I, Eliza Hamilton. Susan Holloway Scott
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several of my other friends as well as various officers from headquarters, I preferred the occasions when Alexander and I could be alone together. Aunt Gertrude had decided that he had proven himself worthy of me, and relaxed her more stringent rules. I was now permitted to sit with him unaccompanied in the front room of the Campfields’ house in the evening (though the door must be kept open), and to bid him farewell alone in the hall. When Lady Washington invited me to tea, she made sure that Alexander would be spared from his duties long enough to take a dish with me, too. I was allowed to walk with him along the narrow paths carved into the snow, and if during those walks a kiss or two was exchanged, no one took notice.
It was also during these long walks that I began to realize the extent of his restless brilliance. While we spoke of a shared future together, as every couple will, our conversations were also deeper and more philosophical than most. It was Alexander’s nature to speak more than I, and I happily listened, for he’d more ideas in a day than most mortal men have in a lifetime.
Hand in hand, he told me his plans for the country’s future, of the rare opportunities—and possible perils—that would await our land once the war was won (which even in that grim winter, he never doubted would happen). Unlike most young gentlemen I’d known who seemed obsessed only with the battles at hand, Alexander looked ahead. He thought of new ways of government and ruling and new notions of finance, schemes and contrivances so magnificent and grand and important that I listened in awe as he recounted them.
I couldn’t begin to match his knowledge, but I did ask many questions as they came to me, wanting to understand the things that interested him most, and learn new things for myself as well. In turn my eager attention pleased him, and he said that the process of explaining these things to me helped clarify them in his own head. Although we didn’t realize it then, we’d unwittingly fallen into the pattern of discussion that we’d continue for the rest of our lives together, and I dare to believe that in this way I encouraged him in his achievements.
We were also creating the kind of partnership that I’d always witnessed in my parents’ marriage. Mamma had taught me that to be a loving wife and a thorough, supportive helpmate to my husband was the surest course to contentment for any woman, while Papa for his part had always regarded my mother with unerring kindness, devotion, and respect. That I had found the same qualities in a gentleman as charming, as witty, and as handsome as Alexander was to me the rarest good fortune in the world.
It became accepted throughout the town and the camp that an understanding existed between us. Other men no longer asked me to dance at the assemblies, and the former gossip of Alexander’s rakish dalliances ceased, too, with his name now linked only to mine. As can be imagined in so small a community, this led to a great deal of good-natured jesting on the subject, and we both were accused of being love-struck and addled by Cupid’s darts.
Neither of us could deny it.
Given all this, it was no real wonder that as the days grew longer and February slipped into March, Alexander and I agreed that it was time for him to write to my father. I was already well aware of how high Alexander stood in Papa’s favor and had no doubt that he’d give his blessing to our union.
Alexander, however, had no such confidence, and labored long in composing this letter, which he rightly called the most important of his life. His uneasiness only increased when Papa didn’t reply at once, but said he first must defer to my mother. Further, he announced that he’d taken a house here in Morristown to better survey the state of the army for his reports to Congress, and also to be nearer to me.
“Your father doesn’t trust me, Eliza,” Alexander said gloomily as we sat together one evening. “Instead of granting his consent, he’s coming here to defend you against the friendless, penniless suitor who dares ask for your hand.”
“Hush,” I scolded gently. “That’s not his reasoning at all, Alexander. You know his friendship with His Excellency, and how hard he strives to present the army’s needs to Congress. It makes perfect sense for him to be here in Morristown now, as the plans are being made for the summer campaigns.”
He shook his head and restlessly tapped the hilt of his sword.
“I don’t deny that those things are part of his reasoning,” he admitted. “But you know that the general is sending me to Amboy next week to negotiate the exchange of prisoners. I could be gone a fortnight, even longer, and I hate leaving you here with so much undecided. Why hasn’t your father replied? Why is he taking so long?”
“Because he wishes to consult with my mother first,” I said. “Among Dutch families, mothers have as much say as fathers in determining their children’s marriages. He is in Philadelphia, while she remains in Albany, and you know how slowly letters travel at this time of year.”
He grumbled wordlessly like a restive dog. “I can understand why Carter persuaded your sister to elope with him, if he was forced to suffer this same misery.”
Although he hadn’t asked for more coffee, I refilled his cup from the pot beside me. I’d already learned that small attentions like this helped to calm him when he was agitated.
“I’ve told you before that it was my sister’s idea to run away, not Mr. Carter’s,” I said. “But she did so because my parents would never have approved of him as a suitor, and an elopement was their only path to happiness.”
He raised the porcelain cup to his lips, inhaling the steaming fragrance of the coffee before he sipped it. “I cannot fault your parents. Though I myself like Carter, many regard him as the worst sort of slippery English rascal.”
“He’s never seemed a rascal to me,” I said mildly. John Carter had first come to our house in 1776 as a commissioner appointed by Congress to audit the accounts of the army while my father in command of the Northern Department. Papa had liked him then, judging him to be thorough, fair, and hardworking, but he’d never considered him as a suitable addition to our family. I’d thought him pleasing enough, if a bit phlegmatic, yet Angelica had been intrigued by his clever intelligence. I’d known there was an attraction between them, but I’d been as surprised as anyone when they’d eloped, and I still silently marveled that he’d snared my fiery sister’s heart. He was dark and intense, and known as a gambler, a gentleman who took great risks. He was rumored to be profiting from the war through various business arrangements that many thought weren’t entirely honorable, and I think that the aura of wickedness and mystery about his past in England had also held a powerful allure for my sister. “And it’s not his fault that he was born in England.”
“He’s an Englishman who fled his native land after an ill-fated bankruptcy,” Alexander said. “I know his primary income comes from provisioning contracts, but I’ve heard he’s also indulging in some tidy speculation that will either make him very rich, or very much in debt, which is bound to unsettle your father. In his eyes, matters must be going from ill to worse with you choosing a pauper. Though at least I have come to my poverty honestly, and as a gentleman should.”
“Hush,” I said again, and more sternly, too, for the coffee had not helped his humor as I’d hoped. “You are not at all like Mr. Carter. My parents have found you agreeable from the moment you first appeared on their doorstep, and you have only risen in their estimation since then. I’m sure they will bless our marriage, as sure as I am of anything under Heaven. What other assurance can I offer you?”
He glanced down at the delicate cup in his hand as if seeing it for the first time, and deliberately set it on the table between us. When he looked up again, I saw the deep sorrow in his eyes that he seldom revealed to anyone but me. I saw the loneliness of that long-ago boy who’d lost his parents and his home, and the aching fear of abandonment that haunted him still.
I dropped my knitting in the basket beside me and rose swiftly from my chair. I looped my arms around his neck and bent to kiss him, determined to make him understand the depth of my feelings for him. He answered by curling his arm around my waist and drawing me forward on his knees, and kissing me with an urgency that bordered on desperation. It was all done with haste and need, not grace, with my petticoats flurrying around my ankles, my knee bumping his sword awkwardly against the