The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr Read online

  I hurried away with the silver tray in my hands and my head full of thoughts. Madame seemed far too old and too selfish to be a mother, and as much as I tried, I couldn’t imagine the Beauharnais sons. But I did realize then that with a little guile I might turn Madame’s unhappiness to my own advantage. It would not be so difficult. There was part of me that had always wanted to please others, even such a woman as Madame.

  Thus the next time I witnessed her weeping, I feigned a silent show of sympathy (for of course I was forbidden to speak to her directly). She noticed, and found my performance most pleasing, rewarding me with a sliver of golden mango from her own plate. After that, I made sure to look especially sorrowful, or even to force tears of my own to slide down my cheek whenever she cried.

  When I’d been younger and still Veeya, Ammatti would have scolded me for such deceitful behavior, but now it became a necessary part of my life. The more I pretended to be what Madame wished, the less harsh and more indulgent she became. She found fewer instances to strike me, and when she did she used only her hand, not a rod or cane. The flat of her hand still hurt, of course, but the pain faded faster, and I could bear it, or perhaps I simply grew accustomed to it, as I did with everything else.

  In time Madame began to trust me with small tasks that were more personal and intended by her as marks of favor. I could also see that they were tasks that her lady’s maid, an aloof light-skinned woman named Estelle who was dressed in French clothes, believed were beneath her.

  I was given an ivory fan, carved with entwined elephants, to carry at all times, so that I might be ready to flutter it over Madame’s face. I rubbed her wrists and knobbled ankles with perfumed oil when she complained that her bones ached with stiffness. I fastened the clasps on her jeweled bracelets and necklaces, and I pressed little circles across her forehead with my fingertips when she suffered from the migraine.

  As my usefulness increased, Madame praised me extravagantly to her friends. She boasted of how I was her jewel, and how she had delivered me from a terrible past, as if buying me from my kin had been a remarkable act of charity. My place was always beside her chair, crouching so she could stroke my long hair for her own comfort, as if I were a cosseted pet.

  And as with a pet, the collar remained around my throat, and each night the chain was clipped to it, and then to Madame’s bedstead. I was given only a single bowl of rice, lentils, or other mean food in the mornings, and a cup of the cooking water that remained in the pot in the evening. Because I was small, Madame believed that was all I required for sustenance. More food would be a needless luxury, she declared, and one that would only spoil me for useful service.

  No wonder, then, that whatever natural cheerfulness I might once have had shriveled away like a flower denied rain, and my childhood passed away with it. I dreamed of scraps of my old life, of how I’d plaited wreathes of flowers that my cousins and I had picked wild in the fields, of how I’d sit on my knees while Ammatti combed coconut oil through my hair to make it shine, of how I’d tried to catch raindrops on my tongue, but when I was awake, I no longer laughed, or sang, or danced for the pleasure of it.

  These changes did not happen in a day, of course, or even in a single turn of the seasons. But by the time I was eleven and had served Madame for three years, I had become watchful and wary and solemn, with an owlish gaze that often made others uneasy. I seldom thought of myself now as Veeya; it was easier and less painful to let one day follow the next, and neither recall the past, nor consider the future.

  Yet before that summer was done, changes came to our lives that could never be undone, no matter how hard we might wish otherwise.

  It began in an unremarkable fashion. Madame and Monsieur were joined at dinner by a guest, a younger French gentleman new arrived in Pondicherry. The evening was cool for the season, and although the windows in the dining room all stood open, there was no need for punkahs overhead, nor for the men who waved them. There were only three servants in attendance at the table, two footmen to bear and clear away the plates, and me.

  That the newcomer had been long at sea was evident by the ruddiness of his complexion as well as by the loudness of his conversation, something I’d always observed among French gentlemen who wished all to take notice of them whether they merited the attention or not. The lavishness of the embroidery on his clothes and the white powder in his hair also showed that he was a gentleman, a member of a higher caste of French people.

