“I did ask one man in uniform for news of Mrs. Childress’s trial, but he just said I was a little young to be chasing after widows and laughed me away. I even stopped in at the Burrs’ house, pretending to be looking for work, but the servant told me the master hadn’t returned and the missus didn’t hire boys under eighteen.”
Eliza shook her head in consternation—then quickly stilled it to keep her towering wig from shaking too much. Here they were with yet another dinner party, and Alex late again! It was clear she was but a low priority on his busy schedule. But if she gave in to her consternation, she would start screaming. In as calm a voice as she could muster, she said:
“Thank you, Simon. Now, head downstairs and wash up. We may need you to play footman if Mr. Stuyvesant refuses to release Andrew from his side. And make sure your mother feeds you. You look like you burned off ten pounds this week, and you were a skinny lad to start with.”
Simon ran off, quickly replaced by a figure in yellow and pink. It took Eliza a moment to recognize Ralph Earl, whose wig looked like something from the court of Louis XIV and whose coating of powder was if anything thicker than her own. But even more startling than his European visage was his suit. Eliza remembered Alex’s stories of Baron von Steuben, the German general who constantly surrounded himself with a bevy of handsome young men and dressed in suits made from jacquards and toiles more suited to upholster the furniture in a courtesan’s receiving room than a gentleman’s torso. The yellow of Earl’s suit was not quite as gaudy as Alex had described Baron von Steuben’s attire, but only just. It outshone the buttery wallpaper they had chosen for the middle room, and was made rather more garish by the pink embroidery. Well, not garish really, but decidedly feminine. With her raven tresses, Peggy would have looked fabulous in a gown made of such material, but Earl looked a little like a French count who had run out of money, and was now having suits made from the remnants of his wife’s curtains. She wondered that she had ever found him attractive.
“A brilliant party, Eliza. You have gone from being the most sought-after guest in New York society to the most celebrated hostess in a single evening. Brava!”
Eliza immediately felt guilty for making fun of Mr. Earl’s appearance in her head. He even sounded more sober than usual, though a wineglass was, as always, clutched in his hand.
“Why, thank you, Mr. Earl. I cannot take all the credit. Helena Morris really did introduce us to the right people, and of course everyone wants to say they’re friends with Mr. Hamilton, General Washington’s right-hand man.”
“Where is the hero of Yorktown?” Ralph asked, his voice so smooth that Eliza couldn’t tell if he were joking or not.
“I assume his duties kept him late at the—” She was going to say “at the courthouse,” but could not bring herself to lie. “At the office,” she said, a little lamely.
“A brilliant man’s work is never done,” Earl answered, his voice once again so supercilious that it was impossible to guess his intent. “You should rejoice in his success, but resign yourself to evenings such as this. Neither commerce nor politics cares for the plight of the lonely wife, but you still control his social life.”
“Oh, I should hope not. Mine is more than I can handle. But speaking of brilliant men. I do hope it’s okay that I’ve pointed you out as the painter of my portrait. Everyone is asking, and I should think you will leave tonight with rather a few commissions.”
And pay your legal bills, she couldn’t resist adding mentally. Or at least find a home of your own.
“Indeed.” He lifted the flap on a bulging pocket, which was full of calling cards. “I have gone from debtors’ prison to portraitist of the rich and famous in the space of a week. I will be busy from now through the turn of the century.”
“Well then, bravo to you, too.” Eliza clinked her glass with his and took a sip even as Earl drained his in one gulp. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to find Angelica and make sure Philly—er, baby Philip—is taken to bed.”
She found her sister in the middle parlor.
“Do you need me to summon the maid to put the baby to bed?” she asked.
Angelica pointed. “I think you will have a hard time tearing him away from his new best friend.”
Eliza turned to see that, true to Angelica’s prediction, Pieter Stuyvesant was bouncing the laughing boy on his (fleshy) knee while a group of onlookers cheered them on.
“Oh, dear. We should commission Mr. Earl to do a sketch. No one will ever believe us without proof.”
“This sight alone would have made for a memorable party. But truly, Sister, you have thrown John and me a remarkable sending-off. I only wish—”
She broke off.
“What is it, Angie? What can I get you?”
“Oh, it’s nothing. I was just going to say that I only wish the family was complete. For your sake,” she said meaningfully, letting Eliza know that she had noticed Alex’s absence and felt for her.
“I am learning,” Eliza said now, “that much of marriage is time spent apart. I think of all those times Papa was away, at war, or at Saratoga on the farm. It is the norm.”
Angelica took her sister’s arm tenderly. “But, my darling, I hope you are not too lonely.”
“What? No!” Eliza said, feeling disloyal. “Alex and I do have our social life. I suppose I had assumed once we were married we would have more time for just the two of us. I did not realize marriage was actually so inconvenient for . . . intimacy.”
“I do not think it is marriage as much as it is adulthood.” Angelica laughed ruefully. “I must say, there are days when I do miss being sixteen without a care in the world. Not that I’d go back.”
“Oh, heavens no. The spots, for one thing.”
