“That’s what I said before,” Betty said as she tucked into her meal. “Oh! You’re serious!” She put down her fork in confusion. “My goodness. Last month you were challenging me to a little romance. And now you have upped the ante to marriage,” she said. She considered the idea. “Well . . . by all means why shouldn’t I marry Drayton? It’s a free country, isn’t it?”
John’s face, which was already flushed, turned a shade of purple.
“And besides,” said Betty, “Emma isn’t interested in him.”
Emma lowered her eyes to her plate and kept them there.
“Someone should be,” said Eliza.
Alex addressed his wife in a warning voice. “Eliza? What are you on about?”
Eliza answered her husband with a mixture of innocence and exasperation. “Oh, Alex, don’t make it sound as if I’m talking about some far-fetched scheme like building a fourth story on the house! Miss Van Rensselaer has already remarked that she finds Drayton attractive, and we are all aware of both his fine character and excellent mind. Why, Emma pointed out just the other day that he reads more than I do!”
“That’s because you’re lazy,” John quipped.
“That’s because she’s busy helping the poor,” Emma quipped back, finding her voice.
“I’ll tell you why she wouldn’t marry Drayton,” said John with a strange look on his face.
“Yes? What is it? Enlighten me,” said Betty.
“You know perfectly why, Miss Van Rensselaer, heiress to almost all of New York State.”
“Why, Johnny Schuyler, are you calling me a snob?!” Betty cried.
“If the velvet glove fits . . .” He shrugged.
Betty held up her hands. “What gloves? My hands are bare.” She put her hands back in her lap. “I’ll have you know, John Schuyler, that I am the farthest thing from a snob. If I were a snob, I would have stayed in Albany and accepted one of the many proposals I have received from a positive litany of first and second cousins—and uncles, for that matter—and one old gentleman who, though not technically my grandfather, is certainly old enough to be. I came down here to find a good husband.”
“Well, you won’t find him here,” sneered John.
“Why not? She might,” said Eliza. She leaned back, feeling satisfied that she had planted the seed and now needed to step back and let nature do its work. “All I’m saying is do not think of Drayton as a man so different from you, Betty. This is a new country, not the Old World.”
“But he is different,” Alex said now, “and not just in class.”
“Hmmm,” Betty said, turning to Alex. “What are you implying, Mr. Hamilton?”
Alex smiled warmly. “Only that you are a confident, outgoing, and, dare I say, independent young lady, and Drayton is a . . . steadier sort of fellow. I do not see him rushing out onto the dance floor anytime soon.”
“Especially not with a tray of canapés in his hand,” John said bitterly.
“Drayton is steady,” Emma said quietly.
“Can I get a drink around here? Where is our Drayton?” asked John.
“Perhaps he is getting ready for our wedding,” said Betty airily.
John ignored her and nodded to his empty glass. “Well, he should hurry up about it then. Why is it I can never get what I want around here?” he said, frustrated.
“I beg to argue. You can get anything you want,” Emma said, her voice suddenly hot. “Because you are John Bradstreet Schuyler, firstborn son, heir to the Schuyler fortune, and he can get anything he wants. Except, apparently, Miss Van Rensselaer.”
John’s jaw dropped even as Betty clapped her hands. “Oh, I like this Emma! Anyone who can leave John Schuyler speechless is welcome at my table anytime,” she said.
“Who knows?” Eliza said. “Maybe one day she will host you at her own table.”
At this remark, everyone but Emma turned to stare at her with confused expressions. Emma merely grabbed her fork and knife and sawed heavily into her roast. “If I do,” she said, “I hope I’ll be serving this roast. It’s delicious!”
14
Marital Issues
The Hamilton Town House, the Hamilton Bedchamber
New York, New York
August 1785
That night, Alex sat up with some papers concerning the Reynolds case, while Eliza, who was perhaps thinking about her footman’s reading more than she did, began cutting open the pages of her novel. A pair of lamps on the bedside tables were all that lit the room, casting the bed in a glow of light while its corners receded in shadow. Normally Alex loved this time of night, ensconced between the four pillars of the matrimonial bed with Eliza’s beautiful face relaxed in sleep beside him. Tonight, though, the sound of her paper knife slitting the folio into individual pages seemed to saw through his concentration, and the letters on the page he was trying to read danced in the flickering glow of the lamps.
Eliza sighed. Alex recognized it as the sigh of someone who wanted to talk. Perhaps more to the point, it was the sigh of someone who was oblivious to the fact that her companion had no desire for conversation. “Moll Flanders,” she said after a moment. “Have you read this one?”
“Apparently not,” Alex replied in a distracted voice. “Else you would not have to cut the pages.”
Eliza laughed as if he had made a great joke. “I didn’t mean this particular copy, silly! I only meant the book. Moll Flanders, by Daniel Defoe.”
“I am aware who wrote Moll Flanders,” Alex said.
At that, there was a little pause from the reclining form next to him, as if she had heard the shortness of his voice and wondered what it meant. Whatever her conclusions, though, they weren’t enough to deter her. She brought the book into the light and opened the cover.
