I, Eliza Hamilton

by Susan Holloway Scott

  “Oh, it is,” he assured me, but the way he said it made me think perhaps it wasn’t. “A sight worthy of the finest poets.”

  He fell quiet, gazing up at the moon. He almost never mentioned the island where he’d been born, and I longed to know his thoughts.

  “Does this make you wish to return home?” I asked. “The moon, I mean.”

  “Nevis is no longer my home,” he said bluntly, “and I never wish to return. If I’d remained there, I would by now be dead. It’s the way of that place.”

  The sadness in his voice was heartbreaking. “But you’re here now,” I said. “Beneath an American moon, not a Nevis one.” I turned around to face him again, and placed my palms lightly on his chest. My right hand rested over his heart, something I didn’t realize until after I’d done it.

  “You shall do wonderful things, Alexander,” I said fiercely, gazing up at him. “I’m sure of it. You are a man born to do great things. I only pray that I’ll be there to see you do them.”

  Suddenly he smiled, and so warmly that I forgot I’d ever been cold. “You pray a great deal, Betsey.”

  “I’ve prayed for you ever since that first night, exactly as I promised,” I said, my fingers spreading over the front of his waistcoat. “My prayers have been answered, too.”

  “Perhaps mine have as well.” He reached up to cradle my jaw with one hand, gently turning my face up toward his. “You’re kind and generous and tender to a fault, especially where my wretched self is concerned. Have I told you that you’re beautiful as well?”

  “You have,” I said playfully. “But I will listen if you choose to tell me again.”

  He chuckled. “You are beautiful, dearest, surpassing beautiful and unmercifully handsome, and I’ll never tire of telling you that pretty truth. You have so addled my wits that the other night when I returned to headquarters from seeing you, I could not recall the password. Of course the sentry knew me, the dog, but he wouldn’t let me pass until Mrs. Ford’s boy rescued me with the proper word. That’s all your doing, Miss Elizabeth.”

  I laughed, picturing him foundering at the front door before a grave-faced guard. “You cannot fault me for that!”

  “I can, when it’s the truth.” His smile faded. “You speak of the future as if you can foresee what it holds. You’re so wise, perhaps you can. Do you know how honored I’d be to have you beside me in that future, Betsey? To know you’d be with me always, as you are now?”

  My heart was beating so fast that it was almost painful within my breast.

  “I could wish for nothing more than to be with you like that, Alexander,” I whispered. “Nothing.” I was trembling, for I’d never spoken like this to another man, nor had I ever desired to. “I—I love you, Alexander Hamilton.”

  I wish I could have preserved that moment forever, how he looked at me with such boundless emotion and regard, as if I were the most worthy woman in the world.

  “I love you, Elizabeth Schuyler,” he said solemnly, and yet I was sure I heard a tremor to his voice to match my own. “My joy, my happiness, my love. Do I have your leave to address your father?”

  I nodded, not trusting my voice. I suspect he didn’t trust his, either, for he spoke no further.

  Instead, he kissed me.

  How dry and dull those words seem when writ on paper! How, in their simplicity, they lack the riches that Alexander’s first kiss held for me! At first he barely touched his lips to mine in the kind of chaste salute that would have pleased even Aunt Gertrude. This kiss was an honorable pledge meant for marriage, the most sacred of sacraments for any woman, and as our lips came together, I realized his honorable regard and devotion for me. I felt cherished, and I felt loved.

  But as glorious as that moment might have been, it would not long suffice for either of us. I will be honest: I’ll include my own impatience, however unseemly for a lady that may appear, for in this as in so many things Alexander and I were already in perfect union. That first brush of his lips over mine was like a spark to overdry tinder, and at once the heat of desire washed over me.

  In innocent eagerness, I pressed my lips more ardently against his, and at once he responded. He slipped his hand from beneath my jaw to the back of my head and tangled his fingers into my hair, and slanted his mouth over mine to deepen the kiss. My lips parted beneath his, and with a hunger I’d never realized existed within me I tasted him as he tasted me. The heat of his kiss burned me with its unexpected passion, and made me yearn to become his even more completely. I slid my hands around his shoulders to steady myself, and shamelessly stretched my body against his.

