Part 8

“Josette loves my brother Peter. Peter has her whole heart. There would not be room for the finest French gentleman in the world in it.”

“Josette is a good girl. I wish much that Peter would marry her. But no, Peter thinks only of ships.”

“Oh, you don’t know, mother! Peter talks about ships, but not about girls. All the same he thinks a deal about Josette Giraud.”

“Sometimes I fear Annette. I have seen her! She makes eyes at Peter, she admires him, and lets him see it—and men are so easily captured.”

“But then, Annette does not want to capture Peter. She is only amusing herself. She makes eyes at all good-looking young men. She cannot help it.”

“Your grandmother ought not to allow her to do so.”

“Poor grandmother! She does not know it, or see it. If she did, she could as easily prevent a bird from singing as keep Annette from looking lovely things out of her beautiful eyes. And really, mother, she intends no wrong. How can she help being so pretty and so clever?”

“Peter could have taken them home last night without the assistance of Leonard Murray—and Leonard wanted to stay a while here, but Annette asked him with one of those ‘lovely looks’ to walk with them, and Leonard never once objected.”

“How could he?”

“And this morning she will have no recollection of either Peter or Leonard. She will be busy with the conquest of this Mr. St. Ange.”

“If so, Mr. St. Ange will soon be her captive. I shall think no worse of him for a ready submission. ‘Honour to the vanquished!’ was a favourite device of the knights of the olden times.”

Mrs. Bloommaert was, however, a little out of her calculation. So was Annette. Both had been sure St. Ange would avail himself of the earliest possible hour in which a call could be politely possible; and Annette, somewhat to her grandmother’s amusement, had dressed herself in the fascinating little Dutch costume she had worn at a St. Nicholas festival. She said she had done so because it was so warm and comfortable for a cold morning; and she smoothed the quilted silk petticoat and the cloth jacket down, and made little explanations about them and the vest of white embroidery, which neither deceived madame nor herself. Her fair hair was in two long braids, tied with blue ribbons; her short petticoat revealed her small feet dressed in grey stockings clocked with orange; and high-heeled shoes fastened with silver latchets. She was picturesque and very pretty, and armed from head to feet for conquest. But, alas! St. Ange came not. In fact he was comfortably sleeping while she was watching; and it was not until the middle of the afternoon he made the promised visit. He had been dining at Mr. Grinnel’s the previous evening, and had afterwards gone to the theatre with a large party. And he lamented with an almost womanly plaintiveness the bitter cold, that, for him, spoiled every entertainment. The theatre, he said, was at freezing point; and how the ladies endured the temperature in their evening gowns was to him a marvel. Then he looked round madame’s fine old room with its solid oak, and massive silver, its curtained windows, thick carpet, plentiful bearskin rugs, and huge blazing fire, and said with a happy sigh: “It was the only room fit to live in that he had seen in New York. Handsome rooms! oh, yes, very handsome rooms he had seen, but all cold, killing cold!”

Madame reminded him that New York and Lousiana were in different latitudes; and Annette found him the most cosey chair in the warmest corner, and the general warmth and sympathy was soon effectual. Complaint was changed for admiration, and as the day waned, and the firelight made itself more and more impressive, his conversation lost its business and social character, and became personal and reminiscent.

Madame asked him if he was born in New Orleans, and at the question his eyes flashed like living furnaces filled with flame.

