Alex and Eliza--A Love Story Page 13

  Laurens smiled. “I would offer you my heart, miss, but I fear it is not worth a tenth of what you offer in exchange.”

  “Indeed, Colonel,” Eliza said. “Especially since you seem to deal it out like playing cards.”

  “I, on the other hand,” the marquis said, reaching a hand into his greatcoat and pulling out a bottle of amber liquid, “have a bottle of ten-year-old cognac shipped from my estate on the far side of the Atlantic. Perhaps you would do me the honor of sharing it with me, Miss—”

  Eliza put down her basket of supplies and extended her hand to the marquis. “Schuyler. Elizabeth Schuyler, but you may call me Eliza. Thank you kindly, but I have quite a bit more work this evening and will have to decline your good hospitality.”

  “Eliza Schuyler?” said Colonel Laurens, with a piercing gaze.

  “Yes, the one and the same,” she said, and wondered at the look he gave her.

  17

  Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

  The Cochran Residence

  Morristown, New Jersey

  February 1780

  Eliza awoke the next morning to someone knocking insistently at her bedroom door. “Yes?” she called.

  “Eliza, darling, it’s Aunt Gertrude. Your uncle John and I were asleep last night when you three returned home. I just want to make sure all is well. May I come in? I have coffee.”

  “Of course, Auntie, I’m so sorry to have overslept. It was a long day.”

  Aunt Gertrude entered, bearing a small tray with a covered pot and cup and saucer. There was concern on her face, as well as amusement as she set the tray on the bedside table. “Exhausted, no doubt! I’m afraid your mother would be quite displeased with me, working you girls so hard.”

  Eliza smiled back ruefully.

  “By the by, Colonel Hamilton was nice enough this morning to bring over the inoculation supplies you left in General Washington’s office. I think he hoped to return them personally.”

  Eliza felt a blush spread itself on her cheeks as she reached for the coffee cup on the bedside table and sipped at it.

  “Well,” her aunt said, “I hope yesterday didn’t take too much out of you, because there are festivities tonight.”

  “Really? Is one of the officers’ wives throwing a party? Or the baron?”

  “No, we are!” Aunt Gertrude said mischievously.

  “You! Mama always said you had the festive sensibility of a . . .” Eliza didn’t finish the sentence. “I meant, she said that you and Dr. Cochran were both too busy with your important work to entertain much.”

  What Mrs. Schuyler had actually said was that her sister-in-law was about as much fun as a Puritan on All Hallows’ Eve, dressed in black wool, clinging to a cross and seeing devils and witches in every shadow, but Eliza thought it better to rephrase her mother’s barb.

  “Well, it’s not a party, per se, just a dinner gathering. Stephen Van Rensselaer is in town. I wager he couldn’t keep away from Peggy and followed her here, so we’re holding a small dinner for him. And when we heard that such prestigious figures as Colonel Laurens and General Lafayette were here as well, of course we had to invite them along . . . with Colonel Hamilton.”

  Hearing that Colonel Hamilton would be at the party quickened Eliza’s pulse. Try as she might to pretend it wasn’t so, that rascal had gotten under her skin somehow. Suddenly the confident girl with the practical clothes was wondering what sort of fancy dress she might find for the dinner. Maybe borrow something from Peggy?

  And that was surprising about Stephen Van Rensselaer. She had to give him credit for following Peggy to Morristown. He certainly couldn’t be faulted for lack of interest. She turned her attention back to her aunt.

  “The marquis has already agreed to bring a barrel of wine with him. He seems, despite the British blockade, to have an endless supply. The French are of different priorities, I suppose,” said Aunt Gertrude, adjusting her cameo broach. “Well, perhaps you should rest this afternoon, dear, so that you have energy for the dinner.” A twinkle appeared in her aunt’s eye. “Colonel Hamilton accepted our invitation ‘most eagerly,’ and said that he was ‘especially excited’ to have the chance to continue his acquaintance with you.”

  “Did he!” Eliza exclaimed before she could stop herself.

