Alex and Eliza--A Love Story

by Melissa de la Cruz

  “Oh, put a cork in it, Peterson,” said a young male voice. He turned to see Stephen Van Rensselaer rolling his eyes. “Everybody knows you got ‘injured’ when you stabbed yourself in the ankle with your own bayonet while you were loading your gun, and then you fell down drunk in a latrine and got it infected so that it had to be amputated. The mules who pull cannons serve their country more usefully than you do.”

  Peterson looked distinctly outraged, but before he could speak, Angelica’s partner chimed in.

  “Indeed, Peterson,” said John Church. “Colonel Hamilton’s contribution to the war effort is known throughout the thirteen colo—the thirteen states,” he corrected himself with a wry smile, “and across the pond in England, France, and Germany. While we must never make light of bravery under fire, the skill it takes to load and shoot a gun is not a rare one, whereas the ability to address generals and diplomats—and indeed kings—is a truly singular gift. Hence General Washington’s unwillingness to surrender his most valuable asset to the battlefield.”

  “Thank you, good sir,” said Alex.

  “John Church. A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” said Church as Angelica looked at him fondly.

  But that was the straw that broke Peterson. He whirled drunkenly on John Church. “You! A lobsterback! You dare to insult me in my own house.”

  Eliza, who had been silent throughout the whole exchange, spoke up. “Actually, Mr. Peterson, Mr. Church is not a soldier and hence does not wear a redcoat, and pray I remind you, the Pastures is my father’s house.”

  Peterson looked confused. “Well, in my own country, then! The Petersons have been respected landowners in the Hudson Valley for more than a century.”

  “Actually, Peterson,” young Van Rensselaer drawled, not so very awkward anymore. “Your land belongs to my father, ever since you gambled away your income at gaming houses in New York City. You own no more land than Colonel Hamilton. No offense, Colonel.”

  “None taken,” said Alex, feeling gratified at the swelling of support from Angelica’s and Peggy’s companions.

  Peterson sputtered so hard that Alex was afraid he was going to fall over. “Oh, who cares what you think, Rensselaer. You’re merely a Dutchman. My family are British through and through.”

  “I thought you didn’t like the British,” Eliza’s partner, Major André, said smoothly. “You are fighting a war against us, after all.”

  Peterson’s jaw dropped. He lifted his cane as if to strike the major, but the movement caused him to lose his balance on his wooden leg, and Alex had to steady him. “Careful there, Peterson.”

  “Unhand me! Why I . . . to be insulted in this manner by people who are on the raw edge of respectable!” An ugly sneer covered his face as he turned his attention to Eliza. “And you, girl. If your mother thinks you will make a rich match, she’s sorely mistaken. No one is interested in a girl afflicted with intellect and opinion and a small dowry! It’s why you only have a redcoat and a clerk as your dance partners this evening!”

  There was a shocked silence from the assembled, until Alex spoke, his words cold as the first frost: “You will apologize to the lady.”

  “Apologize? For telling the truth?” Peterson sputtered. “Why? Is she your paramour, is that it? Oh, Colonel Hamilton, do not protest—everyone has noticed your interest in the girl. You can barely take your eyes off her.”

  Alex’s grip on the man’s arm became a vise, as Eliza’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment and anger.

  “Nonsense, my interest is purely to redeem something the gentle lady has been holding for me. I assure you it is most business-like in nature,” he said, lying through his teeth.

  “A fine story,” sneered Peterson, practically apoplectic and sweating all over the place.

  “But a true one,” said Eliza, her cheeks reddening uncontrollably. “However, Colonel, I apologize as I do not have your handkerchief on my person.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Alex, turning to Peterson, “you will apologize to the lady.”

  “Fine! Fine! My apologies! There!”

  “Oh dear, Mr. Peterson,” John Church said. “You seem to have exerted yourself.”

  “Here,” said Angelica, “speaking of handkerchiefs, I believe Mr. Peterson needs one,” and she reached into the pockets of her dress and handed one over to him.

  “Thank you, my dear,” said Church. And he used the handkerchief to pat down Peterson’s face as if he were a little baby.

