Page 5 of The Girl from Greenwich Street

Resolve to succeed and you cannot fail.

—Aaron Burr, 1799

New York City

January 7, 1800

“I’ve come from Ezra Weeks.”

Hamilton stood in the doorway of Aaron Burr’s drawing room, steaming with cold and self-importance.

Never mind a good evening or the other social niceties. The man had demanded this meeting and then arrived late. Why bother to pretend to courtesy?

“How kind you are to honor us with your presence,”

said Aaron gently. “Do come in. As you see, Brockholst has preceded you.”

Hamilton gave a curt nod to the tall man sprawled in Aaron’s favorite chair, with the chintz cover, in blue, to match the window curtains. “Livingston.”

Brockholst didn’t even bother to nod. He just glowered. “Hamilton.”

It was going to be, Aaron could see, an utterly delightful evening.

“Forgive me for not offering supper. My Theodosia is indisposed, so I find myself a bachelor, reduced to cold meats.”

To his credit, Hamilton looked genuinely concerned. “It’s nothing serious, I trust? When Philip was ill—”

“A simple ague.”

In fact, Aaron’s daughter Theodosia was quite recovered, more than well enough to preside at the table, but Aaron had no intention of rewarding the man for pushing in where he wasn’t wanted.

Hamilton had insisted upon a meeting; Aaron had determined the place and manner of it.

Richmond Hill was at its best at night. In the candlelight, the pale patches where paintings had once hung were less apparent. Between dusk and dawn, Aaron could imagine Richmond Hill as it had once been, crammed with Turkey carpets and China porcelain, lyre-backed chairs from France and a liquor case from Holland. He missed his inlaid card tables and his marble side tables, each chosen with such care—all sold two years ago in the wake of a disastrous financial loss.

He would buy them back and better. Once he had recouped his finances. The fledgling Manhattan Company was serving its purpose nicely, but the monies Aaron had redirected to himself from its coffers were just a morsel in the maw of his debts.

Since Hamilton had no interest in polite nothings, Aaron went straight to the point. “I understand you have decided to interest yourself in the matter of Levi Weeks.”

Brockholst could be heard to mutter something that sounded like “damned interfering puppy.”

Aaron hoped he would contain himself. The last thing they needed was a duel.

Brockholst had been fortunate not to be prosecuted for his last encounter, in which James Jones had publicly tweaked Brockholst’s noble Roman nose and been rewarded with a bullet to the groin and a swift trip to the cemetery. Aaron needed Brockholst at his side in the upcoming elections, not immured in the Bridewell like Levi Weeks.

“It’s a travesty.”

Hamilton was wringing his hands, actually wringing his hands, like a third-rate actor playing Lady Macbeth.

What a loss to the stage he was. Aaron spared a moment’s regret the man hadn’t taken to the boards and let politics be; what a boon to public life that would have been.

“Do sit down,”

Aaron suggested. “May I offer you a glass of claret? It’s just lately arrived from France.”

Naturally, Hamilton had no interest in taking a seat. He was too busy wearing a track on Aaron’s one remaining Turkey carpet. “The boy has been sacrificed on the altar of public opinion. A thousand tongues of rumor lash him about. Even his fellow inmates in the prison have declared him guilty and wreaked their vengeance upon his unresisting frame. This boy—only a boy—faces the gallows.”

“How public-spirited you are to interest yourself in his fate,”

Aaron murmured.

“Considering he had no representation before,”

growled Brockholst into his own glass of claret.

Hamilton let that slide off him, as he had let so many things slide off him. Women, for example. “If we are to prevent this boy being sacrificed to the coarse appetites of the common mob, we must discuss our strategy for his defense.”

“There’s nothing to discuss,”

Brockholst said tersely. “The girl had a vial of laudanum. A roomful of people heard her say if she could she would swallow it whole.”

“And the bruises?”

Hamilton countered fiercely.

“Can be accounted for by the effect of submersion upon the corpse.”

Aaron’s patience was beginning to wane. It was time to bring this meeting to a close. Let Hamilton see they had the matter well in hand. “The doctors who performed the autopsy found no conclusive evidence of violence. They will attest to that.”

“I spoke to Dr. Hosack this morning.”

