The Bow of Orange Ribbon: A Romance of New York

“Love, that old song, of which the world is never weary.”

It was one of those beautiful, lengthening days, when May was pressing back with both hands the shades of the morning and the evening; May in New York one hundred and twenty-one years ago, and yet the May of A.D. 1886,—­the same clear air and wind, the same rarefied freshness, full of faint, passing aromas from the wet earth and the salt sea and the blossoming gardens.  For on the shore of the East River the gardens still sloped down, even to below Peck Slip; and behind old Trinity the apple-trees blossomed like bridal nosegays, the pear-trees rose in immaculate pyramids, and here and there cows were coming up heavily to the scattered houses; the lazy, intermitting tinkle of their bells giving a pleasant notice of their approach to the waiting milking-women.

In the city the business of the day was over; but at the open doors of many of the shops, little groups of apprentices in leather aprons were talking, and on the broad steps of the City Hall a number of grave-looking men were slowly separating after a very satisfactory civic session.  They had been discussing the marvellous increase of the export trade of New York; and some vision of their city’s future greatness may have appeared to them, for they held themselves with the lofty and confident air of wealthy merchants and “members of his Majesty’s Council for the Province of New York.”

[Illustration:  Joris Van Heemskirk]

They were all noticeable men, but Joris Van Heemskirk specially so.  His bulk was so great that it seemed as if he must have been built up:  it was too much to expect that he had ever been a baby.  He had a fair, ruddy face, and large, firm eyes, and a mouth that was at once strong and sweet.  And he was also very handsomely dressed.  The long, stiff skirts of his dark-blue coat were lined with satin, his breeches were black velvet, his ruffles edged with Flemish lace, his shoes clasped with silver buckles, his cocked hat made of the finest beaver.

With his head a little forward, and his right arm across his back, he walked slowly up Wall Street into Broadway, and then took a north-westerly direction toward the river-bank.  His home was on the outskirts of the city, but not far away; and his face lightened as he approached it.  It was a handsome house, built of yellow bricks, two stories high, with windows in the roof, and gables sending up sharp points skyward.  There were weather-cocks on the gables, and little round holes below the weather-cocks, and small iron cranes below the holes, and little windows below the cranes,—­all perfectly useless, but also perfectly picturesque and perfectly Dutch.  The rooms were large and airy, and the garden sloped down to the river-side.  It had paths bordered by clipped box, and shaded by holly and yew trees cut in fantastic shapes.

In the spring this garden was a wonder of tulips and hyacinths and lilacs, of sweet daffodils and white lilies.  In the summer it was ruddy with roses, and blazing with verbenas, and gay with the laburnum’s gold cascade.  Then the musk carnations and the pale slashed pinks exhaled a fragrance that made the heart dream idyls.  In the autumn there was the warm, sweet smell of peaches and pears and apples.  There were morning-glories in riotous profusion, tall hollyhocks, and wonderful dahlias.  In winter it still had charms,—­the white snow, and the green box and cedar and holly, and the sharp descent of its frozen paths to the frozen river.  Councillor Van Heemskirk’s father had built the house and planted the garden, and he had the Dutch reverence for a good ancestry.  Often he sent his thoughts backward to remember how he walked by his father’s side, or leaned against his mother’s chair, as they told him the tragic tales of the old Barneveldt and the hapless De Witts; or how his young heart glowed to their memories of the dear fatherland, and the proud march of the Batavian republic.

But this night the mournful glamour of the past caught a fresh glory from the dawn of a grander day forespoken.  “More than three hundred vessels may leave the port of New York this same year,” he thought.  “It is the truth; every man of standing says so.  Good-evening, Mr. Justice.  Good-evening, neighbours;” and he stood a minute, with his hands on his garden-gate, to bow to Justice Van Gaasbeeck and to Peter Sluyter, who, with their wives, were going to spend an hour or two at Christopher Laer’s garden.  There the women would have chocolate and hot waffles, and discuss the new camblets and shoes just arrived from England, and to be bought at Jacob Kip’s store; and the men would have a pipe of Virginia and a glass of hot Hollands, and fight over again the quarrel pending between the governor and the Assembly.

