Alex and Eliza--A Love Story Page 16

  His eyes floated up toward the heavens, but Eliza’s fell to the bed, where she couldn’t help but notice the flat spot beneath the blanket below Private Wallace’s left knee where his ankle and foot should have been.

  “I’m one of the lucky ones,” Wallace said, seeing where she was looking. “Bullet hit below the knee, so I still have the joint left. And the doc says I’m past the risk of infection. I just have to get my strength up, and then I’ll be making my way home to Massachusetts. I’ve been practicing my letters,” he said, indicating a small volume that sat, in lieu of a table, on the floor beside his cot. “I thought I might apprentice myself to a printer when I go home. If it was good enough work for Ambassador Franklin, I figure it’s probably good enough for me, too.”

  Eliza passed a few more words with him before moving on to the next bed. The stories were much the same, at least where the patients were awake. The room was cold and the food was poor, but what they claimed really bothered them was the boredom.

  Out of the fourteen to sixteen hours they were awake each day, they had human companionship for perhaps twenty or thirty minutes. Eliza decided that she should visit the ward every day; she would commission Peggy and Angelica to visit some of the other infirmaries in the camp. If she couldn’t gather supplies or money as she had done in Albany, and if she had not the medical skills her aunt possessed, she could at least read a story to a convalescing soldier, or listen to his stories about his home hundreds or thousands of miles away.

  DARKNESS HAD FALLEN by the time she and the colonel had finished the rounds. Eliza turned to him. “I must thank you for bringing me here, Colonel Hamilton. I believe I can procure some more blankets for this ward, and even one or two more stoves. My aunt tells me that there are many empty houses in town.”

  “It’s I who should thank you,” Alex answered. “I really had no intention of bringing you here today. Any other girl would have run away.”

  “I’d like to think I’m not like any other girl,” Eliza answered. She hadn’t meant her answer to sound flirtatious—two hours in an infirmary can take that right out of you—but the words came before she could stop them.

  “I like to think that as well,” Alex answered and, to her surprise, he laughed. “I swear, if ever there was a more ungainly swain than myself, I have not heard of him.”

  “A swain, are you? Are you courting me, Colonel Hamilton?” she asked with a shy smile.

  “If you can call courting taking a girl to an infirmary as an afternoon’s outing. And this after only recently getting her to talk to him!”

  “That seems like ages ago now. I can’t even remember what I found so objectionable about you,” she said bluntly.

  He grinned. “Well, I shall not remind you, then. Although I find it to be a fine twist that you ended up joining me in a barn after all!”

  She almost gasped, but her smile betrayed her amusement, and they were back at her aunt’s house sooner than she would have liked.

  She turned to him at the door. “I do not know that I should describe this afternoon as pleasant,” she said. “Nevertheless, I must admit that I did enjoy my time with you, Colonel Hamilton.”

  “May I take that as permission to call again?”

  “Somehow I don’t think you would stay away even if I asked you to,” she said, feeling quite as bold as Angelica all of a sudden.

  “Oh, but I would. I would stay away, and ache for want of seeing you.”

  Eliza had to laugh. She knew she should scold him for pressing his suit so insistently, but the visit to the ward had reminded her that these were not normal circumstances under which to entertain suitors. It was a war, and war laid bare the urgency of things. What might have taken months under different circumstances was now unfolding over the course of days.

  “I expect to be busy during the afternoons seeing to the ward, but my evenings are likely to be free. If you wish to come by, I know my aunt and uncle always welcome your visits.”

  “But will you?” The laugh lines at the corners of his eyes tightened into a fine squint. “Welcome my visits?”

  “Please, Colonel. A girl must hold on to some mystery.” And, tapping on the tip of his reddened nose with a gloved finger, she went inside, but her heart was pounding all the while.

  “WAS THAT COLONEL Hamilton?” Peggy’s voice greeted her. She rushed into the hall and pulled Eliza into the heated parlor after Eliza had removed her frozen, wet boots. “Louisa says you’ve been gone for hours! Tell all!”

