I do not know exactly what occurred during that long summer in Philadelphia, or what was said behind the shuttered blinds and closed doors of the statehouse. Nor do I know what my impassioned husband discussed with the other delegates whilst dining at their lodgings in the Indian Queen Tavern. Because of the delicate nature of the Convention’s discussions, all delegates had been sworn to complete secrecy, and none could have taken this oath more seriously than Alexander. He would not break his oath, even for me.
But I’d other, more sorrowful matters to occupy myself as well. My younger sister Peggy and her young husband had two charming children, a three-year-old daughter named Catherine after our mother, and a one-year-old son named Stephanus, to honor his grandfather. Our children had played together during our visits to The Pastures, and my daughter Angelica was particularly fond of her little cousin Catherine, singing her songs in her warbling voice as Catherine clapped with delight.
Yet in the space of a single terrible week that summer, my poor sister lost both her babies to scarlet fever, as first Catherine, and then tiny Stephanus, sickened and died. I rushed to Peggy as soon as I heard the grim news, taking care to leave my own children safely behind in New York. Although I didn’t arrive until after the burials, I still was able to offer what comfort I could to Peggy. Swathed in black, my usually lighthearted sister was distraught with grief, her face so swollen from crying that I scarcely recognized her.
Hand in hand, she led me at once to the now-empty nursery at Rensselaerwyck, where we were surrounded by her children’s toys and belongings, as poignant as any ghosts. With the house in deep mourning, the curtains were drawn and the air in the room was heavy and still, gloomed further with shadows and loss. Here my sister and I sat together on a bench where only a fortnight before she’d played with her sweet darlings. My poor, dear Peggy was mute with grieving, and could do nothing but weep the heaviest tears of a despairing mother as I held her close and wept too over her unimaginable loss. It was all I could do, and all that could be done, beyond praying for the little souls now free of their suffering.
Peggy’s sorrow remained with me on my journey back home to New York, and I wept anew as I held my own children close, determined to cherish them even more. What sadder reminder was there of how fragile life could be for those who were most dear to us?
*
Although the Constitutional Convention lasted well into August, Alexander didn’t remain in Philadelphia the entire time. He frequently came home to New York City and to me and the children, and to attend to his practice. This wasn’t unusual among the delegates, most of whom returned home at some point or departed for good to tend to their affairs. But where nearly all the other delegates were gentlemen with property and incomes, our little family depended on what Alexander himself earned from the law. I did my part as the frugal housewife, closely watching our expenditures. I welcomed the gifts of cheeses, flour, and fruits that my parents sent down from their farms down the river to us, and I anticipated the day when my husband would be able to devote all his energies to his practice.
I also interpreted his trips home as signs that the Convention had not gone as he’d wished, and though I couldn’t know the reasons why, I tried to cheer him as best I could. Our children did that as well, lightening his humor with their chatter and play. He wasn’t a somber, distant father, but threw himself into their games with cheerful abandon. With them he could be entirely his own man, with no worries of how he’d be judged, and he loved them all the more for it.
On his last visit, however, our house was quiet, and our family subdued. Living in such a sizable city, I took every safeguard I could to preserve our children’s health. This included inoculations against the smallpox. Dr. Bard followed the latest practices of the day by inoculating our children before their second birthdays. The procedure itself was simple enough: a small nick in the skin of the left arm to introduce the infectious matter was all that was required.
But young children did not understand either the procedure, or the fever that came a week later, or the jalap purges that followed, and the necessity to lie abed quietly. Alexander, who at fifteen months was the perfect age for the procedure, had developed the proper desired fever and only a handful of pustules, but he was so fretful and unhappy that I’d taken him from his bed and into the parlor. I opened the windows to admit the evening’s cooler breezes, and then sat on the sofa with my feverish child in my arms. Gently I rocked back and forth to ease him, and when that didn’t help, I put him to my breast for comfort.
That was how Alexander found us, sitting by the light of a single candlestick.
“How is my Alex faring?” he asked softly with concern. Gently he brushed aside his little son’s dark curls, damp with fever, and cupped his palm over the child’s forehead. He was half-asleep, poor baby, his eyes nearly closed.
“Better, I think,” I said. “I didn’t want him to wake Philip or Angelica.”
“No,” he said, bending to kiss me over our son’s head before he, too, sat on the sofa. “He’s still very warm. I know it’s all part of the inoculation, but I don’t like fevers, especially not in the children.”
I didn’t like them, either, but having been born in the Caribbean, my husband had a special dread of feverish ailments. A fever had killed his mother, and he’d nearly died himself more than once.
“Alex will be fine now,” I said. “Dr. Bard says so.”
“Then I suppose we must trust,” Alexander said, though his expression betrayed far more worry. “I thought you’d written me that he’d been weaned.”
“Almost,” I admitted, protectively holding the child a little closer to my breast. Alex was old for suckling now, and in truth I was more reluctant to end it than was he. “Most times he’d rather drink from a cup now. But tonight he wanted the comfort, and I couldn’t deny him.”
Alexander nodded, agreeing, or at least leaving the decision to me. Of course, there was more that neither of us was saying, but we each understood. As soon as I’d weaned both Philip and Angelica, I’d become pregnant again almost at once with our next child. I believed in my heart that children were God’s blessing on a marriage, and Alexander and I had always wanted a large family. The children we had were impossibly dear to us, but the thought of adding yet another while our lives—and the country—were so unsettled was a sobering one.
“Poor little man,” Alexander said, watching his son. “I hope he’s better before I must leave on Thursday.”
“Is it possible for you to stay another day or two?” I asked with more hope in my voice than I probably should have ventured.
“No, I must return,” he said, and the deep sigh that followed spoke volumes.
“Is it as bad as that?” I asked carefully.