Page 34 of The Girl from Greenwich Street

It is next to impossible to get men of weight and influence to serve.

—Robert Troup to Rufus King on the 1800 New York elections

New York City

April 15, 1800

“No one can deny that it is to the Federal party exclusively that we owe that unexampled prosperity which we have hitherto enjoyed. But beware of a blind confidence in our present situation!”

The Federalists gathered at the Tontine Coffee House cheered lustily as General Hamilton exhorted them to fight the spirit of Jacobinism. Cadwallader skulked at the back of the group, partly because his height made him an impediment, and partly because he wished he had pleaded an ague and stayed home in bed with the covers over his head.

The slate of candidates had been unveiled, with Cadwallader’s name among them. A month ago, he would have been in the very height of elation at having been asked to represent the Federalist cause in the assembly; he could feel his grandfather, the esteemed colonial governor of New York, nodding in approval.

But now—Cadwallader could only feel how unworthy he was, both to win the assembly seat and to hold it.

Ebenezer Belden grabbed General Hamilton’s arm. “Sir, you have the energy of Demosthenes, the ardor of Chatham, the overpowering rapidity of Fox, the logic of Pitt, and the classical imagery of Burke! You have given a new pulse to public feelings. We can only hope to see its effect among all classes of men!”

Cadwallader lurked behind Belden, waiting until he had finished his effusions, before calling General Hamilton’s attention to himself with a strangled cough.

“Colden! Are you ready to lead us to victory?”

Cadwallader glanced over his shoulder, lowering his voice. “That’s just what I wanted to speak with you about. Are you certain you still wish me to stand for office?”

“My dear sir, you are essential for balance. We have a ship’s chandler, two grocers, a shoemaker, and a mason. You provide the aristocratic element. Your name reassures our old families that their interests haven’t yet been forgotten.”

Hamilton grinned, looking with satisfaction at the assemblage, which had broken into small, excitedly talking groups. “There’s at least one spy for the Republicans among us tonight, if not more. Let Burr say now the Federalist party doesn’t stand for the common man!”

The name of Colden might once have stood for something grand, but now it represented only failure. “Are you sure my name might not be a liability?”

“Because your father was a loyalist? That was twenty years and more ago.”

Cadwallader sunk his chin into his cravat. “I was thinking of the Weeks trial.”

“That,”

said Hamilton easily, “was weeks ago. The public has moved on to new sensations.”

“Only two weeks. The people haven’t forgotten,”

said Cadwallader unhappily. “And the papers are still full of it.”

Some portrayed the trial as a travesty of justice, others as a vindication of innocence. Either way, Cadwallader came out poorly.

Only the day before, the clerk of the court, William Coleman, had released a ninety-nine page account of the trial, which had sold out as soon as it arrived at Mr. Furman’s shop outside City Hall. Cadwallader had known he shouldn’t read it, but he couldn’t help himself. He had sat up all the previous night, obsessively reading over all the testimony, trying to figure out what he had missed and how he had missed it.

There were two possibilities, neither of them good. Either he had had a murderer in the dock and so bungled his trial that he had gone free—or he had prosecuted the wrong man.

“I feel that I should withdraw my candidacy,”

Cadwallader said, with painful dignity. “I can only be a liability to you in my current state.”

“Don’t do that! Your departure would throw our slate out of balance.”

As an afterthought, Hamilton added, “I wouldn’t have asked you to serve if I hadn’t thought you were capable of it.”

“Livingston and Burr had me all hollow in the courtroom. I didn’t even get my precedent correct.”

Hamilton looked at him with resignation. “How old are you? A score and ten?”

“Thirty-two.”

Old enough to know how to comport himself in a courtroom.

“Burr and Livingston and I have a decade of experience on you. That’s all it is. Experience.”

General Hamilton’s eyes shifted past Cadwallader, fixing on someone else he wanted to speak to. “When you’ve stood in that courtroom as often as I have, the precedents will come quick to your lips too. And now—”

“But it wasn’t just that,”

Cadwallader burst out, desperate to have it all out. “You produced evidence I never even thought to look for.”

“One of those lessons you learn with experience is that if something seems too simple, mistrust it. Probe for weaknesses as if you were your own most deadly opponent.”

