“It’s a different kind of distress that plagues her, sir,” I said softly. “When she attends gatherings with other children, for dancing and such, she has begun to hear gossip that they repeat from their parents.”
“That’s easily resolved,” he said, his hands sliding back and forth across my shoulders and slipping beneath my kerchief to find my bare skin. “She shall remain here at home, where she won’t be distracted by the prattling of other children.”
“Forgive me, sir, but that is not the answer,” I said. “She needs friends.”
“They’re hardly friends if they’re unkind to her,” he reasoned. “They won’t be missed. Besides, Theodosia scarcely has time for her lessons as it is.”
I shook my head. It was a strange coincidence that Miss Burr, with love and luxury lavished upon her, was in much the same lonely predicament that I had suffered at her age so long ago in Madame’s Pondicherry household: locked away from other children and set to tasks that seemed endless, with only adults for company.
“You cannot keep her apart from the world, sir,” I said, wanting to forget my old memories of loneliness. “She will hear the gossip when she attends church or the playhouse. Everyone in New York speaks of politics.”
He sighed, more resigned than impatient. He traced his finger along the side of my throat to touch the tip of my earlobe beneath the edge of my cap. “You’re not wearing the earrings I gave you.”
“Forgive me, sir,” I said, prepared to tell him a half-truth, or perhaps it was a half lie. “But they’re too grand for me.”
“Nothing is too grand for you, Mary,” he said, his voice low.
It was an empty compliment, yet still I smiled, tipping my chin a fraction toward him.
“I don’t know what Theodosia has told you to gain your sympathy, the little minx.” He now stood so close to me that I smelled the scent of the oiled leather reins and the horse that he’d ridden still clinging to him, and mingled with his sweat on his linen and the hint of the lemon soap he preferred for shaving. “But she understands the difference between Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and why her papa didn’t receive an appointment in the new government. I’ve explained it all to her.”
“You explained it to her too well, sir.” If he wished to continue this conversation like this, then I would, too. There was a strange allure to discussing Federalists and Anti-Federalists even while his hand was upon my breast. I also knew from experience that he’d be more likely to agree to whatever I asked of him now, more so than if I spoke in other circumstances. “She knows your ambitions, sir. When others speak ill of you, she fears your hopes will be denied, and shares your unhappiness. Mistress does as well, though she hides it better.”
He chuckled, and nipped his teeth at my lower lip. “Words alone can’t hurt me, unless I let them.”
“They will, sir, if the scandal is sufficient.” I drew back, forcing him to meet my eye. “What Mistress calls a scandal is petty and small, like you taking Mr. Greenleaf’s case against the wish of your rivals. But a true scandal could ruin you.”
He was irritated that I’d pulled away from him; he never liked to be denied in anything. This was exactly my argument, if he’d only listen.
But perhaps I’d pushed him too far. I slipped my hands around the back of his waist and leaned my body into his. Even through our clothing, we fit together with a sensual tidiness, both of a size to please the other. He always claimed I tempted him, but he tempted me as well, tempting and tempting until I gave way.
He knew it, too, the curve of a smile flickering upon his lips.
“I worry for you, sir,” I said, more sadly than I’d intended. “If your Federalist enemies were to—”
“They are not my enemies, Mary,” he said with maddening logic. “How many times must I tell you?”
“I know you don’t believe that, sir, no matter how many times you say it aloud,” I countered. “Everyone has enemies.”
“Mary, please,” he said. “I refuse to view my life like some ancient vengeance-mad tragedy. I’ll leave the histrionics to Hamilton and Livingston and the rest. Some Federalists are my friends, and some Anti-Federalists are not. Some hold beliefs that I share, and others will always be in disagreement with me. None of that will make them my enemies.”
“But they think otherwise, sir,” I insisted. “What if they sought to ruin your honor and good name? What if they were to learn of me and Louisa, and tried to use that knowledge to discredit you?”
His frown returned, a deep furrow across his brow. “We have spoken of this before, Mary. So long as we are discreet, no one will know of our friendship. It is between us alone, and the world shall not learn of it.”
I shook my head. “I am not so convinced, sir,” I said, my words now coming in a desperate rush. “I fear that one day someone will see me with my daughter, and note a resemblance to you.”
“You trouble yourself over nothing, Mary,” he said, as if simply by speaking the words firmly he would make them true. “I have certain aspirations, yes, but I am far more devoted to those who live beneath my roof than I am to any reckless fantasy of power. Anyone who gazes into Louisa’s face shall only see her sweetness, her beauty, and unless they are told otherwise they’ll see nothing more.”
He paused, his expression turning oddly fixed.
“Unless you yourself were to tell someone, Mary,” he said slowly, his fingers tightening ever so slightly into my shoulders. “You wouldn’t do that to me, would you? Turn Judas, and spin a sordid tale of lies to a newspaper or pamphlet writer in exchange for a handful of silver?”
I gasped, shocked he’d think me capable of such a disgraceful act.
“No, sir, never!” I blurted out. “Surely you must know that I could never betray you like that, not when—not when—”
My words stumbled, with me unsure of where they would go next.
