But the new-wed pair did none of the things that any optimist would
predict, that any astute student of human nature would set down in a
novel about them. Before the honeymoon was over, they were quarreling
like cat and dog. About money, of course. Burr sold some stock for his
wife, and neglected to turn over the proceeds to her. She asked for
the money. He curtly replied:
"Madam, this time you are married to a ~man~. A man who will henceforth
take charge of all your business affairs."
Betty's temper had never, at best, threatened to rob the patient
Griselda of her laurels. Men had been her slaves, not her masters. She
had no fancy for changing the lifelong conditions. So, in a blaze of
anger, she not only demanded her money, but hinted very strongly that
Colonel Burr was little better than a common fortune hunter.
Burr ordered her to go to her room and stay there until she could
remember the respect due from a wife to her husband. She made a hot
retort to the effect that the house was hers, and that, but for her
wealth, Burr was a mere outcast and beggar.
Burr, without a word, turned and left the house. This was just ten
days after the wedding. He went to New York and took up his abode in
his former Duane Street lodgings. Betty, scared and penitent, went
after him. There was a reconciliation, and he came back.
But soon there was another squabble about money. And Betty, in another
tantrum, went to a lawyer and brought suit to take the control of her
fortune out of her husband's hands. Again Burr left his new home,
vowing he would never return.
The poor old fellow, once more cast upon his own resources, and
self-deprived of the luxuries his wife's money had brought him, fell
ill. When Betty, in another contrite fit, went to plead with him to
come back, she found him delirious. She had him carried out to the
mansion, and for weeks nursed him right tenderly.
But when he came again to his senses, Burr would not speak to his
wife. The moment he was able to get out of bed, he left the house.
Betty never saw him again. Not very long afterward he died, in a
Staten Island hotel--alone, unmourned, he who had been the darling of
women.
Did Betty mourn her husband emeritus? Not noticeably. She was not of
the type that mourns. Before Burr was fairly under the sod, she was
flirting gayly and was demanding and receiving the same admiration
that had always been hers. She sought to make people forget that she
had ever been Mrs. Burr, and she asked them to call her, once more,
"Madame Jumel." She dazzled New York with a mammoth flower fete in the
summer of 1837; and once more, heedless of people's opinions, ruled as
queen of New York's little social realm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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