A frown creased Hamilton’s forehead. “If it makes you feel better, Livingston and Burr didn’t think to look further either. They would have been content to argue that Elma Sands did away with herself. And I—I was convinced for too long that the fault lay with Elias Ring. We all make mistakes.”

“It haunts me that I might have prosecuted the wrong man while the right man was before me the whole time,”

said Cadwallader feverishly. “I should have seen it. You saw it. But Mr. Croucher seemed so convincing when he spoke of seeing Levi and Elma together. . . . How did you guess?”

Hamilton nodded politely, preparatory to taking his leave. “I had the advantage of you—I could speak to Levi Weeks. I knew from Levi that he had seen Elma and Croucher embracing.”

“There was another woman,”

Cadwallader blurted out. “Rose Malone. She was strangled and stuffed into a cistern. Croucher told me—he told me he had sold her stockings. He said he felt responsible for her in some way. I can’t stop wondering—”

“Wondering does no good. Concentrate yourself on the present,”

said General Hamilton, patting him briskly on the arm. “This election—”

Cadwallader shook his head. “It haunts my sleep that Croucher might have killed both those women and I never saw it. I believed every word he told me. I believed him when he told me he only wanted justice for Elma.”

“If your sin is being too trusting, that’s a failing we’ve all had from time to time. I made the same mistake with the Manhattan Company, with far graver consequences,”

said General Hamilton. “I’d rather have a man at my side who is more wise than cunning, driven by good intentions rather than extreme and irregular ambitions. I have utter faith in your ability, Colden. Now, I must have a word with Philip Ten Eyck.”

Quietly, Cadwallader gathered up his hat and gloves. He wasn’t sure that anyone noticed him go.

It was even later than he had realized. The meeting had gone on for some considerable time. When he returned home, Maria was already tucked into bed, reading by the light of a branch of candles, her hair brushed out of its curls and pulled back in a braid, giving her face the austere beauty of the profile on a cameo.

“I didn’t realize it was so late,”

said Cadwallader.

Without looking up from her book, Maria said, “David has gone to bed already. He asked for you.”

Cadwallader felt the implicit criticism deeply. “I was at the Tontine Coffee House. General Hamilton wants me to run for state assembly.”

Maria set her book down on the coverlet. “That would mean you would have to spend a great deal of time in Albany.”

“Well, yes, I suppose.”

He hadn’t really thought that far.

“There would be months when we wouldn’t see you,”

said Maria flatly.

Cadwallader had that terrible sinking feeling of once again having said the wrong thing. “Only while the assembly is in session. Or you could come with me!”

Money was no issue. They could certainly afford a second establishment. “We could buy a house. David might like the countryside around Albany. I’m sure General Schuyler would advise us.”

“Did you consider that David and I might mind being either left or dragged along with you?”

Dragged seemed to be putting it a bit harshly. “I wouldn’t want you to come to Albany unless you wanted to come to Albany.”

Oh dear. He had said something wrong again. “How could I say no? The stakes are tremendous. If we win the assembly elections, we win the country. Surely I can sacrifice my own convenience for the sake of the presidency.”

“For your sake or General Hamilton’s?”

Maria pushed back the covers, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. “Did you stop to think that it might not be your convenience alone? What about David? He sees you little enough as it is.”

That wasn’t fair. “I read to David every night! Almost every night.”

“The Masons, the Manumission Society, the Federalists . . . I can’t keep track of half your obligations! You might be a bachelor for all we see you. Maybe you would have been happier being a bachelor. Even when you’re here, you’re not.”

With horror, Cadwallader realized that Maria’s eyes were filled with tears, her face scrunched up to keep them falling. “I don’t think you hear half of what I say to you. Either you’re locked in your book room or you’re thinking—whatever you’re thinking about! Last night, you didn’t even come to bed.”

“I was reading the transcript of the Weeks case,”

said Cadwallader in a low voice. “I was trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong.”

“I should think that was clear enough.”

Maria turned her back on him, her voice ragged with tears. “Don’t you think I’ve noticed that you can hardly bear to be at home?”

“Maria.”

Cadwallader came up behind her. Her nightdress was of fine French lawn, embroidered with posies. He looked down at the top of her head, the white line of her scalp where the hair parted. “What are you talking about?”

“We don’t need to pretend. I see the way you look at me. If you’d married anyone else,”

she said bitterly, “you’d have a hearth-full of children all clustered around your knees. Instead there’s just David.”