“Men can bear all things but good days,” said Peter Sluyter, when they had gone a dozen yards in silence; “since Van Heemskirk has a seat in the council-room, it is a long way to his hat.”

“Come, now, he was very civil, Sluyter.  He bows like a man not used to make a low bow, that is all.”

“Well, well! with time, every one gets into his right place.  In the City Hall, I may yet put my chair beside his, Van Gaasbeeck.”

“So say I, Sluyter; and, for the present, it is all well as it is.”

This little envious fret of his neighbour lost itself outside Joris Van Heemskirk’s home.  Within it, all was love and content.  He quickly divested himself of his fine coat and ruffles, and in a long scarlet vest, and a little skull-cap made of orange silk, sat down to smoke.  He had talked a good deal in the City Hall, and he was now chewing deliberately the cud of his wisdom over again.  Madam Van Heemskirk understood that, and she let the good man reconsider himself in peace.  Besides, this was her busy hour.  She was giving out the food for the morning’s breakfast, and locking up the cupboards, and listening to complaints from the kitchen, and making a plaster for black Tom’s bealing finger.  In some measure, she prepared all day for this hour, and yet there was always something unforeseen to be done in it.

[Illustration:  Locking-up the cupboards]

She was a little woman, with clear-cut features, and brown hair drawn backward under a cap of lace very stiffly starched.  Her tight fitting dress of blue taffeta was open in front, and looped up behind in order to show an elaborately quilted petticoat of light-blue camblet.  Her white wool stockings were clocked with blue, her high-heeled shoes cut very low, and clasped with small silver buckles.  From her trim cap to her trig shoes, she was a pleasant and comfortable picture of a happy, domestic woman; smiling, peaceful, and easy to live with.

When the last duty was finished, she let her bunch of keys fall with a satisfactory “all done” jingle, that made her Joris look at her with a smile.  “That is so,” she said in answer to it.  “A woman is glad when she gets all under lock and key for a few hours.  Servants are not made without fingers; and, I can tell thee, all the thieves are not yet hung.”

“That needs no proving, Lysbet.  But where, then, is Joanna and the little one?  And Bram should be home ere this.  He has stayed out late more than once lately, and it vexes me.  Thou art his mother, speak to him.”

“Bram is good; do not make his bridle too short.  Katherine troubles me more than Bram.  She is quiet and thinks much; and when I say, ’What art thou thinking of?’ she answers always, ‘Nothing, mother.’  That is not right.  When a girl says, ‘Nothing, mother,’ there is something—­perhaps, indeed, somebody—­on her mind.”

“Katherine is nothing but a child.  Who would talk love to a girl who has not yet taken her first communion?  What you think is nonsense, Lysbet;” but he looked annoyed, and the comfort of his pipe was gone.  He put it down, and walked to a side-door, where he stood a little while, watching the road with a fretful anxiety.

“Why don’t the children come, then?  It is nearly dark, and the dew falls; and the river mist I like not for them.”

“For my part, I am not uneasy, Joris.  They were to drink a dish of tea with Madam Semple, and Bram promised to go for them.  And, see, they are coming; but Bram is not with them, only the elder.  Now, what can be the matter?”

“For every thing, there are more reasons than one; if there is a bad reason, Elder Semple will be sure to croak about it.  I could wish that just now he had not come.”

“But then he is here, and the welcome must be given to a caller on the threshold.  You know that, Joris.”

“I will not break a good custom.”