  Peterson grabbed the handkerchief and waved it in Church’s face for a moment before his hand fell and he stuffed it in his pocket. Publicly humiliated, he shook Alex off and stormed away in a huff, the butt of his cane striking the floor hard above the music.

  “Oh dear, that’s going to do beastly things to Mama’s floor,” Peggy lamented.

  Eliza turned to Alex. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  “It is an honor to come to your defense,” he said with deep sincerity, his heart hammering under his uniform.

  “And I must commend you on your restraint. An ugly situation could have grown much uglier had you not shown such decorum.”

  Alex smiled. “Those are the kindest words I’ve heard all evening.”

  Eliza looked as if she was going to take them back, but she held his gaze and didn’t look away from him. He wished he could tell her how he really felt, but somehow he understood it would not be welcome at this juncture. Alex stepped back with a gentlemanly bow, watching Eliza walk away on the arm of the British major.

  HOURS LATER, THE party finally came to its end and Alex retreated from the ballroom only to run into Rodger, General Schuyler’s valet, under the stairs. The servant offered to help him to his accommodations for the evening.

  “If you’ll follow me, sir . . .” Rodger turned to the back door and headed outside. Alex realized with a start that he really was going to sleep in the barn tonight.

  Rodger guided him across the slippery gravel paths by the light of a single flickering lantern whose glow was swallowed up by a heavy clinging fog coming from the river. The dim light made it that much harder to negotiate the gravel, which rolled like marbles beneath his shoes.

  The interior of the lofty barn at the foot of the hill was no less cold than the November night outside and reeked of a pungent mixture of manures: horse and cow and pig and sheep and chicken. Rodger led him down the barn’s center aisle to a ladder whose upper reaches were lost in the darkness of the rafters. He pointed upward, indicating that Alex’s bed lay somewhere up there.

  “With the house so full of guests, Mrs. Schuyler was unable to find a spare blanket, but there’s plenty of hay,” Rodger said without sarcasm. He’d seen worse. “The boys will be in to milk the cows at dawn. That’s about three hours from now. Perhaps one of them will give you a ladle or two before you have to be on your way.”

  Alex nodded wearily.

  “Oh, and before I forget, I was told to give this to you.” Rodger handed him a note folded with cloth. Without another word, the valet turned and made his way back down the aisle.

  With a start, Alex realized it was his handkerchief—the one that he had surrendered to Eliza Schuyler earlier that evening, the same one she had tucked into her bosom. It smelled like her perfume, and he inhaled its sweet scent, bringing it to his nose, just as a scrap of paper fluttered out of it.

  In the dim light of Rodger’s retreating lantern, he saw a few words in a flowery woman’s handwriting:

  Wait for me. The hayloft. After the ball.

  Alex stared at the note. A midnight assignation? In the hayloft? With Eliza Schuyler? Was he reading this correctly?

  He looked around, as if the note writer might be nearby, but just then Rodger opened the barn door and stepped outside. When the door closed behind him, the last of the lantern light disappeared and Alex couldn’t see past his nose. And it wasn’t just the rafters tha
t were dark. The entire barn was pitch-black. Thankfully he’d put a hand on the ladder to hold himself steady, or he didn’t think he’d have been able to find it, and would have had to sleep beside whatever animal occupied the nearest stall.

  But after a couple of swings with his foot, he found the first rung and slowly started to climb, somehow managing not to fall. The whole time his heart was beating in his chest at the thought of that marvelous girl making her way up to join him. He wasn’t aware that he’d reached the end of the ladder until he found himself tumbling forward into a surprisingly soft and deep pile of something he assumed—hoped—was hay.

  While he was excited about the possibility of seeing Eliza again, he was also too tired to care about the indignity of a colonel and aide-de-camp to General Washington being forced to sleep under such circumstances, and burrowed deeper into the hay. The sweet smell of straw filled his nostrils, and his body heat began to warm his little cocoon.

  She would be here soon. It was after the ball. What would he say to her? So she had succumbed to his charms after all! And that strange, withering look she had given him after the incident with Peterson had belied a hidden affection! She had understood what was in his heart all along.

