The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr

by Susan Holloway Scott

  For the first time this evening he smiled, albeit wearily. “It would indeed, Mary, if it’s no trouble to you.”

  I hurried to the cabinet in the parlor where the spirits were kept, poured some smuggled French brandy into the mug, and then returned to fill the rest with coffee. The scent of the brandy blossomed as it mingled with the hot coffee, filling the kitchen in a most pleasing way.

  It must have filled him in a pleasing way as well, for the expression on his face as he sipped from the cup was such blissful contentment that I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Now that is surpassing fine, Mary, and beyond what a poor, ragged soldier deserves,” he said, his palms and fingers cradling the cup. “Will you sit and take a cup with me?”

  I hesitated, for there was always the chance that if Mistress had heard his horse she might come downstairs to look for him.

  “Mrs. Prevost won’t mind,” he said as if reading my thoughts. “I’ll tell her it was my doing, not yours.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said, sitting on the end of the bench, but not pouring any of the coffee for myself. That would have been too much for even him to explain if Mistress caught me. Coffee was imported and costly and likely smuggled like the brandy, and meant only for Mistress’s family and guests. It was forbidden to us in the kitchen, who must be content with the teas that Chloe brewed for us from wild dandelion and chicory.

  “I’ll sit only for a moment, sir, while you drink your coffee,” I said, picking up my spinning again, drawing the thread out between my fingers.

  “Be idle for once.” His eyes were heavy lidded as he watched me through the hazy steam rising from the cup. “It must be midnight by now. You needn’t always be such a paragon of industry.”

  I smiled, and kept to my spinning, an excuse for keeping my gaze downcast and away from his. But the silence that now grew between us was surprisingly companionable. I wouldn’t have expected that, nor did I expect what he asked next, either.

  “Tell me, Mary Emmons,” he said. “How are you faring these days?”

  I glanced up at him with surprise, unsure of what he was truly asking. “Well enough, sir.”

  “You’re still a new widow,” he said, his voice low and compassionate. “You lost your husband to this cruel and endless war. No woman can make a greater sacrifice than that.”

  I didn’t want to speak of Lucas, not to him. Lucas was my memory, and besides, if I began to speak, I knew I’d weep, and not stop.

  “I am well enough, sir,” I said, repeating each word in turn. “I am well enough.

  “What you are, Mary Emmons, is a golden-eyed sphinx,” he said, “full of mysteries and secrets.”

  I’d no notion of what a sphinx might be, but mysteries and secrets I did possess, and in abundance, too.

  He leaned toward me, making our conversation more confidential, almost as if between true friends.

  “I didn’t intend to press you,” he said. “I regret it if I did. Secrets should be kept, whatever yours may be. All that I’m saying is that you’ve a widow’s right to grieve for your husband, and to mourn him how you please. War always brings suffering and loss in its wake, and each of us must find our own way through it.”

  He tapped a single finger against the side of his cup, and fell back into silence—a silence that had now turned as uneasy as that tapping finger.

  “Forgive me, sir,” I said softly. “But how do you fare yourself?”

  At first he did not answer, and I feared I’d erred by asking at all. Then he sighed again and shook his head, as if to shake away his reply as well.

  “Ever since Monmouth, I haven’t been right,” he said, regret and bitterness welling up in his voice. “The wound from a saber or a musket ball is seen and revered, visible proof of honorable combat. But the indisposition and headaches that reduce me to a worthless invalid are not so apparent to others.”

  His confession startled me, and concerned me, too. “What have the physicians told you, sir?”

  “They say I require rest to recover myself,” he said, frowning down into his cup. “They say that time alone and away from my regiment will cure me.”

  “Physicians are wise gentlemen, sir,” I said. “They know the best remedy.”

  “But I am an officer, Mary,” he said. “I’ve sworn to lead my men. I do not have time to squander on self-indulgence that makes me unable to fulfill my duty. I try, and yet . . .”

  His words drifted off.

  “You must heed their advice, sir,” I said softly, freely. “You don’t wish to injure yourself further.”

  He didn’t look up. “I have written His Excellency to request a medical furlough,” he said. “To take effect as soon as he’ll grant it. I’ll refuse my pay for the duration of the furlough, of course, but there is no choice left to me. I cannot continue as I am, and serve my country as I wish. I need to be removed from the noise of war.”

  I knew enough about gentlemen and soldiers to realize how difficult this decision must have been for him. General Washington was not only the commander in chief of the Continental Army; he was also an exceptionally tall and powerfully built gentleman. His very presence made him a natural leader, but it also created a standard of masculine fortitude that few of his troops could ever match. No one could question Colonel Burr’s bravery or accomplishments in battle, but he would always be of a slighter size and less robust constitution, especially compared to his gigantic leader. Men being what they were, I’d wondered if his occasional criticisms of His Excellency were at least partially born from jealousy at the different lots that Nature had given each of them, just as I’d suspected that the Colonel had driven himself all the harder to succeed because of it.

  “Have you told Mistress of your decision, sir?” I asked.

