“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 impression.
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.
A swarm of noise assailed his ears.
“I heard Mr. Burr’s closing oratory went on for more than an hour!”
“That’s nothing! Mr. Hamilton spoke for nearly two!”
“Mr. Burr may be the finest lawyer of his generation. His arguments cut through the sterile logic of the law and went straight to the heart!”
“Hamilton was magnificent! Thrice he was interrupted by standing ovations! People were weeping in their chairs! The judge himself clapped at the end!”
Apparently, word of the trial had reached the party.
Alex squinted against the bright lights. A swarm of odors assaulted his nose, from the delectable smells of Rowena’s cooking (now sadly decimated, to the consternation of his empty stomach) to the cloying perfumes of dozens of ladies and gentlemen bedecked in the finest brocades and jacquards. He did not realize his house could hold this many people. He wondered that the floor didn’t collapse beneath their weight. But his eyes ignored the throng as he searched for one face in particular. The only face that mattered.
“He’s here!” a voice called then. “It’s the man of the hour!”
The voice turned out to be John Church, who grabbed him in a bear hug. “Well done, Alex! You did it!”
Suddenly, other hands were grabbing him. John Rutherford. Gouverneur Morris. Even the painter Ralph Earl. Before he knew it, he was being hoisted in the air on their shoulders.
“Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray!”
Alex rocked back and forth on the shoulders, tilting his head slightly to keep from knocking against the ceiling. So intense was the bouncing that he could not make out the faces in the room, which seemed like so many glazed masks beneath their powder and rouge and wigs. But then—at last!—he spied a single face in the front parlor, seeming to float in the air.
It was Eliza.
Her hair was a silver halo above her head, made all the more ethereal by a gauzy veil draped over it. Her skin was smooth as the flesh of a peach, with just a spot of color at cheeks and lips. Her eyes were two dark coals gleaming out at the world with untold depths of intelligence and strength, her mouth set in the very tiniest of smiles, as if she reserved judgment on all who passed beneath her gaze. She was not just the most beautiful woman Alex had ever seen. She was the most regal.
“My darling,” he said, as if she could hear him across two rooms.
“Yes?” a voice said at his feet. “Alex?”
He looked down, and there she was again: Eliza, only this time she was in a pale green gown and tighter, unveiled wig. Her face was decidedly pinker, too, as if she had been dancing for hours.
He looked back up. Only now did he realize that the first image had been Ralph Earl’s painting.
I get to live with her for the rest of my life, he said to himself in astonishment. He had never realized life could be so fulfilling. And then, looking down at his flesh-and-blood wife, he thought: This beautiful creature is who I get to live with for the rest of my days. No painting could ever compare.
His wife threw her arms around him and he returned the embrace. I get to live with the real woman and the portrait, he said to himself. A more fortunate man has never lived.
“My darling,” he said, looking right into her beautiful brown eyes, the eyes that had so bewitched him from the beginning. “It is perfection. And I am sorry …”
“Shush,” said Eliza. “It is enough to have you home for dinner for once.”
Vaguely, he knew there were many people in the room, guests, dignitaries, the most important people in New York, but to Alex, there was only one face, one person, who was the most important. He ushered her into a private corner.
“I want to focus on our family,” he said, leaning to whisper in her ear. “I believe it is about time we were serious about that endeavor.”
Eliza colored prettily. “It is my dearest wish as well,” she replied, melting into his arms.
He kissed her then, because he had to have her right then, wanted nothing more than for the two of them to be alone and putting every effort into this new and exciting project.
They were still kissing when a voice interrupted, rising above the din. The Hamiltons reluctantly pulled away from each other.
“Well, there he is now. The man of the hour. Or should I say, the traitor of the hour?”
Alex turned as the crowd parted like the Red Sea to reveal not Moses but Pharaoh, which is to say, the corpulent, gold-clothed figure of Governor Clinton.
“Well, I hope you’re proud of yourself, young man,” the governor said, or spat. “You, who served as the right hand of General Washington himself! Providing aid and comfort to the enemy! You are lucky that I don’t have you strung up. But I’ll see you disbarred from ever practicing law in New York State if it’s the last thing I do.”
Alex stood there, tongue-tied. After the exertions of the day, taking care of Caroline in her weakened condition, the run home, the cheers and smells and jostling, and Eliza’s painting. Eliza …
He turned to his wife, and grabbed her hand.
“Always hiding behind a woman’s skirts,” Clinton jeered. “That’s what they’ll say about Alexander Hamilton in the history books, if they bother to record him at all. First, he uses the plight of a silly barmaid to advance his own loyalist cause, and then, he runs home to hide behind his wife, whose family name is far more distinguished than his own will ever be. I expect Philip Schuyler will be none too pleased when he learns what kind of man you’ve hitched yourself, too,” he said to Eliza directly.
Alex tried to open his mouth but still his jaw refused to move. Governor Clinton glowed and shook like a torch in the breeze threatening to set his house on fire, yet after a full day of brilliant debate in court, capped by a scintillating final argument that had, as someone said, moved people to tears and applause, Alex found himself unable to think of a single word to shut up this ugly boor.
Fortunately, he didn’t have to.
“Why, George Clinton!” Eliza said in a voice that was less angry than amused and belittling. “My father has counted you as a friend, or at any rate a colleague, for more than thirty years. If he knew you were speaking to his daughter in this way, he would call you out!”
Governor Clinton smirked. “I do beg your pardon, Mrs. Hamilton,” he said in the least sincere voice Alex had ever heard.
“Oh, shut up, you horrible toad,” Eliza said, her voice less agitated than nonchalant, as if Clinton were not worth the trouble. “I care not a whit what you think of me, and neither does my husband. Now, you listen to me. This man whose hand I hold and whose ring I share put his life on the line for this country over and over, and
for anyone to call him a traitor is not only laughable but traitorous in itself. The United States of America is not what you would have it be, sir,” she continued. “Nor is it what I would have it be, or Alex, or anyone in this room. It is a shared space and a shared vision, and only when we learn that our different points of view give us a special strength will we tap into the full potential of our unique, united sensibilities. Only then will we make good on the debt we owe to the brave men—yes, and women—who fought for our freedom. And until you can get that through that unruly head of hair, I invite you to shut your mouth—or go stuff it with food, since you are obviously far better at eating than speaking.”
Stunned silence filled the room. Then from the front parlor came the sound of a titter. The crowd turned to see old Pieter Stuyvesant laughing so hard his wooden leg pounded the floor.
“Oh my stars! That is the best show I’ve seen in ages!” And he broke into peals of glee.
Within seconds, the whole house was shaking with laughter. A dejected George Clinton slunk off with his tail between his legs, but somehow managed to end up at the buffet table, where he did indeed begin stuffing his mouth with food.
Alex turned to his wife. “And they say I am the orator.”
“They will say it for the next hundred years, and even more, if I have anything to do with it,” Eliza said. Her face was shining with love and pride. “You won, Alex! You won!”
“Well, it was a split decision, really,” Alex answered honestly. “The Baxter Street building was returned to the Le Beau family, but Judge Smithson ordered the state to pay Mrs. Childress damages in the amount of fifteen hundred for lost investment and—”
Eliza put a finger on his lips. “A victory! You won.”
Alex kissed her on the lips. “We won, my darling. And we always will, as long we stay by each other’s side.”
“Always,” she said with a smile. “Come now, let’s take our bows.” Eliza waved a hand at the dancing, drinking, swirling mass before them. “We’re a hit!” Then she turned to him, and this time it was her voice that was soft in his ear. “But all I ever needed was you.”
Love & War_An Alex & Eliza Story Page 27