  And now she was on her way.

  He fought sleep, waiting.

  And waiting.

  BEFORE LONG IT was morning. When he awoke, he found himself staring into the eyes of the most colorful bird he’d ever seen.

  It was a rooster with brilliant plumage of blue and red and golden feathers, and it came at him with beating wings and talons extended. Alex barely made it out of the loft with his eyes intact.

  More Than Two Years Later

  8

  Reconnaissance

  Deserted Road

  Rural New Jersey

  February 1780

  The deeply rutted road was frozen, aggravating the bumpy pace of Eliza’s wooden-wheeled carriage. With every detour the coachman took, she bounced up and hit her head on the low roof, landing in her seat with her bonnet knocked askew. She tightened the ribbon strings for what felt like the twentieth time. After six hours of this she didn’t even consider tucking in the loose wisps of her hair.

  Instead she pulled aside the window’s heavy curtain and looked out over the snow-covered fields glittering in the late-afternoon sun. Her seat faced backward, so she could only see where she’d been, not where she was going. Here and there a farmhouse sat in a cluster of smaller work sheds, but these were few and far between.

  Morristown, New Jersey, her destination, was a city of several thousand inhabitants, but so far there was no sign of any kind of life.

  “Miss Schuyler, please!” Her chaperone, Mrs. Jantzen, cried, a nervous woman who always seemed to be huffing at something. “You are letting out all the heat!”

  If only I could, Eliza thought. The temperature inside the carriage was akin to a hot stove. But worse than the heat was the smell.

  Squared away behind Mrs. Jantzen was a supply of lamp oil and scrimshaw, gifts sent along to General Washington from her husband, an Albany merchant who specialized in whale products. The collection was rounded out by the good lady’s personal bottle of whale oil perfume, a cloying scent she had grown overly fond of. She rubbed it on her skin the way other women used soap.

  Eliza took a deep breath, then let the curtain fall. If I don’t get out of here soon, I’ll be stinking of whale oil myself. She turned to her chaperone with a sigh. “How much farther is it to Morristown?”

  Mrs. Jantzen rolled her eyes and huffed once more. She reached into the folds of the fur spread over her lap and pulled out an imaginary map, unfolding it with theatrical fastidiousness.

  “Let me see, let me see. Yes, here we are,” she said, stabbing a gloved finger into thin air. “It is exactly seventeen miles and three feet.”

  Mrs. Jantzen pressed her lips together just so, tucking the imaginary map back into her blanket.

  Eliza fell silent. Her mother was to have accompanied her on the trip south, but Mrs. Schuyler had fallen ill with a violent cough, serious enough to make it unwise for her to travel. Eliza was willing to make the trip on her own, but her mother wouldn’t hear of the notion of a girl her age making a journey without a chaperone.

  “The roads are overrun with soldiers too long denied women’s taming influence,” she said from her bed, propped up by pillows and swaddled in down.

  “But, Mama,” Eliza insisted, “I can take care of myself.”

  Mrs. Schuyler waved her handkerchief in the air, ending the discussion. “I’ll not have my daughter be the first feminine face they see in who knows how long.”

  Eliza wasn’t convinced the presence of Mrs. Jantzen would safeguard her, but if that’s what it took to make this trip, then she was willing to bear it. Perhaps her mother had realized her chaperone’s abominable perfume was weapon enough against a soldier’s advance.

  She stifled a laugh and smiled to herself.

  The fragrant Mrs. Jantzen tightened the fur pelt around her knees. “I beg your pardon, Miss Schuyler. Did you just say something?”

  “Oh. Why, yes. I-I was just wondering whether you had ever met my aunt Gertrude?” Eliza hid her smile behind her hand. “Yes, that’s it.”

  “Her that married Dr. Cochran, General Washington’s personal physician? She is sister to your father, is she not? I can’t say that I’ve had the pleasure of making her acquaintance, but I have heard the kindest things about her character.” Mrs. Jantzen, an accomplished gossip, mumbled to herself, “Imagine the stories she’s privy to . . . surrounded by all those soldiers and what-not.”

