I SAT UP ON THE FLATBOAT’S ROOF, WATCHING THE RIVER SLUICE past. ‘Was he really your country’s vice-president?’
McMeekin, still steering the flatboat, nodded. ‘Oh yes. Could have gone higher, too. He actually won the election – tied with Jefferson for the electoral votes, and tied him thirty-five times more when it went to the Congress. Then on the thirty-sixth ballot, one of the Congressmen changed his mind and Jefferson got the job. Burr came second, so he was Vice-President.’
It seemed an unnaturally cruel system, to yoke a man to his closest rival as leader and deputy. I thought back to conversations on the road from New York. ‘But Mr Jefferson is still the President?’
‘He is. That election was six years ago. We had another one two years back, and this time Jefferson fixed the constitution so he could hand pick his vice-president. Wouldn’t let Burr stand – not after the duel.’
‘He killed the Treasury Secretary,’ I said. ‘Mr Hamilton.’
‘That’s right.’
There was a shout from for’ard, and McMeekin heaved on the long steering oar. Slowly, the square bow turned starboard.
‘What was the cause of the duel?’
‘You’d have to ask the colonel. There was talk Mr Hamilton insulted him, but I never rightly heard what it was. Must have been bad, though. After that, Jefferson couldn’t have chosen Burr as his vice-president even if he had liked him. Which he didn’t, they say.’
It did not speak much for Burr’s wisdom that he had thrown away his career on a point of honour. Nor did I like to know that my fortunes were tied to this desperate failure, whose lost stature must have blinded him to the perils of his task. I did not want to end my life in a Spanish gaol, or an American one, trying to salvage Burr’s dignity.
I left McMeekin in command on deck and went below. Four of the men were gathered around the stove playing cards, hunched over like dwarves in a cave; in the far corner, preferring the absence of fire to the presence of the crew, Catherine had buried herself under a heap of blankets and was trying to brush her hair. I crawled over, lifted the edge of the covers and huddled against her.
‘Where are we?’ she asked, craning her head so that her mirror caught daylight from one of the cracks in the planking.
I shrugged. ‘Somewhere on the river. McMeekin believes we will make the Mississippi tomorrow. I do not suppose it will seem much different.’
‘And then down to Mexico.’ She pulled a golden hair from the bristles of her brush. ‘Mr Burr is so brave to attempt its conquest, with so few to aid him. Is it true he is wanted for murder?’
There was a distance in her voice when she mentioned Burr which I did not like. ‘He killed a man in a duel,’ I said.
‘So he is a man of honour, as well as daring.’
‘The man he killed may disagree.’
‘Is he married, do you know?’
I did not.
Catherine sighed. ‘I do not suppose any one woman could compass so great a personality. The way he looked at me on the island – it was as though my skirts and spencer and stays were stripped away, and he could see me quite naked. Do you think he will truly become King of Mexico?’
‘He means to try.’ Personally, I thought he was as likely to become King of England.
A furious wind began to blow next day, so hard we were pushed back upstream. The horses on the stern of one of the flatboats began to bray and stamp, tossing their heads and almost overturning the shallow-draughted vessel. It was all we could do to keep the flotilla together, and to bring them one by one onto an exposed sandbank in the lee of the shore. Angry clouds raced across the sky, pelting us with freezing rain if we dared venture on deck.
I had just thrown a fresh pair of logs in the stove, and was regretting the billowing smoke they exhaled, when a dark face appeared at the mouth of the cabin. It was Burr’s slave, shivering with the cold and holding an oversized cape over his head. The wind pressed it around his body like a shroud, but it was only when I beckoned him in that he dared cross the threshold. In the broken dialect of his race, he explained that his master wished to entertain Catherine and me aboard his boat until the gale abated.
I did not need a second invitation. The flatboat cabin offered little protection from the elements, and the stove could muster only a feeble reply to the bitter air. Following the young slave, we vaulted over the side and trudged through the miry sand, our boots sinking deep with every step. By the time we had hauled ourselves aboard his vessel our clothes were soaked and our fingers a shivering blue.
Burr stood as we entered his cabin. ‘Welcome to my flagship,’ he said grandly. ‘I trust you will find the accommodation satisfactory.’
After the misery of our flatboat, his quarters were a palace. Burr had hoisted his flag on one of the keelboats, and though from the outside it would have attracted little comment, its interior was enviably fitted with plush benches, teak furniture and an iron stove which did not poison the air with smoke. The doors sat snug enough to fend off the worst of the gales, while the rear of the cabin promised the greatest luxury of all: privacy. A bulkhead divided the room in two, setting aside the aft portion as a sleeping cabin. Through the open door I could see a porcelain bowl in a nightstand, a shaving mirror, and even an upholstered bed. If Burr was to fail in his design it would not be for want of sleep.
The boy poured wine from a decanter, and retreated into silence in the corner. Burr handed one glass to Catherine, another to me, and raised his own.
‘To victory.’
Catherine sneezed. Wine spilled from her glass and splashed down the front of her dress. In an instant, Burr was at her side, proffering napkins and towels and berating himself his callous indifference to her health and constitution. Catherine took the napkin and dabbed at her garments, though there remained a few spots she could not see which Burr insisted on wiping away himself. The slave fetched a blanket from the sleeping cabin which she wrapped about her shoulders, and set a kettle on the stove to warm some egg punch. Only then did we settle back on the benches.