Elder Alexander Semple was a great man in his sphere.  He had a reputation for both riches and godliness, and was scarcely more respected in the market-place than he was in the Middle Kirk.  And there was an old tie between the Semples and the Van Heemskirks,—­a tie going back to the days when the Scotch Covenanters and the Netherland Confessors clasped hands as brothers in their “churches under the cross.”  Then one of the Semples had fled for life from Scotland to Holland, and been sheltered in the house of a Van Heemskirk; and from generation to generation the friendship had been continued.  So there was much real kindness and very little ceremony between the families; and the elder met his friend Joris with a grumble about having to act as “convoy” for two lasses, when the river mist made the duty so unpleasant.

“Not to say dangerous,” he added, with a forced cough.  “I hae my plaid and my bonnet on; but a coat o’ mail couldna stand mists, that are a vera shadow o’ death to an auld man, wi’ a sair shortness o’ the breath.”

“Sit down, Elder, near the fire.  A glass of hot Hollands will take the chill from you.”

“You are mair than kind, gudewife; and I’ll no say but what a sma’ glass is needfu’, what wi’ the late hour, and the thick mist”—­

“Come, come, Elder.  Mists in every country you will find, until you reach the New Jerusalem.”

“Vera true, but there’s a difference in mists.  Noo, a Scotch mist isna at all unhealthy.  When I was a laddie, I hae been out in them for a week thegither, ay, and felt the better o’ them.”  He had taken off his plaid and bonnet as he spoke; and he drew the chair set for him in front of the blazing logs, and stretched out his thin legs to the comforting heat.

In the mean time, the girls had gone upstairs together; and their footsteps and voices, and Katherine’s rippling laugh, could be heard distinctly through the open doors.  Then Madam called, “Joanna!” and the girl came down at once.  She was tying on her white apron as she entered the room; and, at a word from her mother, she began to take from the cupboards various Dutch dainties, and East Indian jars of fruits and sweetmeats, and a case of crystal bottles, and some fine lemons.  She was a fair, rosy girl, with a kind, cheerful face, a pleasant voice, and a smile that was at once innocent and bright.  Her fine light hair was rolled high and backward; and no one could have imagined a dress more suitable to her than the trig dark bodice, the quilted skirt, and the white apron she wore.

[Illustration:  She was tying on her white apron]

Her father and mother watched her with a loving satisfaction; and though Elder Semple was discoursing on that memorable dispute between the Caetus and Conferentie parties, which had resulted in the establishment of a new independent Dutch church in America, he was quite sensible of Joanna’s presence, and of what she was doing.

“I was aye for the ordaining o’ American ministers in America,” he said, as he touched the finger tips of his left hand with those of his right; and then in an aside full of deep personal interest, “Joanna, my dearie, I’ll hae a Holland bloater and nae other thing.  And I was a proud man when I got the invite to be secretary to the first meeting o’ the new Caetus.  Maybe it is praising green barley to say just yet that it was a wise departure; but I think sae, I think sae.”

At this point, Katherine Van Heemskirk came into the room; and the elder slightly moved his chair, and said, “Come awa’, my bonnie lassie, and let us hae a look at you.”  And Katherine laughingly pushed a stool toward the fire, and sat down between the two men on the hearthstone.  She was the daintiest little Dutch maiden that ever latched a shoe,—­very diminutive, with a complexion like a sea-shell, great blue eyes, and such a quantity of pale yellow hair, that it made light of its ribbon snood, and rippled over her brow and slender white neck in bewildering curls.  She dearly loved fine clothes; and she had not removed her visiting dress of Indian silk, nor her necklace of amber beads.  And in her hands she held a great mass of lilies of the valley, which she caressed almost as if they were living things.

“Father,” she said, nestling close to his side, “look at the lilies.  How straight they are!  How strong!  Oh, the white bells full of sweet scent!  In them put your face, father.  They smell of the spring.”  Her fingers could scarcely hold the bunch she had gathered; and she buried her lovely face in them, and then lifted it, with a charming look of delight, and the cries of “Oh, oh, how delicious!”

