“Not to worry. I’m a Van Rensselaer now. Stephen knew about the shipping interruptions in New York, and brought along, oh, I don’t know, a lot of food. Like a whole cow and a whole pig and chickens and turkeys and ducks, and, well, pretty much anything an invading army might need. Oh, that was a bit crass of me. Too soon?”
Eliza just grimaced at her sister’s humor. “But how will we get it here? Rowena cannot possibly—”
“You must have some kind of help, don’t you?”
“Rowena’s son, Simon …”
“We’ll send him over with a note. The Rutherfurds have a houseful of servants. They can easily bring over what we need.”
“But Alex will not know about tonight—”
“The boy—Simon?—can tell him. Is Alex’s office far from here?”
“It is just off Hanover Square on Stone Street.”
“Which could be in Philadelphia for all I know, but I’ll assume it is close by.” When Eliza still hesitated, Peggy grabbed her hand. “Come now, sister. You’ve have been in this city for well over a month. It seems like an easy place to disappear into. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Eliza hung fire for one more moment. The thought of a party excited her to no end, but to plan it without Alex seemed a bit of a betrayal. What if he was too tired when he got home to enjoy it? But she knew that it was more likely he was as frustrated by their routine as she was, and the surprise would delight him to no end. And who knows what sort of contacts or clients he might pick up?
At last she nodded her head eagerly. She rang the bell, and a (long) moment later, Simon’s footsteps could be heard on the stairs. The towheaded boy, not yet ten years old, appeared in a wrinkled blue velvet jacket that had been hastily buttoned over much rougher homespun garments. Rowena had recently started training him for eventual service as a footman, a career that Eliza didn’t think suited him at all. He was athletic and outdoorsy and had a sure hand with animals. At the very least, he should work in a stable, but Alex had said he was the type to run off at sixteen like a modern-day Daniel Boone. From the state of Simon’s hands, it was clear he had been working with what he called his “kit”—a motley assortment of leather and metal that he used to repair tackle for the local stable.
“Yes, Miss Eliza—I mean, Mrs. Hamilton?”
While Peggy wrote a note to Stephen explaining what was needed, Eliza told Simon of his errands. Then, while Peggy told Simon where the Rutherfurds lived, Eliza penned her own missive to Alex.
Darling Husband—
A remarkable surprise has occurred! Peggy and Mr. Van Rensselaer have arrived in town, apparently in advance of a note from them alerting us to their appearance. They are staying at the nearby home of Mr. and Mrs. John Rutherfurd, and I have invited them over for dinner tonight (by which I mean, as you can probably guess, that Peggy invited herself for dinner, and I could not talk her out of it). They will be bringing their other houseguest, a Mr. Gouverneur Morris, who I believe worked with General Washington, and it should be quite a festive evening! Stephen has brought plenty of victuals, and Peggy says that she has brought her new maid as well, who can wait at table so poor Rowena isn’t overwhelmed.
Our first dinner party! And in New York City! I do hope you’ll be able to leave the office a little earlier this evening! A home never truly becomes a home until you share it with other people!
Your loving,
Eliza
Simon looked thrilled by the prospect of an errand out of doors, not to mention out of the kitchen, and hastily donned his overcoat and dashed off.
Eliza and Peggy passed the rest of the afternoon catching up over a pot of mint tea. “So how are you, truly?” asked Peggy. “We have missed you.”
Eliza choked back a half sob and tried to cover it up with a laugh.
“Why, Eliza! Is it as hard as all that?”
Eliza shook her head. “No, no. I have missed you so much, that is all—it feels as if we are so far away from each other now. I wanted to live on my own so much, but now that we do, I miss our family.”
Peggy nodded in sympathy. “But Stephen and I will come into town often, so we shall see each other more than we wish,” she said with a naughty smile. But she kept Eliza’s hands in hers, as if to reassure her sister that while she might be alone in New York, she was not alone in the world.
“How is life in Rensselaerswyck Manor?” she asked Peggy, who had been living there now for half a year.
