The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr

by Susan Holloway Scott

  “At least another ten days of this before we reach Mauritius,” Orianne continued. “That is what the sailors say. And yet that will be only the beginning of this nightmare.”

  I paused, the dripping holystone in my hand. “Isle de France? Is that a city on Saint-Domingue?”

  “I told you, that is only the beginning,” Orianne said. Unlike me, she hadn’t stopped toiling but continued to scrub, stretching out her arms with the stone in her hands, then pulling backward in a rhythm much like rowing a boat. Her brass bangles slid up and down her wrists with the same rhythm, and the hooped rings in her ears struck against her cheeks.

  “Isle de France is another island,” she continued, “and Port Louis is its greatest city. We’ll stop there long enough to take on freshwater and provisions, and then off we’ll be again to the next port, and the next after that.”

  “But what of Saint-Domingue?”

  “It’s a hundred and twenty days away,” she answered grimly. “That is what the sailors say. A hundred and twenty days, or more.”

  A hundred and twenty days! I’d already grown impatient with this voyage of three weeks. Another hundred was too many for me to imagine, and silently I wondered if perhaps the sailors had lied to Orianne.

  But exactly as she (and they) had predicted, on the tenth morning the lookout spied the green island of Isle de France on the horizon, and the Céleste dropped her anchor in the harbor of Port Louis that evening. I knew because Roussel sent word below to Madame and Monsieur and then Madame sent me to the deck to bring her further word. I was eager to accompany them ashore as her poupée, and be rid of the ship for even a day.

  Madame, however, had other plans.

  “You shall remain here, Eugénie,” she said, frowning critically at her reflection in the looking glass. “While Monsieur and I are ashore, you and Orianne will do whatever Roussel requires. Only Estelle will accompany me.”

  “Yes, Madame,” I murmured. My face must have betrayed the disappointment I’d no right to feel, for Madame scowled, and cuffed my ear.

  “Impudent little monkey,” she said, borrowing the name that the sailors called me by. “Did you really believe I’d take you ashore, too? You’re far too shabby to be seen with me.”

  I bowed my head, ashamed. My once-fine silk costume had in fact become shabby and worn from my labors and from the wind and salt water. It didn’t matter that Madame had provided my clothing and thus it was her doing that I’d come to more resemble a street beggar than her pampered poupée. I was the one who had offended her.

  It was the same at the next port we put into for provisioning, and the next after that. I was always left behind, and the days of being a cosseted favorite seemed over. The more scullery work I was given to do, the more bedraggled and dirty my garments became, and the more faults Madame discovered in me as well.

  One afternoon she accused me wrongly of leaving off the stopper of her scent bottle, when I knew she’d done this herself. In her rage, she struck the side of my face with the flat side of her hairbrush. The heavy silver hit me so hard that I fell dazed to my knees on the deck. She’d never hit me like this before, not with the brush instead of her hand. I’d always been quick enough to avoid such a blow, and the fact that I’d been caught unawares was almost as shocking to me as the blow itself. I felt doubly vulnerable. Somehow I struggled back to my feet and finished my task, fighting to keep back tears that I knew from experience would only make Madame strike me again.

  When I finally saw Orianne, after the midday meal, she gasped with shock, but not surprise, and brought me a cold cloth to press against my face. By evening my left eye was swollen shut and my cheek in constant pain from the bruise. I’d no choice but to turn my head to see with my right eye alone, and I could tell from the way other people drew back that my face must indeed have been dreadful to behold.

  Madame, however, acted as if nothing were amiss. The next morning, she set me to polishing that same hairbrush and the rest of the dressing set, by way of making sure I’d remember my punishment. I sat in a corner between the decks and rubbed away the tarnish that salty air had blackened into the flowery whorls of silver. It was not easy work, not with my one eye blurred and weeping, or with fingers clumsy with cold.

  Orianne found me there, her apron a bright square of white linen in the murky light between decks.

  “I have need of you, Eugénie,” she said with her usual brusque manner. “Come with me.”

