The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr

by Susan Holloway Scott

He did not speak to me again, nor I to him, as we walked along Pearl Street and back to his office. I kept several steps behind him, as was expected, and carried his purchases in a paper-wrapped bundle beneath my arm. Yet I was grateful for his silence, even if it meant he was most likely displeased with me. The milliner’s words still twisted and turned in my head and in my heart as well, and it was better I suffered them alone.

  I do not know why Mrs. Gysbert’s offhanded story of Diana had struck me so hard. I’d heard similar histories many times before, always with the same grim ending of capture and punishment. White people never spoke of the servants who ran away and found their freedom.

  Yet I needed that reminder that the small liberties I had with the Burrs—the permission to walk alone on errands, or write down my thoughts at night, or taste the food I cooked for seasoning—were at best hollow, and no substitute for the true liberty, true freedom, that might never be mine. It hurt, that reminder, and as I kept pace behind the Colonel along the dusty street I fought to keep back my tears of frustration.

  The skies were leaden and darkening early, with thunder rumbling in the distance to the west. People hurried to be home before the storm arrived, and while the Colonel raised his hat to those he knew, he didn’t pause to converse. His clerks had shuttered his office for the night and gone home as well, their desks clear, their inkwells stopped, and the books they’d been consulting returned to the shelves. Both rooms were shadowed, with the only light sliding in through the cracks in the shutters.

  I followed him back to his office, intending only to gather up the basket and plate that I’d left earlier.

  But as soon as we were together in the back room, he wheeled around to face me, his brow as dark as the clouds outside.

  “What the devil do you want from me, Mary Emmons?” he demanded. “I have done my best to be civil—more than civil!—to you, and yet still you torment me.”

  “I, sir?” I exclaimed, my own anger and hurt overruling my better judgment. “What have I done, sir? What could I have done?”

  “Did you know Schuyler’s wench?” He pulled off his hat and threw it on the desk with an angry thump. “Was that what made you turn so sullen and ill-humored?”

  “Would you do the same to me, sir?” I asked, a demand of my own to match his. “Is that your meaning? If I ran, sir, would you chase me down like a beast in the forest, and sell me away as General Schuyler did?”

  He shook his head, incredulous that I’d dare speak so to him. “Do not challenge me, Mary.”

  “You twist my intentions, sir,” I said. “I only ask if you would hunt me if I ran.”

  “You won’t,” he said bluntly. “You can’t. You are too important to my wife.”

  “No, sir.” My voice was now trembling with the weight of so many years of words held back and unsaid, and words that even now I could not find. “No, sir.”

  He took a step closer. “You know that if you did dare run away, I would find you, and bring you back.”

  He’d done this to me before, standing too near to remind me of how much larger and more powerful and more important he was than I. Most times I backed away, but this time I was determined I wouldn’t. Hidden in the folds of my skirt I clenched my fingers into tense little fists, willing myself to be strong in my own way.

  “You belong to my wife, Mary,” he continued, another step closer. His voice dropped lower, too, a rough whisper that forced intimacy. “I’d make sure you were returned to her. I would do the same if anything she valued were stolen from her. A necklace, a horse, even a favorite book. I would make sure her property was returned to her.”

  Even by the half-light of the shuttered room, I saw every detail of his face above mine: how the band of his hat had pressed his hair flat and damp against his forehead, how his jaw was peppered dark by his beard this late in the day, how the sweat glistened on his upper lip. His eyes seemed fathomless, and so focused on me that my very skin seemed to burn beneath his gaze.

  “Is that all the worth I am to you, then, sir?” My voice was a whisper now, too, but because I couldn’t find the air in my lungs to make it louder. “No more than the value of a misplaced book?”

  He didn’t answer, which was answer enough. Each second between us stretched longer, but I refused either to retreat or apologize. Not this time, I thought, not again, and if he whipped me for being sullen, then so it would be.

