Alex and Eliza--A Love Story Page 4

  He looked around for a mirror but didn’t see one, so he squinted into a pane of the back door. He’d managed to worm his fingers under the wig without dislodging it too much, but just as he started to scratch, the door swung open and a servant’s face appeared where Alex’s reflection had been. Alex recognized him as Rodger, the general’s valet, who had attended him in his office.

  “Oh, ah, excuse me,” Alex said sheepishly, jerking his hands from his head and feeling the wig grow even more crooked.

  Rodger was perhaps thirty years old, a slim, regal man whose confident bearing suggested he was well aware how dependent his master was on him and not afraid to exploit his power. He smirked now, either at the thought of a young man asking his pardon or, more likely, at the mess that was at the top of Alex’s head. “Allow me, sir.”

  Alex was about to step out of Rodger’s way, but instead the valet reached his hands to Alex’s head and, before Alex quite knew what was happening, had deftly slipped his fingers beneath the wig and began to knead his itching scalp.

  “Oh . . . my . . . stars,” Alex said, when he could speak again. “That . . . feels . . . wonderful!”

  “It is a task I have performed for the general on occasion,” Rodger said, his fingers giving Alex’s scalp one last squeeze, then slipping out from the wig and quickly, professionally, fastening it back in place. “There you are, sir. You look like you could conquer anything now, whether it’s the British or”—he nodded his head at the room behind Alex—“a ballroom full of belles.”

  Without another word, he slipped past Alex and disappeared into the house.

  A burst of laughter from the door beyond him shook Alex from his trance and he reminded himself: There was a ball to get to. Smoothing his jacket, he squared his shoulders and marched into the party.

  The jovial roar of voices struck him as soon as he entered. There were at least thirty people in the grand hall and, judging from the sound, at least that many scattered in the pair of opulent parlors that opened off each end. About a third of their number were men, equally divided between gray-haired ancients too old to fight and young men like him in smart blue uniforms, who were on leave or perhaps stationed to the local garrison. But the bulk of the party guests were women—seated grandes dames who spread their billowing skirts around their chairs and ottomans like fountains spilling over their basins and forcing their conversation partners to stand well back. The eyes of these half-dozen femmes d’un certain âge scanned the room as if hawks in search of prey, looking for suitable mates for their daughters.

  And then there were the young ladies themselves—their waists cinched and their cleavage pushed up high and proud—who made up almost half the room’s number. Elaborate skirts cocooned each one of them in a richly colored aura, all of which set off their ghostly powdered complexions and the mountainous silver wigs perched atop their heads. Yet no amount of powder and makeup could hide the desperation in their eyes. With so many of the local boys away at war, there was almost no prey for this pack of fierce and brightly colored predators to track down and capture. Alex felt at least a dozen pairs of eyes fasten on him as he walked into the room.

  He stood up a little straighter, glad that his wig was on right.

  Perhaps the night wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

  A HALF HOUR found Alex seated in a parlor whose tall windows offered a spectacular view of the Hudson River and the lights of Albany on its far bank. Six girls stood in a fan around him, their colorful skirts arrayed like a mountain range decked out in fall foliage topped by the first dusting of winter snows. If only their names were as delicate as their faces and figures: Alas, they all seemed afflicted with strange Dutch and English names like Van der Schnitzel or Ten Broek (pronounced “break,” which is what his fingers nearly did when the girl shook his hand with a grip like a milkmaid at her chores) or Beaverbroke, which Alex had made its owner repeat three times to see if she were having him on.

  “Oh, Colonel Hamilton,” said a Miss Tambling-Goggin, or Tamblin-Gogging, he wasn’t sure which. “How utterly fascinating it is that you work with General Washington himself! It must be so exciting.”

  Alex shrugged. “I wouldn’t say it’s exciting as much as . . . dangerous,” he said, his bright blue eyes flashing. He knew how to play to this crowd.

  A collective gasp from the gaggle of girls.

  “I can’t imagine anything more frightening than a battlefield,” cooed a Miss Van Leuwenwoort, whom Alex was calling Liverwurst in his head. “The roar of the cannon and the smell of smoke and the cries of men in mortal ecstasy!” (Alex didn’t mean Liverwurst as an insult, by the way; it was one of his favorite foods, and he hadn’t had any in ages.)

  In fact, while Alex had been in battle, he mostly served away from the front lines. Though the general always risked life and limb with his men, he often left his less-experienced aides-de-camp behind, a fact that made Alex feel like he was shirking his duty. But that wasn’t his fault, and the image of his taking notes while fellow soldiers dodged musket fire and cannon balls or rushed toward the enemy with drawn swords wasn’t going to loosen any of these ladies’ bodices.

  “Ah yes, mortal ecstasy,” he said, looking into the middle distance as if recalling unsayable scenes of carnage. “It can indeed overpower the senses.”

  “As does the rich odor of India ink filling the nostrils with its terrible intimations of sealing wax and postage stamps!”

  Alex looked up just as a new wig appeared among the peaks, looming like an iceberg emerging from an ocean fog. It crowned a long, magnificently sculptured face that would have been almost too severe but for the exuberance of a set of full, richly rouged lips, which were set in a smirk of private amusement.

