All for One Page 14

  “You mean he mistreats the ladies?”

  “He mistreats his wife.” An image of Maria’s bruised cheek flashed in Alex’s mind. “I don’t just want to destroy his reputation. I want to shame him. I want people to hiss and spit when he walks down the street, or cross over to the other side as if he were a leper. I want him to flee from this city with his tail in his hands.”

  “Don’t you mean between his legs?”

  “No, for I intend to cut it off, whip him in the face with it, and then throw it at his feet.”

  Miguel grinned. “I’m sure the situation is tragic, but I like seeing you like this. It’s like the soldier we saw at Yorktown. A lone wolf charging a moose, fearless of the big antlers.”

  Alex tossed Miguel a coin purse. “For your trouble.”

  Miguel weighed the purse and pursed his lips. “Is she rich and beautiful, or just beautiful?”

  “Go,” Alex said, fighting back a grin of his own. “Bring me something good and there’s another purse waiting for you.”

  “Oh, she’s definitely poor,” Miguel said with a laugh. “Men never waste money on a rich woman.”

  * * *

  • • •

  ALEX SPENT THE rest of the afternoon attending to work he had neglected for the past month while he tried to sort out the Trinity case. It was mostly rote paperwork, but there was a lot of it. Nippers, Turkey, and Bartleby had produced hundreds of pages of documents, each of which needed a review and a signature. By five o’clock, Alex’s hand was cramping, and he barely recognized the letters of his own name. But he had billed for nearly a hundred pounds, which would—almost—cover the money Eliza had spent redecorating the house for John, Emma, and baby Philip.

  There was one last stack of pages to go through, and the light was still good. Alex normally would have persevered until it was done, but he knew Maria must have been anxious, alone in Caroline’s inn without any knowledge of what was going on in the case that would decide her future. He packed a valise and headed for the door. The youngest clerk, Bartleby, sat at his desk staring idly into space.

  “If you could make three copies of this for me for tomorrow,” Alex said, depositing a document on the clerk’s desk.

  “I would prefer not to,” Bartleby said, without meeting his eyes.

  “Now that’s funny,” Alex said, and headed out the door.

  * * *

  • • •

  ALEX’S OFFICE WAS heavily shaded by its neighbors, and he didn’t realize what a hot day it had turned into. It was nearly six, but the sun was still high in the sky and beating down on Alex’s hatted head. He had worn a smart but rather heavy wool coat in a deep burgundy (he hadn’t planned to, but John had shown up to breakfast in a dazzling jacket in a color that could only be called shocking pink, and Alex wasn’t about to outdone in his own house, and by a teenager to boot); this on top of a long-sleeved linen shirt, embroidered velvet waistcoat, and his undergarments. Within five minutes he was sweating; within ten he had taken his hat off and held it in his hand, and to hell with the disapproving looks of his fellow pedestrians. By the time he arrived at Ruston’s Ale House a half hour later, he was drenched.

  “Mr. Hamilton!” Sally exclaimed when he walked in. “You are a victim of your own sartorial elegance if ever I saw one.”

  Alex accepted the towel she handed him and mopped the sweat from his face.

  “Thank you, Sally. You look lovely, too.”

  Sally had already swung behind the bar and knelt down to draw him a pint from one of the several barrels stored there.

  “This will cool you off. We are trying a new thing here at the alehouse.”

  Alex was about to ask what the new thing was when he put his hand on the glass. It was ice cold. He thought perhaps the glass had been chilled, but when he sipped his ale he realized it was the liquid itself.

  “It’s . . . cold,” he said wonderingly. He had never before had ale at anything other than room temperature.

  Sally nodded. “The barrel is packed in ice. It is apparently quite popular in Boston, so we’ve decided to give it a try here.”

  Alex gulped down a good half of his glass. “It is certainly refreshing.” Another long pull, the icy liquid rushing into his body and immediately cooling him. “This cold beer thing may well catch on.”

