10

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Romance

The Hamilton Town House, Rear Parlor

New York, New York

July 1785

When they had finally stopped kissing, Alex and Eliza attended to their guests. Alex entertained the menfolk with stories of his latest victory over Aaron Burr in court, and when he once again caught up with his wife, she was looping her arm through Betty Van Rensselaer’s. Claiming that Betty must be exhausted from her travels, Eliza pulled her into the rear parlor, which was less crowded than the front—people always wanted to be near the door to spot new arrivals and claim any celebrity guest as their own.

“Drayton,” Eliza called to the footman as they went. “Do please bring a decanter of Miss Van Rensselaer’s brother’s honey wine for her to drink.”

“Drayton,” Betty called in a mocking voice. “Do please don’t bring a decanter of Miss Van Rensselaer’s brother’s honey wine for her to drink. Miss Van Rensselaer has drunk more of her brother’s honey wine than is safe for any human being to consume. I fear if I have another drop I shall turn into a honeybee!”

“Oh, I see,” Eliza said, and motioned for Drayton to wait. “What would you like to drink then?”

Betty turned to Alex with a wicked grin. “I have heard that the Marquis de Lafayette often sends you some of the cognacs and wines he produces on his estate in France. Perhaps you have a bottle on hand?”

Alex smiled at the girl’s moxie. You certainly couldn’t fault her taste. “Alas, those gifts, precious as they are, seem never to last very long in this household. I always mean to set a bottle aside—”

“—and we always wake up with it beside the bed,” Eliza said with a laugh.

“I can offer you some of the wine General Schuyler makes on his Saratoga estate,” Alex suggested.

“Ugh,” Betty said, then blushed slightly. “Begging your pardon, Eliza, but Peggy is always trying to get us to drink it at Rensselaerswyck. Barker, our butler, can’t even get the servants to imbibe it, let alone the guests.”

Alex covered his smile with his hand. He shared Betty’s opinion of his father-in-law’s wine-making abilities and knew Eliza did as well, but he never would have said it quite so bluntly.

“Footman,” Betty said now, turning to Drayton, “what is Mr. Hamilton’s finest liquor?”

“His name is Drayton,” Eliza said in such a way that made Alex turn sharply to her. Alex knew that Eliza hated to see servants talked down to, but her tone was less critical than . . . personal, almost. It was as if his wife were introducing their footman to their sister-in-law. “Drayton Pennington.”

“Speak up, Pembleton,” Betty said with a wry grin. “I know my brother-in-law is holding out on me.”

Drayton nodded deferentially, though Alex couldn’t tell if he was cowed by the girl’s imperious manner or by the fact that a pretty girl was teasing him in front of a roomful of people. “From what I have seen, Mr. Hamilton esteems his Virginia bourbon above all other libations. It was sent to him by Mr. James Madison from his own estate, Montpelier.”

Alex’s mouth dropped. That bourbon was indeed delectable and was one of his prized possessions. There were only a few bottles left.

“Is that so? Well, then, that’s what I’ll have. Be sure to bring the whole bottle. I don’t want to have to keep calling you. Not for drinks, anyway,” she added, all but winking at the clearly embarrassed boy.

Alex couldn’t tell if she was toying with Drayton or actually flirting with him. He had heard that Betty was headstrong and spoiled but good-natured. It would be just like a rich, pretty princess from the provinces to have a last fling with a handsome New York servant before going back to Albany to marry some first or second cousin fifteen years her elder and settling into a life of tea parties and children. At any rate, before Alex could think of a suitable protest—other than the fact that he wanted it all for himself—Drayton was gone.

“Well, what do you think?” Eliza said, turning back to Betty.

Again that familiar tone, as if some European baronet had just left the room and Eliza wanted to dish about the wax in his mustache or the extent of his vineyards. Alex was starting to wonder what his wife was playing at.

“Oh, the house is lovely,” Betty said after a bit of a pause. “Stephen told me its diminutive size only added to the charm, and he was correct. I wouldn’t mind another log on the fire though. These north-facing rooms do get rather chilly, even in July.”

