Читать книгу I, Eliza Hamilton - Susan Holloway Scott - Страница 10

CHAPTER 5

As magical as that night had been, I didn’t see Alexander the next day, or the next after that. Winter stepped between us, as it did so often that year. By the time the assembly had ended and I was once again bound for home in the Livingstons’ sleigh, that shining silver moon—our moon—had become obscured by thick clouds. Snow began falling before dawn, and continued to fall for the entire day and the next night, too. The skies remained as dark as if the sun had never risen, with the flakes falling so rapidly that all landmarks were lost in swirling white.

Every house, shop, church, and barn in the town as well as the army’s encampment was blanketed by the snow, and the streets and roads were so thickly covered that by midday no outward signs remained that these passageways had ever existed. Even the very birds in the trees were quieted by the snow, and all around us was muffled in icy white silence.

Muffled, and cut off from the larger world around us, too. The snow was too deep and treacherous for man or horse to traverse, and I pitied the poor sentries standing guard in such weather. Everyone else kept within doors and away from the frost-iced windows, and did not venture far from their fires.

There was no question of Alexander calling upon me, yet still I was impatient to see him again. How could I not be? As I sat and knitted more caps for the soldiers, I imagined him in the crowded quarters of Mrs. Ford’s house a mere quarter of a mile away, sitting at the long table that served as a desk for the aides-de-camp and continuing to write His Excellency’s orders, transcribe his letters, coordinate his meetings, arrange his messengers, and perhaps even tally the expenses for the cavalry’s horses. The work of the army’s headquarters would not stop even in a snowstorm, though nothing could be sent until the roads again were passable.

Yet I also pictured Alexander later in the evening, after the general and the other aides had retired to their beds. Bent over his desk with a tallow candle for light, he’d be writing still, but at that hour the words would be his own.

And to my joy, they’d be meant for me.

Ever since my aunt had permitted Alexander to hand me that first letter, he had launched a veritable barrage of missives my way, so many that I could scarce keep up my replies. He was my soldier-poet, and oh, the sweet words that were in his arsenal for winning me! His letters were like him, brilliant and beautiful and rich with ideas and, yes, with love. Some were short, scarcely a sentence or two written in haste, and others were worthy of the greatest writers in our language. I cherished them all. In his letters, I was his dearest girl, his angel, his happiness, his charmer, but above all I was simply his Betsey, his Eliza. What more, truly, could I ask?

The storm’s last flake had scarcely fallen when Alexander again appeared at our door, his greatcoat covered with snow and his face flushed with the cold. As can be imagined, I greeted him as warmly as if we’d been separated for months, not days. I’d never claimed to possess a sentimental nature, but it did seem that our fondness for each other had strengthened with that first kiss, as if the very moon herself had blessed our love. From that time onward, I could not imagine myself with another man as my one love and husband, nor did I wish to.

Over the next weeks, and whenever the snows and the General permitted, we stole as much time together as was possible. While we attended several frolics and wintery amusements such as sleighing in the company of Kitty and several of my other friends as well as various officers from headquarters, I preferred the occasions when Alexander and I could be alone together. Aunt Gertrude had decided that he had proven himself worthy of me, and relaxed her more stringent rules. I was now permitted to sit with him unaccompanied in the front room of the Campfields’ house in the evening (though the door must be kept open), and to bid him farewell alone in the hall. When Lady Washington invited me to tea, she made sure that Alexander would be spared from his duties long enough to take a dish with me, too. I was allowed to walk with him along the narrow paths carved into the snow, and if during those walks a kiss or two was exchanged, no one took notice.

It was also during these long walks that I began to realize the extent of his restless brilliance. While we spoke of a shared future together, as every couple will, our conversations were also deeper and more philosophical than most. It was Alexander’s nature to speak more than I, and I happily listened, for he’d more ideas in a day than most mortal men have in a lifetime.

Hand in hand, he told me his plans for the country’s future, of the rare opportunities—and possible perils—that would await our land once the war was won (which even in that grim winter, he never doubted would happen). Unlike most young gentlemen I’d known who seemed obsessed only with the battles at hand, Alexander looked ahead. He thought of new ways of government and ruling and new notions of finance, schemes and contrivances so magnificent and grand and important that I listened in awe as he recounted them.

I couldn’t begin to match his knowledge, but I did ask many questions as they came to me, wanting to understand the things that interested him most, and learn new things for myself as well. In turn my eager attention pleased him, and he said that the process of explaining these things to me helped clarify them in his own head. Although we didn’t realize it then, we’d unwittingly fallen into the pattern of discussion that we’d continue for the rest of our lives together, and I dare to believe that in this way I encouraged him in his achievements.

