“It appears you’re planning to entertain a guest, Mary,” she said. “A man, isn’t it? No, you needn’t reply. That was a foolish question. No woman would entertain another of her sex in such charming dishabille.”
She sat gracefully on one of the ladder-back chairs, spreading her skirts around her. She wasn’t outwardly angry, and she kept a pleasant half smile on her face. I wasn’t fooled.
“Please, Mistress,” I began. “It’s not—”
She held up her palm as a sign for me to stop. “My evening was so tedious that I decided to return home and retire early. Now it appears the entertainment has only begun, and I can scarcely wait for the hero of this little piece to appear.”
I bowed my head with misery. Stretched too taut by the weight of the spinning spindle, my thread broke. At once the two ends untwisted and coiled like tiny gray snakes, and the wooden spindle dropped and rolled across the floor. I bent to retrieve it.
“Leave it,” Mistress ordered. For the first time her voice was sharp, a hint of what was to come.
I straightened, and fell back into the familiar pose of servants: my head meekly bowed, my shoulders back, my hands clasped at my waist.
I do not know how long we stayed like this—a minute, or an hour?—before I heard the familiar steps on the wooden porch, and the double knock on the door.
“Let him in, Mary,” Mistress said. “It’s ill-mannered to make him wait in the cold.”
I opened the door. Unsuspecting, Lucas smiled, and reached for me. Swiftly I stepped aside so that he could see Mistress, and the joy in his face vanished. Instead, his expression hardened, and his mouth grew firm with determination. He didn’t wait to be invited in, but carefully stepped past me to approach her.
“Good day, Mrs. Prevost,” he said, sweeping his hat from his head. “I trust you are well.”
“No niceties, Lucas,” she said, pointedly calling him by his first name as if he were still a slave. “It appears you had plans to debauch my girl, here in my own house.”
He didn’t wilt before her, but instead stood straighter, his shoulder squared with defiance.
“I’m Private Emmons, ma’am, of the Fourth New Jersey Regiment of the Continental Army,” he said slowly, deliberately. “And I’ve no plans to debauch Mary. Rather, I wish to buy her freedom from you, and marry her, and make her my wife.”
I gasped aloud, stunned. He had never said such a thing to me, and I was overwhelmed that he would speak it now, with such conviction.
Mistress raised a single skeptical dark brow.
“You wish me to manumit her for the convenience of your lust?” she asked dryly. “Mary is perhaps the most useful and valuable slave I possess. I should be quite mad to part with her.”
“However you value her, ma’am, she is worth far more to me,” Lucas said. “What is her price?”
“Her price,” Mistress scoffed. “If I were to sell her—which I am not inclined to do—I would expect her to fetch at least seventy pounds.”
I cried out softly at so great a sum, and pressed my hand over my mouth.
But Lucas didn’t flinch. “I can pay half that sum now,” he said, “and the rest later, as I earn it.”
Mistress swept her hand through the air. “How could you possess such a sum?”
“The way any honest man does, ma’am,” he said. “Through my own labor and industry. Ask Colonel Vervelde if you doubt me. He’ll tell you the same, and vouch for me. When my time in the army is done, I’ll have a hundred acres as well, and a pension for my wife and children.”
“What if the rebels lose this war?” she demanded. “What if the members of Congress who offer you this pension and acreage are hung for treason against the Crown?”
Lucas smiled. “And what if the patriots do win, and one of the conditions of our country’s peace is that all those held in bondage be set free? Freedom for all, ma’am. Then you’ll wish you’d accepted my offer.”
“No more, sirrah.” Mistress stood abruptly, her dark eyes flashing as she wrapped her cloak more closely around her. “I would be the most irresponsible of slave owners if I let this girl wed you. You have no home, and no prospects. You are an enlisted soldier who could be killed at any time. If you die, I’d be left with the responsibility of your wife and your brats.”
“Please, mistress, I beg you!” I cried, stepping forward. “If you will not grant your permission for us to marry, then will you at least say you’ll not sell me to another?”
