The American Chronicle 1 - Burr (68 page)

Mrs. Keese weeps a good deal but vows she will visit the Colonel often, with food. The man-servant has already found himself another “governor.”

The Colonel is low in spirits. I suppose now he sinks. Yet when he chooses to speak (which is not often) he is as sharp as ever.

Some days after Helen’s murder I came to see him. He noticed that I was depressed though I did not tell him why. I made no mention of Helen even when he discussed the case, as everyone does; in fact, people talk of nothing else and it is all I can do to stay silent, to pretend indifference.

“You are disturbed, Charlie. You keep biting your knuckles. A bad sign.”

“I am sorry. But it
is
a bad sign. I am disturbed, and wonder sometimes how I’ll ever get through life.”

“One
lives
through it, Charlie.”

“Some things seem to kill one.”

“Then die. We must all do that. But die, as they say, game.”

SAM SWARTWOUT and I accompanied the Colonel on the boat to Staten Island. The day was fine. A warm wind out of the west broke with silver the gray surface of the river.

The Colonel lay on a litter and watched New York City recede into the distance for the last time. This is easier to write than to believe. Secretly I think we both expect him to wake up one morning, leap out of bed, and shout “Heigh-ho for Texas!” and begin all over again his splendid life.

A large hat shades the Colonel’s head from the sun; hides his eyes from us. Silence as he stares at the ships’ masts that screen the water frontage at what was Richmond Hill.

“I dreamed of Quebec last night.” Burr’s voice was so low that only I could hear him. “At least I think it must have been Quebec. I was on a sled. On the side of a snowy hill. Moving down very fast. Most agreeable sensation.”

Sam Swartwout deserted the bow of the ship where he had been posing, a portly figure-head. “You’ll like Staten Island, Colonel. You know, it’s still pretty much the way it used to be with all those big houses and gardens.”

“Oh, Sam, Staten Island is an earthly paradise!” The Colonel’s impish side still shows itself. “When I was there in the Revolution, a young boy, younger than Charlie here, slipping in and out of the coves on dark nights, stealing through the woods.” He stopped as if he had lost his train of thought; but he had not. When he continued, the voice was unexpectedly sad. “Luckily it was almost always night when I was on the island. If it had been day-time, I might have looked in this direction and if I had I might’ve seen myself here on the river half a century later, half a corpse on a barge—imperial to the end!” He shook his head. “I don’t know what young Aaron would’ve thought ... what he thinks if he’s still lurking up there in those green woods and looks our way.”

Judge Edwards is waiting at the dock. With him are a doctor and (to the Colonel’s horror) the Reverend P. J. Van Pelt.

I walk beside the Colonel’s litter as we cross the landing to Winant’s Hotel.

En route the Colonel whispered, “If you should hear that I have died in the bosom of the Dutch Reformed Church, you will know that either a noble mind was entirely overturned at the end or a man of the cloth has committed perjury.”

“I shall include that in your memoirs. But why not shock everyone and get well.”

“It is no longer my wish.” The Colonel winced as the porters jolted the litter. “Not that I am absolutely done for. After all, I had an uncle who lived to be a hundred, which makes me practically a stripling with twenty years left in which to seek my elusive fortune.”

Winant’s Hotel is small but clean and pleasant. The Colonel’s rooms are on the second floor with a balcony where he can take the air in good weather. The hotel-keeper is a slow man with a red face who seems most sensible of the honour the Colonel means to do him by dying in his hotel. Mr. Winant is even more impressed by his neighbour Judge Edwards, a brisk dapper man not in the least like the Colonel but obviously fond of him, awed by him.

THE TRIAL IS OVER; it was very like the trial of Elma Sands except that where there was some doubt that Levi Weeks actually killed Elma Sands, there is no doubt at all that Richard Robinson killed Helen Jewett.

I have spent the last three days in court and most hard it was to find a seat. Fortunately Old Patroon is welcome everywhere.

The first day in court I knew that I had seen Robinson somewhere before. He is a handsome ruddy youth who dresses in the height of fashion. He is also very popular: half the court-room was filled with young clerks just like himself and they provided him with a sympathetic
claque
;
for that matter so did judge and jury.