  “The ice is very dear, but our customers have responded well, despite the extra penny for the glass.”

  “It is certainly worth it,” Alex said, standing up. “Please send a pair of these to Mrs. Smith’s room in a few minutes.”

  “I do not know that Mrs. Smith is an ale drinker. A cider perhaps?”

  Alex nodded. “Send a second pint of the ale as well. If she doesn’t drink it, I will,” Alex said, and headed for the stairs.

  When he reached the second floor, he knocked on Maria’s door softly.

  “Mrs. Reynolds,” he said in a quiet voice. “It’s Alexander Hamilton.”

  There was no sound from within the room, but after a few moments he heard a key turning in the lock, and then the door opened. The first thing Alex saw was that Maria was wearing the same clothes as when they first met. Well, of course she was. She had run away from her husband without a coin purse, let alone a traveling case. Her dark blue dress had a simple cut, and this helped keep it fresh-looking, but it still looked as though it could use a pass with a hot iron.

  In contrast, though, Maria’s face looked remarkably fresh, as if she had passed her first good night’s sleep in years. She had washed the powder from her skin, and though the bruise on her cheek was more visible, it was also obviated by the soft smile on her lips and the hopeful expression in her eyes.

  “Clearly we have to get you to a mercer’s,” Alex said by way of greeting.

  Maria’s smile grew wider, and a bit more pert. “Well, that’s certainly how every woman loves to be greeted.”

  Alex’s face, already flushed from his hot walk, grew even warmer. “Oh, I beg your pardon! I quaffed an ale downstairs and it has gone straight to my head. I didn’t mean to imply that you—”

  Maria cut him off with a laugh. “No need to apologize, Mr. Hamilton. I understood what you meant, though I do not presume to rate a new dress, or even the fabric to sew one. You have already done so much for me.” She stepped aside and waved a hand. “Do please come in.”

  Alex walked in and set his hat on the dresser. He could feel his sweaty shirt clinging to his back. “I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but do you mind if I remove my jacket and waistcoat? Only it’s rather hotter than I realized outside, and I overdressed for the weather. I am quite soaked through.”

  “Please, treat my room as you would your home. Shall I throw open a window?”

  “That would be lovely,” Alex said as he took off his jacket and hung it on a peg. “I am surprised you have them closed; it is such a warm day.”

  Maria did not answer immediately but only stared out the window. She was silent so long that Alex started to fear that he had somehow offended her.

  At last she spoke.

  “Do you know I have sat here in this chair all day, looking out this window? There is not much of a view—just the walls and windows of the buildings across Water Street, and the sunlight, and the clouds. Yet to me it is the sweetest vista imaginable, like the Alps in summertime, with their green sides and snowcaps, or the first glimpse of palm trees of the isles of the Indies appearing on the horizon, or the famous pyramids of Egypt seen across the majesty of the Nile. But this.” She gestured to the window. “This looks like freedom to me. Freedom and the future. So great was my pleasure that I thought if I added even a single additional detail I would be overcome. I would wake from this dream and find myself back in the house of my oppressor. And yet—”

  She put her hands on the sash and pushed the window up. A fresh breeze rushed into the room, and she inhaled
as though it were the bouquet of roses or fresh-baked bread.

  “And yet it is not a dream.”

  Alex had removed his jacket and waistcoat while Maria spoke, and now he walked to the second window and threw it open. He leaned out the window, and after a moment Maria leaned out hers, and they turned and faced each other outside the walls of Caroline’s inn. The streets below were dotted with pedestrians enjoying the sunny day, and a few carriages carrying wealthier New Yorkers about their errands, or perhaps up north to their country homes to escape the heat, and wagons and carts ferrying their wares, and, directly below them, a couple of pigs, eating the garbage from the gutter.

  “It is not a dream,” Alex affirmed. “Today you open a window and stick your face out into the free world. Before you know it, you will be venturing out into this world, a free woman. The city shall be yours.”

