The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr

by Susan Holloway Scott

  “But to separate a mother from her daughter, sir,” I protested. “How can that ever be in their best interests?”

  “In this case it was,” he said, “and the judge and court agreed with me. But that’s quite enough of the woes of the unfortunate Mrs. Reynolds. I’m far more interested in the excellent Mrs. Emmons.”

  He growled against my ear and rolled over atop me, and there’d be no more talk of any kind, not that night. But I could not put the story of Mrs. Reynolds from my head, and I prayed it wasn’t meant to be a lesson against my own uncertain future.

  * * *

  We returned to Richmond Hill as soon as Congress was dismissed for the summer recess. I was overjoyed to be reunited with my children, though saddened to see how much they’d grown in the two months we’d been apart. I hated missing so much as a single day of their lives. For now, I’d no choice. As long as I remained in the Colonel’s service, I must do as he bid. But my heart had wept to hear Peg describe Jean-Pierre’s first shaky steps while holding to the bench in the kitchen, taken while I hadn’t been there to see them.

  For the Colonel and Miss Burr, the return to their country estate was more bittersweet. The attributes of Mistress’s sickroom—the basins for bleeding, the row of medicinal bottles, the discreetly draped clyster—had all been cleared from her bedchamber. At the Colonel’s order, everything else remained as it had been, from her neatly arranged books to the brush and combs on her dressing table, and each day Miss Burr continued to pick flowers for the vase beside her mother’s bed. On occasion I’d observe him in there, too, sitting in the chair near the window as if they were conversing still while she wrote at her little desk, and I’d always steal away and leave him to his sorrow.

  Every person’s grief is different from another’s, and mourning can take many forms. I respected that. I was relieved, however, that the Colonel had not decided to take his wife’s former bedchamber for his own. There was much in our friendship that was not right, but that would have been too far, even for him.

  I do not mean to say that he’d adopted the sentimental pose of the gently grieving widower, withdrawn from society. Far from it. He continued to handle cases at a feverish pace, likely in part to pay for the improvements and furnishings that he was constantly making to Richmond Hill. His entertainments here, in the city, and in taverns when he traveled about the state were known for their prodigious but elegant scale, with guests that included not only friends and acquaintances, but also fellow politicians, high and low, whom he wished to cultivate to further his aspirations.

  More and more these politicians were exclusively Democratic-Republicans, and by the end of that summer I don’t believe he’d invited more than a handful of the old New York Federalists to dine at Richmond Hill. Once Mr. Jefferson had resigned his post as Secretary of State and retired to his own country estate of Monticello, the Colonel was now considered one of their leaders in Congress, the one who made the most important speeches.

  Encouraged by President Washington’s Proclamation of Neutrality, a wishy-washy and cowardly attempt to keep America from supporting the French in a war against Britain, Federalists had continued to reject and berate anything with a French taint.

  Not the Colonel. Since we’d returned from Philadelphia, he had given sanctuary to a French governess named Madame Senat, a refugee from the Terror. Madame Senat was accustomed to teaching only the most nobly born of young French ladies, and she had escaped from Paris with one of her charges, Natalie Marie Louise Stephanie Beatrix Delage de Volude, the daughter of a marquis. This young lady was the exact age as Miss Burr, and the two of them instantly became fast friends. The Colonel saw only the benefits of this acquaintance, and gave over half of his Partition Street house to Madame Senat for the teaching of these young ladies and several others besides. In addition to her usual studies in Greek, Latin, and mathematics, Miss Burr was now expected to perfect her French and her manners under Madame Senat, as well as playing upon the fortepiano and harp. I do not believe I have ever seen her more content, living there in the company of her new friend.

  If Miss Burr was happy to be living in the city among Madame Senat’s other students, I was even more so, because I was able to spend more time with my own daughter. Louisa was nearly six, and I’d already taught her to read and write, much as Miss Burr had at that age. One of Mistress’s favorite books that I’d read aloud to her when she’d been ill had been written by an Englishwoman named Mrs. Wollstonecraft, who believed that learning gave women both strength and contentment, and many other wise things besides. I’d want nothing less for Louisa, and thus encouraged her as best I could to persevere.

