The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr

Home > Other > The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr > Page 10
The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr Page 10

by Susan Holloway Scott


  I longed to hear more, know more, understand more, and the key to all of it seemed to be Lucas Emmons. Who was he, to be able to travel so freely and carry such important news?

  I’d my answers within a fortnight. Mistress had invited several friends from the surrounding neighborhood for an evening of music, one of her favorite entertainments. While Mistress herself played the fortepiano, her guests played the fiddle, the flute, or sang. One of these guests was Captain Vervelde, who Mistress gaily declared possessed the finest baritone west of the North River. I was at the front door to take his hat and heavy cloak, both lightly dusted with new snow, when he arrived, and as I carried them down the hall Hetty passed me with a tray of refreshments.

  “Go to the kitchen, Mary,” she said. “Chloe has need of you there.”

  I entered the kitchen just as the back door opened, and with a little flurry of snow Lucas Emmons entered as well. He was tall and thin and loose-limbed, with heavy-lidded dark eyes that were filled with wisdom. I saw that at once. Truly wise men are rare, and they stand out from others. He was dressed in a heavy green coat laced with red trim and a black cocked hat with a red rosette, the livery of the Vervelde family, and snowflakes sparkled on his shoulders.

  “Good day to you, Lucas,” Chloe said, barely glancing up from the pots and skillets on her fire. “Warm yourself if you please, but keep from my way, else you’ll find yourself tumbled into the coals.”

  He laughed, and shook the now-melted snow from his hat. “You always offer a warm welcome to a traveler, Chloe.”

  Chloe straightened, her hands at her waist. “Cap’n Vervelde is daft to drive out on a night like this. I’ve dandelion tea if you need something to warm yourself.”

  “Thank you, Chloe,” he said, sitting on the bench to one side of the fire. He’d high, sharp cheekbones, and the warm firelight played and danced across the taut skin. I guessed him to be about thirty years old, a solemn and well-grown man in his prime. “This snow won’t amount to much, and the Captain wouldn’t miss a night with the ladies. Besides, there’s no telling how much longer he’ll be welcome in this house.”

  “The both of you,” Chloe retorted. “Mistress will always stand loyal to His Majesty on account of Master serving the army. All your rubbish-talk against the king is just that—rubbish-talk—and won’t do anything but put your cap’n and yourself into gaol.”

  “It’s already more than talk,” he said, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. “Haven’t you been listening to me? Don’t you hear when Caesar and I read the newssheets? It’s been three years since British regulars murdered innocent men and boys in the street in Boston, and all that came from that is more soldiers in our midst. Things have to change, and there are more and more of us determined to do what we must.”

  Chloe shook her head as she furiously stirred the chocolate sauce in one of the pots. “That’s Boston, Lucas. That’s not here. That’s not us.”

  “One of the men killed in Boston was black, Chloe, as black as you or I,” he said, his deep voice rumbling with emotion. “You can’t pretend otherwise. It will happen, and it will happen here in Hopperstown as well as Boston and New York and Philadelphia.”

  “Rubbish-talk.” With both hands wrapped around a thick cloth, Chloe lifted the pan from the crane and marched it to the table. In a single practiced motion, she trickled the chocolate across the little diamond-shaped custard tarts that stood waiting on a wide porcelain plate. She gave an extra swipe of the cloth to clear away a smudge on the rim, then looked up to me.

  “What are you gaping at, Mary?” she asked crossly. “You’re not hearing anything you need to know. Now go, take these out to the sideboard, and stand there to one side in case Mistress needs you.”

  I hated to leave the kitchen and this conversation, but I’d no choice. Carefully I took the plate from the table, and glanced one more time at Lucas, who was standing over the fire to ladle Chloe’s yellow-green dandelion tea into a tin cup. To a man like him, I was likely only an insignificant little girl, if he’d taken notice of me at all.

  Dutifully I carried the cakes to the sideboard in the parlor and waited against the wall while Mistress played and her sister sang. All the while I thought of what Lucas had said, about freedom and a rebellion that, to him, was inevitable.