We were also creating the kind of partnership that I’d always witnessed in my parents’ marriage. Mamma had taught me that to be a loving wife and a thorough, supportive helpmate to my husband was the surest course to contentment for any woman, while Papa for his part had always regarded my mother with unerring kindness, devotion, and respect. That I had found the same qualities in a gentleman as charming, as witty, and as handsome as Alexander was to me the rarest good fortune in the world.

It became accepted throughout the town and the camp that an understanding existed between us. Other men no longer asked me to dance at the assemblies, and the former gossip of Alexander’s rakish dalliances ceased, too, with his name now linked only to mine. As can be imagined in so small a community, this led to a great deal of good-natured jesting on the subject, and we both were accused of being love-struck and addled by Cupid’s darts.

Neither of us could deny it.

Given all this, it was no real wonder that as the days grew longer and February slipped into March, Alexander and I agreed that it was time for him to write to my father. I was already well aware of how high Alexander stood in Papa’s favor and had no doubt that he’d give his blessing to our union.

Alexander, however, had no such confidence, and labored long in composing this letter, which he rightly called the most important of his life. His uneasiness only increased when Papa didn’t reply at once, but said he first must defer to my mother. Further, he announced that he’d taken a house here in Morristown to better survey the state of the army for his reports to Congress, and also to be nearer to me.

“Your father doesn’t trust me, Eliza,” Alexander said gloomily as we sat together one evening. “Instead of granting his consent, he’s coming here to defend you against the friendless, penniless suitor who dares ask for your hand.”

“Hush,” I scolded gently. “That’s not his reasoning at all, Alexander. You know his friendship with His Excellency, and how hard he strives to present the army’s needs to Congress. It makes perfect sense for him to be here in Morristown now, as the plans are being made for the summer campaigns.”

He shook his head and restlessly tapped the hilt of his sword.

“I don’t deny that those things are part of his reasoning,” he admitted. “But you know that the general is sending me to Amboy next week to negotiate the exchange of prisoners. I could be gone a fortnight, even longer, and I hate leaving you here with so much undecided. Why hasn’t your father replied? Why is he taking so long?”

“Because he wishes to consult with my mother first,” I said. “Among Dutch families, mothers have as much say as fathers in determining their children’s marriages. He is in Philadelphia, while she remains in Albany, and you know how slowly letters travel at this time of year.”

He grumbled wordlessly like a restive dog. “I can understand why Carter persuaded your sister to elope with him, if he was forced to suffer this same misery.”

Although he hadn’t asked for more coffee, I refilled his cup from the pot beside me. I’d already learned that small attentions like this helped to calm him when he was agitated.

“I’ve told you before that it was my sister’s idea to run away, not Mr. Carter’s,” I said. “But she did so because my parents would never have approved of him as a suitor, and an elopement was their only path to happiness.”

He raised the porcelain cup to his lips, inhaling the steaming fragrance of the coffee before he sipped it. “I cannot fault your parents. Though I myself like Carter, many regard him as the worst sort of slippery English rascal.”

“He’s never seemed a rascal to me,” I said mildly. John Carter had first come to our house in 1776 as a commissioner appointed by Congress to audit the accounts of the army while my father in command of the Northern Department. Papa had liked him then, judging him to be thorough, fair, and hardworking, but he’d never considered him as a suitable addition to our family. I’d thought him pleasing enough, if a bit phlegmatic, yet Angelica had been intrigued by his clever intelligence. I’d known there was an attraction between them, but I’d been as surprised as anyone when they’d eloped, and I still silently marveled that he’d snared my fiery sister’s heart. He was dark and intense, and known as a gambler, a gentleman who took great risks. He was rumored to be profiting from the war through various business arrangements that many thought weren’t entirely honorable, and I think that the aura of wickedness and mystery about his past in England had also held a powerful allure for my sister. “And it’s not his fault that he was born in England.”

“He’s an Englishman who fled his native land after an ill-fated bankruptcy,” Alexander said. “I know his primary income comes from provisioning contracts, but I’ve heard he’s also indulging in some tidy speculation that will either make him very rich, or very much in debt, which is bound to unsettle your father. In his eyes, matters must be going from ill to worse with you choosing a pauper. Though at least I have come to my poverty honestly, and as a gentleman should.”