  I am not certain how long that first kiss lasted, there in the silver-bright moonlight. It seemed both an instant, and an eternity, with the only certainty being that I did not wish it to end. Yet like all things, finally it did, when with obvious reluctance Alexander lifted his mouth from mine.

  I opened my eyes, still dazed with heady bliss. He was almost frowning as he gazed down at me, his lips still parted and his breathing quick, as was my own. My thoughts were muddled: I was a lady born, a Schuyler, and not one of the slatterns who frequented the camp. I tried to push away from him, belatedly fearing he’d think ill of me for encouraging such freedom.

  “I—I am sorry, Alexander,” I stammered in confusion, my cheeks hot. “Forgive me for—”

  “Hush,” he said softly, placing his fingers lightly over my newly kissed lips. “It must be I who apologizes, not you, dearest Betsey, nor can I lay the fault on the moonlight. Even in your innocence, you have that power over me. You tempt me so much, when I must show more regard for the lady whom I pray will one day soon be my wife.”

  I smiled shyly, liking the notion that a lady-wife could be tempting, too, and pressed my lips against his fingertips.

  “One day,” I breathed, liking those words. “And soon.”

  CHAPTER 5

  As magical as that night had been, I didn’t see Alexander the next day, or the next after that. Winter stepped between us, as it did so often that year. By the time the assembly had ended and I was once again bound for home in the Livingstons’ sleigh, that shining silver moon—our moon—had become obscured by thick clouds. Snow began falling before dawn, and continued to fall for the entire day and the next night, too. The skies remained as dark as if the sun had never risen, with the flakes falling so rapidly that all landmarks were lost in swirling white.

  Every house, shop, church, and barn in the town as well as the army’s encampment was blanketed by the snow, and the streets and roads were so thickly covered that by midday no outward signs remained that these passageways had ever existed. Even the very birds in the trees were quieted by the snow, and all around us was muffled in icy white silence.

  Muffled, and cut off from the larger world around us, too. The snow was too deep and treacherous for man or horse to traverse, and I pitied the poor sentries standing guard in such weather. Everyone else kept within doors and away from the frost-iced windows, and did not venture far from their fires.

  There was no question of Alexander calling upon me, yet still I was impatient to see him again. How could I not be? As I sat and knitted more caps for the soldiers, I imagined him in the crowded quarters of Mrs. Ford’s house a mere quarter of a mile away, sitting at the long table that served as a desk for the aides-de-camp and continuing to write His Excellency’s orders, transcribe his letters, coordinate his meetings, arrange his messengers, and perhaps even tally the expenses for the cavalry’s horses. The work of the army’s headquarters would not stop even in a snowstorm, though nothing could be sent until the roads again were passable.

  Yet I also pictured Alexander later in the evening, after the general and the other aides had retired to their beds. Bent over his desk with a tallow candle for light, he’d be writing still, but at that hour the words would be his own.

  And to my joy, they’d be meant for me.

  Ever since my aunt had permitted Alexander to hand me that first letter, he had launched a ver
itable barrage of missives my way, so many that I could scarce keep up my replies. He was my soldier-poet, and oh, the sweet words that were in his arsenal for winning me! His letters were like him, brilliant and beautiful and rich with ideas and, yes, with love. Some were short, scarcely a sentence or two written in haste, and others were worthy of the greatest writers in our language. I cherished them all. In his letters, I was his dearest girl, his angel, his happiness, his charmer, but above all I was simply his Betsey, his Eliza. What more, truly, could I ask?

  The storm’s last flake had scarcely fallen when Alexander again appeared at our door, his greatcoat covered with snow and his face flushed with the cold. As can be imagined, I greeted him as warmly as if we’d been separated for months, not days. I’d never claimed to possess a sentimental nature, but it did seem that our fondness for each other had strengthened with that first kiss, as if the very moon herself had blessed our love. From that time onward, I could not imagine myself with another man as my one love and husband, nor did I wish to.