  On this particular afternoon, we sat together out of doors at a table I’d had removed from the kitchen to beneath a tree. Peg and I were peeling peaches, the first true crop of the orchard that the Colonel had had planted when he’d first acquired Richmond Hill. Little Jean-Pierre, now two years of age, was curled like a puppy on a coverlet on the grass, while I had Louisa reading a recent copy of the newspaper aloud to us. The paper was spread flat before her, weighted down on the four corners by stones she’d gathered for the purpose. I had placed her on a stool that made her level with the table, but it was so tall that her little bare feet dangled beneath her petticoat, her toes pointing inward toward one another.

  “‘The . . . birth of . . . such a monster . . . in the shape . . . of a calf was . . . remarked by all . . . and-and . . . feared by some as an omen of coming haz-zards,’” she read slowly, swinging her feet in rhythm with every word as she sounded it out.

  “Very good, Louisa,” I said, striving to be encouraging. I knew she was sufficiently clever for this task. It was the desire she lacked. “What follows?”

  She looked up at me without raising her small dimpled chin, her eyes huge and doleful. “That’s all there is, Mama,” she said. “That’s the end. The calf was born in Rye with two heads, and then it died.”

  “But there’s another story below that one, sweet, isn’t there?” I coaxed. “You needn’t stop there.”

  She sighed mightily. “But that’s the end, Mama.”

  “Oh, let the child be, missus,” Peg said. “She’s read more than enough for today. Here, Louisa, take these peaches inside away from the flies, and be sure you put a cloth over them, too.”

  “Yes, Peg.” Obediently she scrambled down from the stool, took the bowl of peaches that Peg handed her, and hurried back toward the house before I could say otherwise.

  Silently I watched her go, the too-long strings of her apron bouncing against her legs.

  My words were better reserved for Peg.

  “She was supposed to read to the bottom of the page, Peg,” I said, not hiding my unhappiness. I hated how my children turned more often to Peg than to me, almost as if she were their true mother. “That was the lesson I’d set. She needs practice.”

  “Begging pardon, missus, but that poor girl reads enough for all of us,” Peg said, undeterred. The blade of the knife in her hand sliced deep into the yellow fruit, the juice sliding over her thumb. “She’s not Miss Burr, and never will be.”

  “I didn’t claim she was, Peg,” I said defensively. “But Louisa is free, and being able to read and write and cipher will help her better herself. She could learn a trade. She could be apprenticed to a mantua-maker, or a pastry-maker, or a cook, or become a housekeeper.”

  Peg’s expression didn’t change, her mouth pursed and her round, sleepy eyes unflinching as the knife in her hand kept circling beneath the skin of the peach in her hand.

  “You keep telling Louisa she’s better than she is, missus,” she said, “and that little girl’ll end up just like you.”

  A short gust of breeze rustled through the leaves overhead like laughter.

  “What do you mean to say, Peg?” I asked sharply, even though we both knew the answer. As a bondwoman and only a maidservant at that, Peg was supposed to answer to me, but she seldom did, from jealousy and disregard. She knew too much of me
and the Colonel. No matter what I did, I’d never be respected until I left this household for another.

  “Whatever you please, missus,” Peg said. “You got your freedom. Colonel Burr don’t own you. Why don’t you leave? Why do you stay and be his whore when—”

  “No more, Peg,” I said sharply, standing so I’d be taller. “No more of that talk.”

  We both heard the sound of a rider’s horse on the road before the house, and we both turned toward it.

  “Look at that,” said Peg, standing, too. “The devil himself comes a-riding.”

  She didn’t wait for my permission to leave, but thrust her knife into another peach and sauntered back toward the kitchen before the Colonel could see us.

  I was standing there still beneath the tree, my hands knotted in frustration, when he joined me.

  “Good day, my dear Mary,” he said as he kissed me in greeting. “What a pleasant place you have for yourself here, with the breeze coming from the river.”

