by David Liss
I was ushered inside an antechamber, all red and gold furnishings, filled with some of the first people of the city as well as visitors from the several states and even a few foreign dignitaries. None knew my name, and though I knew many of theirs, I was not present to make idle chatter, to gossip, or find my social footing. I merely stood by the window and made small conversation, for I was called upon to do it, with an Episcopalian bishop named White.
At precisely 3 P.M. the doors to the receiving room opened, and we queued up obediently. On the left, another liveried man announced each guest’s name. This servant was not a Negro, since his role including reading, and a literate Negro might offend Southerners.
I was situated approximately in the middle of the queue, and so it came to be my turn. I handed my card to the servant, and he loudly proclaimed, “Captain Ethan Saunders!” I felt my stomach drop, the way it does before a man rushes into battle. I was full of fear, yes, but also exhilaration. And I felt shame, for all at once I saw the last decade of my life unfold before me as nothing but a string of drunken days and debauched encounters, as unsavory as they were unwise. I had once, long ago, been singled out for special notice by men who saw my particular talents as a means to serve rather than as an excuse never to achieve. Yes, I had been dealt some blows, but what excuse had I to surrender to failure and despair?
Such were my feelings when I turned to my right where President Washington stood, dressed in formal finery in his velvet suit and gloves, ceremonial sword at his side. I had not seen him close in many years, and time had not been kind to him. His skin had grown dry and papery, slashed with broken red veins. His eyes appeared sunken, his mouth winced with the pressure of false teeth, whose pain was already legendary. On top of it all, he appeared surprised.
As he did on the battlefield, he took his surprise manfully. He shook my hand and bowed slightly, and I proceeded to the circular room where I took my place alongside the other guests.
According to the custom, the doors closed at precisely half past three, and the President began to make his rounds. I had heard of the tedium of these events, but until it is experienced, it is impossible to believe that the human mind, free of the shackles of primordial tradition, could devise a ritual so designed to salt out the lifeblood of human fellowship.
Clockwise, the President turned to each of the guests, bowed, and exchanged some inconsequential words. If he knew the man, he might ask of his family or, more in Washington’s character, of his land, its crops and improvements. If he was a stranger, he might speak of the weather or some development of trade or infrastructure near the man’s home. These exchanges were not precisely whispered, but they were kept quiet to maintain the fiction of privacy.
As the President approached, I could little contain my distress. Perhaps he would refuse to speak to me. Perhaps he would condemn me as the failure I had become. Perhaps he would upbraid me as a traitor, for how could I know if he had ever learned the truth of those charges leveled so long ago? I held my ground and hoped I displayed no more signs of my terrible anxiety than the sweat that beaded along my brow.
The President turned to me and offered me a stiff bow. He smelled of wet wool. “Good afternoon, Captain Saunders. It has been too long.”
I was upon business, and though I revered him as much as any, I would not insult him by showing it. “Hamilton,” I said. “Can he be trusted?”
Washington showed no surprise. He must have intuited the purpose of my visit, and he would have certainly already determined on a course of action. His mouth twitched slightly in something like a grin, and his lips drew back over his false teeth. “He may be trusted absolutely.”
“What if appearances are against him?” I asked.
“Have you been listening to Mr. Jefferson’s supporters?”
“I’ve seen things for myself. I have seen certain associations.”
He nodded. “What do you believe?”
Eyes were upon us now. This little exchange, brief though it was, had already consumed more than the usual allotment of time. The men in the room could hear at least part of what we said, and they knew this was not a wooden exchange of pleasantries. No, there was a seriousness, an urgency, that I had not bothered to mask, and neither had Washington. But it was too late to retreat. It was too late not to accomplish what I had hoped. Let them listen. Let them wonder. It would mean nothing to them, yet it would mean everything for me.
“I believe he is, on balance, honorable,” I said, “even if I cannot comprehend his actions.”
“He is my closest advisor, and he is to be trusted. He might lead himself into Hell, but he would never lead another.” He made another poor attempt to smile, and I cannot say if it pained him more than me. “And what of you, Captain Saunders? Are you to be trusted?”
“Was I ever, sir?” I asked.
No hint of a smile this time. “Oh, yes,” he said. “The world never thought ill of you. People thought you saw your duty as a game, a lark, but I knew better. I knew you hid behind the jollity a fierceness you dared not display. If you wear it on the surface, you become something else.”
“Something like Lavien,” I said.
He nodded. “Precisely.” With that he turned to bow to the next guest, and in a room of dozens of men I felt utterly alone.
E ven in my perplexity, I was not unmindful of important things. I returned to my boardinghouse to change my clothing to something less formal. I would need to pursue this thing to the end.
That night when I walked past the Treasury building, I could not but observe a light in the window of what I believed to be Hamilton’s office. I approached and inquired of a watchman, who told me the Secretary was indeed yet inside. I withdrew and retreated to the shadows, planning nothing more than to wait for him, perhaps follow him home and speak to him there. I suppose I could have entered the building and walked into the office, but the truth was I preferred lurking in the shadows and trailing men across empty streets. It made me feel useful and involved.