  I looked down at the dressing set, with half the pieces still to be polished. “I cannot, Orianne,” I said with regret. “Madame—”

  “We will finish the task together,” she said. “With a spot of vinegar on the cloth, the tarnish will wipe away in no time. Now come.”

  I followed Orianne between decks to the ship’s kitchen, called the galley, and a place I’d never before been permitted to visit. The galley was directly beneath the Céleste’s weather deck, with a metal funnel to carry the smoke and sparks upward and safely into the sky overhead. The cooking fire made the galley the warmest place on the entire ship. The heat was a luxury I hadn’t expected, and slowly I felt my always-chilled limbs begin to lose their tension, and relax.

  “Heed what I do,” Orianne said, speaking to me in Tamil so that the ship’s French cook—who was watching us closely—wouldn’t understand. “This is the stove for cooking, called a camboose.”

  The camboose was a large, square box that sat in a shallow tray filled with sand to prevent stray sparks or excessive heat from igniting a fire, the greatest fear on board a vessel made of dry timbers. The cooking fires were contained within the camboose, and round-bottomed pots sat nestled in circular cutouts in the camboose’s iron top. Already the day’s ration of chunks of salted pork and onions that the crew favored were boiling away, an unpleasantly sour stench, and every few minutes the cook jabbed at the bobbing meat with a long-handled fork.

  Orianne was granted one pot for Monsieur’s dinner, off to the far side of the camboose. In a basket to one side were dried lentils and rice, and a newly caught fish with staring flat eyes. Even more important was the large round bronze box with pierced sides and a thick ring on the top of its lid: her treasured masala dabba that I recognized from the old kitchen in Pondicherry. The box was filled with little dishes and compartments for nuts, seeds, roots, barks, and ground powdered spices, each with its own tiny spoon of carved horn.

  I thought of Ammatti’s masala dabba, carved of wood and far more humble than this one, but guarded as fiercely as if it held pure silver and gold. I’d stood as close to the fire as I could whenever she had cooked, breathing in the spicy aroma that gathered and rose with the steam. Ammatti had hummed and swayed gently in time to the slow, wide circles she made with her big spoon through the fragrant mixture, while the trailing end of her saree and her long gray braid swung in matching rhythm. Sometimes she’d sing to amuse me, too, making a nonsense song of the names of the spices she was using. I’d sing with her, and it wasn’t until later that I’d realized it had been her way of making me learn and remember the spices she’d liked best.

  Now I watched Orianne move with the same kind of graceful efficiency, her movements reduced but not hindered by the galley’s small space. It had been many years since I’d helped Ammatti cook, and I tried hard to obey Orianne’s brisk orders to assist her as best I could. As soon as everything was in the pot and simmering, however, it became clear that Orianne had another reason for bringing me here.

  “Madame has wearied of you, Eugénie,” she said, continuing in Tamil as she’d delivered her earlier orders, again so the cook wouldn’t understand.

  “But I have done everything Madame desires,” I said anxiously. “I’ve never given her cause to tire of me.”

  “She would never have struck you if she weren’t,” Orianne said, giving words to what I’d already begun to realize myself. “I’ve seen it before. She craves a new plaything. You are how old now? Ten years?”

  “Eleven.” I understood. From the
first day that I’d been bought, I’d heard of how Madame sold away poupées who’d dared to follow nature and grow. I was still childish in my stature, but already my body was beginning to round into womanhood. Many girls my age were already promised as wives. If my uncle ever thought of me still, he doubtless congratulated himself on being spared the cost of my dowry.

  “Nearly twelve, then,” Orianne said. “Too old to be Madame’s tiny doll. You must know more to remain of value to her and to Monsieur. That is always their greatest concern: how much you are worth to them. Otherwise, you will soon be sold.”

  She crouched down on the deck with the masala dabba on her knees, her long hands curved to hold the rounded sides.

  “They kept me because I can cook to please Monsieur,” she continued, motioning for me to join her. “Anyone can learn to cook that dull French rubbish. To choose and toast and blend the spices for a perfect curry—ah, that is art; that is mystery. But before a cook can do that, she must know every spice like an old friend.”