Mrs. Townsend charmed no one while her Biblical references inspired laughter. The girls did no better as, one by one, they testified to Robinson’s presence in Thomas Street on the night of the murder. Whenever a girl spoke, the clerks would giggle until the witness was reduced to blushes and stammers.

By the second day of the trial it was apparent to everyone that Robinson had murdered Helen (for reasons never established); it was equally apparent that since he was an attractive, well-spoken youth who had fallen among sinful women, he deserved the court’s compassion. And what, after all, was Helen Jewett to this court but so much debris to be swept out of sight? Certainly no one except me wanted that strong rosy neck stretched and broken on the gallows in the Tombs.

Oh, what I would give for just one hour in which to be Tamerlane loose in the streets of New York. Mrs. Townsend disembowelled. The judge’s head on a pike. Robinson slowly quartered, slowly dismembered!

I was awakened from my daydream of vengeance by a familiar figure squeezing past me to get to the aisle. It was William de la Touche Clancey who scowled when he saw me. With good reason. I remembered everything.

Clancey and the male prostitute skulking in the shadows of the Vauxhall Gardens; and Helen had mocked the boy, mocked Richard Robinson.

I wanted to shout, “Stop! I have proof!” But I said nothing; have no proof of any kind. Can only guess at what happened.

According to Mrs. Townsend, Helen had liked Robinson while he had “thought her very nice—for that sort of—well, person—in a place to which I was enticed by—well, I could not stay away from, Your Honour, and I wanted to stay away, wanted to save my money so I could—marry.” Tears started in the large blue eyes.

Since motive was never established by the prosecution (and it ought to have been, either real or invented), the incriminating details were one by one explained away by the clever defence. Fresh whitewash is on many a fence and door and therefore on many an innocent trouser leg. The miniature (will I ever get it back? do I want it back?) was
given
Robinson some weeks before the murder. The shreds of tassle on the hatchet? Well, no one denies that his cloak had rested on the hatchet which had been left in her room by the maid O’Malley.

But if Robinson was innocent, then who was guilty?

The defence’s answer to that obvious question was masterful. “Shortly after Robinson left the house, around midnight, someone else came to Helen Jewett’s room. Now let us pause a moment and consider the various details we know in a new light. For instance, the passage
from
the house which the prosecution suggests that Robinson took—that is, across the yard and over the picket fence—might well have been the passage
to
the house that the real murderer took and, may I say, there are excellent possibilities of our finding
him
,
gentlemen of the jury, yes, excellent possibilities.”

I had stopped breathing at this point, aware that the entire court-room was listening to my heart beat.

“For there exists a man in this city with whom the unfortunate Helen Jewett lived. By whom she had a child that did not live, a jealous man, a vindictive man from whom she fled, fled in fear of her life. And because of this monster that satanic house in Thomas Street became not just a den of vice for Helen Jewett but, Heaven help the poor girl, a last safe—she prayed—refuge.”

It was some time before I breathed again, before my heart ceased to flutter. As coldly as I could, I reviewed the law in my head. Considered evidence. Saw little likelihood of an indictment, and no likelihood of a prosecution. After all, I had been with Fitz-Greene Halleck until two in the morning.

After fifteen minutes of “deliberation,” the jury set Robinson free. Because the case is still open, I now wake up in the night after exactly four hours of drugged sleep and lie awake until dawn, wondering if they will arrest me.

I just looked at myself in the minor and said, “
You
killed Elma Sands!”

THIS MORNING I RECEIVED a
letter postmarked Washington City. It contained a thick white card engraved as follows: “The president, Requests the honour of (written in)
Mr. Schuyler’s
Company at dinner,
Monday
, the
9th July
,
at
5
o
’
clock
.
The favour of an answer is desired.” That favour was granted in the several minutes it took me to write an acceptance and the twenty minutes it took me to hurry to the temporary post office where I was delighted by the postal clerk’s expression when I slipped the letter to him with its austere address plainly visible: “The President, The White House, Washington City.”