  Over the next weeks, and whenever the snows and the General permitted, we stole as much time together as was possible. While we attended several frolics and wintery amusements such as sleighing in the company of Kitty and several of my other friends as well as various officers from headquarters, I preferred the occasions when Alexander and I could be alone together. Aunt Gertrude had decided that he had proven himself worthy of me, and relaxed her more stringent rules. I was now permitted to sit with him unaccompanied in the front room of the Campfields’ house in the evening (though the door must be kept open), and to bid him farewell alone in the hall. When Lady Washington invited me to tea, she made sure that Alexander would be spared from his duties long enough to take a dish with me, too. I was allowed to walk with him along the narrow paths carved into the snow, and if during those walks a kiss or two was exchanged, no one took notice.

  It was also during these long walks that I began to realize the extent of his restless brilliance. While we spoke of a shared future together, as every couple will, our conversations were also deeper and more philosophical than most. It was Alexander’s nature to speak more than I, and I happily listened, for he’d more ideas in a day than most mortal men have in a lifetime.

  Hand in hand, he told me his plans for the country’s future, of the rare opportunities—and possible perils—that would await our land once the war was won (which even in that grim winter, he never doubted would happen). Unlike most young gentlemen I’d known who seemed obsessed only with the battles at hand, Alexander looked ahead. He thought of new ways of government and ruling and new notions of finance, schemes and contrivances so magnificent and grand and important that I listened in awe as he recounted them.

  I couldn’t begin to match his knowledge, but I did ask many questions as they came to me, wanting to understand the things that interested him most, and learn new things for myself as well. In turn my eager attention pleased him, and he said that the process of explaining these things to me helped clarify them in his own head. Although we didn’t realize it then, we’d unwittingly fallen into the pattern of discussion that we’d continue for the rest of our lives together, and I dare to believe that in this way I encouraged him in his achievements.

  We were also creating the kind of partnership that I’d always witnessed in my parents’ marriage. Mamma had taught me that to be a loving wife and a thorough, supportive helpmate to my husband was the surest course to contentment for any woman, while Papa for his part had always regarded my mother with unerring kindness, devotion, and respect. That I had found the same qualities in a gentleman as charming, as witty, and as handsome as Alexander was to me the rarest good fortune in the world.

  It became accepted throughout the town and the camp that an understanding existed between us. Other men no longer asked me to dance at the assemblies, and the former gossip of Alexander’s rakish dalliances ceased, too, with his name now linked only to mine. As can be imagined in so small a community, this led to a great deal of good-natured jesting on the subject, and we both were accused of being love-struck and addled by Cupid’s darts.

  Neither of us could deny it.

  Given all this, it was no real wonder that as the days grew longer and February slipped into March, Alexander and I agreed that it was time for him to write to my father. I was already well aware of how high Alexander stood in Papa’s favor and had no doubt that he’d give his blessing to our union.

  Alexander, however, had no such confidence, and labored long in composing this letter, which he rightly called the most important of his life. His uneasiness only increased when Papa didn’t reply at once, but said he first must defer to my mother. Further, he announced that he’d taken a house here in Morristown to better survey the state of the army for his reports to Congress, and also to be nearer to me.

  “Your father doesn’t trust me, Eliza,” Alexander said gloomily as we sat together one evening. “Instead of granting his consent, he’s coming here to defend you against the friendless, penniless suitor who dares ask for your hand.”

  “Hush,” I scolded gently. “That’s not his reasoning at all, Alexander. You know his friendship with His Excellency, and how hard he strives to present the army’s needs to Congress. It makes perfect sense for him to be here in Morristown now, as the plans are being made for the summer campaigns.”

  He shook his head and restlessly tapped the hilt of his sword.

  “I don’t deny that those things are part of his reasoning,” he admitted. “But you know that the general is sending me to Amboy next week to negotiate the exchange of prisoners. I could be gone a fortnight, even longer, and I hate leaving you here with so much undecided. Why hasn’t your father replied? Why is he taking so long?”

