Читать книгу I, Eliza Hamilton - Susan Holloway Scott - Страница 12

CHAPTER 7

As eager as I was for Alexander and my sister to meet, circumstances—and the dignitaries from abroad—prohibited it for several days after Angelica’s arrival. He was in demand at headquarters from the moment he rose in the morning until whenever His Excellency finally released him at night, which was late indeed.

One of Alexander’s most valuable talents was his fluency in the French language. His late mother had spoken little else to him as a child, and as a result he could not only converse with the nuance of a native Frenchman, but also compose letters and other written documents with ease. Almost sheepishly, he claimed that he’d no real separation between English and French in his thoughts, and that one language was much the same as the other to him.

To me who spoke only English and a smattering of Dutch learned from older relatives and from church, Alexander’s facility in French was a marvel, and another mark of his genius. To His Excellency, however, who likewise spoke only English, it was an imperative.

While the French ambassador had brought an interpreter with his people, wisdom dictated that each party have their own for the sake of impartiality. Alexander served as interpreter for the Americans. But the French interpreter proved more familiar with the strict English spoken in London palaces, and found our rustic version difficult to comprehend. Alexander was called upon to answer every conceivable question for the visitors, from describing the assorted rifles and muskets employed by our troops to explaining the humble fare that His Excellency was forced by necessity (and to his embarrassment as a host) to serve his exalted guests.

But Alexander was employed for a more somber occasion, too. Joining the French minister was Don Juan de Miralles, a gentleman of distinction from Spain who was likewise interested in the American cause. Alas, poor man, he was stricken with a severe biliary complaint that defied the best efforts of the surgeons to relieve, and after great suffering, he perished in his bed at the headquarters. In his last hours, Alexander was able to offer him words of comfort and sympathy in his native tongue.

When he described this sad scene to me later, I expressed my surprise that he spoke Spanish as well as French.

“It’s not often of use here in New Jersey,” he said with a cavalier shrug, as if yet one more singular accomplishment meant nothing. “When I was a boy, I took my first studies with the Sephardim children on our island, and from them I learned Spanish, and Hebrew besides. If His Excellency ever entertains an emmisary from the Levant, I’ll doubtless be called into service then, too.”

“Wasn’t there a Christian school for you to attend instead?” I asked in my innocent ignorance.

“There was,” he said evenly. “But because my parents weren’t married, I wasn’t permitted admission to the Anglican school.”

I gasped with indignation on his behalf. “How un-Christian of them! To punish a child for the sins of the father!”

“Since my father was no longer in evidence, I suspect it was more the sins of my poor mother that they wished to punish,” he said. “The Sephardim were considerably more forgiving.”

As always whenever he revealed more about himself, I listened in fascination, and pity for the outcast little boy he’d once been. It was as much about how he spoke, however, as what he said: without any shame or regret, but simply as a matter of fact. Other men would have buried such a childhood behind half-truths or not mentioned it at all, but Alexander didn’t do that. He swore that he cherished the truth, and there was no finer example of his honesty and lack of any perfidy than this. No wonder I loved him all the more for it.

While I didn’t share all of his past with Angelica (that was his to tell, not mine), my proud description of his learned accomplishments only increased her impatience to meet him. I was every bit as eager, for I longed for these two whom I loved so dearly to be as pleased with each other as any true sister and brother might be. I felt sure it must happen, with even Fate conspiring by making their names so similar: Angelica and Alexander, both beginning with the same letter and with the same number of syllables.

Yet when at last they came together in the same place, it wasn’t in our house, and it wasn’t nearly as fortuitous as I’d hoped. Instead this fateful meeting occurred outside the chamber shared by His Excellency and Lady Washington, and where that good lady received her friends and acquaintances. Since I’d arrived in Morristown, I’d been honored to become a regular visitor. Each week, I joined my mother, my aunt, and Lady Washington as we sat with our handwork and conversed genteelly, pretending we were still in our own neat drawing rooms in our various homes and not in a military encampment.

It was my mother’s idea to include Angelica, so she, too, might pay her respects to His Excellency’s wife. Now my sister was not given overmuch to needlework, but she did wish to be presented to Lady Washington as the first lady of our young country. Angelica was also vastly amused at the notion of visiting headquarters, where the men so outnumbered us women, though she was also wise enough not to voice it to our mother. I was myself always conscious of that fact, and took extra care with the neatness of my dress because of it whenever I visited Mrs. Ford’s house.

