Page 11 of My Dear Hamilton

Chapter Nine

December 1, 1780

Albany

A M I MAKING a mistake?

I had been so certain of Alexander Hamilton. Ready to run away and elope with him if he had allowed it. But now Benedict Arnold was a traitor, and I wondered how anyone could be certain of anything or anyone.

Benedict Arnold, the Hero of Saratoga.

The man who’d lost much of the use of his leg in service to this country. A man I’d admired. A man who’d eaten at our table and flirted with my sister. A man who’d used Papa’s long friendship to secure a posting at West Point, all while scheming to turn it over to the British, apparently believing my father would go along with his treachery.

Never!

But just as Papa’s reputation had recovered, his friendship with Arnold now tainted him again. At the very least, it put his judgment into question. The betrayal was a blow both personal and symbolic, and Arnold’s attempt to sacrifice West Point and the men inside it was a treason of the darkest dye.

Despite Lafayette having suspected a traitor long ago, Arnold’s treason was discovered only by some miracle of coincidence, in the nick of time, and Alexander had been there.

Arnold immediately fled to the enemy. I went in pursuit of him but was much too late, my betrothed wrote from the field.

Arnold had gotten away. But they’d captured his British spymaster instead.

John André.

The injustice of it! That good, honorable officer—even if he was an enemy—would now hang for Arnold’s crime. And his death would be brought about, in some part, by the man I was to marry...

Alexander was bitterly sorry for it; so much so that when I pleaded with him to use his influence to allow André to be shot like a gentleman, not hanged as a spy, he did as I asked. Though Washington would not hear of it.

“It isn’t just, ” I’d fumed to my father.

But Papa blamed Benedict Arnold. “Very little is just in war, my child.”

In his letters, Hamilton blamed Arnold, too, expressing sympathy only for the wife he’d abandoned.

Her horror at the traitor is lost in her love of the man. But a virtuous mind cannot long esteem a base one, and time will make her despise him, if it cannot make her hate. My angelic Betsy, I would not for the world do anything that would hazard your esteem. ’Tis to me a jewel of inestimable price and I think you may rely I shall never make you blush.

I believed him, though I shouldn’t have, because in time, he did make me blush. Worse than that, he made me despair of the traitor in him, too. For though Alexander Hamilton did not betray his country, he did betray me. And now, I struggle with whether love or hate burns more intensely inside me.

But then, as a young woman contemplating marriage, the Arnold situation was a stark reminder that to marry a man was to share his fate and be vulnerable to all his decisions and mistakes. The traitor’s wife and child would forever bear the brand of his treason; and I wondered, did Mrs. Arnold have an inkling of the darkness that dwelt within her husband, or was she now bewildered at the stranger she had married?

Still, Arnold’s treason wasn’t the only thing to fill me with doubts.

When I agreed to marry Hamilton, I’d worried that my father would not give his consent for our marriage. Especially when Alexander insisted upon confessing his sordid origins to Papa. My parents—both of proud lineages—had objected to my brother-in-law, Jack Carter, because they knew nothing of his family. And yet, my father told Alexander, “Your eloquence and George Washington’s recommendation make me glad to welcome you to our family.”

That, and perhaps Papa’s sense that if he did not give his permission, I would elope, too. I suspected as much because Papa also told Alexander, “It gave Betsy’s mother great pain to miss her daughter’s wedding, and me as well. I should not like to suffer it a second time.”

“We’ll see you married properly, Betsy,” Mama said under her breath before she embraced Hamilton when my family came to Morristown. “Don’t you dare follow in your sister’s footsteps.”

But we’d long since left that winter camp and six months had now passed in waiting because Alexander feared to neglect his duties in such a perilous time, and he’d therefore refused to take a leave of absence for our nuptials. He’d even considered delaying in order to pay a visit to his friend John Laurens who, having been captured and paroled by the enemy, was not permitted to leave Philadelphia until a prisoner exchange could be arranged.

Worse, the many beautiful love letters Hamilton sent while we were apart were so filled with misgivings that they’d begun to stir my own. Though he wrote that I was his charmer, his angel, and his little nut-brown maid, he also wondered whether our feelings would change while we were separated. He wrote of his friendship and his love, his affection and his desire, but also kept an accounting of who wrote more letters, fearing his greater frequency was a sign of my lesser affections.

