“What? Weeks? Where’s Alex?” Peggy asked, frowning from underneath her rather fantastic hat with a profusion of ostrich feathers.
“Oh, you know. Seeking out clients and trying to understand all the new statutes Governor Clinton keeps passing has Alex quite busy.” An image of Mrs. Childress’s pretty blond-ringed face flashed in her mind, but she banished it immediately. “What with the vagaries of establishing a law practice in a city and state that is daily rewriting its laws, he is practically there day and night.”
Peggy peered into the house, as if she might see Alex hard at it. “But surely you can just pop in to see him for coffee now and then to make sure he pays attention to you?”
Eliza looked where Peggy was looking. “Oh, you think Alex’s office is located in this house? My dear, have you never been in a city home before? Only the wealthiest of the wealthy can afford that kind of capacious residence. Here the rooms are stacked on top of each other like dovecotes, with the kitchen in the basement and the bedchambers on the top floor, and all the receiving rooms sandwiched between. He maintains a study here, but it would be inappropriate for seeing clients, as they would have to tramp through the front parlor.”
“You mean this is . . . all . . . of the house?” Peggy seemed to think Eliza was putting her on.
“Peggy! This is considered a very fine home in New York City! It’s not large, but we have three floors. And come summer, the garden in back will be lovely. We can’t all marry Rensselaers, after all. Speaking of which—where is Stephen? And, forgive me for being abrupt, but, what are you doing here?”
Peggy looked simultaneously confused and coquettish, as if she had scored some kind of secret victory. “Didn’t you get my note? I wrote nearly two weeks ago to say that we were coming down.” As she spoke, she unbuttoned her cloak and held it out absently for a footman who never materialized. Eliza took it herself, hanging it in the small wardrobe they’d acquired, and led her sister into the living room. She took Peggy’s amazing headgear as well, and marveled at the towering creation.
Eliza shook her head. “I know that New York is supposed to be a cosmopolitan city, and we live but one block from City Hall, but I’m afraid it is only half domesticated. The British left it in such a state of disrepair as boggles the mind, and it is still very early in the redevelopment process.”
Peggy followed all this with a frown of confusion. “I take it you mean that my letter didn’t arrive,” she said when Eliza was finished.
Eliza laughed. “Only messenger-delivered mail has arrived for the past three weeks.” She indicated a sofa, which Peggy ignored, taking in the whole of the room with a few sweeping glances that made Eliza acutely conscious of the smallness of the room as compared with the great salons of the Pastures and the Van Rensselaer manor house. “But the city has other charms.”
“Like fine china, I see,” Peggy said, walking from the drawing room into the dining room. “This piece is lovely,” she said, holding up a fluted gravy dish covered in lilacs so lifelike you could almost smell them. She glanced at the empty china cabinet. “Rearranging?”
“It’s tricky,” Eliza said. “We have not quite enough pieces to fill the cabinet the way Mama does, but we still want things to look nice.”
“Well, I think they look nice on the table. You should leave them there.”
“On the table? But how would we eat?”
“Why, with them, of course.”
Eliza shook her head. “I know you are the unconventional sister, but this is a little . . . je ne sais quoi, even for you.”
“And you’re the smart sister, but you are not following my meaning. Leave them on the table because we’re having a dinner party!” said Peggy.
“A dinner par—you mean, tonight?”
“Why not? Stephen and I have no other plans. We’re staying with Helena and John Rutherfurd. Do you know them? Helena is the daughter of Lewis Morris of Morrisania, just north of Manhattan. I guess they used to own New Jersey or something? They sold much of it to the Rutherfurds, so I guess Helena is bringing it back into the family. And Helena’s uncle Gouverneur Morris is visiting. I say ‘uncle’ but he’s her father’s half brother and is not even thirty. He’s quite handsome. If I were still single, or you were . . .”
“Peggy! You scandalize me.” Eliza was looking around the dining room with its dishes scattered everywhere, wondering how it could possibly be readied for dinner. “But Rowena has already gone to market,” she protested weakly. “She will not have shopped for such a large party, if there is even that much food to be found.”