  One of the pigs below the window squealed as if in agreement.

  “Well, perhaps not the pigs,” Alex said, grinning.

  “I’ll take the pigs,” Maria said as they stepped back into the room and took up perches in the two chairs. “I’ll take the bad with the good and everything in between. Only—only how do we do it? I have only ever heard of men being granted divorces, and then only in cases of the most flagrant infidelity. Women seem to be held to a higher standard of grievance.”

  “Matrimonial law is certainly not my area of expertise, but I know anecdotally that what you say is true. Alas, the law considers the fairer sex to be more dependent as well as more comely, and is less likely to believe that it is worth risking her vulnerability as a single woman than leaving her in the care of her husband.”

  “What nonsense!” Maria said. “During the war, nearly every woman I knew was living on her own—raising children, running farms and businesses, fending off redcoats and other threats, and generally enjoying the freedom of being out from under the thumbs of their menfolk, regardless of how dire the circumstances were.”

  “Indeed,” Alex agreed. “Caroline Childress, in whose inn you are staying, ran this place on her own from 1776 onward, and I have represented any number of women, widows, orphans, or simply ladies who never chose to marry, who have thrived without need of a man’s assistance. Yet with each new case I bring to trial, it is as if the court has forgotten about all the previous ones. It is not just legal opinion you are up against. It is society’s. I have no doubt that one day, people will think differently, but I fear we are still some time away from that day. And of course there is virtually no chance that you will retain any property with which you entered the union, or that was added to it after your marriage.”

  “Well!” Maria said only half jokingly. “If your goal was to convince me of the hopelessness of my case, you have certainly succeeded!”

  Alex smiled in apology. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I just want you to know what you are up against. Women have been granted divorces, but only in the case of, shall we say, rather extreme behavior on the part of their spouses.”

  He didn’t phrase his words as a question, but Maria seemed to understand. She took a deep breath and sat up straight in her chair.

  “You wish to know why I ran away from my husband.”

  Just then there was a knock on the door. Maria started, and turned toward it with a panicked expression.

  “Mr. Hamilton? Mrs. Smith? It is Sally from downstairs.”

  Maria sighed as the door opened and Sally started in with a tray in her hand, then pulled up short.

  “Oh!” she said in an embarrassed voice. “I did not mean to—”

  Alex followed her eyes and saw that she was staring at his jacket and waistcoat, which he had laid open on the bed to dry.

  Alex laughed. “Come now, Sally, you remarked on how wet I was when I first came in. I have simply removed my outer garments so that they, and I, can dry off.”

  “Of course, sir,” Sally said as she crossed to a table and set the glasses down. “Only your shirt, sir. It is rather . . . transparent.”

  Alex looked down and saw that Sally was correct. “Oh, dear,” he said, resisting the urge to cross his arms over his chest.

  “Perhaps you would like my shawl?” asked Maria.

  “Oh, ah, no,” Alex said, glancing at the floral, fringed garment, which was decidedly feminine. “I wouldn’t want to get it wet as well.” Nor would I want to look ridiculous, he thought. “I’ll simply, ah . . .” He pulled his shirt free from his skin as best he could. “It will dry soon in this breeze, and then decency will be restored.”

  “Of course, sir,” Sally said with a bored air. Years of working in an inn frequented by sailors must have exposed her to far more risqué sights than a half-naked man. “Will there be anything else?”

  “No, thank you, Sally. Have a good evening.”

  “You too, sir,” Sally said, and took her leave.

  Alex gave Maria her choice of ale or cider and she did indeed choose the cider. He took one of the pints of chilled ale for himself and returned to his chair. He checked that his shirt was still relatively modest, then turned back to Maria.

  “To be clear,” he began in a gentle voice, “I feel that it is the height of vulgarity that I should have to ask you about this, or that you should be compelled to tell me. I ask only because without the details of this narrative I have almost no chance to help you. Juries, rather like children, are seduced by a good story.”

