This was the city that Mistress saw when we arrived on a late afternoon in the last week of December, in the midst of a storm of sleet and with a tender baby fretful from teething. Although larger and finer than the lodgings we’d left in Albany, this new house that the Colonel had let for us on Wall Street was cold and dark and inhospitable, the front steps glazed with ice and the woodbox empty. When at last we’d managed to light fires, the chimneys had smoked from disuse, making for such an inauspicious beginning that not even Mistress could hide her disappointment and discouragement.
Fortunately it did not take long for her to realize how wise the Colonel had been to seize the opportunity the city presented to a gentleman of his profession. New York was filled with people turning to the courts and law for order and for compensation for property lost or destroyed by the war. Yet because the Tory lawyers (who had formed the largest number of the city’s jurists) were now prohibited by state law from practicing their profession, there was a shortage of lawyers to handle the cases, and Whig lawyers were in constant demand. Within months, the three busiest and most prosperous counselors were the same three gentlemen who’d studied together in Albany, and then made the short voyage down the North River: Colonel Alexander Hamilton, Colonel Robert Troup, and, of course, Colonel Burr.
As a result, the Colonel kept long hours, and was often away from home. This meant he was often away from me as well, for which I was most grateful.
But that wasn’t all. His daughter, Theo, was not a strong infant and was often ill with mysterious fevers and other ailments, sometimes so perilously that her parents despaired for her life. Mistress had always been an ardent member of her church, and when her little babe was threatened she turned further to the solace of her faith, and often persuaded her husband to join her.
No gentleman who reads his Scripture will find in its pages an excuse for embracing his servant, and I suspected this was the case with the Colonel, especially when Mistress gave birth to a second daughter on the twentieth of June 1785, the day before little Miss Burr’s second birthday. This new babe was named Miss Sarah, or Sally, after the Colonel’s sister, and was so hearty that her parents rejoiced.
To my considerable relief, during this time there was nothing untoward in the Colonel’s manner when he spoke to me, and he made no more attempts to embrace me against my will when I was alone with him. Instead, he gave every appearance of devoting himself entirely to his wife and daughters, and expending all his other energies upon his practice.
But inevitably his contentment did not last, and late in 1786 he began to seek me again.
Mistress’s sister, Mrs. Browne, and Mrs. DeVisme were visiting through Twelfth Night, and the three of them had taken the children with Ginny in the carriage to drive along the Battery. I was making up Mrs. Browne’s bed, tucking in the sheets and smoothing the pillow biers, when the Colonel appeared in the doorway. Because I’d lost my reason to mistrust him, I thought nothing of it. He watched me briefly at my work, with idle talk of whether or not there’d be snow that night. Then with a suddenness I hadn’t expected, he called me a temptress, and pushed me backward onto the bed. Swiftly he lay upon me to kiss me, his weight pressing me down into the feather bed and making the rope springs creak beneath us.
I’d never lain upon a bed before, nor had a man lie atop me, either. The bed was as soft as I imagined clouds to be, while the Colonel’s body was hard and heavy and oppressive, even with the layers of our clothes between us. He stroked my cheek with his hand and called me beautiful to calm me, and kissed me again. From fear I whimpered into his mouth and tried to wriggle free, away from him and all that feathery softness beneath me. My resistance seemed to be enough to make him at last leave me, and I thanked God for my deliverance.
Of course my salvation would not last. The following week, he found me alone again when Mistress was out, and again, and again, and again after that. His persistence, his persuasion, his sheer strength, slowly wore away at my defenses, until what I let him do—what we did—became my private shame and sorrow. I’d no one to tell, no mother or sisters or friends to offer counsel. I longed for the companionship of Chloe, long parted from my life. We were now five servants in this house, and I was the most senior among them. I could not confide in any of the others, nor was there any question of going to Mistress. To make it worse, if such a thing were possible, Mistress was once again great with child, her third.
