Trinity bells : a tale of old New York

Front matter

THE LIBRARY

OF

LOS ANGELES

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. A LAST DAT AT SCHOOL 3

II. "So THE NEW DAYS COME, AND THE YEARS

Chapter I

HER dear school companions called her " Delight," but her name was Catha rine Van Clyffe.

She was the daughter of Captain Jansen Van Clyffe who, during the Revolutionary War, had been famous for harassing British commerce in his swift, well-armed ship, The Retribu tion. But Catharine was born when the war was over, and the United States navy had, for a time, ceased to exist. Then Captain Van Clyffe had begun to sail his own ship, The Golden Victory, on his own commercial ven tures. To the east and the west he sailed, to the other side of the world, and all round the world, home again. No port was too far away, no sea too strange and dangerous ; and every voyage was like a page out of a wonder ful book of adventure and romance.

When Catharine was a little girl, her father had often taken her on his knee and told her strange stories of his ship and his sailor-men ; and as she grew older she went with him, hand in hand, down to the wharf on the East River front, to visit The Golden Victory. The ship was almost a living creature to Catharine. She knew how it had chased its enemies, and run away from its enemies, and fought its enemies ; and its white deck and its dusky cabin were places where marvellous deeds had been done. In that cabin she had eaten mysterious dainties, and been waited on by sailors who had not only a fierce but a far-off, strange look, such as men bring from unknown lands, and lifeand-death fights with winds' and waves, and mortal enemies more dangerous than either. And so this father, whom she saw only at long intervals, was to Catharine a great hero ; and she had for him a romantic and passionate affection.

This affection in no way lessened the love which she bore to her mother; on the con trary, it was a great bond between mother and daughter, for when they were together "father" was the first and the last topic of their con versation, the one subject that was never un welcome and never tiresome. It was not, however, the only bond, for Madame Van Clyffe was a wise and lovable woman, a very genius of happiness and helpfulness. Indeed, there had been far more real companionship between Madame and her daughter than was at all common in that day, when parents were accustomed to exact, and to receive, a great deal of formal respect from their children. Fortunately, Catharine found it natural and easy to respect and to love her mother. No one could doubt this who had seen her every night open her Bible and kiss the strand of her mother's bright hair which kept the place of her devotions. It was the "good-night" kiss of a girl whose heart lay close to her mother's heart, and who had no sweeter wish than to obey her and make her life truly happy.

The only other living member of Catharine's home was her brother Paul ; and when she spoke of Paul it was always with a beautiful enthusiasm. She delighted in telling of the honors he had won at Trinity School, and of her mother's great wish that he should go to Columbia College, and afterward to Mr. Hamilton's office that he might learn to be come a great lawyer. " But no," Catharine would add, with a bright impetuosity ; " Paul will not be a lawyer. Paul will go to sea. If you only saw him walk about a ship you would instantly understand that. And, to be sure, if I was a boy I also would be a sailor. My father says cwe all have the salt drop in us.' Even my Uncle Jacob Van Clyffe, who is a tanner, dreams of the sea, and reads of the sea, and talks of the sea, and never is so happy and

Catharine Van Clyffe good-natured as when he has some newly-home captain at his fireside. Yes ; it is truly so. Poor Uncle Jacob ! He longs for the wide ocean, and he has only some tanning-pits in the ' Swamp.' My uncle is not always an agreeable man, but I am very sorry for him."

This was the bright, lovely Catharine Van Clyffe who, just one hundred years ago the i8th of last September, was a pupil in the school of the Moravian Sisters at Bethlehem. That day was a spinning-day, and the girls, in their snow-white caps and ruffled Vandykes, were seated in the great panelled room at their wheels. Their small fingers twisted the yielding flax, while the pattering treadles — worked by little feet glittering with the buckles then used as shoe-latchets — kept time to their cheerful songs and merry chatter, and to the droning hum-m-m-m of their wheels. Never had Catharine been so enthusiastic, so eager, and so full of joy. Her voice set all who listened to it vibrating. It was the voice of a girl untouched by sorrow, singing for pure gladness in the happy morning of her life. No thought of change was in her mind. She expected to remain at Bethlehem for another year. But change hardly ever comes by appointment. We are not even thinking of it, when suddenly round some corner of life it meets us with a smile or a sigh.

