The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr

by Susan Holloway Scott

  Yet as winter deepened, even those visitors dwindled. No letters, no newspapers, and no news of the war came to the house. Mistress listened to her sons’ lessons, read, wrote, and sewed, and now her only guests were her mother and sister from the other house.

  One January night, I alone was left below, and charged with putting the kitchen to rest for the night after the others had gone upstairs to bed. The pots and dishes had been washed and dried, the remaining food put aside for keeping, and the table scrubbed down. As I raked the coals and banked the fire, I noticed we needed more wood for the morning. It was Caesar’s job to carry wood inside from the shed, but it seemed easier to bring in enough for the first fires myself than to go up the stairs to rouse him. I wrapped myself in one of the rough wool cloaks that hung by the door, and slipped outside.

  I didn’t need a lantern to cross the yard. The moon was nearly full, and its pale light washed over the banks of sparkling snow. Yet I didn’t linger, not liking to be alone out of doors at night, and my gaze swept uneasily over the yard and fields as I hurried to the woodshed. There I filled my arms with small split timbers, and rushed back, my petticoat catching on the ice on either side of the path. At the door, I awkwardly shifted the wood in my arms to unfasten the latch. The bark snagged on my cloak, and I muttered wordlessly. There was no reason for the latch to be jammed, no reason for—

  The man’s large hand in a thick leather glove came from behind, reaching around me toward the door. I hadn’t seen him when I’d been in the yard, and I hadn’t heard his footsteps in the soft snow. I gasped, and dropped all but one piece of the wood, holding it tightly with both hands as a makeshift weapon as I swung around to confront him.

  “Mary, oh, Mary,” Lucas said softly. “What kind of welcome is that for any old friend like me?”

  CHAPTER 8

  The Hermitage

  Hopperstown, State of New Jersey

  January 1777

  Many months had passed since I’d last seen Lucas, time enough to make me shy in his presence. All the fancies and dreams that I’d spun about him vanished before the reality of his presence.

  I’d forgotten how tall a man he was. He stood near the fire, snow melting from his boots, and taking up much space in a room that I’d always thought spacious. The top of his hat scarcely cleared the beams overhead. In my memory, he’d always appeared in Captain Vervelde’s livery, a tidy version of an English gentleman’s garments. There was nothing tidy or gentlemanly about him now.

  He wore an oversized light-colored hunting shirt with a wide caped collar, the hems and edges purposefully fringed, and made bulkier still by the layers of other garments hidden beneath. A thick leather belt gathered the shirt around his waist, with a sheathed hunting knife and other small pouches slung from it. On his legs were some manner of long breeches or leggings, wrapped close to his calves with leather strips, and he’d a black felt hat with a red-and-white cockade, the brim pulled down low over his brow. Over his shoulder was slung a musket.

  Now this might not seem remarkable, considering the countryside was torn left and right by war. But most white people did not believe a black man, free or not, should ever be permitted to carry arms of any kind. The musket Lucas was carrying was the same as every other soldier I’d seen possessed, nearly as long as I was tall, the polished wood of the barrel crowned with the jutting blade of the bayonet.

  He caught me staring.

  “The musket’s mine,” he said proudly. “Colonel Vervelde—he’s a lieutenant colonel now—and I began in the Jersey Volunteers, but then in September we both joined up with the Fourth New Jersey Regiment. When my enlistment’s done, I’ll get my hundred acres of land and a pension, same as every other soldier.”

  Still I stared at the gun, unable to look away from it, or stop thinking of what it represented. I’d remembered Lucas teaching me to read, gently spelling out words with me in this same kitchen. But that bayonet was proof that this same man had taken the words we’d relished most, words like liberty and freedom, and carried them with him into battle.

  “I thought black men weren’t wanted by the army,” I said, watching him.

  “Freemen were permitted to enlist last spring.” He slipped the musket familiarly from his shoulder and sat on the high-backed bench.

  It was like old times, and yet it wasn’t. There was a restlessness to him now that hadn’t been there before, and his gaze was never still, looking from me and around the room to the door and back again. No wonder he’d chosen the bench; it was against the one wall without a window, and faced the door.

