I, Eliza Hamilton

by Susan Holloway Scott

  I glanced quickly back to Alexander, my own cheeks growing warm. How could I have ever doubted him? “You said that of me?”

  “Ma belle, bien-aimée Eliza,” he repeated solemnly, his gaze beseeching. “My beautiful, beloved Eliza.”

  “Ohhh,” I sighed, overwhelmed to hear such a sentiment, in French and in English, here in the middle of the busy hall. “Oh, Alexander.”

  At once all was forgiven, if there was in fact anything to forgive, which there hadn’t been. Even then, before we were wed, I found it nearly impossible to be unhappy with him.

  True, it was hardly the first meeting I’d envisioned for my sister and Alexander, but when he called upon us later that evening, the general conversation proceeded much more smoothly, and without any French confusion, either. This could have been because my father was there as well, guiding matters with his usual forthright direction, or because both Alexander and Angelica had each resolved to do better. Whatever the case, by the evening’s end they seemed quite amiable toward each other, and yet I wanted to be sure. I could barely wait until the rest of my family retired so I could ask him in private before we said our farewells.

  “Did you like my sister?” I asked at once. “I know she surprised you earlier by addressing you in French, but I hope you can forgive her that.”

  He smiled. “Of course I can forgive her,” he said. “She caught me off guard, that was all.”

  “But you do like her?” I asked again, more anxiously this time. We were standing outside the front door, on the worn old round millstone that served as the house’s front step.

  “I do,” he said, though with a shade more reserve than I could have hoped. “She’s charming company. Is her husband not with her?”

  “Not here, no,” I said. “Mr. Carter is a quiet gentleman, much occupied with his business. He also does not always see eye to eye with my father, and it is often better for all parties that she visits us without him.”

  He nodded, his face thrown into sharp shadow by the small lantern that hung outside the door.

  “Mr. Carter doesn’t see eye to eye with many men,” he said. “You know I find him agreeable, but in some circles his habit of selling supplies to whomever will pay the most makes him as much loved as a usurer.”

  I sighed, for it could be difficult to defend Mr. Carter. “My sister says he does very well by the trade.”

  “I’m sure he does,” Alexander said dryly. “He has that ability.”

  I nodded again, wondering how I’d been cast in the unsavory role of apologist for my brother-in-law. “Angelica says Papa was more unhappy with Mr. Carter’s reasons for coming to New York on account of an unfortunate affair in London.”

  “I heard it was a duel,” Alexander said. “With a member of Parliament. Not that I can fault him for that.”

  “Hush,” I said softly, resting my palms lightly on his chest. I’d heard that rumor, too, but Angelica had brushed it aside with disdain when I’d asked her about it, so I doubted it was true. “I don’t wish to discuss him any further. What I want to know is whether or not you believe you can be friends with my sister.”

  “Of course I can,” he said, now without his earlier hesitation. “Mrs. Carter is witty and amusing, with thoughts of her own and the intelligence to defend them. She is well-read for anyone, man or woman. I never thought to discuss Common Sense and Thomas Paine before your father’s hearth, especially not with a woman as handsome as your sister. It was quite remarkable.”

  “So you do like her?” I asked, daring to hope. I had sat by in silence and listened (and marveled, too, at the cleverness of their arguments) as the two of them had sparred in words, and in the end I hadn’t been certain if Alexander had enjoyed the exchange or not. “Truly? It matters much to me that you do, Alexander, and that she likes you in return, almost as much as my parents’ approval.”

  “I do,” he said. “She will make a most diverting sister-in-law.”

  I wasn’t certain that diverting was the word I would have preferred.

  “She has many excellent qualities,” I said earnestly. “You’ll soon see how loyal she can be. She made this long journey to Morristown for my sake, just to make certain you were worthy of me.”

  He laughed, slipping his arms around my waist. “Ah, so here’s the truth, then. You’re more concerned with her verdict regarding me than mine of her.”

