“They’re taking all the plate from the dining room, Eliza,” she whispered, trembling. “One of them threw his hatchet at me when I was on the stairs, and it caught my skirts.”
“But you saved Catherine,” I whispered back, and beginning to rock her gently just as I was doing with little Philip. “Oh, Peggy, you were so brave!”
Thinking quickly, Papa again leaned from the window.
“Come along, men, come along!” he shouted as if addressing a great party of men. “Surround the house, and seize these villains before they can escape!”
It seemed too obvious a ploy to work, but then, Papa was a general, and I was not. As we huddled together upstairs, we heard the men call to one another and then running through the hall and down the steps.
For a long moment the house was strangely silent, making our own sad little noises of distress—the children snuffling and whimpering, my sisters and mother struggling to muffle their tears—all the more noticeable.
Standing to one side of the window, Papa let out a long sigh, and though he uncocked the musket, he still held it.
“They’re gone, praise God,” he said, still looking from the window. “Peggy, are you unharmed?”
She nodded, tears streaming down her face, as the realization of what she’d done was finally becoming clear to her.
“I do not know what possessed you to risk yourself like that,” he said gruffly, “but I shall always be thankful you did. Here’s the militia from town at last.”
He set the musket down and helped my mother to an armchair in the corner, pausing to kiss the infant Catherine in her arms. Little Philip abandoned me for his mother, and Peggy, too, went to Mamma. With the Albany men in the yard, the servants were creeping out from wherever they’d hidden themselves, their voices raised with excitement as they described to one another what had occurred. Father called for Mamma’s maid and she came swiftly up the stairs, puffing her cheeks as she fussed about Mamma and baby Catherine.
I stood alone, and took a deep breath, then another. It was strange that in these last weeks I’d cried at everything and nothing, but now, when there’d been real cause, my eyes were dry. My heart still raced too fast within my breast, but knowing what could have happened, yet hadn’t, gave me an odd kind of peace.
Papa must have taken note.
“Eliza, come with me, if you please,” he said. “We must make these people welcome, and determine what misfortune has been caused below.”
I nodded, and followed him. I’d often acted in Mamma’s stead, though never quite in these circumstances, and in a way it was a relief to be busy. I ordered candles to be lit against the gathering dusk, and sent out refreshment for the men who’d come to our rescue. I greeted and thanked those among them that I knew, and I then set the servants to tidying things as best they could. As Peggy had said, one of the men had thrown a hatchet at her, and a sizable raw gash in the stair rail proved how close she’d been to being struck. I was shocked to see how much damage had been caused to our house in so short a time, much of it serving no use but willful mischief and destruction. Porcelain vases had been smashed, curtains torn from the windows, and chairs upended and their cushions slashed.
But what had attracted the intruders the most had been my parents’ silver. They’d forced open the door to the plate closet and carried off all the larger and most valuable pieces—platters, tankards, candlesticks, bowls, and other vessels—leaving the shelves shockingly bare. It wasn’t just the cost of the pieces that had been stolen; some had been in our family for many years, and for that reason were irreplaceable.
Papa came to stand beside me, and he, too, stared at the empty shelves.
“They meant to kidnap me,” he said, as matter-of-fact as can be. “I’d been warned, but I didn’t believe Waltermeyer would be such a fool as to come here after me by day.”
I glanced up at him with surprise. “You knew the leader?”
“John Waltermeyer,” he said with unabashed disgust. “He was at their head, and as brazen a Tory as any in the region, with some manner of puffed-up commission from Clinton to make him feel like the man that he isn’t. The rest were only his underlings, and mercenary cowards at that.”
“Cowards indeed,” I agreed soundly, even though I was glad they’d abandoned their mission. “Can’t they be found and captured, if they’re known to you?”
“We all have better things to do than chase after them,” he said. “Most likely they are well on their way to Canada by now. What will gall your mother the most when she learns of it is that Waltermeyer has been in this house as our guest.”
It galled me as well. My parents were renowned for hospitality, but it was shameful when a former guest turned generosity against them like this. Waltermeyer’s goal might have been to kidnap my father, but he also would have known the arrangement of our house, and exactly where the plate was kept.
“It grieves me that they captured three of our guards as prisoners as well,” he continued. “By all reports, Ward, Tubbs, and Cor-lies tried their best to acquit themselves, but since Angelica earlier saw fit to remove their weapons, they were unarmed, and defenseless. I’ll see that they’re ransomed as soon as possible, and rewarded for their trouble.”
“Oh, no.” The three were amiable, dedicated men, and it saddened me to think that Angelica’s maternal concern had caused them to be captured. “What of the other guards?”
“Slight injuries, noting mortal,” he said, taking one final look at the empty shelves. “They’ll recover. It’s the others that concern me more.”
By candlelight, his face looked old and worn, the events of the day showing their effect, and I slipped my hand into the crook of his arm. While others often judged my father as aloof, even cold, I knew the kindness in his heart. This evening he’d seen his family cowering in fear, and suffered considerable losses to his personal property, and yet his greatest concern now was for the soldiers who’d been captured in his service.
“But they didn’t take you, Papa,” I said softly. Though I wouldn’t say so to him, I was doubly glad the kidnapping had failed; given his age and infirmities I wasn’t sure he would have survived a forced march to Canada. “If the plate was a kind of ransom in advance, then it was worth every last candlestick to have you safe.”
He smiled wearily, and patted my hand. “Hamilton is fortunate to have you as his wife, Eliza,” he said. “I fear you’re the only one of my daughters with sufficient sense to be a soldier’s wife.”
I smiled, too, for this was the highest possible praise from him.
“He won’t always be a soldier,” I said. “Soon I hope to be a lawyer’s wife instead.”
“The world is filled with lawyers,” he said dismissively. “For now he’s a soldier and an officer, and an excellent one at that. The general is fortunate to have his services at this time.”