“When you care for me as you do?” he said, smoothly finishing my sentence for me. “That’s what you meant to say, isn’t it? That your heart is too tender for such an unwomanly action?”
I looked away in confusion. Was that in fact what I’d begun to say? That I’d come to feel a genuine tenderness for the man who’d forced his child upon me, whose wife owned me as her property, who had used me as the Colonel had done for years?
With a tenderness of his own that I hadn’t expected, he turned my face back toward his and kissed me.
“My own dear Mary,” he whispered, his voice low and confidential and seductively sweet. “You know of my considerable affection for you, and the joy I find in your company. That you would worry so about my happiness, my honor, pleases me beyond measure.”
I wanted to explain that I’d no choice but worry for his happiness, because his prosperity and success were bound so tightly with my own. But he kissed me again before I could, and took me to lie upon his bed, and then it was too late for me to speak, as it so often was.
But not for him. “Since you have shown such concern for me, Mary, you shall be the first in New York to hear my news,” he said afterward as he rebuttoned his breeches. “Governor Clinton has asked me to be the new Attorney General of the State of New York.”
“Governor Clinton?” I asked, more surprised by the governor’s name than the appointment itself. “He has rewarded you, even though you publicly supported Mr. Yates against him in the last election?”
“But you see how little that matters, Mary, exactly as I told you earlier,” he said with a confidence that was very close to smugness as he poured himself a glass of wine. “Clinton chose me for my knowledge of the law and my connections, not because I’m a Federalist or Anti-Federalist or any other nonsense.”
“Congratulations, sir,” I said as I retied my apron more tightly about my waist. I glanced from the window to the street, thinking I’d heard the carriage. I was uneasy about Mistress’s return, even if he didn’t seem to be, and I went to restore the mussed coverlet on the bed. “It sounds to be a very grand position for
you.”
“What it sounds to be is a damnable amount of trouble and work, and endless nights in bad inns and country taverns with wretched meals,” he said with far more good humor than his words merited. “The salary is an absolute embarrassment to a gentleman, as it is for all state posts. I’d earn more as a wandering tinker, peddling pans and pots. I’ll also have to contend with that rough old rogue Clinton. But I shall do some good in the state, and that makes it a worthy endeavor.”
I paused, my hands resting at my hips. I knew him far too well to let that bit of foolishness pass unchallenged.
“This post is but a means to an end, sir, isn’t it?” I asked suspiciously. “You’ll only linger long enough to make yourself known throughout the state in all those country taverns. Then you’ll jump to something better, won’t you?”
He laughed, and set down the now-empty glass.
“Mary, my Mary,” he said, hooking his arm around my waist to dance me in a small circle. “Could there be a more clever woman in all this city?”
I scoffed and rolled my eyes toward the ceiling, but I also followed his steps through the little dance that he was humming, my petticoats swinging about my ankles and me smiling in spite of myself.
And later, of course, I realized that once again he hadn’t answered what I’d asked.
* * *
The Colonel’s prediction of how the attorney generalship would be a thankless post proved correct. He was in fact paid next to nothing, or at least that was how Mistress described the four hundred pounds he received each year, a fraction of what he ordinarily earned through his private practice. His hours were long, his work tedious, and I suspect his fellows were often dull and provincial. He was away from his New York home and from us for weeks at a time: in court, speaking before the State Assembly, serving on commissions, and in those bad inns and country taverns.
He wrote almost daily to Mistress and Miss Burr, and to his Prevost stepsons as well. His letters were greeted with great fanfare and arranged along the mantel when they arrived until they were read aloud after supper. Whenever these readings took place, I tried to linger in the parlor on some pretext or another—clearing away the cloth after the meal, trimming the candles on the table, sweeping up the crumbs that had fallen—so that I, too, might hear news of the Colonel, and what he was achieving, or not.
His letters were like he was himself, filled with witty observations and descriptions of the people he met in the course of his days. Knowing the letters would be shared within his family, he clearly wrote for his audience, and I do believe that, had he wished it, he might have pursued another career as a writer of tales and fancies. He could wring amusement from even the driest of courtroom debates, nor was he above turning his pen against himself, either, and wryly making himself a hapless character in the comedy that Albany law and politics seemed to be.
Now I understood why the Colonel could not write directly to me, nor I to him. Like any good lawyer, he was by training loath to put anything into writing that could be misconstrued or maliciously used by others. I understood that I was not his wife. Still I yearned to hear from him myself, a reassurance that Louisa and I had not been forgotten, and that we’d still a place in his thoughts. I wished for a letter, however brief, that was meant only for me.
I knew he wrote them to Mistress. It was clear enough when she’d come to the parts of his letters that were intended for her eyes alone. She’d break off into silence, and smile fondly as she continued reading to herself. Often she’d trace the letters he’d penned with her fingertips, as if by touching the dried ink she could likewise touch their author.
When the Colonel did at last return to the house on Broadway, he was greeted like a hero, and swept away not only into his family, but also by friends and other acquaintances eager for political news and gossip. To the howling displeasure of most New Yorkers, Colonel Hamilton and Mr. Jefferson, the Secretary of State, had made a devil’s bargain to move the federal capital from the City of New York to Philadelphia for the span of ten years, and then to a new capital city to be constructed to the south on the Potomac River. While it appeared that much of the political excitement had departed with President Washington, Congress, and the rest of the federal government, New York’s state and city politics once again surged upward to supply their own peculiar drama.