  Instead he shoved my straw hat away from my face and my head until it fell backward over my shoulders and to the floor. He covered my shoulders with his hands, not roughly, but tight enough that I could not escape. Then his mouth was on mine, pressing and working back and forth until my lips parted, not from desire, but in a silent, shocked cry that I couldn’t hold back. He tasted of tobacco and the onions he’d eaten earlier, enough to make me choke. He moved one hand to the back of my head, his fingers digging into my hair and pulling it free from its pins while his thumb pressed into my nape.

  Yet I did not fight him. I know that does not seem right, but it was so: partly from shock, partly from fear of what more he’d do to me if I did, and partly from knowing that I hadn’t the right to refuse him. Instead, I stood still and rigid, my hands not touching him, but clenching impotently at my sides. I let him kiss me because I had to, and he was the one who finally broke away.

  Yet still he held the back of my head against his palm, his fingers tangled into my hair as he searched my face. I do not know what he sought, either, or what he hoped (or feared) to discover—pleasure, revulsion, misery? My lips stung from the rough stubble of his beard, and my breath came in quick pants of alarm that I couldn’t control, no matter how much I wished to.

  “You tempt me, Mary Emmons,” he said, more to himself than to me. “My God, you tempt me.”

  The thunder was closer now, rumbling deep.

  Abruptly he released me. He stepped back, still watching me as he rubbed his hand across his mouth.

  “Get your things,” he said, and turned away to gather a small portfolio of papers from his desk.

  With shaking fingers, I smoothed my hair as best I could, picked up my hat, and tied it once again over my cap. I stuffed the plate, the bottle, and the napkin into the basket and slung it into the crook of my elbow, and tucked the milliner’s package beneath my arm.

  Little things, I told myself, do these little, ordinary things, and forget what has happened.

  “Come,” he said, the order one gave to a dog, and I followed him from the office.

  The streets were nearly empty now, and the coming storm was sending little whirlwinds of dust and broken leaves skittering around our feet. By the time we reached the house, the first raindrops were beginning to fall, random and scattered as if thrown from the clouds.

  As soon as we stepped inside the front door, Mrs. DeVisme came bustling down the stairs to greet the Colonel.

  “Here you are at last, Aaron,” she said briskly. “It seems your child has decided to make its arrival on the wings of this storm. Mrs. De Jong is with Theo now. Go to her, sir. She’s been asking for you.”

  He didn’t wait, but raced up the stairs to join his wife.

  * * *

  The baby was born fast and determined, a healthy girl with a lusty cry and a thicket of dark hair that could have come from either parent. Mistress’s travail was quick and as easy as possible (which was to be expected considering this was her fifth delivery), and though she was exhausted afterward, all was forgotten in her joy.

  But it was the Colonel who was instantly and completely in love with his new daughter. He proclaimed that she, too, be named Theodosia, in honor of her mother, his wife. If he were at all disappointed that he’d been given a daughter rather than a son, he kept that sentiment buried deep in his breast. To see her in his arms, I believe he was perhaps more happy in a little girl than if she’d been born a boy. To him she was a paragon among all babies, and already extraordinary when her only accomplishment was to blow milky bubbles and spit up upon his shoulder. Even her
half brothers, Bart and Frederick, found her endlessly fascinating, and squabbled over who would be next to rock the mahogany cradle that had once sheltered them, too.

  The distraction of the baby also made it easy for me to avoid being alone with the Colonel. In that first month, the house was filled with well-wishers bringing gifts and drinking toasts until at last Mrs. DeVisme put an end to it, fearing for the health of both her daughter and granddaughter from too much celebration. The Colonel purchased a nursemaid named Ginny, carefully selected by Mistress and Mrs. De Jong, whose sole purpose was to look after the new baby and launder her clouts and clothes. She was a dark-skinned, quiet woman who seemed to have limitless knowledge about babies, and the ability to calm a fretful child with a gentle touch and a handful of African words. The Colonel returned to his office and court cases and the boys with him, Mistress recovered from her confinement and delighted in her new daughter, Mrs. DeVisme traveled back to New Jersey and her youngest daughter, Mrs. Browne, and the household found its way back to its usual rhythm.