Eliza smiled, a bit painfully. “Thank you—our tiny little house does suit us, though perhaps we’ll find larger accommodations when baby comes.”

“What baby?” Betty said blankly. She looked around for a moment, then pulled her shawl around her shoulders.

“Didn’t Peggy tell you? I am expecting.”

Betty shrugged. “Maybe? I’ve never quite paid attention to pregnancy. It’s so . . . unsightly, you know.” With her hands, she described a rotund shape, frowning first, then laughing. “The figure never really bounces back either, does it? Even Peggy, who was once nearly as slim as I am, has thickened up since Cathy’s birth. She has this cute little fold of skin below her chin now. I call it her wattle, which I think is quite funny, but she seems to think I am teasing her.”

“She should wear it with pride,” Eliza said, though it seemed to Alex that she sat up a little straighter, as if to smooth out the folds in her skin.

“Mmmm,” Betty cooed in a noncommittal manner.

At that very moment a rattle sounded from the door. Drayton had returned with a bottle and sherry glasses balanced on his tray.

“Oh, Pemberly is back with the whiskey!” Betty said, clapping her hands. “Yay!”

Drayton hesitated but recovered quickly. He set his tray down on a sideboard and began pouring drinks.

Alex sighed under his breath. Even the bottle James had brewed his whiskey in was beautiful, exceptionally tall and slim, and blown from translucent heavy crystal. The liquid inside was golden brown—just like the color of Maria Reynolds’s hair—why that occurred to him, he did not know, and he banished the thought quickly.

Drayton placed a glass on his tray and bent forward to offer it to Betty. She didn’t look at it, and her hands remained in her lap. “Eliza, please don’t forget to ask Dradington to stoke the fire.”

Alex could see that Eliza’s smile was forced. “Of course. I’ll be sure to relay the information to Drayton.” She paused. “Don’t you want a drink?”

“Oh, I’d love one!” Betty said, though she made no move to acknowledge Drayton’s presence. The footman continued to bend forward like a clock whose hands have stopped at two thirty. Despite the tray delicately balanced on it, his outstretched arm was absolutely unmoving.

“It’s, um, right there?” Eliza said.

Betty turned and abruptly looked at Drayton as if she had just noticed him for the first time. “What, this?”

Even Drayton was finding it hard to maintain his composure. “Er, yes?” he said, as if he doubted what he had poured in the glass before her.

“But I asked for whiskey, and this is a sherry glass,” Betty said.

Drayton’s mouth dropped open, and his cheeks went red. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Miss Van Rensselaer—”

“No need to apologize, Drayton,” Eliza spoke over him. “The fault is all mine.” She turned to Betty. “I told Drayton that where ladies are concerned, he should always serve brown liquors in sherry glasses. One wouldn’t want them looking like boozing sailors, now would one?”

“Oh, ah, I see,” Betty said, unsure if she had just been insulted or not. “In that case, thank you.” She took the glass from Drayton’s tray and held it in her lap without drinking.

Point to Eliza, Alex thought proudly, then accepted his own glass.

“Wait, why is he getting a sherry glass, too?” Betty asked. “He’s not a lady, as far as I can tell.”

“Wait till you taste the whiskey,” Alex said quickly. “It deserves a belled glass to encapsulate its oaky bouquet.”

Betty sniffed at her glass, then wrinkled her nose. “Smells like whiskey to me,” she said, then tossed her drink back in a single gulp. “Fill ’er up, Pennyworth,” she said, holding out her glass to him.

Alex still couldn’t tell if she was teasing Drayton playfully or if she was just being rude. He glanced at Eliza. Her face was equally puzzled, but there was also a sharpness to her eyes, as if she had some a vested interest in knowing which it was.

But he had more pressing concerns. He was quickly realizing that if he was going to get any enjoyment out of this bottle he was going to have to try to keep up with his sister-in-law. “Another for me as well, Drayton.”

Drayton refilled their glasses, then turned to Eliza, who demurred, patting her stomach. “Very good, ma’am. Will there be anything else?”

