The Belle of Bowling Green
Involuntarily he looked into the face of “the temptation.” With clear,
shining eyes she held his eyes a moment, and then her voice uttered the
undeniable entreaty: “I love Leonard so dearly, father. And he loves
me.”
“I see! I see!”
“We only wish to please you, father; that is best of all.”
“Indeed, sir, that is best of all!” said Leonard eagerly.
“Well, well! In this country the majority rules. What can a man do if
there are three against him, especially when one of the three is his
wife?” and he shook his head, and looked somewhat reproachfully at his
wife.
Then Sappha slipped her arms around his neck, and laid her cheek against
his, and he embraced his daughter and stretched out his hand to Leonard.
Thus Fortune often brings in the boats we do not steer, and by what we
call a happy accident guides our dearest and most difficult hopes to a
sudden fruition. It is then a good thing to leave the door wide open for
our unknown angels. They often accomplish for us what we hardly dare to
attempt.
After this settlement Sappha and Leonard felt that they might revel in
the joy of life and take their pleasure where-ever they found it. And
they found it both in public and private affairs. Annette’s marriage was
to take place in June, and there were preparations without end going on
for that event. Her grandfather De Vries had given her, as a wedding
gift, the Semple place, a beautiful old home set in a fine garden which
had once sloped down to the river bank.
“It is not exactly what I should have chosen,” said the bride-elect;
“but it is valuable property, and grandfather would not have given it to
me if I had not promised to live there.”
“It is no hardship to live in the Semple house,” said Sappha. “The rooms
are so large, the woodwork so richly carved, and the garden is the
sweetest, shadiest place in New York, I think.”
“Grandmother is going to furnish it, and she lets me choose exactly what
I want. I declare, dear Achille and I have no time for love-making, we
are so worried about chairs and tables and wedding garments.”
“I never should have thought Achille would worry about anything. He is
always so deliberate, and so calm.”
“Oh, but a man in love is a different creature, and I can tell you that
Achille is distractingly in love. I am not quite ignorant about the
queer ways of men in a fever of infatuation. Why, he scarcely ever goes
to see the pastry cook now.”
“Oh, but De Singeron was a gallant officer of King Louis! He is in exile
and misfortune, that is all. The pastry business is but an
emergency--and he manages it splendidly----”
“Certainly. I have always liked his good things. And he is going to make
us the most wonderful wedding cake. However, when Achille and I are
married Achille will have to give up many things, and Monsieur Auguste
Louis de Singeron will be one of them. At present I have too many things
to worry about to interfere.”
“You have nearly half a year in which to do your worrying. Why not take
things more easily?”
“Oh, the fun is in the fuss! Did you hear that General Moreau is going
back to Europe to join the allies? The emperor of Russia has sent for
him, and now he will have the chance to pay Napoleon back for his nine
years’ exile. But I shall never pass 119 Pearl Street without a sigh. No
one ever gave such princely entertainments as the Moreaus. The general
is to have a great appointment, but what he likes best is the chance of
fighting the world’s big tyrant. Achille is going to see him embark--and
many others. But this is not my affair. There is my wedding gown, for
instance.”
“Have you decided on it?”
“It must be white--everything about me must be white. Achille says so. I
think grandmother will send to Boston for the silk or satin; there is
none here of a quality fit for the most important gown a woman can ever
wear. You would think it was grandmother’s wedding, she is so interested
in every little thing about it.”
Indeed, Annette did not much overstate madame’s interest in her
granddaughter’s marriage preparations. She lifted the additional work,
and even the additional expense, with a light-hearted alacrity that was
wonderful. And in many ways her cheerfulness brought her a rich and
ready reward. She had been almost a recluse for some years, she was now
seen constantly on the streets and in the stores, and not infrequently
in this way she became a delighted spectator of public parades and
military drills and movements. Achille usually accompanied her, and his
respectful attentions were a source of wonder and speculation to those
who forgot to consider that Frenchmen are specially trained to give
honour, and even reverence, to old age. So it was not remarkable that
madame put on a kind of second youth; how could she be in constant,
affectionate accord with four loving young hearts and not do so?
For the next half-year, then, Annette was the centre of interest in her
own little world. The judge and Mrs. Bloommaert, Sappha, and Leonard
gladly entered into the spirit of this generous service for, and
sympathy with, the exultant little bride. And at this period of her
life, even her foibles and selfishness were pleasantly excused. It was
her last draught of the careless joy of girlhood; no one wished to
spill, or spoil, one drop of it.
Leonard and Sappha were much of their time at the Bloommaert House in
Nassau Street; although Leonard, in the City Commissioner’s office, was
making some pretence of mapping out streets and lots of ground in the
wilderness round Harlem Flat. But this business hardly interfered with
his attentions to Sappha and Annette; nor yet with the military spirit
which took him very regularly to the guard-room of some of the
volunteer companies. He was also a recognised dependence when the city
wished to entertain some hero whom it delighted to honour; for then both
his purse and his natural genius for method and arrangement made him an
invaluable surety for success.