“I guess everybody wants a job!” was the best the poor man could do. I smiled graciously, paid for my letter, and went to Pine Street.

Mr. Bryant was pleased but not surprised. “Mr. Van Buren is punctilious about these things. But then that is the secret of his success. He never forgets a debt or an injury.”

“I never expected him to act so quickly.”

“Perhaps General Jackson wishes to meet Old Patroon.” I was suddenly nervous at the thought of finding myself face to face with that famous warrior.

“I think it shows Mr. Van Buren’s confidence in you, asking you to the White House
before
he is elected.”

“Not to mention his confidence in himself,” I was impelled to remark. “But one way or the other, I shall leave New York with or without a government place.”

“Old Patroon will be missed. But then you will write to us from Europe. And of course one ought to go abroad when young.” Mr. Bryant is still distressed by my involvement with Helen Jewett. Although Leggett has tried to convince him that I was an innocent youth led astray, Mr. Bryant has given me up as one who will not be saved. He is right.

He then read with pleasure (or so he said) my description of Old Patroon’s terrifying journey on the recently completed Brooklyn-Jamaica Rail Road. After paying me, he excused himself to write a memorial of James Madison who has just died.

THE COLONEL IS WEAK; does not leave his room. I found him sitting up in bed, newspapers all over the coverlet, an unlit stump of a seegar in one hand. He had already heard the news. “Well, I
am
the last, aren’t I? And you’re in time to help me write a letter to Dolley. I understand she has not a penny to her name. Her son ran through everything.” The Colonel seemed moderately pleased. “I can’t think how she will live, poor girl. She dearly likes to spend money.”

The Colonel dictated an agreeable letter which he signed with some difficulty; his hands have developed a tremor. Then he sat back exhausted as I sealed and addressed the letter. “Jemmy was at least five years older than I,” he murmured, looking out toward the Atlantic.

“Have you seen much of the Reverend Van Pelt?”

“At every opportunity, he pays me a call. But he is tactful. So far he has not asked to hear my confession. But then he is not young and it would take a decade once I was truly launched. Actually he has been
un-
tactful only once. He asked me if I expected to be “saved.” A most impertinent question, don’t you think?”

“What did you tell him?”

“ ‘On that subject,’ I said, ‘I am coy!’ ”

I told the Colonel of the invitation from the White House. He was intrigued. “Now who arranged that, and to what end?”

“Leggett and Mr. Bryant. I ... I am to write about General Jackson in the White House.”

The Colonel looked at me thoughtfully. “You’ll find Matty a most agreeable and good man. He will take to you. In fact, I have written him about you.”

I looked at the Colonel as innocently as possible. “Do you think Mr. Van Buren will be at the dinner?”

“Every likelihood, Charlie!”

“Do I mention you?”

“If you don’t, he will.” The Colonel then asked me if I would read aloud to him. “I know it is dull for you but for me being read to is better than laudanum.”

From off the table beside his bed, I picked up
Tristram Shandy
and read for an hour. We were both amused. The book is better read aloud than to oneself. “I am partial to Sterne,” said the Colonel, “and regret that I came to him so late in life. In fact, when I was young, if I had read more of Sterne and less of Voltaire I might have realized that there was room enough on this earth for both Hamilton and me.”

Before I left, the Colonel gave me advice on how to comport myself in the White House. “It can be most unnerving, particularly when there is no lady of the house.” He smiled at a sudden memory. “Dolley used always to carry a book in one hand so that she and a stranger would immediately have something to talk about. ‘What book is it?’ my daughter once asked her. ‘
Don Quixote
,’ said Dolley, ‘always
Don Quixote
.’ When Theodosia asked her what she thought of Cervantes, Dolley said, ‘If I
read
the book I should have nothing to say. But over the years I’ve learned quite a lot about the plot from nervous guests.’ ”

The Colonel chuckled. “Dolley will do well, with or without money. I am told that Daniel Webster is in love with her and since he takes every bribe offered him, he will have enough money to keep her in style.”

IF THIS IS NOT HELL, it will do. I have never been so hot. I can see why Colonel Burr wanted to be president—to revel in the stifling damp heat of this depressing tropical swamp.