“Our husbands must make decisions with consequences, decisions that must be thoughtful, thorough, and just, and we must be ready to support them in those decisions when others will not.”
I nodded again. “None of Colonel Hamilton’s friends have agreed with his decision,” I said wistfully, “yet I’ve come to accept it as the best for him, and for us as well, and he has thanked me for it.”
“That is exactly as it should be,” she said with satisfaction, “and exactly as I’d hoped you would say it was. We wives of officers are different from other women, aren’t we? We see the terrible burden this war places upon our husbands in the service of our country. All we can do is pray for their welfare, and comfort them as best we can.”
Her voice was soft and gentle, yet filled with the wise counsel and strength I so needed that I couldn’t keep from sharing my doubts.
“Oh, madam,” I lamented. Tears stung my eyes, and I looked down at my lap to hide them. “I worry so much about where my husband shall go next! What he desires most is a field command, and even as I agree and tell him I wish it, too, I dread that he may come to grief on some distant battlefield. I cannot fathom my life without him, madam, and if I were to lose him . . .”
My words broke off, the possibility too unbearable to speak aloud.
She set her cup down on the table beside her and placed her hand over mine. Her palm was soft, and still warm from the tea.
“Of course you are afraid for him, my dear,” she said quietly. “Do not believe for an instant that I don’t share those same fears for the general. Life is a fragile gift, and no one sees that more clearly than a soldier’s wife. But you cannot let that fear be your companion, or it will steal away every joy that makes your lives rich. You must trust in the love you share, and God in Heaven.”
I fumbled for my handkerchief and tried to smile. “That is what Alexander—that is, Colonel Hamilton—says as well. He says I must trust him.”
“Trust him, yes, but trust yourself as well,” she said. “It’s together that you will be strongest. No matter what your worries or fears, they shall always be much more bearable together.”
I bowed my head and blotted my eyes, yet nodded. Mamma had given me similar advice before our wedding, and I’d said much the same to Alexander myself. Yet hearing the words from Lady Washington made me once again see the wisdom in this simple message and the truth to it as well. In the future, and in times that tested me most in our marriage, I’d remember it in her voice, soft but firm, and find guidance and solace in the memory.
Thus in the wake of the argument (or tift, as Lady Washington had called it; others called if a feud, a fight, a battle, a falling-out, but they were wrong, even to this day) between His Excellency and Alexander, I did my best to be strong for Alexander, and I know that he did the same for me.
So often when he’d erred before, it was his own doing, and he almost always recognized his misdeed soon afterward, causing him to tumble into a dark wallow of recrimination, guilt, and battered pride, which could only be ended with apologies all around.
In the past, yes, but not this time. I was exceptionally proud of my husband’s demeanor and discretion throughout these difficult days, and the control he exerted over his own temper. As he’d promised, he did not desert his post as an aide at once, as a man driven by pure anger would have done, or announce his departure with vituperative fanfare to the greater world.
Instead he stayed until replacements could be found, so as not to distress either the general or the workings of the office, and was equally determined to continue as if nothing untoward had occurred. He continued to draft letters for His Excellency and write orders, dispatches, and addresses, exactly as he had done for the previous four years. Further, to preserve the peace of the office, he told only his closest friends of the short-lived quarrel. Many other officers with whom he had near-constant contact through letters and dispatches had no knowledge of the rift with the general until he had finally departed the staff.
There were those among our acquaintance who credited Alexander’s new composure to his marriage to me. I suppose it was, but not in the unflattering way that teasing bachelors meant with their hen-pecking jests. Rather, the incident with His Excellency became something that drew Alexander and me closer together, and which we confronted as husband and wife, exactly as Lady Washington had advised. With me beside him, Alexander truly did seem to have more purpose now, and I—no, we—were the stronger for it.
*
In early March, Alexander left New Windsor with His Excellency to meet with the Comte de Rochambeau and the other French officers in Newport, in Rhode Island, and to review the French fleet anchored there. The conference had long been planned, and Alexander’s presence was essential. Not only had he drawn up many of the plans for the next step in the war this summer involving the combined forces, but his skill as an interpreter was in constant demand, and he was much respected by the French officers. Few beyond His Excellency himself knew that this would be the final time Alexander would be at the general’s side as his senior aide-de-camp.
Although he retained his commission as a lieutenant colonel, he no longer had an appointment with the forces stationed in New Windsor, and likewise we no longer had reason to remain in residence there. Until he learned where he would next be posted, I packed our belongings and returned to my parents’ house in Albany. Alexander would join us once he’d completed his responsibilities with the French in Newport. It was a long journey north, but the tedium was considerably lightened by the company that agreed to join me: my Aunt Gertrude and Uncle John, and Lady Washington herself.
But there was little doubt that we all were in sore need of a change of location from New Windsor, and we had a happy event as an excuse to travel. In February, Papa had written proudly to me to announce that my mother had been safely brought to bed of a little girl. This was my mother’s fifteenth child, born soon after her own forty-seventh birthday, a remarkable feat for any woman. Mamma sounded well enough in her letters, and clearly doted on her newest (and likely last) child, named Catherine Van Rensselaer Schuyler after herself. I was eager to see my mother again, and to show her how well I was prospering as a wife.