Hamilton and Peggy!

by L. M. Elliott

  Without missing a beat, Fleury leaned over and extended his arm toward her, saying, “Permettez-moi.”

  Peggy stared at him. Allow him what? To swing her up onto the horse with him? Riding on a horse with a man was . . . was . . . so familiar. Her parents would be scandalized.

  “Go on,” whispered Angelica.

  Yes! Why not? Damn propriety. This was the Revolution. Peggy stood, held up her arms, accepted the Frenchman’s embrace, and jumped, letting the marquis swing her up onto his saddle. The seat was padded with royal blue wool. With its cushioning and her massive apricot-colored skirts, Peggy settled easily, her legs dangling to one side, the marquis’s arm about her waist to steady her. She faced forward as primly as possible, trembling with a sense of adventure. She felt more than heard the marquis’s rumble of laughter as he rearranged his battle sword to swing farther back on his hip, away from her.

  As he clicked his tongue to move his horse forward, Peggy heard her brother-in-law warn: “Careful, Marquis, that one carries a sword as well—of wit. Beware! You won’t see it until she nicks you with it.”

  “Un homme bon à être pourfendu,” Fleury murmured into her ear.

  A good man to skewer, Peggy translated for herself. Ha! She laughed—a triumphant, defiant little peal. Fleury admired her keen tongue? Suddenly anything felt possible.

  Fleury discreetly kept them to the back of the gathered crowd as he moved his horse close enough for Peggy to hear. Her Oneida friend was speaking and her papa’s translator was explaining the sachem’s English words in French to Rochambeau: “We are astonished that the king of France sends his troops to protect the Americans in an insurrection against the king of England, their father.”

  In French, Rochambeau answered: “The king of France protects the natural liberty that God has given to man. The Americans have been overloaded with burdens, which they were no longer able to bear. King Louis has found their complaints just.”

  Her papa’s linguist explained Rochambeau’s statement in English and then, in turn, Peggy’s sachem translated to his companions. How she itched to help with this back-and-forth in three languages.

  Rochambeau continued: “Several of your neighbors, deceived by the English king, have made war upon the Americans. He has said the Americans are our enemy. That is false. The Americans are our friends. We come to defend them. It will please King Louis very much if you will join us in making war against the English.”

  The sachem nodded solemnly. “We lament the choices of our brother Iroquois. But the Oneidas and Tuscarora, at every hazard, will hold fast the covenant chain with the United States. We promise this. We will keep the hatchet in our hands for our brethren the Americans. With them we will be buried in the same grave or enjoy the fruits of victory and peace.”

  “Si poétique,” Fleury murmured.

  Peggy could feel his breath and lips move against her hair. Her heart skipped over itself.

  Rochambeau then tried to present the sachem a beautiful gold medallion. He explained that it was etched with the image of King Louis the Sixteenth, on the day of his majesty’s coronation.

  But the sachem did not take it. “I thank you, but I wish not to arouse the jealousy of my brothers or to have them think I am grasping or asking for this distinction.”

  A gasp of surprise rippled through the crowd.

  “Extraordinaire!” Fleury breathed.

  Yes, very, thought Peggy. As extraordinary as you not taking that Stony Point reward money for yourself. But aloud, she said, “That is their nature.”

  The sachem was pleased, however, when presented a pipe-tomahawk—a blade on one side, a pipe bowl on the other—made by French silversmiths. Inlaid with silver and engraved, the beautiful creation symbolized both war and its ultimate goal, peace.

  In return, the Oneida and Tuscarora gave Rochambeau wampum strings, explaining that in their tribe, the decorative cords represented a warrior’s privilege and duty to speak on behalf of their people. Their clan mothers had woven them for the French officers.

  “Clan mothers also wear them,” Peggy explained, “to show their position of honor and responsibility.”

  Again, that ripple of laughter. “Peut-être que vous voulez vraiment être une Oneida.”

  Perhaps what she really wanted was to be Oneida? Peggy turned around and looked at the marquis, thinking he was criticizing or even ridiculing her. But his eyes told her his comment was half-teasing, yes, but also a serious question, laden with respect and curiosity about a culture foreign to him.