“‘The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders,’” she read off the title page, “‘Who was Born in Newgate, and during a Life of continu’d Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore’—oh!—‘five times a Wife (whereof once to her Brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv’d Honest, and dies a Penitent.’” She snapped the cover shut. “It sounds racy!” Her knife plunged back into the volume with renewed eagerness.
“It sounds like you don’t need to read it. The title is rather . . . fulsome. Besides, it has been sitting unread for a while now.”
Eliza’s knife jerked in her hand, and from the corner of his eye Alex saw a page rip, not along its seam but along its face.
“Are you upset with me, Alex?”
This time it was Alex who sighed. A clear sigh of warning. “Why should I be upset with you?”
Eliza tossed her book aside and turned over, placing her hand on his stomach—or, rather, on the pages there—and rubbing softly, which had the effect of causing the pages to swirl around. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”
“Eliza, please!” Alex said, snatching the papers and thrusting them onto the bedside table. “These are important documents!”
“I wasn’t damaging them,” Eliza protested. “I don’t understand—”
“Only I don’t know why you decided to cut your novel’s pages just now,” Alex interrupted. “It will take you twenty minutes to finish, by which time you will be ready for sleep and will have succeeded in doing nothing but preventing me from catching up on my work!”
“You are upset with me!” Eliza cried, pushing herself upright and turning to him. “Whatever have I done?”
Alex berated himself mentally. He had spoken out of turn, and now he would have to calm his wife down, or not only would he not get any work done tonight, he wouldn’t get any sleep either. He set the rest of his papers aside and turned to her. “I am not upset with you, my dear. I am just upset. I suspect this Reynolds affair is affecting me more than I care to admit.”
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In truth, Mrs. Reynolds’s story was too close to his own mother’s plight, and it was bringing up memories of his childhood he had long suppressed and never shared with his wife, who had been born into privilege and love and stability. She wouldn’t understand what it was like to be so impoverished. He felt Eliza’s hand on his leg, and he moved his to cover it with his own.
“I have wondered as much myself,” she said. “I have never seen you quite so bothered by a case before. Perhaps someone else would handle it better.”
Alex snorted. “It is hard for me to imagine a lawyer in New York who would agree to take it on. Indeed, it is hard for me to imagine a lawyer who will condone my taking it on.”
“Alex, no!” Eliza said. “Do you mean to say that this case will damage your professional reputation? People already say such vile things about you because of all the work you do for loyalists!”
“Do they now?” he said curtly.
“Oh, darling—I did not mean—”
“I think you did,” he said shortly. “Why should I not work for the loyalists? They pay our rent and furnish our house and accommodate our lifestyle.” Including, he thought, a footman who had delusions of grandeur and a permanent companion for his wife who was not quite a houseguest nor a lady’s maid, yet commanded the privileges of the former and the salary of the latter.
“My parents furnished this house,” she said quietly.
“As you keep reminding me,” he countered, then immediately felt sorry for their disagreement.
“It is just that—I like to feel that I contributed, too,” said Eliza. “Even if I do not bring in an income.”
Alex turned to her. He had married her for her beauty and her great heart, had fallen in love with her quick mind and loyal nature, and it would never have occurred to him to think she did not “contribute.” She was, after all, a Schuyler sister. She was more than enough. She was his partner, his equal, his soul, and he knew she loved him dearly. But would she still love him, he thought, if she knew everything about his miserable background? That his mother was never someone that her mother would ever consent to receive in her drawing room? Of course she would, and she did—but a little part of him never really believed he was worthy of her.
“Divorce is not a welcome subject in society,” he finally said at last. “People feel that if one woman were to be granted divorce on the grounds of mistreatment by her husband, a hundred others will step forward to make the same claim. Indeed, it was the Patterson case that prompted Mrs. Reynolds to contact me.”
Eliza cringed at the memory. “Oh, that was such a terrible story! I did not know which was worse: that her husband treated her so cruelly or that the details were bandied about so crudely in the newspapers.”
“The press would not print the stories if people did not want to read them,” Alex said reproachfully.
“Alex,” Eliza said, and a different tone came into her voice. “Do you think perhaps you are having such a strong reaction to Mrs. Reynolds because she—she reminds you of your mother’s situation in some way?”
Alex felt his whole body go still. “Mrs. Reynolds? Like my mother? No, I hadn’t thought of it.”
Eliza’s hand wriggled in his, and Alex realized he was squeezing it tightly. He did his best to loosen his grip.
“Only you told me that your mother left her first husband because he did not treat her kindly,” Eliza said in a quiet voice, as though Alex might have forgotten. “And then your father left her when he found out that she was still legally married to the previous man.”
“There is no need to refer to Mr. Lavien, as the man’s name was, as my mother’s ‘first husband,’ since she never legally married my father. He was, therefore, merely her husband.” Alex’s voice sounded chilling even to his own ears. This was exactly why he never wanted to talk about this with Eliza. Such tawdry details in his background, from his people.
