MY THEODOSIA (42 page)

She ran to the comer of the room, seating herself at the pianoforte. Her fingers stumbled a little and then grew sure; her voice throbbed with her desperate desire to reach him, to conjure the old emotions from the past by the sure magic of their music.

Water, parted from the sea——

He listened, at first resentful. She meant to soften him with this cheap trick. It was unworthy of her—childish. Women—always hankering for the past, refusing to let it die decently. Then gradually, as he listened, his resentment fell away. A peculiar thrill ran through him, as though his spirit trembled on the verge of discovery. It seemed that his consciousness expanded far beyond the limits of the shadowy room in Richmond. He feared to move or breathe, for behind the thinning mists revelation dwelt. 'Almost I can see, in another second I shall understand the whole——'

Once in the Mandan country, two years back, he had stood alone at sunrise upon the summit of one of the gigantic rocky mountains which reared their mighty bulk out there across the continent, and this same feeling had come to him then. The expedition's trials and dangers had diminished to nothingness. The mountain winds had brought him peace, a momentary glimpse of the eternal cosmic verity—as her small unconscious voice did now.

Let my heart find rest in thine——

But she sang of love, human love, while he in that blinding instant knew—as she most mercifully would never know—that she sang also of death. Love and death intermingled, the two edges of the same sword. Tenderness and a great pity held him.

Theo's hands fell from the keys, her brilliant eyes sought his face. He came to her and kissed her gently as he would have kissed a child.

She caught his hand. 'Merne, promise me that you will do nothing to hurt Father—promise me.'

He sighed, and turned from her a little. The moment of illumination was gone. Life slid back into its neat, appointed course. Love and death, foreboding and rapture, they made no sense, he thought, with faint disgust. How had he managed to read all this into a piece of sentimental music?

'I can't promise, Theodosia. I came to Richmond for a purpose. To do—if you will forgive the cant—my duty. Our love cannot alter that.'

'You're cruel and hard!' she blazed, flinging her head back. Then she added in a softer voice as a new hope occurred to her: 'At least, Merne, come with me and talk to Father. You scarcely know him; you are prejudiced. If you will just talk with him, you will see how you have misunderstood——'

Poor baby! he thought. She believes her father to be some sort of wizard; that a few honeyed words from the fascinating little Burr will enslave me.

He smiled at her sadly. 'If you like, I'll go with you. But it will do no good.'

Already she had darted for her cloak and tied its brown ribbons beneath her chin. 'He will be back in—in the penitentiary by now. Call the carriage, please. It will be quicker. The mob knows it. They let me through.'

He complied silently, already regretting his agreement. Together they passed the staring guards on the ground floor of the prison. The jailer, sprawling on a stool before Aaron's door, greeted her courteously: 'Good afternoon, Mrs. Alston. You're early, ain't you? He won't be expecting you yet Who's the gent?'

'A friend of mine,' she answered quickly. 'I will vouch for him. We shan't be long.'

The man touched his cap and unlocked the door. It swung silently open on its well-oiled hinges, disclosing Aaron in the center of the room at his writing-table as usual. But his position was not as usual. His head, that she had never seen anything but jauntily erect, was slumped on his arms. His shoulders drooped, they seemed shrunken. He looked defeated—and old.

Theo uttered an instinctive cry of pain and his head jerked up. As he saw her companion, a greenish light flashed in his eyes. It was gone in a second, vitality flowed back into him and a subtly sneering defiance. He sprang lightly to his feet.

'This is indeed an honor,' he purred. 'I trust you have recovered, Madam, from your indisposition in the courtroom. Though I see that you are still so weak that you need an escort.'

She was frightened by the venom in his tone. He who could always control his feelings, when that control was to his advantage, must not give way to hostility now. She knew that he had always disliked Lewis, but she had no conception of the bitterness of his jealousy. How could she, when he did not admit it to himself?

But Merne understood. The pattern that seemed to change had yet been inexorably laid down during their first clash in Vauxhall Gardens. It had not changed.