  “No,” she said, drawing out the word. Peggy was not so naive as to not recognize how hard the Oneida’s life was. “But if I were an Oneida woman, I would not have to be a bystander to this ceremonial conference. It is a matriarchal society and invites women to join council circles.” Peggy might even have been asked to be its honored translator.

  “Extraordinaire!” Fleury murmured again.

  Peggy couldn’t tell if he was talking about the Oneida or her. It was a glorious riddle.

  The Indians remained in Newport for three days. Rochambeau ordered a formal military parade and review in the delegation’s honor, complete with the cavalry galloping past and a firing of field artillery. The warriors were treated to a tour of a warship and a banquet on board.

  The final night, in tribute to the French and in thanks for such hospitality, the Oneida, Tuscarora, and Caughnawaga would perform a ceremonial dance of alliance. All of Newport gathered to watch. Fleury asked to escort Peggy, that she might explain the traditions to him. Flattered and increasingly smitten, Peggy had dared slip her arm through his to pull the Frenchman with her when she spotted the Oneida sachem again. “Come! Let me introduce you!

  “Good sir!” Peggy sang out as she neared the chief.

  “It is our sister, the trumpeter swam.” The chief smiled and bowed.

  Peggy curtsied. She thought of their last conversation, laughing over Tilghman’s obvious infatuation with Eliza. She wondered if the Oneida elder would be able to read Fleury’s thoughts as well as he had Tilghman’s. She’d be grateful if he could. Fleury was a mystery. Were his compliments just old-world gallantries, amusing banter a nobleman might toss easily about at the king’s court? Or were they sincere?

  But her questions evaporated as she and the Oneida straightened up. He looked so haggard. Shocked, without thinking, Peggy violated all protocol of respect and restraint. She took his hand. “Oh, sir, what is wrong? Are you unwell?”

  The sachem shook his head. But he did not draw back. That alone told Peggy how much grief racked the old warrior. “My people are attacked, by the Mohawk and their Tory brothers. They burned our village and castle. Took our cattle, trampled our corn. My people have fled. For safety, your father moves them to Schenectady. But my children . . .” He shook his head. “The enemy have taken my children hostage.”

  Peggy was horrified. She knew such disaster had befallen his people because of the Oneida’s alliance with the Patriots, and in retribution for the Continental Army’s attack on Mohawk villages the year before. General Washington and her own father had ordered the scorched-earth assault through the Mohawk Valley to subdue the British-allied Iroquois, who had joined Tories in devastating and brutal raids on Patriot farms. But the Patriots’ campaign had only fueled Mohawk anger and resentment with Americans who had continually encroached on their territory. It was a heartbreaking and harsh truth—because of their American Revolution, the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, who had lived together in peace for decades, and practiced their own form of democracy, were now dissolved into a bitter civil war. “I . . . I . . . I am so sorry, sir.”

  “I leave tomorrow to offer myself to my enemy in my children’s place.” He squeezed Peggy’s hand before releasing it. “But tonight I dance to honor His Excellency, the great General Washington, and our father, King Louis.”

  Peggy shook her head and felt tears stinging her eyes now. She knew that being a hostage could bring him death.

 
“Do not fear for me,” the sachem reassured her. “This is what we do for love of family. This life is brief, daughter of Schuyler. We must live it with honor and duty. Or die in shame.”

  Then he walked away to pray with his fellow Oneida over their fire.

  Peggy had witnessed ceremonial dances many times. But never before had she really felt their overlay of potential tragedy and sorrow within their evocation of bravery for battle, the foreboding urgency of their gestures and cries. This was life, stripped of pretense, devoid of polite facades, platitudes, and lukewarm attachments.

  The Indians lit an enormous bonfire in the middle of Newport’s main street parallel to the harbor waters. As the blaze caught, crackling, engulfing the wood, throwing explosions of sparks and smoke billowing upward, the nineteen warriors entered the fire’s ring of light. Peggy’s sachem spoke in his native tongue. His voice was rich, resonant, and grave. She knew he was describing his people’s history, their victories and pride, and the individual triumphs of the great men of his tribe.