  She took the merest golden-orange pinch from one of the tiny bowls of ground spices, and held it out before me.

  “Smell it,” she ordered. “Taste it. Consider the color. Tell me which it is.”

  Obediently I opened my mouth, and she touched her fingertip on my tongue. I gasped, overwhelmed. For years my meals had been bland and largely without seasoning of any kind, spiced food being another luxury that Madame deemed too costly to squander on servants. But this tiny taste was enough to draw me instantly back to Ammatti’s cook fire, so keenly that I could almost hear her humming beside me. I blinked back the tears that stung my eyes, but not before Orianne noticed.

  “Fah, is your tongue blind?” Orianne exclaimed. “Must you weep over nothing? Here, try again, and no idle guesses, either.”

  She touched the spice to my tongue one more time, and I tried to focus entirely on the speck of flavor: a curious mix, orange sweetness turning to a half-bitter pungency.

  “Turmeric,” I said.

  Orianne nodded, grudgingly. “Turmeric, yes.”

  I smiled, thinking of how Ammatti would have scolded me if I’d been wrong. “Please, let me try another.”

  “Not now.” Deliberately Orianne closed the lid of the masala dabba, and latched it shut. “We shall have plenty of time for such lessons on the voyage. Becoming a cook cannot be rushed.”

  With a small sigh of disappointment, I sat back on my heels. Being young, I had never pictured myself as a cook, but now I could think of little else. Perhaps in some way, my ammatti was still looking after me. Perhaps within me was her gift for cooking, a way to save myself as well. Orianne was the most valuable and valued of any of the Beauharnais servants. I’d never once seen her beaten or whipped, or even corrected by Madame or Monsieur. To learn from Orianne would not only train me for a new role, but also preserve me from Madame’s temper.

  “My ammatti had a masala dabba, too, though not nearly so fine as yours,” I said shyly, for I never spoke of my past, not even to Orianne. “That’s how I knew the turmeric. I’m sure I can guess more.”

  “I don’t want you to guess,” Orianne said firmly. “I want you to know, by taste and by color as well. That is what your ammatti would have expected from you, too.”

  Orianne gave the round box of spices a final, fond pat, as if it were a living creature.

  “Once I had an ammatti with a masala dabba, too,” she continued quietly, and I realized from her expression that she was also slipping back to the comfort of her past, just as I had done. “So did her ammatti and her ammatti before her. The women in my family were always the best cooks in our village, for weddings, for feasts. Then the French soldiers came. . . .”

  Her voice drifted off, yet I understood.

  “Our grandmothers are part of us,” she said finally. “They remain in our blood and in our memories, and so are the spices they favored.”

  As soon as I’d seen Orianne’s spice box, I’d thought of my ammatti. Perhaps that was the real reason I’d been able to identify the turmeric: the memory, the taste, was in my blood, just as Orianne said.

  Lightly Orianne touched her fingertips to my swollen cheek.

  “This bruise will fade, little one,” she said. “You are strong, and you will heal. Recall that no matter what Madame does to you or to any of us, she cannot steal our memory away. Remember that and you will never forget who you are.”

  * * *

  The farther south the Céleste sailed, and the farther away from balmy Pondicherry, the colder the sea air became. The waves grew rougher, with a wind that howled and worried our ship like a ravening wild beast. From her well-cushioned bunk, Madame wailed as well, convinced that we would all perish, and begged Père Noyer to come say prayers for salvation over her. The sailors called the nearest landfall the Cape of Good Hope, and said that the wildness came from this being the place where two oceans met. To me there seemed nothing either good or hopeful about it. I shivered in near-constant misery from the cold, pulling my sleeves over my hands and huddling my shoulders against the never-ending chill that had burrowed into my spine.