It was in this way Catharine's school life came to a close. She was thinking only of the number of cuts she would be able to spin, when Sister Anna Ungar gave her a letter. " It is from my dear mother," she cried joy fully ; and in a moment she had broken the seal and was reading the following lines :

MY DEAR DAUGHTER: I have now to communi cate to you my wish that you return home with Mr. King, who will call for you on the morning of the 1 9th. I have a great longing for your presence; and though I am sure we are both sensible of the obligations we owe your good teachers, I feel that the time has come when I can no longer deprive myself of the comfort of your society. You have already acquired more learning than is the common rule, and I have no doubt can further improve your self in your own home. Your brother Paul is ex tremely desirous to see you, and, hoping to experience this pleasure myself in a few days, I am, my dear little Katryntje,1

Your affectionate mother,

SARAH VAN CLYFFE.

For a few moments this letter left Catharine speechless ; then a warm glow of anticipation superseded the shock of so sudden a removal from all that had been her life for nearly five years. She was sorry, and yet she was very much pleased ; for youth is always sure that change must mean something pleasant. In a moment Catharine had concluded that her father was expected, and then in another moment her mind was busy with some confused plans for carrying on her studies at home ; for it was impossible for her at once to think of days coming and going without lessons to learn.

Yet the first words that broke upon this short

1 Pronounced Ka-trynt-je. 9 trance of excited feeling were the words in which Sister Ungar formally released Catharine Van Clyffe from all her school duties. There was almost a sob in the sister's voice ; and the girls looked at Catharine with a startled regret, and yet with something of that wondering re spect with which we are apt to regard a per son on whom a great change or a great destiny has unexpectedly fallen.

The feeling in the large room at Bethlehem school was very much like this. When Catha rine received her letter she was leading the favorite spinning chant and chorus :

Catharine : She iceks wool and flax ;

She works willingly with her hands.

Chorus : Turn the busy wheel, Little sisters, turn; When the sun shines bright, When the candles burn.

Catharine : Her candle goes not out by night ; She lays her hands to the spindle ; And her hands hold the distaff. 10

Cbortts : Turn the busy wheel, Little sisters, turn ; When the sun shines bright, When the candles burn.

Catharine : She makes herself coverings of tapestry ; She spins fine linen and sells it.

Chorus : Turn the busy wheel, Little sisters, turn ; When the sun shines bright, When the candles burn.

The singers and spinners were in the middle of the last stanza when Catharine exclaimed, " It is from my dear mother ! " and though the lines were sung to the close, there was then an unbid den and simultaneous silence. Catharine did not begin the next verse, and all eyes were turned upon her and upon the sad face of the sister watching her. The wheels ceased to hum, and in the strange silence Sister Ungar's words fell with a startling effect :

"Your dear companion, Catharine Van Clyffe, is required at her home in New York. She will leave us in the morning, and not

IX return to us again. She is absolved from all her school duties at once, and may select three of her companions to assist in her preparations and cheer her with their presence. Miss Polly Ledoux will now lead your song."

But though Miss Polly's voice was both sweet and strong, the joyous gladness of the music was no longer there. The wheels went more slowly. The girls were more inclined to talk than to sing, and when the chant was finished it was not repeated ; neither was any other commenced. Little intervals of silence, short sentences of wonder and regret, were current; and though something of the usual happy abandon of a spinning-day gradually returned to the circle, it lacked the vivacity and sprightly pleasure which ordinarily dis tinguished the exercise. It was as if the soft pedal had been put down on each girl's heart. Nothing that day was quite the same. They had suffered a loss. For the very last time Catharine had led their singing ; and the pathos which clings to those three words, "the last time," made them pensive and thoughtful.

But Catharine had distractions which pre vented thought while the first shock of the change prevailed. Her trunk was to be packed — one of those long shallow boxes, covered with calfskin and rows of brass nailheads, which our great-grandmothers admired ; her books and exercises to be collected ; little mementos of affection from her companions to be received and put in place ; and there was a private interview with her teachers to go through, from which she came away with eyes full of tears and a solemnly happy aspect.