[Illustration:  “Come awa’, my bonnie lassie”]

Long before supper was over, Madam Van Heemskirk had discovered that this night Elder Semple had a special reason for his call.  His talk of Mennon and the Anabaptists and the objectionable Lutherans, she perceived, was all surface talk; and when the meal was finished, and the girls gone to their room, she was not astonished to hear him say, “Joris, let us light another pipe.  I hae something to speak anent.  Sit still, gudewife, we shall want your word on the matter.”

“On what matter, Elder?”

“Anent a marriage between my son Neil and your daughter Katherine.”

The words fell with a sharp distinctness, not unkindly, but as if they were more than common words.  They were followed by a marked silence, a silence which in no way disturbed Semple.  He knew his friends well, and therefore he expected it.  He puffed his pipe slowly, and glanced at Joris and Lysbet Van Heemskirk.  The father’s face had not moved a muscle; the mother’s was like a handsome closed book.  She went on with her knitting, and only showed that she had heard the proposal by a small pretence of finding it necessary to count the stitches in the heel she was turning.  Still, there had been some faint, evanescent flicker on her face, some droop or lift of the eyelids, which Joris understood; for, after a glance at her, he said slowly, “For Katherine the marriage would be good, and Lysbet and I would like it.  However, we will think a little about it; there is time, and to spare.  One should not run on a new road.  The first step is what I like to be sure of; as you know, Elder, to the second step it often binds you.—­Say what you think, Lysbet.”

“Neil is to my mind, when the time comes.  But yet the child knows not perfectly her Heidelberg.  And there is more:  she must learn to help her mother about the house before she can manage a house of her own.  So in time, I say, it would be a good thing.  We have been long good friends.”

[Illustration:  Knitting]

“We hae been friends for four generations, and we may safely tie the knot tighter now.  There are wise folk that say the Dutch and the Lowland Scotch are of the same stock, and a vera gude stock it is,—­the women o’ baith being fair as lilies and thrifty as bees, and the men just a wonder o’ every thing wise and weel-spoken o’.  For-bye, baith o’ us—­Scotch and Dutch—­are strict Protestors.  The Lady o’ Rome never threw dust in our een, and neither o’ us would put our noses to the ground for either powers spiritual or powers temporal.  When I think o’ our John Knox”—­

“First came Erasmus, Elder.”

“Surely.  Well, well, it was about wedding and housekeeping I came to speak, and we’ll hae it oot.  The land between this place and my place, on the river-side, is your land, Joris.  Give it to Katherine, and I will build the young things a house; and the furnishing and plenishing we’ll share between us.”

“There is more to a wedding than house and land, Elder.”

“Vera true, madam.  There’s the income to meet the outgo.  Neil has a good practice now, and is like to have better.  They’ll be comfortable and respectable, madam; but I think well o’ you for speering after the daily bread.”

“Well, look now, it was not the bread-making I was thinking about.  It was the love-making.  A young girl should be wooed before she is married.  You know how it is; and Katherine, the little one, she thinks not of such a thing as love and marriage.”

“Wha kens what thoughts are under curly locks at seventeen?  You’ll hae noticed, madam, that Katherine has come mair often than ordinar’ to Semple House lately?”

“That is so.  It was because of Colonel Gordon’s wife, who likes Katherine.  She is teaching her a new stitch in her crewel-work.”

“Hum-m-m!  Mistress Gordon has likewise a nephew, a vera handsome lad.  I hae seen that he takes a deal o’ interest in the crewel-stitch likewise.  And Neil has seen it too,—­for Neil has set his heart on Katherine,—­and this afternoon there was a look passed between the young men I dinna like.  We’ll be haeing a challenge, and twa fools playing at murder, next.”

“I am glad you spoke, Elder.  Thank you.  I’ll turn your words over in my heart.”  But Van Heemskirk was under a certain constraint:  he was beginning to understand the situation, to see in what danger his darling might be.  He was apparently calm; but an angry fire was gathering in his eyes, and stern lines settling about the lower part of his face.

