*
Several days later, I was sitting in the backyard, half-listening to my two youngest boys squabbled over a ball. The day was already warm, but at least out of doors there was a shimmer of a breeze coming from the harbor.
The back door to the hall stood open, a clear passage through the house, and I heard frantic rapping on the front door. I frowned, wondering who could be so desperate at this hour, and as soon as the servant opened the door, my sister flew inside, demanding to see me.
“I’m here, Angelica,” I called, and she ran toward me.
“Where is Hamilton?” she demanded, breathless and agitated. “When did you see him last?”
“When he left for his office after breakfast.” Her wild manner had upset my boys, and I rose and put my arms around their shoulders to give them a reassuring pat. “Here, you two, go find Johanna in the house, and leave me with your aunt.”
John trotted dutifully inside, but James, being older, hung back. “Is there something wrong with Papa?”
“No, dear, not at all,” Angelica said with forced cheerfulness. “Go on now, so I might speak with your mamma.”
Reluctantly he left, and as soon as he disappeared inside Angelica seized my arm.
“This morning John told me that he might not be back home to dine,” she said, “that he’d an appointment to keep in Hamilton’s company. I gave it no further thought, until I found a crumpled note from Hamilton that John had left on his washstand, asking him to accompany him to the interview at Mr. Monroe’s lodgings at ten.”
“An interview?” I repeated, my own dread growing by the instant. The only time that gentlemen spoke of interviews was when they were planning a duel. Of course, he would have asked Mr. Church, experienced in dueling, to be his second. Mr. Church’s dueling pistols were infamous, London-made works of the gunsmith’s art with long barrels and hair triggers, pistols that had already shot several men. The child in my womb quaked with fear, and I pressed my hand over my belly to calm it. “Oh, Angelica, he couldn’t mean to do that!”
“The case with John’s pistols was gone from top of the tall chest, where he keeps them safe from the children,” my sister said. “We must stop them, Eliza.”
“If they met at ten, it’s already too late.” My knees gave way beneath me and I sank back into my chair and buried my face in my hands. I remembered the last conversation Alexander and I had had about Mr. Monroe. Had I unwittingly advised him to fight a duel? Was he even now lying wounded, or worse?
What had he done? What had I done?
I heard the door open again, and Alexander’s voice. I looked up as relief swept over me. He was with Mr. Church, and he wasn’t wounded and he wasn’t dead, but it was clear that his mood was dark indeed.
“Thank God, you’re unharmed!” Angelica cried, hurrying to the two men as I was still too overcome to do.
“Of course we’re unharmed, my dear,” Mr. Church said. “Hamilton asked me here for a glass of brandy, and I accepted.”
All I saw was my husband. “You went to challenge Mr. Monroe, didn’t you?” I asked unsteadily. “That’s where you went this morning, wasn’t it?”
“Nothing came of it,” he said, his voice still taut with anger. “There was no need for you to worry.”
Mr. Church waved a single hand dismissively through the air, as if that alone were enough to banish the tension among us.
“Words were exchanged, grievances acknowledged, moderation prevailed, and the peace was preserved,” he said, purposefully bland. “There’s nothing left to discuss.”
So they had gone there prepared for a duel, which hadn’t happened. My heart was still beating too painfully fast from what could have happened for me to be relieved.
I turned back to my husband. “Alexander?”
“It’s done,” he said. “We shall speak of it no further.”
He kept his word, and we never did.
*
Whatever had occurred—and what hadn’t—between my husband and Mr. Monroe was enough to inspire Alexander to make an important decision. He would cease the back-and-forth sniping in the press with James Callender. Instead, he would tell the entire story of these infamous letters himself, in a pamphlet that he would write and publish at his own expense. He vowed that he would omit nothing, and therefore leave nothing for Callender or Mr. Monroe or anyone else to misconstrue or misinterpret in the future. Honesty and truth, always among my husband’s most sterling qualities, would finally put an end to this entire wretched conspiracy against him.
Two days later, Alexander left before dawn for Philadelphia to tend to some older business connected with the bank. Although I was always sorry to see him leave, I was to a certain extent relieved. President Adams was once again in Massachusetts, Congress was not in session, and Mr. Monroe was safely away from Philadelphia and visiting his wife’s family here in New York. There was no one left in the capital to vex my husband, and I prayed that a week buried in the ledgers and records of the bank would help clear his head. While he was away, he was also determined to write his pamphlet. I applauded his resolve, and wished him well.
While he was away, I read the latest reply from James Callender in response to the last letter from my husband. Since Callender’s work was first published in a Philadelphia newspaper, The Merchants’ Daily Advertiser. I’m sure Alexander took note of this specimen of Democratic-Republican rubbish before I, though his letters to me made no mention of it. He would, however, have been properly gratified to have witnessed my indignant response, and the disdain with which I removed the newspaper from our home and deposited it with Mr. Church, who’d expressed a desire to read it as well.
It was particularly infuriating to me to think how this whole sorry spectacle, calculated and contrived by a cabal of Democratic-Republican scoundrels to discredit my beloved husband, must also have amused and entertained most of our fellow citizens during this long summer. According to Angelica, it had sadly become the favorite topic of gossip at her parties, no matter how much she tried to dispel it.
It was all the more reason for Alexander’s pamphlet. By telling his side of the tale, he was convinced that he could rely on the wise eye of the public to see truth from lies—a most noble belief held by an equally noble man.
Yet to my disgust, it was exactly that belief that Callender chose to skewer in his own pathetic attempt at a closing argument:
Because it is your intention, shortly to place the matter more precisely before the public. You are right, for the public have at present some unlucky doubts. They have long known you as an eminent and able statesman. They will be highly gratified by seeing you exhibited in the novel character of a lover.
As angry as I was to read this, I believed, as did my husband, that soon the shining truth would prove to the rest of the world who truly had sinned, and who had been sinned against.
And soon, very soon, it did exactly that.