  “He did indeed.” Her aunt smiled at her slyly. “Shall I have the maid bring up some toast in a bit?”

  “Yes, thank you!” Eliza said. She barely heard her aunt as the older woman slipped out of the room.

  SIX HOURS LATER found Eliza ready for the party, dressed in a violet gown lightly embroidered with gold threads and pearls. Her aunt had sent Louisa, the servant girl, up with it and Eliza decided not to pursue the same old argument about how it was unbecoming for a woman of her stature to dress in finery while the soldiers went about in rags.

  They were in the headquarters of the Continental army, for one thing, where the soldiers were as well appointed as it was possible for soldiers to be. And the truth is she wanted to look especially nice on this occasion. Angelica’s and Peggy’s arrival had made her acutely aware that she was the only one of the grown Schuyler sisters without a beau. And after all, she had not picked the dress out herself. Her mother had packed it for her. To let it wrinkle in a trunk would be wasteful. Not practical at all!

  She even consented to wear a wig. Once it was on, she wondered that she did not wear one more often. It kept drafts off the head, for one thing, and for another, one did not have to sit still for half an hour or an hour while a maid teased and styled and powdered and sprayed every strand of hair in place. One need only pin one’s own hair up and sit as the great silver confection was lowered onto the head—et voilà—an ordinary girl was transformed into a ravishing mademoiselle.

  When she came down the stairs, nearly twenty people were sitting down to dinner already, tables had been lined up in the hall downstairs and covered with several sheets of embroidered ivory linen. The plates were embossed with a gold-and-green Chinese pattern, and edged with a gold rim, the silver heavy and ornate. The stemware was pewter, but polished to such a high sheen that it shone like silver in the light of the three eight-stemmed candelabras gracing the table.

  “The Kitcheners did set a fine table,” Aunt Gertrude noted, as Eliza appeared downstairs. “But you’ll be its jewel tonight. Come,” she added, “your sisters have already taken their places in the front parlor.”

  Peggy and Angelica were chatting among a half-dozen other early guests, including Stephen Van Rensselaer. In the two years since that first dance with Peggy, he had grown by nearly eight inches and now stood a full head taller than Eliza’s sister. She was glad to see he had turned out to be a fine-looking, if rather serious, young man.

  “Rensselaerwyck, my father’s manor, amounts to some 768,000 square acres, or 1,200 square miles, which is roughly the same size as Long Island. We rent to more than three thousand tenant farmers and their families, who together manage thousands of cattle, sheep, pigs—yes—and turkeys, ducks, rabbits, and—”

  Angelica came up and whispered into Eliza’s ear. “And titmice and seventeen-year locusts and seventy-two different varieties of flea!”

  The sisters laughed softly. Angelica added, “Mrs. Witherspoon made the mistake of asking him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He said he would be ‘patroon of the manor’ and has been detailing exactly what his holdings will be for nearly fifteen minutes. I can’t tell if people are too afraid of his wealth to interrupt, or if they’ve simply been stunned into silence.”

  “—wheat is the primary grain crop, but also oats and rye and corn and alfalfa and milo and—” droned young Stephen.

  Eliza laughed into her gloved hand. Perhaps the young man still had a few social graces to master.

  “We shouldn’t be so hard on him, Ange. He is so young, after all, and his responsibilities will be vast indeed.” She glanc
ed at Peggy, who was managing to regard her pontificating suitor with an expression that attempted to pass for genuine interest. “Do you think that Peggy will really marry him? I would hate to see her trapped with a bore for the rest of her life just because he was rich.”

  “Rich?” Angelica said. “He’s so far beyond rich there isn’t a word for him. There are some who say that his father is the wealthiest man in all the colonies—wealthier even than John Hancock or Benjamin Franklin—which means he will be, too.”

  Eliza nodded, but corrected her sister. “You mean, the United States.”

  “Oh, can we not talk about the war tonight?” Angelica moaned. “It’s all Papa ever talks about, and my Mr. Church, too. Can we not be happy mademoiselles for once, and talk about dresses and dinner courses and Samuel Richardson’s novels and secret rendezvous?”

