Caroline looked at Maria for a moment, then turned to Alex. He shrugged but didn’t say anything.
“Well then, in that case I’ll just see you to your room and have Sally bring your food there.”
She led them back outside and down one flight of stairs, to a large room that did indeed sport a lovely, sunny pair of windows facing Water Street and the harbor beyond. Though the water wasn’t visible because of the buildings across the street, it was still palpable in the quality of the air and the light, which shimmered and gave the room a liquid quality of its own, as if it were inside a fishbowl. The room was furnished with a wide wooden bedstead covered in a handsome multicolored quilt, a plain but sturdy dresser, a large stuffed chair, and a handsome if somewhat spindly wooden rocker. An oval rag rug, as brightly patterned as the quilt, covered the floorboards.
A small sound escaped Maria’s mouth, a sigh of release, surrender even, as if she had been holding something in since she walked into Alex’s office two hours before. Although the likelier truth, Alex thought, was that she had been holding her breath for far longer.
“This will do very well,” he said to Caroline. “Allow me to help Mrs. Smith to settle in, and then I will be return to you to arrange for payment.”
“Oh, there’s no need for that, Mr. Hamilton,” Caroline said. “I owe you far more than this room is worth.”
“And you already paid me in full.” When Caroline looked ready to protest again, he spoke firmly. “I insist on paying you the going rate for Mrs. Smith’s room; it is a matter of principle.”
Once again Caroline scrutinized Maria, as if looking for something unsavory about her. Once again she shrugged.
“As you wish, Mr. Hamilton. Sally will be back with your food shortly. I will be in my office upstairs.” And, handing him the key to the room, she turned and made her way back upstairs.
Alex closed the door behind her, then turned to Maria and presented the key to her. Maria took it as though it were a strange object she had heard about but never beheld, a magic wand, a religious relic.
“Consider this the first step toward your liberation,” he said in a gentle voice.
Maria looked up from the key and regarded the room as if it, too, were some kind of magician’s trick.
“I cannot quite believe it is possible. Am I really here? I feel as though at any minute I will hear his voice, summoning me, calling me to—” Her voice broke off as she pressed a hand to her mouth.
“There, there,” Alex said, taking her to the chair and easing her down. The only other chair being the rocker, which seemed somehow too feminine a seat from which to conduct business, he knelt down before her as he had in his office. “I know it is extraordinarily painful for you to think of it, let alone speak of it. Yet you must. In order for me to help you, I need to know the . . . the nature of your situation. And I am afraid that when it comes to trial, opposing counsel will ask you these same questions, but in a far less gentle manner.”
“Trial?” Fear filled Maria’s voice and eyes. “What do you mean, trial?”
Alex patted her knee. “The only way you will ever be free of your oppressor is if you and Mr. Reynolds divorce.”
“Divorce! But I—I couldn’t. Mr. Reynolds would never—”
“Mr. Reynolds’s wishes do not matter here. The court can sever the bonds of matrimony even if he doesn’t want to.”
“But I would be a divorced woman! My name would be ruined!”
“You would be a free woman. And names can be saved—or changed,” Alex added with a little smile. “Mrs. Smith.”
Maria sat silently for a long moment. At last she stirred herself. She looked at Alex, bewildered, as if she had forgotten he was there, or forgotten she was.
“It just doesn’t seem possible. I have been betrothed to Mr. Reynolds since I was sixteen. This misery—this affliction—has been a part of my life for so long. It is hard to imagine that one could just walk away. I feel as though I am the one who is breaking the law.”
“Neither the court nor the church wants you to persist in a union in which your protector is in fact your tormentor. We can take steps to do this as quietly as possible, but if Mr. Reynolds chooses to fight us, he will find that it is his reputation that will be destroyed, not yours. Society has no sympathy for brutes like him.”
Another long silence from Maria. “It has been so long,” she said, shaking her head. “Seven years. A third of my life.”
