My Theodosia

by Anya Seton

  The British had been secretly inciting the Indians to revolt; they had attacked American ships; they had kidnaped four thousand American seamen and impressed them into the British Naval Service; besides this they had instituted a virtual blockade of American waters. The South felt that these conditions were intolerable and was clamoring for war. New England held that compromise was possible. President Madison also endeavored to stem the rising tide of public hysteria. But the old enmity and jealousy caused by the War of Independence sprang up again. Twenty-nine years had not been long enough to lay them permanently.

  Aaron had little love for the America which had cast him out, but none at all for England which had done the same. He stood upon the Aurora's deck and watched the gray line of land fade into the horizon.

  'I hope never to visit England again,' he said to the kindly captain, who had finally consented to ship this inconvenient and unpopular passenger, ' except at the head of fifty thousand men. Insula inhospitabilis, as it was truly called eighteen hundred years ago.'

  Captain Potter grunted. 'I hope this tarnation war don't catch us in mid-ocean. The Aurora will be captured sure. She's none too fast.'

  Aaron laughed. 'Have no fear. Our present administration will never declare war. We are totally unprepared. We have neither men nor money, and I believe but twenty warships. I treat the country's war prattle as I should that of a bevy of boarding-school misses. Show them a bayonet or a sword and they will run and hide.'

  He was wrong. War was declared between England and the United States on June eighteenth, but by that time the Aurora was safe in Boston Harbor.

  The Aurora was safe, but Aaron was not. The government prosecutions still hung over him. Two of his largest creditors in New York held judgments against him: it was necessary not to be recognized until they could somehow be appeased. So Aaron borrowed an old-fashioned wig and clothes that were too large for him. A rather shabby Mr. Arnot slipped back into his country in much the same way that Mr. Edwards had sneaked out of it four years before. This was not the triumphant return they had pictured, he and Theo. But at least he was back on the same continent with her. Let him once reach New York and their meeting would not be long delayed.

  Aaron hid for some weeks in Boston and then decided on a bold move. A letter from Samuel Swartwout in New York encouraged him. The Government was far too busy with its war to bother about a penniless exile. Even his creditors might be kept quiet for a time. So Aaron sold his few remaining books to Harvard College to secure passage money and sailed for New York. He took lodging on Nassau Street and hung before the door a modest tin sign bearing only his name. He inserted a line in the newspapers, saying, ' Aaron Burr has returned to this city and resumed the practice of law'. Then he settled back to await results.

  These were highly gratifying at first. Clients flocked to him. People were curious; they reminded each other that, after all, he had been acquitted. Anyway, it was all years ago. Even the duel was no longer interesting, and whatever else little Burr might or might not be, no one had ever questioned his legal ability. The creditors stayed their hands while they waited to see whether he could make some money.

  Aaron's spirits soared at once. On the strength ot two thousand dollars in fees he wrote exultantly to Theodosia. They would buy back Richmond Hill. Everything should be as it used to be. 'These dark hours through which we have passed will be all forgot, ' he wrote. 'They are forgot already. You and Gampy and I will yet realize our glorious future. I await your arrival with the utmost impatience. Kiss the boy for me and tell him that I have many little gifts with which to amuse him. As for you, hussy, I have bought you some topaz earrings. You will be a veritable houri in them.'

  He mailed this letter on June thirtieth and walked buoyantly back to his dingy little law office.

  The letter reached Theo two weeks later at Debordieu Island. She lay on the bed in the octagonal back room of the beach cottage. She lay utterly still, her unwinking gaze fixed upon the boards which formed the ceiling.

  Joseph brought the letter to her. He knelt down beside the bed and put it gently in her hand. Her fingers did not move and it slipped to the sheet.

  ' It's from your father, Theo. 'His voice held a new softness, his heavy face was drawn and haggard.

  'From Father?' she questioned vaguely. 'Read it to me'. She turned her head painfully on the pillow. Her eyes, no longer swollen with weeping, but expressionless as black glass, rested on him quietly.

  'I don't want to read it,' he cried hoarsely. 'He doesn't know.'

