“I mean no insult whatsoever. Though, if I did, I suppose I should fear being clasped in irons or sued into penury, under the new Federalist Reign of Terror.”
At that, my jaw dropped. “It’s your Republicans who aspire to guillotines. You might be glad of the new laws if you’d been persecuted so relentlessly by the newspaper as I—”
“Say no more,” Burr replied wryly, holding up a hand in surrender. “I’ve taken endless amusement watching the way you’ve spent the past year and a half hectoring the buttoned-up society ladies who had the temerity to shun you. I admire it. Hamilton has, in you, a very well-matched wife. As I intend to tell him at this evening’s meeting of the Manumission Society.”
I softened to hear this reminder of his antislavery work. Especially as our political parties seemed often now on the verge of civil war; just last year, two congressmen had come to blows with cane and fire-iron tongs on the floor of the House of Representatives. It was heartening to remember that there were men like Burr in the opposing camp who could still find common cause on great moral issues. And it made me forgive his taunts, because it seemed he did, in fact, have some moral scruples. “My husband seems quite hopeful that New York will soon eliminate the practice of slavery. Do you share his optimism?”
Burr’s smile was enigmatic. “I suspect it would go better to first eliminate slavery a little closer to home. At least, it would spare your husband some embarrassment.”
“We keep no slaves,” I said, with perhaps more pride than I ought to have, given that more than half the members of the society did own slaves, including my father.
“As will be discussed at tonight’s meeting, your husband is the purchaser of record for a slave the Manumission Society is seeking to help gain her freedom.”
I shook my head, dismissively. “I’m sure there’s been some mistake. We have no slaves.”
“But your sister does,” Burr replied.
*
ENSCONCED AMONGST HER perfumes and cosmetic pots in her toilette, Angelica admired her reflection in an ivory-handled mirror. “Did Kitty wave the white flag?”
“She promised a bank note,” I replied, cooing a bit over my sister’s ten-month-old baby in his ornate walnut bassinet, the child being ample proof that whatever had broken between my sister and her husband had indeed been mended.
Angelica waved away a little yawn. “I’d forgotten how exhausting a baby can be, even if you give them over to a nursemaid.”
As gently as one could possibly suggest such a thing, I ventured, “Perhaps if you hosted fewer parties . . .”
“But Church lives for parties. He’s rich and has no place in politics, so he has little to do and time hangs heavy on his hands.”
I couldn’t imagine having little to do. Indolence wasn’t in our Dutch blood. And I sensed Angelica was annoyed by it, too. But I hadn’t come to criticize either of them. I’d come to ask, nay, to demand, “You must let Sarah go free.”
My sister startled. “Sarah?”
“Your lady’s maid,” I replied, stiffly. “I am informed today that Alexander purchased her for you.”
“Oh, yes,” Angelica said, as if only vaguely recalling it. “When I knew we were returning to America, I asked Hamilton to ensure I’d have a servant when I disembarked the ship, and he did me that favor.”
My husband never purchased slaves for our household. Yet his entanglement with my slave-owning family had put him in difficult positions, and pushed him to compromise his moral stance more than once. It did not sit well with me that he might have done this, for me, in order to make my sister more apt to stay in New York—which he knew would make me happy. “You must emancipate her. She’s gone to the Manumission Society for help. They mean to argue her cause publicly.”
A sense of indignation leaped to my sister’s wounded expression at the idea she should be thought a bad mistress. “Why should Sarah wish to leave me? I’ve never treated her harshly for even a moment. And to beg the Manumission Society’s help! This is mortifying.”
“Yes,” I said, because slavery was mortifying.
We’d grown up with Prince guarding our door, and Dinah cooking our meals, and Jenny fixing our hair. We’d told ourselves we loved Papa’s servants as if they were family. And I might still argue that we did—but not with an eye to their humanity, with all the pain and possibility that entailed.
Anger does not obliterate love.