“And many, many good years still ahead.”
She turned and looked him the eye for the first time since they had entered the room. “You promise?”
Alex held her gaze, setting his face in a mask of determination. “I promise.”
He couldn’t save his mother, but he could save her, and he would.
9
Flirtations and Fancies
The Hamilton Town House
New York, New York
July 1785
“Mr. and Mrs. John and Sarah Jay!” Drayton announced from the living room doorway. The footman, resplendent in new blue livery trimmed with gold at the collar and cuffs—and looking, Eliza couldn’t help noticing, similar to John’s new suit—stood aside to let an elegantly dressed young couple enter the room. The expression on their faces was half confused, half amused. John Jay paused as if awaiting further fanfare, then bowed low to the room, to Sarah’s obvious mortification. He kissed his wife, then immediately went off to a circle of men clustered around Gouverneur Morris and his brother-in-law, John Rutherford.
Sarah Jay scanned the room until her eyes met Eliza’s.
“Eliza Hamilton!” she called as she pushed her way through the crowd with the kind of rudeness that only a patrician can pull off. Her father was the governor of New Jersey, after all. She had a whole state at her beck and call. “I heard a rumor and—yes, it’s true!” she exclaimed, all but jumping in the air as she pointed at Eliza’s not particularly different stomach, then threw her arms around her friend. “Oh, my darling, I am so very happy for you!”
Eliza felt her cheeks were going to burst from smiling so much. This was her twentieth congratulations tonight, and her twentieth hug. The men embraced her gently, as if her condition implied a new fragility, but these dainty women, powdered, wigged, and corseted within an inch of their lives, wrapped surprisingly strong arms around her torso and clutched her as if they were trying to squeeze the baby out six months before it was due.
“Alex and I are unbelievably happy,” Eliza said when she could breathe again. “We were starting to wonder if it was ever going to happen.” Just a few weeks ago, the doctor confirmed it as well—everything was in order, and she would be a mother very soon.
“Oh, I always knew you and Alex would be blessed with children. God would not have made you such a warm, loving person only to deprive you of the gift of motherhood. I tell you right now, I am setting aside Ann and William as potential mates for whatever comes out of you.” Ann and William were her and John’s youngest.
“It will be a boy,” Eliza said in all seriousness. “His name will be Philip.”
“Lovely!” Sarah said, without questioning the source of Eliza’s surety. “Ann it is then. I’ll start getting her ready now. Oh,” she interrupted herself, “thank you,” she said to Drayton, who had appeared at her side with a tray of glasses filled with amber liquid. “This is some of Mr. Van Rensselaer’s honey wine, yes? Do see that Mr. Jay gets some of this. He has been talking about it ever since he received your invitation.”
“Already done, madam,” Drayton said in a voice that would have seemed supercilious had it not been so clearly deferential.
“Oh, well, there’s a good chap! Find me in about, oh, nine minutes, and I’m sure I’ll take a top off,” said Sarah.
Drayton nodded and backed away with a serene expression on his face, as if Sarah had given him a profound reason to go on livi
ng. Sarah watched him walk away for a moment before turning back to Eliza.
“So, your new footman,” she said, a little smile on her face.
Eliza shrugged helplessly. “Yes,” she said, knowing just what her friend was referring to. “I found a guide to protocol in the courts of Louis Quatorze among his books. It explains a lot.”
“Really?” Sarah said. “That’s almost . . . admirable. Odd, and perhaps a little off-putting, but sweet in its way.”
“I was joking actually,” Eliza said. “But he does have a fondness for a certain kind of chivalrous novel of the type Cervantes made fun of in Don Quixote. Men who are stripping off their coats and laying them on puddles for women to walk on, when the ladies could have just as easily walked around them, that sort of thing.”
“I think Señor Cervantes might have rethought his position if he met . . .”
“Drayton. Drayton Pennington.”