  As was to be expected, I was not presented to him, nor he to me, and whatever I learned was gleaned from what I overheard. He was Monsieur’s nephew, the son of Monsieur’s older brother, and leader of the family’s trading company. Monsieur deferred to this nephew as if he were a prince. It was an amusing thing for me to watch, seeing the haughty Monsieur grin and grovel before another man half his age, and Madame no better in her fawning. But because it was late and I was weary and only half-listening, I didn’t at first comprehend the news this young man had brought with him, or its importance to Madame and Monsieur.

  “You know how happy this prospect makes me, Henri,” Madame was saying. “But I must beg you to understand what it shall entail for me. To secure and pack all our belongings, to bid farewell to our acquaintance, to close up this house that has been our home for so many years—why, I cannot possibly do that in less than six months’ time.”

  Henri finished the last bite of the roasted fowl on his plate, deliberately delaying before he answered Madame. He had eaten only the French-style food, and pointedly left untouched the Indian delicacies that included Monsieur’s favorite curries. He blotted the grease from his mouth with his napkin and sighed, a drawn-out sigh of sympathy so false that even I could sense it.

  “I regret the inconvenience to you, Aunt,” he said as the footmen began to clear the table. “To place such demands upon a lady like yourself—ahh, it is insupportable! Yet you must understand that I have no say in the matter. The shipmaster desires to make his voyage to Saint-Domingue in a season that is safest for his vessel, his cargo, and his company. He insists that he must clear Pondicherry by the end of this month, before the monsoons begin in earnest.”

  “The end of this month!” Madame repeated with dismay. “However can I manage?”

  Henri shrugged. “Perhaps you would prefer to remain behind, Aunt. Uncle Pierre can leave you here to conclude your affairs, and you may join him at your further convenience in another ship.”

  “No, no, I will not remain another day longer in this place than is necessary.” Madame was shifting back and forth in her chair beside me, the wood creaking as her agitation grew. “I wish to be closer to my sons. I cannot be left behind.”

  Without turning toward me, she flicked her fingers, a sign I well understood. I stepped forward and swiftly opened her ivory fan, and began to flutter it to one side of her face to calm her.

  “My dear, you realize my brother is sending us to Saint-Domingue.” Monsieur wasn’t looking at either Madame or his nephew, but was instead running one forefinger around and around the polished bowl of his spoon. “We are not returning to Paris.”

  “Did you not hear what Henri has said?” Madame said, her voice rising shrill. “If you may make a fresh start to your career in the Caribbean, then we may be reunited once again with our sons.”

  Monsieur’s expression darkened. “That’s what you wish to hear, not what has been said. Our sons will no more come to Saint-Domingue than they will here to Pondicherry.”

  “But what she says does have truth in it, Uncle.” Henri sipped his brandy. “Your successes here have been mixed, yes, but fortunes can be made with great ease in the sugar trade by those who apply themselves.”

  “My brother forgets that neither he nor I are young men.” Monsieur did not bother to hide his bitterness. “While he sits beside his fire and counts his money, I am expected to embark on a perilous voyage to this wretched island, and begin my life again.”

  “Not at all, Uncle.” Henri smiled, a slow smile too full
of teeth. “Consider it instead a kind of leisurely amusement for your dotage.”

  Monsieur snorted in disgust. “Do not mistake me for a fool, Henri.”

  “I would never underestimate you, Uncle,” said Henri with an empty heartiness. “The sugar plantations at Belle Vallée will require little effort from you, and the house is the perfect jewel for a gentleman’s estate. My father has expended considerable funds upon it, making improvements to the mills as well as to the living quarters. The overseer—Malet—is both trustworthy and firm, exactly as is necessary.”

  Monsieur nodded, mollified, or pretending to be.

  “I’ve never found such a man to oversee the people in the factories here,” he said slowly. “None that deserved my trust.”

  “You will trust Malet,” Henri said. “Besides, the actual labor of the place is done by the slaves. They’re the most valuable commodity of the plantation. By last count, I believe there were over two hundred working the cane fields. That does change, of course, due to deaths and sickness among the ones new arrived and unaccustomed to toil, but they shall be Malet’s responsibility, not yours. All you must do is watch over the Beauharnais interests in the town, see that the sugar is sold for the highest price, and collect the profits that result.”