“Hush,” I said again, and more sternly, too, for the coffee had not helped his humor as I’d hoped. “You are not at all like Mr. Carter. My parents have found you agreeable from the moment you first appeared on their doorstep, and you have only risen in their estimation since then. I’m sure they will bless our marriage, as sure as I am of anything under Heaven. What other assurance can I offer you?”

He glanced down at the delicate cup in his hand as if seeing it for the first time, and deliberately set it on the table between us. When he looked up again, I saw the deep sorrow in his eyes that he seldom revealed to anyone but me. I saw the loneliness of that long-ago boy who’d lost his parents and his home, and the aching fear of abandonment that haunted him still.

I dropped my knitting in the basket beside me and rose swiftly from my chair. I looped my arms around his neck and bent to kiss him, determined to make him understand the depth of my feelings for him. He answered by curling his arm around my waist and drawing me forward on his knees, and kissing me with an urgency that bordered on desperation. It was all done with haste and need, not grace, with my petticoats flurrying around my ankles, my knee bumping his sword awkwardly against the chair, and his half-empty cup rattling in its saucer on the table, yet we took no notice of anything except each other.

At any moment we could be discovered by another of our household, and we both understood that this bold display of emotion would have tested my aunt’s new tolerance. We didn’t care. He kissed me more deeply, his hand sliding along my leg beneath my tumbled petticoat as if by accident, until he’d reached the back of my bare knee above the ribbon of my garter. There he settled his palm quite happily, nor did I protest this impulsive caress; far from it. I’d already discovered how much I enjoyed the feverish pleasure Alexander’s touch could inspire, and risking the discovery by others only made the enjoyment more thrilling. I’ll admit that this was not the demeanor of a lady as I had been taught, and I had never granted such freedom to any other gentleman. But with Alexander, these freedoms, these kisses stolen and freely given, these small, teasing games were all part—an exciting part—of loving him.

“My own Alexander,” I whispered breathlessly, my face close to his. “If you wish it, I’ll wed you now, tomorrow, however and wherever you choose. We needn’t wait for my parents at all.”

“Oh, Eliza,” he said ruefully, smoothing my hair back from my face. “Nothing would bring me more joy than to hold you in my arms as my wife. But as much as I long for that day, I won’t ask you to make that sacrifice. You’re Eliza Schuyler, and you deserve a proper wedding, surrounded by your family, and I wouldn’t rob you of that.”

Reluctantly I nodded, realizing how foolish I’d been to suggest such a giddy plan. Another elopement would break my poor mother’s heart, and I wouldn’t wish Alexander to be forced to face my father’s wrath. The rashness of an unexpected marriage could even compromise his position in the army; His Excellency expected his officers—especially one as trusted as Alexander—to behave with measured decorum, and not to run off with a general’s daughter.

“Perhaps it is for the best that we wait, but I wish it could be otherwise,” I said wistfully. Still perched on his lap, I smoothed his neck cloth and straightened the collar of his coat with would-be-wifely concern. “There is so much that is unsettled in our lives because of the war, that if we could only be wed . . .”

I let the words drift off, because they didn’t really need to be said. I’m sure he understood as well as I. The war was a constant pall over all of us, with no guarantees of what might happen next. When the army broke camp in the spring, all the wives and families of the officers from Lady Washington downward would return to their homes, and the men would head to battle. Alexander complained of being desk-bound as an aide-de-camp, but once the fighting resumed, he would be in as much danger as any other soldier. The reasons for waiting to marry were undeniable, yet still I feared that I could lose him before he’d ever truly been mine.

“In time, my angel, in time,” he said softly. “I’ll go to Amboy, and you shall remain here to welcome your father. We’ll both have our orders, won’t we? I’ll be thick in tedious negotiations with the British, while you’ll be persuading your father of the wisdom of our match.”

I tried to smile. “You’ve told me yourself that the negotiations aren’t so very arduous, and how in the evenings you’ll be expected to dine every night with the British officers as if they were your boon companions.”

“That is true,” he admitted. “The British like nothing more than to drink themselves into a stupor every night. I will endure it, of course, if it means I can bring even one more of our men back to our side. You know that Congress is responsible for paying the keep of our own men in British hands, and God only knows how much of our payment ever reaches the poor wretches. To have as many of them returned to their regiments before the spring would be a benefit to everyone.”

“They couldn’t ask for a better champion.” It didn’t feel appropriate to discuss prisoners of war whilst sitting on his lap, and I eased from his knee, intending to return to my own chair.

But before I’d turned away, he’d caught me gently by the wrist.

“Eliza,” he said softly, in the voice that was deep and low and meant only for me. “Know that I will always be your champion first, above all others.”