  Eliza opened her mouth, but didn’t know where to start. She shrugged.

  “Colonel Hamilton and I paid a visit to Infirmary C.”

  “You—” Now it was Peggy’s turn to be speechless. “I do not know what to say to that.”

  “Neither do I,” Eliza said. “But I think I like him,” she said in a small voice.

  It took Peggy a moment to process this. Then she squealed. “You like him!”

  “I do! I like him!” Eliza exclaimed, admitting what she had felt for a while now.

  “I can’t believe it! At last, a suitor the Schuyler parents will approve of. Washington’s most-trusted aide! And neither too British nor too young nor—”

  “Nor too rich. Mama will not like that, I fear.”

  “Pshaw,” Peggy scoffed. “Stephen’s fortune will more than make up for any deficiencies in Colonel Hamilton’s accounts. And Church is not doing so badly, either,” she added as Angelica joined them.

  “Is there more news?” asked Eliza, turning to her older sister, whose beau had left town for a few days.

  “Yes, He arrives on the morrow. He writes that he comes with ‘a question in his heart.’”

  “A question? But he has already asked you to marry him, and you have already accepted. What other question could he have for you?” asked Peggy.

  “He has been pressing me to get Papa to bless our union. I have mentioned it to him several times, but Papa always shuts down the subject. He says that it’s bad enough that John is British, but his past is simply too shady. He has heard rumors that John left gambling debts behind him in England, and he couldn’t bear to see him do the same with my dowry.”

  “But Papa knows what you told me the other night, does he not? That John is—how did you phrase it—running guns? For our troops? An activity that is both lucrative and honorable,” said Eliza.

  Angelica shrugged. “You know Papa. Once he’s made up his mind about someone, it never changes.”

  “So then what do you think Mr. Church’s question will be?” Peggy persisted.

  Angelica looked at her sisters nervously. “I think he is going to ask me to elope.”

  “What?” Eliza gasped as Peggy literally clutched her pearls. “You cannot be serious! Surely you did not lead him to think that you would accept—oh, Angelica!” Eliza stopped herself when she saw her sister’s face. “You’re not going to run off with him!”

  “I think—” Angelica broke off and was silent for a long time. “I think I am.”

  Peggy grabbed her sister’s hand. “But does this mean you love him?”

  More silence from Angelica, who smiled whimsically and stared off into space. “I think I see us as Mama and Papa are. Not enthralled with each other, but respectful and supportive. Two people joined together in a partnership to create something enduring. A family. A legacy.”

  “But do you love him?” Eliza pressed. “You are too young and too beautiful to give up on love yet. There are more young men out there!”

  “Are there?” Angelica said, getting up and heading to the door. “Or are they all ending up in the infirmary, or the kirkyard?” She paused at the door. “Mama and Papa raised us to expect a certain lifestyle. You were always less enamored of material comforts than other girls, but Peggy and I, well, we like our things, don’t we? And John will provide me with all the things I want, and adventures as well.�
�� She smiled at her younger sister. “Dearest Eliza, you’ll have to have the romance for us.”

  And she slipped into the hall, letting a shiver of cold air into the room.

  22

  Sweet Nothings

  South Street

  Morristown, New Jersey

  February 1780

  Being that Alexander Hamilton was a man of many words, he decided to put them to use to win over his Eliza. He began with a series of letters to her sister Peggy, where he poured out his feelings, knowing the sentiments would be transferred to Eliza forthwith. Since confiding in him at the dinner party, he and Peggy had a sibling-like friendship, and it was to her that he entreated his courtship of Eliza.

  When he wrote, he appealed both to Eliza’s vanity and her practicality. “She is unquestionably lovely, yet she lacks the petty affectations of women who believe themselves very beautiful.” He admired her love of nature and the outdoors. “Eliza’s face glows with the expectation of morning sunshine and I happily imagine her as a rollicking, good-natured tomboy as a child.” No woman, he wrote, could match her sister’s unlimited passion for reading. He even begged Peggy to encourage her sister to continue studying French so one day they might share secrets in their own private language.

