“If he didn’t when we parted, he does now,” he said. “Soon afterwards he sent Tilghman to follow me and ask me to return to his office to discuss the matter further.”
“What did His Excellency say?” I asked, dreading his inevitable reply. Oh, there were times when I wished I did not know my husband so well!
“He said nothing, for I did not go to him,” Alexander said. “Through Tilghman, I said that I’d made my resolution in a manner not to be revoked. I told him that while I certainly wouldn’t refuse the interview if he desired it, I believed the conversation would only produce explanations that neither of us would find agreeable.”
“Oh, Alexander,” I said again, sadly, and this time unable to keep back my dismay. “He wished for a reconciliation, yet you refused?”
“I did,” he said. “I said I would much prefer to decline the conversation, and he respected my desire.”
I sat back and sighed heavily. “What shall come next for us? You haven’t another post, have you?”
“Not yet, no,” he admitted. “But now that I have resigned, I’m sure something shall be made available to me. A position or a post where I can make a genuine contribution beyond mere scribbling.”
It sounded uncomfortably as if he were convincing himself as much as me; he’d been desirous of a field post as long as we’d known each other.
“I suppose we can no longer remain in these lodgings,” I said with regret. The little house had many flaws, but for these last weeks, it had been ours. “I will have Rose begin packing at once. I suppose we can return to Albany.”
“Nothing will happen immediately,” he said. “I have resigned, yes, but His Excellency still has not accepted it. I will also continue my duties until another aide-de-camp fluent in French can be found as my replacement. The general may not respect me as I wish, but I respect the requirements of his office and the nation too much to make an abrupt departure.”
It seemed abrupt to me. “I want you to be happy, Alexander,” I said. “But I rather wish your decision had not come from a sudden disagreement with His Excellency.”
“But it didn’t,” he said. “This has been simmering for months now. The strong words today were but a catalyst. I was entirely respectful, Betsey. I promise you that. I didn’t once raise my own voice, or let rash anger get the better of me, as it did the general.”
“You must write to my father at once,” I urged. “He deserves to learn of this breach with His Excellency first from you instead of someone else.”
I knew Papa would not be pleased by this news. Although he had come to regard Alexander as another son, he’d been friends with His Excellency far longer, and I suspected together they would agree that my husband had behaved rashly and impetuously. I only hoped Papa would forgive him, and not fault him to the point of an open rift.
“I will,” Alexander said. “But the first, the very first, I told was you. There can never be anything but perfect honesty between us. That is why I wish you to know that I’ve conducted this affair in the most honorable and just way possible.”
I nodded, but said nothing more, at a loss. I treasured his honesty nearly as much as his love, but the truth as I saw it was that he should have accepted His Excellency’s offer of reconciliation.
“You’re worried,” he said gently, turning his hand to link his fingers into mine. “I can see it in your eyes. But this break was long overdue. I expect I’ll receive only congratulations from my friends for having taken it.”
This was not the case, however, as Alexander learned over the next days and weeks. All of his closest friends had at one time or another been aides-de-camp—John Laurens, Mac McHenry, Tench Tilghman, and Richard Kidder Meade—and should have understood exactly what he’d endured and how he’d been limited. Yet every one of them advised him to make amends with His Excellency, and remain for the sake of the efficiency of the staff. Both Lafayette and my father pleaded with him to reconsider and remain as well.
Alexander held firm, and would not change his mind.
When Lady Washington sent me a message the following day, requesting that I call upon her, I went with considerable trepidation.
It felt odd to be returning to headquarters, knowing what had happened there just the day before, but Lady Washington welcomed me as warmly as ever. She closed the door so we wouldn’t be disturbed, and poured us tea; even amidst the rough hospitality of a winter encampment, she believed in the niceties of porcelain teacups and a silver teapot brought from home. She spoke lightly of the weather, the ice upon the river, and the queen’s stitch covers she was working on canvas, one by one, for the chairs in the dining room at Mount Vernon.
Then, as I sipped my tea, she finally addressed the subject most on my mind.
“Dear Mrs. Hamilton,” she began. “I expect you are waiting for me to address the little tift between our husbands.”
Although I said nothing, my expression must have betrayed me, for she laughed softly.
“Be easy, I beg you,” she said. “I’ve no intention of scolding or meddling or whatever else you fear I might do. Yes, my husband was unhappy that yours has chosen to leave his Family, and especially by the manner in which the breach has occurred, but he has accepted it, and thus so have I.”
I couldn’t keep back a gusty sigh of relief. “Oh, thank you, madam.”
She smiled, stirring her tea with a muted click of her spoon against her cup.
“There’s no need for thanks,” she said, holding the silver spoon up to drip into the cup. “It was perhaps inevitable, given that they are both gentlemen of strong convictions. Colonel Hamilton will be difficult to replace—I may even be called upon to copy letters! —and my husband will miss his industry and his talents, but I believe this rupture between them may prove to be for the best. While anger is seldom wise in any situation, in certain circumstances it can become a forge in which better things are created.”
I nodded eagerly. “At first I feared my husband acted upon mere impulse and temper, but I’ve come to see that wasn’t so.”
“It’s the temper of redheaded gentlemen,” she said, commiserating. “The general and I have been wed for more than twenty years, yet that temper still will startle me, all the more because he is most usually a man of measured kindness and even temperament. The saving grace of such outbursts is that they subside as quickly as they appear.”
I never thought of His Excellency as having red hair since he was always scrupulous about keeping it powdered in a military fashion. Alexander dressed his hair formally with powder, too, but of course it was my prerogative as his wife to see him in undress, when his hair shown bright.
“That is the way with Colonel Hamilton as well,” I agreed. “At first, I, too, was dismayed. But the more he explained his decision to me, the more I realized that he had made the one that was right for him, and most in keeping with his own convictions.”