  She reached for the letter, holding it between her fingers. 'No, poor Father. He doesn't know about Gampy. He doesn't know Gampy's dead'. She gave a small high laugh. 'I didn't think I'd ever be able to say that. It doesn't seem to mean anything any more. Isn't that queer?'

  Joseph got up and poured a glassful of medicine from the bottle by the bed. He held it to her docile lips and she drank unquestioningly. Then he called Eleanore.

  The maid ran in, her black wool dress hanging slack upon her once ample body, her eyes rimmed with red. 'Elle est pire, monsieur?' she whispered.

  He nodded. 'She is more feverish.'

  He walked through the house onto the porch. The ocean lay there in front of him, quiet and gray-blue in the twilight. He dropped down on a step and stared at it dully.

  There must be someone who could help her. He could not reach her. During the first ghastly days after the little boy died, the women of his family had been there—Mrs. Alston and Sally and Polly. She had refused to see them, as she refused to leave the room where the child had died.

  Gampy was buried at the Oaks in the family burying ground. Joseph had understood her anguished refusal to be present when the small coffin was placed, but he had tried to persuade her to go to the burial service with the family. All Saints' Parish Church had been beautiful with flowers, and the words of the service had given him a little comfort. They might have helped her too. But she would not go.

  There had been wild grief at first, an agony of tears, far less terrifying than this devastating quiet that had now settled on her. Day after day she lay on the bed, gently answering when spoken to, but without will or life of her own. Sometimes, when Joseph tried to rouse her, she gathered herself together as though she listened. But not to him—straining for some voice he could not hear, when all that broke the silence was the monotonous crash of the surf.

  Gampy's illness had been so cruelly short. He came into the house from playing on the sands and his teeth were chattering, his small body shaking with chill.

  'It is the ague again,' said Theo, troubled but not really anxious. 'He should not have ridden back to the plantation with you last week. Even in the daytime, there is fever about. '

  'Give him the Peruvian bark,' said Joseph.

  'I think not'. She put her hand on the child's head, frowning. 'I don't believe that bitter concoction does any good, and he hates it. I shall try calomel.'

  'The bark is better,' argued Joseph irritably. 'All the family use it for chills and fever. '

  'And does it stop them?' she asked. 'The agues go for a while, but they come back. I believe that stuff is useless.'

  He did not persist. It was true that the swamp fever came and went. Gampy had had it before. This time it did not go. The fever rose higher until the child's body was like a red coal to the touch. The chills became ever more violent and the lull after them brought no respite. And now Theo in a frenzy of fear used all the remedies she had ever heard of. They dispatched servants to Georgetown for a doctor. He came too late, and if he had not, thought Joseph, what more could he have done?

  At dawn of the third day Gampy, who had been mumbling incoherently, opened his eyes and smiled up at Theodosia.

  ' Do you remember Wabasha?' he whispered, ' and the white bird, Mama?'

  Joseph thought the child still delirious, as he had been for hours, and could not understand Theodosia's sharpened terror, the anguish of her voice which she strove to steady.

  'D
on't think about such silly things now,' she murmured, holding the little boy closer.

  His fever-brilliant eyes looked up at her with the same unchildish earnestness. 'I sec the white bird. He's beautiful'

  'No, darling,' she cried violently. 'There's nothing here. Your sickness makes you fancy things.'

  Gampy shook his head. 'It is, you know,' he said softly. 'I'm not afraid, Mama. You mustn't be—cither'. He sighed once and his eyes closed.

  Joseph had started forward in answer to Theo's frantic cry, but the child turned his head upon her breast and was still.

  Joseph rose and paced heavily up and down the strip of shale before the house. The coarse beach grass tangled around his legs. He swore and kicked at it in a futile rage. He was sick at heart and riven with pity for Theodosia. If he could have helped her, he would have stayed. But she didn't want him or anyone, and he longed to be out of this house of painful memory. He had work to do.

