“I’m sorry of that,” I said, though sorrier still that he was so unhappy. “You’d had such expectations.”
He’d postponed beginning his legal profession in earnest to serve as a delegate, and I’d hoped he would have found the sacrifice more rewarding. Yet I could have predicted it, too, though I’d never say so. I’d witnessed it before. Alexander’s mind was so quick and his obsession with both details and efficiency so thorough that he should in theory be the ideal delegate, but at the same time those same qualities could make him an irritant to men less driven than he. No man likes to be bettered by another who is wiser and works harder, and is younger, too. It had been that way for Alexander when he’d been employed on the general’s staff, and I wasn’t surprised that it was happening again here.
“I’d expectations of actually accomplishing something worthwhile,” he said, “and not being halted by lazy fools who think only of their own states instead of a more encompassing vision. It is the same as it was in Poughkeepsie, only here there is more at stake.”
I nodded, for I’d learned much of this earlier from his letters. “I should think that they’d be more interested in settling the government now that the peace treaty has been signed.”
“I fear it’s exactly the opposite,” he said, impatiently shoving his hair back from his face. “Now that we’re no longer at war, most of the delegates—and most of whom were never soldiers—believe there isn’t a need for a unified government, let alone a single country. Taxes and tariffs, the courts, the military, would all be better served by consolidation. Yet the only thing that concerns my fellow delegates is the wretched sovereignty of their individual states, smug and separate. They refuse to see the weakness that comes from thirteen individuals as opposed to the strength to be found in a single entity.”
“Clearly they need you to enlighten them,” I said. “If anyone can explain the need for unity, my love, it’s you.”
He rolled onto his back with an exasperated sigh, throwing his arms over his head across the pillow. “They try my patience sorely, Betsey, and remain willfully blind to the truth. They’re as jealous and petty of their holdings as girls with beaux at their first ball.”
“You exaggerate, my dear,” I said mildly. I settled myself in comfort upon his chest with my hands pillowed on my folded arms. “These delegates are considerably more jealous and petty than any girls I’ve known.”
“That is true,” he admitted, idly twisting a lock of my hair around his fingers. “Girls at a ball show more direction and sense of purpose.”
I smiled. “I’ll not quarrel with that.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” he said. “But then you, Betsey, are so much more eminently sensible than any mere delegate. In the army, no matter what our state, we learned to serve under one flag, one general. We fought together, and we were victorious. If only more of the delegates had served in the field, then perhaps we’d have more success than this pack of—”
“Shhh, not so loud,” I cautioned as his voice became more impassioned, and I heard Philip stirring in the trundle. “Don’t wake our son unless you want him here in our bed, too.”
He grunted, drawing me closer and sliding his hand along my hip, which was answer enough.
“There is no godly reason why ending a war should be so much more difficult than agreeing to begin one,” he continued, lowering his voice but keeping the same fire in his words. “Yet that is where we are. How can we dismiss an army that hasn’t been paid in years? How can we send our officers home to their families without the pensions they were promised when their commissions were signed?”
“It’s wrong, dearest, and shameful,” I said with conviction equal to his. I could believe no less. I was both a soldier’s daughter and a soldier’s wife. What Congress—or rather, the states that were represented by Congress—was doing was shameful. Soldiers must be paid, and yet the states refused to give Congress the money to pay them, and worse, made them the scapegoats, too. “You’re right to fight for this.”
“It’s the same as standing firm for the men in my battalion,” he said. “They risked their lives, and they deserve to be paid.”
I sighed, thinking. “Haven’t you made any allies among the other delegates? There must be at least one other gentleman who thinks as you do.”
“Mr. Morris, of course, as Superintendent of Finance, though he is lofty above me, and his opinions must be more measured,” he said. “I also suspect several others among the delegates who are too cowardly to admit their sympathies. But there is one gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Madison, whom I’ve mentioned to you before. He’s a learned, thoughtful fellow, and he studied with Burr at the College of New Jersey before the war. He has the sufficient rigor of intellect to foresee the necessity of unified, federal government, and when three officers from this year’s winter camp came down from Newburgh with a petition of grievances, he and I met with them, and offered our assurances.”
“Then I am glad you have made his acquaintance,” I said. “Is his wife here in Philadelphia, too?”
“Oh, Madison isn’t married,” he said, and couldn’t keep back a wry chuckle. “He’s a prim old bachelor who’d have no more notion of what to do with a wife than she would know what to do with him.”
His hand slid a little lower on my hip to remind me that, unlike Mr. Madison, he knew perfectly well what to do with his wife, and how to please her, too. I smiled, shifting closer to him. It was cold in this room, but warm beside him.
“Then you must tell me the other wives of delegates I should call upon,” I said. “I’m here not only as your wife, but your partner in this. I’m eager to lobby on your behalf to these ladies, who will in turn speak to their husbands.”
I meant it, too. All my life I’d watched my mother gently steer support toward my father’s various causes, all over a cup of tea, a fine dinner, or a glass of Madeira wine, and Lady Washington was a consummate hostess on His Excellency’s behalf as well. As humble as our lodgings might be, I was still eager to do the same here in Philadelphia for Alexander.
But instead of embracing my offer as I’d expected (for we’d discussed the possibilities many times before in Albany), he only smiled ruefully.
“I wish that you could, Betsey,” he said. “But the sad truth is that few of the delegates have brought their wives with them.”
I nodded, disappointed that I couldn’t help more. “It’s not to their credit, abandoning their wives like that.”
“Most would say I’m the selfish one, having brought you and our boy all this distance for no reason beyond my own wish,” he said softly, cupping my face against his palm. “Yet I couldn’t help myself. I had to have you here. I’ve missed you more than I can ever say, my wife, my counsel, my friend, my angel, my dearest, dearest love.”
“My dearest, dearest husband,” I said, leaning forward to kiss him. “That is more than reason enough.”