I, Eliza Hamilton

by Susan Holloway Scott

  I’d chosen my own gown with care, a brilliant silk taffeta that was neither blue nor green but a shimmering combination of both, much like a peacock’s plumage. Being small in stature, I often wore vibrant colors so I wouldn’t be overlooked in company. The sleeves and bodice were close-fitting and the skirts very full over hoops, as was the fashion then, and the neckline was cut low over my breasts, with a thin edging of lace from my shift. Around my throat was a strand of glass pearls fastened with a large white silk bow, and earrings of glittering paste jewels hung from my ears, my mother having wisely decided that the encampment was no place for fine jewels. Unlike most of the ladies, from choice I wore no paint on my face. I suspected my cheeks were rosy enough without it because of the cold and the excitement, and I also suspected that Alexander would be like other gentlemen, and prefer me without it.

  At least he might once I found him. I scanned the guests eagerly, searching for the one face I longed to see above all others, but in vain. The assembly’s subscribers stood in a line near the door to greet newcomers, and as I waited my turn I continued to look for Alexander. Other gentlemen appeared to ask me for dances and though I smiled, I turned them aside. Alexander was one of the subscribers, and he’d invited me as his guest. How could he not be here?

  “Where’s Hamilton, I wonder?” Kitty murmured beside me. “He’s usually one of the earliest to arrive at these affairs.”

  “He’ll be here,” I said swiftly, as much to reassure myself as to defend him. “I don’t doubt him.”

  Kitty smiled slyly over the spreading arc of her fan. “He’d do well to appear soon, or else some other gentleman will scoop you up, especially in that gown.”

  I didn’t smile, because I’d no wish to be scooped up by anyone other than Alexander. We’d almost come to the end of the line anyway, and to my surprise the last person in it was Lady Washington, alone and without General Washington.

  I had called upon Lady Washington several times since my arrival in Morristown, and she’d graciously taken a liking to me, and I to her. It would be impossible not to hold her in the highest regard: she was that rarest of ladies who could put anyone at ease in an instant, and make them feel like the oldest and dearest of friends.

  She was of middle age when we met, still handsome if a bit stout, her large, dark eyes full of warmth and her speech soft with Virginia gentility. She was known for her rich taste in dress, and tonight she wore a dark green damask gown with a neckerchief of fine French lace and a magnificent garnet necklace with earrings to match.

  “Miss Eliza, I am so glad that you have joined us,” she said as I curtseyed before her. “How your beauty graces our little gathering!”

  “Thank you, Lady Washington,” I said, blushing with pleasure at her compliment. “You are most kind.”

  She raised her gaze, frowning slightly as she studied my hair. “You are wearing the powder I gave you, yes? That slight tint of blue is so becoming to us brunette ladies.”

  “Thank you, yes,” I said, my hand automatically going to my hair. She’d given me a box of her scented hair powder as a kindness, though I’d had to use a prodigious amount of it to dust my nearly black hair.

  “You see I am wearing the cuffs you gave me as well,” she said, holding out her plump, small hand toward me. The ruffled cuffs were of the finest white Holland with Dresden-work scallops, sent along with me by my mother as an especial gift for the general’s wife. The cuffs were Paris-made, for although our country was under a strict embargo for foreign goods, my mother (like most ladies of the time) still had her ways of securing the little niceties of life from abroad.

  “You must be sure to thank your dear mother again,” Lady Washington continued, “and please tell her how honored I am to be remembered by her.”

  “I shall, Lady Washington,” I said. I took this as my dismissal, and I bowed my head and began to back away.

  But she had other notions, and took my hand to keep me with her.

  “A moment more, Miss Eliza, if you please,” she said. “Here I am prattling on and on, without recalling the one bit of knowledge I was entrusted to share. You note that my husband is not yet here, and I am acting in his stead. He and Colonel Hamilton have been detained on some military business, but they expect to join us as soon as it is concluded. The colonel in particular asked me to share his considerable regrets at being detained, and prays that you shall forgive him.”

