The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr

by Susan Holloway Scott

  Mind you, I only know this from others’ talk. Being a house slave meant I was never sent into the fields, let alone into the mills or boiling houses. But during sugar season, the news from those places came to us each day in the early morning, when Malet reported the day’s tallies and events to Monsieur in the parlor. Always accompanying him were one or two of the overseer’s drivers, who’d stand about the kitchen door and banter with Perroquet, Fleur, and the others.

  One of these was a great bear of a man named Jupiter. His forearms and left cheek were carved with deep, curving scars left by an attack by another slave with a machete. Despite his size, he kept his chin low to his chest and gazed up at the world from beneath his brows, giving him a baleful glower. He was a quiet man, without the bluster of the other drivers, but his silent, looming presence made me wary. He watched me as closely as a great cat with a little mouse, and I soon learned to contrive to be elsewhere in the house and out of his sight whenever he was about.

  One morning I stood peeling a basket of onions beside the open window. The scent of the onion skins burned my eyes and made me weep and snuffle, yet I knew Perroquet would take no excuses, and I still had most of the basket left to peel. Blinking back tears, I slipped the knife’s blade against the bulb by feel rather than sight to free the paper-thin skins.

  I was concentrating so on the knife and onion and not cutting myself that I didn’t realize that Fleur and Bette had gone outside with Perroquet, or that I was now alone in the kitchen. I tossed another newly peeled onion into the second basket and paused to wipe my eyes with my sleeve.

  It was in that instant that Jupiter came behind me. He trapped me against the table with his body, and reached around to squeeze my nascent breasts in his hands, his scent heavy and stale. He was more than twice my size, and as he ground against me my single thought was that he would tear me apart if he raped me. He would kill me, and I did not want to die, not like that.

  I raised the paring knife and raked it across his forearm. He swore with shock and pain and drew back just enough so that I could struggle free. With the bloody knife still in my hand, I skittered away from him.

  Yet I’d no path for escape. Jupiter blocked my way to the kitchen’s door and the yard. Blood streamed from the cut in his arm, bright crimson against his dark skin, and more blood splattered across my jacket and petticoat.

  “No girl’s going to treat me like that,” he said furiously. “No little yellow girl’s going to cut me and run.”

  He lunged for me, his big arm scooping through the air. Again I darted back out of reach, my panic rising by the second. I could shout for help, but no one would come, not for me, and not against Jupiter.

  I danced backward. The paring knife seemed like a sad little weapon now, yet still I clutched it tightly in my hand as if it were a soldier’s sword. The kitchen wasn’t large, and it was only a matter of time before Jupiter would catch me.

  I couldn’t let that happen. Instead, I turned and ran into the passage that led to the front of Monsieur’s house. Slaves were strictly forbidden to pass through the grand front entrance, meant only for Monsieur and his white guests, yet my one thought was to escape Jupiter.

  The very door was before me, my hand outstretched to throw the heavy bolt on the lock, when to my horror Monsieur and Malet appeared from the parlor. There was no hope for me now, no hope at all, and with a catch in my throat I made a shaky bow to Monsieur.

  “What is the meaning of this, Eugénie?” he demanded, more in confusion than anger. He frowned down at my clothes, and the knife in my hand. “You’re covered with blood. Has there been an accident in the kitchen? Why didn’t Perroquet tend to you there?”

  “Yes, Monsieur,” I said quickly, considering what manner of lie might save me still. “I was peeling onions when—”

  But then Jupiter himself charged into the passageway, and there was no use dissembling. Monsieur might have been fooled, but Malet was not.

  “What is this, Jupiter?” he said sharply. “Fighting over some wench? You’re of no use to me if you can’t lift your arm.”

  He whistled, loud and shrill, and two other drivers joined us. Jupiter’s expression darkened as soon as he saw them, and he began to shake his head.

  “I’m not hurt, M’sieur Malet, I swear it.” Despite the bloody cut, he raised his arm high over his head as proof that he could do so. “The girl tried to tempt me, then stuck me with her knife.”