  “Indeed, she is a remarkable woman and a great inspiration to me. Aunt Gertrude insisted her husband train her in the ways of a nurse so that she could remain at his side to assist in the recuperation of our brave patriots.”

  Mrs. Jantzen’s pinched face took on a saintly look. “Just as I have spent many a day swabbing the sweat from the brow of a feverish soldier.”

  And suffocating those poor invalids with your ghastly perfume, Eliza supposed. Aloud, she said, “But my aunt Gertrude does so much more! She washes the blood from wounds, and runs the threaded needle through lacerated limbs as calmly as stitching together a torn overshirt. Why, she’s even held the hand of a soldier while Dr. Cochran saws off the other—”

  “Miss Schuyler, if you please!” Mrs. Jantzen held up a gloved hand. “I do not consider such subjects fit conversation for a lady!”

  Eliza smiled a tepid apology. Of course the details were gruesome, yet she found them fascinating. It was bad enough that women weren’t allowed to fight for their freedom. But to be denied the knowledge of what fighting cost its soldiers seemed too much to bear. How could one help the country’s bravest young men if their needs were kept silent?

  The carriage hit another pockmark in the road, sending Mrs. Jantzen’s bottle of whale oil perfume sliding across the coach floor.

  “Begging your pardon yet again, ladies,” hollered Mr. Vincent from the coach box. The coachman was one of General Schuyler’s retired old soldiers, now employed as the trusted family driver. “It’s a bit of a rough go out here.”

  Eliza reached down and caught the bottle, which leaked onto her hands. But by the time Mrs. Jantzen could tighten the lid and settle the bottle more securely under her seat, a fresh wave of whale oil perfume had filled the coach.

  Aching to be done with this journey, Eliza decided to look on the bright side. “Well, at least there’ll be no fighting this winter while the army shelters in Morristown. Aunt Gertrude will be working alongside Dr. Cochran inoculating the local population against smallpox. I believe it is heroic work.”

  “Variolation!” Mrs. Jantzen said, sneering. “Tell me why anyone would think that infecting someone with pestilence ought cause but further disease.”

  “It’s a milder form that’s used for inoculation
.” Eliza slowed her words as if talking to a child. “The scratch method is much safer. Look at how many of our soldiers have stayed healthy.”

  Mrs. Jantzen huffed once again. “If God had wanted His subjects to resist the pox, He would have made us so.”

  Eliza thought about saying that if God had not wanted His subjects to be so creative, perhaps He should have made them less ingenious. But she held her tongue. A little blasphemy would likely induce a faint in the good Mrs. Jantzen, and the thought of having to fan her awake—and send fresh clouds of perfume through the coach—was not to be borne.

  Instead Eliza abandoned the conversation and peeked through a slit in the heavy curtain. Aunt Gertrude had written the family two months ago with news of Dr. Cochran’s plans to continue the inoculations while General Washington’s army wintered at Morristown. She had called it “work of the gravest importance” as military hospitals were overrun with soldiers confined in crowded wards that were breeding grounds for disease. “Inoculation,” she wrote with palpable hope, “could save hundreds—if not thousands—of lives.”

  Eliza wanted desperately to be a part of the mission. She’d fired off a letter to her aunt to ask if she could help give the inoculations herself. If she could not fight, she could at least do everything in her power to make sure that those who did fight were as well equipped as possible. There were far fewer troops in the Albany area than there were farther south, of course, but they were vital to the capital’s security. Thanks in part to Eliza’s efforts, the battalions were all kitted out in smart new uniforms, stuffed with beef and porridge, and housed in some of the most comfortable mansions in the area, which had been seized from British loyalists. Inoculation seemed like the last noble service she could offer them.

  She had begged her mother to let her make the journey south. Surely old Vincent was up to the task. Mrs. Schuyler had refused at first, saying it was far too dangerous, but Eliza had pleaded. She reminded her mother General Washington himself was spending the winter in Morristown, along with his senior staff and thousands of his troops. There was no safer place on the continent.