During this half-year there were not many warlike events to influence
New York, and her citizens had become quite used to the guns at the
different forts signalling “the British fleet off Sandy Hook.” Many
false alarms also contributed to this sense of security. They were well
aware, too, that the already numerous forts were being steadily
increased and strengthened, and in April the Battery parade was
fortified. This park was then a strip of greensward about three hundred
feet wide, between State Street and the water’s edge. It had no sea
wall, only a low wooden fence on the edge of a bluff two or three feet
high; then loose sand and pebbles to the water’s edge. There was a dock
at the foot of Whitehall Street, and at Marketfield Street the water
came nearly to the middle of the block between Washington and Greenwich
streets. About the centre of the southeastern part of this park there
was a public garden and a charming little hall, where coffee, cakes, ice
cream, and other delicacies were served; and on summer evenings some of
the military bands made excellent music there for the visitors.
Of course, the erection of a breastwork around this water line of the
park was an interesting event to all the dwellers on the Bowling Green,
and Sappha and Leonard, during the lovely days of April and May, took
their walks about the Battery fortifications, and thus thrilled their
love through and through with the passion of patriotism and the glow and
excitement of its warlike preparations.
It was while these Battery defences were being constructed that the city
gave one of its usual great entertainments to Captain Lawrence, who in
the _Hornet_ had captured the British brig-of-war _Peacock_. Two
circumstances made this dinner one that brought the war very close to
the people of New York--the first was the fact that Lawrence was a
citizen of New York; the second was the marching of the one hundred and
six survivors of the sunk ship _Peacock_ through all the principal
streets of the city to their prison in Fort Gansevoort, thus affording
the populace a very visible proof of victory. It was, however,
noticeable that few of American parentage offered any insult to the
depressed-looking sailors, while many men of the first consideration
raised their hats as the unhappy line passed. Leonard and Achille were
among this number. “Honour to the vanquished!” said Achille with
emotion; and Leonard, remembering who had taught them that sentiment,
repeated it. And this courtesy was the more emphatic, because at that
very time a large number of British war vessels had entered the
Chesapeake and Delaware bays.
But did war ever stop marriage? On the contrary, it seems to give a
strange vitality and hurry to love-making; and in the midst of all its
alarms Annette’s wedding preparations went blithely on to their
determined crisis. On the seventh of June Annette, being of age, became
mistress of her estate, and on the seventeenth of the same month she
married Achille St. Ange.
It was an exquisite summer day, and the old house in Nassau Street had
never looked more picturesquely homelike. Every rose tree was in bloom,
and doors and windows were all open to admit the scented air. For the
company far exceeded the capacity of the parlours; it filled the hall,
the stairway, and the piazzas, and even in the garden happy young people
were wandering among the syringa bushes and the red and white roses. And
presently there was a little wistful, eager stir, and Annette, followed
by her grandmother and Sappha, came softly down the stairway. Then the
girls sitting there rose and stood on each side of the descent, and
Achille hastened to meet the snow-white figure, and ere she touched the
floor took her hands in his own. And never had Annette looked so fair
and so lovely; from the rose in her hair to the satin sandals on her
feet she was in lustrous white. The faint colour of her cheeks, the
deeper red of her mouth, and the heavenly blue of her eyes were but the
tender tints that gave life to the bright, slow-moving, bride-like
beauty.
Many a time Annette had consciously assumed a pensive, thoughtful
expression, for Achille admired her most in such moods; but there was no
necessity for the pretence this day. Those who had any penetrative
observation might see beyond the light of her sweet smiles and glances
the shadowed eyes that both remember and foresee. She was not a girl at
all inclined to reflection, but feeling and intuition go where reason
cannot enter, and Annette felt that this very day was the meridian day
of her life. Having gained this, the height of her hope and desire, she
wondered--even against her will--“if she must henceforward tread the
downward slope until the evening shades of life found her?” Was this day
to give a future to her past and change girlhood’s simple hopes into the
richer joys of wifehood? Or would this new self that had just taken
possession of her bring kisses wet with tears, waste remembrance of
vanished hours, and forlorn sighs for the days eventual? Not these
words, but the sentiment of them, insinuated itself into the bride’s
consciousness. It was uncalled, and unwelcome; and Annette, frowning at
the intrusion, dismissed it. She had always found “change” meant
something better, and that there was ever a living joy, ready to take
the place of a dead one, even as--
“The last cowslip in the fields we see
On the same day with the first corn poppy.”
Fortunately, after any great domestic vicissitude, there is generally a
suspension of everything unusual. The family in which it has occurred
refuse to be drawn into further changes. They instinctively feel that
marriage, as well as death, makes life barren, and they say in many
different ways, “It is enough. Leave things as they are; at least, for a
little while.”