I nodded, and all my earlier disappointment melted away. As I smiled down at him, unexpected tears stung my eyes, and I hurriedly dashed them away with the heel of my hand.

“Don’t weep, my love,” he said, half teasing and half not. “My sorry self isn’t worth your tears.”

“But you are.” My voice squeaked with emotion. “I’m crying because you make me so happy.”

“Ah, then, tears of joy.” He raised my hand to his lips and kissed it, lingering over the saltiness of my tears. “I vow to make those the only kind you’ll ever shed, Eliza, at least on my account. The sweetest tears of joy, and no others.”

I smiled, even as fresh tears slid down my cheeks. Such a beautiful promise to make, such a perfect vow from him.

How I wish it was one he’d been able to keep.

* * *

Soon after Alexander left with a small party for Amboy, a town on the Raritan Bay that overlooked Staten Island, and that served as the way station and ferry stop for travelers between New York and Philadelphia. It had also become something of an informal meeting point for the two armies, with our forces occupying Philadelphia and the British still holding New York. This was why Alexander had gone there to negotiate the mutual exchange of various prisoners from both sides.

Amboy was not far from Morristown, perhaps forty miles, but on account of the roads being rutted with ice, Alexander and his party required three long days to make their destination. I know this because he wrote to me as soon as he arrived, sending his love and informing me of his safe arrival.

I was, of course, delighted to receive his letter, and all the others that followed, for if I thought he’d written often to me when we were both together in Morristown, now, with a county between us, he seemed to have doubled his daily words.

He recounted the details of the negotiations, the officers he met and liked and the ones he didn’t, what he ate and what he drank, and any sundry scraps of gossip from New York involving acquaintances of my family’s. Forgetting (or choosing to forget) how far-reaching the Schuylers were in New York, he was simultaneously baffled and irritated by how my sisters Angelica and Peggy as well as I were mentioned in the nightly toasts of British officers. He also devoted much ink and paper to how thoroughly he missed me, and how much he longed to be with me again, and many small, private intimacies and endearments besides. No gentleman wrote a more devoted love letter than my Alexander, and no love letters were treasured more completely than I did his.

The only drawback to his literary devotion came with my replies. I couldn’t keep up with him, leastways not at the pace which he desired. I had never been facile with a pen in my hand, nor did inspiration come easily to me, the way it did to him. My spelling could be various and my hand lacked grace, and too often in the time it took me to capture an anecdote or sentiment upon the page, the words would fly clear away from my possession like a bull through an open gate, never to be recaptured. These lines which you read here, in all their clumsiness, are sufficient proof of how much I labored over my missives to him. Whereas his letters could cover sheet after sheet, mine were seldom more than a single page in length, and every word hard-fought at that.

It didn’t help matters that Papa arrived at his new lodgings in Morristown soon after Alexander had left. I bid thanks and farewell to my aunt and uncle and the crowded house of the Campfields, Rose packed up my trunks and belongings, and we shifted to the house my father had taken for the next few months. Yet I’d scarcely settled there before Papa announced that, as a treat, I was to accompany him back to Philadelphia, where he continued to hold his seat in Congress.

With the worst of the winter’s snows and ice behind us, our journey to Philadelphia was uneventful. When I’d been younger, New York had always been the city that we’d travel down the Hudson River to visit, but being patriots, we had not returned there since the British had seized control of the main island in the fall of 1776. Although some of Philadelphia’s citizens with Tory sentiments had fled, it was now the largest of our country’s cities with wide streets, grand homes, and handsome public buildings and churches built mainly of brick.

There was much to entertain me while my father tended to his political business: plays and musical gatherings, teas and suppers held by friends old and new, sermons to heed on Sundays, shops to visit, and parks to stroll. Because of Papa, I received more invitations than I could accept.

There was another side to all this company and entertainment, however, and I found it both discomfiting and disrespectful. While in Morristown, where everyone I met was connected in some fashion to the army and to His Excellency, the talk had always been of the deprivations our troops endured, especially during this winter’s storms and hardships, and how little support the general and men were receiving from Congress. But here in Philadelphia, the home of that same Congress, the conversation over tea and supper was of how the army scandalously squandered whatever was granted them by the magnanimity of Congress, and worse, how much His Excellency exaggerated the needs of his forces to squeeze more from Congress.

None of this was true. In fact, the truth was quite the opposite of these assumptions, and I didn’t like how these fine, wealthy Philadelphian ladies made such free assumptions. I didn’t like how they sat before their warm fires and whispered about soldiers who had spent the winter shivering in makeshift cabins, and soon would be heading off to risk their lives once again on the behalf of us safely at home.

