With the removal of these well-known figures the Bowling Green suffered a distinct social loss; and when Stephen Whitney, who was a near neighbour of the Murrays, died in 1861, the prestige of its wealth departed, for Mr. Whitney was the richest man in New York, with the exception of some members of the Astor family. From that date the Bowling Green began to assume a business character, and the homes of the Bloommaerts and Murrays no longer sheltered their descendants. Lawrence Bloommaert, the son of Captain Christopher Bloommaert, remained a while in the house of his grandfather, Judge Gerardus Bloommaert, but his family were all girls, and they married and scattered through the Madison Square district, and even still further north. Leonard and Sapphira’s three sons had fine homes in the Murray Hill locality, and their only daughter Sapphira, who had married the eldest son of Peter Bloommaert, was in 189--living in a spacious mansion on the Riverside Drive. She was born in 1827, and therefore at the period of these reminiscences nearing seventy years of age. But she still kept the dew of her youth, and her children and children’s children filled her splendid home with the living splendour of youth and beauty and affection.
She was sitting alone one night in the fall of 189--. She looked a little weary, her figure drooped slightly, her hands lay as motionless as if they were asleep; but there was a flush of excitement on her cheeks, and her eyes were full of dreams. She was seeing with them, but seeing nothing within their physical horizon. They had backward vision at this hour, and she smiled faintly at the scenes they flashed before her memory.
In a short time the door was noiselessly opened, and a much younger woman entered. She came toward the elder one with a slow, easy grace, and taking her passive hands between her own said: “Mother, you have wearied yourself. I fear you have been foolish to-day.”
“No, no, Carlita,” was the quick response. “I have had a happy day. I am glad I took my desire. I did not expect you. It is a _Faust_ night; why are you not at the opera?”
“The opera will not miss me. Gerard has gone with the little Van Sant girl; and of course Agatha Van Sant will be present. I do not suppose the conductor would lift his baton until he saw Mrs. Agatha Van Sant enter her box; then, he would nod his satisfaction, and say with a lordly air, ‘Let the opera commence.’ I shall see enough of opera this winter; and I want so much to hear about your expedition. What time did you start?”
“About eleven o’clock. Gerard wanted to go with me, but I wished to be alone. There was really no danger. Dalby knows the city, and the horses obey his word or touch. I went to my old home. I was in every room of it.”
“It must be much changed.”
“In accidentals, yes, very much changed; but the large sunny rooms and the grand seaward outlook are the same. I went first to the nursery on the top story, and, Carlita, I could replace every chair and table. I could see James and Leonard and Auguste busy with their books and playthings; and there was one back window that had a little embrasure, which was very dear and familiar to me. In that nook I read ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ and the ‘Exiles of Siberia,’ and best of all, ‘The Arabian Nights.’ I sat down there and tried to recall the long, long, happy days in which it was my favourite retreat. I stood and looked downward over the balustrade, and fancied I saw again my beautiful mother, clothed in white and sparkling with gems, going out with father to some dinner or ball; and I remembered how I used to thus watch for her coming, and call her; and how she would stand still and lift her face full of love and smiles to bid me a ‘good-night.’ Once at a little ceremony of this kind I dropped her a white rose, and she put it in her bosom, and my father laughed and called me ‘darling’ and I went to bed that night more happy than I can tell you. I stayed some time in the nursery, and longer in my mother’s room. It had only sweet memories, for I never went into it without meeting a smile, no, not even on that last day of her beautiful life, when she called us all to her side for the long farewell. She died, as I have often told you, singing. She had sung, more or less, all her life long; and she went away faintly and sweetly singing,
“‘Hark, they whisper, angels say, Sister spirit, come away;’
and after a pause, still more softly--
“‘Tell me, my soul, can this be death?’
See, Carlita, I brought some sprays from the honeysuckle she planted on the seaward porch. Though November, it is in bloom. My father put flowers from this same vine in her hands after she was dead. It was a lovely, happy memory, Carlita. In a little sitting-room I found a window pane on which Annette St. Ange and my mother had written their names, enclosing them in a very perfect circle, and I brought the glass away with me. I could not bear to think that some stranger, in the destruction of the room, might perhaps tread the names beneath his feet.”
“Grandmother must have loved Mrs. St. Ange?”
