The Belle of Bowling Green
presented his business to a poor French family. “He is going home! He is
beside himself with joy!” he continued. “He will be restored to his
rank, and to his command in the royal guards! Ah! it is enough to have
lived to see this day. It atones, it atones for all!” And Achille, who
could neither eat nor drink, sat smiling at every one. He was sure all
reasonable people must feel as he did.
“I suppose,” said Judge Bloommaert, “most of the French exiles will
return, as soon as they can, to their native country.”
“They will make no delays,” answered Achille. “It was a good sight to
watch them on the ship and the river bank. They were unhappy, uncertain,
until they saw with their own eyes the frigate that had brought the glad
news, and her captain understood. He permitted the crowd to tread her
deck. He flew over them the lilies of France. He spoke to them in their
own tongue. Ah, my friends, you will sympathise with these sad exiles;
you will not wonder that they knelt down and wept tears of joy!”
Indeed, Achille was so transported with his own sympathies that he
failed to perceive the atmosphere of dissent among his guests. True, the
judge’s fellow feeling was evident, also that of the Verplanks, but the
De Vries family and the Van Burens were in hot opposition to anything,
or any one, whom the Federalists favoured. So the element of the room
was not conducive to domestic rejoicing; and the dinner was virtually a
failure. The men of the party were all anxious to return to their clubs
or gathering-places; and the women, left to themselves, soon exhausted
their admiration for the little Jonaca, and remembered their own homes
and household affairs. And as the day waned, the thick trees surrounding
the Semple house filled the rooms with shadows, and Annette--a little
dismayed by Achille’s conduct--could not lift her flagging spirits to
the proper pitch of hospitality. Then Joanna de Vries opened the way for
an early retreat. She spoke of the restless streets, and of her father’s
great age and loneliness, and immediately every one recollected duties
equally as important. And as madame intended to remain with Annette,
Mrs. Bloommaert and Sappha also took their departure.
It was a beautiful summer evening, and the streets, though neither
crowded nor boisterous, were full of life. The happy French residents
had illuminated their houses, and through their open windows came joyful
sounds of rejoicing and song. Federalist orators were addressing small
gatherings of people at the street corners, and Democratic orators
contradicting all they said at the next block. Applause, laughter,
derision, enthusiasm of one kind or another thrilled the warm air, and
the joy and pang of life assailed the heart or imagination at every
step.
On the Bowling Green there was a very respectable audience listening to
Gouverneur Morris, who was speaking in such passionate accord with
Achille’s sentiments that it was astonishing not to find Achille at his
right hand.
“Mr. Morris is the most eloquent speaker of the age,” said Leonard; “let
us listen a few minutes to his words.” And as they did so, they heard
the embryo utterance of that remarkable “Bourbon speech” which he made a
few days afterwards in Dr. Romeyn’s church in Cedar Street:
“The Bourbons are restored. Rejoice, France, Spain, Portugal, Europe,
rejoice! Nations of Europe, ye are brethren once more! The family of
nations is complete. Embrace, rejoice! And thou, too, my much wronged
country! my dear, abused, self-murdered country! bleeding as thou art,
rejoice! The Bourbons are restored. The long agony is over. The Bourbons
are restored!”
“Let us go home, Leonard,” said Mrs. Bloommaert. “I never heard so much
praise of the Bourbons before. My father did not approve of them. If
Napoleon is done with, why did not the French people insist on a
republic? They had Lafayette--and others.”
Leonard answered only, “Yes.” He did not wish to open the subject of the
helplessness of France, nor point out how absurdly irrational it would
be for the allied kings of Europe to found a republic in their midst. He
felt weary of the subject, and the sense of the evening’s failure
affected him. It had been a disappointing day, what was the good of
prolonging it? Sappha and Leonard might have fallen into the mistake of
doing so, but Mrs. Bloommaert knew better. At the doorstep she
positively dismissed Leonard, who could not quite hide the fact that he
was willing to obey her. But Sappha, who had hoped to charm away this
feeling of tediousness and lassitude when they were alone, was vexed at
losing her opportunity.
“It was not kind of you, mother, to send Leonard off as soon as we had
done with him. He was weary, too,” she said.
“Weary! I should think he was,” answered Mrs. Bloommaert; “he must be
worn out with women to-day. Such a crowd of us as Annette got together.”
“The women were not more disagreeable than the men, mother,” said
Sappha. “And I believe Leonard has gone straight to the militia
guard-rooms--there are nothing but men there, and so he can rest.”
“I hope he has not gone to any guard-room. Every one will be quarrelling
with his neighbour to-night.”
Leonard had, indeed, gone to the guard-room of the Jersey Blues, but his
visit was decidedly against his inclination. He was as weary as Mrs.
Bloommaert had supposed him to be--weary of the Bourbons, and of the
passionate fratching about them; weary of men, and of women also; weary
of companionship of all kinds; weary of noise and strain of the restless
city; weary of life itself. Vital and large as his nervous force was, it
had become exhausted; feeling had wasted it, and disappointment been
equally depleting. He resolved when he turned from the Bloommaert house
to go direct to his rooms in the City Hotel and seek in solitude and
sleep a renewal of strength and hope. On the steps of the hotel an old
acquaintance accosted him, and Leonard rather reluctantly asked “if he
had come to see him?”
