I, Eliza Hamilton

by Susan Holloway Scott

  Yet as a soldier, he understood rank and precedence, and greeted each of the others in the room first with perfect civility. I was reminded of how respectful he’d been to my father when he’d come to our house, and this, too, impressed me, perhaps even more than his dress sword. By the time he finally reached me, I was smiling warmly and happily. I never was able to play the coy coquette, no matter how it might have helped my cause.

  “Good evening, Miss Elizabeth,” he said, bending slightly over my chair with one hand resting on the pommel of his sword. “Once you gave me leave to call you Betsey, but I wouldn’t presume—”

  “Of course you may call me Betsey,” I said quickly, so quickly that I winced inwardly at my own lack of guile. “You’re not presuming, not at all.”

  He smiled, too, and I basked in the charm of it.

  “Very well, Betsey,” he said easily, as if he’d been calling me that all our lives. “What are you making?”

  “I’m knitting a cap for a soldier in need,” I said, holding up my needles with only a few dozen stitches cast on. “I’ve just started.”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw my aunt lean forward to draw the colonel’s attention.

  “Eliza is known for her charitable acts, Colonel Hamilton,” she said, more loudly than was necessary. “In Albany, she and her mother stitch clothing for the poor, and will offer comfort and food to any needy person who appears at their kitchen door. She hasn’t been here in Morristown but a day, and yet already she has found a way to ease the suffering of the men in the camp.”

  I could have groaned aloud from embarrassment. The part about Mamma and me making clothing and feeding unfortunate folk at our back door was true, but the rest was pure invention, and I rather wished my aunt hadn’t invented it.

  But the colonel only nodded solemnly. “I have heard considerable praise of the Schuyler ladies, yes,” he said, answering my aunt, but looking directly at me. “There are few things to be held in higher esteem than a lady who is both kind and generous.”

  I hastily lowered my gaze to the pitiful beginnings of the cap in my lap. I felt doubly, even triply, obligated to finish it now, plus a score more besides. I gathered the needles in my hands and resumed my knitting.

  “You’re very kind, Colonel Hamilton,” I murmured without looking up from my work. “My mother has set the most perfect example for my sisters and me, and we all strive to emulate her goodness.”

  “She is a true paragon for us all,” Aunt Gertrude said, though I couldn’t help but notice that her own hands were occupied with a china cup filled with tea. “If you please, Colonel, there is a chair for you beside my husband, who is most eager to learn of His Excellency’s latest plans for the care of the soldiers.”

  My uncle’s chin jerked up swiftly like a schoolboy caught dozing at his lessons.

  “Yes, yes, Colonel,” he said, patting the railed back of the empty chair. “Come tell me the news from headquarters.”

  Oh, this was so patently transparent! If there were any news about the welfare of the soldiers, then my uncle, as the army’s surgeon general, would already be well aware of it.

  “Yes, Colonel Hamilton,” I agreed with half a heart. “The chair beside my uncle is meant for you.”

  My dismay must have shown on my face, for the colonel leaned forward again toward me, lowering his voice in a confidential tone.

  “Please, Betsey, you must call me Hamilton,” he said easily. “Military ranks have no place between friends. Is that so much to ask?”

  It was, and we both knew it. It was one thing for him to use my given name, but another for me to address him in such a jocular, even masculine, manner.

  “If all your other friends address you as Hamilton, then I shall call you Alexander,” I said boldly, and with equal boldness I let my gaze linger with his. I was purposefully echoing what he’d said to me, long ago in Albany, and I did so to show him I’d not forgotten our very first conversation. I said nothing further, nor did he. It didn’t seem necessary, not then.

  Yet if I’d realized that those were to be the only words we exchanged for the rest of the evening, I would have spoken more, much more, and I’d no doubt that he would have, too. My aunt made certain that that didn’t happen, however, keeping Alexander (for I’d now given myself permission to use his given name even in my thoughts) seated between her and my uncle until the case clock on the wall struck ten. Dr. and Mrs. Campfield rose instantly, and my aunt and uncle with them, signaling the end of the evening. The poor colonel was left with no choice but to make his farewells and leave, and that was that.