  “No!” I cried without thinking. “That’s not—”

  Malet’s hand struck me so hard across my mouth that I staggered to one side before he grabbed me by the arm to haul me back.

  “You have the devil in you, bitch,” he said grimly, half-dragging me toward the passage. “My leather will take the fire out of you.”

  I cried out with dread and fear. I’d lived at Belle Vallée long enough to understood exactly what his words meant, and even though from desperation I struggled to break free, I knew there was no escape from what would come next.

  Jupiter and I were both taken to be whipped, to a place on the plantation far enough from the house so Monsieur wouldn’t be troubled by the screams of his slaves. Jupiter was first stripped and tied to a log that was kept specially for the purpose. I was forced to watch.

  Malet himself whipped Jupiter, and when his arm tired he had another of the drivers take his place. Even as Jupiter’s back was slashed to raw and bloody ribbons, he kept his silence, without so much as a groan. When at last they were done and cut him down, he stared directly at me with a hatred that was worse than any words, and I knew he was considering his own private punishment for me—a punishment that next time would be impossible for me to avoid.

  But I’d scarce time to consider that. I was next stripped with my hands and legs tied tight around a rough-barked palm so that I could not move. On the occasions when Madame had ordered me to be caned, she’d always specified the number of blows, and being able to count them had somehow made it easier to bear.

  Malet didn’t do that, and I soon lost track of how many times the whip cut into my back. By the time he finally stopped, I was faint with pain, shock, and lost blood, and when they took me down my legs were at first too weak to support me. Instead, I lay curled on my side, shaking and whimpering as a woman I didn’t know washed my back with brine, a stinging thick paste of salt that was meant to keep the raw flesh from putrefying in the island’s heat and damp, and to keep away the worms as well. The brine burned my poor tattered back, and in the agony of my pain I lost my senses, until salt water was thrown in my face to rouse me so that I might stagger back to Monsieur’s house.

  I was still expected to work in the kitchen that afternoon, and also expected to prepare a curry for Monsieur. Monsieur had invited a party of gentlemen to dine, and he wished to entertain them with an Indian dish. Perroquet did let me sit on a small stool to sort and soak the dried lentils, but it took all my strength not to topple over from dizziness. Because of the brine, the cuts in my back had already glazed over, but even the tiniest of motions made the rough linen of my jacket catch painfully on the tatters of my skin.

  But as the final preparations were being made, Monsieur sent word that, for the first time, he wished me to be among the women serving at table tonight, and I wondered with despair if this were some further level of torment that he’d devised for me. I had no choice but to obey, and when the hour came I changed into one of the special dresses. In a small mercy, the dress was too big for my slight body, and therefore only barely brushed against my wounded back.

  With the silver serving bowl of curry in my hands, I slowly followed Fleur and Bette up the stairs. Monsieur preferred to dine in a room on the upper floor, with the tall windows thrown open wide to catch whatever breezes might rise above the trees from the sea beyond. Even so, the room was warm, made warmer still by a blaze of candles burning in silver candlesticks on the table.

  The three other men besides Monsieur were already seated. Perroquet had told us the guests were off
icers; he’d neglected to say that they weren’t French, but British, in bright red uniform coats instead of blue. In truth, to me they looked no different from Frenchmen, with their stiff white-powdered hair and ruddy bluff faces that gleamed with sweat because they insisted on dressing too warmly.

  It had been an English soldier who had sired me in an act of violence that had destroyed my mother’s life, a fact that, tonight of all nights, I could neither ignore nor forget. I poured their wine; I cleared away their plates; I watched as they ate the curry I’d prepared. As I did, the knowledge of what my mother had endured and what had happened to me earlier in the day blurred with the scent of turmeric and coriander, of male sweat in wool uniforms, and the bright candle flames reflecting in polished silver: a feverish dream peopled by the three red-coated men before me.

  Like all French meals, this one seemed interminable, and when at last Monsieur waved for the final dishes to be cleared and the cloth drawn I dared to hope I’d be spared. But when I began to retreat with a pile of plates toward the stairs, Monsieur waved impatiently for me to stay and, worse, to step forward.

  “This is the girl I mentioned,” he said. “The only one of all my servants to survive the voyage.”