  He raised his hands and called out for blessing. Peggy felt her breath quicken, empathizing with the sachem’s invocation, his faith in his people and their gods, but also—she could see it on his face in the flickering light—his despair for them.

  Peggy looked at the Patriots and Europeans surrounding her. Did they see what she did? Did they understand what they were asking of these men and their tribes? The risks? What they sacrificed for this alliance?

  She glanced up at Fleury. She would finally know what to think of him given his expression. If he watched with a tourist’s detachment or a European’s smugness, he was not for her.

  The drums and the dance began.

  In the dark night, lit only by the flickering light of the bonfire, the moon and its reflection in the harbor waters, Fleury’s face burned with a corresponding lionhearted zeal. Revealed was the man who could rush up a hill filled with spears under a barrage of musket fire to charge to a flagpole and tear down his enemy’s emblem. But there was also a grim, knowing respect on that handsome, valiant face. A clear understanding of the harrowing, even cataclysmic costs of bravery.

  At that moment, Peggy knew. She was falling in love. She didn’t stop to caution herself, or to analyze. She acted on what her heart told her. Peggy clutched the lapels of Fleury’s uniform, stood on tiptoe, and pressed her lips against his—that gorgeous mouth she’d watched twitch with amusement, that spoke poetry, and that now she believed echoed the language of her soul.

  Then—slightly shocked by her own impulsiveness and panicked about what his reaction might be—Peggy gathered her skirts and ran for the safety of her big sister’s house.

  Fourteen

  Late Summer

  Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler

  Teaneck, New Jersey, August

  Impatiently My Dearest have I been expecting . . . a letter from my charmer . . . She will there I hope paint me her feelings without reserve—even in those tender moments of pillowed retirement, when her soul abstracted from every other object, delivers itself up to Love and to me. . . . I would this moment give the world to be near you only to kiss your sweet hand. Believe what I say to be truth and imagine what are my feelings when I say it. Let it awake your sympathy and let our hearts melt in a prayer to be soon united.

  Dobbs Ferry, New York, August 8

  [W]hy do you not write to me oftener? . . . I write you at least three letters for your one, though I am immersed in public business and you have nothing to do but to think of me. . . . Love me I conjure you.

  Teaneck, New Jersey, August 31

  You will think me unkind if I do not come. How will you have the presumption to think me unkind you saucy little charmer? . . . Should I not gain more by it, should I not enjoy more pleasure, feast upon more beauties sweetnesses, and charms?. . . Yet my love I could not with decency or honor leave the army during the campaign. . . .

  Kiss my little sister for me when she comes. I am happy on all accounts she is sent for.

  A Hamilton

  PEGGY DROPPED HER BOOK TO THE FLOOR AS SHE popped up out of her chair. “What do you mean I am sent for?”

  Angelica looked up from the letter she had just received from Albany, from their father. “Papa is suffering another bad round of his gout. He had to leave Congress to convalesce.”

  “Why can’t Eliza help Mama care for him? She’s home in Albany.”

  “Because Mama is ill herself. Her legs are horribly swollen, so she is mostly bedridden.” Angelica skimmed more of the letter. “This pregnancy is a hard one, evidently.”

  “Pregnancy?” Peggy flounced back down into the chair, stunned. “Again?”

  “Yes. Papa says she will deliver in January—if all goes well.”

  “Eeeeewww!” She couldn’t help it. The thought of her parents being intimate always made her uncomfortable. “Mama is almost fifty!”

  Angelica laughed at her.

  “But Angelica, she’s a grandmother. This child will be younger than your children! And besides, her last baby—oh, you didn’t see, Angelica, that baby boy suffered so much before he died. Why would she try again?”

  Peggy resisted adding what was really bothering her. It would sound so selfish. But she didn’t want to leave Rhode Island. Not now! Not now that there was Fleury.

  But Angelica knew. She swept to Peggy’s side to kneel and embrace her. “Now is a good time for you to leave, little sister. Trust me. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, as they say. Sometimes it is precisely what a courtship needs.”

