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  When he was certain he could operate it, he set it back in the case with its powder bag and tamping rod and single piece of shot.

  James had also provided him with pen and ink and parchment, and now he turned toward those. What an absurd custom! To have a man write his own epitaph when he did not even know if he would die. Yet what else was he to do? Among the many transgressions he had made against his wife and future son, few would be greater than if he were to depart this life without at last attempting to explain his actions.

  Once again, he found himself without words. He who had written as many as forty pages a day in General Washington’s employ about every subject, from military strategy to treaty negotiations, could not even begin to think how to summarize his actions of the past month. He could look back on each and every step he had taken, from the most innocent to the most carnal, yet the person he saw in his mind’s eye was as much a stranger to him as he would be to someone on the street. What had that man been thinking? What had he been feeling? Alex had no idea. It was as if something had compelled his limbs to move while his mind was elsewhere.

  Yet that was too easy an explanation, and too soft on himself. No one had made those decisions except him, and if anything, his blame was only compounded by the lack of consideration he had given his deeds. The man who says he is a stranger to himself is in fact the man who refuses to know himself, because he cannot bear to see his own mortality, the weaknesses of mind and body that make him human.

  He forced himself to pick up the pen and dip it in the well.

  “My dear Eliza,” he wrote, and stopped.

  As he looked at the words, he felt that he had no right to use them. To speak to her so intimately, from beyond the grave, when she had at least some awareness of the ways in which he had abused her and their vows. It was too audacious.

  Yet how else could he address her than as he always had? His feelings toward her hadn’t changed after all. They had only been . . . eclipsed for the briefest of moments, by baser, more mysterious urges.

  He dipped the pen again, brought it to the page, forced himself to write without knowing what was going to come out.

  “Best of wives and best of women,” he scribbled at last. Tears sprang to his eyes as the pen fell from his hand. Tears of self-reproach and self-pity, neither of which he was entitled to.

  “What a fool I am!” he said aloud.

  Just then there was a knock on the door. Soft. Not tentative but . . . feminine.

  Alex turned in his chair toward the door.

  “Enter,” he called.

  The knob turned, the door slid inward on its hinges. The form of his wife came into view. So unexpected was it that it was as if the painting over his mantel had sprung to life and appeared at Mount Pleasant.

  Alex felt a surge of energy rush through his limbs and the overwhelming desire to run to his wife’s arms. But at the same time he felt a deadening paralysis and the urge to shrink beneath the desk behind him.

  “Eliza,” he said finally. He could think of nothing else to say.

  Eliza didn’t answer. She stood on the threshold of the room for a moment, then walked in. She didn’t close the door behind her.

  She looked around at the peeling wallpaper and the dust-coated furniture. “Jane told me that this was Major André’s room, the last time I was here.”

  “James told me the same thing, just a few moments ago.”

  Eliza didn’t seem to have heard him. “He was a principled man. His allegiances may have contravened ours, but his values were the same. I am told he went to his death with his head held high and did not reproach the men who hanged him, because he knew they did what justice demanded. He died for what he believed.” Her eyes finally settled on him. “Can you say the same?”

  Alex didn’t know how to answer, and he sat in silence.

  “Can you say that it is worth dying to defend yourself from an accusation which is, by all accounts, true? What is it you are dying for, then? So that you can pretend that you are an honorable man? That would seem to make you both a liar and a fool.”

  Alex bestirred himself to speak. “If women were admitted to the bar,” he said, “men would run in fear whenever you entered the room.”

  “Do not!” Eliza said, a note of anger entering her voice for the first time. “Do not use your smooth words on me, Mr. Hamilton, to confess your sins while simultaneously wooing me with your wit and charm. I am pregnant,” she continued. “That is what matters here.”

  “My darling!” Alex all but wailed. He knew the endearment wasn’t his to use, but he couldn’t stop himself. “I am not afraid of death, but dying with you believing the worst of me would be the worst of fates.”

  “What! Are you going to deny it now, to me, after the base stories have been flying around New York for a month and more? Have you that much gall? If so, I wish I had saved myself the trouble of flying here!”

  “I deny only what I did not do. I admit fully, openly, and shamefully to what I did.”

  “Oh, please,” Eliza spat in a disgusted voice. “Enough of your fancy phrasings. Come, Counselor Hamilton, tell me some pretty tales about how you did not—did not—”

  Eliza’s voice cracked, and Alex had to grab his chair to keep himself from running to her. He knew it would only make things worse.

  “In a moment of terrible weakness, I betrayed you, and I wish I could take it back, take everything back,” he said desperately. How could he forget his wife? His vows? His love? He was a fool, a terrible fool who did not deserve love or mercy and forgiveness, only death.

  Death would be kind. He would welcome it.

  But more than death, he wanted his life. He wanted his wife. His beautiful, loving, wonderful wife. He wished he had never met Maria Reynolds. Why had he done what he did? Why?

  Eliza said nothing. Alex found the silence unbearable and continued talking.

  “I understand if you would forsake me. I will release you from your vows if you ask,” said Alex. “If Burr’s bullet finds its mark in my chest I shall consider it my due punishment. I love you and only you, my dearest darling. I am so ashamed.”