When these affairs had been completed, she was sensible only of a great pleasure. The idea of freedom is natural, and she was devot edly attached to her family. Therefore, with out being ungrateful for the past, she was dreaming, with all the gladness of a loving heart, of the richer future — the return of her father, the society of her mother and brother, the release from all those beneficent rules and restrictions to which she had hitherto rendered a willing obedience, but whose authority she suddenly felt herself to have outgrown. It was this new sense of self-dependence which made her fearlessly ask that her three friends might have with her that night a little feast of the chocolate and cake and fruit in which they all delighted. Her request was readily granted, and Catharine dispensed her hospitality with that familiar affection which is permissible, and even enchanting, in school-girls who yet believe in all their enthusiasms.

One of the three friends was Lucia Dalmaine, a West Indian girl, whom Catharine had first comforted and then loved ; another was Mary Beaton, from Boston ; and the third was Elsie Evertsen, from New York. These girls had shared with Catharine for three years their little joys and sorrows, their likes and dislikes. They had helped one another in many ways, and they knew all the members of their different families by name, and were interested in their fortunes. In fact, the four were bound together by those numberless small ties which imitate in school life the intimacy and affection of the home life.

Catharine, however, had been the leading spirit among them, and they were at once sorry to lose her company and proud and interested in her promotion. Nor were their rather exaggerated expressions of affection at all insincere. They really believed in their undying allegiance to their school and their undying love for their companion. And Catharine was quite as profuse in her declara tions. She was sure no charms of that gay society which she expected some time to enter could ever make her forget her school friends, or the innocent, peaceful years she had spent in her beloved school. " Indeed," she said, with excusable enthusiasm, " I think Bethlehem will be my last memory on this earth."

" I would not say as much as that, dear 15

Delight," answered Mary Beaton. " We may live many years, and during those long years have many other beautiful memories."

" To be sure ! That is exactly true," added Elsie. " There are our homes, and our good fathers and mothers ; and at this very time I know places where I am happier than here — at my grandmother Van Wyck's, for instance ; and on the ice, when I fly like a bird."

" For all that," interrupted Lucia, " I have heard that our last memory will always go back to our first."

" Well, then," said Catharine, " let us tell of our first memory. That is something sure. What is the very first event in your life that you remember, Lucia ? "

" It was not a pleasant event, Delight. It makes me shiver yet whenever I think of it. I was on my father's plantation, some distance from Kingston. I was not four years old. It was a bright, very bright, moonlight night ; and I recollect pushing open a door, and seeing in 16 the band of moonshine a great serpent stretched out from one side of the room to the other. It moved quickly, and some one — my nurse, I suppose — caught me in her arms, and ran along the veranda, screaming. I can smell now the peculiar scent of the flowers on the vines which she brushed in her frantic flight ; I can hear now the shouts and confusion of the slaves hunting and killing the creature ; and I can feel now the kisses with which my mother covered my face. That is the very first event of which I have any clear remem brance ; and I would not forget it because of my precious mother's kisses."

" My first memory," said Mary Beaton, "is of a snowy day. Everything was white, and still, and cold ; and I stood, a little mite of a girl, upon a chair by the window, watching the falling flakes. Then I saw a man come to the house, and he carried a box in his hands. I heard mother laugh, and she lifted me from the chair and, put me on a table. 2 17

Then she opened the box, and I sat very still and watched her. It contained a large doll.

O '

and the doll was for me ; it came from my grandmother. I think it must have been my birthday. I shall never forget the moment when I took that doll in my arms ; I can feel yet how hard I tried not to go to sleep and leave her alone. I suppose I must have been four years old ; I do not remember my age, but the rest is as clear as if it had happened yesterday."

" Now, Elsie," said Catharine, " it is your turn. What wonder is the very first in your memory ? "

" Indeed, then, my dear Delight, it is the ice — the beautiful ice, and the great pond, and the girls and the boys upon it ! Some one — I think it was my brother George — pushed me in a little sled, and then, Delight, I tell you truly, I fi^st knew that I was alive. I shouted, I clapped my hands ; I felt so happy, so happy as never was ! And then I

iS felt nothing at all till I woke up before the fire, and my mother was rubbing me with something, and crying, c My child ! My child ! ' and scolding George for taking me on the ice ; and I began to scream, and kick, and beg to go on the ice once more. And my mother took from me my red hood, and my father he laughed and held me in his arms. Many times I have been on the ice since, but no time was like that time. I am glad to have it for my first memory. And now, dear Delight, tell us what you remember first of all," continued Elsie, as she nestled closer to her friend, " for I am sure it will be something beautiful."