‘I wonder that your father allowed you to venture into this damnable climate,’ said Burr. ‘Surely you should be at home, swaddled in furs and diamonds and warmed by the attentions of every buck in London?’
Her hair was lank and tangled from the rain; her dress still bore a few remnants of the wine; her stockings were crusted with sand and the grey blanket around her shoulders belonged more to a beggar than a lady of her fortune. Yet for all that, the emerald necklace still flashed at her throat, her skin gleamed golden in the lamplight and there was a pride on her face which made her seem at once irresistible and wholly unattainable.
‘My father did not allow me to come here, Colonel Burr. I came of my own volition.’
‘But why—’
‘I sought adventure,’ she said, cool as crystal. ‘I did not suppose I should find it in London.’
Burr’s eyes fixed her with such frank admiration I thought he might fall to his knees in worship. ‘Did you? Well, you’ll find it here, by God. You are a veritable Penthesilea, Miss Lyell, and I am Theseus. Together, what worlds shall we not conquer? I shall make you an Empress of Mexico.’
It seemed a touch presumptuous, coming from a man who had not yet managed to reach the Mississippi, but Catherine showed no sense of its absurdity. Instead, she regarded Burr with a like frankness, even awe.
‘Fine words are very well,’ I said, overcome by a sudden urge to be disagreeable. ‘It is actions which will decide our fate.’
Burr nodded with approval I had not sought. ‘Spoken like a true man of action.’
‘Though you are no stranger to action yourself,’ pressed Catherine. ‘You will forgive me if I am indelicate, but you have defended yourself from the vain words of others, have you not?’
Burr tried to furrow his features into noble regret, though he could not hide a certain self-satisfaction. ‘I have.’
‘That was a brave thing to do.’
Burr’s shoulders expanded slightly. ‘Mr Hamilton slandered me –a grievous insult and a stain on my honour. I could not allow it to stand unanswered.’
‘What did he say?’ breathed Catherine.
‘Nothing that may be repeated in a lady’s hearing.’
‘Was it true?’ I asked. No-one seemed to hear.
‘Yet you stood on the field of battle, man to man, and faced down your enemy. I imagine there are few men who could do the like.’
‘I heard that Hamilton purposely fired wide and expected the same of you,’ I said. I had had that gossip from McMeekin.
That cracked Burr’s composure. He sniffed, and leaned forward across the cabin. ‘Mr Hamilton was a lying scoundrel in life, and I regret to say a lying scoundrel in death. He fired first and missed; I fired second and did not. It was typical of the man that afterwards, on his death bed, he should attempt to discredit me thus.’
I had to concede the reason in his argument. And whatever the truth of the matter, one point remained undisputed: Mr Burr had stood on a field in New Jersey and shot a defenceless man in cold blood. For all the improbability of his scheme and the affable humour he evinced, it was a fact worth remembering.
We spent most of the day in that cabin, swapping wine and punch and gossip. Despite the icy storm raging outside, inside we might have been sitting in a comfortable tavern. In the mid-afternoon Burr’s boy spread out a fine lunch of cold hams and jellies, which I devoured with indecorous haste. For all his army’s lack of manpower, its quartermastering was impeccable. Yet my own humour remained steadfastly gloomy. I could not help notice that though the other two indulged my conversation, and affected to find my occasional jokes amusing, their fullest laughter came at each other’s wit. Long stretches passed where I said nothing – indeed, where my very presence seemed forgotten – until I almost longed to be back in the cold comfort of the flatboat. I could not help but lament Catherine’s capricious attachments: evidently the lustre of our adventure together had paled.
At length – after how many hours I could not tell – there came a rap on the door, and a waterlogged sentry peered in. Behind him, the sky was dark with night. ‘The wind’s dropped,’ he announced. ‘Mr Tyler figures we can be moving again.’
‘Very good. Inform the rest of the fleet.’ Burr turned to Catherine. She had her feet tucked up beneath her on the bench, snug as a cat. ‘I can hardly conscience you to return to that flatboat, with its leaks and its draughts. Your adventure would end in a terrible fever before it had rightly begun. You must stay with us – I will happily give you the use of my bed.’
I was not so obtuse that I had not anticipated this offer would come. I had prepared my response, and was instantly all the bustling guardian. ‘That is very kind of you, Colonel Burr, but I could not allow it. Even in these far-flung wilds Miss Lyell must heed the dictates of propriety.’
Burr smiled indulgently, as though he pitied me my punctiliousness. ‘Is propriety to be prized above health?’
‘It is in England.’
He waved his hand. ‘But you have misunderstood me. I did not intend to slight Miss Lyell’s virtue. Naturally, it was my hope that you both would join me aboard.’
Having seen the two of them together I distrusted even that arrangement. But there was no denying that the flatboat was a wretched vessel, and that we were more likely to survive the journey, without catching some exotic American fever, aboard Burr’s keelboat. And I could surely watch them close enough to prevent any infidelity.
I did not doubt that I would needs be vigilant. Burr had already shown himself untroubled by the rightful ownership of whole nations; my tenuous, irregular relationship with Miss Lyell would give him little pause. Not for the first time, I wondered what Mr Hamilton’s lethal gibe had been, and how true it had struck.