  I couldn’t keep from smiling broadly with relief, so broadly that Lady Washington chuckled.

  “There now, I’d venture he has your forgiveness already,” she said. “You may grant it yourself directly.”

  She was looking past me, and without thinking I turned to look in the same direction. The crowd rippled with excitement as His Excellency entered the room, towering over most other men with a stately presence that could command attention without a word spoken. Instead of his uniform, he wore a suit of black velvet, neatly trimmed with silver embroidery and cut-steel buttons, and in every way he epitomized how the leader of our country should look.

  But I wasn’t looking at His Excellency. Instead I saw no one but the gentleman behind him, slighter and shorter by a head and yet the only one who mattered to me. He was easy to find, his red-gold hair bright like a flame, and uncharacteristically unpowdered for this formal occasion. To my gratification, Alexander was seeking me as well, and as soon as our gazes met I saw him smile and unabashed pleasure light his face, as if no other lady than I were in the room for him.

  The general came forward to claim the first dance with Mrs. Lucy Knox, the wife of Major General Knox, and led her to the center of the room to open the assembly with the first minuet. The rest of the guests stood back from the floor to watch them dance with respect (and admiration, too, for together they cut an elegant figure), and as the musicians played, the general and Mrs. Knox—he so tall and lean, and she so stout—began the minuet’s elegantly measured steps.

  Yet Alexander hung back and I remained with him, away from the dancing and the other guests.

  He took my hand. “Pray forgive me,” he whispered, “I was with His Excellency, and the delay was unavoidable.”

  “Of course you’re forgiven,” I replied. “Your orders and your duties to the army and to the country must come first. I understand, and always will.”

  “You will, won’t you?” he asked, his voice rough with urgency. “You’ll understand, no matter what may happen?”

  “Of course I will,” I whispered, and it seemed more like a vow, an oath, than a simple reply. “Never doubt me.”

  He raised my hand and kissed the back of it, a bold demonstration in a place so crowded with witnesses and ripe for gossip. But no one was taking any notice of us whilst the general was dancing, and I did not pull free.

  Gently he turned my hand in his and kissed my palm. I blushed at his audacity, but it was far more than that. I felt my entire body grow warm with sensation, melting with the heat of his touch. This was what I’d wanted, what I’d longed for. When at last he broke away, an unfamiliar disappointment swept over me, and I felt oddly bereft.

  If I felt unbalanced, then he must have as well, for his expression was strangely determined and intense. Within the General’s Family he was called “The Little Lion,” and for the first time I understood why. This was not the Alexander I’d seen this last fortnight sitting politely in Mrs. Campfield’s sitting room. This was a different man altogether, and while part of me turned guarded and cautious, the larger part that contained my heart, and yes, my passions, was drawn inexorably toward him.

  “Orders had nothing to do with why His Excellency and I were detained,” he said to me, his fingers still tight around mine. “It was instead the matter of my future, my hope, my very life, and yet he will not listen, and refuses it all.”

  I glanced at the general, dancing as if he’d no cares in this world or worries for the next.

  “Then tell me instead,” I said.

  “Come with me outside,” he said
, leading me toward the door. “We cannot speak here with any freedom.”

  Venturing outside alone in the dark with a gentleman was one of those things that virtuous ladies did not do. But for the first time in my life I didn’t care what anyone might say or think. I fetched my cloak and he his greatcoat, joined him at the storehouse’s rear doorway, and together we slipped outside.

  “This way,” he said softly, leading me behind the storehouse and away from where the sleighs and horses were waiting with their drivers gathered for warmth around a small fire. “No one will see us on the other side.”

  Most times when a gentleman and lady leave a ball or assembly, there is a moonlit garden with shadowy paths and bowers to welcome them. But here in Morristown, all trees and brush had long ago been cut by the army for firewood and shelters, and the only paths were ones trodden by others into the snow. There was no pretty garden folly or contrived ancient ruin; instead we stood beside the rough log walls of a military storehouse. The only magic that Alexander and I had was the moonlight, as pure and shining as new-minted silver spilled over the white snow and empty fields.