“Not to worry. I’m a Van Rensselaer now. Stephen knew about the shipping interruptions in New York, and brought along, oh, I don’t know, a lot of food. Like a whole cow and a whole pig and chickens and turkeys and ducks, and, well, pretty much anything an invading army might need. Oh, that was a bit crass of me. Too soon?”
Eliza just grimaced at her sister’s humor. “But how will we get it here? Rowena cannot possibly—”
“You must have some kind of help, don’t you?”
“Rowena’s son, Simon . . .”
“We’ll send him over with a note. The Rutherfurds have a houseful of servants. They can easily bring over what we need.”
“But Alex will not know about tonight—”
“The boy—Simon?—can tell him. Is Alex’s office far from here?”
“It is just off Hanover Square on Stone Street.”
“Which could be in Philadelphia for all I know, but I’ll assume it is close by.” When Eliza still hesitated, Peggy grabbed her hand. “Come now, sister. You’ve have been in this city for well over a month. It seems like an easy place to disappear into. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Eliza hung fire for one more moment. The thought of a party excited her to no end, but to plan it without Alex seemed a bit of a betrayal. What if he was too tired when he got home to enjoy it? But she knew that it was more likely he was as frustrated by their routine as she was, and the surprise would delight him to no end. And who knows what sort of contacts or clients he might pick up?
At last she nodded her head eagerly. She rang the bell, and a (long) moment later, Simon’s footsteps could be heard on the stairs. The towheaded boy, not yet ten years old, appeared in a wrinkled blue velvet jacket that had been hastily buttoned over much rougher homespun garments. Rowena had recently started training him for eventual service as a footman, a career that Eliza didn’t think suited him at all. He was athletic and outdoorsy and had a sure hand with animals. At the very least, he should work in a stable, but Alex had said he was the type to run off at sixteen like a modern-day Daniel Boone. From the state of Simon’s hands, it was clear he had been working with what he called his “kit”—a motley assortment of leather and metal that he used to repair tackle for the local stable.
“Yes, Miss Eliza—I mean, Mrs. Hamilton?”
While Peggy wrote a note to Stephen explaining what was needed, Eliza told Simon of his errands. Then, while Peggy told Simon where the Rutherfurds lived, Eliza penned her own missive to Alex.
Darling Husband—
A remarkable surprise has occurred! Peggy and Mr. Van Rensselaer have arrived in town, apparently in advance of a note from them alerting us to their appearance. They are staying at the nearby home of Mr. and Mrs. John Rutherfurd, and I have invited them over for dinner tonight (by which I mean, as you can probably guess, that Peggy invited herself for dinner, and I could not talk her out of it). They will be bringing their other houseguest, a Mr. Gouverneur Morris, who I believe worked with General Washington, and it should be quite a festive evening! Stephen has brought plenty of victuals, and Peggy says that she has brought her new maid as well, who can wait at table so poor Rowena isn’t overwhelmed.
Our first dinner party! And in New York City! I do hope you’ll be able to leave the office a little earlier this evening! A home
never truly becomes a home until you share it with other people!
Your loving,
Eliza
Simon looked thrilled by the prospect of an errand out of doors, not to mention out of the kitchen, and hastily donned his overcoat and dashed off.
Eliza and Peggy passed the rest of the afternoon catching up over a pot of mint tea. “So how are you, truly?” asked Peggy. “We have missed you.”
Eliza choked back a half sob and tried to cover it up with a laugh.
“Why, Eliza! Is it as hard as all that?”
Eliza shook her head. “No, no. I have missed you so much, that is all—it feels as if we are so far away from each other now. I wanted to live on my own so much, but now that we do, I miss our family.”
Peggy nodded in sympathy. “But Stephen and I will come into town often, so we shall see each other more than we wish,” she said with a naughty smile. But she kept Eliza’s hands in hers, as if to reassure her sister that while she might be alone in New York, she was not alone in the world.