  These, Alex wrote in reams and reams of pages, were all things he would choose to champion in the perfect woman.

  Peggy wrote him back with a much simpler plan. “My dear Colonel Hamilton, if you want to win over my sister, why not simply tell her so yourself?”

  THE COOL BLUE evening under the pine trees smelled sweet, and the air called for a thick coat, even standing in front of a roaring bonfire. Alex had taken Peggy’s hint and invited Eliza to step out with him along the Morristown green where a seasonal lighting of the bonfire on South Street was set to begin at dusk.

  Alex and Eliza squeezed toward the front of the crowd where a tall boy with long fingers and thin beige bangs played his mandolin. People began to cough and clear their throats after two songs. In due course, somebody tossed a turpentine-soaked rag into the bonfire’s brushwood and lit a match. There was a wind-sucking VA-roomph and the faces of fifty awed souls flashed orange in the firelight. The bracing, sweet smell of the burning pinewood surrounded them.

  When he sensed she was feeling cold, he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and rode his fingertips up and down her elbow to create warmth. He lowered his mouth to her ear and whispered, “You are so special to me, my dearest Betsey. And I want you to know it this very moment. Do you think you could ever be persuaded to feel the same toward this poor soldier?”

  He had taken to calling her Betsey when they were alone, a name only he called her, and no one else.

  “Perhaps one day,” she said. “You have yet to take me on that long-promised sleigh ride, Colonel.”

  “Only say the word, my sweet nut-brown maid,” he said, “and I shall make sure Hector will be at your door with bells on. And Alex, please, call me Alex.”

  “Alexander,” she said with a smile. “You take too many liberties, just like our congress against the British.”

  “My darling, you are the declaration of my heart,” he said, enjoying this game.

  “Alex,” she said at last. “It is nice to be with you here, tonight.”

  He thrilled to hear the sound of his given name on her lips.

  “At the very least, my sister will finally stop pestering me about you,” she said.

  “They may pester away, for it is to Peggy I thank that we are here together.”

  They stood in front of the bonfire, enjoying its warmth and each other’s.

  At the end of the next song, a fellow stepped into the slant of firelight in front of Alex. At first he didn’t recognize the tall elegant figure wearing civilian clothes, backlit by the blaze. In the low light beyond the edge of the bonfire, it was unlikely that Major John André would have been recognized by anyone but Alex.

  “Good evening, sir!” said Alex. “And what brings you here?”

  Alex took a step forward in the firelight. He noticed the major’s face was flushed and beads of sweat tracked along the swale of his high cheekbones. He seemed to be in a hurry.

  “Ah, Colonel Hamilton. And Miss Schuyler as well—what a . . . pleasant surprise! But please, you mustn’t get too close to me. I was merely passing through Morristown only to have been waylaid by a nasty bout of a cold, which I now fear is racing toward pneumonia. I’m out of my sick bed to get to the apothecary for a remedy. Yes, yes, that’s it. And now I really must be on my way. Good evening to you both.”

  The major tucked his chin under the scarf around his neck and cut through the crowd enjoying the bonfire. John André stepped out into the street and took a turn in the direction of Whitehead Street.

  “Strange,” Alex pondered out loud. “The apothecary is in the other direction. I’ve always admired the fellow for his fortitude of mind. But this time it is as if he’s hiding something.”

  He looked down at Eliza, who was pensive. “What is it, my darling?”

  “He asked me to marry him once,” she confessed.

  Alex stiffened. “Your dance partner. You danced with him three—no, five—times, I remember. I counted.”

  She saw the look on his face. “I didn’t say yes.”

  “But you were . . . fond of him?”

  “A schoolgirl’s crush, that is all.”

  He breathed in sharply. A British officer—asking the hand of American aristocracy! But of course André would feel confident enough to ask for Eliza’s hand. He was wealthy and, enemy or no, had family and fortune that Alex lacked. He was ashamed, all of a sudden.

  Now it was Eliza’s turn to ask him what was the matter.