  The three officers studied me as if I were some rare curiosity. Perhaps to them I was. They had all shed their coats by the end of the meal and pushed their chairs more comfortably away from the table. Now as they continued to drink, they were taking tobacco in long-stemmed white pipes, the pungent smoke stinging my eyes.

  “Is she so fearsome a little wench that she must be collared?” asked one of the men, laughing at his own wit.

  Monsieur chuckled. “No, that was my late wife’s doing,” he said. “Eugénie was a favorite pet of hers, yet she was forced to chain her each night to keep her from running away.”

  “So she is like every other little bitch,” said the first man again. “Always in heat, and sniffing for the next mongrel who’ll mount her.”

  Monsieur and two of the men laughed, but the third officer did not. Instead, he set his wineglass down on the table and frowned as he considered me more closely.

  “How old is she, Beauharnais?” this man asked. He’d a full, heavy jaw and pale blue eyes, while beads of sweat glistened across his forehead. The extra amount of gold lace on his uniform marked him as the most senior officer of the three. “She looks to be still a child.”

  “Do not be fooled by her size, Prevost,” said one of the other officers. “Calcutta wenches are all like little dolls, on account of eating no meat. I’ll wager she’s eighteen if she’s a day, and as hot a little strumpet as any of them.”

  I longed to correct him, and say I’d been born in Pondicherry, not Calcutta, that I was only twelve years in age, not eighteen, and that I wasn’t a strumpet. But I was Monsieur’s slave, and could say nothing without his permission.

  “She could be twenty for all I know, Major,” Monsieur said, enjoying his role as the genial host. “I told you, she was my wife’s Negress, not mine, and as spoiled as can be because of it. The sum of her usefulness is that she knows the spices of India, but I wonder if that is worth the price of her trouble. Why, this very day, in her idleness, she offered herself to one of my best drivers, then turned fickle, and stabbed him with a knife.”

  Since I’d been brought to this place, I’d worked so hard in Monsieur’s name that I often cried myself to sleep at midnight from hopeless exhaustion. Yet here all my toil and tears were now reduced to spices, and a knife.

  “It’s always the quiet ones that cause the most mischief, isn’t it?” said the first man, looking me up and down with fresh appreciation. “Let me tame her for you. Come here, girl.”

  He patted his thigh in encouragement, clearly expecting me to come settle there.

  I didn’t. I couldn’t.

  “Come along now.” Irritation crept into his voice. “Playing coy may work among the bucks in the fields, but I don’t like being made to wait.”

  Still I stood, frozen in place.

  “Obey me, girl,” he said, and before I could react he’d grabbed me by the arm and pulled me onto his leg. He curled one arm around my waist and pressed directly against the raw wounds beneath my dress. I cried out and jerked forward, struggling to escape the pressure of his arm. He pulled me back and squeezed me more tightly to make me cry again.

  “Don’t fight me, bitch.” He hooked his thumb into the back of my collar to keep me from pulling away. “I said I’d tame you, and so I will.”

  “Let her go, Hillarie,” ordered the man called Prevost. “She’s bleeding through the back of her clothes.”

  Hillarie ignored him, and held me fast. I was trembling from fear, revulsion, and pain.

  “What of it, Major?” Monsieur said easily, motioning to Fleur to refill his glass. “My overseer gave the jade the lashing she deserved this morning. It’s the only way for her to learn the price of making trouble.”

  Major Prevost’s expression did not change. “I know the difference between discipline and cruelty, Monsieur.”

  Finally Hillarie took his arm away from me, and I quickly eased away to stand beside Major Prevost.

  Smiling, Monsieur glanced at me. “You are my guest, Major, but Eugénie is my Negress, my property, and I must ask you not to interfere in her discipline.”

  “What is her price?” the Major asked curtly.

  Monsieur’s smile faded. “Forgive me, but I did not say she was for sale.”

  “Everything in this world is for sale,” the Major said bluntly. “You’ve said yourself that she is idle and of little value to you.”

  “Seven hundred livres,” Monsieur said quickly, his expression sly. “She was much beloved by my wife.”