“I think that’s all for now. Perhaps Miss Van Rensselaer will want a plate in a while, though, so do check back.”

“Of course, Mrs. Hamilton,” he said, bowing as he backed out of the room.

As soon as he was gone, Eliza turned to Betty. “Well,” she said in the same excited tone as before. “What do you think?”

“Of the house?” Betty said. “I believe I said it was cozy? Am I imagining that?”

“Not the house,” Eliza said with a smile. “Drayton.”

“Who is that?” Betty asked, apparently serious.

“The footman?” Eliza said. “The one you were so clearly flirting with?”

“I was flirting?” Betty said incredulously. “With the footman?”

“You must admit he is quite handsome,” Eliza said in a leading voice.

“Oh, is he?” Alex said now, feeling a flash of jealousy himself. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Said the man hiding strange women in hotel rooms,” Eliza said sharply, though she kept her gaze directed at Betty.

“There’s nothing strange about Mrs. Reynolds,” Alex said. “You very quickly get used to that third arm she has growing out of her side.” He wagged a finger at Drayton, who was just visible in the front parlor, on the far side of the dining room. “What’s this? What are you cooking up here?”

Eliza took a sip of her drink. “Why, whatever do you mean?” she said, in what Alex thought was supposed to be a Southern accent, though it sounded rather Irish to Alex’s ears.

“Don’t play innocent with me, wife. I am not the only person who likes to save people. Only in this case, I’m not sure it’s saving you’re doing, or sabotaging.”

“What on earth are you two talking about?” Betty said, interrupting their banter. “And will someone please refill my glass?”

“I would be happy to, Birdy,” a male voice said from the doorway. Alex looked over to see John entering the room, carrying his own empty glass. “I thought I smelled whiskey.”

“Little Johnny Schuyler!” Betty exclaimed. “I had forgotten you were here.”

“Am I so forgettable then?” John said, pouring a little whiskey in her glass and being rather more generous with his own. Alex noted sadly that the bottle was nearly half empty already. “You cut me to the quick, Birdy.”

“What?” Betty said, pretending to look around for the source of the voice. “Oh! John! I had forgotten you were here!”

“Touché,” John said, touching his glass to Betty’s, then swilling half of his back in a gulp. “I tell you what. I won’t call you Birdy if you won’t call me Johnny.”

“Well, what am I supposed to call you then? John is your name, after all.”

“That’s right, John is my name, not Johnny.”

“Eggplant, aubergine,” Betty said. “It’s all the same to me. But whatever you want, John,” she finished in a heavy, teasing voice.

“What’s wrong with Birdy? I find it charming,” said Alex.

“John used to call her that when they were children,” Eliza said, noting how cheerful John looked at the sight of their old friend. “He said she had legs like a chicken’s.”

“My legs were adorable, thank you very much,” Betty said. She extended one now, revealing a polished wooden heel and dainty foot clad in glove-soft leather and, daringly, a bit of silk-clad ankle. “Mama said I could have been a dancer, if it were not such a disgraceful profession.”

“In the opinion of your mother and our mother,” John said, “there are only three professions available to women: general’s wife, gentleman’s wife, or widow.”

“Your mother got two of them,” Betty tittered. “Does that make her a bigamist?”

“Betty!” Eliza gasped, sounding genuinely shocked to Alex’s ears. “You go too far!”

“Oh, relax, sis, we’re all family here,” said John.

“But even so. A little respect for the women who raised us is only fitting,” said Eliza.

“Mother? Raise me?” scoffed John. “I had to ask Nanny for permission to even see her, and it was Nanny’s lap I sat on during the visits, not Mother’s. Frankly, I’m relieved. Mother has such skinny legs. It would have been like sitting on a pair of fallen fenceposts. Nanny’s lap was plump like a pair of pillows.”

“Our mothers are from a different generation than ours,” Eliza said. “Everything was formalized then. The rules came from the king down, and each step on the rung was clearly demarcated. Their roles restricted them, but it also gave them a sense of identity. Our generation is much more open to possibility. We can choose our own roles. We are not bound by expectations of family or class,” she said. “For instance, in the United States, one is free to fall in love with a gentleman as well as with a footman.”

