“Hopperstown is hardly Versailles, any more than I’ve ever been considered a royal beauty.” Mistress sighed, and shook her head. “But Caty would know the fashion. I suppose she’ll be wearing an entire cloud of the stuff in her hair.”
“Yes, Mistress,” I replied absently. I hadn’t powdered a lady’s hair for a good long time, either, but Madame had always been most particular about how she wished hers to be done, with extra pomade and the powder applied with a light hand. “You’ll both make handsome brides today.”
Mistress gave a disdainful small sniff. “I’ve no doubt that Caty will beam and glow as a proper bride should, while poor Burr must take me as I am,” she said. “Perhaps a bit more at my temples? It’s the curse of black hair, I know. It requires double the powder to look even halfway respectable.”
Dutifully I feathered more of the powder over her hair, carefully arranged and combed high from her forehead and over a cushion-like pouf stuffed with feathers, also her more fashionable sister’s suggestion.
“There.” Mistress raised her chin to smile at her reflection, and gave her hair a final pat. “That looks far better than it’s any right to, Mary. Now the gown.”
She shrugged free of her old yellow dressing gown, letting it drop from her shoulders into my hands. I slipped the lavender-colored gown for her wedding over her shoulders, the silk skirts floating and settling over the feather-stuffed false rump that made up for Mistress’s natural deficiencies in that area. The gown was also a gift from Miss DeVisme and Dr. Browne. In fact, the entire wedding itself had been contrived at their expense, and I doubted if Mistress and the Colonel would even be marrying if her sister hadn’t removed every last objection. There had even been a special license issued by their old friend Governor Livingston himself so they could marry today, without having any banns read.
Carefully I tugged the gown into place over her stays and pinned the bodice together. I tied an embroidered white linen kerchief over her shoulders, twisted the ends together, and tucked them into the neckline. A little bouquet of flowers, tied with pink ribbons, was slipped into the neckline as well, and I anchored it all with a gift that the Colonel had had delivered to her earlier: a small oval brooch with a golden topaz, set in silver, that had belonged to his mother. I plucked at her linen cuffs to make them more full; then, satisfied, I turned her gently so she could admire her reflection in the glass.
“Oh, Mary,” she marveled, her cheeks flushing with excitement as she touched the little brooch. “Truly you can work miracles, even with this pauper-bride.”
“Thank you, Mistress,” I murmured. I was so weary of her constant cries of poverty, an empty complaint if ever there was one. Ready cash was in short supply with her, as it was with many people on account of the war, but no one who possessed a fine stone house, hundreds of acres of land, silk gowns, and slaves was truly poor.
“Are you ready, Theo?” her sister called gaily from the bottom of the stairs. “Oh, I cannot wait to see you!”
“Nor I you, Caty.” Mistress turned back to me. “Mary, please continue packing the last of my things. Colonel Burr desires for us to leave before dawn tomorrow. You may, of course, watch the ceremony from the windows with the others if you wish, though I don’t know how much you’ll see. We’re expecting a crowd in the parlor.”
She hurried eagerly from the room with a shush of lavender silk. While she greeted her guests, I packed away the last of her belongings in the trunks that stood open on the floor. She was taking mostly clothes and books, and none of her furnishings. The Colonel had warned her that their lodgings were so meager that there’d be no room for much else, especially since Frederick and Bartow were coming to Albany, too.
My own few things were already packed in a bundle in the attic. I was the only one of our household whom Mistress was taking with her to her new home in Albany, just as she’d done during her visit to Connecticut. I expected Mistress would eventually return to the Hermitage to visit her mother, but I’d no assurance that I’d accompany her. I’d also overheard Mistress and the Colonel discussing how the entire estate might as well be sold, if a buyer could be found. This could well be the last day I ever spent here. I’d miss the beauty of the place and my memories of Lucas, but I was eager for the change of living in a city.
