“In time, Angelica, all in good time,” he said with good-humored patience. “New York is not Delphi, and there are no oracles here for predicting my future. Or perhaps there are in London?”
“Mr. Church shall win his borough, if that is what you mean,” she said, managing to sound both blithe and bitter, an unhappy combination. “The British elections are so terribly corrupt that so long as enough money is passed about, he is guaranteed his precious seat in Parliament. It’s not as it is here, not at all. Nothing is.”
Abruptly she looked down at her lap and her shoulders sagged as she buried her face in her hands. Hastily I put aside my sewing and went to sit beside her on the sofa, my arm around her shoulders.
“You’ve had a long day,” I said gently, “and a longer voyage. I cannot conceive of how weary you must be, and yet here Alexander and I have been prattling on and keeping you awake.”
She raised her face and shook her head, as if to shake off the excuses I’d offered her. I’d expected her to be crying, but her eyes were dry, her mouth a tight line of self-control.
Alexander rose, and yawned. “I, for one, am thoroughly spent,” he announced. “Angelica, Betsey and I are delighted to have you safely with us.”
“Thank you, Hamilton,” she said, standing as well in a rustle of silk. “Your kindness—yours and Eliza’s—is more welcome than I can ever say.”
He stepped forward to bid her good night, and she kissed him lightly on each cheek, in the French manner she’d acquired whilst living in Paris. He bowed, and then left us alone together as he went to check the locks and doors one last time before bed.
“Shall I call for your maid to help you undress?” I asked as I linked my arm through Angelica’s. “Or shall we pretend we’re girls again, making do for each other?”
I was glad to see that made her smile. “Dear Eliza,” she said. “I should like that above all things.”
Since her maid had already helped her from her traveling clothes and she now wore only her nightshift beneath the sultana, there wasn’t much left for me to do but brush out her hair. When we’d been girls, she, Peggy, and I had taken turns each night brushing and plaiting one another’s hair, a constant, calming ritual before prayers and bed that had always ended our days.
Now Angelica sat before me once again in a straight-backed chair, her hands folded quietly in her lap as I began to pull the pins that held the stiff, arranged curls in place. One by one I dropped them into the dish on the nearby table until her hair was free and loose. At last I began to draw the brush through her heavy hair, a deep brown like my own. It took long strokes to brush out the stickiness of the salt spray from the sea as well as the fashionable powder that her maid had dusted on this morning.
She sighed with contentment and let her head drop back as her neck relaxed with each pull of the brush. I was surprised to see gray scattered through her dark hair; she was only thirty-three, a year older than I.
“You don’t have to tell me tonight if you don’t wish to,” I asked. “But if there is anything that either Alexander or I can do to help you, then—”
“There isn’t,” she said quietly, her voice leaden with melancholy. “These last years I have done my best to make England my home for the sake of John and our children, but it’s a dreary place, filled with cold and chilly people, and—and it is not here.”
There was nothing I could say to that. “I’m glad Mr. Church permitted you to come visit now.”
“I begged,” she said flatly. “I told him Mamma and Papa were unwell, and I was needed here.”
“They aren’t well,” I said. “Papa’s legs have become so bad that on his worst days he’s nearly a cripple, and cannot climb the stairs without assistance, while Mamma is troubled by her lungs. You didn’t lie.”
“I would have done so if I’d needed to.” She sighed deeply. “If it were not for my children, I do not think I would return to England at all, but remain here forever.”
A dreadful thought rose unbidden. “Is that why you didn’t bring the children with you? Because Mr. Church wants to make certain you’d return to him?”
She sighed again, more restlessly this time, and her folded hands twisted together into a tight knot in her lap.
“He wanted them to be safe,” she said. “A long voyage is taxing on a child’s constitution. Besides, Philip and Kitty are both at school now, and John and Elizabeth have their tutor and governess. I could hardly interrupt their education.”
I scarcely bit back my words as I put aside the hairbrush and began to braid her hair in a single thick plait. I’d always thought Mr. Church a taciturn gentleman, but never a cruel one. Yet to deny Angelica the pleasure of bringing their children to visit their Schuyler grandparents seemed cruel indeed.
“It will all be well enough, Eliza,” my sister said, as if she’d read my thoughts. “John will see that our children are well looked after. He’s an excellent father that way, and a good husband, too. He loves them—and me—dearly, you know. But when I see your Hamilton, how handsome and clever and kind he is, and how happy you make each other, and how he looks at you, and you look at him . . . but no, I will not be sentimental, or maudlin. While I am here in New York, I am resolved to be content, and find pleasure in every moment, and most especially in my time with you and Hamilton.”
Alexander was still awake and reading when I later joined him in bed.
“You were gone much longer than I expected,” he said, closing his book to watch me. “Is your sister that unhappy?”
“She is,” I said as I undressed myself, not bothering to call my maid. “She misses her children, and in her way I believe she misses Mr. Church as well. You’ve read her letters. Even with all her fine talk of Prince This and Lord That, she dislikes London and misses America, and wants nothing more than to live here instead.”
“Ma pauvre soeur,” he said. “I am sorry that she didn’t bring at least one of her children with her. Your parents will be disappointed she didn’t.”
“Mr. Church wouldn’t permit it,” I said, unable to keep the indignation from my voice. “She hinted that he was keeping them in England almost as hostages, to make certain she returned.”
Alexander frowned. “I find that difficult to believe of him.”
“You wouldn’t say so if you’d seen Angelica’s face,” I said, sitting on the edge of the bed as I braided my own hair for the night. “I know he is the father of those children, but she is their mother, and she should be permitted to bring her children to see her family.”
“Did you say that to her, Betsey?”
“No,” I said, though now I wished I had. “I wanted to, but I feared it would only make her more unhappy in her situation.”
“Every law in both Britain and America would claim that Church is completely within his rights,” he said. “As the head of his family, it is the father who is entitled to make whatever decision he deems best for the welfare of his children.”