There was no mistaking my sister’s love of an admiring male audience as she swept through the front yard to the house in her bright red habit. Angelica had countless ways to draw the male eye, small gestures and mannerisms that made her impossible to ignore, exactly as she wished. I couldn’t begin to emulate her, nor, really, did I desire that kind of attention, but it was a wonder to watch her effect on most every soldier and officer we passed.

“How cheerful everyone is, Eliza,” she said to me as we sat waiting on the bench outside Lady Washington’s chamber. “From your letters, I thought all I’d see were long faces and grim miens, but everyone here is exceptionally agreeable.”

“Hush, Angelica, not so loud,” Mamma said mildly, not truly scolding. “Recall how I cautioned you to be discreet. In these close quarters, everything you say here may be heard, and repeated.”

Angelica smiled, unperturbed, as she smoothed the leather of her gloves. “I only said that everyone was exceptionally agreeable, and where’s the harm in that?”

“There isn’t any,” I said, daring to agree with my sister over our mother. “Not at all.”

Mamma only sighed and shook her head with the resignation of mothers with grown daughters. But I didn’t care, for I was more occupied in glancing about at the usual crowd of officers, visitors, waiters, and servants that crowded the upper hall, hunting for Alexander. Word spread quickly through the house whenever I called on Lady Washington, and if Alexander could be spared from his duties, he’d appear as surely as if I’d summoned him myself.

Today was no exception. As soon as I saw his familiar golden-red hair (glossy with pomade and clubbed with a black bow, but not powdered) appear over the edge of the landing as he bounded up the stairs, I smiled, and I was smiling still as he hurried toward us. He was looking exceptionally handsome today, dressed in the new uniform he’d recently had made. His Excellency liked his Family to be as spruce in their attire as he was himself, and he’d grown so unhappy with the motley state of his aides’ uniforms after the winter that he’d had a tailor brought to the camp from Philadelphia for a general refurbishing. Now Alexander stood resplendent in a new blue and buff coat with double gilt buttons and epaulets, fresh breeches and waistcoat of cream-colored corded dimity, and the light green sash of an aide-de-camp. He cut the very figure, and I could tell from the way that my sister drew back her own shoulders beside me that she’d taken notice, too.

“Mrs. Schuyler, your servant, madam,” Alexander said as he bowed dutifully before my mother, always taking care to address her first.

He turned next to me, his eyes instantly so full of love that I felt it as surely as if he’d embraced me outright.

“Miss Elizabeth, my own,” he said softly, taking my hand and lightly pressing my fingers. That was all he said, and all he needed to say. There was nothing sweeter to my ears than my name on his lips, and I loved that he wasn’t embarrassed by showing affection to me here at headquarters the way many men would have been.

“We’re here to call upon Lady Washington,” I said, my own voice turning breathless as it did whenever he was near, even whilst delivering this most mundane explanation. I was so rapt in the simple pleasure of his nearness that I nearly forgot my sister’s presence beside me, and would have, too, if she hadn’t shifted pointedly beside me as a reminder.

“Colonel Hamilton, may I present my sister, Mrs. John Carter?” I said. “Angelica, Colonel Hamilton.”

My sister held her hand up to him, and reluctantly he abandoned mine to take hers. But before he spoke, she addressed him first, and to my enormous surprise, she did so in French.

“Enfin, enfin, le fameux colonel Hamilton!” she said, her chin raised at the perfect beguiling angle. “Je vous ai tellement entendu parler des lettres de ma soeur, que j’ai l’impression de vous connaître déjà.”

He frowned, yet he answered her in kind, without the slightest hesitation.

“Bonjour, madame,” he said, bowing over her hand. “Que je suis enchanté et honoré de faire la connaissance de la soeur de ma belle, bien-aimée Eliza.”

I stared, speechless. I could comprehend his name and my own, but beyond that none of what they said meant anything to me. My sister was beaming at Alexander as if this were all delightful, while Alexander continued to frown politely, if such a thing were possible. What had she said to him? How had he replied? I’d never before given much thought to learning French or any other foreign language—I’d not the patience for it—but in that moment I would have given much to have been able to understand what had just occurred. Uncertainly I glanced from my sister to Alexander and back again, desperate for any clues as to the meaning of their conversation.

“Je comprends tout à fait pourquoi ma petite soeur est si dévouée à vous, monsieur.” Angelica delicately slipped her hand free from his and with her fingers smoothed a lock of her dark hair (which did not require smoothing) around her ear. “Votre charme ne con-naît aucune limite! Quelle chance—”

“In English, Angelica, if you please,” Mamma interrupted with a touch of irritation. “My grasp of French is slight, and not so firm as once it was.”