  “Am I never to have a conversation alone with Colonel Hamilton?” I lamented to my aunt once the Campfields retired upstairs for the night. “How am I to become acquainted with him if all I do is listen to him discuss the quality of the soldiers’ provisions with my uncle?”

  “The colonel did have a quantity to say on the subject, didn’t he?” My aunt began gathering up the tea and coffee cups and saucers to take to the kitchen, Mrs. Campfield having already sent her servants to bed. “My, that fellow can talk! You can tell he studied the law. There’s no other profession where he’d be paid for the length and breadth of his speeches.”

  I collected the last cup from where my uncle had abandoned it upon the mantelpiece and followed her into the kitchen.

  “I wouldn’t know how much Colonel Hamilton had to say,” I said, “because he wasn’t permitted to say more than a half dozen words to me.”

  “You’ll have time enough for that, Eliza,” Aunt Gertrude said with maddening calm. “This was for the best.”

  “But how?” I cried with frustration. “He will not return if all we offer him is a tedious evening.”

  Aunt Gertrude raised her brows. “Oh, it was not so bad as that. You’re nearly half done with that knitted cap.”

  “Aunt Gertrude, please,” I pleaded. “Knitting for the soldiers is important, to be sure, but it’s also important that Colonel Hamilton and I—”

  “Hush,” she said mildly. “I shall tell you what is important, niece, and I will be blunt, so that you will listen. You and I have already discussed how Colonel Hamilton is a charming, handsome fellow accustomed to having young women and a few older ones as well smile and sigh over him, much as you did tonight. He is accustomed to that occurring without much effort or responsibility on his part, and he is also accustomed to those same women obliging him with their favors in return.”

  “I know that, Aunt, and I—”

  “I doubt that you do,” she said. “Do you know the colonel’s reputation about Morristown for what can indelicately be called whoring? I’ve heard him likened to a tomcat, and no wonder.”

  I flushed, and made a small strangled sound in my throat. It was not the vulgar words coming so unexpectedly from my aunt’s lips that startled me, but the thought of the gallant colonel engaged in what the word described. To be sure, I wasn’t entirely certain what whoring entailed, yet I knew what a whore was, and could guess the rest.

  My aunt sighed. “I didn’t intend to shock you, Eliza,” she said. “But if you believe you wish to marry a soldier, then you must be aware of what transpires in a military camp. The ways that men choose to assuage their boredom, their passions, and even their fears of battle and dying have been the same since the ancients, and it’s no different here at Morristown.”

  I listened reluctantly, and realized that she was most likely right. Now that I was here at the site of the encampment, I did need to be less blind as to the lives of soldiers, and perhaps to those of men in general. I’d always prided myself on being practical, and there could be no more practical thinking than this. Surely my mother would have agreed. I’d never seen her flinch from the less pleasant realities of life, and she was as perfect a lady as was imaginable. She’d always followed the army with my father, sometimes into the very face of the enemy, and I suspected she’d witnessed far worse things than mere “whoring.”

  But I myself was young in experience
, and still didn’t quite wish to tarnish the golden gleam of near-perfection that I’d granted Alexander. I raised my chin a stubborn fraction higher, determined to be as forthright and direct as my aunt.

  “Forgive me, Aunt Gertrude, but I do not see the sense to this,” I said, striving to sound reasonable and not petulant. “If the colonel is as much a—a rogue as you say, then I should think that a dull evening here would send him directly back to his—his—baser pursuits, and we’ll never see him here again.”

  “If it does, Eliza, then you are well rid of him,” my aunt said. “If he is that easily discouraged, then you’ll know the measure of his character, and you will do well to begin looking elsewhere. He must prove himself worthy of your company, and that he is ready to put aside his bachelor’s pursuits for your sake. You are the prize, Eliza, not the colonel, and you must not forget it.”