  Or at least Mistress believed it to be so. The Colonel and I knew otherwise, with things as restless and uneasy as a stormy sea between us. What had happened in his office the day of his daughter’s birth could be neither undone nor forgotten, though I did try to do so.

  But one morning as I brought breakfast to Mistress and the Colonel, it was Mistress herself who unwittingly made things impossible to ignore any longer. From his severe attire, he must have been appearing in court that day. He was dressed in a well-tailored black suit and his linen shirt was snowy and immaculately pressed, as he insisted it be. His only ornament came from his favorite shirt brooch, a golden snake knotted back on itself with a tiny pearl in its jaws.

  Although Mistress had come to join him at the table, she still wore her dressing gown, and likely her night shift beneath. Around her neck was looped the lace-edged kerchief that he’d bought with me. He’d given it to her in honor of the joyful birth, and because she loved him, she’d found an excuse to wear the kerchief nearly every day.

  “Mary, I am disappointed,” she said to me as I poured her tea. “My husband told me that some time ago he generously bought you a pretty new short gown and petticoat from Mrs. Gysbert, but I’ve yet to see you wear either one.”

  I flushed, and fought the urge to glance at the Colonel. Instead, I lied.

  “Forgive me, Mistress,” I said. “But the new clothes seemed too fine for everyday. I’ve put them aside for special.”

  The truth was that every time I saw the new garments, folded beside my older clothes, I was filled with so many difficult thoughts and memories from that afternoon that I could not make myself put them upon my body.

  “I do not know what can be more special than a new baby in the family,” Mistress said, tipping a spoon of sugar into her tea. “Besides, it’s ungrateful of you not to wear what has been given you. When we dine later this day, I’ll expect to see you dressed in the new clothes.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” I murmured. In this as in so many things, I had no choice. Doubtless I’d be made to parade about in a display of gratitude, too.

  From upstairs came the wail of the baby, unhappy over some indignity, and at once Mistress set down her tea, her chin raised as she listened.

  “It is nothing, my dear,” the Colonel said. “You’ve said yourself that babies cry over everything and nothing.”

  “But when I left her, Aaron, she was sleeping as peacefully as could be,” she said. “Something must have upset her.”

  “Ginny is with her, Theo,” the Colonel said. “She’s not alone. Now finish your tea.”

  “I’ll only be a moment.” She pushed back her chair and hurried upstairs, her backless slippers slapping on the steps.

  And for the first time in weeks, I was alone with the Colonel.

  I leaned forward to gather up Mistress’s empty plate, hoping to use that as an excuse to retreat to the kitchen. I wasn’t fast enough. He caught my arm as I reached across the table, holding me fast so I couldn’t escape.

  “Mary Emmons,” he said softly. “You’ve avoided me.”

  “No, sir,” I said, another necessary lie. “I’ve had many tasks that have kept me busy, sir.”

  “You know I have missed you,” he said, his fingers tightening the slightest amount to reinforce his words. “Our conversations, your thoughts. I miss them.”

  “I am sorry, sir.” There’d been a time when I would have said the same of him. No longer. I tried to slip my arm free of his hand, but he held it too firmly. “Sir, if Mistress were to—”

  “Shush,” he said. “She won’t. But here, as proof of how much I trust you.”

  He released my arm and sat back in his chair, his gaze never leaving my face. This was all a game to him. So why didn’t he understand that it was I who didn’t trust him, and not the other way around?

  Finally I picked up the plate in both hands, but uncertainty made me linger.

  He smiled slowly, and too late I realized that by my staying he’d won some small victory.

  “Did you not like the clothes I chose for you, Mary Emmons?” he asked. “I thought the color and pattern would please you, but then I should know better than to presume a woman’s taste. Is that why you haven’t worn them?”

  “They pleased me well enough, sir.” Another lie, so many for so early in the morning.

  This one, however, he recognized for the defense that it was, and looked down at the tablecloth and away from me. His smile had shifted into a wry twist. In many ways we did understand each other, and had from the beginning.

