“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.”