Of course he had. Aaron might have guessed. Whatever the topic, Hamilton must play the expert.

“Dr. Hosack,”

said Aaron, “did not perform the autopsy.”

“No, but he viewed the body, and saw, in addition to the general discoloration caused by submersion, a series of spots around the windpipe of the sort that might be effected by a hand grasping the throat.”

Hamilton paused in his peripatetics around the room to draw some air into his own windpipe, his sky-blue waistcoat swelling. “He is firmly of the opinion that the livid marks on her neck could only have been caused by violence.”

“Opinion is little better than rumor,”

said Aaron. “Mere empty air. I wonder that you would give it credence.”

“The girl said she would kill herself and she did,”

said Brockholst.

Hamilton’s gold buttons glinted in the candlelight. “Levi Weeks didn’t appear to believe so.”

“Levi Weeks would do well to believe so. His neck depends on it. Claret?”

Aaron tipped the decanter over the glass without waiting for Hamilton’s answer. Apparently, their unwanted co-counsel needed to be reminded which side he served. “We can find a dozen people to swear that the girl had a melancholy disposition.”

“Levi Weeks described her as lively.”

Levi Weeks didn’t know what was good for him. Neither did Alexander Hamilton.

Aaron held out the glass of claret to Hamilton. “What can one expect? The girl was a bastard. They are notoriously prone to violent humors.”

Hamilton’s hand shook on the stem of the glass. For a moment, Aaron thought it would fall, which would be a pity, since it would break up the set. Hamilton managed to retain his grip on the glass, but he couldn’t hide the flush that spread up from his cravat straight to the tips of his ears.

Really, the man was almost too easy to goad.

Aaron gave him a moment to stew, and then said smoothly, “In this case, it works to our benefit. If the girl did away with herself . . . why, then, Levi Weeks is saved.”

“But if she didn’t?”

Hamilton’s pale skin was suffused with color; Aaron couldn’t imagine how he’d endured a tropical climate. “One must entertain all possibilities.”

“My dear Hamilton, I prefer to entertain only by invitation.”

Brockholst snorted with amusement.

Hamilton’s fingers tightened on the stem of his glass. “I should think that justice should be the object of any practitioner at the bar. The girl’s associates should be questioned, her circumstances examined. Who was by the well that night? Are there houses near enough that someone might have overheard an altercation—or noted the lack of one?”

“Why not consult the man who carts away the morning soil or the watchman napping in his box?”

inquired Brockholst sarcastically.

“Why not, indeed?”

murmured Aaron. A delightful prospect was beginning to open itself before him. Hamilton, a victim of his own industry. “If you must satisfy the dictates of your conscience . . . by all means. One wouldn’t want to work an injustice to that poor girl or her family.”

Brockholst tossed back the rest of his claret. “That’s young Colden’s obligation as prosecutor, not ours.”

“And we may be sure he will fulfill it,”

said Aaron meaningfully. “Diligently.”

“Diligently, yes. Intelligently, no,”

said Brockholst dismissively. “The boy is like a farmer told to plow a furrow. He’ll move forward regardless of what lies in his path.”

“Or what comes at him from the side?”

Aaron suggested.

Brockholst allowed himself a grim smile. “Colden still believes he won the Pastano case.”

“The Portuguese man who stabbed his landlady? I thought you gave that one to him rather too easily.”

Brockholst made a face of disgust. “It never occurred to Colden to ask why we never put up a fight—and why all of our testimony was about Pastano’s mental state. I’ve petitioned the legislature to pardon him on grounds of insanity.”

“That should unnerve Colden nicely,”

commented Aaron. For all his maddening habits, it was indisputable that no one knew how to work the more subtle mechanisms of the law better than Brockholst.

Hamilton frowned at them both, clearly not liking the tone of the conversation. Hamilton liked cleverness only when it was his own; for everyone else, he adopted a high moral tone. “That was all very well for Pastano. He was found with blood on his hands. But here—it would do our client a disservice to win by a trick. He deserves nothing less than to have his name cleared of any blot—not to mention the girl, whose soul cries out for justice.”

“You sound like a handbill,”

observed Brockholst dispassionately. “Did you see her sheeted form gibbering by the well?”