  “It’s much more agreeable than inside the house, sir,” I said, still discomfited by Peg. “I didn’t believe we’d see you from Albany until tomorrow.”

  “I was eager to be home,” he said. “I’ll wash and change my clothes here before presenting myself at Partition Street. How much I’d prefer to stay here, and never be troubled again with Albany or Philadelphia! Though if Schuyler has his wish, I suppose that may happen soon enough.”

  “Does he truly believe he can take your seat from you, sir?” I said, surprised. He could jest all he wished, but I knew how much he relished being a senator and all that came with it. He would be unhappy—very unhappy—to lose his seat. But from all I’d heard and read, the Colonel seemed as secure as any senator, while even with the support of his son-in-law Colonel Hamilton, General Schuyler appeared no more than a disgruntled old gentleman in uncertain health, whining for what he’d lost.

  “Oh, Schuyler has believed that since the day I was first elected, but his indignity is loudest in Albany.” He spotted Jean-Pierre asleep on the grass, smiled, and bent to gather him up into his arms. “Come here, my own little man. Where’s Louisa?”

  “She’s in the kitchen with Peg,” I said, even as my son snugged more closely against the Colonel’s chest, drooling over his sleeve. “You shouldn’t say such things to him, sir, not if you don’t wish it known that you’re his father.”

  “I don’t see anyone else within hearing,” he said mildly, his voice low. He slung one booted leg over the bench to sit with his son, the silver spurs at his heels jingling. “I also believe Jean-Pierre himself isn’t overly inclined to pay me any attention whatsoever.”

  “He listens, and he talks,” I said. “Louisa already asks about her father.”

  “Then I trust you’ve told her what we agreed,” he said, too absorbed in Jean-Pierre to be truly listening to me. “That her father is dead.”

  “I have told her that, yes,” I said. I’d done it, but my conscience had not been easy with giving the Colonel’s bastard my husband’s name. Lucas’s memory didn’t deserve that. “But, sir, if someone else were to tell her otherwise—”

  “Then we shall confront that if it occurs,” he said, fondly stroking the velvety curve of his son’s cheek, as sweet as the peaches piled on the table. “How much my boy has grown in only three weeks!”

  My worries were not so easily assuaged, but I couldn’t help but smile at how tender he was with Jean-Pierre. I had to remind myself that Jean-Pierre was his son, too, his only son. I’d never had a father, and likely because of that I hated to imagine depriving my children of theirs. Already there was no denying that a wordless bond existed between the Colonel and Jean-Pierre, even if it was a bond that could never be acknowledged.

  This was also why I didn’t leave, I thought, watching them together. This was why I often feared I couldn’t.

  He smiled, and patted the bench. “Sit with me, Mary,” he said. “You can’t know how much I’ve missed you, and the pleasure it gives me to know you’ve been waiting here for me.”

  That voice, that voice. He’d the power to persuade the sternest judges, and to make entire juries weep. When it was known he would address Congress, every chair and bench was filled to hear him. Even if he’d said nothing but gibberish, his voice alone had that same power over me. When he spoke of how he’d missed me or how he desired me, I was as helpless as a new lamb, and I’d only grown more susceptible since Mistress had died. That a gentleman as powerful and as wealthy as the Colonel would miss me—me, who had been bought and sold and cast away as worthless—was a lure I never seemed able to resist.

  I’d been peeling peaches, not waiting for him, yet still I sat on the bench beside him exactly as he’d asked. Immediately he reached for me, slipping his hand beneath the hem of my petticoat to lightly caress the inside of my knee. I caught my breath: not from surprise, not from dismay, but from pleasure. I won’t deny it. I’d missed him, too.

  I slid closer to him and our son, and slipped my hand inside his coat and around his waist.

  “My entire journey home, I could think of nothing else but you, Mary,” he said. “You’ve been my pillar these last months. I cannot imagine my life now without you in it.”

  “Oh, sir,” I said softly, and I rested my head against his shoulder. Such sweet words overwhelmed me. How could they not?