The house was only half as large as the Pastures, Peggy said, but practically empty by Schuyler standards. Stephen’s father, Stephen II, had died at the age of twenty-seven, when Stephen was just a boy, leaving two other children besides his namesake eldest son: Philip, who was two years younger, and Elizabeth, which prompted Eliza to quip that in all of upper New York State there seemed to be only half a dozen names: John, Stephen, Philip, Catherine (Stephen’s mother’s name as well as their own), Elizabeth, and Margaret, with a couple of Corneliuses and Gertrudes thrown in for good measure.
Elizabeth Van Rensselaer was ten years younger than Peggy and “a jolly fun girl,” though not “half as bright as my Eliza,” but what Peggy really missed was the sound of little children playing. At her words, Eliza found herself blinking back tears. She too missed the sound of children’s voices playing games and making plans …
Mrs. Stephen Van Rensselaer II was not yet fifty, yet she had the air of a woman “twice her age,” and while she had remarried a Reverend Eilardus Westerlo, she was still referred to in Albany society as “Mrs. Stephen II.”
“When I mentioned that Papa was the first man in the United States to bring the Ruins of Rome wallpaper back from Europe,” Peggy said, laughing, “I thought Mrs. Stephen II—she insists that I refer to her as such—was going to crack her teacup, so white did her knuckles grow! You are so lucky, Eliza!” she continued. “The house I share with my husband will not be ours until Stephen comes of age, so we have two more years in the smaller cottage on the property before we can move to the Patroon’s manor house.”
While they talked, Peggy began idly returning the silver to the display cabinet. To Eliza’s delight, her sister put everything back exactly as it had been, the four-legged serving dish flanked by the candelabra, the illustrated salver bookended by the cake plate and soup tureen. “Such lovely pieces, and so nice to have things that mean something to you rather than to some relative long gone from this world!” Eliza blushed and didn’t say anything, happy that she hadn’t had time to replace all the silver with china as she’d planned.
About a half hour after Simon had gone, Rowena returned. The housekeeper’s face went ashen when Eliza told her of the dinner plans, but then she steeled herself and muttered, “Just leave it to me, Mrs. Hamilton,” before disappearing into the kitchen.
About an hour after that, a stout woman dressed in the drabbest of drab browns appeared. Improbably, her name was Violetta. She was Peggy’s new lady’s maid, a fixture from Stephen’s youth, who looked as though she’d be more comfortable gelding calves than adjusting a corset. (“But you’d be amazed at what she can do to a wig with a teasing comb and lard,” Peggy enthused. “Her creations are positively sculptural!”) Violetta brought two boys from the Rutherfurds with her, and after a brief consultation with Eliza (“I will make do with what I have to work with, Mrs. Hamilton”), had the lads shifting furniture about like a general rearranging wooden soldiers on a painted map, banishing Eliza and Peggy to the second floor.
It wasn’t until they mounted the second-floor landing and Eliza caught a glimpse of herself in one of the two-year-old dresses that were her usual outfit around the house that she realized she still had to come up with something to wear. Peggy, of course, looked exquisite. You’d never know she’d just spent three days on the road. She was wearing a spring-green gown, with delicate pale yellow embroidery and tiny but detailed pink and periwinkle flowers. She wasn’t wearing a wig, but it didn’t matter with Peggy. Her raven tresses seemed only to have grow
n more lustrous, and her coiled braids, though probably meant to be practical for travel, still managed to give her the regality of a Greek statue.
Eliza, on the other hand, had been living without a lady’s maid for the first time in her life, and had been doing her hair by herself for nearly a month. She had wound it up in the simplest bun, with but a few spiraled wisps to frame her face. Alex, who never shied away from pomp and circumstance in public, said he much preferred this look for day-to-day life and endearingly called Eliza his “sweet peasant girl.” But she knew that such a look would not do to entertain guests like the Rutherfurds and Morrises, who, if not quite as wealthy as Schuylers and Van Rensselaers, were nevertheless important local gentry.
But before she could wonder how to rectify this alarming situation, Peggy was pushing her down on the simple cane-bottomed stool Eliza used as a tuffet in front of her vanity. She grabbed a brush and comb from the Spartan surface of the table, pulled the pins that held Eliza’s hair, and met her older sister’s eyes in the mirror before them.