  Peggy’s eyebrow shot up. “Really?” She drew out the word sarcastically. “What idiot says that?”

  Angelica laughed lightly again. “Hundreds of poets. And I know it’s true. Look at Hamilton for our sweet Eliza. She says his letters ache with love and loneliness for her. Let’s see what Fleury writes to you.”

  “But Eliza and Hamilton were already betrothed when she returned to Albany!” Peggy wailed. And Fleury had not yet spoken of love. Not even after Peggy’s impetuous kiss. What did that mean? Had Fleury found her kiss too forward, or even repulsive?

  “Yes, it was quick between them,” Angelica murmured, pushing Peggy’s ever unruly hair back from her forehead. “Perhaps it would have been better if Eliza and Alexander had come to know each other more before they were engaged. It was only a month’s courtship. Eliza definitely leapt before she really looked.”

  Peggy searched her big sister’s face. “Like you did?” she whispered.

  Angelica turned away, as if Peggy had slapped her.

  “I . . . I’m sorry,” Peggy apologized. “I just . . . You seem . . .”

  Angelica stood and went to the window, not acknowledging Peggy’s question, and said, “I don’t think Eliza realizes what she might have gotten herself into. I warned her about Hamilton’s prospects after the war. They are . . . questionable. He has no family, no backing, just that . . . that mind of his. Of course, if our Revolution succeeds, we will become a society where effort and intelligence will be what matters most. If we succeed.” She paused, reflecting on that concept a moment. “Frankly, I sense that Eliza is a bit frightened sometimes by Hamilton’s insistence, his intensity, his ardor. Papa hints in this letter that she is succumbing to that nervousness of hers.”

  Angelica shook her head and concluded, “It will do Eliza good to have you at her side. You are far more patient with her than I.”

  “Oh, Angelica, when does it get to be my turn? I infuriated Mama by helping you elope and she has never really forgiven me or trusted me since then. Now I am to give up on my own chance at romance to hold Eliza’s hand and reassure her about her wedding night? Something I—unlike you—know nothing about? And may never be given the chance to if all of you have your way!”

  Laughter bubbled up out of Angelica. “Little sister, I want nothing more for you than happiness, believe me. I have always loved your passion. But it is a double-edged sword. You will learn that.”

  “Stop laughing at
me!” Peggy shouted. “I am not a child anymore. I am the age you were when you ran off with your husband. Come to think of it, remember that awful poem that silly woman who taught us needlework used to make us recite: At sixteen years come on and woo, and take of kisses plenty . . .”

  Angelica ruefully joined in: “At eighteen years full grown and ripe, they’re ready to content ye. At nineteen sly and mischievous . . .”

  Grinning at each other, the two sisters ended loudly, rebelliously: “But the Devil at one and twenty!”

  “That’s you, sister, twenty-one, the devil,” teased Angelica. “Ready to dole out all manner of hell! And I would hope so,” she added fondly. Then she shook her head, her mirth subsiding, and murmured, more to herself than to Peggy, “And to think that I was so worried about becoming an old maid!”

  “Good Lord, imagine!” Carter strode into the room. “The beauteous Angelica a spinster? That would never have happened. There would have been a legion of gallants courting you, my dear, had I not materialized.” He kissed his wife on her cheek. She did not smile until he added, softly, with his lips lingering in her swept-high hair, “I am the lucky one to have beat them to the treasure of your heart.”

  He sat and leaned back in his chair. As soon as he spoke, he revealed that he had been listening to their conversation. She could be accused of being nosy herself, but somehow Carter’s eavesdropping felt sinister. “Here is a proposal that might make you happy, Peggy. Rochambeau travels to Hartford to confer with Washington in a few days. I go with them, as the conference will be held in my commissary partner’s home estate there. Come along. There will be festivities for ladies to enjoy after the meetings. Hartford is halfway to Albany and you will be safe to travel home from there.” He seemed to speak with genuine big-brotherly concern.

  But then he ruined the moment by adding, “Do not worry, sprightly Peggy, you will have no trouble with your wedding night, I am sure.” He paused. “Your . . . heart . . . will tell you what to do.”