“Pray forgive me, madam, I’d no intention of being so ill-mannered,” Alexander said contritely as he bowed again to my mother. “When Mrs. Carter addressed me in that language, I returned her compliment without thinking. It was barbarously wrong of me—”

“It was wrong of me, Mamma, and I claim full blame,” Angelica said, though with none of Alexander’s contrition. “I should not have led Colonel Hamilton into that impolite snare.”

Now I wondered exactly what he had said that required so much apologizing, that he called “barbarously wrong” and she described as “impolite,” with my name in the middle of it.

“Forgive me, Mrs. Schuyler, I am the one, and not Mrs. Carter, who is entirely at fault,” Alexander began again. I knew how much he valued my mother’s good regard, and her rebuke, mild as it had been and in no way intended toward him, must have cut him to the quick. His usual ease in company had deserted him, and his cheeks had turned endearingly pink, the curse of his fair complexion. “There was nothing impolite in our conversation. That is, ah, I am certain—”

“No one is to blame for anything,” I said quickly, rescuing him and absolving them both, even as my own confusion continued. “What pleases me is that you discovered so much in common worthy of conversation.”

“What we have in common, my dear little goose, is you,” Angelica said, looping her arm fondly into mine. “I told Colonel Hamilton that because of your letters, I felt as if I knew him already, and he in turn told me how honored he was to meet at last the sister of his beautiful, beloved Eliza.”

I glanced quickly back to Alexander, my own cheeks growing warm. How could I have ever doubted him? “You said that of me?”

“Ma belle, bien-aimée Eliza,” he repeated solemnly, his gaze beseeching. “My beautiful, beloved Eliza.”

“Ohhh,” I sighed, overwhelmed to hear such a sentiment, in French and in English, here in the middle of the busy hall. “Oh, Alexander.”

At once all was forgiven, if there was in fact anything to forgive, which there hadn’t been. Even then, before we were wed, I found it nearly impossible to be unhappy with him.

True, it was hardly the first meeting I’d envisioned for my sister and Alexander, but when he called upon us later that evening, the general conversation proceeded much more smoothly, and without any French confusion, either. This could have been because my father was there as well, guiding matters with his usual forthright direction, or because both Alexander and Angelica had each resolved to do better. Whatever the case, by the evening’s end they seemed quite amiable toward each other, and yet I wanted to be sure. I could barely wait until the rest of my family retired so I could ask him in private before we said our farewells.

“Did you like my sister?” I asked at once. “I know she surprised you earlier by addressing you in French, but I hope you can forgive her that.”

He smiled. “Of course I can forgive her,” he said. “She caught me off guard, that was all.”

“But you do like her?” I asked again, more anxiously this time. We were standing outside the front door, on the worn old round millstone that served as the house’s front step.

“I do,” he said, though with a shade more reserve than I could have hoped. “She’s charming company. Is her husband not with her?”

“Not here, no,” I said. “Mr. Carter is a quiet gentleman, much occupied with his business. He also does not always see eye to eye with my father, and it is often better for all parties that she visits us without him.”

He nodded, his face thrown into sharp shadow by the small lantern that hung outside the door.

“Mr. Carter doesn’t see eye to eye with many men,” he said. “You know I find him agreeable, but in some circles his habit of selling supplies to whomever will pay the most makes him as much loved as a usurer.”

I sighed, for it could be difficult to defend Mr. Carter. “My sister says he does very well by the trade.”

“I’m sure he does,” Alexander said dryly. “He has that ability.”

I nodded again, wondering how I’d been cast in the unsavory role of apologist for my brother-in-law. “Angelica says Papa was more unhappy with Mr. Carter’s reasons for coming to New York on account of an unfortunate affair in London.”

“I heard it was a duel,” Alexander said. “With a member of Parliament. Not that I can fault him for that.”

“Hush,” I said softly, resting my palms lightly on his chest. I’d heard that rumor, too, but Angelica had brushed it aside with disdain when I’d asked her about it, so I doubted it was true. “I don’t wish to discuss him any further. What I want to know is whether or not you believe you can be friends with my sister.”

“Of course I can,” he said, now without his earlier hesitation. “Mrs. Carter is witty and amusing, with thoughts of her own and the intelligence to defend them. She is well-read for anyone, man or woman. I never thought to discuss Common Sense and Thomas Paine before your father’s hearth, especially not with a woman as handsome as your sister. It was quite remarkable.”

“So you do like her?” I asked, daring to hope. I had sat by in silence and listened (and marveled, too, at the cleverness of their arguments) as the two of them had sparred in words, and in the end I hadn’t been certain if Alexander had enjoyed the exchange or not. “Truly? It matters much to me that you do, Alexander, and that she likes you in return, almost as much as my parents’ approval.”

