The Ghosts of an Old Staten Island Manor
IN the green old village of Tottenville, on Staten Island, there is still standing the antiquated Bentley manor-house, erected during the reign of Queen Anne. It is built of stone, and reposes on a high flowery slope overlooking the waters of Staten Island and the Raritan River. The walls are several feet thick and the gable roof is almost grotesquely high and steep, giving the building a very picturesque appearance. From its quaint little upper-story casements one can gaze over the Sound to St. Michael's Church at Perth Amboy with its quiet graveyard, where some of the Billops are sleeping. There they rest in peace, we hope; but, according to "Perth Towne" tradition, the fairest in life of that silent company is an unruly shade, and once a year during the first quarter of the spring-time moon comes back to her neglected garden to keep a tryst and a vow.
Christopher Billop, the first owner of the house, played a very interesting minor part in American history. When the Duke of York conveyed New Jersey to Lord Berkeley Carteret, a question arose as to whether Staten Island was included in the grant. To settle a discussion which threatened to assume grave proportions, it was decided that all islands in the harbor should belong to New York if they could be circumnavigated in twenty-four hours. Christopher Billop, who owned a little vessel called the "Bentley," sailed around Staten Island in that time, and the duke gave him the tract of land, on part of which the house is built, for his services.
This first Christopher Billop died very long ago. His only daughter married a Thomas Farmar, who changed his name to Billop, thereby acquiring the estate. It is with the son of this couple that the tales of the old house deal. The Billop family, like most of the islanders, were loyalists, and during the Revolution sided with their king. When the war broke out the second Christopher, a man of decided views and morose temperament, was reigning over the plantation. Many years before 1775 he had married a beautiful island belle by the name of Seaman and taken her home to his dreary house. An interesting tradition says of her that the month before she married she was courted by three lovers: the Englishman she married, a Huguenot, and a descendant of the pious Waldeneses.
The nuptial coach which bore her away did not bring her to the road of happiness, for the love between the husband and wife was never what it should have been. Her parents had sent her to a gilded cage. Soon her lord and master began to neglect her for his horses and dogs or his field work, and she was left alone in her great rooms to sigh and weep for the happy times she knew in her girlhood before Fate bound her an unwilling prisoner. The fine brocades and taffetas which formed her wedding portion no longer delighted her, for there was seldom any one but her sullen husband or the black women to gaze upon them. In vain she implored him to receive her friends, but he would not gratify her. Life ran smoothly enough for his liking, and he needed neither fiddles nor the flutter of fashion to enhance his happiness. Often on clear nights she would gaze from her chamber window on the lights in the castles over the water. How brightly they shone! and in her imagination seemed to beckon her. Then to her mind would come a flood of memories. She would see herself in Love Grove, dancing on the green of a fair day, with all the populace of the little capital assembled to behold the frolics of the quality. Now the Governor gives her a garland of flowers, for she is queen of a spring-time revel. In the ballroom of Edinborough Castle, the home of the Johnstone family, she flits. Over the memoried voices of violins would come the picture of a score of cavaliers bending low to the belle from a sister isle, and often the face of a boy would haunt her,—a boy more dashing and gayer than all the others. They were in the lantern-hung Watson garden the night the nephew of the old Scotch painter gave a fête when his penurious uncle was away at Woodbridge, and youthful Amboy entered into the frolic with zest. It was a sweet revenge for past injuries to feast on the miser's hoard. When a raid on the wine-cellar was planned, she stayed on alone with him in the garden. The laughter in his mocking eyes died away; he was urging her to fly with him to England. Beyond the wall of green which shut away the cliff a merchantman was anchored, and on board her were his travelling chests, for he was sailing back to his father's home on the morrow. He loved her, and would she go with him? Out into the tangle of green he led her down to the road overlooking the river. The night was very still, and through the sweet-scented darkness fresh with the breath of June they wandered hand in hand. Suddenly before their eyes spread the line of the town and beyond lay the sea of molten silver. Just below them the dark ship rested in a shadowy pool. She could not sail away with him to an unknown land. Fear overcame her love, and later in the night she tearfully wished him God-speed on his journey, and for a time he was forgotten.
The river before her would become a dream-river bearing her away through the portals of the past. The commonplace fabric of her days was forgotten. She was like one of those rare flowers that give their greatest beauty to the night. Without her visions life would have been a maddening monotone; and so she went about the duties of a colonial wife.
The early portion of 1776 was a poor thing full of dreariness to Mrs. Billop. She was leaving her girlhood far behind in her walk with Time. Each year was a repetition of the one past. The plantation of one thousand five hundred acres was a little world of its own, and she rarely went beyond its gates. Most of her working hours she spent in her garden, and under her fostering care it became a spot of loveliness. In the circles of roses flanked by humbler flowers and the tall line of lilies that crept like a stately band of pure-souled fairy sentinels down to the riverside she planted some of her own fragrant heart. Sometimes her garden was to her like an only child, and then, again, the relationship was changed, and the garden was the tender mother and she herself the weary thing that sought peace there on a breast of green. But one day a wonderful thing happened. Awakened by the sunlight gilding the narrow panes of her bedroom windows, she heard shouts in the barley-field. "Dey am coming! dey am coming!" the household slaves were calling in merry voices. Mrs. Billop, drawing her curtains, saw in the path leading to the house a body of scarlet-coated cavaliers mounted on mettlesome steeds. It came to her mind that a horseman had dashed over from Richmond a week before, telling of General Howe's arrival. These horsemen must be some of his officers making a tour of the island, she thought. For the first time in many years gentlemen were coming to stop at the manor. A smile crept over her face as she gazed upon them, and then she softly let down the curtain.
When the day had advanced another hour by the sundial outside the boxwood grotto a vision stood on the landing at the top of the stairs and spread out the panniers of a long-unused gown. The hall below was filled with the badinage of masculine voices, and the surly Christopher, forced into playing the host, seemed to be performing the part with no poor grace. Black women in India print dresses were passing bowls of summer punch, and from the kitchen came the pungent scents of limes and the redolence of roasting corn.
From her vantage-point the wife viewed it all, and then began slowly to descend. As the rustle of the brocade became louder and the odor of attar of roses more perceptible, the noise stopped all of a sudden, and every eye was focussed on the woman garbed as if going to a Franklin ball. Little they knew that she was wearing her wedding attire that had lain folded many years in her mother's cedar chest brought from home.
High towered her hair of the brown-red color of autumn leaves, and rouge and black lustre helped bring out the charms of her face. White as the white-thorn bush in the garden was her sweeping brocade, and on her arm a love-knot caught a tiny Bambini fan.