Sarah raised an eyebrow. They turned to watch him across the room, where he was refilling the emptied glasses of a cluster of young male guests including John Schuyler and DeWitt Clinton, John’s school friend, and the nephew of the governor of New York. The college boys were making Drayton’s job difficult by sliding their glasses back and forth, either because they were too drunk to hold them steady or because they were actively teasing the footman. Though contemporaries, the young men were obviously of a different rank than Drayton, thus leaving him unable to respond to their tomfoolery in kind. However, Drayton acted as if he didn’t realize they were teasing him. His decanter followed their wavering glasses effortlessly, and one by one he refilled them all without spilling a drop, then bowed and walked away. The boys gave him a standing ovation as he departed, obviously impressed with his skill and his poise, and one of them called out an invitation to play cricket at the weekend.
“Such talent,” Sarah said, eyeing Drayton’s retreating form appreciatively. “And it doesn’t hurt that he is easy on the eyes.”
“Sarah!” Eliza swatted her friend with her fan. “You’re incorrigible!”
“My dear, when you’ve been married as long as John and I have, you learn to take your jollies where you can.”
“Not with my footman, you don’t. He is a nice young man, practically a godsend, and I have no plans to part with him anytime. Although . . .”
Sarah whirled to her. “What’s this? I smell a plan. Spill it.”
“Oh, it’s probably just the excitement of pregnancy, but I am feeling particularly maternal. I long to play matchmaker!”
“Oh, really! Let me guess! It’s that sweet Emma Trask whom I have heard such talk about, isn’t it? They say she has the air of a girl educated in a convent. Quiet as a mouse, subservient as a courtier to the tsars, and also quite lovely. She would make a good match with young Mr. Pennington.”
“Emma?” Eliza said in a dismayed voice. “Oh no. I mean, yes, but not with Drayton.”
“Let me see if I follow this. There is a single woman and a single man living in your house, both of the same age and station and worthy of a portrait by Titian, yet you are not planning on fixing them up together?”
“It’s just too obvious, don’t you think? Two penniless gentlefolk. Their opportunities are so very straitened. And Emma had an unfortunate childhood. She deserves a chance at a easier life.”
“Aha! So you will fix Emma up with some rich middle-aged bachelor who desires a pretty, meek helpmeet to brighten the latter half of his life, and find some slightly older widow with a fortune she needs must lavish on a golden boy like Drayton!”
Eliza laughed. “It seems like Drayton isn’t the only one reading the kind of novels Señor Cervantes made such fun of. Emma and Drayton are both too young and vivacious to be saddled with aging spouses. I have all but succeeded in maneuvering Emma and my brother together, and as for Drayton, I have heard tell that a certain heiress will be in town for the season, and I plan to make it so that she and Drayton see a lot of each other.”
Sarah’s eyes went wide. “My goodness, you are scheming. I don’t know if this is extraordinarily liberal of you or if you are setting back the goal of American freedom by half a century.”
“Sarah, please,” Eliza protested. “I am not forcing them to marry against their will. I am only creating . . . opportunities, as it were, for nature to take its course.”
Sarah laughed. “Well! I don’t know who to ask about first. John? Or the identity of this ‘heiress.’ Spill!”
“My lips are sealed,” Eliza said, mostly because she enjoyed watching Sarah squirm. “But look: There is Emma now, all but hanging on John’s every word.”
Sarah looked over and saw the girl, who was indeed standing mutely before John and his cronies. Her face was as serene as a saint’s in a painting. It was impossible to tell if she was bored or rapt by the conversation unfolding before her.
“Is she hanging on his every word?” Sarah said after watching the scene for a moment. “Or merely unable to get in a word edgewise? Though he has only been in the city a month, your brother’s so-called skill as a raconteur has already made the rounds.”
“Sarah Jay, my dear friend! Are you making insinuations about my brother?”