I knew the truth, because I’d witnessed it myself, and I knew many of the officers they slandered, including the one I loved. I was my father’s daughter to the core, and to his delight (and Alexander’s, too, when I told him), I spoke up as often as I could in those elegant drawing rooms and parlors, and corrected as many ladies as I dared. It wasn’t in my nature to keep still in the face of falsehoods. I doubted they believed me, as people who are misinformed seldom do, and I’m certain they considered me ill-mannered, but at least I had not given the impression of agreeing with them through silence.

Was it any wonder, then, that I soon tired of Philadelphia? What my father had intended as a pleasurable journey quickly came to feel more like a punishment, keeping me farther away from Alexander.

I missed him more than I’d believed possible. He filled my thoughts awake, and my dreams when I slept. I was certain I heard his voice and his laughter from the next room, or his footfall in the hallway. Whenever I glimpsed an officer in a uniform like his in the street, my heart beat faster until he turned, and I realized the man’s face was not the one I wished most to see.

My only solace came in Alexander’s letters, speaking to me across the miles. I replied as swiftly as I could, filling them with pledges of my own love and devotion. But instead of bringing him the same comfort I took from his letters, mine seemed only to make his doubts grow.

He took my brevity as a sign not of my lack of talent for letter writing, but proof that I was enjoying the pleasures of the city and forgetting him. It wasn’t so much that he was jealous, or picturing me in the company of other gentlemen. Instead he worried that I’d had time to reconsider my love for him, and that I’d decided he lacked the qualities I required in a husband.

He tried to cover his fears with playful witticisms, but I wasn’t fooled. Already I knew him so well, my dear Alexander. No matter how I reassured him, his uneasiness persisted in the saddest way possible, telling me he’d understand if I cast him away for being too poor. I was at a loss for how a gentleman who could bravely command a regiment in battle could feel this unsure of his own considerable merits. There was one sentence in particular that struck me with its truth, and reverberated within my heart—“You must always remember that your best friend is where I am”—and that made me long to fly to his side to reassure him both of his worth, and my love.

He was indeed my best friend, and all I wished was to be where he was.

On my last day in Philadelphia, I made one final call on a lady who sorely needed company. By rights Mrs. Peggy Arnold and I seemed fated to enjoy each other’s company, we’d that much in common. We were close in age, and her husband, a major general, had served with my father, who held General Arnold in the highest regard for his bravery and military prowess in the northern campaigns.

But General Arnold had not fared as well in his most recent post as the military commander of Philadelphia, however, and had garnered so much ill will among the citizens that he had been compelled to resign. Worse still, he had recently faced a court-martial over his behavior while in the post, and though he’d been acquitted, the rumors continued to the extent that he had left the region until matters settled. He’d also been forced to leave Peggy behind, who had only just given birth to their first child, a son.

It was a sad story all around, and when Papa urged me to call upon her for the sake of good will, I happily agreed. How could I turn away from the opportunity to congratulate another lady on her safe delivery, and to welcome the blessing of her new baby into the world?

But when I called upon Mrs. Arnold, she appeared in low spirits, and to take little joy in her babe, who slept in a beribboned cradle beside her chair. Although she received me dressed in fashionable and costly undress—a pink silk jacket edged with fur over a quilted silk petticoat, a profusion of lace around her neck and elbows, and her hair lightly powdered—her eyes still carried the exhaustion of her recent confinement, and her entire posture drooped beneath the misery of her separation from her husband.

“Please forgive the meanness of my situation, Miss Schuyler,” she said with a weary wave of her hand. “Until my husband summons me to our new home, I am forced to remain in this place as if I were a prisoner.”

“Not at all, Mrs. Arnold,” I said. Her description surprised me. The house was hardly mean, but pleasant and well furnished. Papa had told me that with her husband away, she was residing here in the home of a friend, and while I thought this an ungrateful way to repay the friend’s hospitality, I was willing to ascribe it to the changeable nature of new mothers.

“Surely you must be in Heaven itself,” I continued, “so long as you have this little cherub at your side.”

He was a beautiful baby, with wisps of golden curls and full cheeks like his mother’s. If I were in her position, I would indeed feel blessed to have such this perfect reminder of my husband and his love, especially in the middle of a war. I’d often wondered if Alexander’s son would resemble him: would he inherit his father’s golden red hair, his smile, his blue-green eyes that were as changeable as the sea?