“But no,” he answered. “No, no! I was born in that island that God made like Paradise, and negroes have made like hell. Near the town of Cayes I was born, in a vast stone mansion standing on a terrace and shaded by stately palms. Six terraces led from it to the ocean, and marble steps led from one terrace to another. My father had left France very early in the reign of Louis the Sixteenth, and I have heard that even at that time he had a positive prescience of the horrors of the coming revolution. However, without this incentive he would have made the emigration; for he had fallen heir to immense hereditary estates in Hayti, which had been in the possession of our family from the time of Columbus. Here he cultivated the cane, introducing it himself from the West Indies; and he also exported great quantities of mahogany, and of that beautiful wood which is fragrant in its native forests as the sweetest of roses. There were many slaves on the estate, who lived in a little village of their own, about a mile away from the house. During the awful insurrection of 1791 my father defended his mansion, and as he had great influence with the blacks he was not seriously interfered with; but he was never afterwards happy. He foresaw that the continual fighting between the blacks and the mulattoes must finally drive all white people from the island, and he prepared for this emergency by sending to New Orleans at every opportunity all the money he could spare. In 1803 the long years of continual horrors culminated, and the United States having bought Louisiana, my father resolved to remove there at once. A British frigate was in the harbour of Cayes at the time, and arrangements were made with the captain for our immediate removal. I was then of fourteen years, and I knew only too well the demoniac character of these insurrections. This one also was likely to be especially cruel, owing to the presence of French troops sent by Napoleon to subjugate the blacks. Secretly I assisted my father to carry to the ship the money, jewels, and papers we intended to take with us, but ere this duty was quite accomplished we saw that there was no time to lose. With anxious hearts we watched the ship sail northward, but this movement was only a feint. We knew that about midnight she would return to the appointed place for us.

“Sick with many fears we watched for the setting of the sun. It had been a hot, suffocating day, and every hour of it had indicated a fierce, and still more fierce, gathering of the combatants. Hellish cries, and shouts to the beating of drums, and the wild chanting of the Obeah priests had filled the daylight with unspeakable terrors. But when the sun sank, suddenly a preternatural calm followed. Mysterious lights were seen in the thick woods, howlings and cries, horrible and inhuman, came out of its dense darkness. Abominable sacrifices were being offered to the demon they worshipped, and we knew that as soon as these rites were over indiscriminate slaughter and devilish cruelties would begin. My mother had my little sister in her arms, and I went with her through the forest to the seaside. She reached our meeting place by one exit, I by another; for we were suspiciously watched, and durst not leave the house in a body. My father and my two eldest brothers were to join us by different routes.

“That awful walk! That enchanted walk through the hot, thick forest! I shall never forget it in this life or the next—I shall never forget it! Even the insects were voiceless, and the huge serpents lay prone in spellbound stillness. We had not reached the sea before a terrific thunder storm broke over us. Then the glare and gloom made each other more awful; the black sky was torn by such lightning as you have no conception of; and in the midst of natural terrors no one can describe the blacks held a carnival of outrage and death in every conceivable form of hellish cruelty that Obeah could devise.

“Nearly dead with fatigue and fright my mother reached the little cove where the ship was to meet us, and there we waited in an agony of terror for the arrival of my father and brothers. They came not. And if the ship was noticed lying near we should be discovered. I walked back as far as I durst, looking for any trace of them. My mother lay upon the sand praying. My little sister slept at her side. In that hour childhood left me forever. In that hour I learned how much one may suffer, and yet not die. Daylight began to appear, and the ship was about half a mile from the land. Then I called,—not with the voice I am now using,—but with some far mightier force, ‘Father! Father!’ And at that moment he appeared, pushing his way through the green tangle. And his face was whiter than death, because it was full of horror and agony, which the face of death very rarely is.

“He could not speak. He made motions to me to signal the ship, which I instantly did. It was not many minutes till we saw our signal answered and a little boat coming quickly toward us. But my father quivered with anxiety, and he said, afterwards, they were the most awful moments of his existence. For he knew there was a party of negroes in pursuit, and, indeed, we were just getting into the boat when we heard them crashing through the underwood. My mother had said only two words, ‘August! Victor!’ and my father had answered only, ‘Dead.’ Then the sailors pulled with all their strength to escape the bullets that followed us; but one struck and killed the babe in my mother’s arms, and another fatally wounded a man at one of the oars. He fell, and my father took his place.”

Annette was watching St. Ange like one fascinated; her blue eyes were wide open, her face terror-stricken, her little form all a-tremble. Madame had covered her face, but when Achille ceased speaking she stretched out her hand to him, and for a few moments there was an intense passionful silence. Madame broke it.

“You reached New Orleans safely?”

“It was a hard journey. The captain had taken on a great number of the fugitives, and he waited around the island for two days, rescuing many more who had trusted to the mercy of the sea rather than dare the bloody riot on land; so that we were much overcrowded and soon suffering for food and water. Fever followed, and when we reached New Orleans we were in a pitiable plight. My mother did not recover from this experience. She never asked further about my brothers, and my father would not have told her the truth, if she had asked. ‘They are dead! They died like heroes!’ That was all my father ever told me. It was all that I wished to know.

