They walked together talking only of Mr. Burr for more than an hour; then Sappha said “she was cold and must go into the house.” She was not so much cold as weary. We are always weary when we do not understand, and Sappha could not understand why Mr. Burr should interfere in her affairs. At the door Leonard spoke to her about the theatre on Friday night, and she promised to give her father and mother his invitation. “It is too late to detain you longer, my beloved,” he said; “but I will call early in the morning for the answer. I hope they will accept my offer. It will make me very proud and happy.”
Sappha was sure that her mother would do so. “My father is always uncertain,” she said, “but I think he will go if I ask him.”
In the morning, however, there was no question of naming the subject. The judge had come home late the previous night, and even then was suffering all the premonitory symptoms of an attack of gout. Sappha was accustomed to these evil periods, and quite aware that all Leonard’s plans were useless. For no one but Mrs. Bloommaert and the two negro men who nursed the judge were likely to see him; or, if they were wise, to want to see him; and Sappha was compelled to add disappointment to the already restless dissatisfaction which had somehow invaded the love which Leonard really bore her.
The morning interview was, moreover, very hurried. Leonard was going to court to hear Mr. Burr argue a certain case, and though he did not tell Sappha this, she felt that Mr. Burr was the cause of her lover’s unusual haste. Before he knew this objectionable person he had never worried about time; now he was constantly consulting his watch. She felt as if their love had been mingled with some element that robbed it of its immortal beauty and bound it to the slavery of hours and minutes; nay, she could not have defined her sense of loss, even thus far, accurately; she was only wistfully conscious of a change that was not a gain.
Leonard came early in the morning, and was bitterly disappointed to find that his little plan was absolutely abortive. The judge was suffering much, and the subject had not even been named to him. Mrs. Bloommaert, indeed, rather fretfully interrupted Sappha in the midst of her delivery of Leonard’s invitation. “The theatre!” she ejaculated. “If you were in your father’s room for ten minutes you would not have the courage to name the place. I am sorry, of course, but theatre-going is out of the question. Leonard does seem so unfortunate!”
“Do not be unjust, mother; don’t you think it is father that is unfortunate? And then his misfortune makes you suffer, and I also; for I did want to go to the theatre on Friday night so much. I suppose Annette will be disappointed also, for of course she cannot go with Achille alone. They were, no doubt, calculating on your presence.”
“It cannot be helped, Sappha. Your father must not be left; my place is with him. I suppose Mrs. Clark will be going. Leonard and you can join her party.”
But when this proposition was made to Leonard he refused it without reservation. He was certain that the Clark party was already complete, and he showed a touch of stubbornness in temper that pained and astonished Sappha. If he could not have his pleasure exactly as he wished it, there was no longer any pleasure in it; and he said with an air of intense chagrin:
“I shall be the only young man of my circle who will not be there with the girl he loves and the family into which he hopes to be admitted. I feel it very much.” And with these words he went away.
All morning Sappha sat in a kind of listless grief. She was in a mesh of circumstances against whose evil influence she was powerless. Nothing could avail. The morning was damp and cold and full of melancholy, the house strangely still; she could not sew, she could not read, she could only suffer. And at eighteen years of age suffering is so acute, it seems to youth’s dreams of happiness such a wrong; and the reasonable indifference of age has, to its impatience, the very spirit of cruelty.
About noon Mrs. Bloommaert came into the room. She had a letter in her hand, and there was a singular expression of discomposure both on her countenance and in the fretful way in which she held the missive in her outstretched hand.
“Sappha,” she said, “here comes news indeed! Your grandmother has written to tell us that last night Achille St. Ange asked Annette to marry him. And of course Annette accepted the offer,” commented Annette’s aunt. “Your grandmother seems delighted with the match.”
“They will suit each other very well, mother. I am sure they will be happy. I must go and congratulate Annette.”
“Not to-day. They both went, early this morning, with the news, to grandfather De Vries, and of course that is a day’s visit.”
