One evening in late June, shortly before I was to leave for The Pastures, we’d one last gathering of our closest friends. As one of the ladies played for us, a maidservant came to where Alexander and I were sitting, and whispered that a woman had asked for Colonel Hamilton, and was even now waiting in the front hall. Because she’d offered no card, I was skeptical, thinking her to be some manner of trades-woman. When the maid continued, however, saying the woman was weeping and in distress, my reserve melted, and I thought only of going to assist the poor creature. But as I rose, my dear husband, ever thoughtful, said that I shouldn’t trouble myself, but instead remain with our guests. Since the woman had requested him by name, he would see her, and return as quickly as he could.
He left, and was gone perhaps a quarter of an hour. Later, after our guests had departed, he told me the woman’s sad history.
“The poor woman was beside herself,” he said. “Her husband has abandoned her for another, and left her quite destitute and friendless here in Philadelphia.”
“How dreadful!” I said, commiserating. “How wicked and thoughtless a man he must be!”
“Indeed,” said Alexander. “What manner of man would treat his wife so? Being originally from New York herself, she appealed to me in desperation, and quite threw herself upon my charity with the hope that I might assist her return to that city, and her friends there.”
“I trust that you offered to arrange passage for her.” Because my husband was known for his charity, he was often approached like this, but as a lawyer, he was also wise enough to separate those in true need from others who wished only his money. “She shouldn’t be forced to linger here any longer than is necessary.”
“I did make that offer, yes,” he said. “We agreed to meet again once she had consulted her friends.”
“Then you did your best to relieve her suffering,” I said with approval. “What a pitiful story! I hope that this is not the last we hear of her. A city like Philadelphia can be a dangerous place for a desperate woman.”
“She’s a pretty young thing, too,” he said. “I advised her to take care and to trust no one, from fear she’ll come to harm. Her name was Mrs. Reynolds, in the event she should ever call here again while I am out.”
I nodded. At the time, I took no notice of the fact that Mrs. Reynolds being a young, pretty woman in distress might have increased Alexander’s desire to assist her. I’d seen it before, and I’d likely see it again, for his gallantry where women were concerned hadn’t diminished over time. I’d always found his gallantry endearing, for as his wife, I received the lion’s share of it myself. I was proud of how my husband still treated me as an ardent lover would, and I couldn’t think of another woman of my age and acquaintance who could say the same.
Soon afterwards I left by coach with my brood of five children. Alexander rode with us as far as Elizabethtown, bidding us the most sorrowful of farewells from there. Yet the carefree sojourn that I’d expected to find in Albany was not to be. Our youngest son, little James, began to feel unwell just beyond New York City, and by the time we reached The Pastures, he was feverish and dull-eyed and listless, lying curled against me on the seat of the coach.
We sent at once for Dr. Stringer, our family’s physician in Albany, with my fear rising by the moment for my little one’s life. I recalled all too well the tragedy that had struck my sister Peggy’s family. But to my relief, Dr. Stringer immediately eliminated both yellow and scarlet fevers as the cause of the indisposition, but beyond that he could not determine the exact nature of the fever.
I worried that the other children would become ill, too, with all of us having traveled together in close company, and poor little James was isolated in my room with only me to tend him. I carefully followed all of Dr. Stringer’s remedies, from keeping James snug in a flannel waistcoat and dosing him regularly with barley water and rhubarb elixir, yet still he did not improve.
Of course, I’d written to Alexander immediately to let him know of James’s illness, and he’d written directly, his fear for our son as desperate as my own. Of all our children, James was the only one to favor Alexander’s coloring, with the same rosy cheeks, blue-green eyes, and red-gold curls, and perhaps because of that he’d a special place in my husband’s heart.
If he’d not been so embroiled in the business of the new bank, I’m sure my husband would have come to James’s bedside himself. As it was, he wrote every day begging for fresh news of his darling boy. As a young man, he’d considered for a time studying medicine, and still from interest read widely in medical journals. From these, he’d several suggestions for treating the fever that I shared with Dr. Stringer, and when James failed to improve, we did turn to Jesuits’ bark, as Alexander had recommended.
Still my little one grew no better, though likewise he grew no worse, but as his mother I would have traded my own health to have his restored. I sat with him by the hour, bathing his small body with cool water and singing softly to quiet his restlessness. He was constantly in my prayers, and I worried guiltily that by longing for another baby, I’d somehow caused my little James’s illness.
Finally, in late August, the fever began to subside, and my poor little boy began to be more himself. His illness had taken much from me, however, and when Alexander urged me to remain with my parents longer than I’d originally planned, I reluctantly agreed, lingering in Albany until the first week of September.
Besides, Alexander had another surprise waiting for me. He’d decided we required a larger house, and had found another, grander home for us in the same neighborhood in which we lived now. While we were away, he was having all the rooms painted, and further, having a stable sufficiently large for a carriage and six horses built on the property. I supposed he judged us now grand enough to keep a carriage, though given our finances, I did wonder how it was possible.
In addition, in November we took our son Philip, now ten, to board and study with the Reverend William Frazer, the Episcopal rector of St. Michael’s Church in Trenton, in New Jersey. Reverend Frazer had an excellent reputation for preparing young gentlemen for admission to college, and from the beginning he and Philip had a mutual regard conducive to our son’s swift progress. We left him with a sizable stock of books and sheaves of paper for compositions, a sufficiency of new clothes (he outgrew things so quickly!), and a basket filled with the small lemon cakes that I knew he’d always loved so well—everything he’d need to prosper in his studies.
All this I knew, and applauded. Yet as Alexander and I said our final farewells to Philip in the small rectory parlor, I still couldn’t keep from reaching to smooth our son’s errant dark curls, and smooth his collar, and then draw him close to hold one more, one last time. He stood stiff and awkward in my embrace, wanting to be manly, and yet at the very last he’d flung his arms around me and hugged me tight with the same fierce abandon he always had.
“I cannot believe we’ve left our boy behind, Alexander,” I said, still twisting to look back at the rectory as our carriage drove away. “My own sweet Philip!”
“We haven’t left him, Betsey,” said Alexander, his own voice tinged with melancholy, too. “He’s left us. It’s the way of the world, you know.”