I wrote. Of course, I did. It was only that I couldn’t keep up with the pace of his correspondence!

He still asked again and again if I wanted him, and entreated me not to deceive myself if I couldn’t truly be happy as the wife of a man without means. He even teased gently about a dream he’d had in which he arrived to Albany to find me asleep in the grass holding the hand of another man who had a prior claim.

If I’d asked the name of this man with a supposed prior claim, he’d have dismissed the matter artfully. Or teased that he meant Tench Tilghman. But I knew better. It was André he meant.

He feared that I blamed him for the death of a man I’d known first. A man Hamilton himself admired. A man I grieved for, in truth. But fearing it might come between us, I answered playfully,

Sir, your dreams malign me. For there is not now, nor ever has been, a man with prior claim.

Even so, his letters leaped from flattery to taunts, from arrogance to insecurity, from love to despair. And in doing so, they pushed doubts into my mind such that I had to force my attention to the embroidery in my hands.

“You’ll never finish in time for the wedding if you just stare at your needle,” Peggy said from where she sprawled upon our shared bed.

I’d been working for days on a wedding gift. Once completed, the matting would form a decorative frame for a miniature portrait of my betrothed. And as I awaited Alexander’s arrival I carefully worked the needle through linen held taut by a wooden hoop. Satin stitches. Stem stitches. French knots. Each one making me think about the fact that our lives were soon to be tied together, too.

If, indeed, he would finally come for our wedding.

Almost against my will, I remembered Kitty’s words.

I doubt I’m the only lady to whom he has pleaded “but the war” ...

I’d scarcely shaken the thought away when, at last, the clatter of hooves upon ice-covered oyster shells reached our ears. I bolted to my feet.

I wasn’t the only one. “Is he here?” one of my brothers called from across the hall. The house erupted in near pandemonium.

My family liked Hamilton. In the course of our courtship, he’d managed to win over each and every one of them. He talked finances with my father, philosophy with Angelica, Dutch traditions with Mama, war stories with my brothers, and beaus with Peggy, advising her how best to catch and keep one.

And now my siblings and I raced down the stairs to greet him, even as Prince scowled in disapproval at our lack of dignity as he opened the door.

I ought to have waited for Mama, who was pregnant again, to heave herself up from where she lay abed to come down and greet our guests. But I was far too eager. In fact, I quite nearly raced past Prince out into the blustery cold and swirling snowflakes in the open doorway, where stood two men wearing ice-crusted cloaks over blue and buff.

But only one figure gladdened my heart to bursting.

Alexander . The smile he gave me before presenting himself with a great formal bow all but erased the trepidation I’d felt moments before.

“Miss Schuyler,” he said, his satiny voice bringing back memories and making my pulse fly.

I wanted to throw my arms around the neck of my betrothed and shower him with kisses. Instead, I beamed. “Alexander.” My eyes lingered on him as long as I dared before politeness forced me to slide my gaze to his companion, who I recognized at once from Morristown. “Mac!”

At my exuberant familiarity, James McHenry grinned and doffed his cap, just as my father reached the entry hall. “Ah, Colonel Hamilton!” Papa said, coming in from the back door where he’d been making preparations in the courtyard. “You’ve joined us at last.”

“General Schuyler,” Alexander said, almost standing to attention.

Papa hung up his snow-covered coat and the large feathered hat he favored, then made his way across to us. “Welcome back to the Pastures,” he said, holding out his hand.

Alexander shook it. “Thank you, sir. General Washington sends his regards and regrets that he can’t join the celebration.” Papa’s smile broadened at being mentioned by the commander in chief. “I think you must remember my friend and colleague on General Washington’s staff, James McHenry. He’s, uh, well—he’s my guest for the wedding.”

The only one.

Tench Tilghman had sweetly and sincerely sent his best wishes and a small gift. But General Washington couldn’t spare him or any other aides-de-camp with Alexander and McHenry gone. And as for Alexander’s family, well...

How I loved my father for having made no issue of Alexander’s illegitimacy. And now Papa simply behaved as if all were quite normal. “Ah, McHenry, but of course. Come in. Dry off. Get warm. We’re pleased to offer every comfort during your stay.”