“I do,” he said. “She will make a most diverting sister-in-law.”

I wasn’t certain that diverting was the word I would have preferred.

“She has many excellent qualities,” I said earnestly. “You’ll soon see how loyal she can be. She made this long journey to Morristown for my sake, just to make certain you were worthy of me.”

He laughed, slipping his arms around my waist. “Ah, so here’s the truth, then. You’re more concerned with her verdict regarding me than mine of her.”

“Alexander, please,” I said. “Be serious.”

“Very well, then,” he said, making a show of composing his face into the picture of grim severity. “I liked your sister very much, and I look forward to learning more of her in the future. She’s very different from you.”

“She’s much wiser than I,” I said.

“She reads and studies more than you,” he said, “but that makes her bookish and intellectual, not wise. You, my dear Betsey, are wise in the ways that matter.”

I refused to believe he was serious. “She speaks French.”

“Yes, she does,” he said mildly. “But I’d wager a hundred dollars that she learned it not because French is the language of diplomacy and King Louis’s court, but because it’s also the language of flirtation and seduction.”

He’d seen so much more of the world than I, to know such things! I was glad he couldn’t see me blush, not only for myself, but for my sister.

“I don’t know what Angelica said to you today, but she didn’t mean it, not that—that way,” I said. “It’s simply her manner. She is accustomed to attention from everyone, gentlemen and ladies alike. She’s been that way since we were girls.”

“I understand that now,” he said, pulling me closer. “But it’s also proof that you’re the wiser sister.”

I shook my head, looking down at my hands on the blue woolen of his blue coat, the long rows of brass buttons winking dully in the moonlight.

“There’s more to wisdom than a library filled with books,” he said softly. “You’re gentle and kind and patient, Betsey, and filled with reason and sound judgment. You’re loyal and honorable, and you always consider others before yourself. Even when it’s your selfish sister.”

“She’s not selfish, Alexander,” I began, but how he tipped his head to one side proved that he was right.

“You would never leave our children behind, as she has done with hers,” he said. “Not when they’re so young, so fragile.”

“No,” I said wistfully, ashamed for Angelica’s sake.

“Nor would you ever speak as freely to Carter as she did today to me,” he said, leaning closer over me. “Not in French, or English, or any other language in creation.”

“She’s my sister,” I repeated helplessly, hoping that would be explanation enough.

I don’t believe he cared.

“Mon sage petit hibou,” he whispered, brushing his lips over mine.

Breathlessly I turned aside. “What did you just say?”

He smiled. “I called you my wise little owl.”

“An owl?” I wrinkled my nose, picturing the heavyset predatory owls who hunted mice in the barns at home. “I thought you said that French is the language of love.”

“It is,” he said, his voice low and dark as he pressed me back against the door to kiss me. “Je t’aime au-delà de tous les autres, ma belle, bien-aimée, ma Eliza.”

And without knowing a word, I understood.

* * *

As the days grew longer and warmer, the army—or what remained of it—began to return to life, like a great slumbering bear after a long winter. The soldiers drilled with more purpose, openly eager to challenge the enemy again. All of Jockey Hollow buzzed with rumors of when the camp would break for summer, and where the various regiments would be sent next to meet the British in battle. The next campaign could be a counter to the siege of Charleston to the south, through Virginia and Georgia. Each day brought more tales from Congress’s meetings in Philadelphia, from spies across the Hudson in New York, from letters from Georgia and Carolina. All carried stories of more British troops arriving, of more guns, more cannon, for the sole purpose of finally bringing an end to the war.

The most popular rumor, however, had the Continental Army waiting until the French troops landed in Rhode Island, and then joining with them in an attack upon the city of New York, across the Hudson River. Part of this plan (or so it was said) also involved the defense of the fortifications farther up the river at West Point—which by curious coincidence was the same West Point that my father was urging as an appointment and fresh start for the disgraced General Arnold.

The only thing that anyone seemed to agree upon was that things would change, and soon, and that the war would begin anew. The British general Henry Clinton had completed his triumphal victory over Charleston, and was reported to be sailing back to New York with a large company of troops. Emboldened by this news, small groups of British soldiers from New York were already to be seen in New Jersey, launching small attacks on the populace that were meant to draw His Excellency out of Morristown earlier than planned.

So far these small attacks had been contained by local militiamen, but those of us still in Morristown became more and more ill at ease as the attacks grew closer to the encampment. Few civilians wished to find themselves in the middle of a campaign. One by one, the wives and families of officers who had wintered with us in hired houses packed up their belongings, bid their husbands and friends farewell, and began their long journeys back to their homes, scattered across every colony.