Hamilton was well known for his long nights, so I was relieved when he emerged less than an hour later. I had a good view of him from across the street, and I was astonished by the look on his face-a kind of furtive, guilty, sneakish look I did not like.
I followed as he traveled away from the center of town and toward areas I knew to be most unlike those favored by fashionable gentlemen. Our Secretary of the Treasury, in short, was heading toward Southwark.
Before he reached the house, I had guessed his destination, for I had been to this neighborhood before, and in Hamilton’s wake too. This was Reynolds’s home, and it was here I expected to find answers. Philadelphia was, in general, a city of well-lit streets, but in these poor neighborhoods, a homeowner’s duties were often neglected, and I was easily able to ensconce myself in shadow mere feet from the stoop. I was no Lavien, who I suspected could glide above leaf and twig, but I moved silently enough and only men on their guard could have detected my approach.
I watched as Hamilton knocked on the door and waited to see Reynolds’s brutish face. Perhaps, I thought, I should confront the man, let him know he was exposed, that I was no longer fooled by his pretense of honor and rectitude.
Indeed, I had gone so far as to step forward when the door opened, and it was not the beastly James Reynolds who stood there but the lovely Maria.
She smiled at him and placed a hand upon his face.
He removed it. “I ought not to be here,” he said. “Your husband-”
“Did not my husband write you and beg you to visit me? He left Philadelphia this morning upon some mission for his master. Think nothing of my husband.”
“How can I think nothing of him?” Hamilton said. “He presses me for money because you and I have been together, and then, when I leave you alone, he begs me to return to you. Must I not believe that he will press me again?”
“Hush,” she said. “Come inside. We will discuss it.”
He followed her in and closed the door. As to w
hether or not they would do much discussing, I was in doubt, but there it was. Hamilton, with his children, his devoted wife, his staunch morals, had been drawn into a sordid affair with this woman. At once I understood this lady and her husband, she beautiful and he wretched. He’d told me his wife was a slut, and I could only presume the funds Hamilton paid Reynolds were a sort of compensation for the services she provided the Treasury Secretary. Did Hamilton not see that they both used him?
He did not see-or, rather, he saw and could not stop himself.
Ethan Saunders
Hamilton had fallen victim to the pleasures of the flesh. I could hardly blame him for showing human frailty with a creature as lovely as Maria Reynolds, and I could hardly blame her, with her brute of a husband, for preferring a dalliance with one of the most powerful men in the nation. He traveled a dangerous course, however. I believed Washington, that Hamilton would never sacrifice the good of the nation to feed his own desire, but he might well destroy himself.
I would do what I could for him. He had proved he would do what he could for me, and it seemed only just. In the meantime, I would continue to pursue Cynthia and her husband. I had been unable to find anyone in the city who knew for certain where they had gone, and I needed to enlist someone who possessed connections I did not.
The next day, cloudy and dark and windy, I went to Southwark, where the bulk of the town’s Negroes made their home, and proceeded to ask directions, for I knew those streets indifferently well. Among the clusters of Negroes gathered by their market, hawking their roots and meats and bowls of pepper pot, white men such as myself are regarded with considerable suspicion, but I believe it is generally considered unwise to neglect their inquiries. Indeed, a few smiles and coins made it clear that I wished nothing but kindness, and within a few hours of beginning my project, I found the place for which I searched.
It was a neat little house of exceptional narrowness, but pleasing and well maintained. I knocked upon the door and was greeted quickly by a pretty Negress with large eyes and skin the color of drinking chocolate. She appeared momentarily alarmed, no doubt unused to white men on her stoop, but I smiled, removed my hat, and bowed. “You are Mrs.-” I stopped because I did not know Leonidas’s surname. It was customary for slaves to take the names of their masters, but I could not imagine Leonidas doing so. “You are married to Leonidas?”
She nodded. Then her face bunched in a spasm of fear. “Has something happened?”
“No need for alarm. I know nothing of him, good or ill. I had hoped to find him home, but I intuit from your words that he is not.”
Her concern melted away, and I admired again her attractive features, dignified in the Negro mold, and also her unmistakable strength of will. Leonidas had done well in marrying a woman who, I had no doubt, both appreciated and matched him.
“And who are you?” she asked. It was a rather strong way to talk to a white man she did not know, but I would not trouble myself over that.
“I do beg your pardon. I am Captain Ethan Saunders.” I bowed once more.
“You’re him?” she asked. She gazed upon my face. She looked me up and down the length of my body, like a side of beef presented for sale. And then she laughed in a way I did not like at all.
W e sat in her neat little parlor, sipping tea. She told me her name was Pamela but seemed reluctant to present to me the surname Leonidas had chosen. It was no matter, for she treated me graciously, even though I suspected something else lay just beneath the surface. Mrs. Pamela served an agreeable tea and some sweet oat cakes with bits of raisin in them. They were quite tasty and wholesome.
“These are good cakes,” I said.
She nodded her thanks.
“The raisins-a nice touch. Raisins make everything better, I think. Some prefer plums, or even apricots, but when it comes to dried fruit, I shall always take raisins.”