  But that magic, such as it was, held no charm for Alexander now.

  “The general still refuses to promote me for an active post, and will not consider a command for me to the south,” he said, his voice taut with frustration. Despite the cold, he hadn’t bothered to fasten his greatcoat, and the flapping open fronts only exaggerated his agitation.

  “Oh, Alexander,” I said, for I’d heard this from him before, though not with such vehemence. “Did you present your case for a field command to His Excellency again this evening?”

  “I did,” he said. He was pacing back and forth before me, the heels of his boots crunching over the packed snow. “He claims he cannot grant me a command without giving offense—offense!—to other officers who surpass me in seniority. Instead I must be mired here in endless drudgery without any hope of action or glory.”

  Dramatically he flung his arms out to either side, appealing to me. “Do you know how I passed this day, Betsey? Can you guess how I was humbled?”

  I suspected there would be no acceptable answer to this question, not whilst he was in this humor, yet still I ventured one. “I should guess you were engaged in your duties as ordered by His Excellency.”

  “Oh, yes, my duties,” he said. “Such grand duties they were, too. I tallied and niggled the expenses incurred for the feed of the cavalry’s mounts, horse by horse. My duty was to count oats and corn and straw like any common farmer in his barn.”

  I sighed, my feelings decidedly mixed. I knew he was dissatisfied with his role in the winter encampment. Although he was the general’s most valued aide-de-camp, he chafed under that honor and the duties with it, and longed for a posting where he’d see more active duty and combat with the enemy. I wished him to be happy, yes, but I also wished him to stay alive, and I dreaded the very thought of him in the reckless path of mortal danger.

  He took my silence as encouragement, and continued on, his voice rising.

  “The general would unman me completely, Betsey, and replace my sword forever with a pen,” he said. “There is a sense of protection to the position, of obligation, which I find eminently distasteful. How can I be considered a soldier? Each day that I am chained to my clerk’s desk is another that questions my courage, my valor, my dedication to risk everything for the cause.”

  This, too, I’d witnessed before. Alexander was a gifted speaker, and once he fair had his teeth into an argument, he could worry it like a tenacious (but eloquent) bulldog for hours at a time. His skill with words was a wondrous gift and one that left me in awe. But beneath my cloak tonight I was dressed for a ball, not an out of doors declamation beneath the stars, and I needed to steer him gently toward a less furious course before my teeth began to chatter.

  “His Excellency knows you’re not a coward,” I said, tucking my hands beneath my arms to warm them. “Your record in battle has already proven your courage. But there are no battles to be fought by anyone in the winter season, and—”

  “There are in Georgia, in Carolina,” he said, the words coming out as terse small clouds in the cold air. “Laurens has written me of brisk and mortal encounters with the enemy.”

  I sighed again. John Laurens was another lieutenant colonel and former aide-de-camp, and Alexander’s dearest friend in the army. Laurens had left the General’s Family before I’d arrived, but I felt as if I knew him from Alexander’s descriptions of his friend’s character, handsomeness, and daring; he’d also been born to wealth and privilege as the son of the wealthiest man in South Carolina, accidents of fate that greatly impressed Alexander. His fondest reminiscences of Laurens, however, involved hard-fought battles, gruesome wounds, swimming rivers under enemy fire, and having horses shot from beneath them. These tales I found terrifying, even though I understood from Papa that this was how soldiers behaved during wartime. Little wonder that I also believed—though I’d never say so—that Colonel Laurens was responsible for much of Alexander’s restlessness.

  “You’ve told me before that those are random skirmishes,” I said as patiently as I could. “Colonel Laurens admits that himself, does he not?”

  He grumbled, wordless discontent. “He does, on occasion.”

  “And you’ve said yourself that they’re risky ventures,” I continued, “and of no lasting value to the cause.”

