“You know you’ve only made it worse,” I said when he proudly showed me his letter printed in the paper. “Now people will be curious to see what has so inflamed you. You’ve likely earned Callender fifty more sales from this letter alone.”
The letter gave Callender much more than mere sales. It gave him the confidence to make even more outrageous claims. He accused Alexander not only of professional misconduct, but of infidelity to me as well. He promised that in his next round of publications he’d prove his allegations in the form of confidential letters that he’d obtained from official sources. The letters were from James Reynolds, who claimed to be Alexander’s agent in these same nefarious deeds.
And now I finally understood why Alexander had become so irritated. I didn’t believe the accusations, knowing them to be lies, but like Alexander, I hated the idea that this rogue Callender could continue to play the gadfly in the public press. Yet the more Alexander railed against Callender, the more the man’s accusations grew, so many that it became difficult to keep them straight.
A week later, Alexander stayed at his office longer than usual, having been compelled to work extra hours for a pending case. It was a hot, heavy July evening, the air so still that even breathing was uncomfortable. The children were already in bed, and I sat alone in the parlor beside the open window that overlooked our backyard, striving to ease myself as ever I could. I was regretting my decision to remain in the city until after my baby was born, and I longed for the relative cool of The Pastures.
I heard Alexander arrive in the hall below, and looked expectantly toward the stairs. As soon as he entered the bedroom, I knew from his expression that there’d been another salvo in the press. Without any greeting, he handed me the newspaper to read the latest remarks from Callender. I scanned them quickly, every sentence stinging with malice, while he stripped off his coat and waistcoat and tossed them on the back of a chair. He scarcely waited until I’d finished before he began his explanation.
“You see how it is, Betsey,” he began. “The letters Callender mentions were highly confidential, and date from 1791, six years ago. Only three men had access to them, and I’d stake my life that the one responsible for giving them to Callender is Monroe.”
“Mr. Monroe!” I exclaimed. “But why would he do this now, so long after the events?”
“Because he blames me for his recall from the pleasures of Paris,” he said, beginning to pace the parlor before me. “There were many other voices besides mine offended by his inappropriate behavior as our envoy. You must recall it, Betsey: how the man was slavering over the Jacobins as much as Jefferson himself, praising their bloodthirsty actions when he was supposed to be stressing American neutrality. It was the president’s final decision to do so, yet according to Monroe, Madison, Jefferson, and Burr, now it seems I am the one who must be punished with this outrage of lies against my honor and my name.”
“Do you know that for a fact?” I asked, incredulous. He was sufficiently angry that he’d fallen into his courtroom manner, explanation laced with recrimination, which I always found extremely difficult to combat. “That the four of them have met to conspire against you over this?”
“I have heard such a meeting took place, yes,” he said. “They all have a hand in this, and they’re quite blatant about it. But it is Madison who has betrayed me the most, colluding with a low worm of a man like Callender.”
“What is the nature of these letters that makes them so confidential?” I asked. “Or is it information to do with the government that I’ve no right to know?”
“They are—or were—confidential to me.” He paused, obviously weighing his words. “They are the work of an insidious rascal named James Reynolds, who sought to inveigle me into a speculation scheme. He claimed to have proof that I enriched myself through abusing my position in the Treasury, and attempted to extort money from me to keep quiet.”
I nodded. More lies, I thought unhappily, more lies, the heavy air made warmer still by these never-ending, hateful revelations of yet another conspiracy to tatter my husband’s good name and honor.
“As a gentleman, Monroe swore to me to keep knowledge of the letters secret,” Alexander continued, his pacing grown so heated that his shirt clung to his back in the hot room. “Instead he obviously had copies made, which he has now given to Callender for publication. For the sake of his party friends, Monroe has broken his word, and yet pretends ignorance. He is a scoundrel, and a villain.”
“Oh, Alexander.” I sighed, and rubbed my temples. I was eight months with child, and this was all more than I wished to endure. The entire situation had become exactly the morass that I’d feared it would, sucking everything in our lives into its greedy maw. “What have your friends advised?”
“They say the same as you, Betsey, that I should turn the other cheek and ignore it.” He shook his head, and I knew he’d likely shaken away that advice in exactly the same way. “They say this is a battle I will never win, and only drive myself to madness by trying to answer all the claims they make against me.”
“Then why don’t you listen to them, Alexander?” I asked. “If you stop answering their accusations, the entire affair will fade away on its own. We could take the children and go to Albany, and stay there until this little one is born next month. By then, this pack of lies and ugliness will have collapsed in upon itself, and have been forgotten.”
He stopped pacing and sighed, his head bowed.
“I wish that I were as certain that it would, my love,” he said mournfully. “This entire affair torments me relentlessly, and I’ve no idea what course would be best.”
“We can go to Albany,” I said, pleading. “We’ll stay there where it’s green and cool, away from New York.”
I could see him considering, and then slowly he shook his head.
“I must face this, Betsey,” he said. “I can’t run away. They’ve called me many things, but I won’t let them call me a coward, too.”
“My own dear husband,” I said. “You’ve always been the bravest man I’ve ever known.”
His courage, his honor, his integrity: these had always been the things that mattered most to him, and to me as well. Perhaps this had gone too far for him to back away now. Perhaps it truly was time he took a stand and defended himself.
He stopped before my chair with his arms hanging at his sides, his entire being so sadly tormented that it grieved me to see. I reached out and took his hand, linking his fingers into mine. My hands were swollen from the heat and my pregnancy, and my wedding ring with our two names was tight on my finger, yet to me it had never held more significance than it did that night.
Somewhere in the distance came a rumble of thunder.
“I’m lost, Betsey,” he said again, his voice heavy. “I don’t know any longer what is right, and what isn’t.”
“But you do know, my love,” I said softly. “You always have. Do what you believe, and it will be right.”
Finally he nodded, accepting. He didn’t tell me what he’d decided, and I didn’t ask. He was my husband, and that was enough.