“You ken,” answered Semple, who felt a trifle uneasy in the sudden constraint, “I hae little skill in the ordering o’ girl bairns.  The Almighty thought them beyond my guiding, and I must say they are a great charge, a great charge; and, wi’ all my infirmities and simplicity,—­anent women,—­one that would hae been mair than I could hae kept.  But I hae brought up my lads in a vera creditable way.  They know how to manage their business, and they hae the true religion.  I am sure Neil would make a good husband, and I would be glad to hae him settled near by.  My three eldest lads hae gone far off, Joris, as you ken.”

“I remember.  Two went to the Virginia Colony”—­

“To Norfolk,—­tobacco brokers, and making money.  My son Alexander—­a wise lad—­went to Boston, and is in the African trade.  I may say that they are all honest, pious men, without wishing to be martyrs for honesty and piety, which, indeed, in these days is mercifully not called for.  As for Neil, he’s our last bairn; and his mother and I would fain keep him near us.  Katherine would be a welcome daughter to our auld age, and weel loved, and much made o’; and I hope baith Madam Van Heemskirk and yoursel’ will think with us.”

“We have said we would like the marriage.  It is the truth.  But, look now, Katherine shall not come any more to your house at this time, not while English soldiers come and go there; for I will not have her speak to one:  they are no good for us.”

“That is right for you, but not for me.  My wife was a Gordon, and we couldn’t but offer our house to a cousin in a strange country.  And you’ll find few better men than Col.  Nigel Gordon; as for his wife, she’s a fine English leddy, and I hae little knowledge anent such women.  But a Scot canna kithe a kindness; if I gie Colonel Gordon a share o’ my house, I must e’en show a sort o’ hospitality to his friends and visitors.  And the colonel’s wife is much thought o’, in the regiment and oot o’ it.  She has a sight o’ vera good company,—­young officers and bonnie leddies, and some o’ the vera best o’ our ain people.”

“There it is.  I want not my daughters to learn new ways.  There are the Van Voorts:  they began to dine and dance at the governor’s house, and then they went to the English Church.”

“They were Lutherans to begin wi’, Joris.”

“My Lysbet is the finest lady in the whole land:  let her daughters walk in her steps.  That is what I want.  But Neil can come here; I will make him welcome, and a good girl is to be courted on her father’s hearth.  Now, there is enough said, and also there is some one coming.”

“It will be Neil and Bram;” and, as the words were spoken, the young men entered.

[Illustration:  Neil and Bram]

“Again you are late, Bram;” and the father looked curiously in his son’s face.  It was like looking back upon his own youth; for Bram Van Heemskirk had all the physical traits of his father, his great size, his commanding presence and winning address, his large eyes, his deep, sonorous voice and slow speech.  He was well dressed in light-coloured broadcloth; but Neil Semple wore a coat and breeches of black velvet, with a long satin vest, and fine small ruffles.  He was tall and swarthy, and had a pointed, rather sombre face.  Without speaking much in the way of conversation, he left an impression always of intellectual adroitness,—­a young man of whom people expected a successful career.

With the advent of Bram and Neil, the consultation ended.  The elder, grumbling at the chill and mist, wrapped himself in his plaid, and leaning on his son’s arm, cautiously picked his way home by the light of a lantern.  Bram drew his chair to the hearth, and sat silently waiting for any question his father might wish to ask.  But Van Heemskirk was not inclined to talk.  He put aside his pipe, nodded gravely to his son, and went thoughtfully upstairs.  At the closed door of his daughters’ room, he stood still a moment.  There was a murmur of conversation within it, and a ripple of quickly smothered laughter.  How well his soul could see the child, with her white, small hands over her mouth, and her bright hair scattered upon the white pillow!

“Ach, mijn kind, mijn kind!  Mijn liefste kind!” he whispered.  “God Almighty keep thee from sin and sorrow!”

[Illustration:  Tail-piece]

[Illustration:  Chapter heading]