She stared at me. I’d likely never made so long a speech to her in all my years with her.
“Are you attempting to bargain with me?” she asked in disbelief. “To set conditions for me to obey? You forget yourself, Mary.”
“Please, Mistress,” I said again, my voice wavering. “If you will keep me until Lucas returns, and can pay you what you ask for my freedom, then—then that would be enough.”
She stood in the shadow of the door, her face and her reaction hidden in shadow.
“I’ve no intention of selling you, Mary,” she said finally. “Especially not during this war. There is your answer. Now I shall grant you five minutes to send this man away, and then I will expect you in my bedchamber. And if you so much as consider running away with him now, know that I’ll use every force in my power to have you brought back here in chains.”
She didn’t wait for my reply, but closed the door after herself.
At once I flew to Lucas, and wrapped my arms around him as if I’d never let him go. I wept freely, neither able nor willing to keep back my tears.
“Mary, sweet, look at me,” he said, gently turning my face up toward his. “We haven’t much time, and I’ve things to say.”
With a shuddering sigh, I nodded, and pulled away only far enough to listen. He took my hand in his, weaving our fingers and pressing our palms together. His hand was so much larger and darker than mine, swallowing up my little fingers.
“Swear to me that you’ll be my wife,” he said solemnly. “I’ll swear to you to be your husband. Those will be all the vows I need to be wedded to you. Say it, Mary. Be my wife.”
“Oh, Lucas, you know I will,” I said fervently through my tears. I’d been pulled and forced by so many different faiths in my life that I’d none that mattered to me, and none that would solemnize our union as surely as this oath, made between us alone. “I promise by everything that’s right and holy to be your wife in any way you desire, and swear to you that I’ll love you and be yours always.”
He tightened his hand around mine. “I swear by all the Heavens that I will be your husband, Mary, in every way I can. I’ll love you, and protect you, and honor you for as long as I live. You have my promise, and my word.”
“My promise, and my word,” I repeated, and reached up to kiss him.
He kissed me, too, holding me tight.
“Mark what I tell you, Mary,” he said. “Once I’m back in camp, I’ll see that you’re recorded as my lawful wife, and make certain my enlistment papers say the same. I’ll tell Colonel Vervelde to make certain that everything that’s mine will be yours. It would’ve been more proper to be married before an English minister, but this must do for now.”
I nodded, my heart too full for words.
“My own little wife.” He smiled, a smile so tender that my eyes filled with fresh tears. “This war won’t last forever. Some say it will be done by the end of summer. Whenever it’s over, I’ll come for you, and then no one will keep us apart.”
“No one could,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “No one, and nothing. Oh, Lucas, I love you so much!”
“And I love you.” He kissed me again, and then broke away. “I must go now, and so should you.”
He opened the door to leave, the moonlight on the snow bright behind him. This was how I’d remember him: a dark angular silhouette against the moonlight, a smile full of heartbreak, a gaze that held my very soul. I forced myself to smile, too, so he’d have that memory of me.
“Be sure you
come back to me, Husband,” I said. “Come back to me, and soon.”
* * *
In some ways, it felt as if the two weeks when Lucas had returned were only more of my dreams, idle fancies and not true life. Although I felt myself to be forever changed, the world around me had not. The routine of my daily labors continued in the kitchen and throughout the house. I still slept on my pallet with the others in the attic, wore the same clothes, kept the same hours, and worked among the same people.
To my surprise, Mistress did not punish me as I’d expected. Most mistresses would have done so; certainly, my past owners would have rewarded my actions with considerable vengeance. I do not know the reason for Mistress’s laxity, either, nor will I ever learn it, not now. I suspect it wasn’t kindness or Christian forgiveness or guilt that kept her silent, but simply that she didn’t wish the disturbance to her household that would come from punishing me. As long as I was willing to continue to work, with no trouble to her, then she would ignore my transgressions. It was as if her furious ambush of Lucas and me in the kitchen had never happened.