“Yes,” answered the man. “I am in trouble, Mr. Murray, and I could think
of no one but you to give me some advice. It is about Miss Martin. You
remember pretty Sarah Martin? We were engaged, and she has broken the
engagement. I am very unhappy. I do not know what to do. I think you can
tell me.”
“I am going to my rooms now. Come upstairs with me, McKenzie.”
“I cannot. I must be back at the guard-room in half an hour. Will you
not go with me? We can talk there well enough.”
Then Leonard went with McKenzie, and after the little formalities with
the men present in the guard-room were over, Leonard and McKenzie took
chairs to an open window and began their consultation. And very soon
Leonard threw off his lassitude and became heartily interested in his
friend’s trouble. Suddenly a voice, blatant and dictatorial, fell upon
his consciousness. It was the voice of a man who had been a member of
the company raised by Leonard, and who during the whole term of its
service was a source of annoyance and disputing--a man of low birth and
of a mean, envious nature, who had neither a good education nor good
breeding, and, indeed, who affected to despise both. Leonard’s youth,
beauty, fine culture, and fine manners, added to his great wealth and
popularity, roused at once Horace Gilson’s envy; and envy in the close
companionship of a military fort quickly grew to an almost
uncontrollable hatred. And in Gilson’s nature hatred had its proper
soil; he was insensible to the nobler qualities of humanity, and
persuaded himself--and other of his kind--that Leonard’s gracious
forbearance was not the fine courtesy of an officer to his subordinate,
but the fear of a timid and effeminate spirit. Indeed, Leonard’s three
months’ service had been made an hourly trial by the hardly concealed
mockery and contempt of Horace Gilson. Of all men in the wide world he
was the very last Leonard wished to see. He moved his chair a little
nearer to McKenzie, and by so doing faced the open window only. McKenzie
continued talking, unmindful of Gilson’s entrance, but Leonard heard
above all he said the sneering taunt and scoffing laugh of the man he
despised and disliked. Every one and everything appeared to provoke his
disdain, and it was not long before he turned his attention to the two
men sitting apart at the window.
“Secrets! Secrets!” he cried with effusive familiarity. “We will have no
secrets in a guard-room. Out with the ladies’ names--if you are not
ashamed of them.”
Leonard looked indifferently out of the window; it was McKenzie’s
affair, not his. And McKenzie, laying his hand upon his pistol in an
almost mechanical way, merely glanced at the bully and said: “You had
better mind your own business, sir.”
“I am not speaking to you, McKenzie,” Gilson answered. “I am addressing
Captain Murray, the great New York Adonis and lady killer! Come,
captain, your latest victories?”
“Mr. Gilson,” answered Leonard, “my friend and I are discussing private
concerns. When we desire your company, we will let you know. In the
meantime, we wish to be alone.”
“Now, captain, no more airs from you. You have left the militia, you
know--three months used up your patriotism,” answered Gilson scornfully.
McKenzie rose in a passion. “Damn your impertinence, Gilson! I’ll give
you a----”
“Be quiet, Mac,” interrupted Leonard. “The fool is drunk--you can’t even
horsewhip a drunken man.” Then he took McKenzie firmly by the arm and
both rose to leave the room.
“Drunk, eh?” cried Gilson in a rage. “Drunk! It is well for you both to
get out of my way, for I’ll pay you all I owe you yet, Murray--you, and
your damned dollars! Go and see if you can buy a little common
dog-courage with them.”
“Let me knock the ranting bully down, Murray.”
“He is not worth it.”
By this time the men present were on their feet, some urging Murray to
leave the room, some trying to talk reason into Gilson, who became more
and more defiant as the objects of his abuse passed out of the hearing
of it.
It was a wretched ending to a disagreeable day, and Leonard sat half
through the midsummer night fretting and fuming over the incident. He
was not a quarrelsome man, and a quarrel with Horace Gilson was an
affair too low and despicable to contemplate. Why had McKenzie come to
him with his trouble? He felt the injustice of the visit. If he had been
a few minutes later he would have missed the man and the annoyance that
had grown out of his sympathy with him. He looked wistfully out of the
window towards the Bloommaert house, and remembered Sappha, but speedily
exiled her from his thoughts, because he could not keep the scene at the
guard-room out of them; and it seemed a sacrilege to have both in his
consciousness at the same time.
However, after an irritating vigil of some hours he fell asleep with
sheer weariness, and when he awakened near noon on the following day
Nature had accomplished her renovating work. The Unseen Powers had
cradled his soul into peace, cleared away the rack and wreckage of an
unfortunate day, and filled his exhausted spirit with the miraculous
strength of Faith and Hope.
CHAPTER EIGHT
_The Rose of Renunciation_
As Leonard dressed himself he recollected the guard-room quarrel and
smiled. It seemed really so ridiculous and ineffectual; yet he resolved
to avoid Gilson as much as possible. “The man was drunk,” he thought,
“but sober or drunk, he has an envious nature, and a tongue ready for
ill words. Perhaps he may seek me out and continue his offensive
behavior. What then?” He pondered this likelihood a few moments, and
then asked himself cheerfully:
“Why should I worry about the probability of such a thing? As if it
mattered.” But it is hard to tell what matters, though safe enough to