“My darling little Edward,” Mrs. Arnold murmured, and sighed as she glanced at the sleeping baby. “How fortunate he is that he knows not the persecutions his poor father has endured!”

“You must be brave, Mrs. Arnold, for your child’s sake and for your own.” As a soldier’s daughter, I knew the importance of being stoic. “Your husband would wish that for you.”

“Alas, my poor husband.” She drew a lace-trimmed handkerchief from her sleeve and daubed prettily at her eyes. “He has so many enemies! It wasn’t enough that he became a cripple in the service of his country. His enemies now hound him wherever he goes, and will not rest until he is completely ruined.”

I was beginning to suspect her sorrows were for effect and that she might make a better actress on the stage than a general’s wife, yet again I granted her the benefit of the doubt.

“Surely things will soon improve, Mrs. Arnold,” I said. “Now that the court-martial is over and your husband is acquitted, he can again resume his duties with the army.”

“You don’t understand my husband’s situation, Miss Schuyler,” she said with another great sigh. “The acquittal means nothing. The villains in Congress and in the army will continue to plot against him and deny his hopes for promotion and reward. If only he had friends he could trust!”

“But he does,” I said. “My father speaks of General Arnold as a hero, and he and His Excellency both wish to help your husband to restore his reputation as quickly as possible.”

She sighed again. “You father is an honorable gentleman, yes,” she admitted. “But if there were someone closer to His Excellency, someone able to sway him in favor of my husband, someone who was constantly in his company.”

She looked at me expectantly, as if I alone possessed the answer. I am glad to say I didn’t understand her meaning.

“The general is a wise and experienced gentleman,” I began. “I’m certain he’ll make a decision that shall benefit you—”

“I’d heard you share an intrigue with Colonel Hamilton,” she said. “His Excellency’s most favored aide-de-camp. That is true, yes?”

“No,” I said quickly, blushing and thinking again of how unsettling it was to be the centerpiece of idle gossip. “That is, yes, Colonel Hamilton serves as a member of the General’s Family at headquarters, and yes, I am honored to consider him a dear friend, but there is no ‘intrigue’ to our connection.”

“Yes, yes,” she said, leaning forward with more animation than before. “My husband has only the highest praise for Colonel Hamilton, for his intelligence and his cleverness, and his devotion to the general. But then, that is only to be expected, isn’t it, considering Colonel Hamilton’s illustrious patrimony.”

I frowned. “I fear you’re mistaken, Mrs. Arnold. Colonel Hamilton has achieved much, but through his own industry and the support of his friends, not his father, a Scottish gentleman long absent from his life.”

“Your reticence is admirable, Miss Schuyler,” she said with an archness that made me uneasy. “But you needn’t be so discreet with me. The truth is widely known here in Philadelphia, and explains much of the general’s fondness for Colonel Hamilton.”

“I have told you the truth as I have heard it from Colonel Hamilton himself,” I said, ready to defend Alexander in whatever way necessary. “There is no other, Mrs. Arnold.”

She smiled slyly. “But there is, isn’t it? Everyone has heard how the colonel is the general’s natural son, conceived while His Excellency was visiting the Caribbean long ago. They see the obvious resemblance in the same coppery hair, the same line to his jaw, and you cannot deny how His Excellency positively dotes upon Colonel Hamilton, favoring him as if he truly were the son he never sired with Lady Washington.”

“Hush, madam, please!” I exclaimed, not so much scandalized by what she said as shocked that she’d repeat such ill-founded gossip. “Colonel Hamilton His Excellency’s son! That goes beyond tattle to purest slander, and I will not hear another word. Good day, Mrs. Arnold.”

I rose to leave, but she caught my arm.

“Forgive me, Miss Schuyler, I beg you,” she said, her head meekly bowed and her voice so contrite that I heard the tremble of tears in it. “Please don’t leave yet. If I spoke rashly, it was from my desperate desire to assist my husband in any way that I might. Please stay, Miss Schuyler, and help me to help my husband.”

Reluctantly I sat, though I kept to the very edge of the chair. “How can I possibly help General Arnold?”

“By asking Colonel Hamilton to use his influence with General Washington on my husband’s behalf,” she begged. “All my husband desires is another command or post, another chance to serve and prove his worth. Is that so much to ask for an officer who has already given so much?”

I remembered how Papa had said that General Arnold had been so grievously injured at the Battle of Saratoga (so near to our own house) that he’d nearly lost his leg, and that he’d never fully recover from the wound to the point that he could ride or walk with ease again. That was indeed a sacrifice, and I relented.