“How is life in Rensselaerswyck Manor?” she asked Peggy, who had been living there now for half a year.
The house was only half as large as the Pastures, Peggy said, but practically empty by Schuyler standards. Stephen’s father, Stephen II, had died at the age of twenty-seven, when Stephen was just a boy, leaving two other children besides his namesake eldest son: Philip, who was two years younger, and Elizabeth, which prompted Eliza to quip that in all of upper New York State there seemed to be only half a dozen names: John, Stephen, Philip, Catherine (Stephen’s mother’s name as well as their own), Elizabeth, and Margaret, with a couple of Corneliuses and Gertrudes thrown in for good measure.
Elizabeth Van Rensselaer was ten years younger than Peggy and “a jolly fun girl,” though not “half as bright as my Eliza,” but what Peggy really missed was the sound of little children playing. At her words, Eliza found herself blinking back tears. She too missed the sound of children’s voices playing games and making plans . . .
Mrs. Stephen Van Rensselaer II was not yet fifty, yet she had the air of a woman “twice her age,” and while she had remarried a Reverend Eilardus Westerlo, she was still referred to in Albany society as “Mrs. Stephen II.”
“When I mentioned that Papa was the first man in the United States to bring the Ruins of Rome wallpaper back from Europe,” Peggy said, laughing, “I thought Mrs. Stephen II—she insists that I refer to her as such—was going to crack her teacup, so white did her knuckles grow! You are so lucky, Eliza!” she continued. “The house I share with my husband will not be ours until Stephen comes of age, so we have two more years in the smaller cottage on the property before we can move to the Patroon’s manor house.”
While they talked, Peggy began idly returning the silver to the display cabinet. To Eliza’s delight, her sister put everything back exactly as it had been, the four-legged serving dish flanked by the candelabra, the illustrated salver bookended by the cake plate and soup tureen. “Such lovely pieces, and so nice to have things that mean something to you rather than to some relative long gone from this world!” Eliza blushed and didn’t say anything, happy that she hadn’t had time to replace all the silver with china as she’d planned.
About a half hour after Simon had gone, Rowena returned. The housekeeper’s face went ashen when Eliza told her of the dinner plans, but then she steeled herself and muttered, “Just leave it to me, Mrs. Hamilton,” before disappearing into the kitchen.
About an hour after that, a stout woman dressed in the drabbest of drab browns appeared. Improbably, her name was Violetta. She was Peggy’s new lady’s maid, a fixture from Stephen’s youth, who looked as though she’d be more comfortable gelding calves than adjusting a corset. (“But you’d be amazed at what she can do to a wig with a teasing comb and lard,” Peggy enthused. “Her creations are positively sculptural!”) Violetta brought two boys from the Rutherfurds with her, and after a brief consultation with Eliza (“I will make do with what I have to work with, Mrs. Hamilton”), had the lads shifting furniture about like a general rearranging wooden soldiers on a painted map, banishing Eliza and Peggy to the second floor.
It wasn’t until they mounted the second-floor landing and Eliza caught a glimpse of herself in one of the two-year-old dresses that were her usual outfit around the house that she realized she still had to come up with something to wear. Peggy, of course, looked exquisite. You’d never know she’d just spent three days on the road. She was wearing a spring-green gown, with delicate pale yellow embroidery and tiny but detailed pink and periwinkle flowers. She wasn’t wearing a wig, but it didn’t matter with Peggy. Her raven tresses seemed only to have grown more lustrous, and her coiled braids, though probably meant to be practical for travel, still managed to give her the regality of a Greek statue.
Eliza, on the other hand, had been living without a lady’s maid for the first time in her life, and had been doing her hair by herself for nearly a month. She had wound it up in the simplest bun, with but a few spiraled wisps to frame her face. Alex, who never shied away from pomp and circumstance in public, said he much preferred this look for day-to-day life and endearingly called Eliza his “sweet peasant girl.” But she knew that such a look would not do to entertain guests like the Rutherfurds and Morrises, who, if not quite as wealthy as Schuylers and Van Rensselaers, were nevertheless important local gentry.
