I, Eliza Hamilton. Susan Holloway Scott
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at that age three years seems an eternity. “I cannot even recall what secrets we exchanged beneath the coverlet at night.”
“Which proves how closely we kept them.” She pulled off her black hat, cocked like a man’s, and shook the raindrops from it as she sat on the edge of the bed. “But I care more for the present than the past, Eliza. Come, and tell me of the dashing and splendid Colonel Hamilton.”
She stripped off her yellow kid gloves and straightened her gold rings, two on one hand and three on the other, another sign of her husband’s wealth. She patted the coverlet invitingly, and I happily sat beside her.
“I’ve told you most everything in my letters,” I began. I folded my hands in my lap, then consciously drew them apart. I’d forgotten how being in Angelica’s company could make me feel a bit prim, and I was determined not to do it again. “Colonel Hamilton is handsome and clever and more charming than any gentleman I’ve ever met.”
“Oh, Eliza.” She clucked her tongue with mock dismay, and tipped her head to one side, her dangling gold earring swinging lightly against her cheek. “Mamma has told me that much. I’d hoped you would share something regarding the colonel that only you would know.”
I nodded solemnly. It wasn’t that I couldn’t think of any of the special qualities that I alone saw in him—his kindness, his gentleness, his laugh, the way he’d caress my breast above my gown and how he’d kiss me until I was breathless, and a hundred other things besides. But I realized that to share these little endearments would take something from the love we shared. I now owed my allegiance to Alexander, not to my sister, and I volunteered nothing.
“That is all, Eliza?” she said, disappointed. “Is the gentleman so much a saint that he hasn’t a single quirk or foible?”
Still I kept silent, with only the April rain drumming once against the window.
“Well, then, a saint he must be,” Angelica said with resignation. “I shall be forced to judge him for myself.”
That resignation made me feel guilty, and at last I spoke.
“Kitty Livingston says he is too charming by half,” I said, “which leads him to make fast friends, but also lasting enemies.”
“That’s scarcely a flaw,” Angelica said thoughtfully, shifting her weight to sit more thoroughly on the bed. She had a way of scowling that made her appear as if she were sitting in judgment, and to see that scowl now made me uneasy for Alexander’s sake.
“I don’t believe it is, either,” I said bravely. “But Kitty said it, and she has known him longer than I.”
“Yes, but Kitty Livingston is also something of a fool,” Angelica said succinctly. “The fellow who makes no enemies usually has only boon companions in place of real friends. To have both enemies and friends proves the colonel to be a man of convictions and beliefs. He sounds quite intriguing.”
“Oh, he is, Angelica, he is!” I exclaimed with relief. “I’m certain you will like him. I’ve spoken often of you to him, and he is eager to make your acquaintance, too. If he can be spared by His Excellency, he’ll call here this evening, after we dine.”
“I’m sure we shall become fast friends,” she said, and smiled slowly, her dark eyes watching me shrewdly. “You’re mad in love with him, aren’t you, Eliza? It’s painted bold across your face.”
Her smile was so filled with affection that I realized all over again how much I’d missed her, and how glad I was to have her here now.
“I am mad in love with him,” I declared boldly, borrowing her phrase. “I don’t care if the whole of Christendom knows it, too.”
“I’m glad, because the whole of Christendom will see it at once,” she said. “I always kept your secrets, Eliza, but you never could keep one from me. Now bring on your pretty colonel, and let me decide if he is worthy of you.”
CHAPTER 7
As eager as I was for Alexander and my sister to meet, circumstances—and the dignitaries from abroad—prohibited it for several days after Angelica’s arrival. He was in demand at headquarters from the moment he rose in the morning until whenever His Excellency finally released him at night, which was late indeed.
One of Alexander’s most valuable talents was his fluency in the French language. His late mother had spoken little else to him as a child, and as a result he could not only converse with the nuance of a native Frenchman, but also compose letters and other written documents with ease. Almost sheepishly, he claimed that he’d no real separation between English and French in his thoughts, and that one language was much the same as the other to him.
To me who spoke only English and a smattering of Dutch learned from older relatives and from church, Alexander’s facility in French was a marvel, and another mark of his genius. To His Excellency, however, who likewise spoke only English, it was an imperative.
While the French ambassador had brought an interpreter with his people, wisdom dictated that each party have their own for the sake of impartiality. Alexander served as interpreter for the Americans. But the French interpreter proved more familiar with the strict English spoken in London palaces, and found our rustic version difficult to comprehend. Alexander was called upon to answer every conceivable question for the visitors, from describing the assorted rifles and muskets employed by our troops to explaining the humble fare that His Excellency was forced by necessity (and to his embarrassment as a host) to serve his exalted guests.
But Alexander was employed for a more somber occasion, too. Joining the French minister was Don Juan de Miralles, a gentleman of distinction from Spain who was likewise interested in the American cause. Alas, poor man, he was stricken with a severe biliary complaint that defied the best efforts of the surgeons to relieve, and after great suffering, he perished in his bed at the headquarters. In his last hours, Alexander was able to offer him words of comfort and sympathy in his native tongue.
When he described this sad scene to me later, I expressed my surprise that he spoke Spanish as well as French.
“It’s not often of use here in New Jersey,” he said with a cavalier shrug, as if yet one more singular accomplishment meant nothing. “When I was a boy, I took my first studies with the Sephardim children on our island, and from them I learned Spanish, and Hebrew besides. If His Excellency ever entertains an emmisary from the Levant, I’ll doubtless be called into service then, too.”
“Wasn’t there a Christian school for you to attend instead?” I asked in my innocent ignorance.
“There was,” he said evenly. “But because my parents weren’t married, I wasn’t permitted admission to the Anglican school.”
I gasped with indignation on his behalf. “How un-Christian of them! To punish a child for the sins of the father!”
“Since my father was no longer in evidence, I suspect it was more the sins of my poor mother that they wished to punish,” he said. “The Sephardim were considerably more forgiving.”
As always whenever he revealed more about himself, I listened in fascination, and pity for the outcast little boy he’d once been. It was as much about how he spoke, however, as what he said: without any shame or regret, but simply as a matter of fact. Other men would have buried such a childhood behind half-truths or not mentioned it at all, but Alexander didn’t do that. He swore that he cherished the truth, and there was no finer example of his honesty and lack of any perfidy than this. No wonder I loved him all the more for it.
While I didn’t share all of his past with Angelica (that was his to tell, not mine), my proud description of his learned accomplishments only increased her impatience to meet him. I was every bit as eager, for I longed for these two whom I loved so dearly to be as pleased with each other as any true sister and brother might be. I felt sure it must happen, with even Fate conspiring by making their names so similar: Angelica and Alexander, both beginning with the same letter and with the same number of syllables.