  Stephen’s voice carried on. “—made it a personal goal to travel each and every foot of the 4,649 miles of roads and paths that crisscross the manor. By my calculation, I have traveled approximately 949 and one-half miles, which means I have three thousand—”

  “Who says 949 and a half is an ‘approximate’ number?” Angelica moaned. She was about to go on when Eliza stopped her.

  “Did you mention Mr. Church? Are you still seeing him?”

  Angelica coyly looked away. “Not exactly.”

  “What do you mean, not exactly? Have you broken things off?”

  “Not exactly,” Angelica said again, clearly enjoying being mysterious.

  “Angelica Schuyler, don’t make me pinch you in a parlor full of people!”

  Angelica turned to Eliza and grabbed her hand. “Church is on his way here!”

  “WHAT?!” Eliza spoke so heartily that everyone in the room—except Stephen—looked over at her.

  “—sometimes I use a whip when I travel, other times I ride horseback, and still other times I go on foot,” Stephen continued, oblivious. “When on foot I find it expedient to employ a walking stick. After much trial and error, I have found that an ash limb has the appropriate combination of strength, lightness, and springiness for—oh, hello, Miss Schuyler,” he interrupted himself, nodding at Eliza, but, mercifully, not crossing to her and trapping her within his conversational prison. “I did not see you come in. I was telling Mrs. Witherspoon how I prefer to employ an ash limb as a walking stick when I—”

  Eliza nodded and turned back to Angelica. “When?”

  “I am meeting him tonight! I think he means to propose!”

  “And you will accept him?”

  Angelica only smiled.

  “But how will you get Papa to consent? He thinks Mr. Church to be a scoundrel and a knave.”

  “Scoundrel and knave are redundant, but thank you for the vote of confidence,” Angelica said drolly.

  “And Mama has made it clear she believes the continuing source of his wealth to be suspicious, if not altogether ill-gotten!”

  “That hurdle, at least, has been cleared. John’s business is stable and doing rather well,” said Angelica.

  “—the revenue for the farms amounts to some ten thousand shillings, which comes to approximately one hundred thousand Continentals—” droned Stephen.

  “And what is John’s business?” Eliza asked. “He has always been rather mysterious about his affairs.”

  “It is rather exciting,” Angelica said. “He ‘runs guns.’”

  “Runs them? Like an infantryman?”

  “No. It is a euphemism for arms dealing. He procures weapons from French and German munitions manufacturers and sells them to—”

  “The redcoats? But that’s horrible! He is helping our enemy!”

  “Eliza! Do you think I could align myself with a redcoat or a sympathizer? He sells weapons to the Continental army. That’s why he has to be so quiet about it. He is still a British citizen, after all. If he were to get caught, he would be stripped of his citizenship at the very least, and more likely executed as a traitor,” said Angelica, quite indignant.

  “Oh!” Eliza exclaimed. “That is romantic. And patriotic. Well, not patriotic for him, I suppose, if he remains British. Why doesn’t he become an American?”

  Angelica shrugged. “He says he admires America greatly, but that he cannot help being British to the core. He would like to introduce our reforms to England—to reduce the power of the crown and see Parliament become more democratic. He says the Old World can learn much from the New, and must learn, or it will be left behind.”

  Eliza absorbed all this with some surprise. So that was why John Church was always so vague in conversation. But now she understood—he was protecting himself and his interests. It explained Angelica’s interest in him, too. She had assumed that her headstrong older sister was attracted to John simply because he was everything their parents despised—which was fine for an adolescent crush, but didn’t explain the endurance of the attraction over several years. But now she realized that her sister had fallen in love with a man of principle. She wished he was a handsomer fellow, to match Angelica’s beauty, but looks fade, after all, and intelligence and character are what sustain a relationship.

  “Oh, Angelica, this is so exciting! Church is on his way! How romantic! If Mama approves, I’m sure she’ll be able to wear Papa down.”

  Angelica shrugged, as if the blessing of their parents were of little concern to her. “Papa will do what he wants to do. And so will I.”

