“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.
Yet when at last they came together in the same place, it wasn’t in our house, and it wasn’t nearly as fortuitous as I’d hoped. Instead this fateful meeting occurred outside the chamber shared by His Excellency and Lady Washington, and where that good lady received her friends and acquaintances. Since I’d arrived in Morristown, I’d been honored to become a regular visitor. Each week, I joined my mother, my aunt, and Lady Washington as we sat with our handwork and conversed genteelly, pretending we were still in our own neat drawing rooms in our various homes and not in a military encampment.
It was my mother’s idea to include Angelica, so she, too, might pay her respects to His Excellency’s wife. Now my sister was not given overmuch to needlework, but she did wish to be presented to Lady Washington as the first lady of our young country. Angelica was also vastly amused at the notion of visiting headquarters, where the men so outnumbered us women, though she was also wise enough not to voice it to our mother. I was myself always conscious of that fact, and took extra care with the neatness of my dress because of it whenever I visited Mrs. Ford’s house.
There was no mistaking my sister’s love of an admiring male audience as she swept through the front yard to the house in her bright red habit. Angelica had countless ways to draw the male eye, small gestures and mannerisms that made her impossible to ignore, exactly as she wished. I couldn’t begin to emulate her, nor, really, did I desire that kind of attention, but it was a wonder to watch her effect on most every soldier and officer we passed.
“How cheerful everyone is, Eliza,” she said to me as we sat waiting on the bench outside Lady Washington’s chamber. “From your letters, I thought all I’d see were long faces and grim miens, but everyone here is exceptionally agreeable.”
“Hush, Angelica, not so loud,” Mamma said mildly, not truly scolding. “Recall how I cautioned you to be discreet. In these close quarters, everything you say here may be heard, and repeated.”
Angelica smiled, unperturbed, as she smoothed the leather of her gloves. “I only said that everyone was exceptionally agreeable, and where’s the harm in that?”
“There isn’t any,” I said, daring to agree with my sister over our mother. “Not at all.”
Mamma only sighed and shook her head with the resignation of mothers with grown daughters. But I didn’t care, for I was more occupied in glancing about at the usual crowd of officers, visitors, waiters, and servants that crowded the upper hall, hunting for Alexander. Word spread quickly through the house whenever I called on Lady Washington, and if Alexander could be spared from his duties, he’d appear as surely as if I’d summoned him myself.
Today was no exception. As soon as I saw his familiar golden-red hair (glossy with pomade and clubbed with a black bow, but not powdered) appear over the edge of the landing as he bounded up the stairs, I smiled, and I was smiling still as he hurried toward us. He was looking exceptionally handsome today, dressed in the new uniform he’d recently had made. His Excellency liked his Family to be as spruce in their attire as he was himself, and he’d grown so unhappy with the motley state of his aides’ uniforms after the winter that he’d had a tailor brought to the camp from Philadelphia for a general refurbishing. Now Alexander stood resplendent in a new blue and buff coat with double gilt buttons and epaulets, fresh breeches and waistcoat of cream-colored corded dimity, and the light green sash of an aide-de-camp. He cut the very figure, and I could tell from the way that my sister drew back her own shoulders beside me that she’d taken notice, too.
“Mrs. Schuyler, your servant, madam,” Alexander said as he bowed dutifully before my mother, always taking care to address her first.
He turned next to me, his eyes instantly so full of love that I felt it as surely as if he’d embraced me outright.
“Miss Elizabeth, my own,” he said softly, taking my hand and lightly pressing my fingers. That was all he said, and all he needed to say. There was nothing sweeter to my ears than my name on his lips, and I loved that he wasn’t embarrassed by showing affection to me here at headquarters the way many men would have been.
“We’re here to call upon Lady Washington,” I said, my own voice turning breathless as it did whenever he was near, even whilst delivering this most mundane explanation. I was so rapt in the simple pleasure of his nearness that I nearly forgot my sister’s presence beside me, and would have, too, if she hadn’t shifted pointedly beside me as a reminder.
“Colonel Hamilton, may I present my sister, Mrs. John Carter?” I said. “Angelica, Colonel Hamilton.”
My sister held her hand up to him, and reluctantly he abandoned mine to take hers. But before he spoke, she addressed him first, and to my enormous surprise, she did so in French.
“Enfin, enfin, le fameux colonel Hamilton!” she said, her chin raised at the perfect beguiling angle. “Je vous ai tellement entendu parler des lettres de ma soeur, que j’ai l’impression de vous conna?tre déjà.”
He frowned, yet he answered her in kind, without the slightest hesitation.