She said nothing.
“Pamela.” I tried again. “I like the name Pamela. It is very pretty.”
This kind observation solicited no response.
I tried again. “From Spenser, I believe.”
She stared at me.
“He is an English poet.”
She scratched the bridge of her nose.
“He wrote The Faerie Queene,” said I.
She blinked.
“It is,” I attempted, “a very long poem. Long and dull.”
More blinking.
I began to fear that I had misjudged blankness for determination and that my friend Leonidas had married a stupid woman. I supposed he knew best his own domestic felicity, but I feared Mrs. Pamela must make for dull company.
“My husband told me about you,” she said at last.
“And what did he say? Nothing too unflattering, I hope. Ha-ha!”
She took a sip of tea. “He told me you were a wastrel and a scoundrel, but that you have a sentimental heart for so selfish a creature.”
“Your husband has ever been an excellent judge of character,” I said, now feeling nostalgic for the Spenser discourse. And the raisins.
“He told me that you are, by nature, the sort of man who would despise the practice of slavery, but you held on to him for as long as you could because it was the only way you could conceive of to keep from spending your days alone. Is that true?”
“I cannot say,” I told her, suddenly feeling warm. “Mrs. Pamela, I did not come here to make you uneasy.”
“Then for what did you come? Why do you trouble us?”
“That is something I must discuss with your husband.”
This answer must have offered some offense, for the good woman did not trouble herself to respond. Thus we sat in silence for near the better part of an hour, though she was so good as to refill my teacup two times. By the time the front door of the house opened and closed and footsteps approached, I was quite ready for a chamber pot. Leonidas entered the room, still wearing his greatcoat, flakes of snow freshly melted upon it. He had removed his hat and still held it in his hand when he noticed me. I grinned at him. He looked at me, and never had I observed such a look of rage upon his face-and never on anyone’s face outside of warfare. His dark face twisted; his eyes widened and then narrowed.
“What are you doing here in my home?” His voice was calm; perhaps that was what made me so easy.
I stood. “I beg your pardon. I do not mean to disturb your domestic peace. I should never have troubled you if it were not important-if someone’s convenience other than my own were not at issue.”
He appeared to give the matter some thought. He took another step toward me and sniffed like a beast. “You haven’t been drinking. Have you at last reformed?”
“I suppose I have. It is amazing how people can change for the better.”
“I’ll not believe it.”
“Leonidas, I know you are angry with me, and if I cannot truly understand the depth of your anger, it is only because I cannot know what you have known. I shall not attempt to justify my actions or place them in context, to help you see what justice must: that on balance I have treated you well, and better than you could have hoped for from another.”
“How dare you-”
I held up my hand. “I do not care to hear it. Not because it is just or unjust, but because Cynthia Pearson is in danger, and I need your help. Her husband has absconded with her and her children, and no one knows where. I had hoped you might inquire among the servants and see if you might learn what others cannot.”
“You come to me for a favor? I want nothing from you.”
“Can you not recognize a plea not for myself but for a woman’s life and for the life of her children? You would hold a grudge against the life of two children?”
“Leonidas,” his wife said softly. “You must not be stubborn to the point of cruelty. You need not like him to help him in this.”
“I will not have him stand here and pretend his motives are something other than selfishness. He claims to want to help others, but it is only desire that mot
ivates him.” To me he said, “What are the names of these children?”
It was true that I did not know, but I saw no need to demonstrate that he had so successfully taken my measure. “Julia and Dennis,” I said, very quickly too.
Leonidas said nothing for several long moments. Then, finally, he nodded. “If I can learn anything, I shall let you know.”
I stepped forward with my hand out. “You are a good man. I knew I could depend upon you.”
He only stared at my hand. “It does not mean we are friends. It only means I will not let others suffer because you have earned my enmity.”
I sniffed. “Right. Well, thank you, even so.”
“If I have more to say to you, I will go to you. You are not to return to my home. Not under any circumstances. Now leave.”
The two of them followed me to the door, as though I could not be trusted to find it, or to leave without helping myself to some of their goods on the way. Leonidas opened the door. I stepped through and turned, removing my hat and bowing.
The lady of the house met my eye, daring me to turn away. “I do not find Spenser at all dull,” she said.
Her husband slammed the door.
H amilton had not brought me into government service, not really, but here I was, speaking to him, to Washington, working alongside his principal spy. I could not ignore what I knew, and I could not leave him to his own peril.
That being the case, the next day I rose early, just after nine in the morning, dressed myself neatly, and strolled to the Treasury offices on Third, where I casually asked to have an audience with the Secretary. He saw me almost immediately, and I took a seat across from him in his small spare office.
“How can I help you this time, Captain?”
I coughed into my fist. “I wonder if there has been any progress in your dealings with Duer.”
He leaned back in his seat. “When this matter is resolved, I want you to come see me. I wish for you to work with Lavien, if you think you can do so. You’ve proved your worth to me, and you seem to have mastered yourself considerably. This is the second time you’ve been here without the stench of drink upon you.”