“On Bayou Têche we bought a plantation, and began again the cultivation of the cane, but mother died visibly, day by day, and within six weeks we buried her under the waving banners of the grey moss that hung so mournfully from the live oaks, that January morning. As to my father, he was never again the same. He had been a very joyous man, but he smiled no more, and he fretted continually over the loss of his family and his beautiful home in Hayti. For some years we were all in all to each other, and he laboured hard to bring our new plantation into a fine condition. Then he, too, left me, and the place was hateful in my sight. I wished to escape forever from the sight of negroes. I feared them, even in my sleep. Had not those who had shared our food, and games, and constant society slain with fiendish delight my poor brothers and my only sister? I was acquainted with Mr. Edward Livingston, a lawyer in New Orleans, and who himself had married a beautiful refugee from the great Haitian insurrection, and he advised me not to sell my plantation, as in view of the war I could not get its value. I would not listen to him—a simpler life with the black cloud removed seemed to me the only thing I desired. But no, I have not here escaped it. What shall I do?”

“The blacks in New York are mostly free, and they are comparatively few in number,” said madame.

“Few in number—that is some security. But now, I must tell you, that this summer, on the very night that there was a great volcanic eruption from the burning heart of St. Vincent, there was another massacre. Amid the roaring darkness, the intolerable heat, the rain of ashes, the stench of sulphur, and the stygian horror of the heavens and the earth, the blacks,

made frantic by their terror, and led by the priests of Obeah, fell upon the whites indiscriminately. They fled to the ships in the harbour—to the sea—anywhere, anywhere, from those huge animal natures whose eyes were flaming with rage, and whose souls were without pity. Nearly one hundred of these fugitives finally reached Norfolk and Virginia. Some had been warned either by their own souls, or by friends, and had money and jewels with them; others were quite destitute; many were sick, and their condition was pitiable. All desired to reach the French settlements in Louisiana, but transit by water was most uncertain, nearly all the usual shipping being employed in the more congenial business of privateering. Then, in the midst of their distress, comes into port one day Captain Christopher Bloommaert. He had with him a fine English frigate, the prize of his skill and valour. And when he understood the case of these poor souls, he called his men together and proposed to them the God-like voyage of carrying the miserables to New Orleans. ‘’Tis but a little way out of our purposed course,’ he said, ‘and who knows on what tack good fortune may meet us?’ And the men answered with a shout of ready assent, and so they finally reached New Orleans. I saw them land. Many of them were old friends of my family, and I heard such stories from their lips as make men mad. One old planter, who had money with him, bought my estate, and took those with him to its shelter who had neither money nor friends. Their kindness to each other was wonderful. As for me, I hastened away from scenes that had cast a pall over all my life. Yet I forget not; to forget would be an impossible mercy.”

Then madame talked comfortably to the young man, and after a while tea was brought in, and Annette, grave and silent for once, made it; and quietly watched, and listened, and served. St. Ange liked her better in this mood. The other Annette, with her little coquetries, had not pleased him half so well. When he left she understood that she had gained favour in his eyes; he kissed her hand with an enthralling grace and respect—or, at least, Annette found it so. And that night, though she felt certain Leonard Murray was singing the new songs with Sappha, she told herself that she “did not care if he was. Achille was twice as interesting; he was, indeed, a romantic, a tragic hero—and very nearly a lover. And he was so captivating, so unusually handsome!” She went over the rather long list of young men with whom she was friendly, and positively assured herself that all were commonplace compared with this wonderful Achille. And, to be sure, his small but elegant figure, his pale passionate face, set in those straight black locks, his caressing voice, his subtle smile, his gentle pressure of the hand—all these charms were not the prominent ones of the practical, business-like young men with whom she was most familiar.

After St. Ange’s departure madame sat silent for some time, and Annette watched her with a strange speculation in her mind—did people really keep their emotions fresh when they were three-score and ten years old? Her grandmother had seemed to feel all that she had felt. Her hands, her feet, her whole figure had revealed strong sensation, her eyes been tender with sympathy and keen with anger; her interest had never flagged. In passionate sensibility had twenty years no superiority over seventy years? Patience, Annette! Time will tell you the secret. Oh, the soul keeps its youth!