" Indeed, you are exactly right, Elsie. I have a beautiful f first memory ' — a moving picture of flags, and of men dressed splendidly in many colors ; and above them, between heaven and earth, the most wonderful music you can imagine — the chiming of Trinity Bells ! I had never consciously heard them before ; for I was very young when my father went to the Madagascar coast, and my mother took me and my brother Paul to her father's house in Philadelphia. There we stayed nearly two years ; and then father wrote from London, and we came back to New York to meet him. And the next morning was the Fourth of July — a hot, sunshiny day ; and I was dressed in white, and stood by my mother's side at the open window ; and there was music in the street, and the noise of can non, and such a joyful feeling, just like a holi day everywhere. And very soon a great crowd passed the house, and there was a grand-look ing man on a white horse in front of it ; and I know now that it was President Washington ; and that the stately band who walked behind him, all dressed in black robes, were the bishop and clergy of New York ; and that the men who followed in coats trimmed with gold were generals, and soldiers, and companies of many kinds. Young as I was, I clapped my hands at the New York grenadiers, In their blue-andred coats, and their cocked hats with white feathers. And my mother made me notice the German grenadiers, in their towering caps of bearskin, and the Scotch infantry, in full High land dress, with the bagpipes playing. Of course I did not understand all this then, but my mother often afterward talked to me about it ; for it was a Fourth of July during Wash ington's administration, and she wished me to remember it."

" I was in New York at that time," said Elsie ; " but I do not remember, because I was too young. However, I have seen my father's uniform, for he was a New York gren adier. It is kept safe in the great Nuremberg chest in my father's room ; and he says he wishes to be buried in it."

" And that is your first memory, Delight ? " said Lucia. " How charming ! It will be something pleasant to talk about when you are an old woman."

" I am sure it is my first clear memory, Lucia. I have many wavering pictures in my mind of things happening in my grandfather's house ; but they are all so similar, and so like what happened in our own house, that I can not separate them. But that Fourth of July is set clearly against the blue sky and the sunny day. I remember, without a doubt, the splendid procession, and the flags waving above it, and, quite distinct from the shouting and the music on the street, the joyful pealing of Trinity Bells. When all had passed and gone, they made the gladdest and most tri umphant music. I hear it in my heart this moment. Yes, indeed ! I will without regret let all the stirring sights and sounds of that wonderful day slip, and say truly, my first memory is Trinity Bells."

"And I think," said Lucia, "that the bells were a happy sign of a happy life for our dear Delight. We have a very good chime of bells in Kingston church," she continued; "but when my education is finished I am going with my father to England. My mother was an Englishwoman, and she has told me that Eng land is called the c Ringing Island,' and that it is not possible to get very far away from the sound of bells in the whole country. Perhaps, also, I am going to Paris."

" I would not go to Paris, not if I might have the whole city for going ! " cried Elsie.

" They will cut off your head, Lucia ! They have already cut off the heads of their king and queen, and of all the respectable people in France, and now they arc trying to quarrel with the Americans. It is the truth. I know it, because my brother George said so in the letter I got from him only one month ago. If you go to Paris you will not save your head on your shoulders, I think."

" There is not much danger now in Paris, " answered Mary Beaton. " A young man, called Napoleon Bonaparte, is making the French behave themselves. My father tells me that he has overthrown the Directory and will likely make himself king. He has intelli gence, and he is a great soldier ; and he f abom inates massacres.' He said this himself."

"That may be the truth," said Elsie; " nevertheless, I shall be very content to stay in New York."

" All your life ? " asked Catharine.

" Yes, all my life long. To be sure, there is finer skating in Holland ; but then the ivomen do not dress so handsomely, or so be comingly as in New York. And in New York there are so many amusements. They are too fond of work in Holland also. I know that, because my father and my mother are always telling us about the industry of the Dutch. Now, I do not want to be very industrious ; it is no great fault I think, to enjoy oneself a little."

" But you cannot spend your life in amus ing yourself, Elsie," said Mary.

"That is a great pity. But, of course, I shall have to grow up, and become a woman, and get married, and keep house, and become old, as other people do. However, for all that, Elsie will find some time to enjoy her self."

" I wish to be a great teacher," said Mary Beaton. " I intend to have a famous school. I have many plans about it, even now. We ought, I think, to do something good with our lives."