  “She knows I’ve considered it, yes,” he said. He smiled at the mention of Mistress, an odd little smile that he clearly wished to contain, but couldn’t. “I have vowed to be in complete honesty to Mrs. Prevost in all matters, as she has done to me. It cannot be otherwise between us. Her virtue and chastity are supreme among ladies, equally combining the reputations of both the noblest Roman matron and a Christian lady. I would not be worthy of her inestimable regard if I were to offer anything but the most complete truth to her.”

  There was an uncharacteristic earnestness to this wordy speech that, combined with that smile, made me realize with surprise that their attachment must still be physically unfulfilled. I thought of how she’d received him in her dressing gown, in her bedchamber, and the measures they’d taken to keep their meetings secret. I myself had discovered passion driven by the uncertainty of war, and knew how powerful it could be. The very way they gazed at each other had made me look away.

  How could they have remained so chaste? Was withholding the final prize the way that Mistress convinced herself she was still faithful to her marital vows, or did she do so to keep her younger lover’s interest from flagging?

  There was one more possibility that I refused to accept: that the two of them did in fact respect and love each other, as the Colonel had described to me. I could not believe that he (or any gentleman, if I was honest) could care so deeply for a woman as heartless as my mistress.

  But there was no doubt that Mistress had become more preoccupied, and that when I entered a room I’d often come across her gazing from a window with the familiar mooncalf smile that I’d seen on the Colonel’s face. It was so obvious to me that I marveled that no one else seemed to take notice of it: not her sister, nor her mother, nor any of her acquaintance.

  Regardless, those chaste memories were all that Mistress had to sustain her for the weeks and months that followed. The Colonel was granted his furlough (though His Excellency insisted that he take his pay), and he stepped away from his command to recuperate. He retreated to Elizabeth, a New Jersey town familiar to him from his schooling as a boy and a place he’d still many friends, as well as several physicians he trusted. But while his physicians had urged him to take a length
y furlough, he placed his health second to his duty, and, I suspected, his fear of what other men were saying about him. After only a short fortnight he was back at his post.

  His new assignment was much more taxing as well. Although he was only a lieutenant colonel, his old friend and superior General McDougall put him in command of the brigade at White Plains, in Westchester, a place known for its lawlessness. According to Mistress, the Colonel replaced an officer accused of corruption and plundering, and he was immediately faced with undisciplined troops, horse thieves, and even low women among his ranks.

  Despite the Colonel’s continuing ill health, he had punished the miscreants, ended plundering, restored order, and secured the law within a matter of weeks. He received the praise of his superiors as well as the civilians who had suffered, as Mistress would proudly recount to whoever would listen. It struck me to be a great deal of accomplishment for a gentleman who had just completed his twenty-third year, and in poor health as well, and I suspected that perhaps Mistress (or the Colonel himself) had exaggerated that accomplishment for effect.

  Yet as heroic as all this was, even the Colonel had his limit, and by March of the new year he reached his. He and Mistress spoke endlessly of it; sometimes it seemed as if they spoke of little else, at least while they were in my hearing. No matter how much his soldier’s spirit wished to continue, his body would not. This time, the letter he submitted to His Excellency wasn’t a request for a furlough. It was to resign his rank and his command in the army.

  For the next weeks, he took to his bed under the care of a physician in Connecticut, exactly as Mistress had wished for him to do. His plan was to recover sufficiently to return to his study of the law, which had been interrupted by the war several years before. He’d even discussed returning to the town of Princeton to study side by side with an old friend of his, Colonel Robert Troup, who’d likewise resigned his commission for private life. Princeton was what Mistress wanted, for it was not so far from Hopperstown. In the end, he decided that he would first study with Judge Titus Hosmer in Middletown, in Connecticut, and therefore be close to his sister and brother-in-law in Litchfield.

  First, however, he decided to return to the Hermitage as Mistress’s guest. Mistress announced his reason to be purely a medical one: he meant to take the healing waters of a hot spring on the edge of Mistress’s land as an aid to his recovery. Nor was it unusual for gentlemen to make a lengthy stay at Mistress’s house, or her mother’s. Recently the British army had sent two physicians, Dr. Joseph Browne and Dr. Samuel Bradhurst, who had been captured on the battlefield while treating American soldiers and placed them under house arrest at the Hermitage. They’d been treated more like honored guests than prisoners, which was likely due more to Mistress’s complicated loyalties (and to the fact that Miss DeVisme had taken a fancy to Dr. Browne) than it was to her hospitality.

  But Colonel Burr was different. From the instant that Mistress welcomed him at the door, taking both his hands in her own and kissing his cheeks in the French manner, it seemed as if he’d already earned his place in the house. Their mutual fondness was constantly on display in a hundred little gestures and glances, and they were seldom distant from each other’s company. Before now, I’d been the only one who’d witnessed this during his nighttime visits last autumn, but it soon became clear to everyone else that more affection lay between them than mere friendship.

  Yet he was still unwell, and the improvement of his health was not only the professed goal of his visit, but also a necessity. With Caesar to accompany him, he dutifully rode out early each morning to bathe in the curative hot springs not far from the Hermitage. He swore off tobacco and strong spirits. Mistress had given him the bedchamber with windows on two walls for the freshest air, and had the best mattress laid upon his bedstead, with extra coverlets to keep away any chill.