  I studied the ten men gathered in the room before me—half in uniform, half not—and wondered which of them would remain loyal to the king if a rebellion did come, and which would choose the side of those who sought freedom.

  Freedom.

  “Take away the empty plates, Mary,” Mistress said to me. “Tell Chloe the sliced fruit in the punch needs replenishing as well.”

  I nearly ran back to the kitchen, the plates clattering together in my hands. To my dismay, the bench where Lucas had been sitting was empty.

  “Has Lucas gone?” I asked as I set the plates on the table.

  Chloe and Hetty both frowned at me, then glanced at each other.

  “He’s where he should be, out with Captain Vervelde’s horses,” Chloe said. “Not that that’s any concern of yours, Mary, not when—”

  But I was already outside without a shawl or cloak against the cold, running across the yard to the open shed where the horses and carriages of the mistress’s guests took shelter. It wasn’t hard to find the carriage and driver that I sought. Painted green like his servants’ livery, Captain Vervelde’s chaise was the last in the row, lit by the single lantern that hung from the beam. Lucas stood between the two horses, stroking their noses with his gloved hands.

  “Lucas Emmons,” I said breathlessly. “What you said before in the kitchen, about liberty and freedom and a war that’s coming whether we wished it or not. Was that true?”

  “I don’t recall speaking of war,” he said slowly. “But as for the rest, yes. It’s true. I don’t speak anything that isn’t.”

  I nodded my head furiously, hopping from one foot to another. It was cold outside in only a short gown and petticoat, and I tucked my hands beneath my arms to keep them warm. Too late I regretted the impulse that had brought me here—what a little ninny he must judge me to be!—but I’d come this far, and I wouldn’t shrink away now.

  “I know I wasn’t born in this colony, and I haven’t been here very long,” I said in a rush. “But I want to hear more, learn more, know more, and I want to—to be ready. The newspapers you’ve brought here from New York—would you teach me to read them?”

  At first he didn’t answer, concentrating instead on the horses’ noses while I shivered and hopped about and generally felt like more and more of a fool.

  “You’re the girl Major Prevost brought from Saint-Domingue, the one they called Mary,” he finally said. “You’re the one Chloe says was so cut up by the French overseer.”

  I flushed and nodded, wishing he knew of me for some other reason than the scars on my back.

  He nodded, too. His shadow was long across the patchy snow, closing the distance between us.

  “I’ll return on Sunday,” he said. “If you want to learn of freedom that badly, Mary, then I’ll make certain you will.”

  CHAPTER 6

  The Hermitage

  Hopperstown, Province of New Jersey

  1773

  Heavy snow kept Lucas from returning to the Hermitage that Sunday, and the Sunday after that. I fretted with disappointment, even as I knew he would be a man of his word. He was, too. By the third Sunday, there was enough of a thaw that the roads were passable and he could walk the four miles from Captain Vervelde’s place to the Hermitage.

  He appeared at the kitchen door in the afternoon, in an old brown coat and a roughly knitted cap instead of elegant livery, though his thick curling hair was still neatly clubbed with a leather strap at the nape of his neck. I’d forgotten how tall he was, and how he had to duck his head to clear the head of the doorway.

  It had been an easy day for us in the house, with Mistress and her family having gone to sup with friends after attending church.
The rest of us had walked back together, and now sat in the kitchen to relish the warmth of the fire.

  Sunday was the only day of the week when we were permitted to take our ease and enjoy light tasks for our own use. I was spinning wool for the purpose of knitting. Hetty had been amazed by how quickly I’d taken to spinning. By comparison to the cobweb-fine cotton I’d once spun in Pondicherry, this thick wool seemed to spin itself between my fingers and onto my spindle.

  Chloe was mending an old apron, and Caesar was drowsing, his arms folded over his chest and his head nodding heavily forward. No wonder, then, that we welcomed the diversion Lucas offered. Caesar and Chloe greeted him warmly, while I kept my own excitement to myself. He conversed first with them, sharing news of people from other farms whom I did not know. I listened and waited and tried not to fidget, silently hoping that he hadn’t forgotten his promise to me, or dismissed it as inconsequential.