  “It is indeed a rich, ah . . . what?” he asked.

  “Oh, one can imagine the terrible pain of a hand cramping after measureless hours curled around the barbarous scimitar of a raptor’s quill!”

  Alex turned to see a second new face, her glorious emerald eyes set off by a sea-foam gown. This beauty was without a wig, though the dark locks had been piled nearly as high as any of the other girls’ pompadours. Her face was softer than that of the India ink jokester, yet there was a familial resemblance. He began to get a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, as sweat beaded beneath his own laughable wig.

  He managed a weak chuckle. “Ladies, you have caught me. I do indeed spend many hours serving as General Washington’s amanuensis, assisting him in his communications with—”

  “Amanuensis!” a third feminine voice cut him off. He turned to see—

  The girl from the stairs, dressed in a simple gown unamplified by hoops. As his eyes darted between the three girls, he realized he’d been ambushed by none other than the beautiful and clever Schuyler sisters.

  An image of Fort Ticonderoga, besieged on all sides, sprang to his mind.

  The ladies who made up his breathless entourage of powdered hair and high heels glanced at one another peevishly before petulantly making room for the three newcomers. It wasn’t just that this was the Schuylers’ house, Alex thought. These three were clearly used to commanding any room they entered.

  “Amanuensis is such an impressive-sounding word,” said the one he’d bumped into by the stairs. She stood in the middle of her siblings, glowing with good health, a little shorter than the one, a little taller than the other, and yet more vibrant than either, despite the plainness of her gown. “It must refer to some tremendously important position, like a bombardier or a charioteer.”

  A blush crept over Alex’s cheeks. “There are no charioteers in the Continental army, Miss, ah, Schuyler, I presume?”

  “He is correct, Eliza, the position is not as lofty as one might assume,” said the first sister, the one with the sculptural face. “It is, of course, outside of the domestic purview of provincial females such as ourselves, but I do think what the word amanuensis describes
is a position more akin to a . . . scrivener?”

  “What’s that you say, Ange?” the other sister said. “Scribbler?”

  “Scribbler is a good word, Peg,” the second sister—Eliza—answered. “And yet scribbler is a name often applied to novelists, who, after all, are the authors of the words they scratch onto the page. Whereas, an amanuensis is more of a copyist, don’t you think, Angelica?”

  “Indeed,” the tallest sister answered. “It is a position rather akin to a ventriloquist’s mannequin, who simply mouths the words of his master.”

  “There’s another word for mannequin, isn’t there?” Peggy asked. “Dolt or dummkopf or . . .”

  “Dummy,” Eliza filled in, looking directly at Alex. “I think that’s the word you’re looking for.”

  It was a rout, and revenge against what she had heard at the back landing. They were angry and defending their father from this court-martial, and they were out to shoot the messenger.

  Alex looked up at the three faces arranged determinedly before him: elegant Angelica on the left; pretty Peggy on the right; and in the middle, the most bewitching of the three, seeming to combine the best features of both sisters and yet not resembling either of them. Angelica and Peggy were both lovely girls, but their beauty emanated from their visages. Eliza was certainly lovely as well, yet her distinction, her captivating quality, came from within rather than without.

  He had eyes only for Eliza as he pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket and waved it in the air. “I surrender,” he said weakly. “Do with me what you will.”

  Eliza stared back at him for a long moment, a triumphant smile flickering at the edge of her lips. Then she reached out and, as if she were plucking a flower, pulled the handkerchief from Alex’s hand. Examining it as though she’d never before seen a man’s lace-edged, pocket handkerchief, she tucked it into her cleavage.

  “He’s all yours, ladies,” she said to the Misses Ten Broek, Van der Schnitzel, Beaverbroke, Tamblin-Gogging, and Van Leuwenwoort. She turned her back on him, her voice dripping with contempt, “Do with him what you will.”

  6

  Lovers’ Reel

  Schuyler Ballroom

  Albany, New York

  November 1777

  At length the victuals had been consumed, another round of cider and whiskey quaffed, the chitchat dispensed with. A small army of footmen and stable boys suddenly appeared from the door beneath the stairs and in a manner of minutes had cleared the great hall of all its furniture. As the last sideboard was carted out the musicians, who had been playing quietly in the Red Room, took their place at the foot of the ballroom—a trio consisting of violin, viola, and cello. While the players were taking their places, the guests lined up on either side of the long gallery, and then Mrs. Schuyler separated herself from the crowd and stepped out into the center of the room.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said with the air of a born master of ceremony, “it is time to dance.”

  A smatter of applause. Mrs. Schuyler waited for it to die down.

  “In this time of war,” she said, “it is more important than ever that we not lose sight of the traditions that bind us together as a nation, and the pleasures that we fight for as people. Hence this small party, which my husband and I throw in honor of the many brave men who fight for our new nation, and the stalwart young women who assist them on the home front.”