  Still, Eliza said nothing. Alex’s fingers dug into his chair so violently that he heard the old fabric tear beneath them.

  “Darling, please, say something!”

  At last she turned to him.

  “I want to believe you,” she said. Her eyes were full of sadness and steel. “Though I am not sure what difference that makes.”

  Alex couldn’t help himself. “Is there nothing else? Is there—is there nothing left of us?”

  Eliza closed her eyes for a moment. Her breath was heavy in the quiet room.

  Her eyes opened again. “When Emma told me what had befallen my marriage, and what fate awaited you, my first thought was, the father of my child must not die. After your story, that remains my only thought on the matter. Later, I am sure I will have other thoughts, but I do not wish even to wonder what they will be. I only know that I don’t want you dead.” She fixed him in the eye. “Call it off, Alex. I command it. Give Aaron whatever he wants in compensation, but do not place your life in jeopardy, or his.”

  He didn’t speak. Just nodded.

  She looked at him a moment longer, then her eyes fell to the table in front of him. She saw the paper. The letter he had been writing to her. She walked toward him slowly. He wanted to hide it from her but had not the strength.

  She picked it up, squinting slightly in the candlelight. James had not provided him with a lamp. She stared at the page for a long time. Alex wanted her to react in some way. To crumple it off or laugh in his face or burst into tears, but she merely inspected it as she would a mercer’s bill, then set it back on the table and turned and left the room.

  25

  Forgiveness and Family

  The Hamilton Town House

  New Y
ork, New York

  April 1786

  “I do think it will be fair after all,” Eliza said, as she stepped through her front door into the mid-morning haze. “The sky looks clear to the west. I predict sunshine by noon.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Emma answered her. “Only I should hate for baby Philip to be caught in the rain. He has been a touch colicky this week.”

  “Baby Philip is a Schuyler; a little rain won’t faze him,” Eliza answered. She leaned toward her governess and bestowed a kiss on the swaddled bundle in her arms. A pair of pale blue eyes fluttered open, focused on her blearily, then drifted closed again.

  “Shall I carry him?” Eliza said. “It is but a short walk to the church.”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t like to burden you. It is only a month since you have been anything like your old self. And the walk is longer than you think, and Philip heavier than you realize. Let me carry him to church and you can hold him once we arrive.”

  Eliza didn’t protest. The last few months of her pregnancy had been, not onerous exactly, but less than pleasant. Her bout with pneumonia—for that was what it was—had left her with weakened lungs, and even mounting a flight of stairs, especially with the extra weight she was carrying, all but exhausted her. For the final month her doctor confined her to bedrest. She had thought a month in bed would be unbearable, but the truth was it seemed she could never get enough sleep, and even when she was awake she felt fog-headed and fragile. The doctor attributed it to the pressure the baby was putting on her internal organs—judging from the size of her womb, he was enormous—but Eliza sensed the source of the trouble was mental rather than physical. The emotional impact of “the incident,” as she had taken to referring to the depressing events of last fall, had been greater than she realized, and lasted longer than she expected.

  But she had forgiven him.

  It was an impossible feat, and impossible even to think that her family—the three of them—had survived intact.

  And yet, there they were. Intact, and if their love was not what it was, no longer innocent of despair, it was stronger, and sweeter for surviving such a tragedy. She loved him more than she ever would, and loved him as much as she ever did. Her love was fierce and abiding and deep enough to cushion even the deepest blow. Such a blow it was—but she had weathered it. They both had. For her son, and the many more sons and daughters to come. They were a family, and Alex would always be her husband.

  “Where are our menfolk?” she said now.

  “Drayton was just finishing changing out of his uniform,” Emma said, “He should be right down. I’m not sure where Mr. Hamilton—”

  “I’m here!” Alex’s voice came down the stairs just then.

  “We’re both here.” Drayton’s voice came from behind and below them. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Mrs. Hamilton.”

  Eliza turned and bent over the porch’s balustrade to see Drayton emerging from the door to the kitchen located beneath the steps. He had shed his footman’s uniform for a handsome suit that Eliza had insisted on giving him once his engagement to Emma was official. She had gone all out on it, declaring that if Drayton was going to accompany them in society, she would not have him humiliated by dressing in livery or secondhand, shabby clothes. The suit had an emerald and ruby floral motif woven across a field of midnight blue, wide collars and cuffs in pristine white silk, double-vented tails, silver buttons, and a gleaming silver-threaded arabesque dancing around the seams. The tricorne hat was trimmed with fur, and the accompanying blouse sported yards of lace at throat and wrists as white as morning fog. The breeches were snowy white, and tucked into a pair of black leather boots so shiny she could see her face in them from one flight up. The suit had been some weeks in the making, and this was Drayton’s first public outing in it. Eliza was quite pleased with the results.

  “Oh, look at you!” she said. “You’d think it was you getting married today!”

  “Mrs. Hamilton, if you please!” Emma’s face had gone bright red. “You know Drayton is sensitive about that subject.”