  “Alexander, please,” I said. “Be serious.”

  “Very well, then,” he said, making a show of composing his face into the picture of grim severity. “I liked your sister very much, and I look forward to learning more of her in the future. She’s very different from you.”

  “She’s much wiser than I,” I said.

  “She reads and studies more than you,” he said, “but that makes her bookish and intellectual, not wise. You, my dear Betsey, are wise in the ways that matter.”

  I refused to believe he was serious. “She speaks French.”

  “Yes, she does,” he said mildly. “But I’d wager a hundred dollars that she learned it not because French is the language of diplomacy and King Louis’s court, but because it’s also the language of flirtation and seduction.”

  He’d seen so much more of the world than I, to know such things! I was glad he couldn’t see me blush, not only for myself, but for my sister.

  “I don’t know what Angelica said to you today, but she didn’t mean it, not that—that way,” I said. “It’s simply her manner. She is accustomed to attention from everyone, gentlemen and ladies alike. She’s been that way since we were girls.”

  “I understand that now,” he said, pulling me closer. “But it’s also proof that you’re the wiser sister.”

  I shook my head, looking down at my hands on the blue woolen of his blue coat, the long rows of brass buttons winking dully in the moonlight.

  “There’s more to wisdom than a library filled with books,” he said softly. “You’re gentle and kind and patient, Betsey, and filled with reason and sound judgment. You’re loyal and honorable, and you always consider others before yourself. Even when it’s your selfish sister.”

  “She’s not selfish, Alexander,” I began, but how he tipped his head to one side proved that he was right.

  “You would never leave our children behind, as she has done with hers,” he said. “Not when they’re so young, so fragile.”

  “No,” I said wistfully, ashamed for Angelica’s sake.

  “Nor would you ever speak as freely to Carter as she did today to me,” he said, leaning closer over me. “Not in French, or English, or any other language in creation.”

  “She’s my sister,” I repeated helplessly, hoping that would be explanation enough.

  I don’t believe he cared.

  “Mon sage petit hibou,” he whispered, brushing his lips over mine.

  Breathlessly I turned aside. “What did you just say?”

  He smiled. “I called you my wise little owl.”

  “An owl?” I wrinkled my nose, picturing the heavyset predatory owls who hunted mice in the barns at home. “I thought you said that French is the language of love.”

  “It is,” he said, his voice low and dark as he pressed me back against the door to kiss me. “Je t’aime au-delà de tous les autres, ma belle, bien-aimée, ma Eliza.”

  And without knowing a word, I understood.

  * * *

  As the days grew longer and warmer, the army—or what remained of it—began to return to life, like a great slumbering bear after a long winter. The soldiers drilled with more purpose, openly eager to challenge the enemy again. All of Jockey Hollow buzzed with rumors of when the camp would break for summer, and where the various regiments would be sent next to meet the British in battle. The next campaign could be a counter to the siege of Charleston to the south, through Virginia and Georgia. Each day brought more tales from Congress’s meetings in Philadelphia, from spies across the Hudson in New York, from letters from Georgia and Carolina. All carried stories of more
British troops arriving, of more guns, more cannon, for the sole purpose of finally bringing an end to the war.

  The most popular rumor, however, had the Continental Army waiting until the French troops landed in Rhode Island, and then joining with them in an attack upon the city of New York, across the Hudson River. Part of this plan (or so it was said) also involved the defense of the fortifications farther up the river at West Point—which by curious coincidence was the same West Point that my father was urging as an appointment and fresh start for the disgraced General Arnold.

  The only thing that anyone seemed to agree upon was that things would change, and soon, and that the war would begin anew. The British general Henry Clinton had completed his triumphal victory over Charleston, and was reported to be sailing back to New York with a large company of troops. Emboldened by this news, small groups of British soldiers from New York were already to be seen in New Jersey, launching small attacks on the populace that were meant to draw His Excellency out of Morristown earlier than planned.