The day was warm, and every window of the house had been thrown open wide. I stood outside with Chloe and the others—not only the people from the Hermitage, but also the men who’d driven the carriages for the guests. While the fine white guests were within, we servants crowded around the windows to see and hear what we could as we swatted at the bees that drifted toward us from the rosebushes. Still, we were likely more comfortable outside, where we’d catch the breezes, than those who stood inside in all their overwarm finery.
I’d never witnessed an English wedding, and I was surprised by how quickly it was accomplished. The two couples repeated their vows before the minister, who stood in front of the fireplace. It was not so very different from the vows that Lucas and I had said to each other—the vows that Mistress herself had so scorned—and my heart ached as I remembered the promises I’d made to my own husband.
Even though I’d wriggled a place directly before the window, I was so short that I couldn’t see over the heads of the guests. I didn’t see how Mistress’s dress compared to her sister’s, or if Mistress and the Colonel had held hands or gazed with love at one another.
I’d one quick glimpse of the Colonel, strikingly handsome in a dark gray coat with one of Mistress’s pink roses tucked into his top buttonhole. Although I couldn’t see Mistress behind the others, he could not look away from her direction. He was flushed and smiling, as likely from the heat and celebratory brandy taken with the other gentlemen in the yard beforehand as from matrimonial joy, or perhaps that was just how I chose to think of it.
I do not know why his happiness made me melancholy, yet it did. I suppose I was jealous—not of him, but of how he acted as Mistress were the one woman in this world meant for him, the way every bridegroom should. No one looked at me like that now. Maybe no one ever would again.
“That was a fine wedding,” Chloe said in the kitchen as we hurried to put the last touches on the wedding cake. Because the day was warm and she wanted the cake to be as splendid as possible, Chloe had waited to beat the egg whites for the sugary icing until the last moment. “Though Mistress would’ve done better for herself if she’d wed some rich old man. You know she could’ve had her pick of them.”
I nodded. In those days during the war, when death was often sudden and most marriages were made from shared necessities rather than love, no one expected mourning or grief to keep a fresh widow or widower from remarrying swiftly for the sake of security. There’d been plenty of older widowers among Mistress’s acquaintance who’d have been very happy to wed her.
“But Mistress, she wanted her young buck,” Chloe continued, chuckling to herself. “They say his father left him a tidy fortune before the war, but that’s gone now, same as Mistress’s. I heard he was jesting about how he’d use the last half joe in his pocket to pay the parson.”
“Hush, Chloe, they’re not poor,” I said irritably as I whipped the egg whites in a large bowl cradled in my arm. “Think of all they have, all they own.”
Chloe sniffed, making sure I knew she didn’t agree with me. “Mistress’s first husband was ten years older than her with property, and now this one’s ten years younger without a penny. She’ll learn soon enough which was the wiser choice. The Colonel’s one of those men who’s full of fire. She’ll get no peace with that one. He’ll be on her day and night now that she’s his rightful wife.”
“More of the same, then,” I said. It was no secret that the Colonel wanted children together; they spoke of it often. “Where’s the difference between that and what they’ve been doing, making that old bed of hers shudder and creak?”
“The difference is that now he’ll be after her for a son,” Chloe said. “That’s what every man w
ants, and he won’t stop pestering her until he gets one.”
“He hasn’t gotten one yet,” I said. “Whatever that parson said to them won’t make any difference.”
“Mistress knows French ways,” Chloe said, lowering her voice. “She wasn’t about to have a big belly before she was wed again.”
I frowned. “French or no, she wouldn’t have much choice.”
“French or yes,” Chloe said knowingly. “Whether they be ladies or whores, those French women have their tricks. They know ways o’ pleasing men that keep the seed away from causing harm in their wombs. But now the Colonel’ll be expecting every liberty, and she’ll have to give it to him.”
In my experience, women had no choice but to bear the children that men got upon them. I wasn’t entirely sure what Chloe meant, but I didn’t want her to know I was ignorant of a mystery that she so clearly understood.
