He emptied the glass and stared into it, his thoughts elsewhere. I’d often seen him discouraged here in Philadelphia, and frustrated, too, but this was the first time I’d seen him resigned.
“There needs to be change, Betsey,” he said, “but no one here is ready for it. Until the states realize that Congress needs power, real power, to accomplish what it must for the good of the country as a whole, then there is little point to being here. I’ll remain a delegate long enough to sign the final peace treaty, but no longer.”
“You’ll return to Albany?” I asked, daring to hope.
“Before the summer is done,” he said. “Then at last, my own dear Betsey, you and I shall go to New York.”
*
My journey back to The Pastures with Philip and Rose was without event. By the time I reached Albany, there were already letters from Alexander waiting for me. The Pennsylvania militia had in fact been called out soon after I’d left the city, and the mutiny had dissipated without any further trouble. Alexander and Robert Morris contrived to have the soldiers paid, through bills personally guaranteed by Mr. Morris. But Congress had still determined to shift to New Jersey, and was meeting now in crowded quarters in Princeton. Nothing had changed beyond their location, however, and Alexander reiterated his plan to quit Congress and once again join me.
But there was little peace to be found at The Pastures, either. While Philip and I were warmly welcomed back home, both Mamma and Papa were grim and unhappy, and with good reason, too.
Only days before, my younger sister Peggy had stunned everyone by eloping. Unlike Angelica, who had also eloped, there could be no objections to Peggy’s new husband’s family. They were Dutch descendants like us, and distant cousins of my mother’s family as well. But while Stephen Van Rensselaer was his late father’s eldest son and in line to become the tenth patroon of Rensselaerwyck, he was also scarcely nineteen, a recent graduate of Harvard College.
My sister Peggy was twenty-five. While no one was so impolite as to say that Peggy was too old for Stephen, there was considerable talk about how Stephen was too young to marry in general. Although legally of age to choose a wife, he wouldn’t inherit his estate (his father having died when he was a young child) until he was twenty-one. When he and Peggy had first shown interest in each other, older members of both families had cautioned against the match, but Peggy had always been impulsive by nature, and apparently Stephen was as well. Knowing Peggy, I was surprised, but not shocked, and I prayed they’d be happy together. My poor mother, however, was still reeling.
“I am at a loss,” Mamma said to me once we were alone. I’d scarcely been home an hour when she’d taken me into her bedchamber and shut the door, specifically to speak of the elopement. “It was disgraceful enough that Angelica chose to ignore our wishes and blessings for the sake of Mr. Church, but to have Peggy do so, too—why, it has quite broken your poor father’s heart.”
I guessed it had likely made our family the talk of Albany and our vast extended family as well. To have one daughter elope was scandalous enough, but now to have had a second one forgo the ritual of a Schuyler wedding in the parlor was almost an insult to my parents, and one not quickly forgiven. It had taken months before Angelica was again welcome at The Pastures, and even longer for her husband, and I wondered if Peggy and Stephen would face the same fate.
“You father had made his opinions on the match very clear to them both,” Mamma continued, clearly wounded. “Yet your sister disobeyed him.”
“Oh, Mamma,” I said, sitting beside her on the bed to take her hand. “Perhaps Peggy didn’t understand.”
“She understood,” she said emphatically, “and Stephen did as well. Now, I’ll grant that there are some gentlemen of Stephen’s age who have already attained the thoughtful maturity of their station, but he remains in the first flower of impetuous youth, full of impulse and passion. He’s hardly the steadying force your sister needs. He can’t be. Two peas in a foolish pod, that’s what they are, and all I can do now is pray that they won’t repent of what they’ve done.”
“Perhaps they’ll surprise us all, Mamma,” I said, striving to play the peacemaker for Peggy’s sake. I recalled how I’d been so eager to wed Alexander that I, too, had proposed an elopement, only to be dissuaded by Alexander’s wisdom. Now I was glad we’d shared our joy with my family, but I still could feel empathy for Peggy and Stephen. “I hope they do, if they loved each other that much.”
My mother’s deep sigh showed exactly what value she placed on that love—no matter that she’d risked a great deal for love herself.
“Your sister climbed from her bedchamber window to meet him,” she said forlornly. “It’s all Angelica’s fault, of course, for having eloped with Mr. Church. Once Peggy saw what Angelica had done, her heart was set on following. But climbing from the window like a thief in the night!”
I could all too easily picture Peggy clambering down a rope with her petticoats flying above her garters, just as I could imagine Stephen persuading her that it was the proper thing to do. My mother was right: they were two peas in a foolish pod.
Mamma pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and blotted the corners of her eyes.
“Nothing is as it should be any longer, Eliza,” she said softly, her voice breaking. “If it were not for you and Hamilton, I should be in the blackest despair over my daughters. First Peggy, and now this sad news regarding Angelica. I do not know how I shall bear it.”
“What news of Angelica?” I asked swiftly, a score of unfortunate possibilities springing to mind. My older sister could be equally as impulsive as Peggy, but in less predictable ways. She was also with child again, and I prayed she hadn’t come to grief.
“You must not have received her letters,” Mamma said, pressing her handkerchief to her cheeks again as fresh tears spilled forth. “Now that the war is done, John has decided to sail to France for the sake of settling his accounts, and take her and the children to live in Paris. To Paris, Eliza!”