  But at last he took a newssheet from his pocket and spread it on the table, carefully smoothing the creases flat with his palm.

  “There, Mary,” he said, the first time he’d acknowledged me that afternoon. “Choose whatever item you wish, and read it aloud to us.”

  “What are you about, Lucas?” Caesar asked, curious. “Don’t shame our little Mary over nothing.”

  “I’m not shaming her,” Lucas said. “When I was here last, she asked for me to help her learn. There’s no shame to that.”

  Blushing at the attention, I put down my spindle and went to stand at the table, and stared down at the open sheet. In those days, a newspaper truly was a single paper or sheet, printed into four pages, with as many words packed into the columns as was possible on account of the costliness of paper. I wanted to do well to impress Lucas and the others, but the letters were small and dense with ink, row upon row of them, and very different from the humble child’s primer that had been my only other experience.

  In desperation my gaze landed upon one of the few pictures in the sea of words, a small, crude woodcut much like the ones that had filled the primer. The picture showed a woman hurrying along with a bundle, and I hoped that if I faltered on the words that picture might offer me a clue, the way that the pictures had in the primer.

  I put my finger beneath the first word to keep my place.

  “‘No,’” I began, sounding out the letters the way the Quaker gentleman had instructed. “‘No-tyce. No-tice. Notice’!”

  I grinned, pleased that I’d managed to untangle at least one word.

  Lucas nodded. “Go on.”

  “‘Run ah-wah-yy,’” I continued slowly, sounding out most words, but recognizing others. “‘Run away. From. Her. Maa-stt-er. Run away from her master.’”

  I frowned, the meaning of the little picture suddenly becoming clear.

  “That’s plenty of reading for now, Mary,” Chloe said quickly. “Fine reading, too, but no more.”

  “Let her finish,” Lucas said, his voice firm. “She won’t learn anything by quitting now. Read to the thick line at the bottom, Mary.”

  “I’ll finish,” I promised. “I won’t stop.”

  Part of me wanted to. I could guess what more I’d read before I was done, but now that I’d begun I didn’t want to disappoint Lucas. I went on, slowly, carefully, taking my time to find the sense in each painful word by speaking it aloud, until I could read it all from beginning to end.

  NOTICE

  Run away from her master, on the fourth instant. A negro wench HANNAH, aged about 15, speaks good English, of slender make and middling height. Her back is much scarred from whipping. Carried with her a coarse blue and white chintz gown, a strip’d petticoat, a red broadcloth cloak, new black cloth shoes, and other good clothes stolen from this house. Whoever returns her to the Subscriber shall have Two Dollars Reward, and all charges paid by JOSEPH LINVILLE.

  When I finally finished, the only sounds in the kitchen were the pops and cracks of the fire in the hearth and the constant slow drip of melting snow from the eave outside. I continued to stand by the side of the table, and traced my fingers lightly over the words I’d read.

  I’d longed to read and learn more about liberty, freedom, and bravery, the things that Lucas had spoken of before. This notice wasn’t what I’d expected. I should’ve known rewards like this were offered for slaves who ran away.

  Seeing the notice printed there in the newspaper, in words that I could read for myself, was a raw and aching reminder of my own history. The satisfaction I’d felt earlier over my accomplishment before the others no longer mattered. Instead, my only thought was for Hannah, who’d run away from her master with scars on her back.

  “Thank you, Mary,” Lucas said. “That was good reading.”

  I shook my head, not looking up.

  “I hope Hannah ran clear away,” I said vehemently. “I hope they never catch her.”

  “Some do,” Lucas said. “Mark and Sary did.”

  “Mary doesn’t know about them,” Chloe said quickly. “Didn’t see the purpose in telling her.”

  “Ah.” Lucas frowned. “Then I will. Mark and Sary belonged to your Mistress and Master, and they ran away before you came. Major Prevost offered a reward for them like this, too, but they were never found, nor taken.”

