stranger let the knocker fall lightly in a rat-tat-tat, and the little negro boy who answered his summons put him into the chill best parlour, and brought his card to madame. She read the name on it with difficulty, and passing the card to Annette, drew her brows together in an effort of remembrance.

“Mr. Achille St. Ange.”

“St. Ange! St. Ange! Ah, yes, I now recollect. Gertrude Bergen married a French gentleman called St. Ange. Gertrude and I were schoolgirls together. I was one of her bridesmaids. This young man must be her grandson. It seems incredible—impossible—”

“But in the meantime, grandmother, this young man is waiting in the cold parlour.”

“I had forgotten. Let Lucas bring him here. Do you hear, Lucas?”

“Yes, madame.”

In a few moments Mr. St. Ange entered, with the air and manner of a prince; bowing first to madame, and then, with a shade less deference, to Annette. His slight, agile figure had the erect carriage of one born to command; and his general appearance and aspect was suggestively haughty, and yet when people became familiar with him, they saw only a careless tolerance of all opinions, and a certain compatibility of temper, which easily passed for good nature. His hair was intensely black and soft, and lay in straight locks on his white brow; his eyes, equally dark, were full of a sombre fire; his skin had the pallor of the hot land from which he came.

Madame rose to welcome him and remained standing until he was seated, then she smilingly resumed her chair, and said:

“Indeed, Mr. St. Agne, for a moment I had forgotten. Backward for more than half a century I had to think—then I remembered your grandmother—Gertrude Bergen. Am I right?”

“Madame is correct,” he answered; “my grandmother died ten years ago. My mother is also no longer with the son, who needs her so much. I have come to New York, and I have ventured to present a claim on your kindness three generations old.”

His handsome face, his direct manner, the utter absence of anything subtle in his air or appearance, perhaps even the grave richness of his perfectly suitable attire prepossessed both women instantly in his favour. Madame took out wine and cake with her own hands; Annette was the cup-bearer, and he accepted the service with a grace far more flattering than any challenge or deprecation of it could have been. And as Annette handed him the glass, he incidentally—quite incidentally, indeed—lifted his eyes to hers, and the glance seemed to rivet her to the spot, to include not only her vision, but her very soul.

Mr. Achille St. Ange wanted a friend, that was all; and madame promised to do her best to advise him in the new life upon which he was entering. They talked a little of his Louisiana home, and of his future intentions, but the visit was not prolonged at this time. “He had made his introduction,” he said, “the future he hoped to justify it.”

The advent of this rekindled friendship was quite an event to madame. She could do nothing but talk of it; she kept recalling her life with Gertrude Bergen, and she wondered a little over her grandson’s appearance. “But, then,” she continued, “Gertrude was from Belgium, and swarthy, though fine-looking. Much darker is her grandson, more intense, more buoyant—well, that, too, is natural; it is the French esprit upon the Dutch respectability. His grandfather I remember now—the most careless of mortals, full of fire and fight, and yet amiable—most amiable. We all envied Gertrude a little. He took her to France—to some little town near Paris. How did they get to Louisiana, I wonder?”

Annette was the silent one in this event. She let her grandmother talk. She wanted to hear all about Achille. The man had made a singular impression on her. Many lovers had been at her feet, but she had really loved none of them. Was this strange emotion—more akin to tears than laughter—really love? She told herself that the man was captivating, and that she must be “on guard” whenever he was present. And withal she kept wondering “what he thought of her,” and worrying because she was not dressed to the best advantage.

Perhaps she would not have been quite pleased if she had been truthfully told Mr. St. Ange’s feeling concerning her, for it was one of a perverse admiration, oddly mingled of repulsion and fascination. He had never before seen a woman so startlingly fair, so white—so white and pink—eyes so blue, hair so palely yellow; her beauty struck him as great, but almost uncanny—he wondered if so white a woman was not equally cold. Would she ever warm to love? And then he answered his reflections with a soft utterance: “We shall see! We shall see!”

The dinner party at the judge’s was to be at four o’clock, and the rest of the afternoon was fully occupied in preparing for it. And in this preparation, if Annette had been keeping “guard” over herself, she would have noticed that even already the stranger influenced her. She laid aside the spangled robe and put on a gown of purple cloth trimmed with minever. And she thought, and said, that this change was in deference to her grandmother’s desires; but in reality it came from the feeling that Mr. St. Ange would not be at her uncle’s, and that no one else much mattered. Even if Leonard was present, she felt now that Leonard was a past interest; St. Ange was new and different, and his favour full of all kinds of possibilities.

On arriving at the house on the Bowling Green they found it in a festal state of confusion. The largest parlour had been stripped of all its movable furniture, and the space devoted to a long table, and to chairs for the twenty or more people that were to be seated. It already shone with massive silver and beautiful crystal; while the odours of delicious meats and confections inspired a sense of warmth and comfort, and of good things to come. Blazing fires were in every grate; the numerous silver sconces on the walls, and the scintillating crystal chandelier above the table were all filled with wax candles, which would be lit as soon as the daylight waned a little farther. The judge was in full evening dress, and madame in brocaded ruby velvet, with a string of pearls round her yet beautiful throat. And when Sapphira came into the room Annette was deeply mortified at her own foolishness in dressing so plainly. She felt that she had wounded and humiliated herself for a probability. In a moment of new hope she had let slip the certainties Sappha had embraced. For Sappha, in her rose-sprinkled gown, looked as if she stepped out of the heart of a rose. Her brilliant colour, the sunlike radiancy of her eyes, her glowing gown, made her, indeed, a beauteous apparition, wonderfully sweet and noble. Annette looked at her with an envious surprise. Something had happened to her cousin Sappha; what it was she did not understand, but Sappha had an air of mystery and mastery, unperceived by herself, but rousing in all who knew the girl intimately a questioning wonder. It came from an interior sense of settlement and completeness; Sappha had found him whom her soul loved, and the restlessness, the unconscious seeking and craving of girlhood, was over.