  So far these small attacks had been contained by local militiamen, but those of us still in Morristown became more and more ill at ease as the attacks grew closer to the encampment. Few civilians wished to find themselves in the middle of a campaign. One by one, the wives and families of officers who had wintered with us in hired houses packed up their belongings, bid their husbands and friends farewell, and began their long journeys back to their homes, scattered across every colony.

  As a general’s wife, Mamma had witnessed this before, and she was determined to stay with my father here at the camp until, as she said, she could see soldiers marching to battle from her front door. Lady Washington and Aunt Gertrude likewise took this forthright stance, the three older ladies standing confidently beside their husbands as our little community shrank around us. We now also had an additional sentinel at our house posted to guard both front and back doors, and Mamma and I did not go about the town without the company of at least one soldier. I’m not certain if this was an order from His Excellency, or a request by my father. Mamma, Angelica, and I understood, and we did not complain. Because of Papa, we would have made valuable prisoners had we been captured.

  It went without saying that I, too, remained in Morristown, relishing every moment that Alexander could spare for me. I pressed him as much as I could for more information on the army’s plans for the summer, but even though he wrote and read all of His Excellency’s orders and letters, he couldn’t offer any more definite news than anyone else did. It truly did seem that the army’s movements were the proverbial game of cat and mouse. His Excellency possessed neither the men nor munitions to strike as he might choose. Instead he was forced to wait and watch, and then react to whatever the British did first.

  Angelica remained with us until late May, long enough to attend the last assembly held in honor of the French ambassadors. But finally she, too, began to worry that she might become separated from her children for the entire summer, and made arrangements with her husband’s people to return to her home in Boston.

  We took one final stroll about the little town on day before she left. It was odd to see how much it had changed in the last weeks. The original owners of the houses that had been leased to the army had now returned to Morristown with their families, and were busily planting new gardens and making repairs to their properties after the long winter. To them, we represented the army and all its inconveniences and hazards, and they made no effort to acknowledge us except as unwelcome interlopers, soon to be gone. We missed the familiar faces that we’d come to know so well these last months, and the town that had earlier felt like another home now had nothing but strangers to it.

  No wonder, then, that Angelica and I walked closely together on that last afternoon, our arms linked and our heads bowed beneath our wide-brimmed straw hats, and our guard following at a respectful distance behind. I was going to miss my sister mightily, and though we promised we’d soon meet again later in the summer at our parents’ house, we were both acutely aware of how our plans could be overturned at any time by the war. Most of what we’d had to say to each other had already been said, and we walked largely in companionable though melancholy silence.

  “With weather this fine, you should be home in time to see the roses behind your house bloom,” I said as we passed a garden with bushes already in bud. “There were snow-filled days this winter that I doubted I’d ever see flowers of any sort again.”

  “Marry Hamilton,” she said suddenly. “Now, as soon as it can be arranged. Don’t wait any longer than you must.”

  I stopped walking to face her, and she stopped, too.

  “Angelica, please,” I said. “You know we’re to wed in December, when he can arrange for sufficient leave.”

  “And I say to wait so long is to tempt the very Fates,” she said, her expression uncharacteristically somber. “I’ve considered this with great care, Eliza, else I wouldn’t have spoken now. Marry Hamilton now, while you can.”

  I sighed unhappily, for in my heart I agreed with everything she said. “Why do you torment me by saying such things now?”

  “I don’t intend to torment you,” she said, resuming our walk at a slow and measured pace. “It’s what the men are saying now, of how they cannot wait to go back to war and fighting, and—and I do not wish any misfortune to befall your dear Hamilton before you’ve become his wife.”

  “Do you believe I’ve not thought that for myself?” I was kicking my petticoats forward with each step, venting my fear and frustration on the new grass. “Each time I bid him good night I wonder if it will be the last. You know as well as I how perilous and sudden a soldier’s life can be, and I worry constantly on his behalf.”