  I began to wave the fan more briskly. While this Saint-Domingue was an unfamiliar place to me, I did know how sugarcane was grown and harvested for its sugar. Many Tamils were employed in its cultivation on farms not far from Pondicherry, and the possibility of being returned to a place filled with my own people was exciting.

  But what if Madame chose not to take me with her? What if I were sent to the market, and sold away to the sailors’ brothels, Madame’s most terrifying threat to me? What if—

  “Eugénie!” Madame slapped my cheek, the quick, sharp blow that she employed whenever she judged me inattentive. “Mind me when I speak to you, you lazy little chit. Fetch my shawl from my room at once. Go, go, run, and return directly.”

  I bowed low and backed from the room, and only rose and turned once I was in the hall and out of Madame’s sight. Only then, too, did I place my palm over the place where she’d struck me, and cup my cheek in my palm to try to ease the pain that her slap had left.

  I trotted down the hallway as she’d ordered, my bare feet padding over the cool stone tiles. I always hurried down this hall when I was alone at night on some errand for Madame. The hall was lit only by two hanging lanterns, one at either end, and in the hazy half-light in between the painted faces in the pictures on the walls seemed to come alive, watching me. My trot quickened to a run, and the little bells on my collar jingled against my throat.

  I darted around the corner that led to the stairs, the last corner of shadows before the next lantern’s light. My foot was on the first step when a man’s hand covered my mouth to silence me, and his arm circled around my waist and pulled me to one side. Terrified, I fought wildly, my arms flailing and my feet kicking. He stood behind me, and I couldn’t see his face or who he was.

  As hard as I could, I bit his hand, my teeth cutting into the fleshy palm.

  He swore, and let me go.

  Yet another hand grabbed my arm, pulling me to one side.

  “Quiet, Eugénie, else they’ll hear you,” Orianne whispered urgently. She stood before me, the apron at her waist billowing like a ghostly white sail in the shadows. Beside her, still swearing and shaking the hand that I’d bitten, was Marc, one of the footmen who’d attended the table at dinner. “We have only a moment.”

  “I can’t wait,” I said uneasily, wishing she’d release me. Marc must have brought her here from the kitchen when he’d carried dirty plates from the table. I couldn’t guess what they now wanted from me, and I’d no wish to be punished for being slow because of them. “Madame desires her shawl.”

  “Madame desires the world,” Orianne said, leaning closer and blocking my escape. “Marc says they’re being sent away from Pondicherry.”

  I nodded, my eyes wide.

  “That’s what the younger Monsieur said,” I whispered. “That’s why he’s come here, to tell Monsieur and Madame that they must go on orders from Monsieur’s brother in Paris.”

  Marc swore, his bitten hand forgotten. “I told you, Orianne,” he said. “I didn’t lie.”

  “I never thought you did,” said Orianne.

  “But if they—”

  “Hush.” She and Marc exchanged glances that had no meaning to me. “Tell me, Eugénie. Did they agree? Will they go?”

  I nodded, and swallowed. “They must go,” I said. “Monsieur Henri said so.”

  Orianne sucked in her breath so hard her cheeks hollowed. “Did they say where they are going? Calcutta, Madras, Bangalore?”

  “Saint-Domingue,” I said. “They said it many times.”

  “Saint-Domingue,” repeated Orianne, as if testing the word like a new spice on her tongue. “Where is that, eh?”

  “I do not know,” I said, the truth.

  “Try harder to remember, Eugénie.” Orianne’s fingers dug into my arm. “You heard them. Where is this Saint-Domingue?”

  “I do not know.” I jerked my arm free. “They didn’t say, else I would tell you.”

  “You’d better,” Marc said, glowering down at me, and warning enough. “You’re the only one who has been with them all the night long.”

  “I’m always with Madame,” I said defensively, and took a step backward, poised to run if I had to. “All I heard was that they were going to Saint-Domingue, and that Monsieur was supposed to sell the sugarcane that was raised there.”