  “But how can I—”

  “Hush, and listen,” she said. “In addition to your own delightful person, you will bring all the Schuyler family’s wealth, influence, and resources with you to your bridegroom. All Colonel Hamilton has to offer is his own promise. Your father agrees with me in this, too. Oh, I know he is impressed with Colonel Hamilton because General Washington holds him in high esteem, but not so far that he’d ignore propriety where you are concerned.”

  “It’s not a question of propriety,” I began, even though I knew that’s exactly what it was. “I’m not a child, Aunt.”

  “No, you are not,” she agreed, her voice as even now as it had been at the beginning of our conversation. “For if you were a child and not a young woman of marriageable age, then none of this would be a consideration. Good night, Eliza, and sleep well.”

  I’d no choice but to retire to my bed in despair, convinced my aunt’s heavy-handed plan had ruined my future. The next day we made more calls together, visiting other officers’ wives who had come to the encampment to be with their husbands, and I presented the letters of introduction from my father to several of his army acquaintances, including the Prussian General von Steuben. We passed many officers and soldiers, but not the one I most longed to see. Was it mere coincidence, I wondered anxiously, or was Aunt Gertrude’s grim prediction already coming true? Although neither she nor I mentioned the colonel again, he loomed over the day like a silent presence, always in my thoughts if not in my conversation.

  Yet to my amazement (and relief), he called at the Campfield house again that evening, and the evening after that as well, proving my fears unfounded. He endured every one of my aunt’s trials with good humor and grace, and certainly more than I did. Each night we were permitted to exchange a few more sentences, a few more smiles, a few more glances that seemed to express so much more than words alone. As much as I chafed under my aunt’s restrictions, Alexander’s persistence pleased me, and I felt honored by it.

  Perhaps he truly did consider me the prize that everyone claimed I was. Perhaps he was as ready as I for marriage, and lasting love. With the innocence of my situation, it all seemed very easy, and very romantic, too. He was charming, and for the first time in my life, I was eager to be charmed.

  * * *

  “I do believe it’s going to snow again.” My aunt glowered upward at the heavy gray clouds gathering overhead, as if a doleful look would be enough to change the weather. “Haven’t we had enough for one winter?”

  “We’ll be back at Dr. Campfield’s house before it amounts to anything,” I said, likewise looking upward. Cold as it was, I didn’t mind. I’d spent too much time this winter trapped drowsing beside the fire, and I relished this opportunity to be out of doors, to walk briskly across the small town and breathe deep of the clear, cold air.

  Although my uncle was the surgeon, not my aunt, she still would consult him for a friend with aching joints, or a neighbor’s child with a rheumy eye, and if the remedy to the affliction were a simple one, she’d carry it herself. Colonel Eckford’s wife had been plagued by a persistent cough, and earlier this afternoon my aunt had brought her a soothing tisane to ease her discomfort. While the two of them had talked, I’d amused the three Eckford children, singing nonsense songs and dandling the littlest on my knee.

  “Snow or not, aunt, you must admit that the days are growing longer,” I said. “Little by little, and soon enough it will be spring.”

  But my aunt only sniffed loudly, daubing at her nose with the handkerchief she’d pulled from inside her muff.

  “Spring, indeed,” she scoffed, pausing before the window of a small shop. “You are ever the optimist, Eliza, aren’t you? I wonder if this shopkeeper has any dark thread left in his stock. Your uncle promised he’d try to send for some from New York as soon as he could, but in the meantime the buttons keep popping willy-nilly from his waistcoat.”

  “Miss Elizabeth!”

  I knew that voice, and I knew its owner. Swiftly I turned just as Alexander came striding across the street toward me, dodging a horse-drawn sledge in his haste.

  Could there be a more welcome surprise? I’d grown so accustomed to seeing him by the firelight that he dazzled me here, even on this gray day. His dark blue cloak billowed around his shoulders in the breeze, and the same breeze made the white silk cockade on his black hat flutter like an out-of-season butterfly. Because his face was ruddy with the cold, his eyes were even more blue by contrast, and his smile—ah, his smile would have melted every last flake of snow in Morristown.