Aaron moved between the men under the guise of refilling Brockholst’s glass. “Our duty is clear. We must make certain our young carpenter was where he claims that evening. Someone must speak to John McComb—and inquire of the other residents of the street in case they might recollect Levi’s comings and goings.”

Brockholst snorted. “Would you also ask at the tavern to discover what he imbibed and in what quantities?”

“If it might have a bearing on his actions that night, yes,”

said Aaron. For a man of his acumen, there were times when Brockholst could be remarkably obtuse. “I would attend to it myself, but I have business that calls me to Philadelphia. . . .”

“I’ll go.”

Really, it was too easy. Hamilton rose to the suggestion like a fish to the lure.

“You might speak to the family as well,”

Aaron suggested, enjoying himself immensely. “Did Mrs. Ring see young Levi leave with the girl that night? The other boarders in the house—can any of them lend credence to the claim that Levi meant to marry her? The family insists upon it . . . but, then, they would.”

“They have the whole town believing it.”

Hamilton was so lost in the problem at hand, he was entirely oblivious to Aaron’s purpose. He spoke as though they were colleagues, consulting. It had been the same with the Manhattan Company. Appeal to the man, flatter his judgment, and he was yours. “Angelica and Eliza say it is the talk of the tea tables. Miss de Hart assured them on the best authority that Levi Weeks was already married to Miss Julianna Sands and, wishing to free himself of the entanglement, flung her into a well.”

“Of course they would,”

said Brockholst with disgust. “It reads like a novel by Mr. Richardson. The virtuous girl seduced and betrayed. . . . We’ve all heard that tale before. It’s the sort of thing girls pass around among themselves and giggle.”

Aaron preferred the novels of Mme d’Arblay to those of Mr. Richardson, but he decided to allow that to pass. “Then we must find a different tale to tell them. A piece, printed in one of the papers, suggesting to the public that they suspend their judgment. . . .”

“I’ll write it,”

said Hamilton immediately.

As much as Aaron desired to keep Hamilton busy, the last thing they needed was one of Hamilton’s impenetrable screeds, a thousand words where ten were needed, all of them sound and fury, and laden with unnecessary clauses. Besides, Aaron didn’t trust Hamilton to deliver the right message, which was that the girl, prone to melancholy, had taken her own life. Entertaining all possibilities was very well—and Aaron was very happy to let Hamilton waste his time entertaining them—but Aaron had a case to win.

“My dear fellow, we have already overtaxed you! We mustn’t batten on your generosity of spirit—or take you away from your valuable work defending us from the French.”

Ah, he’d hit a nerve there.

“Besides, we have our litigation in Albany to consider. But we mustn’t discuss that here, with our opposition in earshot.”

Taking Hamilton’s arm, Aaron led him to the door, casting a humorous look over his shoulder at Brockholst, their opponent in the commercial case of Le Guen v. Gouverneur and Kemble. “Alexis will see you out. I look forward to hearing what you discover on behalf of our young friend. You’re wise to begin before we need to head north.”

Aaron’s manservant, Alexis, was waiting with Hamilton’s hat, gloves, and cloak. Aaron bid the other man a genial farewell, and waited until the light of Alexis’s candle had disappeared down the stairs before returning to Brockholst.

“Will you stay a moment? I have some other matters to put to you.”

Brockholst looked past him at the doorway. “That coxcomb puts me in ill humor.”

“One tolerates what one must—when one must.”

Aaron poured a small measure of brandy into a glass; only the best brandy and the best glass, both from France.

“He’ll ruin our case.”

“Will he? It seems unlikely he would discover anything which would unsettle the presumption of suicide.”

“Unless young Weeks is guilty,”

said Brockholst bluntly.

“Are you afraid our exuberant Alexander will discover something to our client’s discredit? I doubt it. Ezra Weeks is a careful man.”

“The trouble with turning over rocks is that one might not like what one finds under them.”

“Whatever we find, we’ll handle with gloves—and bury it again, if we must,”

Aaron said soothingly.

Incisively intelligent, incurably erratic, with the broad sense of humor of a schoolboy, Brockholst was an ally who needed careful managing.

But then, who didn’t? The only one Aaron could fully trust was his Theodosia.