  “Because he wishes to consult with my mother first,” I said. “Among Dutch families, mothers have as much say as fathers in determining their children’s marriages. He is in Philadelphia, while she remains in Albany, and you know how slowly letters travel at this time of year.”

  He grumbled wordlessly like a restive dog. “I can understand why Carter persuaded your sister to elope with him, if he was forced to suffer this same misery.”

  Although he hadn’t asked for more coffee, I refilled his cup from the pot beside me. I’d already learned that small attentions like this helped to calm him when he was agitated.

  “I’ve told you before that it was my sister’s idea to run away, not Mr. Carter’s,” I said. “But she did so because my parents would never have approved of him as a suitor, and an elopement was their only path to happiness.”

  He raised the porcelain cup to his lips, inhaling the steaming fragrance of the coffee before he sipped it. “I cannot fault your parents. Though I myself like Carter, many regard him as the worst sort of slippery English rascal.”

  “He’s never seemed a rascal to me,” I said mildly. John Carter had first come to our house in 1776 as a commissioner appointed by Congress to audit the accounts of the army while my father in command of the Northern Department. Papa had liked him then, judging him to be thorough, fair, and hardworking, but he’d never considered him as a suitable addition to our family. I’d thought him pleasing enough, if a bit phlegmatic, yet Angelica had been intrigued by his clever intelligence. I’d known there was an attraction between them, but I’d been as surprised as anyone when they’d eloped, and I still silently marveled that he’d snared my fiery sister’s heart. He was dark and intense, and known as a gambler, a gentleman who took great risks. He was rumored to be profiting from the war through various business arrangements that many thought weren’t entirely honorable, and I think that the aura of wickedness and mystery about his past in England had also held a powerful allure for my sister. “And it’s not his fault that he was born in England.”

  “He’s an Englishman who fled his native land after an ill-fated bankruptcy,” Alexander said. “I know his primary income comes from provisioning contracts, but I’ve heard he’s also indulging in some tidy spec
ulation that will either make him very rich, or very much in debt, which is bound to unsettle your father. In his eyes, matters must be going from ill to worse with you choosing a pauper. Though at least I have come to my poverty honestly, and as a gentleman should.”

  “Hush,” I said again, and more sternly, too, for the coffee had not helped his humor as I’d hoped. “You are not at all like Mr. Carter. My parents have found you agreeable from the moment you first appeared on their doorstep, and you have only risen in their estimation since then. I’m sure they will bless our marriage, as sure as I am of anything under Heaven. What other assurance can I offer you?”

  He glanced down at the delicate cup in his hand as if seeing it for the first time, and deliberately set it on the table between us. When he looked up again, I saw the deep sorrow in his eyes that he seldom revealed to anyone but me. I saw the loneliness of that long-ago boy who’d lost his parents and his home, and the aching fear of abandonment that haunted him still.

  I dropped my knitting in the basket beside me and rose swiftly from my chair. I looped my arms around his neck and bent to kiss him, determined to make him understand the depth of my feelings for him. He answered by curling his arm around my waist and drawing me forward on his knees, and kissing me with an urgency that bordered on desperation. It was all done with haste and need, not grace, with my petticoats flurrying around my ankles, my knee bumping his sword awkwardly against the chair, and his half-empty cup rattling in its saucer on the table, yet we took no notice of anything except each other.

  At any moment we could be discovered by another of our household, and we both understood that this bold display of emotion would have tested my aunt’s new tolerance. We didn’t care. He kissed me more deeply, his hand sliding along my leg beneath my tumbled petticoat as if by accident, until he’d reached the back of my bare knee above the ribbon of my garter. There he settled his palm quite happily, nor did I protest this impulsive caress; far from it. I’d already discovered how much I enjoyed the feverish pleasure Alexander’s touch could inspire, and risking the discovery by others only made the enjoyment more thrilling. I’ll admit that this was not the demeanor of a lady as I had been taught, and I had never granted such freedom to any other gentleman. But with Alexander, these freedoms, these kisses stolen and freely given, these small, teasing games were all part—an exciting part—of loving him.