  “You wicked girl!” Eliza said, scandalized and titillated at the same time.

  At that moment a heavy round of footsteps landed on the front porch. Ulysses opened the front door to a jocular crowd of men streaming in, pulling off their coats and hats and dumping them into the servant girl’s thin brown arms.

  “Girls—our guests!” Aunt Gertrude said to the Schuyler sisters. “The officers have arrived!”

  18

  Goose Is Cooked?

  Cochran Dinner Table

  Morristown, New Jersey

  February 1780

  Dr. Cochran sharpened the carving knife and fork high in the air over a crispy brown duck while the rest of the table looked on. “My word, Dr. Bones,” the marquis said in a teasing voice, “from the way you are sharpening that knife, one would think you are preparing to operate on General Washington himself. By all means, proceed!”

  Alex sat back, downright jolly. It had been a long week, and at last, after haunting her window and missing opportunities to see her at headquarters, where she had been near but so far, he was finally in the same place as Eliza Schuyler. His generous hostess had even seen to it that he was seated next to her lovely niece. Alex hoped dinner would go on until the wee hours as was custom lately; there was nowhere else he would rather be than at the Cochran dinner table. He smiled as the servants set a variety of savory dishes before the guests. There were three large courses with duck and venison roasts to be carved, with jellies, dried fruits and nuts served alongside. An endless pile of fresh oysters from the Hudson River was set in front of each officer.

  Laughter ricocheted from every table, as Louisa raced around the room, filling and refilling the wine glasses. Across from him, Laurens and Lafayette spoke animatedly in bawdy, good-humored French. Alex looked fondly at his fellow aides-de-camp. It was good to see them so relaxed.

  He turned to his right, stealing a glimpse of Eliza, ravishing in the candlelight. He watched as she leaned in to catch wisps of what French she could figure out. Fluent in the language from his childhood in the West Indies, Alex was charmed by her struggle to understand the officers’ racier phrases as she strove to translate them. A good student, he smiled, as he absentmindedly scratched the last of the rash on his wrist left over from the inoculation she’d given him.

  “What is so amusing?” Eliza asked, turning to him. “Are they being very naughty?”

  Alex shook his head. “No, I am just enjoying the view,” he
said. “It is not every day that we are graced with such pleasing company.”

  She blushed, and he liked seeing the rosy flush on her cheeks; it gave him a wellspring of hope.

  “You look very beautiful tonight, Miss Schuyler,” he said bravely. “I hope you will allow me to compliment you.”

  Eliza lowered her lashes. “I’m afraid I did not pack many party dresses but thankfully, my sisters did.”

  “I do not think it is the dress,” he murmured, finding her dark, almost-black eyes—and the gentleness in them—her most appealing feature.

  Halfway through the second course, Alex pinged his fork against his wineglass to signify he was making an announcement and stood up.

  Conversation ceased and the entire party gave him their attention.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, if I may intrude on your serious conversations for a moment, I’d like to propose a toast of thanks to our host and hostess tonight for giving us the pleasure of eating and drinking . . . at someone else’s expense. It puts to shame the many nights we poor soldiers have shared a pint or two of ale at Jacob Arnold’s tavern and pretended it was a meal.”

  “Hear! Hear!” came the agreeable shouts from the other officers.

  “And what more can be said of the lovely company you have chosen to surround us with tonight, Mrs. Cochran? The work these ladies are doing is quite sure to save battalions of lives. I salute you for your attention to our country’s most basic of needs.”

  Alex raised his glass toward Eliza, whose dark eyes sparkled with good cheer in recognition of his kind words. He sat back down and leaned over to whisper into her ear. “Your aunt was overly generous to include me in tonight’s dinner party,” he confided. “I owed her a few words of praise.”

  “I think it’s fair to say Aunt Gertrude is already quite taken with you, sir, and her seating you next to me at the table is more than just a coincidence. Indeed, she’s made it a point to repeat how contentedly she sleeps through these long cold nights lately, knowing that you are out there . . . guarding the house.”