Thereafter Prince collected hats and cloaks, departing our merry circle, but not before instructing other servants to relieve our guests of their satchels. And having finally made her way down the stairs, Mama held her lower back and said she would see to supper.

Conversation turned to weather, war, and wine as McHenry followed Papa into his study. But Alexander quickly crossed back to me, his fierce blue eyes seeing right into the heart of me. “Betsy,” he said softly, intimately. “I want you to know that all these months, the only thing that alleviated the pain of your absence was looking forward to the moment we shall finally become each other’s forever.”

Unable to express the welling feelings inside me with the eloquence with which he always wrote and spoke, I managed only, “And you were always in my thoughts.” He smiled as though I’d versified a sonnet, encouraging me to go on. “But I much prefer you at my side.”

“Well, then, at your side I shall endeavor to stay. After all”—his eyes twinkled—“as you will soon learn, whatever affords you pleasure will always be most agreeable to me.” My face warmed despite the chill in the hall, but fortunately Papa’s booming voice called my intended groom to join him. And Alexander promised, “I shall see you later, my lovely girl.”

***

T HE NIGHT BEFORE our wedding, the ball at our house was attended by all the best of Dutch Albany society. The Van Rensselaers and the Van Burens, the Ten Broecks and the Ten Eycks, the Van Schaicks and the Douws, and so many others. Neither snow nor ice nor howling wind seemed to deter our New Netherlander friends and neighbors from coming out to the Pastures for the celebrations.

Amidst boughs of holly and the light of countless candles, the salon on our second floor hosted festivities that included food and drink, dancing and music, and games and toasts. We danced minuets, cotillions, and Scottish reels until my feet ached and my heart soared. Alexander never seemed to tire, and I determined to keep up with him through every bar and set. I danced with Mac and my brother-in-law, Mr. Carter, a man eight years Angelica’s senior, whose business supplying the army for once permitted him time to join in the festivities. But Alexander could never wait long before declaring himself impatient and claiming me again.

My fiancé appeared more at ease than I’d ever seen him before, and perhaps that wasn’t a surprise, as these days of rest and merriment were the first break from military service he’d had in five years. Indeed, his eyes sparkled as he asked, “May I steal you away for a moment?”

“By all means.” I’d been hoping for a quiet opportunity to give him my gift. He took my hand and led me around the edge of the dance floor as we were stopped again and again by well-wishers, until we finally escaped down the stairs and into the cooler air of the dimly lit sitting room, which afforded us a modicum of peace and privacy. There, Alexander asked me to wait. And while he ducked away I seized the moment to pull my gift from its hiding place in the cabinet next to the fireplace. Alexander returned before I’d barely completed the task—and held a large sack of his own.

“Whatever is that?” I asked.

He grinned and nodded at what I held in my own hands. “I could ask the same.”

I smiled. “A wedding gift for my husband.”

He feigned a frown and stepped closer. “Your husband, madam? Do I know him?”

Playing his game, I said, “Oh, you know him very well, sir. And your gift is for?”

He came closer yet. “For my wife-to-be. And before you ask, indeed, you know her well. She has a good nature, a charming vivacity, and is most unmercifully handsome”—he arched a brow and closed the remaining space between us—“and so perverse that she has none of those affectations which are the prerogatives of beauty.”

How did he always manage to set my world a-tumble with his words? “Oh, you must be a lucky man, indeed. I hope you’ve shown her your appreciation.”

He barked a laugh. “You saucy charmer!”

I sat in the chair closest to the fire so that I could see by the greater light there, and Alexander pulled up a chair of his own so that our knees touched. With a nervous smile, he placed the heavy sack onto my lap. I untied its string and worked the coarse cloth over the solid object inside. Impatience rolled off him so forcefully that I had to tease him further by taking great pains to slide the sack evenly off, a little on this side, and then a little on that.

“And to think someone once told me you were the Finest Tempered Girl in the World,” he said with a chuckle.

I yanked the sack away then as we both laughed. Removing the wrapping revealed a fine, carved mahogany sewing box. “Oh, it’s exquisite,” I said. I carefully lifted the lid, only to find another treasure tucked inside. A small, round, pearl-encrusted pendant. The pendant alone would’ve enamored me, but combined with the inscription and personal token inside, I knew not what to say.