“Don’t be angry with me,” Eliza said. “Your sensitivity to the plight of women is one of the things I most love about you. I know it is because you witnessed your mother’s sufferings at the hands of caddish men that you are so attuned to our difficult station in life, lacking as we women do any real rights, save those bestowed upon us by our fathers or husbands.”
Alex saw red, his ire raised by the image of his suffering mother, of whom he was always a bit sensitive. “I don’t know why you feel the need—”
“Alex, please! Keep your voice down. John is sleeping directly across the hall and Emma right above us.”
For some reason this only made Alex angrier. “I don’t know why you feel the need to remind me of my mother’s base character,” he hissed in a voice that could have sawed through wood. “Do I talk about how your father ran your family into debt building his vainglorious estates in Albany and Saratoga, and was only saved from financial ruin because he was able to use his position to secure generous grants of land and cash from the government, even as hundreds of other men who served their country as bravely and ably as he did—if not more so—were granted next to nothing, merely because their last name was not Schuyler?”
Eliza recoiled. Alex almost thought she was going to run from the room. “Alex! What’s gotten into you?”
But Alex was on a roll and couldn’t stop himself. The words poured out of him, and even though he knew they were not really directed at Eliza, still, she was the one next to him, and thus she would bear the brunt of his raw emotions.
“And now you have this harebrained idea that you will arrange a union between Emma and your brother on the one hand, and Miss Van Rensselaer and Drayton on the other. Your family’s entitlement really knows no bounds, does it? Whether it’s orphans, servants, yeomen”—he added extra bile to this word—“or gentry, you move people around as if they were pieces on a chessboard. Well, you won’t move me around so easily!”
“I cannot follow you if you hop from one subject to—”
“No, of course you cannot follow me. While I am managing dozens of cases in order to keep you in the style to which your family accustomed you, you are sitting in this house dreaming up new ways to spend the money I make. You buy books and don’t read them; you buy silver service we don’t need merely because it looks good on the shelf; you have more dresses than I have stockings; and now you are acquiring potential brides and bridegrooms. Will I be paying for their weddings, too?”
Eliza had clearly moved past shock now and was angry herself. “I doubt it, unless you can put on a wedding that would rival one thrown by Philip Schuyler or Stephen Van Rensselaer, which seems unlikely, given how strapped you claim we are.”
“I claim nothing. I merely state the facts. For every pound I earn, you spend a pound and sixpence.”
“Don’t try to put this all on me! Did I pick out a house on Wall Street, two doors down from Aaron Burr’s? Did I rent a separate office at five pounds a month when there was a perfectly good room right here in this house?”
“A room that is now occupied by your lady’s maid. Or is she your best friend? I cannot tell the difference.”
“I do not rent a room at Caroline Childress’s inn for a damsel in distress!”
“She is a client!”
“I thought clients paid you, not the other way around!”
“What are you insinuating?”
“I was insinuating nothing—though your tone makes me wonder if I should be!”
“ELIZA! I WILL NOT HAVE YOU TALK TO ME IN THIS MANNER!”
Eliza’s eyes went wide with shock.
For the first time Alex heard his own words and realized what he’d been saying. He was taken aback by his fury. He had never spoken to a man with such ferocity, let alone a woman—let alone his wife. The anger had bubbled up out of him from a deep well he didn’t know he harbored, and now all he wanted to do was slam down the cover on it again.
He reached for Eliza’s hands,
but she pulled away. He knew better than to snatch at them. “Oh, my darling, I am so sorry! I don’t know what’s come over me. Please, darling, please forgive me.”
Eliza turned away from Alex and stared into the shadows, yet Alex thought he sensed a softening, even though he knew he didn’t deserve it. “I don’t know why you think I am a spendthrift. That is unfair.”
“It was, and I am sorry. I did not mean my words. I have been put off balance by this case,” he said. “Will you forgive me?”
Still facing the wall, she nodded. “Of course. I will always forgive you. There is nothing to forgive.”
“You spend all your time doing charity and good works, and the things you buy for our home are lovely, and I want them just as much as you do.” He attempted a little laugh. “We are both a little too fond of frilly things for our own good.”
“Perhaps. In any event, Miss Trask and I have decided to open an orphanage,” Eliza continued without turning to him. “It is high time the city had one. It is shameful the number of urchins who sleep in squalor on our streets.”
“Indeed it is. And I can think of no one more qualified to establish one than you.”
“You are going to help, too,” Eliza said in a determined tone. It was not a question, let alone a request.
“Of course I am,” Alex said, feeling a little trepidation. “What can I do?”
“You are going to persuade Trinity Church to give us a building in which to house it.”
“Absolutely impossible.” Alex nodded. “But I’ll make them do it.”
Eliza finally turned to him with a wan smile. “They say you are the man who can make the impossible happen.”
Alex took his wife’s hand, and this time she let it sit in his. “They only say that about me because they don’t know you.”
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