“As if you ever had spots,” Angelica teased. “You have always had a flawless complexion, whereas once a month I gain half a stone and have to cover myself with a veil!”
“Ha! You are misremembering my experience as your own,” Eliza said, laughing. “I was such a homely girl. All elbows and frayed ends. But I think we can both agree that Peggy sailed through adolescence unscathed.”
“And landed the richest husband, too!”
The two sisters enjoyed a hearty laugh.
“Oh, Angie, I can’t believe it. You’re moving to London! With your husband and son!”
“And you live in a Wall Street town house with the most sought-after lawyer in New York City. A future, what did you call him, president? How did we become so grown-up?”
Another shared laugh, though this one was tinged with melancholy.
“I’ll miss you terribly, you know,” Angelica said at length.
“I’ll miss you more. You will have all of London—all of England, of Europe!—to discover, while I’ll be stuck here in plain old New York.”
Angelica beckoned at the rich and powerful guests thronging the two parlors and the dining room, nibbling at succulent cuts of meat and sipping strong ale or wine or whiskey.
“As if this could ever be boring! Listen to them, Eliza. They are literally planning the future of this brand-new country. Whether the United States be a democracy or a monarchy, a single country or a loose-knit confederation, whether slavery be abolished or women be granted the vote—the stage for all of it is being set right here, right now. History is happening in your house, Eliza, and you are its hostess.” She shrugged, as if embarrassed by her flight of fancy. “And you will have Mama and Papa and Peggy and John and Philip and Ren and Cornelia and little Kitty all close to hand, while I shall only have acquaintances.”
“You will have your husband’s family.”
“He has few relations, and what little he has, he doesn’t get on with. No, I will have to make some dazzling friends, or we shall have to make our own private world,” said Angelica with a smile. “Even as you and Hamilton make the larger one.”
“If he e
ver gets home!” Eliza said, finally giving vent to her frustration. “It’s nearly ten! I fear people will start to leave soon if their host doesn’t bother to put in an appearance.”
As if on cue, there came the sound of the front door opening. Eliza turned with a smile, only to hear a rough voice say:
“That’s all right, son, I’ll announce myself.”
The voice sounded familiar, but Eliza couldn’t quite place it. She prepared her most welcoming hostess smile, only to have it freeze on her face as a corpulent man walked into view, unbuttoning a well-made but somewhat dirty overcoat to reveal a gaudy but even more disheveled gold jacket beneath.
“Well, hello there, Lizzy,” Governor George Clinton said with a self-satisfied smack of his greasy lips, which looked as if he’d once again been snacking on a chicken leg in his carriage. “Bet you’re surprised to see me and not that lout of a husband of yours. After the furor he caused in court today, I’d be surprised if he ever shows his face in public again.”
28
Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Hamilton
Hamilton Town House
New York, New York
April 1784
Alex raced down Wall Street, his black robes flapping behind him.
When Judge Smithson had announced his verdict, the courtroom erupted in pandemonium. The closing speeches by Alex and Burr seemed to have left the audience divided evenly between jeers and hisses and hurrahs and cheers.
Alex had turned to Caroline to see how she took the news. She was visibly trembling, with tears running down her face. Her hands clutched at his robe, as if to hold on for dear life. “I don’t believe it.”
He exhaled. “I did my best.”
She nodded, but clearly didn’t trust herself to speak again. And then she fainted clean away.
It took nearly half an hour to clear the room, by which time Caroline had revived but was still too woozy to be left unattended. Alex wasn’t sure what to do. Her house was nearly half a mile away. Was he to carry her through the streets?
The front door of the courtroom opened, and Aaron Burr entered. Alex stood up quickly and hurried down the aisle to keep him from getting too close to Caroline.
“Mr. Burr,” he said in a short voice, “the trial is over, and as you can see, it has been a taxing process on my client. I would ask you not to inflict any more damage upon her psyche than you already have.”
Burr waited all this out in silence. Then:
“I merely wished to inform you that I have given instructions to my driver to take you and Mrs. Childress wherever you need to go. She is obviously far too fragile to walk home.”
Alex’s jaw dropped. “Oh, I see. I, ah, feel terrible now.”
Burr offered him half a smile. “If it makes you feel any better, so do I.” He nodded at Caroline beyond them. “The law is a rather blunt instrument sometimes, and your client was lucky she had you to protect her from the worst of its blows.” He stuck out his hand. “Good evening, Mr. Hamilton. I have no doubt we will find ourselves on opposite sides again in the near future, but there is no need for the animus to become personal.”
Alex shook Burr’s hand.
“That is perhaps the first statement you’ve said in three days that I can agree with.”
Burr threw back his head and laughed. “Touché,” he said, and nodding at Caroline, who had turned to stare at the two men with a bewildered expression, he took himself out of the room.
Alex helped Caroline out of the court, down the stairs, and into the cozy confines of Burr’s carriage. The teeming, rowdy crowd Burr had summoned had dispersed now that the show was over, and Alex was thankful none of the rougher types had stuck around to rub salt in Caroline’s wounds.