But before she could wonder how to rectify this alarming situation, Peggy was pushing her down on the simple cane-bottomed stool Eliza used as a tuffet in front of her vanity. She grabbed a brush and comb from the Spartan surface of the table, pulled the pins that held Eliza’s hair, and met her older sister’s eyes in the mirror before them.
“You cannot imagine how long I’ve waited to do this.”
Eliza couldn’t help but blanch. “You’ve never styled your own hair in your life!”
“Silly, I’m not going to do this alone,” Peggy said, as Violetta entered the room with crimping irons and powder.
16
Dinner Is Served
The Hamilton Town House
New York, New York
January 1784
A little over an hour later, Eliza could hardly recognize herself. Violetta had teased her mane into a dramatic halo with a spiraled fall that hung down to her shoulders and accentuated the taut, slender column of her neck. In front were the same wisps of hair that had been there before, but they were somehow longer and more elegant, and the whole mass had been dusted with powder, giving it an adamantine sheen.
Eliza’s face and décolletage had also been powdered, so that her exposed skin blended almost seamlessly into the silver dress Peggy had picked out for her. Eliza protested at first, saying the silver silk with its metallic bronze piping was too severe for her. But as she glanced in the mirror, she saw that Peggy’s eye had been unfailing and that Alex’s “sweet peasant girl” had been revealed to be in possession of a refinement and power that she hadn’t suspected was in her. She didn’t know whether to be pleased or frightened.
Violetta, however, was less confused. “My dear,” she breathed, returning to the room after assessing the situation downstairs. “You clean up quite well.” Then, hearing the impertinence in her tone, she quickly assumed her professional demeanor. “Mr. Van Rensselaer has arrived, along with Mr. and Mrs. Rutherfurd and Mr. Gouverneur Morris. I have taken the liberty of impressing Simon as footman. He is serving them a cordial.”
“A cordial?” Eliza knew that she and Alex had nothing so fancy in the house. Indeed, all they had were casks of Mrs. Childress’s hearty but humble ale. She turned to Peggy. “More of your stores?”
Peggy nodded. “One of Stephen’s tenants brews a remarkable honey wine. Sweet yet surprisingly delicate. Very potent, though—sip slowly.”
Eliza laughed and turned back to Violetta. “Thank you, Violetta. Please tell my guests I’ll be right down. Has there b
een any word from Mr. Hamilton?”
Violetta shook her head. “Simon said a clerk in an adjacent office let him into Mr. Hamilton’s reception room, where he left his note. Mr. Hamilton himself was not on the premises.”
An image of Ruston’s Ale House flashed in Eliza’s mind, and the row of third-floor windows that Alex had once pointed out to her as Mrs. Childress’s apartment. When Eliza asked how Alex knew this, he told her that he had often had to call on her to get her to sign some document or other. “It is a quite charming apartment, spread out almost like a country house, and Mrs. Childress is a very amiable hostess indeed.”
Eliza banished the thought of Mrs. Childress’s face and house, and her face in her house, and Alex’s face—
She shook her head to clear it.
“Well, he will have finished his errands by now, I’m sure, and returned to his office, and from there it is only a short walk home. I’m sure he’ll be here soon.” But in her heart, she wasn’t so sure. What if he was detained at the home of a potential client? If Eliza knew anything about the rich men Alex was courting for business, it was that they loved to hear themselves talk, and Alex was not in a position to cut them off. He could be held prisoner for who knows how long. Really, she wished her husband would recognize that there was more to life than work sometimes. She was trying not to be too frustrated with him, as she knew he was simply doing his best to establish his practice and secure their future.
But what was a secure future if they didn’t have time to enjoy it together?
“Come now, Sister,” Peggy said, placing her hand in Eliza’s and patting it soothingly. “You have seen Mama handle a houseful of guests in Papa’s absence without breaking a sweat. And as I recall, you did a flawless job hosting that send-off for Alex and Papa a few years ago.”