Within two weeks, I also knew there’d be no more lasting consequences of Lucas’s visit. My courses came to prove I was not with child. I grieved, even as I knew it was for the best. By the laws of the time, any child I bore would be born into the same bondage as I endured, and would become Mistress’s property, to do with whatever she pleased. It wouldn’t have mattered that Lucas himself was free, because the laws were based on the condition of a child’s mother. Lucas could in time have bought our child into freedom, too, as he’d promised to do for me, but I’d no reason to believe that Mistress wouldn’t have kept her threat, and sold or even given away our child to prevent it from becoming a burden to her. Loving Lucas as I did, I’m not sure I could have survived such a loss.
My only small consolation came from Chloe and the others. I’d told them of how Lucas and I had pledged to each other after Mistress had refused to let us be wed more formally through her church. They understood, and congratulated me.
They’d also begun to call me Mary Emmons, the sweetest sound in the world. I’d once glimpsed the record of my sale from Monsieur to Major Prevost, where the clerk had listed me as Eugénie Bearhani, giving me a corrupted version of Monsieur’s own name. To the Prevosts, I was no more than Mary, the name that the Major had likewise chosen for me. But Mary Emmons was a name I’d taken from love and regard, not bondage, and it gave me rare happiness each time I heard it.
There was little enough happiness to be found at the Hermitage as the winter of 1777 edged into spring, and spring to summer. To be neutral ground meant that the county around us now belonged to neither the British nor the Continental army, but it also meant that it was no longer protected by one or the other. The few inhabitants who remained were now attacked from every side by raiding parties from both armies, as well as by disaffected Americans and Tories, refugees from New York and other places, and those who generally made violent mischief wherever they went.
Yet while serving tea during a call from Mistress’s lawyer, I learned that she was facing another danger, too. The state’s General Assembly had passed an act to punish those they deemed traitors and other disaffected persons by confiscating their property, and evicting them from it. According to the grim-faced lawyer, the Prevosts owned not only the estate surrounding the three hundred acres that surrounded the Hermitage but also some thirty-five hundred acres more to the west that had been granted to the Major by the British government. All of this could now be legally seized by the state, and the Prevosts left homeless and impoverished.
“Does that mean us, too?” Caesar asked when I reported to the others what I’d heard. “Are we fit to be confiscated?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “The lawyer used many words that made no sense to me. All I heard was that property was being seized, and sold to benefit the Americans.”
“I don’t want to be sold again,” Chloe said sorrowfully, fear and unhappiness combined in her voice. “Not to a Whig or a Tory or no one.”
There was nothing we could do to help our situation, except to trust that Mistress would continue to find a way to preserve us all together.
In the summer, she received word from her husband that he had been promoted and was now Lieutenant-Colonel Prevost. Soon after, Mistress’s two sons, Bartow and Frederick, were sent to join their father at his post in the Caribbean and begin their military careers as ensigns. It was clear enough that Colonel Prevost had determined the area to be too dangerous for the boys, and that they were being shifted to his care for their own safety as well as for their future careers. From how bitterly Mistress wept the night they left, I suspected that it was not a decision that pleased her.
Nor was the news of the war itself any more encouraging for the American cause. There were more losses, more defeats. Whenever I dared, I took the newspapers that Mistress had left about and read them aloud to the others in the kitchen, just as Lucas had done for us. It was the only way I had to learn where he might be fighting.
Yet with each newspaper I read or rumor I overheard in Mistress’s parlor, I worried more over my husband. I guessed that he was among the troops with General Washington, but I’d no way of knowing for certain. How I longed for a letter from him! But letters were for white-skinned officers to write and deliver by way of couriers to ladies like Mistress. Lucas wouldn’t have either pen or paper, or a way to send a letter to me even if he could compose one. Nor would I have been able to reply, as much as I might wish it. All I could do was pray and hope that Lucas was unharmed and well, and that he’d soon return to me.