“Mistress’s womb may be too old for more babes,” I said instead. “She’s thirty-five. Master Bartow’s the last child she bore alive, and he’s sixteen years old now.”
“True enough,” Chloe agreed with a show of understanding, if not sympathy. “Birthing’s always a trial and a hazard for women like her. Before she’s done, she’ll wish she’d wed one of those old men who’ve lost their spunk and mettle.”
I thought of this later that night, when the sounds of the newlyweds’ lovemaking drifted up from their open window to ours beneath the eaves. Mistress had always been as lusty as her colonel, and they’d never cared who heard their love play, either. I knew exactly why she’d chosen a younger groom instead of some wizened old fellow, nor could I fault her for it.
But still I covered my ears with my arms so I wouldn’t hear them on their feather bed, and be reminded again of how hard and lonely my own pallet was beneath me.
* * *
We left the Hermitage early the next morning, the way the Colonel had wanted, so early that we needed the moon and lanterns on the hired carriage to light our way. While Mistress and her sons said good-bye to Mrs. DeVisme, I quickly said my farewells to Chloe and Caesar, who’d risen to see us off. We all wished one another well, but took care to make no promises for the futures we didn’t control.
While Mistress, the Colonel, and the two boys rode snug inside the coach, I sat on the top between the driver, a plump free man, and Carlos, the Colonel’s Negro manservant. The two of them were delighted by the arrangement; I, squeezed tightly between them, was not. I’d found Carlos to be a cocky fellow who clearly believed I should be smitten with him. He was several years younger than I, more boy than man, stocky and strong and handsome enough, but with a sly, darting gaze that never seemed able to settle on any object—including me—for more than an instant. He was also free with his hands under the guise of offering assistance, and I was constantly having to shove him away from me.
“You’ll like Albany, yellow girl,” he cheerfully told me. “I expect Albany will like you, too.”
“Don’t call me that, Carlos,” I said crossly. “I don’t like it.”
“Lah, lah, listen to you,” he teased, pressing his knee against mine. “Miss Yellow Girl!”
I jabbed him in the ribs as hard as I could with my elbow, which made him yowl, but also back away from me, which was all I wanted. I didn’t sense he was a dangerous man, only an irksome one. Since we’d be living together in one household, it was better he understood now how things must stand between us.
At least once we’d boarded the sloop I was spared from his attentions. Carlos turned out to be a miserable sailor, even on this mild river on a sunny day, and to the amusement of the true sailors as well as his own master, he spent much of the voyage close to the railing and retching horribly.
Our travels took the better part of a week. Freed of both their schooling and their grandmother, Frederick and Bartow could not have been happier, pestering the crew until they, too, were allowed small sailing tasks that made them believe they’d become true mariners. Mistress and Colonel spent their days deep in their usual conversations with their heads bent close to one other, strolling the deck or sitting in chairs brought up from below for their use. She clearly couldn’t bear to be apart from him, while he kept his arm around her waist, though his hand sometimes slid lower, too, as a fond husband was entitled to do.
I sat to one side of the deck and industriously stitched new hems and darned old linens for Mistress, and knitted woolen stockings against the northern winter, which I’d been told was much fiercer than in New Jersey. As was so often the case, the idlers among the sailors tried to make conversation with me, hoping for more, but I was as purposefully aloof, and they soon left me alone.
When the port of Albany finally came into sight, the Colonel made sure to have Mistress on deck beside him so that he could proudly call attention to the finer points of the city that would be their new home.
“That’s the seat of General Schuyler,” he said, pointing to a large and elegant brick house with outbuildings high on the hill and surrounded by gardens, lawns, and orchards. I put aside my handwork and stood to one side of them, eager to see more, too. Although it seemed the war was nearly done, the British army still occupied the City of New York, and thus all the state’s business continued to take place here in Albany. To my country eyes, it seemed a dazzling place, with docks full of ships, warehouses, churches and other public buildings, and more houses beyond counting. General Schuyler’s estate appeared the largest, and purposefully placed beyond the city proper to garner the first attention and awe of visitors approaching on the river.