Betty turned to John. “You said she had turned into quite the little sermonizer. I see you weren’t exaggerating. I for one am happy with who I am,” she continued. “My family built this country, both before and after independence, and I am only too content to continue their traditions. Stephen is Patroon, and I, as his sister, will have a special place on our lands. What woman would not want the masses to part for her when she walks by, like the Red Sea for Moses?”

“This woman, for one!” Eliza said, a bit irritated by the young woman’s old-fashioned attitude. “How terrible to feel that one cannot interact with one’s fellow human beings as equals. To wonder if everything they say to you is couched in fear of reprisal rather than honesty.”

“But we are not all equal, no matter how Mr. Jefferson says we are created,” John said now. “Too many people think that he meant we are born equal, when all he meant is that God created us the same all those hundreds of generations ago. But we are born into quite different circumstances. Male, female. Light-skinned, dark. And more tellingly: rich and poor, free man and slave. These circumstances shape us and make us all the more different from one another. To pretend otherwise is simply to deny the evidence before your eyes, and the inherent injustice of the current system.”

“You certainly have a point. But by your own argument,” Eliza responded, “you admit that people change over time. And if they can change in one direction, they can change in another. The high can come lower, the low can come higher, and we can all meet somewhere toward the middle. And slavery is the most unjust of all and must be ended at once.”

“Hear, hear,” said Alex.

John and Betty nodded as well. But Betty soon found her footing once more. “Still, it sounds so dreary. You describe the social version of porridge oats or strained peas. I for one like a little salt and sugar, some spicy pepper from the east!”

“Not to mention some delectable whiskey,” John said, touching her glass to his and smiling at her warmly. They clinked and drank. Alex’s heart sank a little more, but he was enjoying Eliza’s sparring too much to say anything. Though he had had conversations like this with John Jay and James Madison and even Aaron Burr, it was a welcome spectacle to see his wife holding the torch for the American experiment in equality.

“So are you saying,” Eliza said now, leaning forward to Betty. “Are you saying that there could never be anything between you and, say, Mr. Pennington?”

Alex’s eyes went wide.

“I don’t know who that is,” Betty said.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Betty. Drayton. The footman. You have met him several times already tonight,” said Eliza.

“Are we still on about the footman?” Betty clutched a hand to her chest.

“Yes, why not? In a new country, with new customs, do you think a landed lass like yourself should fail to find common cause with a lad as handsome and honorable as Drayton Pennington merely because he wears livery rather than a lieutenant-colonel’s epaulets?”

“Good heavens, Eliza,” John said. “It is almost as though you are challenging her.”

Eliza shrugged. “Perhaps I am.”

“Challenging me to what exactly?” Betty said. “I love a good challenge!”

“Eliza, darling,” Alex said now. “A word?”

“Just a moment, dear,” Eliza said, keeping her eyes trained on Betty’s. “I challenge you to look at Drayton as what he is. As a boy, your age, with the same drives and ambitions we all have. To do something worthwhile with his time. To find love.”

“Love!” Betty laughed. “Oh, Eliza, you set me a difficult task!”

“You are only here a few months,” Eliza said nonchalantly. “If the experiment does not take, you can return to Rensselaerswyck none the worse for wear. The Red Sea will part, and you will be back in the promised land.”

Betty just shook her head, but Alex could see her gaze was focused somewhere out of the room. He looked where she was looking, and saw the upright form of the footman. He was proffering a sandwich to Mrs. Jantzen as though it were an emerald ring on a pillow. He offered a winning smile, and Mrs. Jantzen responded by batting her eyelashes at him like a sixteen-year-old.

“I suppose he isn’t bad-looking, is he?” Betty said musingly.

“That’s the whiskey talking,” John said darkly.

Betty shrugged. “Well, there’s always more whiskey, right, Alex?”

Alex glanced longingly at the nearly empty bottle. “Indeed, Betty,” he sighed. “There’s always more whiskey.”