By the middle of September, Mistress learned that the American General Putnam had taken pity on our valley, and ordered a force of regular soldiers to come help the local militia defend against the British. Exactly when and where these men might appear wasn’t known, but Mistress told us that they would be warmly welcomed at the Hermitage.
Late one Monday morning in the middle of September, I was sweeping the front porch of the house. The leaves had already begun to change color and fall, and through some trick of the breezes, they always came to land on the porch. I didn’t mind the excuse to be out of doors, however. The sun was warm on my face, and slanting just enough before noon to make the deep rosy-pink brownstone of the house’s walls glint and sparkle. I’d learned to relish autumn days like this, knowing that the icy tedium of winter was soon to follow.
I paused for a moment, and touched the little silver heart that Lucas had made for me. The cord on which it hung was just long enough that the heart nestled in the hollow of my throat, reminding me of how often Lucas had kissed me there. The heart also rested near the scars that still faintly marked my skin from Madame’s hateful collar. Lucas had kissed those, too, with a special reverence for my past suffering that made me love him all the more.
A fresh swirl of leaves gathered at my feet, and with a sigh I returned to my sweeping. I heard the horses and riders on the drive before I could see them, and I straightened, broom in hand. Both armies had been so thorough in seizing horses for military purposes that few remained in private hands, and among these visitors would most certainly be an officer. The only question was whether he’d be wearing a red coat, or blue.
They came past the last of the trees and out from the shadows: three soldiers in the blue uniform with buff facings of the Continental forces. In the front rode the senior officer, a lieutenant colonel, followed by two others as his escort.
It was clear that these men hadn’t come to drink tea in the parlor with Mistress. Their uniforms and boots were dusty and grimed, and their jaws had clearly not felt a razor in several days. Most important, they had that same watchfulness about them that I’d seen in Lucas when he’d first returned. They were on their guard, and from the state of their clothing, I’d guess it was with good reason, too.
Quickly I set the broom against the wall, and smoothed my apron to greet them with a curtsey, the way Mistress liked.
> The colonel rode directly to the porch, leaving the others a few paces behind. Now I could see that beneath that black cocked hat he’d a handsome face, with a straight nose, curving lips, and large, dark eyes that observed everything. He’d lost the silk ribbon that should have bound his queue, and instead his black hair was untidily tied back with a worn scrap of leather, the roughness at odds with his uniform. He was not a tall man, slight of frame though well proportioned, and he also struck me (from my own great age of seventeen, and a wedded woman at that) as being exceptionally young, and more of an age for a university than a military command. Yet there was no denying the confident, almost aggressive, air of command about him, or how the other two men, older and larger, deferred to him without hesitation.
“Good day,” he said briskly. “Is this Mrs. Prevost’s home?”
“It is, sir,” I said, wary. “May I tell her your name, sir?”
“You may,” he said. “I am Lieutenant Colonel Aaron Burr, commander of Malcolm’s Additional Continental Regiment. Last night my men successfully conducted a sortie against the enemy in this neighborhood, and having heard that Mrs. Prevost’s residence was nearby, I wished to reassure her of her safety. Is the lady at home?”
“Yes, sir, she is,” I said quickly, not needing to inquire. I knew she’d be at home to him. I wasn’t a fool; I’d been part of this game before. After last night’s sortie—how I longed to know more of that!—Colonel Burr had likely come here more to reassure himself than Mistress, and to make certain that she had offered no succor to the same enemy he’d just vanquished. There was a reason that the other two men were slowly moving about the boundaries of the house, making an obvious reconnoiter with their pistols at the ready.
I curtseyed again by way of excusing myself. “I shall fetch Mistress directly, sir.”
He nodded, those dark eyes of his watching me so closely that I hesitated, and then flushed because I’d done so. I turned away quickly.
“A moment,” he said, calling me back. “How long have you been here with Mrs. Prevost?”
The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr Page 15