  Marc bent forward as if he’d been struck, and he groaned, a deep rumble of despair.

  “A sugar plantation!” Orianne’s whispered voice was shrill with anguish. “Oh, little one, I pray that you are wrong. I pray that you have misheard!”

  “They’re already making plans,” I said. “Monsieur Henri says they must sail by the end of the month.”

  But this only made her sag forward with an anguished cry. Marc caught her in his arms and she rested her chin against his shoulder. Forgetting me, the two of them began to weep as if the very world was ending, and perhaps it was.

  “I must fetch Madame’s shawl,” I mumbled, and fled to Madame’s rooms. They didn’t follow me, and when I returned, first peeking over the top of the stairs, they were gone.

  I brought Madame’s shawl back to the room where Madame and Monsieur and the nephew still sat at the table, with the two men now puffing away on hookahs. Their conversation had turned to how much the French peoples despised the English, and whether or not they would soon again be at war, an old and well-worn topic to be worried over among Frenchmen. Nothing more was said of Saint-Domingue.

  But the next day it became clear that preparations were already being made to leave Pondicherry. The house was soon filled with crates and chests that swiftly swallowed up paintings and furnishings, silver and porcelains, and all the rest of the Beauharnaises’ rich belongings. The emptying house became oddly hollow, filled only with echoes and French-speaking ghosts.

  I was kept so busy that I’d no opportunity to visit the kitchen to speak with Orianne. Madame embarked on a final round of visits and calls to her acquaintances to bid them all farewell. I accompanied her, of course, but to my disappointment there was never any real substance discussed among these vain and foolish women: only what clothing would be required for the voyage, and how large the new house would be, and whether the sailors in the ship’s crew would be handsome, or not.

  It was not until the final day before Monsieur and Madame were to sail that I learned my fate. As was the morning custom, I was with Madame as she made her toilette for the day. My role was to stand beside her dressing table, and hand wire hairpins, one by one, to Estelle as she brushed and powdered Madame’s hair into its customary tortuous arrangement. The day was already warm, and the doors and windows were open to catch whatever breeze might come our way from the sea.

  Suddenly a dreadful hig
h-pitched wailing arose from the courtyard on the other side of the house. The sound held the mixture of terror and resignation of brute animals in the moment before they are slaughtered, except the wordless cry was from a human throat. My hand froze with a hairpin in my fingers, and Estelle, too, stopped her brushing to listen. It seemed impossible not to feel the pain in these cries, nor to be affected by them.

  And yet Madame was. “Continue, Estelle; do not make me late,” she said curtly. “I am expected at Madame Gibault’s house on the hour.”

  “Forgive me, madame,” Estelle murmured, but still she faltered, the silver brush dropping from her hand to the floor with a clatter.

  “How clumsy you are!” Madame said sharply, cuffing Estelle’s ear as she bent to retrieve the brush. “That racketing outside has nothing to do with you. It’s only the slave traders come to collect the people Monsieur has decided to leave behind.”

  “Only the slave traders.” Cold words, callous words, unfeeling and without heart, enough to make me tremble where I stood. Would they come for me next?

  “We can’t take everyone with us, you know,” Madame continued. “Surely you must realize that.”

  Another round of wailing underscored her explanation. It seemed the very birds in the trees had stilled in silent sympathy.

  Tears slid down Estelle’s face, and she crumpled to her knees with the silver hairbrush cradled in her hands.

  “Oh, Madame!” she cried piteously, crawling on the floor at Madame’s feet. “I beg you, please, please, do not send me away with the others!”

  Madame recoiled and frowned.

  “No more of this, Estelle, else I will have you taken,” she said with brisk disgust. “Whatever makes you think I would embark on a long voyage without a lady’s maid to tend to me?”

  Estelle raised her teary face. “Then I am preserved, Madame? I am among your chosen?”

  “What you are is a sniveling little slattern,” Madame snapped. “I am taking you and Orianne and Eugénie, and Monsieur will have Gabriel to look after him. The others were no longer of use to us, and have been sold.”