She considered this question, however, until it wearied her, and then she asked abruptly: “Grandmother, of what are you dreaming?”

“Mr. St. Ange. I was recalling the day on which his grandfather carried off to France pretty Gertrude Bergen. She went to France and died in Haiti, and now her grandson is driven back by events he cannot control to New York.”

“Where he will probably marry some other pretty Dutch maiden.”

“And small heed we take of such things; we even count them of chance; yet, how often that which flowers to-day grows from very old roots.”

“Grandmother, I want two new dresses. Can I have them?”

“Stuffs of every kind are very dear, Annette.”

“Only two, grandmother.”

“And Madame Lafarge’s charges for making dresses are extravagant—the making is the worst.”

“It has to be done, grandmother.”

“Yes—but if you will turn to your Bible, Annette, you will find that the woman whose ‘price was above rubies’ made her own dresses.”

“Indeed, grandmother, you need only glance at any picture of a Bible woman to see that. Dresses without shape, without style—and as for the fit!” And Annette could only explain the enormity of the fit by throwing up her hands in expressive silence.

“If you get the dresses, then a new bonnet will be wanted.”

“Yes, a bonnet would be a necessity; also some of those sweet furs that come from South America—so soft and grey are they. Oh, the ugliest woman looks pretty in them!”

“You are extortionate, Annette.”

“Grandmother, I have not yet asked for a grand piano.”

Then madame laughed. And Annette laid her soft cheek against madame and kissed her good-night. But though she walked delicately and almost on tip-toes to her own room, there was an air of triumph in the poise of her pretty head. She set the candle down by the mirror and looked complaisantly at herself.

“I shall get what I want,” she said softly. “I always do.”

CHAPTER FIVE

A Chain of Causes

It had been a stirring summer in New York, and the year was now closing with a remarkable month. For October had been signalised by two naval victories, the British war frigate Frolic having been captured by Captain Jones, and the Macedonian by Commodore Decatur, and as the successful commanders were expected in New York during December, great preparations were being made for their entertainment, the more so, as Captain Hull, the hero of the Constitution, would also be present.

Considering these things, Annette’s request for two new gowns was a modest one; yet so many women were just then acquiring new gowns that it was with difficulty she succeeded in getting hers ready for Christmas Day. Achille had helped her to select her ball dress, and it was so lovely that she felt no fear of being on this occasion eclipsed by Sappha’s gayer garments. That Achille had been consulted in its selection need not imply more than a rather intimate friendship; for the young man had become a familiar friend of a great many families. His sad history, his unusual beauty and grace, his many social accomplishments, and his faultless manners and dress, had given him almost by acclamation a very prominent position in the fashionable circles of New York. The Dutch claimed him on his mother’s side, the French on his father’s, and New Yorkers on the ground that he had of choice elected to become a citizen of New York. No gathering was considered complete without his presence; the most select clubs sought his association; and among those men who loved fine horses and skilful fencing, he was acknowledged an incomparable judge and master.

But though he accepted this homage, he did not seek it; nor did it seem to afford him much pleasure. Those most familiar with his habits knew that he very much preferred the society of the Friendly Club, which met in the parlour of Dr. Smith’s house in Pine Street. Here, with young Washington Irving, Charles Brockden Brown, and other literary and learned men, he passed the hours that pleased him most. Nor was this his only social peculiarity. He formed a close friendship with the exile Aguste Louis de Singeron, the most famous pastry cook and confectioner in New York; also an ex-courtier and ex-warrior of Louis the Sixteenth: a little man of the most undaunted spirit, chivalrous and courteous, at once the most polite and the most passionate of men. Every day St. Ange might be found sitting in De Singeron’s neat little shop on William Street. Sometimes their conversation seemed to be sufficient for their entertainment; sometimes a chess board lay on the narrow counter between them. Fine ladies passed in and out, but St. Ange was never disturbed by their advent; and if a game was in progress no smiling invitation allured him to leave it unfinished. It will be seen then, that in spite of his gentle air and suave manners, he had a will sufficiently strong to insure him his own way.