“General Washington mentioned that Kitty Livingston had asked for a token of his esteem,” Alexander explained. “I guessed you might like one from His Excellency, too.”

“You guessed right,” I said, in awe as I stared at the circle of General Washington’s dark blond hair under a glass covering inscribed with his name.

How had Alexander afforded such finery? I couldn’t imagine, but I could barely think on it through my embarrassment that Washington may have thought me a frivolous girl to want a clipping of his locks. Still, I wasn’t so embarrassed that I didn’t wish to wear it straightaway!

Fastening the chain, I said, “I’ll cherish it forever.” I looked up to find Hamilton beaming, and I added, “But I should not like you to think that I am the sort of woman who expects expensive—”

“You are the kind of woman who deserves this and every last penny I have squirreled away,” he interrupted. “Besides, I am not entirely impoverished, my angel. And I am fortunate in my friends. John Laurens regrets very much that he cannot be with us on our wedding day and insisted upon advancing me a tidy sum to purchase this for you.”

“I shall have to thank him when we finally meet,” I said of his mysterious and much-admired friend. “His generosity of spirit shall stand present for him as if he were a guest. And I shall wear this pendant near my heart on our wedding day.”

“Good.” My beloved’s voice turned stern. “But don’t think it will not irritate me a little to have another man’s name so near your heart. Even Washington’s .”

I laughed. “Near to my heart, but not inside it, for there is room there for no man but you. Oh, and the box is a most perfect gift, too.”

“Oh, ‘and the box,’ she says,” Alexander grumbled playfully. “My turn, then?” When I nodded, he tore at the ribbon, and then unfolded the plain ticking I’d used to cushion the framed matting and portrait. “Oh, my angelic girl. What have you done?”

“I had your portrait rendered by Mr. Peale in Philadelphia, and then I designed and sewed a frame for it,” I said, suddenly nervous. “I wanted you to see how much I’ve thought of you all these months.”

“What fine, detailed work.” He paused in his admiration of my embroidery. “Only you must think me vain to keep a portrait of myself.”

“Well, I hoped you would leave it with me if ever you should have to go away again,” I said, feeling a little foolish that I’d made him a gift I wanted myself.

But he intertwined our fingers and leaned to kiss me. “I love you more every hour.”

I very much wanted that kiss, but unfortunately, we were interrupted.

“There you are,” Peggy said, leaning into the room.

Alexander cleared his throat. “Why hello, little sister.”

“Sorry to intrude on your private celebration,” she said, though Peggy was never sorry for such things. “Mama beckoned me to find you to say good night. Guests are leaving.”

Before long, everyone was gone, and I had the great pleasure—for one last night—of sharing a room with both Angelica and Peggy for old time’s sake. Years had passed since the three of us had stayed together, and just like we used to, we talked and laughed and teased until long after we should’ve gone to sleep. “I can hardly believe that tomorrow, I’ll be wed, ” I whispered into the darkness, for the candle had burned down some time before.

“And bed, ” Angelica said.

“Angelica!” I cried, my stomach tingling.

But she only laughed. “What’s the use in having a more experienced older sister if she can’t divulge the secrets of marriage?”

“Do tell!” Peggy said.

I pulled the covers over my face, which of course they tugged back down. “I’ll say this,” Angelica began in her world-wise way. “A man enjoys a woman to be an active participant and desires her pleasure. So don’t be shy, Betsy. What you don’t know, Hamilton will teach you.”

My face burned, but I couldn’t deny my interest in her advice or the way my body warmed at the idea of what Alexander might teach me. “I shall take that under advisement,” I said with as much dignity as I could. “Now, please be quiet before I die.”

My sisters burst into giggles at my expense, but I was too happy to care.

***

December 14, 1780

Albany

“Betsy?” Papa called from the hallway. “It’s time.”

With teary eyes, Angelica took my hands. “You are a vision.”

“I doubt that,” I said, a little discomfited by the attention. I wished to be a vision, but I would content myself to be unmercifully handsome in my bridegroom’s eyes.

“Oh, but Angelica’s right about something for a change,” Peggy said, her hands clasped to her breast.