  “It is nothing,” he said weakly.

  “I didn’t want him,” she said.

  “But why not?” he asked, unable to help himself. If Eliza would turn down someone as worthy as André, what hope did he, Alex, have of success in his suit?

  Eliza contemplated her answer. Walking through the infirmary ward with Colonel Hamilton these past days had shown her a softer side of what an officer must be. The one who cares for his men above all else and is willing to see them honored for their service to the new country he believed in so fervently.

  Yes, she had seen Alex’s temper flare over his disappointment with a lack of his own regiment to command, but she saw that as merely the fighting spirit of an ambitious and confident leader. Yet, wasn’t that what appealed most to her about him? A spirit and impetuousness that could match her own and challenge her to better herself in this new democracy? A man who could honor her own values?

  Yes, it was true: Once she had been quite enamored of the elegant Major John André. But here and now, for Eliza, all of Major André’s former appeal seemed to vanish in the night air, snuffed out like the pine needles curling orange in the blazing bonfire before her.

  In its place, she would enjoy the light dancing in Alex’s eyes and the fire ignited in her heart forever, and told him so.

  “I didn’t accept him,” she said. “I fear I am too patriotic to marry against the cause.”

  He seemed satisfied with the answer.

  I didn’t accept him, Eliza thought but didn’t say, because he wasn’t you.

  23

  Full Hearts, Empty Pockets

  Continental Army Headquarters & Cochran Dinner Table, Part Deux

  Morristown, New Jersey

  February 1780

  Walking on a cloud after another evening with Eliza, Alex had lost all track of time. He arrived back at headquarters well after the evening guard had been posted, a young corporal huddled in the small shelter in front of the Ford mansion. Swathed in a half-dozen blankets topped by an enormous bearskin, the sleepy fellow made some motion beneath the pile of rugs as Alex approached. It might have been a salute aimed at the familiar figure of
Colonel Hamilton, but there were so many layers of fabric over the man’s body that Alex wasn’t sure.

  “Password, Colonel?”

  Alex opened his mouth, only to draw a total blank. The password?

  He had forgotten the password—which was rather awkward since he was in charge of coming up with them.

  “Er . . . Eliza?” he said after a moment.

  “Colonel?” For the past month the passwords had all been names of birds.

  “Elizabeth?” Alex said. “Beth? Betty? Betsey? Bits? Lisa? Liza? Eliza?”

  “You tried that one already,” the guard said.

  “And I shall keep trying it”—Alex saluted the guard as he sauntered past him toward the mansion—“for it is the only name on my mind. Feel free to shoot me, Corporal,” he added. “I am so in love that bullets will only bounce off.”

  The lieutenant in command appeared suddenly and motioned to the young guard. He had heard the colonel’s frank revelation of love and felt pity for him. “Laurens is right, you are a gone man. It’s nightjar, Colonel Hamilton. The password is nightjar,” said Lieutenant Larpent.

  “Nay! It’s Elizabeth Schuyler!” Alex called back over his shoulder. “That is the key that opens all locks, or at least the one to my heart!”

  As he spoke, he grasped the door handle to the mansion and pulled hard, smacking his nose on its oak panels because it was locked. He tapped at his pockets, but he already knew they were empty: He had left his keys behind when he snuck off to see Eliza.

  “I’ve got it, sir,” said Larpent, amused, as he got up to unlock the door.

  “Yes, yes, thank you, Lieutenant,” he said sheepishly. “Long day, don’t you know. Running the army and, uh, that sort of thing.”

  THE NEXT MORNING he received a note from Gertrude Cochran asking him if he would like to dine en famille with them that evening.

  I know you graced us with your presence just a few days ago, but Angelica’s beau, Mr. Church, is in Morristown, as is Peggy’s Mr. Van Rensselaer, whom you met the other night. It seems a shame that Eliza should not have her own young man to dote on her, lest she feel left out. I am afraid we are only offering the usual venison stew, but the portions will be plentiful, and there is as much perry to quaff as you can hold.