Even on Sundays, when I sat in the upper benches of Trinity Church among the Negro servants from other houses, what I heard in Scripture and in sermons only served to deepen my guilt and wretchedness. Among these Christians, there were but two kinds of women: the ones who were good and faithful wives, daughters, and mothers, and the ones who were not, and who through their wantonness and sin hurt the good women and their families.
If I leaned forward on the bench and looked past the shoulders of the other servants around me, I could see the heads of Mistress and the Colonel in their pew below me, listening to the same words that so tormented me. I wondered if those words ever eat at the Colonel’s conscience. Did they ever gnaw into his sleep at night as they did to mine, or did he persuade himself that he was blameless, faultless, without the guilt that so plagued me?
And each day when I saw little Miss Burr at her first lessons or baby Miss Sally in her cradle, both smiling in their innocence and secure in the love of their parents, I thought of how their father sinfully desired me, and the disaster my very presence could bring to the sanctity of their family.
I envied them the sweet luxury of that childish innocence, a luxury that I doubted I’d ever possessed. In its place, I had the harsh knowledge that came from the world and the men who ruled it. I knew it was only a matter of time before the Colonel would cease to be content with kisses and fondles, just as I knew I’d be powerless to deny him when he did.
He’d called me beautiful and beguiling and tempting, a sorceress and a sphinx, but most often he called me clever, the single compliment I believed. It was the one that mattered most to me, too, because only through my cleverness was I going to find a way to save myself.
CHAPTER 16
City of New York
State of New York
December 1786
I dipped the small ladle into the sauce, tasted it, and frowned. My frown wasn’t for the sauce, which was exactly as Mrs. Glasse, the cook whose recipe it was, had intended it to be: rich and thick with two pints of cream, onions, the juice of four lemons, and a quantity of butter bathing the fricassee of four chickens, exactly as it should be. If that had been all, then it would have been a fine dish, such as would please any cook to serve, and please the lady who offered it to her guests.
But it was the recipe’s seasonings that made me frown with dismay, even disgust. Mrs. Glasse believed that with the simple additions of two ounces of turmeric and a large spoonful of raw chopped gingerroot to the cream, the dish now had a right to be called a “Curry Made in the Indian Way.” I could have told her that it most assuredly wasn’t. There was none of the subtlety or delicacy of carefully toasted, ground, and blended spices that was to be found in a true Indian curry. This was coarse and common and English. I hated to think what Orianne with her treasured masala dabba would have said had she seen this dish, an unappealing glowing yellow from a surfeit of turmeric.
But this was the recipe that Mistress, determined to impress her guests, had chosen for this night’s dinner. It was a special dinner, too, the first in yet another new house. This one was their fifth home in the course of their short marriage, and though we were scarcely settled here in Cedar Street (formerly Little Queen Street, for even streets had changed their allegiance once the British had left), I’d already overheard Mistress and the Colonel discussing another, even larger house that the Colonel was considering on Broadway. Yet that seemed to be the way here in the City of New York, and of New Yorkers in general. No one was content to remain as they were, and everything was in a constant state of change and improvem
ent.
Mistress had told us servants that this was a dinner for three old friends, now colleagues, and their wives. These gentlemen had all served with distinction in the Continental Army, and all attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Colonel Troup was one of Colonel Burr’s oldest and dearest acquaintances, but the same could be said also of Colonel Hamilton, since he and Colonel Troup had shared lodgings together when they’d both studied at King’s College. Their wives called upon one another, their children played together, and their houses all stood within a few blocks of one another.
While there was friendship among the three, however, there was a certain rivalry as well. It was not so great with Colonel Troup, stout and pop-eyed, who seemed by nature too mild for such competition. Between Colonel Hamilton and Colonel Burr, however, the rivalry crackled: not only when they were in the courtroom together, as often happened, but outside of it, too. Even we servants knew of it. Carlos was quick to report to us in the kitchen whenever his master bested Colonel Hamilton in a case, or in some drollery at a tavern afterward, often recounting these tales with such unseemly glee that I had to shush him.