  Though she and Drayton had been engaged for over half a year, Drayton had insisted on delaying the marriage until he could afford to give his fiancée a proper ceremony, with a new dress for her and a new suit for him, and in Trinity Church to boot. Emma had protested she would be happy marrying in the Hamiltons’ parlor with naught but their employers for witnesses, but Drayton refused to yield. Though she was marrying a “mere footman,” as he said, he would give her the day in the sun she deserved.

  “I am rather more uncomfortable in this suit,” Drayton said, glancing up at Alex, who had appeared on the steps above him and was similarly dressed, albeit in sea green. “I must say, I do pity gentlemen who have to dress this way every day. It took me nearly an hour to strap myself in, and I am not even wearing a wig. Oh, but you look lovely, my darling,” he added, his bride coming into view as she descended the steps to street level.

  As it happened, Emma was also in a new dress today, another gift from Eliza. The dress was pale blue to Drayton’s midnight hue, but with similar embroidery, with full skirts and a modest square neckline, but fully exposed shoulders that Emma was covering with a translucent lace shawl that did more to accentuate the hollows of her collarbones than conceal them.

  “I told the tailor I wanted them to complement each other without being all matchy-matchy,” Eliza said, as Emma took her place beside her fiancé, the two of them looking the very picture of youthful beauty and vigor. “I imagined the two of you appearing in them, and I wanted everyone to know you were together. And after all the grief I put poor Emma through last summer about John, it seemed cruel to make her go to his wedding in one of my leftover dresses.”

  “Your leftovers suit me well, Mrs. Hamilton,” Emma said, pulling at the shawl around her shoulders. “This is much too fine for me.”

  “Nonsense,” Eliza said. “Between my illness last fall and baby Philip, I owe you so much more than I could ever repay. This dress barely qualifies as interest on the debt. Well, are we all here?”

  “All here now,” Rowena’s voice came from the kitchen door. She emerged in a dark brown dress with burgundy accents—a little out of style but still quite fine—she had absolutely refused a new frock from her mistress. As she locked the door with a ring of keys she dropped in her coin purse, Eliza noticed a few flecks of flour on her cook’s fingers. “I just wanted to set a few loaves to rise. We shall have fresh bread for everyone right after services.”

  “Oh, but it will only be—” Eliza began.

  “Darling, you look beautiful!” Alex’s voice sang out, and his arm slipped through hers. “Come, we must be on our way or we’ll be late to your brother’s wedding.”

  Eliza felt Emma and Drayton looking at her with questioning eyes. “Indeed,” she said, “look at the time!” though she did not pull out a watch. She started walking so abruptly that Alex was tugged after her like a distracted dog at the end of a leash.

  “Your enthusiasm will your own undoing,” Alex whispered in her ear.

  “Thankfully I have you to shut me up,” Eliza whispered back. “I would hate to spoil John and Betty’s big surprise.”

  “To think that after all of Mrs. Hamilton’s efforts to push Emma on Mr. Schuyler and Drayton on Miss Van Rensselaer, it was Mr. Schuyler and Miss Van Rensselaer and Emma and Drayton who ended up together,” Rowena sang out. “It is so funny how things work out, isn’t it?”

  “Indeed it is,” Alex said in a musing voice. Eliza felt his arm tighten a bit around hers, though she couldn’t help but wonder if he meant John and Betty, or himself and his wife.

  For it hadn’t just been the pregnancy that made the fall difficult, or the lingering effects of pneumonia. Upon their return from Mount Pleasant, after Mr. Burr withdrew the charges and the duel was called off, she had directed Alex to move into John’s room across the hall, which her brother had vac
ated for the dormitories at Columbia. Even after baby came, three months later, Alex remained there, with Philip sleeping in a crib at the foot of her bed. Their separate sleeping arrangements had continued until just three weeks ago, when they threw their first party since the baby had come.

  It was an engagement party for John and Betty, and none other than James Madison, having somehow learned of John’s or Betty’s fondness for his whiskey, had sent an entire barrel of it up from his estate in Virginia. The party had gone until three or four in the morning, and when at last the guests had been shooed home (or covered with blankets where they had passed out on couches and chairs), Alex and Eliza picked their way upstairs, leaning against each other heavily. At the top of the stairs, Alex pushed the door open to their room by habit, catching himself only after the crib came into view.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice suddenly sober. “I’ll go back to—”

  “No,” Eliza said, catching his arm. “Stay. Please.”

  She lifted her lips to his, and he took them hungrily, as a parched man to water.

  “Eliza,” he said, his voice hoarse and tears flowing down his cheeks. “I love you.”

  “I’ve never stopped loving you,” she told him, as he buried his face in her neck and took her straight to bed, where, just as promised, they were blushing bride and eager groom once more.

  * * *

  • • •

  IN THE ENSUING three weeks, it felt like a burden had been lifted from Eliza’s shoulders. She realized that she had been holding on to her anger at Alex, and even though she was entirely justified to do so, there was no benefit to it. Either she truly forgave her husband or she didn’t. If she didn’t, then there was no point in continuing the marriage. And if she did, then she must do so fully. She must remember the man she had married, and why she had married him. And to her surprise, he was right there waiting for her. He had always been waiting, and he always would. She never gave Maria Reynolds another moment’s thought.