  So many questions filled my head that I didn’t know where to begin.

  “If you’re with the Continental Army, Lucas, then you shouldn’t be here,” I said urgently. “This house lies behind the British lines now, and if you’re caught here—”

  “I’m safe enough,” he said. “Surely Mrs. Prevost has heard the news by now. On Christmas Night, our army crossed the Delaware at Trenton, and fought and captured the entire Hessian force stationed there, and sent the British scuttling back to New York, tails between their nether legs like whipped dogs.”

  “Sweet Providence!” I said, borrowing an exclamation of awe from Chloe. No other that I knew would suffice. “You are certain?”

  He chuckled, delighting in my reaction. “Mary, I was there.”

  Still I shook my head, incredulous. There had been so many defeats that a victory such as this was sweet indeed.

  “What excellent news, Lucas!” I exclaimed. “That the army would triumph like that—oh, that’s excellent and most fine!”

  “It is,” he said, and smiled. “Our army’s made camp for the winter in Morristown, overlooking the British in New York.”

  I tipped my head to one side. “So we are no longer behind the British lines?”

  “We’re behind no one’s lines at present,” he said. He took off his hat and set it on the seat of the bench beside him, and ran his fingers through his hair to smooth it. There was gray in it now over his temples, gray that was new since I’d seen him last. “That’s what the Captain told me this morning. This valley belongs to no one.”

  “But you are here, Lucas, and the army is not,” I said, still uncertain as to how and why he’d come to be at Hopperstown. “You—you haven’t deserted, have you?”

  He smiled again, relishing my bewilderment.

  “Could you see that of me?” he said, placing his hand grandly over his heart. “The truth is not so hard. Colonel Vervelde requested a fortnight’s leave to come survey the condition of his property. I asked for leave to accompany him, and it was granted.”

  I glanced again at the musket. “You are on leave, yet you still must be armed?”

  “Nothing is certain,” he said, the merriment fading from his smile. “There are a thousand dangers wherever one goes. You should not have been alone away from the house at night. What if it hadn’t been me?”

  “But it was,” I said, turning away to tend to the fire. I wasn’t going to let Lucas draw me into a quarrel, not tonight.

  “No one’s done any plundering here,” he said. “But then, no one’s going to touch Mrs. Prevost’s property.”

  Even with my back turned, I could tell from his voice that he’d something else in his thoughts, just as I did. The rest was all empty words and no more, and my reply was equally empty.

  “Mistress can play the crafty fellow as well.” I straightened, and came back to stand before him. “One day she is a staunch patriot, and the next she is loyal to the king.”

  He was leaning forward from watching me, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands loose. I’d always liked his hands with their broad palms and long fingers, strong and capable yet gentle, too.

  “The Major has not returned?”

  “He has not,” I said, “nor does Mistress speak of him, even to their sons.”

  He shook his head, silent sympathy for another male, as all men were inclined to do. Yet he was looking at me, looking at me s
o intently that I felt the heat of it, and not from the coals I’d just prodded back to life in the hearth, either.

  “And you, Mary,” he said slowly. “She treats you well?”

  “Well enough,” I said with a nervous little shrug of my shoulders.

  “You look . . . well.”

  A single word, a single word, and yet combined with how he was looking at me it was so much more than all the flowery compliments I’d overheard by the gentlemen in Mistress’s parlor.

  I gulped, and seized two tin cups from the shelf.

  “Wait,” I said, “and I’ll be back directly.”

  Swiftly I went to the parlor, to the cabinet where Mistress kept the decanted spirits and wines. With great care, I poured a small measure of Mr. Hendrick’s Madeira into each cup, and replaced the bottle exactly as it had been before I returned to the kitchen.

  I handed one to Lucas, and he raised a questioning brow as he realized what was in it.

  I raised my chin in defiance. We both knew I’d just stolen from Mistress, but I didn’t care.

  “To liberty, and to victory,” I said, boldly raising my cup.