As a general’s wife, Mamma had witnessed this before, and she was determined to stay with my father here at the camp until, as she said, she could see soldiers marching to battle from her front door. Lady Washington and Aunt Gertrude likewise took this forthright stance, the three older ladies standing confidently beside their husbands as our little community shrank around us. We now also had an additional sentinel at our house posted to guard both front and back doors, and Mamma and I did not go about the town without the company of at least one soldier. I’m not certain if this was an order from His Excellency, or a request by my father. Mamma, Angelica, and I understood, and we did not complain. Because of Papa, we would have made valuable prisoners had we been captured.

It went without saying that I, too, remained in Morristown, relishing every moment that Alexander could spare for me. I pressed him as much as I could for more information on the army’s plans for the summer, but even though he wrote and read all of His Excellency’s orders and letters, he couldn’t offer any more definite news than anyone else did. It truly did seem that the army’s movements were the proverbial game of cat and mouse. His Excellency possessed neither the men nor munitions to strike as he might choose. Instead he was forced to wait and watch, and then react to whatever the British did first.

Angelica remained with us until late May, long enough to attend the last assembly held in honor of the French ambassadors. But finally she, too, began to worry that she might become separated from her children for the entire summer, and made arrangements with her husband’s people to return to her home in Boston.

We took one final stroll about the little town on day before she left. It was odd to see how much it had changed in the last weeks. The original owners of the houses that had been leased to the army had now returned to Morristown with their families, and were busily planting new gardens and making repairs to their properties after the long winter. To them, we represented the army and all its inconveniences and hazards, and they made no effort to acknowledge us except as unwelcome interlopers, soon to be gone. We missed the familiar faces that we’d come to know so well these last months, and the town that had earlier felt like another home now had nothing but strangers to it.

No wonder, then, that Angelica and I walked closely together on that last afternoon, our arms linked and our heads bowed beneath our wide-brimmed straw hats, and our guard following at a respectful distance behind. I was going to miss my sister mightily, and though we promised we’d soon meet again later in the summer at our parents’ house, we were both acutely aware of how our plans could be overturned at any time by the war. Most of what we’d had to say to each other had already been said, and we walked largely in companionable though melancholy silence.

“With weather this fine, you should be home in time to see the roses behind your house bloom,” I said as we passed a garden with bushes already in bud. “There were snow-filled days this winter that I doubted I’d ever see flowers of any sort again.”

“Marry Hamilton,” she said suddenly. “Now, as soon as it can be arranged. Don’t wait any longer than you must.”

I stopped walking to face her, and she stopped, too.

“Angelica, please,” I said. “You know we’re to wed in December, when he can arrange for sufficient leave.”

“And I say to wait so long is to tempt the very Fates,” she said, her expression uncharacteristically somber. “I’ve considered this with great care, Eliza, else I wouldn’t have spoken now. Marry Hamilton now, while you can.”

I sighed unhappily, for in my heart I agreed with everything she said. “Why do you torment me by saying such things now?”

“I don’t intend to torment you,” she said, resuming our walk at a slow and measured pace. “It’s what the men are saying now, of how they cannot wait to go back to war and fighting, and—and I do not wish any misfortune to befall your dear Hamilton before you’ve become his wife.”

“Do you believe I’ve not thought that for myself?” I was kicking my petticoats forward with each step, venting my fear and frustration on the new grass. “Each time I bid him good night I wonder if it will be the last. You know as well as I how perilous and sudden a soldier’s life can be, and I worry constantly on his behalf.”

She nodded, her face mirroring my own beneath the sweeping shadow of her hat’s brim. In the last weeks, she and Alexander had developed a considerable regard for each other as a true brother and sister might, and exactly as I’d hoped they would. True, that undercurrent of flirtation that Alexander had first noted occasionally reappeared on Angelica’s side, but because I knew it meant nothing, I took little notice of it, and he soon learned to deflect it with practiced ease. But that same regard meant that she shared my concern for his welfare, and that it was genuine.

“I worry for him, too,” she said. “He is still so young a gentleman, with so much brilliance and promise but at the same time impetuous to a fault. As long as he remains an aide-de-camp to His Excellency, I suppose he’s as safe as any soldier can be.”

“But all he wishes is another command, and another chance to prove his bravery and courage with no regard for his own safety,” I said, my voice breaking with emotion. “It need not even be in battle, Angelica. His blue coat could be spied by some lone British scout, and he’d be shot before he even realized it, and then—”

My sister handed me her handkerchief. “That is why you must marry him now, Eliza, to guarantee you’ll have some measure of happiness, however brief.”