“You cannot imagine how long I’ve waited to do this.”
Eliza couldn’t help but blanch. “You’ve never styled your own hair in your life!”
“Silly, I’m not going to do this alone,” Peggy said, as Violetta entered the room with crimping irons and powder.
16
Dinner Is Served
The Hamilton Town House
New York, New York
January 1784
A little over an hour later, Eliza could hardly recognize herself. Violetta had teased her mane into a dramatic halo with a spiraled fall that hung down to her shoulders and accentuated the taut, slender column of her neck. In front were the same wisps of hair that had been there before, but they were somehow longer and more elegant, and the whole mass had been dusted with powder, giving it an adamantine sheen.
Eliza’s face and décolletage had also been powdered, so that her exposed skin blended almost seamlessly into the silver dress Peggy had picked out for her. Eliza protested at first, saying the silver silk with its metallic bronze piping was too severe for her. But as she glanced in the mirror, she saw that Peggy’s eye had been unfailing and that Alex’s “sweet peasant girl” had been revealed to be in possession of a refinement and power that she hadn’t suspected was in her. She didn’t know whether to be pleased or frightened.
Violetta, however, was less confused. “My dear,” she breathed, returning to the room after assessing the situation downstairs. “You clean up quite well.” Then, hearing the impertinence in her tone, she quickly assumed her professional demeanor. “Mr. Van Rensselaer has arrived, along with Mr. and Mrs. Rutherfurd and Mr. Gouverneur Morris. I have taken the liberty of impressing Simon as footman. He is serving them a cordial.”
“A cordial?” Eliza knew that she and Alex had nothing so fancy in the house. Indeed, all they had were casks of Mrs. Childress’s hearty but humble ale. She turned to Peggy. “More of your stores?”
Peggy nodded. “One of Stephen’s tenants brews a remarkable honey wine. Sweet yet surprisingly delicate. Very potent, though—sip slowly.”
Eliza laughed and turned back to Violetta. “Thank you, Violetta. Please tell my guests I’ll be right down. Has there been any word from Mr. Hamilton?”
Violetta shook her head. “Simon said a clerk in an adjacent office let him into Mr. Hamilton’s reception room, where he left his note. Mr. Hamilton himself was not on the premises.”
An image of Ruston’s Ale House flashed in Eliza’s mind, and the row of third-floor windows that Alex had once pointed out to her as Mrs. Childress’s apartment. When Eliza asked how Alex knew this, he told her that he had often had to call on her to get her to sign some document or other. “It is a quite charming apartment, spread out almost like a country house, and Mrs. Childress is a very amiable hostess indeed.”
Eliza banished the thought of Mrs. Childress’s face and house, and her face in her house, and Alex’s face—
She shook her head to clear it.
“Well, he will have finished his errands by now, I’m sure, and returned to his office, and from there it is only a short walk home. I’m sure he’ll be here soon.” But in her heart, she wasn’t so sure. What if he was detained at the home of a potential client? If Eliza knew anything about the rich men Alex was courting for business, it was that they loved to hear themselves talk, and Alex was not in a position to cut them off. He could be held prisoner for who knows how long. Really, she wished her husband would recognize that there was more to life than work sometimes. She was trying not to be too frustrated with him, as she knew he was simply doing his best to establish his practice and secure their future.
But what was a secure future if they didn’t have time to enjoy it together?
“Come now, Sister,” Peggy said, placing her hand in Eliza’s and patting it soothingly. “You have seen Mama handle a houseful of guests in Papa’s absence without breaking a sweat. And as I recall, you did a flawless job hosting that send-off for Alex and Papa a few years ago.”
They gave Violetta a head start—no one wants to be upstaged by their maid, after all—then headed for the stairs. Peggy led the way. At the door to the parlor, she paused in front of Eliza, blocking her from view.
“My lady; gentlemen,” she said in a showman’s voice, “I present, Mrs. Alexander Hamilton in her own home!”