  He raised his. “To liberty, and to victory,” he echoed. “And to you, Mary.”

  I nodded, a quick duck of my chin, and tipped my cup, the way I’d seen others do. I’d never before tasted any wine or strong waters. That first sip took me by surprise, too sweet and strong, yet still I drank it.

  Lucas drank his all at once, a single long swallow before he set the empty cup on the floor at his feet.

  He patted the place on the bench beside him.

  “Sit with me, Mary,” he said softly. “You know I’ll not bite.”

  “I knew that when you left,” I said, making myself drink the rest of the wine as he had done. “I don’t know who you are now.”

  “Yes, you do,” he said, patting the bench again. “Join me.”

  I didn’t need to be asked again. With a small sigh, I sat onto the bench beside him, sliding across the smooth wood so that my petticoat brushed against his leg.

  “I feared you wouldn’t return,” I said softly. “The longer you were away, the more afraid I was that you wouldn’t come back.”

  “Some days I feared I wouldn’t, either,” he said. “The things I’ve seen, Mary, the things I’ve done.”

  His voice drifted off, leaving me to imagine things I couldn’t.

  “But you fought for liberty, for freedom, for glory.” I curled my hand into the crook of his arm. “Exactly as you wanted.”

  “In the beginning I fought for those things, yes,” he said. “But everything changed after that first battle, at Long Island, with men who’d shared my mess that morning cut apart by long shot in the mud all around me. The ones who lived, the ones who died—that’s who I fought for after that. Not for words, but for men.”

  “I’m sorry.” I drew closer to him, leaning into his arm with my head against his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t.” He twisted around to face me. “Because I fought for you, too, Mary. No matter how much death I faced, you were life to me.”

  I kissed him then, and told him everything without the words that I hadn’t been able to find. He pulled me across his thighs with rough urgency, and I curled against him, desperate for more. We kissed, with hunger, fire, and most of all life, yet it wasn’t enough, not for either of us. The rest followed, with my skirts pulled up around us both as I joined with him, there on the bench. We’d survived where others hadn’t. We needed each other. We’d lived, and now we loved as well.

  He stayed until nearly dawn, and when he left I crept up the winding stairs to the attic, taking care not to wake the others. I thought I’d succeeded, too, until Chloe rolled over to face me.

  “Lucas is back, isn’t he?” she whispered in the dark.

  I couldn’t lie. “He is.”

  “Joy to you both,” she said sleepily, and I knew our secret would be safe with her.

  Mistress was another matter. Later that morning, a messenger brought her the news regarding Trenton, the British leaving Hackensack, and General Washington’s winter encampment. At once we became again a household that favored the Whigs and the patriot cause, and invitations were sent to similar supporters for a small celebration that evening. Our preparations took most of the day, and I did not see Mistress alone until I went to dress her hair.

  “Tell me, Mary,” she said. “You were the final one in the kitchen last night, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, Mistress, I was,” I said, hoping I’d keep the uneasiness from my voice.

  “Did you see or hear anything in the yard while you were still there?” she asked. “I’d trouble sleeping, and felt sure I heard voices outside.”

  “No, Mistress, I didn’t hear anything,” I said, my heart racing. “Likely you heard raccoons or other creatures driven close to the house to forage through the snow.”

  “It’s the creatures that walk on two legs that worry me more,” she said. “I’ve no wish to be hauled from my bed and marched away as a prisoner by some unsavory party of raiders.”

  “None of us wish that, Mistress,” I said. “But there’s never been any patrols come trouble you before. Why should they begin now, Mistress?”

  “They shouldn’t, if there’s any justice to this world of ours.” She sighed, and frowned at her reflection. “I wish I possessed a measure of your serenity, Mary.”

  I wished I had it, too. Late each night Lucas came to the kitchen door, after the rest of the house was asleep, and each night I let him in. Knowing we’d only have these few nights and hours before his leave would end and he’d return to the army made them more precious still. He gave me a heart-shaped token that he’d wrought himself from a sixpence, and tied it around my throat for me. In turn I gave him a little drawstring bag of scrap linen that I’d stitched with our initials in red, with a braided lock of my hair and sprigs of rosemary, and bid him wear it for luck in battle. We held tight to the time we had together, and never spoke of that inevitable future.

