The Belle of
Bowling Green
By AMELIA E. BARR
Author of “The Bow of Orange Ribbon;” “The
Maid of Maiden Lane,” Etc.
With Illustrations
By WALTER H. EVERETT
A. L. BURT COMPANY,
PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
Copyright, 1904,
BY
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
_Published, October_
PRINTED IN NEW YORK, U. S. A.
_To My Friend_
WARREN SNYDER
_A Bookman and a Lover of Books_
_This Novel is Dedicated_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I MONDAY’S DAUGHTERS 3
II THE SPRING OF LIFE 30
III A SWEETNESS MORE DESIRED THAN SPRING 61
IV INTRODUCES MR. ST. ANGE 81
V A CHAIN OF CAUSES 115
VI THE MIRACLE OF LOVE 149
VII THE INCIDENT OF MARRIAGE 194
VIII THE ROSE OF RENUNCIATION 226
IX THE REPROOF OF THE SWORD 252
X THE STAR OF PEACE 296
XI AFTERWARD 321
_Prologue_
O shades of respectable Vans!
O Livingstons, Kennedys, Jays!
Lend me your names to conjure with,
And bring back the fine old days--
When the trade and wealth of the city
Lay snugly the rivers between,
And the homes of its merchant princes,
Were built round the Bowling Green.
Here’s to the homes that are past!
Here’s to the men that have been!
Here’s to the heart of New York,
That beats on the Bowling Green!
Here’s to the men who could meet
Mockers and doubters, with smiles;
And planning for centuries hence,
Lay out their city by miles.
It has spread far out to the North,
It has spread to the East and the West,
Though the men who saw it in dreams,
Now sleep in old Trinity’s breast.
Here’s to the homes that are past!
Here’s to the men that have been!
Here’s to the heart of New York,
That beats on the Bowling Green!
And here’s to the maids of the past!
(They were beautiful maids we know,)
That strolled in the Battery Park,
In the years of the Long Ago.
And though maids of to-day are fair,
(No lovelier ever have been)
They are proud to be called by the names
Of the Belles of the Bowling Green.
Here’s to the men of the past!
Here’s to the maids that have been!
Here’s to the heart of New York,
That beats on the Bowling Green!
_The Belle of Bowling Green_
CHAPTER ONE
_Monday’s Daughters_
Every city has some locality to which its heroic and civic memories
especially cling; and this locality in the city of New York is the
historic acre of the Bowling Green. With that spot it has been
throughout its existence, in some way or other, unfailingly linked; and
its mingled story of camp and court and domestic life ought to make the
Bowling Green to the citizens of New York all that the Palladium was to
the citizens of ancient Troy. For as the Palladium held in one hand a
pike, and in the other hand a distaff and spindle, so also, the story of
the Bowling Green is one of the pike and the distaff. It has felt the
tread of fighting men, and the light feet of happy maidens; and though
showing a front of cannon, has lain for nearly three centuries at the
open seaward door of the city, like a green hearthstone of welcome.
In the closing years of the eighteenth, and the early years of the
nineteenth century, the Bowling Green was in a large measure surrounded
by the stately homes of the most honourable and wealthy citizens; and
though this class, before the war of 1812, had began to move slowly
northward, it was some years later a very aristocratic quarter,
especially favoured by the rich families of Dutch extraction, who,
having dwelt for many generations somewhere around the Fort and the
Bowling Green, were not easily induced to relinquish their homes in a
locality so familiar and so dear to them.
Thus for nearly one hundred and forty years there had been Bloommaerts
living in the old Beaver Path, and in Bloommaert’s Valley, or Broad
Street, and when Judge Gerardus Bloommaert, in 1790, built himself a
handsome dwelling, he desired no finer site for it than the Bowling
Green. It was a lofty, roomy house of red brick, without extraneous
ornament, but realising in its interior arrangements and furnishings the
highest ideals of household comfort and elegance.
Sapphira, his only daughter, a girl of eighteen years old, was, however,
its chief charm and attraction. No painting on all its walls could rival
her living beauty; and many a young citizen found the road to the Custom
House the road of his desire. For was there not always the hope that he
might catch a glimpse of the lovely Sapphira at the window of her home?
Or meet her walking on the Mall, or the Battery, and perhaps, if very
fortunate, get a smile or a word from her in passing.
All knew that they could give themselves good reasons for their
devotions; they did not bow to an unworthy idol. Sapphira Bloommaert had
to perfection every mystery and beauty of the flesh--dark, lambent eyes,
hardly more lambent than the luminous face lighted up by the spirit
behind it; nut-brown hair, with brows and long eyelashes of a still
darker shade; a vivid complexion; an exquisite mouth; a tall, erect,
slender form with a rather proud carriage, and movements that were
naturally of superb dignity: “the airs of a queen,” as her cousin
Annette said. But Sapphira had no consciousness in this attitude; it was
as natural as breathing to her; and was the result of a perfectly
harmonious physical and moral beauty, developed under circumstances of
love and happiness. All her life days had been full of content; she
looked as if she had been born smiling.