Theo stood uncertainly between them, as she had stood then, and their hatred for each other crackled past her. She had been a fool to bring Meme here without first warning her father, she realized too late. How could she say to him, in the presence of that tall, quietly disdainful man: 'Father, show him your goodness, your true nobility. Make him understand that you are incapable of wrongdoing. Win him
over with your golden persuasive tongue, as you have won so many people.'

Aaron moved, and reseated himself. 'To just exactly what am I indebted for the very great honor of this visit? The pleasure, perhaps, of gaping at an interesting prisoner, or simply that you cannot tear yourself for one moment from the company of Mrs. Alston?'

'No!' cried Theo sharply. 'Father, don't talk that way. Captain Lewis has some—some sort of evidence, or thinks he has. He felt he must testify. But I knew, if he could speak with you, you would make him realize that he must have been misinformed.'

'I have no interest in any evidence which this gentleman may wish to proffer.'

' But it will injure you! He is to be Governor of Louisiana, he is Jefferson's friend. The jury will listen.'

Aaron lashed out at her with sudden fury. 'And you, too, listen to what he says, don't you, my dear? This Governor of Louisiana, this friend of Jefferson's, he is no doubt a far more seductive subject to listen to than a disgraced traitor, an emperor without an empire, the murderer of Alexander Hamilton, the betrayer of his country. You had better attach yourself somehow to the tail of this new comet. It's unfortunate that you happen to be married, is it not? Yet, with patience and ingenuity, perhaps even that obstacle may be surmounted.'

She shrank, clutching blindly at the back of a chair.

Meme, white with disgust, turned on her too. 'How can you continue to idolize such a man——'

Her eyes slid past him blankly to rest upon Aaron's face. How terribly hurt he must be, she thought, how desperately unhappy! He has never been unjust to me before. Can he think I would desert him, I who love him more than anything
in life? She saw him again as he had been when they came into the room, slumped, defenseless—old, and a painful terror closed around her heart. He must never be vulnerable. Never! Always he must be shining, invincible. Nothing mattered compared to that.

And now the echo of Meme's angry question reached her. Her body stiffened. She raised her chin, looking at him as though he had been an offensive stranger.

'I had rather not live than not be the daughter of such a man,' she said quietly.

Aaron drew a sharp breath. There was triumph in his face, a fleeting shame and gratitude. She went over to him and knelt beside him.

Merne watched them, and his throat grew dry. This was a love that he could not understand, and its object he thought dismally unworthy. But into that bleak prison room it had brought beauty. And there are many kinds of love; who was he to judge?

'You win, my Theodosia,' he murmured. 'Destiny shall deal with your father, as it will in any case, but I shall not meddle.'

He rapped softly on the door to attract the jailer. The two Burrs, torn from their deep preoccupation with each other, looked up at the sound.

'Good-bye,' said Merne. 'No, you needn't worry'. He answered the frightened question in Theo's eyes. He smiled ruefully, made her a small brief bow. 'I shall leave Richmond tonight.'

T
HE
trial dragged on during the sweltering August days. Joseph appeared for a week, ill at ease and grumpy. He tried to persuade Theo to return with him at once, and she ignored him. Not only ignored him, but seemed, in a curious and alarming way, to be unaware of his presence. He occupied a room not far from hers in the borrowed house; they occasionally dined together when she was not with her father; but her eyes looked past him; she answered politely, chatted about the weather, even expressed some courteous appreciation of his coming—all without giving him the slightest feeling of contact. There was no hostility in this blankness. There was no emotion at all.

Joseph made a few half-hearted attempts to clear his own name, suffered an extremely uncomfortable interview with Blennerhassett. The Irishman was now also imprisoned and
standing trial with his 'sovereign in expectancy,' and, while he remained loyal to Aaron, he did not scruple to hide his contempt for Joseph.

Joseph regretted having come, though he was relieved to see that the trial was progressing more favorably for Aaron than he had expected. He took himself home again, heartily sick of the whole matter, and more profoundly uneasy about his wife than he had ever been. She dwelt in some remote borderland where all human relationships—save one—seemed shadowy. In her feverish concentration on her father, even concern for her child seemed not to touch her. 'He is all right with Eleanore,' she said. 'He does not need me as I am needed here.'

