“I do know,” I said, blowing my nose yet again. “But he was our first. I still recall him as a tiny, helpless infant, born so soon after Yorktown.”
“And now he’s an independent young fellow, eager to begin his life without us trailing after him,” he said softly. “At his age I’d all the responsibilities of a grown man, but this seems to have happened in the blink of an eye.”
I placed my hand over his, thinking exactly the same. While I’d been tending to James in Albany, Alexander himself had been unwell, though he hadn’t confessed it to me because he hadn’t wanted me to worry. I was worrying now, however. He’d an old ailment of the kidneys, born from his days sleeping out of doors in the cold as a soldier, that often plagued him in the fall. It wasn’t so bad that he’d paused in his work; instead in fact he’d lately burdened himself further, to the point that I wondered if at last he’d accepted more responsibilities than he could reasonably answer.
Although he still stood straight as a ramrod, lean and handsome and younger in appearance then most men his age, I also thought he seemed more preoccupied, more closeted away in his own thoughts. In the past, he’d always shared his worries with me, but now I felt there were things he was holding back, things he wasn’t confiding as he once would have done, and it saddened me.
Thus one year ended, and another began. I’d always liked the New Year. When I’d been a girl, there had been a large party at The Pastures and all of us children had been permitted to stay downstairs until midnight. Then, as the tall clock in the parlor chimed twelve times, we had all trooped outside, where Papa and the other men at the party had shouted and fired their guns to chase away the old year and salute the new one. It had been wildly exciting, hopping up and down to keep warm on a cold, star-filled night as the gunshots had rung out over the snowy fields.
Although this year we weren’t in Albany for the holiday season, I still clung to that notion of the new year bringing a new beginning. Yet although Alexander and I celebrated in Philadelphia with our family and friends and drank merry toasts to President Washington to welcome in 1792, the new year soon shed any semblance of hope or good cheer.
In fact, just as I look back and recall the first two years of President Washington’s first term as a time of optimism and accomplishment, of great things said and achieved for the betterment of our country, I remember the last two years of that same term as a dreary muddle of recrimination, backbiting, and public name-calling.
And despite how I wished it were otherwise, my husband was in the very thick of it.
This is not to say that he and his department did not continue to be the most productive member of the entire government. The measures that he’d set in motion in the first two years—from the cutters that now guarded our coasts, to the new coinage, to the system of a national bank—all had proved so successful that the country as a whole was running more efficiently and more prosperously than anyone had expected. Alexander continued to implement and refine what he’d already created as well as expand his interests to include the development of textile mills in New Jersey and other manufactories with the hope of one day rivaling England.
But the rivalry between Alexander and Mr. Jefferson had sunk to bitter hatred. It was not simply that they disagreed on nearly everything, which they did. It was that each had come to believe the other stood for ideas and theories that would destroy the country. As a Federalist, Alexander could not tolerate anything that Mr. Jefferson, a Democratic-Republican, stood for. Each judged the other to be a dangerous zealot, aspiring to seize control of the country. Each believed the other already had too much power, and too many followers who accepted and trusted the false doctrine. And each believed the other influenced the president to an excessive degree.
Nor were their quarrels confined to the offices of state. Far from it. To hear Alexander tell it, Mr. Jefferson dared to begin his scathing attacks against Alexander even when they were in cabinet sessions led by President Washington. I was appalled to learn that matters became so ill-humored between them that the president himself had been forced to order them to stop their argument, as if they were a pair of squabbling children instead of two grown, intelligent men holding distinguished government positions.
“To force the president to intervene between you two is dreadful, Alexander,” I said, thoroughly shocked when he told me of their latest confrontation one evening as we sat together in the parlor. “You should at least show him the respect due to him as your former general. There was a time when you would have quaked if he’d so much as glanced at you with disapproval, and now you openly defy his wishes in his presence.”
“It’s not my doing, Betsey,” he said, surprised and a bit wounded that I hadn’t taken his side. “If Jefferson weren’t so determined to utter his nonsense without provocation, then I wouldn’t need to defend myself.”
“There shouldn’t be any need for either provoking or defending,” I said, feeling as if I truly were addressing four-year-old James instead of my husband. “Not in a cabinet meeting. Even if Mr. Jefferson says something untoward, can’t you ignore him, and concentrate on the general discussion instead?”
He sighed, as much as saying that I didn’t understand, and looked back down at the book he’d been reading.
Perhaps I should have let him have his peace, and not persisted. But each time I saw President Washington in company, I was startled by how much he’d aged in these past two years. Gone was the towering, intimidating commander I remembered from Morristown. He was sixty now, but appeared far older, and visibly frail. Whilst in office, he had suffered several serious illnesses that would likely have killed a weaker man. His face was pale and blotchy and his eyes sunken and guarded, and the false teeth that we all knew he wore forced him to perpetually clench his jaw to keep them in place. Lady Washington had told me that all her husband wished to do was retire to Mount Vernon and never give another thought to politics, and whenever I heard Alexander describe these pugnacious cabinet meetings, I understood why.
I put aside my handwork, and came to sit close beside my husband.
“Please listen to me, my dearest,” I said softly, touching his cheek to distract him from his book. “I know it’s your nature to defend yourself and your honor, but you will be the greater gentleman if you can even once take no notice of Mr. Jefferson’s barbs. I’m sure the president will be most grateful if you do.”
He glanced up at me, and sighed heavily.
“For me, then,” I said, playing my last card. “For my peace, and for the sake our next child.”
Shamelessly I placed my hand on the small swell of my belly. To our great delight, I was finally with child again, and I didn’t doubt that all the antagonism toward Mr. Jefferson that Alexander brought with him could well have ill effects on the baby.