  He paused his pacing again, and tipped his head to one side to look at me. The moonlight caught the curl of his hair beneath the brim of his hat, like a flame against the dusky sky.

  “Not when compared to larger, more organized campaigns, no,” he admitted, finally sounding a fraction more reasonable. “Yet every action, large or small, has its use in deciding a final victory.”

  “But even the general accepts that there is a season for battle, and a season for rest.” I kept my voice logical yet soothing, too, knowing from experience that was what would calm him. “The letters you now write for the general, the plans you make for the army for the spring on his behalf, are far more important than any random encounter in the Carolina wilderness.”

  “But there’s no glory in it, Betsey,” he said, his earlier impatience now fading into a sadness that touched my heart. “You know I’m a poor man, without family or fortune. I’ve made no secret of that with you.”

  “But consider how far you have come on your own,” I said, “and how much you have already achieved.”

  “It’s scarcely a beginning,” he said. “I need to make my name for myself now, during the war, and that I can’t do scrivening away at a desk. I cannot gain any measure of fame unless I return to the battlefield, and yet because I have no familial influence of my own, I will never be advanced to a higher command.”

  “You have friends,” I said softly, trying not to think of what Kitty had told me earlier. “Important friends, in the army and in Congress. Friends who appreciate your talents, and regard you as you deserve. All will come to you in time. I’m sure of that.”

  “In time, in time, in time,” he repeated in despondent singsong. “What if I can’t wait, Betsey? What if you can’t? I want to be worthy of you, and yet I have nothing of any value to offer you.”

  “Oh, Alexander,” I said. “You have so very much to offer to me! You’re brave and honorable and kind and clever, with a hundred other qualities besides. You have grand ideas and dreams that only you have the power to make real. You could never raise your sword against the enemy again, and still I’d be the one who wasn’t worthy of you.”

  “My dear Betsey.” He smiled, a weary smile, yes, but a smile nonetheless. “No wonder you’ve become so dear to me, and so indispensable, too. I do not think I could bear this winter without you. You’re my very Juno, filled with the wisest counsel, combined with the beauty of Venus herself.”

  “You say such things.” I smiled, too, but uncertainly. I knew he’d just paid me a compliment, but unlike Angelica, I’d no aptitude for scholarly endeavo
rs, and I was never quite sure what he meant when he spoke of ancient goddesses.

  “I do indeed,” he said, finally coming to stand close to me. “And you are cold, aren’t you? Let me warm you.” He wrapped his arms around me and drew me close, folding me inside the dark wings of his heavy wool greatcoat. I went to him and snugged next to his chest as if I’d found my true home. I felt safe and protected with his arms around me and my cheek against his chest, and so contented that I could not keep back an unconscious sigh of pure joy.

  He chuckled, and drew me closer. “Sweet girl,” he said. “You thought you’d come here to dance, not to shiver in the moonlight with me.”

  I tipped my head back to see his face. I’d been so occupied with our conversation that I’d nearly forgotten about the dance, and with his reminder I was again aware of the music coming faintly from the assembly within the storehouse. The minuet was long past done. What I heard now was an allemande, and I wondered how many other dances had been danced since we’d left the assembly. By now our absence must have been noted—I doubt I’d ever escape Kitty’s sharp eyes—but I didn’t care. This time alone with him was worth any price.

  “I’ve never seen a moon such as this,” I said breathlessly, turning a bit in his arms to better see the sky. “It’s like magic, isn’t it? A full moon wrought from silver, there in the sky.”

  His hands had settled familiarly around my waist above the whalebone arc of my hoops, and just that slight pressure of his palms against my sides was making my heart beat faster.

  “You should see how the moon glows in the sky over Nevis,” he said. “There’s no magic involved, but a phenomenon caused by the island being so close to the equator. It’s every bit as bright as this, with the brilliance reflected and magnified by the sea below it.”

  “Truly?” I said, trying to imagine what he described. “You make it sound very beautiful.”