  “I understand.” Maria nodded. She took a sip of her cider followed by a deep breath, as if telling herself she was ready. Still, it was another moment before she began speaking.

  “I was inspired to leave—if inspired is not too strange a word to use in this context—when I read the account of Mrs. Elihu Patterson, who was granted a divorce from her husband after he”—she summoned another breath—“after he behaved toward her in a decidedly ungentlemanly way in public. At her trial she testified that this was a pattern of behavior going back years. Her husband denied it, yet there were any number of friends, family, neighbors, and even passersby to support her claim.”

  Alex nodded. He, too, had followed the story, which had featured prominently in the New York Journal and other local papers this past spring. He had found the accounts luridly distasteful, yet he had also been unable to tear himself away from them. He knew that people would follow the Reynolds case just as avidly. Everyone loved a tawdry scandal, but none more than New Yorkers.

  As if reading his mind, Maria continued: “So I knew I would have to reveal my story publicly if I wished to be free. It took me some months to work up the nerve, not least because the idea of having my shame exposed as Mrs. Patterson’s had been was mortifying to me. And I kept telling myself Mr. Reynolds would change, that the chance of success was too slim, that it wasn’t worth the risk. Indeed, I knew that he had himself seen the Patterson story, and I fancied that it had scared him into a semblance of propriety, at least externally. And then . . .” She brought a hand to her bruised cheek, inspecting her fingertips as if the color had come off on them. “This kind of man doesn’t change,” she said simply.

  Alex nodded but didn’t speak. He knew she was working herself up and didn’t want to jar her train of thought. A faint smile had come to her face, as if she were recalling a distant but fond memory.

  “My parents were patriots,” she said now. “My father joined the Sons of Liberty in Boston and was present at the Tea Party in 1773. When war was declared, he was first to the front. And, alas, among the first to die at Concord in ’75. I was eleven at the time. My mother, unfortunately, was not one of those independent-minded women I mentioned earlier. She did her best, but there were six mouths to feed and almost no money with which to do so. When Mr. Reynolds began to show interest in me at the age of fifteen, she urged me to look favorably upon his suit. He was—is—much older than I, a widower and plainly coarse, but he had a solid income in trade, and there was no indication of his da
rker nature. I did not urge him on, but I didn’t push him away either. He suggested assignations which—” She broke off, obviously embarrassed by the memory, but then summoned her resolve and continued. “That is, I was too innocent to know what, exactly, he wanted, but not so innocent that I didn’t know to avoid them. I thought perhaps he would grow bored when his immediate urges weren’t satisfied. I didn’t realize then the obsessive nature of his character. He is one of those men who wants something that isn’t his much more than something he already possesses.

  “Still, I might indeed have been able to escape, had not my mother succumbed to illness during the winter of 1779 to1780. My brothers and sisters and I had nothing to fall back on. We were parceled among our aunts and uncles like so many packages being distributed across beasts of burden to ease the individual load. I landed in the house of my aunt and uncle Willoughby, who made it clear that if I did not accept Mr. Reynolds’s proposal, I would be turned out the minute the ice cracked on the Charles River that spring.” She shrugged. “I had no choice. I was married in March 1780, just two months after my sixteenth birthday.”

  She paused for a moment, collecting herself. She stared out the window and took deep breaths of the fresh air. Alex thought she was unable to continue, and was about to tell her that he would be come back tomorrow when she started speaking again. As soon as the words began coming out of her mouth, he almost wished he had left.

  “The horrors began on my wedding night. Mr. Reynolds had been married already, as I said, and, as well, it seemed clear that he had availed himself of—of certain unfortunate women after his wife left this world. The fact that I had not his experience in these matters seemed only to urge him on. My fear excited him. My pain brought him pleasure. He spoke of my innocence as a prize he was stealing from me. Afterward, he said I was just another fallen woman. I certainly felt like one.”

  It was Alex who taking deep breaths now, to steady himself.