“What, no, of course not! I am merely saying that he has a reputation as a bit of a loudmouth.” She laughed, and patted Eliza on the shoulder in a placating manner. “But what firstborn teenaged son of a rich man isn’t a loudmouth? Their fathers teach them that the world belongs to them, and their mothers—or their mothers’ maids—wipe their mouths and their bottoms until they’re eight years old. They can’t help being rather self-centered. They grow out of it eventually. The first time they lose their shirt in a business deal, usually, or when their wife turns her shoulder to their touch. Like colts, they must be taken firmly in hand, but any resourceful wife can handle the task with ease. I wonder if Emma has had quite that training though. She seems a bit too . . . docile for the job.”
“Emma is an extremely steady young girl, which is just what John needs to settle him away from the distractions of the big city. I think they will make each other very happy.”
Sarah frowned. “It is a lovely sentiment, but methinks you are being a bit naïve. And the other victim? I’m sorry, I mean the girl you have picked out for Drayton?”
Eliza merely mimed locking her lips with a key.
“No matter,” Sarah said, “I’ll get it out of Alex when he arrives. I know you cannot keep anything from him.”
“I probably would have told him if I ever saw him these days. He is so busy though, that lately we only ever seem to see each other at parties and other social occasions.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps you’re just trying to throw me off the scent. At any rate, here is the man in question himself.”
For at that moment, Alex had appeared in the doorway, looking a little tired but clearly happy to be home. Before he could enter, however, a panicked-looking Drayton hustled toward him through the crowded room, a silver tray sporting a cluster of empty glasses perched precariously on his fingertips above the heads (and wigs) of the guests. The footman darted in front of Alex, blocking his way, and spun toward the guests in the room. His tray whirled with him, but the glasses didn’t even rattle, let alone fall.
“Mr. Alexander Hamilton!” Drayton shouted in a voice whose volume shocked the throng of revelers into silence. He stepped aside like a carnival barker about to reveal a trained bear or a bearded lady, revealing the stunned face of his employer.
“Well, uh, yes,” Alex said to the staring audience, one eyebrow lifted in an amused arch. “That’s me. Alexander Hamilton, at your service.”
Without missing a beat, he snapped into a deft little jig, clapping his heels on the floorboards and ending with a spin and a heel click. He whipped off his hat as he bowed low to the applause of the crowd.
There was much laughter as he began to make his way through the
room toward Eliza. However eager he was to join his wife, his progress to her was slow. As he moved through the crowd, everyone had to shake his hand or stop him to ask a question about trade tariffs. Still others made him pause in order to make a comment about the rumors of a constitutional convention to create a document that would replace the Articles of Confederation, or to inquire if there were any shares left in the Bank of New York, which Alex had helped found last year, throwing the scheme together before his law practice really took off.
Alex, a born politician, answered each question genially but tactfully, taking thirty seconds or two minutes to say what could have been said in just two words: No comment. It took a good ten minutes before he was at his wife’s side.
When he finally arrived, he gave Sarah Jay a quick kiss on the cheek, then turned and embraced Eliza. His hug was different from the tentative touches of the male guests or the unfettered enthusiasm of the female. It was a hug that knew her body, for one thing, but it also wasn’t about her, or, rather, wasn’t about the baby (whose existence he had already celebrated many times). There was an urgency in his grasp—Alex clung to his wife as if she were the only thing holding him up.
“I miss you,” he whispered in her ear.
“I miss you, too,” she said. “You have been at the office far too late of late.”
And Sarah, who could be as tactful as she was brash—she was a politician’s wife, after all—immediately melted into the crowd, calling out for Drayton to “top off” her glass of honey wine.
“My love,” Eliza said when the coast was clear, “is something the matter?”
Alex shook his head as if he were trying to clear it, then took a deep breath. “No, no, everything is fine, once I’ve unburdened myself—and loosened this damned cravat.”
But Alex’s words did nothing to quell Eliza’s worries. She reached for her husband’s lace and adjusted the knot herself. “Has something happened?”
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