And as for me, thought Joseph, she never considers my rights or needs at all. And he traveled alone back to his plantation.

On September first the long ordeal ended. It had, after all, been impossible to prove that Aaron had committed any overt act of war. That he had intended to do so, no one doubted, but in the absence of conclusive proof of an overt act, the law could not touch him.

Had it been given, even Meriwether Lewis's testimony would probably not have affected the outcome, because no act of war had occurred. The conspiracy had been checked before it had matured.

The verdict was unaccompanied by any demonstration. The courtroom was weary of the proceedings. From the moment of hearing Judge Marshall's calm summing-up, no one could fail to guess the result.

The jury took but a few minutes, then, shuffling their feet and staring at the floor, they returned sullenly to their box.

'Not guilty because not proved,' said the foreman, with ill grace.

Theo repressed a cry of joy, but Aaron leapt to his feet to protest against this ambiguous ' Scotch' verdict.

'Either I am guilty or I am not guilty!' he cried. 'I demand that the jury alter the wording of its verdict.'

A lengthy and bitter verbal battle ensued. The judge, jury, counsel, and Aaron all took part to a buzz of interested comment from the spectators. The high moment of acquittal petered out into something like a cat-fight. After an hour of acrimony, the jury consented to a compromise. The verdict was accepted as rendered, but entered on the record simply as 'Not guilty. '

Chief Justice Marshall bowed briefly to Aaron and disappeared. The jury trailed out, still grumbling, followed by the prosecuting attorneys.

Aaron's guards touched their caps, swung open the door of the prisoner's box, and he was free. He was congratulated, of course, Luther Martin clapping him on the back and emitting roars of triumph. His Richmond supporters wrung his hand and suggested immediate celebration at the tavern. Theo clung to him, laughing a bit hysterically, giddy with relief.

Washington Irving, approaching the father and daughter to offer his own congratulations, thought, There is something spurious in all this. It doesn't ring true. Though he has beer grudgingly acquitted here, what can he do now? Jefferson is not appeased. There will be more persecution. The people believe him guilty. Moreover, they say he is heavily in debt. Poor Theo. She has hitched her wagon to a very dim star. He clasped her hand, murmuring his congratulations while his eyes were warm with sympathy.

Theo saw the sympathy and resented it. Why should anyone dare to pity them now? Aaron was exonerated.

The burst of elation, the happiness of triumph, were short
lived. During the weeks that followed, it became all too clear to Aaron that escape from the gallows in Richmond conferred no such certainty anywhere else. Ohio and Mississippi indicted him on the instigation of Jefferson. He had wriggled out in Virginia, wriggled out even from a subsequent anticlimactic trial for misdemeanor there, but there were other States. In New York and New Jersey he was still wanted for the ' murder' of Hamilton. A Baltimore mob tried to lynch him on general principles——

'Apparently there is not a jail nor a gallowstree in the States but yearns to tender me its gentle hospitality,' he told Theo. 'Can such popularity be deserved?'

Theo was too sick at heart to answer. She had passed beyond outcry at the injustice done him. The unrelenting persecution now seemed to her like a formless black monster. One did not expect justice from a monster: one tried one's puny best to escape.

'Yes,' said Aaron, reading her mind, because of late they had discussed this only solution. 'I shall have to go abroad for a while. Without my presence here, they will cool down or find another quarry. In England I shall find supporters, and in France.'

His eyes narrowed, and she knew that he was thinking of Napoleon. Let him but once establish contact with the great conqueror, and he felt confident of enthusiastic support. Here they were provincial and panicky: they had no vision. In the Old World it would be different: the Emperor would understand.

'Jerome Bonaparte, whom I entertained at Richmond Hill, is now King of Westphalia,' he remarked, pursuing this line of thought.

Theo brightened. 'And surely he will be hospitable to you in return, will help you to see his brother.'

Aaron had no doubt of it. Gradually Theo again found hope. Aaron had never lost it. 'X' was, after all, still possible. Europe would provide the proper theater for the next act. The necessity for exile was perhaps only a blessing in disguise.