  “I’m sorry for what occurred, Mary Emmons,” he said, and his voice did indeed sound regretful. “I was wrong to . . . succumb. It shall not happen again. Now go, if you wish to. I won’t keep you here against your will.”

  I did wish it, and fled back to the kitchen. There I considered further what he’d said. He’d offered as much of an apology as I’d likely ever receive from him. But in some fashion he seemed to believe it had been my fault that he’d kissed me, which couldn’t have been more cruelly wrong.

  Or was it? I reminded myself how, by trade and education, he was a counselor-at-law, and skilled at persuasion and argument. He knew how to parse the finest meaning from every word. Yet had I through my words or actions somehow indicated that I’d welcome his attentions, and encourage his adultery? How could I, through no conscious act, sway such a guileful and intelligent gentleman? Had my loneliness and longing betrayed me, and acted as a beacon to him? I doubted his apology, yes, but I doubted myself more.

  He kept his word for another month or so, until one night when he’d returned late from a case in a district court. The rest of the household had retired, and I alone remained awake, putting the last of the kitchen to rights. As I took his coat and hat, he told me he was hungry, but refused the ceremony of the parlor, and instead came downstairs to sit at my rough kitchen table. I fried eggs for him with grilled ham and buttered bread, as simple as could be, and exactly what he wished after a long journey. We conversed most amiably of both politics and his daughter. I liked cooking for him in this manner, with the eggs sizzling hot in the ham’s fragrant fat as they slipped directly onto the plate before him, and I liked seeing the contentment I could bring him as he ate. He praised my cooking, and my cleverness.

  But afterward he pulled me onto his lap, the muscles of his thighs hard beneath my bottom and his arm like an iron band around my waist. He kissed me longer this time, with more leisure and traitorous care, as if he wished me to find equal pleasure in it. This time, too, he fondled my breasts, his hand deftly finding its way into my bodice to my flesh.

  When he finally left and went upstairs, I sat by the dying fire and wept over my shame, clutching the little heart-shaped pendant that Lucas had made for me in my fingers. I’d loved my husband by the light of a kitchen fire, and now, in a place that had always felt most my own, I’d let another man hold me and touch me and kiss me.

  A week later, whi
le Mistress was playing her fortepiano in the parlor, the Colonel passed me on the stairs. He crowded against me, drew me to one side, and kissed me quickly, then patted one finger against my lips, as if to say it must be our secret. He continued down the stairs toward the music and his wife, while my heart raced so fast in my chest that I could scarcely climb to the landing.

  After that, he left me alone for the better part of the next two years. I know that sounds extraordinary for a gentleman of his appetites, but he’d his reasons, and reasons that had little to do with me.

  * * *

  When the British army had finally evacuated the city of New York at the end of 1783, the Colonel had wasted no time in removing his family from Albany to Manhattan Island. He’d spoken excitedly of the opportunities that were waiting for those who dared seize them, and Mistress had agreed, even to shifting a household with a baby in the middle of December.

  I’d only visited New York once before, when I’d been brought there by Colonel Prevost over ten years ago. I’d been so overwhelmed, and my grasp of English still so uncertain, that my memories of the place were jumbled at best. But I did recall a fine city, with many grand homes, gardens, churches, and other public buildings, and docks bristling with the masts of seagoing vessels.

  No more. Years of war and occupation plus two calamitous fires had sadly reduced that once-fine New York I remembered. Much of the current city lay in ruins, with empty lots, broken-down walls, and pools of stagnant, standing water in the streets and open cellars. The docks were rotting from disuse, and every last twig of trees, gardens, and fences had long ago been cut or pulled apart for firewood.

  The fortunes of war had claimed much of the citizenry, too. The majority of the gentry and merchants, doctors, and lawyers had been Tories, and had fled with their families to Nova Scotia or London when the British army had abandoned the city. Shops and trades with Tory leanings had been looted and burned. Even many of those bound by slavery had vanished, promised freedom in Canada by the British. The gaps all these people had left in the city were every bit as noticeable as the yawning, empty lots where houses had once stood.