This was exactly what her grandmother Bloommaert said to her one
morning, and that with some irritation; for the elder woman was anxious
about many people and many things, and Sapphira’s expression of pleasant
contentment was not the kind of sympathy that worry finds soothing.
“In trouble is the city, Sapphira, and over that bit of hair-work you
sit smiling, as if in Paradise we were. I think, indeed, you were born
smiling.”
“The time of tears is not yet, grandmother; when it comes, I shall
weep--like other women.”
“Weep! Yes, yes; but one thing remember--deliverance comes never through
tears. Look at Cornelia Desbrosses; dying she is, with her own tears
poisoned.”
“I am sorry for Cornelia; I wish that she had no cause to weep,” and
with these words she did not smile. It had suddenly struck her that
perhaps it was not right or kind to be happy when there was so much fear
and anxiety in her native city. The idea was new and painful; she rose
and went with it to the solitude of her own room; and her mother after
silently watching her exit, said:
“She is so gentle, so easily moved--was it worth while?”
“You think so? Give Sapphira a motive strong enough, and so firm she
will be--so impossible to move. Oh, yes, Carlita, I know!”
“Indeed, mother, she obeys as readily as a little child. Our will is her
will. She bends to it just like the leaves of that tree to the wind.”
“Very good! but there may come a day when to your will she will not
bend; when a rod of finely tempered steel will be more pliant in your
hand than her wish or will. We shall see. She is a very child yet, but
times are coming--are come--that will turn children quickly into men and
women. Our Gerardus, where is he?”
“He left home rather earlier than usual. He was sure there was important
news.” Mrs. Bloommaert spoke coldly. Her mother-in-law always set her
temper on edge with the claim vibrating through the two words “our
Gerardus.” “There is so much talk and nothing comes of it but annoyance
to ourselves,” she continued, “the cry has been war for five years. It
comes not.”
“It is here. At the street corners I saw the bill-man pasting up news of
it. In every one’s mouth I heard it. Alive was the air with the word
_war_; and standing in groups, men were talking together in that
passion of anger that means war, war, and nothing but war.”
“The blood of New York is always boiling, mother. When Gerardus comes he
will tell us if it be war. I shall not be sorry if it is. When one has
been waiting for a blow five long years, it is a relief to have it fall.
Who is to blame? The administration, or the people?”
“As well may you ask whether it is the fiddle, or the fiddlestick, that
makes the tune.”
“At any rate we shall give England a good fight. Our men are not
cowards.”
“Carlita, all men would be cowards--if they durst.”
“Mother!”
“If they durst disobey the nobler instincts which make the lower ones
face their duty.”
“Oh!”
“Carlita, you have no ideas about humanity.”
“I think mother I, at least, understand my husband and sons--as for
Sapphira----”
“More difficult she will be--and more interesting. Peter and Christopher
are all Dutch; they that run may read them, but in Sapphira the Dutch
and French are discreetly mingled. She has tithed your French ancestors,
Carlita--take good heed of her.”
“They were of noble strain.”
“Surely, that is well known. Now I must go home, for I know that Annette
is already afraid, and there is the dinner to order. Pigeons do not fly
into the mouth ready roasted, and Commenia is getting old. She is lazy,
too; but so! The year goes round and somehow we do not find it all bad.”
As she finished speaking, Sapphira came hastily into the room. Her face
was flushed, her eyes flashing, and she cried out with unrestrained
emotion: “Mother! Mother! We must put out our flags! All the houses on
the Green are flagged! Kouba has them ready. He will help me. And you
too, mother? Certainly you will help? Kouba says we are going to fight
England again! I am so proud! I am so happy! Come, come, mother!”
“My dear one, wait a little. Your father will be here soon, and----”
“Oh, no, no! Father may be in court. He is likely with the mayor.
Perhaps he is talking to the people. We can not wait. We must put out
the flags--the old one that has seen battle, and the new one that is to
see it.”
“But Sapphira----”
“I have the flags ready, mother. Come quickly,” and without further
parley she ran with fleet, headlong steps to the upper rooms of the
house. Madame, her grandmother, smiled knowingly at her daughter-in-law.
“The will that is your will?” she asked; “where is it? You can see for
yourself, Carlita.”
“The news seems to be true at last. You had better wait for Gerardus,
mother. He will tell us all about it.”
“The news will find me out in Nassau Street.”
“Commenia can manage without you for one day.”