" I have plans also," said Lucia. " You know that my dear mother left me many slaves. I intend to make them all FREE."

" Oh Lucia, what a blessed work !" cried the girls, almost with one voice.

" I think so." Sister Beroth often talks to me about it. She says that I shall find true happiness in living in the love that flows out from me, rather than in the love that flows in to me. And since I have been here, and have had to obey so many little rules, and always do what others think right and best, I have understood how hard it must be never to have your own way all your life long."

" But," said Catharine, " school is different. I once complained to Sister Kleist of this very thing ; and she showed me that it was a great benefit, as well as a great discipline. For instance, the bell rings, and tasks must be be gun ; and we have not to make up our minds, — they are made up for us. So then we lose no time, we learn obedience also, and conquer, through habit, that uncertainty which spoils the character of any work it enters into."

" That may be all very proper, and exceed ingly true," answered Elsie. "All the same, to be rung out of bed and into bed, to be rung to lessons, and rung to meals, and rung to play is a little tiresome I think. And in a few minutes we shall be rung to prayers, and then our last evening together will be over. There, already, is that tiresome bell : I told you so. Oh my dear Delight, what shall we do without you ? I am afraid I shall be very naughty, and have many incorrect lessons.'*

Then Catharine kissed her, and they went to the schoolroom together. " You see," said Elsie, looking tearfully back at Lucia and Mary, " I have the most right to walk with Delight to-night; we are almost sisters, for we both live in New York."

This was the close of one leaf of Catharine's book of life. In the morning Mr. King came for her while it was yet very early, and no one but Sister Klcist saw her departure. But all day the Bethlehem pupils thought of her, and talked of her. They praised her beauty, her grace, her cleverness, her sweet temper, her generosity ; but Elsie touched the real source of her great popularity when she said, " Our dear Delight was always doing somebody a kindness."

It happened that the good principal, Brother Jacob Van Vleck, heard this remark ; and he made to the girls a little sermon from Elsie's text ; and asked them to remember, " if they did only one kind deed or said only one kind word every day, they would, each of them, make three hundred and sixty people happy every year. And in forty years, my children," he continued, " you will have done fourteen thousand six hundred kind deeds, or said four teen thousand six hundred kind words. That is the result for others ; but how much greater the gain to yourselves ; since it is * far more ' blessed to give than to receive. And as for the dear companion who has just left us, we must think of her in her new life, as still happy, and kind, and useful, — for

*' ' God is good, and gives new gladness, When the old He takes away.' "

Chapter II

tc SO THI NEW DAYS COME, AND THE YEARS ROLL BY"

HOME, sweet Home! Never had home been so sweet to Catharine as when she stood again on its threshold, with her mother's arms around her. The journey had been impeded and delayed by a severe storm ; and it was nine o'clock in the night when Mr. King left her at the door of the Van Clyffe house on Broadway. But the late hour, ac counted for, no longer troubled either mother or daughter. There was so much to feel, so much to say, so many questions to ask, and to answer.

The night was a little frosty, and a few oak

logs burned brightly on the hearth, while

Catharine, healthily hungry, feasted on the

3* spread for her refreshment before it. They were in ' mother's parlour/ a little room set apart for Madame Van Clyffe's use, between the house-place and the fine front rooms re served for festive occasions. It contained only a wide sofa, a round table, two or three chairs, and the great carved kas, or cabinet, in which Madame kept her best china, her foreign pre serves, and the silver in general use. After the bare simplicity of the schoolrooms it seemed a very palace of comfort ; and Catha rine was not too old, or too affected, to be charmed anew with its air of homely beauty, or to eat with real enjoyment the delicacies prepared for her.

" But where is Paul ? " she asked, as soon as her first excitement was over.

" He will be here very soon, my dear little Katryntje ! I have already told you how kind the master of Trinity school has been to Paul ; and he is yet studying with him for two hours every other night."

Never had home been so sweet to Catharine as when she stood again on its threshold "

"So the New Days Come"

" I thought then that Paul had passed ah the Trinity classes ? "

"That is so. But now he is learning — I know not what — something with a very hard name ; something that is all curves, and lines, and figures."

" Then it will be, I suppose, some kind of arithmetic. How do boys learn, and even like, such things ? As for me, mother, I have always hated even c twice two is four.' '