The vibrations of the carriage over Wall Street’s rough cobblestones seemed to pain Caroline’s head, and she took the journey in silence, with her eyes pressed tightly closed and one hand across her forehead. At her inn, she stirred herself enough to walk through the first-floor ale room unaided, but the effort was almost too much for her, and Alex had to help her up the stairs. He installed her in a chair and tucked a blanket over her lap, then turned to the fire and built it up into a blaze. As he added one last log, he heard her voice behind him.
“Oh, but wood is so dear.”
He put the log on anyway. “It’s okay, Caroline. You’ve earned it.”
A faint laugh burbled from her. “I suppose I have.” She sighed. “I am embarrassed that I am reacting this way. It seems so, so weak of me.”
“There is nothing to be embarrassed about,” Alex said. “You have been dragging a heavy burden for so long that its weight seems a part of you. It is gone now, but it is only natural for it to take a while for you to feel normal again.”
“I do not know that I shall ever feel normal again. This trial—the vitriol! I wonder how a country so divided can stand?”
“We will only stand if we learn to accept and even embrace each other’s differences rather than allow them to divide us. It is a childish fantasy to expect everyone to agree all the time, but how much better to live in a country where one is free to think differently from one’s neighbors, and even one’s government, without risking life and limb.”
She looked at him dubiously. “You sound as if you are still in court.”
He placed his hand on hers. “Just think of me. I fought on the opposite side of the war as your husband. I lost men, friends”—an image of Laurens filled his head, and he pushed it away—“to British bullets. But I still fought for you, because I believe the idea of America is bigger than sides. If I can come to that conclusion, other people can, too. Other people have come to that conclusion.”
She nodded her head and closed her eyes. Soon her breathing evened out, and he assumed she was sleeping. He stayed with her for another half hour, though, his conscience was racked by thoughts of Eliza playing hostess all by herself, but still unsure if Caroline could be safely left on her own. At length, there came a knock at the door. Sally, the barmaid, entered, with a stein in her hand.
“I saw you and Mrs. Childress come in and thought you might like some ale,” she said, peering anxiously at her mistress.
Alex stood up. “Thank you, Sally, but I really must be going. Mrs. Hamilton is having a party for her sister tonight, and I am already hours late. I hope she will still let me in the house, honestly.”
Sally nodded, though her eyes never left Caroline. “Is she all right?”
“I’m afraid the trial was a bit hard on her nerves, but she will be fine after some rest. Perhaps some bone broth would do her well.”
“Of course. Mr. Hamilton,” Sally said as Alex turned for the door. “How did . . . I mean, did she . . . ?” The barmaid couldn’t finish her question.
“It’s not my place to divulge that information. I will let Mrs. Childress explain everything to you when she awakens.”
“But I mean, we’re okay, aren’t we? Mrs. Childress won’t be turned out, will she?”
Alex glanced back at the sleeping figure. In sleep, her cares had melted from her face, and though her skin seemed all the more pale in its black silk frame, she still looked more like a child than a mother, let alone a widow.
“Not according to the verdict in any event,” he said with a smile, then took his leave.
* * *
HE RACED THE last few steps to his house, chastising himself for sending Burr’s carriage home earlier. He should have ordered the man to wait. He wanted to glance at his watch to see what time it was, but it was too dark to see. That in itself was a terrible sign. It had been half nine when he left Caroline’s.
As he ran past his neighbors’ house, he happened to glance over at their darkened windows. There was just enough light for him to catch his reflection. Although, really, there wasn’t much to see, because he was shrouded in black. Only the glowing white wig made any real impressi
on.
He was still wearing his lawyer’s robes! He couldn’t enter the house like that. Eliza would have a fit.
He glanced at his own windows next door. They were blazing with light and shadows danced about on the ceiling, but the lower shutters had been drawn, so he couldn’t see how crowded or empty the room was. There could be fifty people in there, or just five. Everyone could have gone home.
He ran past the steps to his doors then, and ducked around behind them. On the far side, a short, narrow door under the porch led into a dank corridor, and thence into the kitchen.
“Oh!” A startled Rowena looked up from a pot she was stirring in the fireplace. “Mr. Hamilton! I thought it was death himself come to take me!”
“Sorry to scare you, Rowena,” he said, ripping at the buttons of his robe. “I just need to freshen up before I go upstairs.”
“You had better look fresh,” Rowena said. “The missus is sorely aggrieved at your tardiness.” She fixed him in the eye. “I do hope you have good news for her.”
“What, is my presence not good news enough?” Alex said slyly, using a pewter tray as a mirror as he styled his somewhat damp hair, which had been buried beneath a wig for more than fifteen hours. Fortunately, anticipating a potentially late day, he had thought to wear his finest suit under his robes.
“How do I look?”
Rowena shrugged. “A little scrawny for my taste, but not much to do about that now.”
“Never change, Rowena,” Alex said with a grin, flicking a little flour on her moist cheeks. “Never change.”
He ran past Simon, who was curled up in a chair like an eel in a barrel, sound asleep, and dashed up the stairs. Just before he reached the door he paused and composed himself, then pushed it open.