  The month before he had been embroiled in an unpleasant matter. The country was seething with war preparations, and he had been elected to the command of the Sixth Brigade. To his rage the officers who were to serve under him had dared to write an open letter of protest to the Charleston papers. They questioned the legality of his election, hinting that he had bought his commission, and wound up with the long-delayed thunderbolt: 'The reports in circulation against you as having knowledge of, and agency in, Burr's conspiracy would deter us from serving under you.'

  He had answered hotly, denying all knowledge of the conspiracy, but the rumors had persisted. His officers were insubordinate, and matters looked none too hopeful for the gubernatorial campaign on which he was embarking.

  Aaron's return to the country disquieted him. What new embarrassment might he not suffer from his father-in-law's presence? Still, for Theo's sake, he was glad. If anything on earth could rouse her, he knew that her father could. And Aaron must be told.

  Joseph, who had little imagination, nevertheless realized the bitter shock that the loss of the little grandson would be, and he wrote to Aaron as simple and human a letter as he had ever written in his life, and he held the letter until Theodosia was well enough to add a few words.

  He brought her writing-desk and pen to her bedside. 'You must write your father, Theo.'

  She turned on the pillow. 'I know. I've been thinking of him. But everything goes well for him now. He is happy.'

  'All the same you must tell him.'

  She took the pen which he put in her fingers with the same mindless obedience she had shown since the day of Gampy's burial. He watched her painfully forming words, and while she did so, her strained body again held an attitude of listening: uncanny and heart-rending. She wrote as though she scarce knew what her hand was doing. He took the letter from her, half-afraid to see wild gibberish there. But there was none.

  A few miserable days past, my dear father, and your late letters would have gladdened my soul; and even now I rejoice at their contents as much as it is possible for me to rejoice at anything; but there is no more joy for me; the world is a blank. I have lost my boy. My child is gone forever. He died on the thirtieth of June. My head is not now sufficiently collected to say anything further. May Heaven by other blessings make you some amends for the noble grandson you have lost.

  She handed Joseph the letter, turned her face to the wall, and relapsed into quiet.

  After a few weeks she began to get up a little. She wandered around the cottage or out onto the beach. Sometimes she sat for hours looking out over the ocean. It was impossible to walk £ar: she tired at once. Though she ate a little food when they brought it to her, she grew emaciated. The small bones jutted from beneath the skin that had been so white and now was tinged with yellow. At times she was possessed of a great thirst which nothing would quench. But when the apothecary from Georgetown forbade her to consume so much water, she obediently tried to limit herself.

  'She has renal disfunction,' said the apothecary, and fed her quantities of mercury. She accepted this as she did everything else. What did it matter? Only out of the shadowy borderland there gradually crystallized one human desire: to get back to Aaron. He will not like me like this, she thought sadly. He hates disease and ugliness. And she made more decided efforts to get well. Tomorrow perhaps I can start, she thought. But it was apparent to everyone that she could not stand the journey.

  The days slipped by. Beyond her little island the States resounded with war. The American Navy accomplished a series of brilliant victories. On August nineteenth the frigate Constitution demolished the British Guerrière. The country roared delight and saw hope of annexing Canada, a prize for which it yearned.

  Joseph, now safe in his command, a brigadier general, unpopular with his men, but protected by unquestionable authority, caught the infection. He saw himself a military genius, assailing Quebec, as Aaron had done years before in another war with England. He alternated hopefully between Columbia and Charleston, now promoting his possible military glory, now his political aspirations. For it began to seem as though his chances of being elected Governor were brightening. He mourned for his son and worried about Theodosia, but he was caught up by the bustle of activity, and the pangs were dulled.

  No bustle touched Theo now, however. Day by day she slipped farther from reality. Dreams were her companions. Sometimes she talked with Merne, sometimes with Gampy. She was not often unhappy. Sometimes, when she looked at the ocean, she thought of how delicious its cool gray waters would feel about her body. The coolness and the peace would support her like the softest bed. One could drift and cease to struggle. Father would scold me for morbid fancies, she thought. And she saw him suddenly: his brilliant, mocking eyes softened to tenderness, his voice hiding his anxiety with bantering tone, as it would be now, if he were with her:

  'For shame, Miss Prissy. Sickly vapors and megrims. You must accept what comes in life, since you cannot alter it. Where is your courage?'