“I can promise nothing,” I warned. “But I will share your plight with Colonel Hamilton in the event that he has the opportunity to set it before the general.”

“I cannot begin to thank you enough.” Her face relaxed, and for the first time she seemed her age, a young woman of only nineteen years cast into a difficult situation with a new baby and an absent husband. “All I can offer in return are my wishes for your own happiness and prosperity.”

“Thank you,” I said, preparing to take my leave. “You do me honor, Mrs. Arnold. I wish the same to you and your husband, and your dear little son as well.”

“Yes,” she said, her thoughts clearly elsewhere. “Yes. I can also offer you and Colonel Hamilton some hard-won advice, for you to take or not, as you please. If Colonel Hamilton can show my husband this small favor, his kindness will not be forgotten. He is most obviously a gentleman and an officer of promise, and his talents shouldn’t be squandered to his disadvantage. You have been at Morristown, Miss Schuyler. You have observed the despair and disarray of this country’s army for yourself, and the confusion of its leaders. Sometimes we ladies must see more clearly, and act to preserve the gentlemen we love.”

I thanked her one last time and departed. I did wish her well, for she seemed a lady in need of good fortune, as my father had said. It wasn’t until later that day, as I took time alone with my needlework, that I considered more closely her last little speech to me. The longer I thought upon her words, the more disturbing I found them. She wished her husband to return to active duty with the army. So why, then, had she faulted that same army? Alexander already had the highest esteem of His Excellency. Why should she say he was squandering his talents by serving his country? And what exactly was she counseling me to do?

I shared my worries the next morning at breakfast with Papa, but he swiftly brushed them aside as being of little lasting consequence.

“As you saw for yourself, she is a lady in sore need of comfort and compassion,” he said as he sipped his coffee. “Her father remains a Tory with sympathies to the Crown, and he was not pleased with her marriage to Arnold. His friends were equally surprised when he found favor with her, a wealthy lady almost half his age, and many continue to suspect her allegiances. She is caught between her loyalties to her father and her husband, poor lady, and tries to serve them both as best she can. You saw that yourself.”

“I did,” I said thoughtfully. Perhaps that was explanation enough for her curious speech; I couldn’t imagine marrying a gentleman under such difficult circumstances. “She must love General Arnold mightily.”

“I pray that she does, for she has sacrificed a great deal to be his wife,” Papa said. “Although I do not wish to raise false hopes, I am already planning to speak to His Excellency regarding a post for General Arnold as commander of our fortifications at West Point. It would be a good position for him, and it would be wise for the army to have an experienced officer so many consider a hero in command of a prominent location. Governor Livingston—your friend Kitty’s father—agrees with me, too.”

“Do you believe His Excellency will also agree?” I asked, still unsure whether I should wish him to or not.

Papa sighed, holding out his cup to the servant to be refilled. He was always unwaveringly loyal to soldiers who had served with him; I recognized the trial this must be for him.

“I do not know, Eliza,” he said. “This is not to be repeated, but I know for a fact that His Excellency was displeased by Arnold’s behavior, acquittal or not. There’s no doubt that the man was indiscreet, and took advantage of his post as military commander for his own profit.”

“So he should not have been acquitted?” I asked. “He was in fact guilty?”

Papa’s brows drew together and his expression turned as stern as granite in what my sisters and I called his “general face.”

“He was found not guilty,” he said. “That was the verdict of his fellow officers in the court-martial, and that is how it shall always stand. The verdict cannot be questioned. But the very fact that Arnold was compelled to defend himself grieved His Excellency, who expects his officers to act in a manner that is beyond reproach, as gentlemen should.”

I nodded, and my sympathy for Peggy Arnold and her husband rose. I had always found General Washington to be a daunting figure, and if I were one of his officers, I’d never have wanted to earn any measure of his displeasure.

I thought this would be the end of my father’s explanation, but to my surprise he continued.

“I have heard that His Excellency’s unhappiness is the reason he plans to issue a formal reprimand of Arnold, which will make the West Point post more difficult,” he said. “But likely Colonel Hamilton will be able to tell you far more than I.”

“Should I tell him how—how disloyal Mrs. Arnold was in her speech?” I asked tentatively. I had been only vaguely aware of General Arnold’s court-martial having happened in Morristown in January, shortly before I’d arrived. Alexander hadn’t mentioned it, and I hadn’t known enough to inquire for more details, or at least I hadn’t known enough until now. “How she found fault with the army and its officers?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t trouble him with it,” Papa said. “I suspect that was Mrs. Arnold’s own disappointment speaking, not any reflection of her husband’s opinions. But I leave it all to your own judgment, Eliza. You may say what you please to Hamilton when you meet him next. He knows I will be returning you to Morristown tomorrow, yes?”