“It would appear that General Schuyler has prospered during the war,” Mistress observed. “Or at least he hasn’t suffered as many others have.”
“Oh, but he has, Theo,” the Colonel said. “Don’t you recall how I told you his second house as well as his mills and fields of crops were burned to the ground by Burgoyne? Heavy losses indeed. But you are right that this house remained untouched, and a lovely place it is, too. You must call upon the General’s wife as soon as you are settled.”
She glanced at him sideways beneath her wide-brimmed hat, the dark blue ribbons fluttering about her face. His mother’s brooch sparkled in the sun, pinned there to her bodice; she’d worn it nearly every day since their wedding to please him.
“I must, Aaron?” she asked, teasing. “I thought we’d agreed that that word would never be spoken between us.”
He chuckled, and raised her gloved hand to kiss it.
“In most matters, yes,” he said, continuing to hold her hand. “I meant only that since General Schuyler has shown me considerable kindness by sharing his library with me for study, it would be a welcome consideration if you were to call upon his lady.”
“Of course I shall do so, mon cher,” she said, her mouth curving in a smile. The cares that had lined her face these last years at the Hermitage had softened now that she’d left that place, and she looked years younger. “It’s always seemly to show gratitude.”
“Seemly, but also useful to our combined fortunes,” the Colonel said. “Schuyler is state senator and one of the most important gentlemen in the region. His favor will help me gain the confidence of all these other old Dutch grandees so that they’ll bring their cases my way.”
This might have shocked a less practical lady, but not Mistress. Her smile widened, and she tipped her head to one side with perfect understanding. She and the Colonel truly were every bit each other’s equals in the politics of being agreeable to the right people.
“And I’d guess you would wish me to win not only him,” she said, “but his lady, and whoever else may be in attendance?”
He nodded. “Another lady that surely will be there is Schuyler’s second daughter, Elizabeth,” he said. “Think back to when the army camped in your fields. Do you recall the aide-de-camp with the sandy red hair who was a special favorite of Washington’s?”
I recalled him at once, for he’d been the colonel who’d smirked at discovering the Colonel with me in
the kitchen garden.
Mistress remembered him, too, but for other reasons. “An intense fellow, very quick and clever, but short of patience with others,” she said. “I also recall he spoke beautiful French.”
“That is the man,” the Colonel said. “He wed Elizabeth Schuyler, and they are at present living in her parents’ house. He’s now pursuing the same course of study for the bar that I did. My old friend Bob Troup is assisting him. You may see him as well in passing. Oh, and Mrs. Hamilton has an infant son, if such knowledge is of use to you.”
“Among women, a prized infant son would be of the greatest and most delightful importance in conversation,” she said. “But you may likewise be sure that I won’t leave Madame Schuyler’s parlor until I’ve convinced her and her daughter that I’m wed to the cleverest legal mind in the city. Every word being true, of course.”
“Yes, of course, since I am likewise wed to the cleverest lady,” he said, and though they both laughed, his smile faded first.
“I promise you, Theo,” he said, “one day soon I’ll see that you live in a house that’s twice as grand as Schuyler’s.”
“So long as you shall live there with me, counselor,” she said, lowering her voice in a way that promised much.
“With you, and our children.” He turned her hand in his and kissed her palm, a favorite gesture between them that always seemed so startlingly intimate that I looked away, and returned to where I’d left my basket of mending.
That small motion from me must have been enough to break their lovers’ spell, however, because suddenly the Colonel called to me.
“Tell me, Mary,” he said. “Wouldn’t you like to live in a fine house such as General Schuyler’s?”
Reluctantly I looked back at them. He’d released Mistress’s hand, and she now smiled at me, bemused, with her hands clasped before her. I wished he hadn’t noticed me looking at the grand house as well.
I wished he hadn’t noticed me at all.
The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr Page 27