Smoothing the fine sky-blue silk of my new gown, my fingers running over the embroidered flowers and tiny hand-stitched beads and pearls, I took a breath and reached for both of my sisters’ hands. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Well, silly, you shall never have to find out,” Peggy said, sniffing, and I caught her swiping at the corner of her eye when she turned away. Papa knocked again just as the tall case clock in the hallway struck noon. My heart thundered in time with the deep chimes, and it felt as if my knees might go soft. But, somehow, I made it to the door to find Papa dressed in his best dark gray velvet suit, the one with the high collar, silver piping, and matching waistcoat.

“My lovely child,” he said as Angelica and Peggy gave me one last hug and kiss each before they rushed downstairs. “Why, it’s like looking at your mother on our wedding day all over again.”

“Oh, Papa,” I said, the emotion in his voice making my eyes sting.

And he sighed, as if he were looking at me for the last time. “ My little Betsy —though I suppose, as a married woman, we shall now have to call you Elizabeth or Eliza.”

It was the custom to give up childhood nicknames upon marriage, but I didn’t wish for Papa to ever look at me differently than he did now. “Betsy will do. I’m accustomed to it.”

My father gave a rare grin and held out his elbow. “Well then, I do believe there’s a very eager young officer waiting to marry his bride just downstairs. It wouldn’t do to keep him waiting.”

I took his arm, and down we went. Just outside the doorway to the formal blue-and-gold parlor, the members of our procession stood assembled—the minister, Mama, my sisters with the hand-painted silk fans I’d given them for the occasion.

And Alexander.

My fiancé cut a fine, dashing figure in his dress uniform. His smile beckoned me to come to him until Papa was relinquishing my hand. When the harpsichord began to play, the minister led us up the aisle of chairs filled with family and friends, the whole assembly brightly lit from the winter sunlight pouring in through the windows. The service was conducted in Dutch and English, out of respect to the groom, but I barely recalled a word because I’d never seen such unbridled joy shine from Alexander’s countenance.

With love, yes, I believed that. But there was something else, too. In wedding, my family became his, too, and I sensed that gave him a sense of belonging.

I promised myself that I would always ensure that for him. My parents would be his parents, my sisters would be his sisters, and my brothers would be his brothers.

He’d never be without family again.

I wanted to be alone with him to tell him so, but after the ceremony there commenced an open house of visitors who nibbled on honey cakes, marzipan, candied almonds, and my mother’s famous olie-koecken —sweet dough fried in hot lard until golden brown. Then a sumptuous wedding feast of roast duck with dumplings, pork with cabbage, and baked apples and raisins. For dessert, imported chocolates, cinnamon bark, and spiced koekjes —or cookies, in English.

Alexander and I never had time for more than an affectionate smile or a stolen kiss. Until, suddenly, we were alone in my childhood room, now turned into a bridal chamber, lit only by a warming fire.

Music and laughter reached us from below stairs, but it felt as if it came from a thousand miles away when Alexander looked at me with desire. “You’re finally mine,” he said, his voice tender but full of a gravity that hadn’t been there before. His hand clasped mine, and his thumb rubbed over my wedding band, a ring made of two linked circles of gold that swiveled to join as one. Alexander had engraved them with our names. “And I am yours, too.” He spoke as if he were trying out the premise, drafting an argument and seeing if he could make it work.

I was determined that he would. “Show me...”

He unwrapped me as he had my gift the night before, with eagerness and curiosity and hunger. And I found that the more ardently he touched me and kissed me, the more I shared his hunger. When he wore only his shirt and I only my shift, he guided us to the bed, under covers that his ravenous hands and body quickly made warm.

That night, Alexander’s heated whispers were in French as he made love to me. I didn’t know enough of the language to decipher the words, but his meaning had never been plainer.

All my life, I’d been the boyish sort of girl who preferred climbing trees and hiking through the woods, or the veritable spinster, more concerned with nursing sick soldiers than landing one for a husband. I was the general’s daughter who’d inherited the fervor of his warrior’s heart. But Alexander’s lovemaking found the woman in me, and the more claiming his touch, the more ecstatic my escape. He was as relentless in bed as he was in everything else, craving my surrender and winning it again and again.

“Oh, lovely wife, crown me with everything that is tender and kind and passionate in you. Love me,” he commanded.

And, I did. Oh, I did.