Peggy stepped aside with a flourish, and Eliza had no choice but to walk into the room like a princess into court. Stephen and two other men stood up, while someone who must be Helena sat in the room’s most comfortable chair, a large, broad wingback in a dark blue upholstery that swallowed her up a little. Even though she was sitting, it was obvious she wasn’t much over five feet tall—a fact that was confirmed when she rose to her feet with a large, kind smile on her face.
“Oh, my dear Mrs. Hamilton! Peggy said you were lovely, but she didn’t do you justice!” She walked across the room and clasped Eliza’s hand in both of hers, beaming up at her. Eliza was immediately charmed. Though Helena was a few years younger than she, she possessed incredible—enviable—poise, somehow managing to put Eliza at ease in her own house.
“It is lovely to meet you, Mrs. Rutherfurd. I must thank you for extending such generous hospitality to my sister and brother-in-law, as well as for gracing my dinner table on such short notice.”
“I think we do everything on short notice these days. New York is still so raw after its recent travails.”
“No doubt, order will be restored soon enough.”
“Indeed. But I suspect we will create some new traditions as well.” Helena stepped back then. “Please, allow me to introduce my husband, Mr. John Rutherfurd, and my uncle, Mr. Gouverneur Morris.”
Eliza shook John’s hand first, then Gouverneur’s. John was a genial-seeming fellow whose pronounced chin dimple rescued his face from plainness. Gouverneur, by contrast, as Peggy had mentioned, was quite young, maybe just a few years older than she, and with sharp eyes and a Gallic nose. His thick dark hair was swept back from his face and tied in a short ponytail, which only added to his rakish appearance. Eliza couldn’t help but find him charming, and his presence only made Alex’s absence at the dinner table clearer, which filled her with an empty ache.
“Goo-ver-neer,” she said, sounding the name out slowly. “Is it French?”
Gouverneur smiled disarmingly. “It is, through my mother’s line. It used to be pronounced ‘Goo-vuh-noor,’ but we Americans have added our own spin to it.”
“Fascinating. And of course the Morris name is known far and wide. My husband and I were engaged in Morristown, New Jersey, which I believe was named after your … grandfather, yes?” she asked.
“Lewis Morris, yes. Not to be confused with Helena’s father, also named Lewis, my older brother.”
“Pardon me for saying, but you seem more like Mrs. Rutherfurd’s brother than uncle,” she said with a smile.
He returned it with a genial one of his own, and it was quite c
lear that their dinner guest was taken with their spirited hostess. “My father’s first wife passed away, and he married my mother and began a second family only some time later. Helena’s father, my half brother, is twenty-six years my senior.”
“Ah, I see. I should also thank you on behalf of the Continental troops. My husband tells me that your reforms greatly ameliorated the conditions our boys served in during the war.”
Gouverneur smiled modestly. “We all did our part. I have been told that your war drives clothed more men than all the tailors and dry goods purveyors in New York and New Jersey combined, so allow me to thank you as well,” he said with a bow.
“And, Stephen,” Eliza said, turning to her brother-in-law, “let me thank you for bringing Peggy down to the city. A familiar face is much welcome in this fascinating but still strange town.”
At nineteen, Stephen was starting to come into his own. His body had thickened out of reedy adolescence and the whiskers on his chin and cheeks, though hardly constituting a beard, gave his lean face a bit more maturity. “I? Bring Peggy anywhere?” He scoffed. “I assure you that I merely follow along in the wake of your incredible sister, and endeavor to make the journey as comfortable as possible.”
Nineteen or not, Stephen had always enjoyed talking like a forty-year-old. Perhaps it was the pressure of knowing he would be Patroon when he came of age. It was cute now, but Eliza wondered what it would be like when he was actually forty.
“I am told that we owe our aperitif to you,” Eliza said now.
“Allow me,” Stephen said, reaching for a decanter filled with golden liquid on the sideboard. Before he could grab it, however, a small figure darted out of the shadows and grabbed it first. Simon was back in his blue velvet footman’s coat, with a matching pair of breeches having materialized to complement it.
“A cordial, Miss Eliza?” he said in a voice that was less formal than loud.
“You should refer to your mistress as Mrs. Hamilton,” Violetta said from the dining room, where she was fussing with the table settings.
Love & War_An Alex & Eliza Story Page 17