“I don’t like his presumption any more than you do, but it works to our advantage. Let Hamilton weary himself chasing a phantom. We have other fish to fry.”

Brockholst scowled over his brandy. “Hamilton has joined Troup in acting against me in the Cooper matter.”

“A dispute over land, was it?”

Everyone was always being sued over land speculation. It was a land speculation that had ruined Aaron’s finances, stripped his house bare—and Hamilton, who had litigated the case that had beggared him. It was like Brockholst to take it personally. “Hamilton probably needs the fees.”

“He’s doing it to persecute me. Cooper,”

added Brockholst pointedly, “is a Federalist. He’s misconstrued the whole matter. It’s nothing more than a ploy to waste my time and sully my name.”

“If it is a ploy, it’s a weak one. We’ll make them pay at the polls.”

Aaron deemed it time to get to the heart of the matter, or else Brockholst would stay brooding and drinking his brandy all night. Aaron already owed a formidable amount to his wine merchant. “I had hoped you would do us the honor of putting yourself forward as a candidate for the assembly in the spring elections.”

“I don’t know. . . .”

“Governor Clinton has agreed to serve.”

Brockholst sat up straight in his chair. “I thought he’d resolved never again to enter office!”

Aaron played his winning card. “And General Horatio Gates.”

“The hero of the Saratoga?”

If any man was revered as much as President Washington for his military prowess, it was General Gates. “He’s never run for office.”

“He is prepared to rise to the needs of the hour.”

In fact, Gates was decidedly undecided, but that, Aaron felt, was a triumph, given the man’s well-known reluctance to sink into the pit of politics. He had no doubt he could bring Gates around—with Governor Clinton and a Livingston on the ticket.

“We also have Henry Rutgers and John Broome.”

Aaron named two more heroes of the Revolution. He licked a drop of brandy off the side of his glass. “Venerable patriots whose love for their country compels them to battle the abandoned and reckless policies of General Hamilton.”

“You look like the cat who got the cream,”

Brockholst mocked, but Aaron could tell he had him, even before he added, “In that case . . . I’ll do it.”

“Your country thanks you,”

said Aaron, and held out the decanter to top up Brockholst’s glass.

A Clinton, a Livingston, and a slew of war heroes. Let Hamilton top that.

“Who does Hamilton mean to put forward for the Federalists?”

“As far as I can find”—and Aaron had found a great deal—“not many of note. Oh, and our young friend Cadwallader Colden.”

Brockholst’s eyes narrowed. “Would Hamilton insist upon taking up the case of Levi Weeks only to hand the victory to Colden?”

For a moment, Aaron felt a trickle of unease. But only for a moment. “And risk his reputation in the process? It seems unlikely. No. He wouldn’t want to be seen to fail so publicly.”

Not to mention that it would be entirely unlike Hamilton to conjure anything quite that subtle. Hamilton was like a child who thought he was being devious in his theft of tarts with the jam smeared all over his face. Actual intrigue was beyond him.

“Hamilton has once again been too clever for his own good. Humiliate Colden—and he humiliates one of his few candidates with any standing. Throw the case to Colden—and he humiliates himself. Which of the two do you think our coxcomb will choose?”

“Hmmm.”

Aaron could see Brockholst turning the problem around in his mind, looking for unexpected pitfalls.

“I’ll start our work in hand before I leave for Philadelphia tomorrow. We lay the foundations of the case, and let Hamilton waste his time as he will.”

“I’m still not sure it’s wise,”

said Brockholst, but he heaved himself out of his chair and let himself be led to the door, where Alexis was waiting with his cloak. “What is this business in Philadelphia?”

“Oh, a trifling thing.”

A trifling matter of wheedling a loan of twelve thousand dollars from a Philadelphia merchant to whom he already owed several times that—but Aaron had no doubt he could convince him that it would be less trouble to make the loan than refuse.

But before he left for Philadelphia, he had a defense to undertake—all the more urgently for the fear that Hamilton might try to write something first.

In his depleted library, surrounded by the books he hadn’t been able to bring himself to sell, Aaron pulled up one of his few remaining mahogany chairs to a small table, took out a fresh sheet of paper, and began to write.

The public are desired to suspend their opinions respecting the cause of the death of a young woman whose body was lately found in a well. . . .