“David is worth a dozen other children,”

said Cadwallader in bewilderment. He felt as though he’d lost the thread of the conversation. Hadn’t they been talking about the Weeks case?

Maria lifted her tear-ravaged face. “But he’s not a dozen other children, is he? He’s just the one. You would have been better off if I’d died and you might have married again and had a proper family.”

“Don’t say such things!”

Cadwallader gripped her shoulders, as though he could keep her from the grave by force. “I love you. I love you if you have one child or ten. I thought—I thought you were regretting marrying me.”

“I am—I do,”

she said thickly. “If you’d married someone else, you might be happier.”

“I thought you were ashamed of me—that I’m not the lawyer Josiah is, or the statesman my grandfather was, or anything of note. I thought you were unhappy because you knew you’d picked a sorry fool for a husband.”

“That’s absurd.”

Maria wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. Cadwallader hunted in his pockets and produced a handkerchief for her. It was marked with his initials in a combination of Maria’s hair and David’s. “You’re not a sorry fool.”

“I saw you in the courtroom at the Weeks trial, watching as I faltered again and again and again. I wanted to make you and David proud of me, but instead I failed Elma Sands—I failed the Ring family—I failed you.”

Maria blew her nose with vigor. “It was you alone against three giants! Even David in the Bible only had to defeat one.”

“I wanted to defeat giants for our David—and for you. I hated to think that you were disappointed in me.”

“You never had to slaughter giants for me, Cad.”

Maria stepped forward, leaning her head against his chest. Cadwallader wrapped his arms around her, smelling the French soap she used to wash her hair, feeling her chest rise and fall in time with his. Her voice muffled by his shirt, she said, “Don’t stand for assembly. Let’s go abroad, the three of us. You’re always saying you want to take David to London.”

He could picture driving with David and Maria down the Serpentine. David could ride his pony on Rotten Row; he and Maria might go to the theater. They could take the waters in Bath, or go bathing in Brighton, in the ingenious bathing machines set up by the water.

There would be lines of credit to arrange, servants to bring with them, trunks to pack. If he could secure passage, they could leave in a matter of weeks, tides willing. It was an immensely tempting prospect.

“I’ve given my word,”

Cadwallader said sadly. “I can’t with honor withdraw.”

Maria reached up, touching his cheek. “I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honor more—isn’t that how the poem goes? I couldn’t love you so much if you weren’t the man you are.”

“Maybe I’ll lose,”

said Cadwallader. “I haven’t been very good at winning anything recently.”

“You won me,”

said Maria, looking so winsome that he just had to kiss her.

“I’ve always worried that was a mistake,”

confessed Cadwallader, as the kiss ended. “My winning you, that is, and that you’d finally realized it. And then I lost the trial. . . .”

“There will be other trials,”

said Maria firmly.

Cadwallader bit his lip. “I asked Josiah if we could bring an action against Richard Croucher as the murderer of Elma Sands.”

“What did he say?”

“He said the evidence wasn’t there.”

Like a small boy yanking off a scab, Cadwallader said despondently, “Maria, if he’s wrong—I brought charges against an innocent man. I let a killer go free.”

Maria squeezed him fiercely about the waist. “You brought charges against a man the whole city believed to be a killer—with good reason! And we don’t know Mr. Croucher had anything to do with it. He’s unpleasant, certainly, and has appalling taste in waistcoats, but that doesn’t mean he’s a murderer.”

Cadwallader thought of the way Mr. Croucher had looked, the strange, gloating note in his voice when he’d spoken of selling Rose Malone stockings for her wedding. “No, we don’t know,”

he said slowly.

“You did what you thought was right—and if you think I’d be ashamed of you for that, then you don’t know me at all,”

said Maria firmly. “I don’t rate your worth by the number of trials you win, but by the goodness of your heart. I only feared I’d lost it awhile.”

“If you think,”

said Cadwallader earnestly, looking down into her dear, familiar face, “that I rate your worth by the number of children you bear, then you don’t know me at all.”

Maria rose on her tiptoes to touch her lips to his. “If you go to Albany, David and I go too.”

Cadwallader was torn between terror at how close they had come to losing one another and a deep feeling of gratitude that despite all of it, they had found their way back.

“Anywhere we go,”

said Cadwallader tenderly, “we go together.”

“In that case,”

said Maria, taking him by the hand, “let’s go to bed.”