  From lack of sleep, I stumbled through my days, praying that Mistress wouldn’t notice. I was breaking so many of her rules: I unbarred the door to him while the rest of the house slept; I gave him wine and food that belonged to her; I risked conceiving his child; I kept the kitchen fire burning longer than was necessary and squandered Prevost firewood.

  One afternoon she mentioned she’d seen Colonel Vervelde at another house, and I thought I’d break down from the fear of it.

  “He said that tall Negro of his enlisted, too,” she said as she stitched a loose button to one of her son’s shirts. “I can’t recall his name, but I’m sure you know it.”

  “His name is Lucas, Mistress,” I said faintly. “Lucas Emmons.”

  “The Captain suspects that Lucas has a sweetheart,” Mistress continued, turning cruelly playful. “Can you imagine that? He’s always struck me as a perfect scarecrow. Perhaps his inamorata is a scarecrow-woman, old clothes stuffed with straw and sticks for arms.”

  She laughed at her wit, while I did not. But I did tell Lucas himself that night, pouring out my frustration with her thoughtlessness, and my anguish over how we’d only two more nights before he must leave.

  “You can’t know how much I’ll miss you, Lucas!” I cried bitterly. “Miss you, and worry over you, and fear—”

  “Hush,” he said, stroking his hand gently over my hair. “Don’t do any of those sorrowful things. Just love me. That’s all I ask. Just love me the way I love you.”

  He did, too. I never once doubted him. Yet I didn’t realize how very much until the last day, when it was too late.

  Mistress and her sons were dining with Mrs. DeVisme at the other house, and Chloe had promised to make sure Lucas and I would have the kitchen to ourselves earlier than usual. By now Caesar and Hetty shared our secret. In our little world, it would have been nearly impossible to keep it from them.

  I was determined to be cheerful, and to make the night as memorable
as possible, without tears and sighs. I’d given the kitchen an extra sweeping and tidying, and scrubbed and polished everything I could reach. I’d set the table with spoons and plates for just two.

  Lucas had a great fondness, even a fascination, for my hair. Like every woman from Pondicherry, I’d never cut it, and it now hung nearly to my knees, a thick, shining dark curtain of hair. I didn’t dare leave it unbound as long as I was near the fire—I was not so foolish as that—but instead of pinning it into a tight coil beneath an English cap, I plaited it into a braid that was thicker than my wrist, the way I’d done as a girl, and tied it with a scrap of red ribbon that Mistress had discarded. One tug of the ribbon and he could undo the braid himself.

  I was ready far too soon, and waited on the tall-backed bench where we always sat together. I took up my spinning to pass the time and occupy my hands and thoughts. The peaceful rhythm of it always calmed me, and it calmed me now as I waited.

  Lost in thought, I didn’t hear the door at the front of the house, and I jumped when the door to the kitchen from the hall swung open. I thought it must be Chloe, remembering to do one last this or that before she slept.

  “I thought you’d be asleep by now, Mary,” Mistress said, pausing at the door. “I was startled to see the light from beneath the kitchen door.”

  I rose abruptly, the spindle still spinning by its thread from my hand. Mistress never came to the kitchen. Chloe and I always went to her. To see her here now, still wearing her red cardinal cloak over her silk dress for evening, felt wrong and misplaced, and dangerous to me.

  She stepped through the door, the fire’s light catching the faceted red garnets of her earrings and necklace against her pale skin. She paused again, gazing down at the table set with two spoons, two cups, two battered earthenware plates.

  “How agreeably intimate,” she said, and then looked pointedly at me, doubtless taking note of my braided hair with the red ribbon, and how I’d left off not only my cap, but also the linen kerchief that modestly covered my breasts and throat, and the stays that gave me the false, stiffened shape of an Englishwoman.