I nodded, Peggy and Benedict Arnold forgotten in an instant. I’d my own problems to resolve, and I took a deep breath, my fingers anxiously pleating the damask napkin in my lap.

“I’d hoped that by now you would have given Alexander and me your consent,” I said, wishing my voice wasn’t shaking with emotion. “It’s been three weeks since he wrote to you.”

Now it was Papa’s turn to look uncomfortable. He helped himself to a slice of toasted bread from the silver rack on the table and placed it precisely in the center of his plate.

“You already know I hold Colonel Hamilton in high esteem for a young gentleman,” he said, still looking down at the toast. “He has impressed me with his initiative, courage, and resourcefulness, all important qualities for a man to possess before I would entrust him with your future welfare.”

My hope rose to giddy heights. “Then you will grant us your permission?”

“I have granted nothing as yet, daughter,” he said with maddening patience. He took his time buttering the toast, making certain the yellow butter went exactly to the crusts on four sides, and no farther. “I would prefer that the colonel had a suitable income to support a family, but I also believe he will rectify that deficit by his own talents as soon as the war is done. So long as he loves you and you love him—”

“Oh, I do, Papa!” I exclaimed. I was too anxious to eat, and I waved away the dish of shirred eggs that the servant began to place before me. “And I am sure, very sure, that he feels the same love for me.”

Papa studied me for a long moment, the silver butter knife still in his hand.

“I have never seen this—this enthusiasm in you, Eliza,” he said. “You have always been a thoughtful child, even cautious, and this fervor is unlike you.”

“But it is like me, Papa, or the woman I have become,” I said. I felt as if he was raising unnecessary obstacles, and I couldn’t understand why. “I am still your daughter, your Elizabeth, but I long to be Colonel Hamilton’s wife as well. If I have changed, it is love, his love, that has changed me. I dare to hope that the change is for the better, too.”

If he agreed, he didn’t say. Instead he dropped a large, glistening spoonful of strawberry jam into the center of the well-buttered toast, again avoiding my gaze.

“I suppose this is how every father must feel when confronted with a beloved daughter’s marriage,” he said gruffly. “I cannot imagine our home without you in it, Eliza. You’re our shining light, our cheerful Christian soul. Your mother depends upon you so much to help with the household and other children that I can’t fathom how she will cope without you. I knew the day would come that you would leave us, but now that it has, it seems entirely too soon.”

“Oh, Papa,” I said softly. I hadn’t expected this from him, not at all. “I won’t be leaving forever. You know I’ll be back, and often.”

He smiled down at the jam, not at me. Finally he raised the toast from the plate and bit into the crust, chewing it deliberately before he replied.

“When you do return to our house,” he said, “you will be as Mrs. Hamilton.”

“I shall always be your daughter.” I rested my hand upon his arm. “That will never change, not in this life or the next.”

He grunted as he finished the toast, no real answer, yet one I understood. He’d been devastated when Angelica had eloped, and I guessed he was feeling a degree of the same sense of loss with my pending betrothal to Alexander. But I was twenty-two. I was ready to be wife and a mother as well as a daughter. I’d found a gentleman I loved beyond all others, and it was time we married and began a home of our own.

“Please, Papa,” I pleaded softly. “Won’t you give your consent? Won’t you write to Alexander?”

Self-consciously he patted my hand on his arm, and I felt sure that at last he’d agree.

But he didn’t. Instead he withdrew his arm from my hand, pushed his chair back from the table, and rose.

“You know I am in communication about Colonel Hamilton’s proposal with your mother, Eliza,” he said. “When she has made her final decision, then I shall write to him. But not before. Not before.”

I knew better than to argue, though tears of disappointment clouded my eyes as I kissed Papa’s cheek before he left for the day. Afterward I retreated to my room, and continued the letter to Alexander that I’d begun earlier. I wrote slowly, carefully, determined to give him no hint of my own misery.

My father praises your virtues daily, and speaks of the day when I shall return to Albany as Mrs. Hamilton. I whisper it, too, as often as I dare, to help make it a reality. I pray each night to be yours forever, my dear Alexander, my love, my love.

I stared down at the words as the ink dried and lost its glossy wetness, then ran my fingertip across them. I didn’t belong in Philadelphia any longer. It was time I returned to Morristown, and to Alexander.

My dear Alexander, my love, my love . . .