  She nodded, her face mirroring my own beneath the sweeping shadow of her hat’s brim. In the last weeks, she and Alexander had developed a considerable regard for each other as a true brother and sister might, and exactly as I’d hoped they would. True, that undercurrent of flirtation that Alexander had first noted occasionally reappeared on Angelica’s side, but because I knew it meant nothing, I took little notice of it, and he soon learned to deflect it with practiced ease. But that same regard meant that she shared my concern for his welfare, and that it was genuine.

  “I worry for him, too,” she said. “He is still so young a gentleman, with so much brilliance and promise but at the same time impetuous to a fault. As long as he remains an aide-de-camp to His Excellency, I suppose he’s as safe as any soldier can be.”

  “But all he wishes is another command, and another chance to prove his bravery and courage with no regard for his own safety,” I said, my voice breaking with emotion. “It need not even be in battle, Angelica. His blue coat could be spied by some lone British scout, and he’d be shot before he even realized it, and then—”

  My sister handed me her handkerchief. “That is why you must marry him now, Eliza, to guarantee you’ll have some measure of happiness, however brief.”

  “What, run off and wed as you did?” I asked, blotting the tears from my eyes. “You know I cannot do that, Angelica, not after I promised our parents we’d marry in Albany. Especially not now, when Mamma hasn’t been well. I wouldn’t break my word to her, or to Papa, either.”

  Angelica raised her brows. “Don’t you realize the cause of Mamma’s illness?”

  “She says it’s from having eaten so poorly, and I cannot disagree.”

  “She’s told me otherwise,” Angelica said. “She believes she’s with child again. She came here to comfort Papa, and I suppose she has.”

  “Angelica, please,” I said, shocked she’d be so frank about our parents. But the more I considered what she’d said, the more I realized it was true. My mother had given birth to fourteen children (seven of whom still lived) during her marriage, and by now all in our family recognized the signs of another imminent brother or sister. But Mamma was nearly forty-seven years old, a considerable age for child-bearing, and I prayed both she and the babe would survive
the extended ordeal of pregnancy and childbirth.

  “You shouldn’t be surprised,” my sister said, misinterpreting my reaction. “Mamma and Papa have always been ruled by their hearts and sentiments. Recall that I was born a scant five months after they wed.”

  Of course I recalled it. The dates of my parents’ wedding and Angelica’s birth were noted in both our family’s Bible and our church’s registry, with no effort ever made to alter them toward more respectability. I suppose that given the lofty stature of the Schuylers and the Van Rensselaers, they had simply stood above any whispers of scandal, high and haughty, and ignored it.

  “They were much younger then,” I said, striving for an explanation. “They both say they were much in love, too.”

  “Mamma was the same age as you are now,” Angelica said. “Which is why again I press you to marry, even if in secret, before you return to Albany.”

  I stopped again, my cheeks scarlet. “You believe that I have already granted Alexander a husband’s favors?”

  She didn’t blush at all. “I would be surprised if it were otherwise,” she said bluntly. “Strong passions run in our family, Eliza, among the ladies as well as the gentlemen, and we’re a remarkably fecund lot. Consider that my dear little Philip was born scarce ten months after I wed John.”

  “How you and Mr. Carter have been blessed is of no affair to me, Angelica,” I protested.

  “It should be,” she said shrewdly. “I see it in your eyes whenever Alexander enters the room. Given his formidable reputation as a gallant with other women before he met you—”

  “We haven’t,” I said, unable to bear her assumptions any longer. “I have granted him certain—certain liberties from the love I have for him, but not the last. It was his decision, too. Because his own parents were not wed, he refuses to risk the same shame for me, or for any child of ours.”

  “He said that?” She was clearly surprised, though without any good reason that I could see. “Alexander has many excellent qualities, to be sure, but I hadn’t thought him to be a gentleman of such high and fastidious honor.”