  And yet, in time, our vessel turned to the north. The seas became more calm, the winds more fair, the sun so warm that I was once again at ease in my tattered silk costume. We put into another harbor for provisioning, a city called Saint-Louis that appeared like all the others on our voyage, with a fortress and a cluster of French ships in the harbor. Again, I was left behind with Orianne on board the Céleste, while the others went ashore. We lingered here nearly a fortnight, shifting cargo as well as taking on water and fresh provisions, and then began the final leg of our voyage, across the Atlantic Ocean to Saint-Domingue.

  I overheard all this, yes, but none of it meant anything to me. I’d no sense of geography, or the pattern of the ocean’s currents. I couldn’t comprehend how we’d sailed from one season to the next and back again. I’d lost count of how many days had passed since I’d last felt solid earth beneath my feet, and I hadn’t any notion of how many more days at sea still lay ahead. All I wished was for this endless voyage to be done.

  Five days after the Céleste had cleared Saint-Louis, the weather turned rough, rough enough that once again Madame was groaning and seasick, and soon Estelle was ill as well. Dutifully Orianne and I tended to their needs, but after a few days they seemed to worsen, their skin hot with fever. Roussel ordered us to take Estelle to the lower deck, where we tried to make her as comfortable as we could.

  But Madame was much the sicker. Her pale skin was blotched with an angry rash, her breathing fluttered, and she didn’t recognize us. Orianne summoned the cook in his role as surgeon, who took one look at Madame’s spotted face and backed from the cabin.

  Hastily Monsieur, Roussel, even the great Captain Gagnon were brought together in a solemn consultation before Madame’s cabin door, while Orianne and I were told to stand away.

  “They believe Madame will die,” Orianne said darkly. “Look at them, the cowards. Men can never hide their fear of death.”

  I remembered the night my ammatti had died from winter fever. I’d sat on the floor beside her pallet and held her hand, my little fingers working restlessly into hers as if somehow I could keep her with me. Her skin seemed as hot as fire, and she fought for every breath, a labored, strangled sound that had terrified me. Near the end, Uncle Raul had sent me away to the front room, claiming that I was distressing everyone else with my whimpering. When at last I could creep again to her side, she was gone, cold and stiff with the staring eyes of death.

  “Do you think Madame will die?” I asked Orianne.

  “Perhaps.” She gave the merest disdainful shrug of her shoulders. “If she does, she will at once take her place in her Christian Hell.”

  But as I stood beside Madame’s bunk, I was terrified of how close death seemed to be in that small, hot cabin. I feared not only the presence of death itself, but also that somehow I’d be blamed for it. The cook came to bleed Madame, as was the French practice.
He cut into her white arm with a thin-bladed knife while his mate had held a bowl beneath, and her blood had come thick and slow, as if it somehow had already died.

  I was ordered to stay with her, and to wipe her face and limbs to try to cool the fever that burned her. Again and again I dipped her prized lace-edged handkerchiefs into water of violets, yet still the fever wasted her body, and her flesh sank deeper into her bones. Madame did not know me, and I was so tired that I scarcely knew her. Monsieur never came once to Madame. She had none who’d loved her at her side as she died. All she had was me.

  At the very end, when the tips of Madame’s fingers and toes began to blacken, Père Noyer came and wrapped his beads and cross around Madame’s bony fingers. He read aloud from his holy book in words I didn’t understand, and the instant Madame had stopped her breathing he stopped his reading as well. He was the one who briskly told Orianne and me how to dress the corpse in fine clothes, and stitch her into the bedsheets that became her shroud, with a rusted ball of shot tucked beneath her feet to carry her body to the bottom of the sea.

  The entire crew was summoned to the deck. Monsieur stood between Roussel and Captain Gagnon while Père Noyer recited more prayers. Orianne, Gabriel, and I stood back behind them. Exhausted from my vigil, I clutched Orianne’s hand to keep my feet on the pitching deck, and squinted into sun that seemed far too bright.

  “You have triumphed, little one,” Orianne whispered. “Madame will never again strike you.”

  I tried to feel that triumph, tried to focus on the white bundle with Madame’s corpse, small and ordinary. Four sailors raised the board on which their burden lay, and as they solemnly tipped it over the side and into the waves I sank, too, my head spinning into darkness as I toppled to the deck.