“As he is the guardian of her estate, Annette would have to ask him for money; for she will now want a great deal of it. I am glad she is going to marry Achille; she has loved him ever since they met.”
“Annette loves Annette first and best of all. But she has plenty of sense, and she knows that a girl of twenty-one has no chances to throw away.”
“Annette looks about seventeen, mother, and she has more lovers than I ever had.”
“That is because you allowed every one to see your preference for Leonard Murray. Besides, what you say is not so. In spite of your partiality, no girl in New York has more admirers than Sapphira Bloommaert.”
“I prefer Leonard to all I ever had, or might have had.”
“Yes. I know. Very foolish, too! Your father does not like him; he will never give a willing consent to your marriage with him--and girls ought to marry before they are Annette’s age. In fact, I have thought her a little old-maidish for a year past.”
“Oh, mother! Now you are joking----”
“Too affected--too full of pouts, and shrugs and pirouettes; things very pretty when a girl is fifteen or sixteen, but quite old-maidish airs at twenty-one.”
“Mother, Annette never looked more than seventeen, and she is not quite twenty-one.”
“I think she looks every day of her age. She is more than two years older than you; and two years, when a girl is in her teens, is a great deal. Well, well, I thought you would have been married first.”
“If father and you were willing, I could be married at once. Leonard would be glad; but----”
“Oh, yes! we all know how soon ‘but’ comes; _but_, you want your own way; _but_, father wants his way; _but_----”
“Mother wants her way also.”
“No, no! Mother is willing for any way that works for others’ happiness--and Leonard is well enough, only things seem always to go contrary for him and you.”
“Dear mother, somebody once said the course of true love never did run smooth. Leonard loves me truly--for myself only. He is rich, and I am not rich. He could marry any girl he desires in New York, but he loves me. Is not that worth counting in his favour?”
“I never said different, Sappha.”
“Annette is very rich; Leonard could have married Annette.”
“I have no doubt of it. I should not wonder if Mr. St. Ange knows the exact amount of her fortune. Frenchmen are not indifferent to a fortune in their brides. I know that. It is a national custom to consider it. St. Ange will have a difficult interview with old De Vries! I would like very much to be present. De Vries will fight every dollar diverted from Annette’s control. Oh, yes! he will fight them, cent by cent.”
“Mother, dear, I do not think Achille has given Annette’s money a moment’s consideration. I do believe he loves her sincerely. He did not wish to love her. He fought the feeling for a long time; both Annette and I knew it, and Annette has often laughed at the way he held out. But she always said, when we spoke of the subject, ‘He is not invincible, some day he will surrender.’ I want to tell her how glad I am.”
“You cannot do so to-day. It is evident they intended a long visit, for your grandmother says in a postscript, ‘Tell Sappha to come very early in the morning. I want particularly to see her.’”
Here the conversation was interrupted by a violent ringing of the judge’s bedroom bell; and the echo of a demanding voice whose tenor could not be mistaken. Mrs. Bloommaert threw her mother-in-law’s letter toward Sappha, and answered the summons at once; and Sappha lifted the letter and carefully re-read it.
MY DEAR GERARDUS AND CARLITA:
I have to announce to you the engagement of Annette to my friend Achille St. Ange. I am pleased with Annette’s choice, and her marriage will probably take place on her next birthday, the seventh day of June, on which day, as you know, she comes of age. I wish no objections to be made. Annette has pleased herself, and done well to herself, and what more can be expected?
Your affectionate mother, JONACA BLOMMAERT.
P. S.--Tell Sappha I wish to see her very early in the morning. I have a pleasant piece of news for her.
All through that dreary day this letter lay in Sappha’s work-basket. It seemed almost to have life, and to talk to her; and when her mother came to drink a cup of tea, she was glad to give her back the intimate, insinuating bit of script. Mrs. Bloommaert held it a moment, and then locked it in the judge’s desk. “I don’t want to see it again,” she said, “but if I burn it, your father will be sure to consider it important enough to keep. Can you imagine what news your grandmother has to tell you?”