  “Miss Elizabeth, good day,” he said formally, bowing to me and touching his hat just below the cockade, then making the same salute to my aunt. “Mrs. Cochran, madam. How fortuitous that I find you here! I was just on my way to Dr. Campfield’s house with this.”

  He pulled a letter from inside his waistcoat and handed it to me. I didn’t open it, but held it in my gloved fingers: a single sheet, folded and sealed with dark green wax. Part of me wished to prolong the delight of receiving a letter from him (letters from gentlemen, especially from gentlemen like him, being a rarity for me), while another part of me feared the worst, and dreaded reading whatever ill news the letter might contain. I smiled still, but I could feel the uncertainty in the curve of my lips.

  “I regret that because of my duties, I won’t be able to attend you this evening,” he said. “His Excellency is giving a dinner for several visiting dignitaries, and my attendance is required. I didn’t wish you to worry when I didn’t come.”

  To my surprise, his smile was tinged with uncertainty, too, though I couldn’t fathom what should make him so.

  “I wouldn’t have worried,” I said quickly. I meant to put him at his ease, but as soon as I’d spoken, I realized how flippant my words sounded, as if I wouldn’t have worried because I wouldn’t have cared—and that was very far from the truth.

  I glanced downward, both from embarrassment and to compose my thoughts.

  “That is, if you did not come, I would have guessed His Excellency had made some urgent demand upon your services,” I said. “I would have understood, for your service to him is far more important, but I would also have been disappointed not to see you.”

  His smile widened, and the hint of uncertainty fell away from his face. “Would you?”

  “I would,” I said, declaring it soundly as my smile grew, too. “But none of that matters, Colonel Hamilton, because you are here now.”

  Beside me, forgotten, Aunt Gertrude cleared her throat loudly to remind us of her presence.

  “Good day, Colonel,” she said. “I was going into this shop in pursuit of thread, which I know holds little interest to my niece. Would you be so kind as to escort her back to Dr. Campfield’s house?”

  I caught my breath, astonished that she’d grant us this freedom after how we’d been watched so closely.

  “Go, niece,” she said. “Don’t squander the colonel’s time.”

  “I shall take the greatest care in the world with her, Mrs. Cochran,” Alexander said gallantly—perhaps a shade too gallantly, for my aunt looked up toward the heavens, beseeching, an
d sighed with resignation.

  “To the house and no farther, Eliza,” she said as she opened the shop’s door. “I shall follow after you shortly.”

  When the door closed after her, I grinned at Alexander, feeling a mixture of giddy freedom and solemn responsibility.

  He must have felt it, too.

  “I don’t want you to fall,” he said gravely. He crooked his arm and offered it to me. “The streets and paths can be treacherous with the snow, and I promised your aunt I’d look after you.”

  “I’m not so delicate as that, you know,” I said, but I took his arm anyway, settling my fingers familiarly into the woolen sleeve of his uniform coat. “Consider all the ice along the hem of my cloak. I have been traipsing all over Morristown with my aunt this afternoon without any harm done.”

  “Brave and stalwart women,” he said with approval. “What entertainment did you find for yourselves in humble Morristown?”

  We fell into step easily, and I didn’t mind how the narrow path cleared through the snow made us keep close together, the side of my skirts brushing against his boots. We walked slowly, not wanting to reach our destination too soon. The packed snow crunched beneath our feet, and my quilted petticoats, the hems as crusted with ice as my cloak, swung heavily around my ankles.

  “We called upon Colonel Eckford’s wife,” I said, “and brought her a remedy for her sore throat. While she and my aunt talked, I amused her children. Not so grand a service compared to what you do each day, I know, but Mrs. Eckford welcomed it.”

  “I’m sure the children did as well,” he said.

  “They’d welcome any new face,” I said. “They were quite wild from being shut inside so much with the cold weather. I pitied Mrs. Eckford.”

  “I would, too,” he said, pretending to be stern. “Did you marshal the little rogues into line?”

  “Oh, no,” I said, smiling. “I like children too well to act the termagant with them. Besides, they reminded me of my own brothers and sisters, and what a tumbling, raucous lot my family can be.”