As attorney general, the Colonel was positioned to know most everyone and everything in the state, and there was rarely a night when he was not out in a tavern with other politically minded men, sharing information and favors. Unlike most Federalists, he didn’t keep the exclusive company of gentlemen like himself, but mingled freely with mechanics, lower merchants, tradesmen, and old soldiers who were veterans of the war. He held the then-unpopular belief that these men had as much a right to be heard within government as did the city’s fine gentlemen, and in many quarters the Colonel’s name and popularity grew. Now whenever I was sent to the market or a shop, I saw that as soon as it was known I’d come from Colonel Burr’s house I received a better cut of beef and an extra dozen eggs, and wide smiles with it.
But with so much to occupy his attentions, there was little time left for the Colonel to spend on me. Our assignations were few and infrequent, most usually long past midnight. He’d come to my little room from one of his public house meetings, smelling of tobacco and liquor. Without lighting a candle, he’d slip into my bed in the dark, and often not even bothering to undress more than halfway. Sometimes he woke Louisa, but most nights she slept through his visits, and when I awoke again in the morning I often wondered if I’d dreamed them myself.
If during this time the Colonel had simply ceased coming to me, I believe I could have forgotten him, and even found myself another man who cared for me as I deserved. I’d my opportunities, too. I was only thirty, and still sufficiently handsome that men were drawn to me whenever I went in public. I might even have found another man I liked well enough to wed.
But the Colonel’s hold remained too strong for me to shake. I do not know why this was so, nor could I explain the reason for it. When he was with me, he was as eager and passionate as ever, and as full of compliments and promises, too, more than enough to fill my thoughts until the next time he appeared.
Did I wish for more of his time and companionship? Did I wish he could be a true father to my daughter, as he was to Miss Burr? Did I wish that he did not have a wife, and that I was a free woman, with the power of choice? Of course; I would not be a woman with a beating heart if it were otherwise. But I tried not to think of what I was missing, and thought instead only of what I did have from him, and nothing beyond that.
Then, finally, after two years of serving dutifully as attorney general, the Colonel received the reward that he’d been seeking all along.
In those days, the senators sent to represent each state in Congress were not elected directly by the people, but were chosen by each state’s assembly and senate. This was perhaps an efficient system, given how difficult a general election was to conduct; nearly four months had been required to tally the votes for President Washington’s election. But it was also a system that was ripe for corruption and manipulation, and Governor Clinton was well experienced in both.
As the Colonel later explained to me, the governor and the rest of his supporters had had enough of Colonel Hamilton’s arrogance. The governor determined that Colonel Burr would be elected as the next senator from New York, replacing the current senator, General Philip Schuyler, who happened to be Colonel Hamilton’s father-in-law. The Colonel won handily over the General, and Mistress held a succession of celebrations in honor of the newest senator from New York.
By all reports, Colonel Hamilton and General Schuyler both were livid. Colonel Burr did not gloat or glory in his triumph, but simply noted that there would be certain persons who would find his election displeasing. In the autumn of 1791, he headed south to Philadelphia to become part of the Second Congress. There he secured lodgings in a respectable house run by a Quaker wid
ow, and cast himself into his new employment. Once again, the women of his life—Mistress, Miss Burr, me, and Louisa—were left behind in New York.
As always, he wrote letters home, describing the splendid city of Philadelphia in great detail, as well as his less-than-splendid fellow senators and the speeches he’d already had to endure. He jeered at the wealthy Federalist hostesses who wished to emulate the royal courts of Europe with their showy displays of silver, jewels, rich dress, and exaggerated manners. He listed the invitations he’d had to dine, and claimed he’d decline them all for lack of the properly opulent clothing.
But there was an undercurrent to these letters that hadn’t been in the ones he’d written while he’d been the attorney general. To me it was clear that while he was a man of importance in New York, he was scarcely noticed in the larger city. He’d few old friends in Philadelphia that he trusted. He resolved to balance the time spent in the Senate chambers with more activity, and went skating upon the river, on which he fell, and thanked the hardness of his head for its preservation. His lodgings were lacking, and he could not sleep. He missed his home and his family.
He was, in short, homesick.
Nor was I the only one who realized it.
“It appears your father is lacking agreeable company, Theodosia,” Mistress announced one evening in March, crisply refolding his latest letter. “I believe he’d be pleased by a visit from us.”
Miss Burr’s eyes widened with delight. “When, Mama? When might we leave?”
“As soon as it can be arranged, pet,” Mistress said, smiling. “True, it’s not the most agreeable season of the year for a journey, but a passage by water should take only a few days at the most. Mary, you will come with us.”
“I, Mistress?” I asked, surprised.
“Yes, yes,” Mistress said. “You can tend both Theodosia and me. From what the Colonel says, his quarters are too confined for me to bring more than a single servant. The others here can look after the house perfectly well.”
The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr Page 42