“They were close friends, especially after the disappearance of Mr. St. Agne.”
“Mother, what was the meaning of that disappearance--death?”
“People generally spoke of it as death; but my father and mother knew better; and when Annette had passed beyond mortal care and suffering something occurred--I think the marriage of her granddaughter in Paris--that led my mother to tell me the truth. To-day, Carlita, I saw Annette St. Ange again, though not as I recollected her in life.”
“What do you mean, mother?”
“I saw her picture; the one taken soon after her marriage, and in her marriage garments--I was at the Loan Exhibition.”
“Oh, mother, why did you not wait for me to go with you?”
“Well, my dear, the bit of glass in my hand made me remember the exhibit; and as I had heard Gerard say the Van Sants were going to send some portraits, I suddenly resolved to visit the rooms and see if Annette St. Ange’s was among them. And there I saw it--very conspicuously placed also; a wonderfully lovely presentment of a lovely girl.”
“But was it like her?”
“It was not like the Mrs. St. Ange I remember. The portrait represented a fairylike beauty, dainty, exquisite, with the bluest eyes and the palest golden hair imaginable; an air of indefinable coquetry and grace; and a slight, girlish figure clothed in white from head to feet. But the Mrs. St. Ange that used to visit my mother was very different. She was always in black, her eyes were not pretty or expressive, her hair had lost all its glow, and her slight figure became round and heavy. She was also sad-looking. I do not recollect her smiling. She seemed full of care. Still there were points of resemblance, when you looked for them; and you may be sure the bright, lovely girl did not become the sad, hard-looking woman without many and long-continued trials.”
“She ought not to have married a foreigner. They do not understand American women; and then one or the other goes to the wall.”
“In the St. Ange case, it was Annette. Her husband was soft as velvet and hard as iron. In some way she lost her grip of the situation, and when men go one step beyond their right they go too far. He never said an impolite word to her; also, he ceased saying a loving word. She became afraid of him, nervous, diffident, and suspicious. He had only to remark in the blandest way that she was losing her fine manners, and she lost them. In his presence she did herself no justice. He looked critically at her, slightly shrugged his shoulders, and she was as awkward as he considered her. In five years no one would have known the once sarcastic, clever, authoritative Annette de Vries. She had subsided. She was forgotten; and she hardly knew how to frame a complaint of the way in which this condition had been brought about.
“Fortunately, she found some comfort in her house and her children, but Mr. St. Ange took no apparent interest in either. It was a lonely pleasure. He was disappointed because the three girls were not three boys. He spent very little time in his home, preferring one or other of the clubs of which he was a member.”
“I think he was simply--a brute.”
“Not quite that--he did not intend to be brutal. He had taken a distaste to Annette. My mother told me that in the days of their first acquaintance he had periods of this distaste; a kind of repulsion which was overcome by the fascination of her great physical beauty. But the physical beauty faded, lost its charm, and you can see, Carlita, what would then happen. But he was never rude or actively unkind; and in public he treated her with marked attention and respect. If Annette had complained, no one would have believed her; even her grandmother was sure in her heart that Annette had managed badly a very good man.”
“Poor Annette, I am sorry for her.”
“My mother was sorry for her. She understood. My mother, in matters of the heart, had a sort of clairvoyant perception; and she never would listen to any one who blamed Annette. This kind of life between Mr. St. Ange and his wife went on for nearly ten years; and then one day he reached home in a strangely excited condition. He said he had received a request, that was in reality a command, to return to France and look after the affairs of his family. He was going at once. He expected to be away at least a year. Annette made no objection, nor did she ask any questions about the business. She was quite aware that all inquiries would be answered only as it suited her husband’s views. However, before he went he made over to her in the most absolute way every dollar he possessed, both in property and money. He said the ocean voyage was a life risk; that he had always been unfortunate at sea, and that he wished his wife to have no difficulty, in case of his death, in realising his fortune. He himself took nothing away but some changes of clothing. ‘If he lived to reach Paris he would have no difficulty concerning money,’ he said, ‘and if not--the thing he had done was well done and only an act of justice.’ And every one thought his conduct beautifully thoughtful and unselfish. He went away on a night tide, when no one was aware of his intention, and again people said, ‘How considerate!’ and Annette affected to agree with them.”