There were many triumphs for Carlos to recount, too. It was no secret that while the Colonel was willing to drive himself so that Mistress fretted for his health, he was practical (some would say cynical) in his choice of that labor. He was not an idealist, like Colonel Hamilton. Instead Colonel Burr never accepted a case that he wasn’t confident he’d win, for the simple reason that he hated to lose.
Even this dinner would be cause for competition. Originally the Burrs and the Hamiltons had both lived in similar houses near to each other on Wall Street, but this new house of the Burrs was significantly larger and better appointed. There was a separate room for dining, and the Colonel and Mistress, too, were particularly proud of having a library for their ever-growing collection of books.
Nor did the contests between the two men end there. They strove to outdo each other in the importance of their cases and clients, in the length of the hours each worked, and in their horses and equipages. With the encouragement of General Alexander McDougall, his old supporter and commander from the war now turned politician, Colonel Burr had recently completed his second term as a representative in the State Assembly for New York County, while Colonel Hamilton had only just been elected to the same position. Their rivalries extended over the infant brilliance of their children, too: Theodosia Burr, aged three, was already reading and beginning to write, while at five years of age Philip Hamilton was being taught the rudiments of Latin and Greek, or so his father claimed. Even this hideous English curry would be considered part of their competition, a dish both fashionable, exotic, and costly, on account of the imported turmeric and ginger.
I carefully took the chicken from the kettle and arranged it with a frill of parsley upon Mistress’s best porcelain platter, painted with orange dragons and rimmed with gold. The other dishes for the meal had previously been carried to the table, and it was now up to me to appear, triumphant, with the curry. Mistress had been most specific about that. It wasn’t necessary for her to explain why. By now I’d a perfect understanding of her reasoning. What could be more impressive before guests than having your curry prepared by a cook brought from India?
I smoothed my apron and tucked a few stray wisps of hair back beneath my cap. With additional servants in our household, I seldom served at table now, and remained in the kitchen to oversee the cooking and other preparations instead. I preferred this, though I did miss being able to overhear the conversations during meals. Mistress and the Colonel had always spoken freely before us, and this was often the one sure way to learn what was next for them, and therefore the rest of us as well.
Who knew what I might learn tonight? I carried the platter to the dining room, holding it out before me like the prize that Mistress considered it to be.
“Ah, at last! Here’s our true Indian curry,” she announced as soon as I appeared in the doorway. Smiling proudly, she patted the corner of the table beside her to show where she wished me to place the dish. The dinner must be going well, for she looked happy and at ease in her emerald-green silk, her left hand resting protectively on the great swell of her belly. She wore the amber earrings that the Colonel had given her for her last birthday, the golden drops gleaming like honey in the candlelight as they swung against her cheeks.
“I don’t believe you’ll have a more correct curry anywhere in New York,” she continued, “thanks to our cook having been born in Calcutta.”
There was a polite murmur of admiration from the guests to this long-standing untruth, and one I’d long ago ceased trying to correct, or worrying over, either. Mistress motioned for me to remain standing beside her chair instead of retreating back to the kitchen. Clearly I was going to be displayed among the Burrs’ other possessions tonight.
“Mary Emmons is far more than an exemplary cook,” the Colonel said, playing the perfect, expansive host as he leaned back in his armchair. It was a role he relished, and played well. He was flushed, as were the other gentlemen, proof that the wine—expensive, imported wine—had been flowing already, and that Tom, another servant standing nearby, had been busy refilling the glasses as the Colonel liked him to do. Yet I knew that he would not drink to excess; unwilling to give any advantage to another, he never did.
“She is a veritable marvel,” Colonel Burr continued, smiling warmly at me. “She reads anything you set before her, and writes a far better hand than yours, Troup. She ciphers. And she speaks French worthy of an invitation to Versailles.”
