THE GOLDEN MISTRESS

Here's one book that won't be included in the library of the Jumel Mansion in New York City--it's a bed-and-hiked-chemise account of the ripening of Eliza Brown (here called Betsy Bowen) Jumel, who was married briefly to Aaron Burr. As Beyea portrays it, Betsy was the daughter of a Providence whore, then adopted by rock-ribbed Sam Allen who found that chastising the bare ten-year-old restored his puissance. After the death of his dour wife, and increasingly stimulating ravishments-cum-repentances, Sam is about to marry teenaged Betsy. But Betsy, reunited with her mother, learns that the bed ""game"" has more able practitioners than Sam. Then there's a comfortable liaison with a French sea captain and Betsy finds her true love, Matt, son of a town father, and becomes pregnant. Since Matt won't marry her, it's onto the streets until she gives birth to a son (whom she detests). But--there's a boat leaving soon for New York--and future triumphs. Shoddy colonial capers.