  'Oh, Father,' she whispered, 'how am I to get to you?'

  For an instant her brain worked clearly, as it had not in months. Why was she still down here separated from him—the only being who held her to life?

  She had not long to wait. Aaron in New York had been delayed in sending for her by a combination of circumstances. He could not come himself; though New York had accepted him on sufferance, he dared not risk arrest elsewhere. The war, too, made arrangements difficult. Money after the first short burst of prosperity was again scarce. And Joseph, to whom he wrote increasingly peremptory letters, was not helpful, writing that Theo's health did not admit of moving her, that she could not make the journey alone, and that he himself could not leave the Carolinas as yet.

  In this dilemma Aaron turned to Timothy Green, physician and his former agent, the Timothy Green who had served him well in South Carolina before the election of 1800. Aaron used all his persuasive powers, invoked old friendship and promised liberal reward—sometime—if Green would under take the journey. Timothy Green was now an old man nearing seventy, disinclined to move from home. But he accepted the commission at last and arrived on the Waccamaw Neck on the third of December, having previously visited Joseph in Columbia and told him of Aaron's proposed arrangements.

  Joseph was not pleased. 'It was unnecessary for Colonel Burr to send an emissary to bring Theo,' he told Green angrily. 'Mrs. Alston is not fit to travel, and if she were, I or one of my brothers would take her.'

  Green was embarrassed by his reception and he conceived an instant dislike for this overbearing man with disagreeable manners, but he persisted politely.

  'Colonel Burr is very much alarmed by reports of Mrs. Alston's health. Indeed, she has not been well enough to write to him. I have some medical knowledge and can care for your lady on her journey. Colonel Burr feels that she will do better up North with him.'

  Eventually Joseph gave in. 'If she wishes to go, you may make suitable arrangements. I cannot come to the Waccamaw until after the election next week. You will scarcely find passage by then
, anyhow.'

  And with this grudging permission, Green proceeded to Debordieu. He was horrified by his first sight of Theodosia, whom he remembered as a gay pretty girl. When he entered the beach cottage, she was lying in a chair in the front room, gazing out through the window at the ocean. Had it not been for her beautiful hair, which was bunched on top of her head with no regard for fashion, he would scarcely have recognized her.

  Theo turned at his step and gazed at him quietly without surprise. This woman is very ill, he thought, dismayed, as he advanced smiling.

  'Greetings, Mrs. Alston. I am Timothy Green, do you remember? I come from your father. I am to bring you to him.'

  Her eyes closed as though the effort of seeing him hurt her. then opened again.

  'I'm glad,' she said slowly. 'I want to go to him. He's all I have now, you know. The others have gone: the others that I love.'

  You have a husband left, madam, thought Green, but after seeing him, I'm not surprised you don't count him.

  ' How soon can we go?' she asked, in the same faint voice that seemed to come from far inside her, pushing past her lips with effort.

  He pulled up a chair and put his fingers on her pulse. It was weak and rapid. 'As soon as we can find safe passage. But you must get stronger first. Your father will be distressed to see you so spiritless.'

  The shadow of a smile curved her pale mouth. She straightened. 'Yes, I must get better quickly. He likes to see me healthy and gay. I mustn't be a drag on him, especially now that he is so successful again. He is at Richmond Hill, I suppose. It comforts me to think of him restored to all his honor, once more taking his rightful place amongst the highest in the land.'

  Green stared at her astounded, then turned away in embarrassment. Incredible that she should believe that Burr might ever be restored to Richmond Hill. The poor fellow was barely kept from debtors' prison by the constant efforts of his remaining friends. The first demand for his professional services had subsided. He was living, to put it bluntly, on charity of one sort or another. He missed many a meal, unless people asked him out. Though Burr would never brook a hint of sympathy, it was sympathy or pity which he now inspired. It was pity which had persuaded Green to set out on this increasingly uncomfortable commission.