  The Major didn’t flinch. “Three hundred and fifty, and not a sou more,” he said. “By your own admission, you keep this girl for no greater purpose than to service your guests. No whore in Saint-Domingue is worth one hundred livres, let alone seven.”

  I flushed with shame, and bowed my head.

  Monsieur scowled at his glass, then slowly raised it toward the Major.

  “Very well, then,” he said. “She is yours. But you must take her with you tonight. I don’t want her here to poison my other people another minute longer than is necessary.”

  * * *

  I left Belle Vallée that night with Major Prevost, sitting on the floor of the hired carriage at the feet of the three officers. I made no farewells, and I carried nothing with me, for I owned nothing.

  We soon arrived at an inn near the water, a region roiling with drunken sailors, soldiers, and other ne’er-do-wells. While the other two officers retreated to the taproom, the Major led me upstairs to the room they shared in common.

  He’d brought a candlestick to show the way, and now that single flame was our only wavering light in this room. With a sigh, he sat on the edge of one of the beds, his hands resting on his knees as he looked at me, and I at him.

  I stood with my hands clasped before me at my waist, as Madame had taught me. This way, too, he could not see how much my hands were shaking.

  “Do you speak French?” he asked at last.

  “Yes, sir, I do,” I replied in that language.

  “At least we have that,” he said, and sighed. Among other Frenchmen, I guessed he’d be considered a handsome man, thickset and strong, about thirty-five years old.

  “Those accusations that Beauharnais made of you,” he continued. “How much of that was true?”

  How was I to answer that? I didn’t dare tell the truth, the real truth. To fault and question the words of the old white master to a new one seemed willfully (and perilously) unwise, and so I remained silent.

  He waited for a long moment, his expression growing increasingly perplexed. “Do you not understand me?”

  I nodded, my heart racing in my breast. Oh, I understood. Monsieur and the others had called me a whore, and this man must have bought me for that purpose. What other reason could he have? I remember
ed what Fleur had told me about obliging men with “the itch,” whether we wished to or not. I hoped that he would be quick, and not hurt me too much. I swallowed hard, and bent to lift the hem of my petticoat for him.

  He caught my wrist to stop me.

  “No,” he said quickly. “I didn’t intend to—to do that. I am a married man, and I would never lower myself to use a servant of mine in such a fashion.”

  Relief washed over me, and I looked down at his hand still grasping my wrist. Beyond the close white linen cuff of his shirt, his skin was peppered with old scars from battles and black dots of gunpowder. Self-consciously he released me, and my petticoat fell back to cover my bare calves.

  “I have never believed in the merits of whipping or other such West Indies measures,” he said. “I intend to take you with me to New Jersey, a colony to the north, where you will serve my wife on our property there. So long as you obey her wishes, you shall find her a fair and just mistress.”

  I heard voices on the stairs outside, especially that of Hillarie, the officer who’d grabbed me earlier. I started instinctively, ready to flee.

  “Don’t be frightened of Hillarie,” Prevost said firmly. “He won’t touch you again, nor shall any other man. I’ll make sure of that.”

  I remained unconvinced. He was an English soldier, and accustomed to violence as part of his trade. He’d bought me on a whim, after a long dinner with which he’d drunk much wine. What would he say when he awoke in the morning to find me on the floor beside his bed?

  But what I soon learned about Major Jacques-Marc Prevost was that he was in fact that rarest of men, a man of his word. He never did expect me to share his bed, nor did he permit any of the other men in the inn to address me for that purpose.

  The next morning, he took me to a blacksmith, and with one clip of the man’s shears the collar that had circled my throat for years sprang away, and dropped to the ground at my feet: an ugly, tarnished, misshapen thing, with all but a few of the glass beads and bells that once adorned it gone. I ran my fingertips up and down over my now-bare neck, and across the thin, jagged scar that the collar’s teeth had worn into my skin. The smith plucked the collar from where it had fallen to the ground and tossed it into a bin of scrap without a thought, and just like that, it was gone. Yet I would always remember how Madame had ordered it put around my neck, and how Major Prevost had ordered it removed.