  “I’ll need you with me more than ever when Congress convenes,” he said. “It’s not too early to begin planning what you and Theo must bring with us to Philadelphia.”

  I felt as if I’d just stumbled into a trap of my own making. Swiftly I sat upright, the better to see his face.

  “But what of Louisa and Jean-Pierre?” I asked, my heart already knotting in my chest. “Won’t they be coming with us this time as well?”

  “Mary, please,” he said evenly, meeting my gaze without hesitation. “You know how much I’d also wish to have them with us, but lodgings in Philadelphia are always crowded, and far too small for children. Nor will you have time to watch over them, not and accomplish all I’ll need you to do.”

  “But sir—”

  “It’s decided,” he said, more firmly this time. “The children will remain here. Besides, Philadelphia is a dangerous city for fevers in this season of the year. I love them too well to put them at that risk.”

  I was a free woman. I could have refused. I could have said that Philadelphia’s fever season ended with the first frost, before we were due to arrive. I could have asked how he could love our children so well that he’d leave them behind, yet still take Miss Burr with him to endure an equal risk. I could have told him that if he refused me my children, then I would leave his employ, and take myself, and them, elsewhere.

  I could have been strong, and left him then.

  Instead, I bowed my head and fought back my tears, and as I watched him cradle our son in the crook of his arm I forced myself to think, the way Mrs. Wollstonecraft might have wished me to do.

  “You’re right, sir,” I said, striving to sound as confident as I could. “If you’re to gather the Democratic-Republicans in Congress around you to help preserve your seat, you will scarcely rest a moment this session. You must host dinners and suppers and general meetings, and perhaps even a small ball. Your table must be excellent, to inspire confidence, though not so luxurious that you’re mistaken for a Federalist. You should keep a conveyance, a small chaise at the very least, with Thomas to drive and Alexis as your footman.”

  He nodded, and smiled, clearly pleased that I could anticipate so many of his wishes.

  “Exactly, Mary,” he said. “How glad I am to see that you understand what will be necessary.”

  “Oh, I do, sir,” I said. “Beginning at the Hermitage, Mrs. Burr trained me well in these matters.”

  In the way of young children, Jean-Pierre woke abruptly, in a disagreeable mood and with a two-year-old’s temper. He blinked and scowled up at the Colonel, then twisted around to shove against him with both his chubby small feet before letti
ng out a grumpy yowl. Startled, the Colonel looked to me for assistance. I stood, and I leaned across to take Jean-Pierre from him. Deftly I put our son to my shoulder, rubbing his back and murmuring wordlessly to calm him. Soon he’d be too old and too large for me to hold like this, but for now he was still my baby boy.

  “How fortunate I am to have you at my side, Mary,” the Colonel said with good-natured relief. “You’ll be indispensable during this next session, when I shall require your talents.”

  I smiled as I swayed back and forth with the baby in my arms, the best ally I could have at that moment.

  “You know I always do my best for you, sir,” I said softly, gently, for I’d already made my point. “But in return, I believe I should also receive a greater recompense for my services.”

  He narrowed his eyes, suddenly wary. “I pay you twelve pounds per annum with lodgings for you and your children as my housekeeper now, don’t I?”

  “Our children,” I said. “They are not to be included in this, Aaron.”

  I dickered over every price I paid in shops and markets. I told myself this would be no different with the Colonel, though of course it was.

  “Our children,” he repeated. His expression didn’t change.

  “Given all you expect of me,” I said, “I do not believe that twenty pounds per annum would be amiss.”

  I knew how much he paid his tailor, his bookseller, his cabinetmaker, and his physician, as well as Miss Burr’s tutor, her dancing master, and her harp teacher. What I asked was little enough in comparison.

  I knew how much I was worth to him.

  And for the first time, I believe he was realizing it as well, and not just as a pretty compliment.

  “Twenty pounds, then,” he said finally. “Now take the boy to Peg, and join me upstairs. I’ve only a half an hour before I must leave for Partition Street.”