  She was also particular in the food that Chloe prepared for him, requiring only plain fare combined with fortifying possets and gruels. Chloe and I agreed that Mistress was keeping him to food more fit for a puling infant than a gentleman in his prime who needed to rebuild his strength and blood.

  How I longed to make a fine, rich curry for Colonel Burr, and see how quickly coriander, cumin, and turmeric would restore him. The fancy became so vivid to me that I could almost smell the spices once again, and I even pictured myself serving it to him upon one of Mistress’s best porcelain plates. Yet this imagining made me sad as well, for I realized how distant the recollections of the scents and tastes and colors of my long-past childhood had become.

  Within the week, I’d had more such memories dragged from within me, and not by my own wish, either. Much like Mistress, the Colonel had some days where the two of them would walk beneath the trees and take turns reading aloud to each other, and others when a headache would force him to keep to his bed with the curtains drawn against the light.

  On one such day, Mistress was similarly stricken, and I scurried back and forth between their bedchambers to wait upon them both. Mistress took the tincture prescribed by her physician to ease her pain, and was soon deep in sleep. The Colonel, however, had no such remedy. Instead, he was restless and bored because his eyes plagued him too much to read, and therefore he expected me to run up and down the stairs to answer his every whim.

  He grimaced as I brought him the tea with milk that he’d last requested. He was lying in bed, propped against a mound of pillows with only a sheet across him. Because he’d decided the fresh air was too chill, he’d had me shut the windows earlier, and now to me the room seemed close and still.

  Gone was the pomp and tidiness of a Continental officer, and he wore only a plain linen nightshirt. He’d shoved the cuffs and sleeves high over his forearms, and the collar was unfastened and widespread to reveal the curling hair upon his chest. His dark hair was unbound and loose around his shoulders and against the white pillow bier, his jaw shadowed with several days’ worth of beard, and he looked more like a deserter or other brigand scuffling over the enemy lines than a lieutenant colonel.

  “You’re kindness personified, Mary,” he said as he sipped the tea. “No wonder your mistress values you so highly.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said. “Is there anything else, sir?”

  “There is another thing, yes,” he said, his lips brushing over the gold-edged rim of the cup. “Mrs. Prevost has told me that when she is in the grips of her worst headaches, you alone can bring her comfort by rubbing lavender water upon her temples.”

  “That is true, sir,” I said. “If Mistress orders me to do so, yes.”

  “If it is such a salubrious remedy, then I should like to try it for myself,” he said. “My head aches like the very devil today, and nothing else has helped.”

  I hesitated. I didn’t care how much his head ached. It was one thing to hand him a cup of tea, but another entirely to lean close to him as he lay in bed and stroke my fingers across his brow.

  “I am not sure Mistress would wish me to do that, sir,” I said uneasily.

  “I’ve no doubt you can creep into her room for the lavender water without waking her,” he said, setting the teacup on the table beside the bed. “She would not have described the remedy to me if she didn’t wish me to try it.”

  I couldn’t refuse him, but still I lingered by the bed hoping he’d change his mind.

  “Come now, Mary,” he said, settling back more deeply into the pillows. “Don’t make this infirm old soldier suffer any longer than I must.”

  If he were truly infirm, I’d have had no worries. But headache or not, he was still sufficiently strong to cause me mischief, and as for being old—why, he couldn’t have been more than four years older than I was myself.

  “Mary,” he said again, turning my name into both a warning and a command that I’d no choice but to obey.

  Taking care not to waken Mistress, I went to her room and took the bowl of lavender water and a fresh handkerchief from her dressing table, and returned to the Colonel’s bedchamber across
the hall. His eyes were closed, and I dared to think he was asleep, but he spoke as soon as I entered.

  “How does Mrs. Prevost?” he asked, not opening his eyes. “I worry for her when she’s ill. It pains me doubly to be lying here like this when she needs me to be strong.”

  “Mistress will likely sleep the afternoon through, sir.” I dipped the handkerchief into the water and wrung it out. “She’s said herself that she’d rather you improve your own health, sir, than worry over hers.”

  He drew in his breath sharply and frowned as I laid the cool, damp cloth across his closed eyes. I began to trace small circles with my fingertips along his temples to the center of his brows and back again, gently increasing the pressure as the warmth of the closed room made the lavender scent blossom and grow.

  I tried not to think of how I was doing this for a gentleman, not a lady, or how my touch was making his face relax and the pain subside. I was standing close beside the bed, leaning over him, and uncomfortably aware of how close my body was to his face. Even blindfolded like this, I wished he wouldn’t smile. I’d ease his pain because he had bidden me to do so, but I didn’t want to go further, and give him pleasure.

  “Is that better, sir?” I asked, hoping he’d say yes so I could stop.

  “It is indeed,” he said, his voice low and deep with contentment. “Where did you learn such an art, Mary? Is it some bewitching magic passed along from an Indian mother to her daughters?”

  “No, sir,” I said. “I was taught by another servant so that I might ease my French-born mistress in Pondicherry.”

  “Pondicherry,” he repeated, letting the word play on his tongue. “I take it that is a city in India?”