  I nodded, though for once I wished he hadn’t told me what I hadn’t known.

  “I am not surprised,” Lucas continued, “for Mark is a brave, resourceful man. God willing, he and Sary are free and happy.”

  “God willing,” Chloe echoed. She turned back toward me and tapped her fingers on the advertisement I’d just read. “If this little girl Hannah was quick and clever like Mark and Sary, and had friends that was already free to help her, then she could’ve gotten herself away and safe.”

  “I didn’t.” I’d never before spoken of my own past to them. Now I couldn’t help myself, the words coming fast in a rush of bitterness and regret. “I tried to run away. I tried over and over. I never went far. They always caught me, and beat me for it. When I wouldn’t stop trying, they put a collar around my neck, and then they chained me at night to my mistress’s bed. And I . . . I stopped running, because I couldn’t.”

  Chloe came to stand beside me, her arm around my shoulder.

  “Poor little duck,” she murmured, holding me close. “What a share of misery you’ve had.”

  I know she thought I’d cry. But at that time in my life, I’d already wept so much that I felt as if my sorrows were too much a part of me, like the scars on my back and around my throat. They couldn’t be soothed over with the pat of a hand. My sorrows were buried so deep that they’d be impossible to separate and mourn with tears.

  Yet Lucas understood. I could tell by how he didn’t try to comfort me, but only nodded once.

  “We all do what we can, Mary, and what we must, no matter what others do to us,” he said. “We must try, always try. Continue that path and you will find your own reward, whether in this life, or the next.”

  Chloe’s arm tightened protectively around me. An ungrateful part of me didn’t want her protection or, worse, believed I’d no need of it.

  “Don’t tell her things like that, Lucas,” Chloe said. “If she tries to run like Mark and Sary—”

  “I didn’t say she should,” he said.

  “Then I don’t know what you said,” Chloe said angrily, and I sensed her anger included much more than Lucas alone. “Anyone else who tries to run from Mistress now wouldn’t even get free of this county. This time Mistress’d have soldiers on horses and dogs after them so fast to make sure they was brought back.”

  Lucas frowned, rubbing his forefinger over his cheekbone. “That’s not what I meant. There’s other ways to freedom besides running away.”

  “Maybe there was for you,” Chloe retorted. “Not for the rest of us, specially not for us women. The world is unfriendly enough without your nonsense.”

  “Forgive me, Chloe, but what Lucas says is true,” I said slowly. “Besides, he didn’t make me read that notice. I
chose it. I read it. He didn’t.”

  “You did at that.” Lucas rose, and reached out to slide the newssheet away from me. Before I could protest, he’d refolded the paper and tucked it back inside his waistcoat. “I should leave now. The Captain is traveling in the morning, and he’ll want everything ready and done tonight.”

  “Please don’t leave yet,” I said quickly. “I wanted to read about change and freedom and all those other things that you said before were in the newssheets from New York.”

  He pulled his cap over his ears and smiled as he unlatched the door. “That’s what you did read, Mary. You might not have realized it, but you did.”

  And I had. The more I thought of what Lucas had said, the more I realized how right and wise he’d been. He couldn’t have guessed that I’d choose to read the runaway notice, but once I had he’d made me see that the lesson to be learned was much more than simply sounding out letters and words.

  I came to understand this more clearly every time that Lucas returned to the Hermitage. From him, I learned the geography of the American colonies, of Boston to the north and Philadelphia, Williamsburg, and Charleston to the south. I learned that fiery speeches and protests were being made in all these places, but only in Boston had blood already been shed. And I also heard for the first time the notion of free white men who believed themselves in bondage because of taxes, not actual chains or whips, something that even Lucas could not fully explain.

  In my short life, I had never been blessed with a father, a brother, or an uncle who had cared to view me as a worthy person. Before long Lucas became all these to me. Whenever he spoke, I listened. This was, of course, to be expected from any young woman. But what was so much more rare was that whenever I spoke, Lucas in return listened to me, my words and my thoughts.

 

‹ Prev