Colonel Hamilton leaned forward to study me more closely, close enough that I in turn could see the light freckles that crossed his pronounced nose and jaw. Because his gaze lacked the intensity of Colonel Burr’s, it was no trial for me to withstand his scrutiny, even as his gaze slid from my face to my breasts.
“Est-ce vrai, ma chère jolie créature?” he asked me. “Tu parles français?”
I doubted his wife spoke French, for her expression as she sat beside him didn’t change when he called me his dear pretty creature, though Mistress, who did, arched a single, bemused brow.
“Oui, honoré monsieur,” I said, proof enough of my fluency.
“She speaks heathen Eastern tongues as well,” Mistress said. “Address us in Hindoo, Mary.”
I nodded, having suffered this request to perform from her before. Over time I’d contrived a small revenge. Because I knew that I was likely the only person in all New York to speak Tamil, I called them a foolish pack of babbling jackals in that language, adding a little curtsey at the end as an extra flourish. I shouldn’t have done it, but I did, and my smile afterward perhaps held more satisfaction than it should have, too.
“The wench is a marvel, Burr, exactly as you say,” Colonel Hamilton declared. “What is her price?”
At once Mrs. Hamilton seized his arm and glowered at him in silent, wifely warning. While her family in Albany had possessed many Negroes, I’d noted that when I’d accompanied Mistress to call upon the Hamiltons here in Manhattan their servants had all been white Dutch and English girls, though I cannot say if this was from choice, or economy.
“Her price would be more than you could afford, Hamilton,” said Colonel Burr, a measure of indulgence to his words. “Besides, Mary belongs to Theo, not to me. A long-ago gift from her first husband, and one I doubt she’ll wish to part with, for sentimental reasons. Isn’t that so, my dear?”
“Don’t even make such a jest, Aaron,” Mistress scolded with mock dismay. “I could never bring myself to sell Mary, no matter what was offered for her.”
He tipped his head back and laughed, his white teeth flashing. But I found no humor in either his jest or her response, nor in the way that the rest of the party laughed with him, as if it all were the greatest cleverness and wit.
Only Colonel Troup did not. “It’s a damned shame that any accomplished woman, mulatto or not, must wear the shackles of slavery,” he said earnestly. “This country wil
l never become the power it could be so long as useful persons are not given rights and freedoms equal to ours.”
“I don’t see you freeing your slaves, Troup,” Colonel Burr said in the same jovial manner as before. “If you expect others to follow, friend, you must be willing to lead the way.”
“That should be the role of the federal government,” Colonel Troup said, helping himself to a sizable serving of the curry. “Until then, however, there should be a thoughtful discussion among citizens that leads to manumission in place of abolition. That is the entire purpose of the Society, as you know.”
“It should better be the entire purpose, when you’ve called it the New York Manumission Society,” Colonel Hamilton said as he took the platter and courteously served his wife first. “But considering how at the present time there is no federal government with any teeth to it, I would venture that your thoughtful discourse will continue for years without much result.”
“Congress will never abolish slavery,” Colonel Burr declared firmly. “The Virginians and their ilk to the south will not permit it. They’d be ruined.”
I listened, hearing them make light of these hard and ugly truths. I’d heard it before, many times, yet the bitterness never faded. Had they forgotten I was standing there beside Mistress’s chair, and Tom at the sideboard? Did they think Tom and I were deaf as well as mute by their will, unable to hear what was said without their permission?
And what of the dream I’d held on to for so long, my husband’s dream, that the war and this country would bring freedom to everyone in it? I’d come to see that I and all others like me had been told the greatest lie imaginable, a lie I’d treasured and believed, a lie that now crushed both my hopes and my future.
“It would be a loss to you, Burr, as well as many other households and trades here in New York,” Colonel Troup said. “How many servants do you keep? Three, four? Why, this wench here must be worth several hundred dollars alone.”
The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr Page 31