  As Mrs. Schuyler spoke, Eliza was busy retrieving her dance card from the credenza in the southwest parlor. Normally a girl carried her card with her, but on this occasion her mother had revived an old tradition of the female guests leaving their cards on a table, so that any gentleman could pencil himself in without fear of rejection. Eliza knew Mrs. Schuyler did this less out of a love of tradition but rather to make it impossible for her three headstrong daughters to turn down someone their mother thought would make a fine catch.

  “As a mother,” Mrs. Schuyler continued, “I am quite honestly relieved that my sons John and Philip are too young to go to battle, but I am also equally proud of the remarkable contributions to the war effort made by my three eldest daughters.”

  “Hear, hear!” The murmur of her guests’ approval interrupted her. But not for long.

  “Angelica, Eliza, Peggy—would you please join me?”

  Just as Mrs. Schuyler called her name, Eliza spotted her card and snatched it up without reading any of the names written on it. She hurried into the ballroom where the crowd was dutifully applauding the famed Schuyler girls, and skipped out into the open space near her two sisters. As she took her place between Angelica, resplendent in her amber gown, and Peggy, dazzling in sea-foam green, she felt a small pang of regret for not deigning to wear the burgundy gown. Between two such fierce beauties, she felt a little like a servant girl, and only her sisters’ hands in hers kept her from cringing into the shadows.

  When the applause died down, the sisters began to move back to the sidelines.

  “Peggy,” Mrs. Schuyler called, “would you wait a moment.”

  Peggy pretended to gasp and look surprised, but it was clear she knew what was happening.

  “Angelica and Eliza have both made their official appearances before,” Mrs. Schuyler said to the crowd, “but as this is Peggy’s first ball as a young woman, I am forgoing my right to have the first dance to give it to my daughter. It is not quite a coming-out ball, for such a celebration would be untoward in times of war. Nevertheless we can at least let her have her turn in the lights. Peggy, pray tell us the name of the gentleman who has the honor of sharing your first dance.”

  Peggy eagerly pulled her card from her reticule, a beaming smile on her face. Her smile flickered as she looked at the name at the top of the page.

  “Ste-Stephen,” she stuttered, “Stephen Van Rensselaer.”

  A great roar of applause went up, even as Eliza found Angela’s and Peggy’s eyes and shared in their shock. Stephen Van Rensselaer III was the eldest son of Stephen the second. The Van Rensselaers were distant cousins on Mrs. Schuyler’s side and the wealthiest family in northern New York State. In every way, Stephen III was the most eligible bachelor north of Albany—every way but one, that is.

  A tall, thin boy in an exquisitely cut suit of midnight-blue overcoat and dove-gray breeches detached himself from the crowd. Despite his height, however, and the color of his coat, he was no soldier, for one simple reason: He was barely into his teens.

  The eighth patroon of the largest estate in all of New York was all of fourteen years old.

  Eliza felt a hand on hers and turned to see Angelica.

  “I sense Mama’s handiwork here,” her older sister said, even as the band struck the first notes and Peggy and Stephen took their places at the end of the room.

  Stephen’s face was fine enough and might one day be handsome, but at the moment he looked like a stick doll in a suit. And Stephen had always been quiet and fumbling for words. A curious sort of fellow with a fondness for birding, he had earned himself the reputation of a loner.

  “Stephen is at least four years younger than Peggy!” Eliza said indignantly. Their families had sat across from each other at the Dutch Reformist Church for years as the children grew up.

  “Four? I think it is more like five. Isn’t he only a year older than Johnny?” sniffed Angelica.

  Eliza nodded, thinking it was a bit strange indeed, watching the gawky young man dance with the belle of the ball in front of a cheering—or was it jeering?—crowd.

  “It doesn’t matter, does it? He is the richest single male in our circle, and we are the three marriageable daughters of a family fallen on hard times,” said Angelica. “Oh dear,” she gasped, as Peggy and Stephen danced past them down the line, a strained grace on her sister’s face, a look of dogged terror on Stephen’s. “She is leading him. She. Is. Leading. Him,” she hissed.

  “Let’s hope the engagement is a long
one,” Eliza said with a sad laugh. She pulled out her own card to see whom her mother had arranged for her to dance with first, and soon she was as aggrieved as her sister. A small gasp escaped her lips. “It can’t be!”

  “What?” Angelica asked. “Who is it?”

  “Major André!”

  “John André? That is insane, even by Mama’s standards!”

  Major John André was a British loyalist, born in London to wealthy French Huguenot parents, whose ancestors, like so many Americans, had fled religious persecution in France. Before the revolution began, he and General Schuyler had served in the British army together, and André had been a favorite of their father’s. Indeed, he was said to charm everyone he met, with his easy conversation in English and French and his ability to dash off the most remarkable likenesses in pen and ink, and above all, with his guileless brown eyes and open, honest expression set in a broad, handsome face.

  But when the Colonies declared independence he had chosen to fight for the country that had taken in his own family when they had fled France. Such was General Schuyler’s honor and fond memories of serving with André that he said he could not condemn the major’s decision, and even went so far as to declare that he would be “most aggrieved” if circumstances forced him to shoot the dashing young officer. But that still didn’t explain what he was doing on Eliza’s dance card.

  “How is he even here? Why is Papa not arresting him? Or—or shooting him?” asked Eliza.