24

Mother’s News

Eliza’s Bedroom

Morristown, New Jersey

February 1780

With Aunt Gertrude tucked away all cozy in bed, Eliza pulled both sisters into her second-floor room. She shook her head and punched a pillow, bouncing on the bed. “Angelica Schuyler!” Eliza began. “What were you thinking?”

Angelica sighed and didn’t say anything for a long moment, then pulled a letter from her purse and handed it to her sister in silence.

“You need to hear this, too,” she said to Peggy. “It concerns all of us.”

It was chilly in the room, and Peggy joined Eliza beneath blankets that had been warmed by a brazier. Angelica slipped behind a screen and began changing into her nightclothes as Eliza read their mother’s letter aloud:

“My dear Angelica,

“I write to you as the eldest of my daughters, not because I think that the information I am going to share with you is the sort of thing that a girl of your age should concern herself with, but because there are times when a girl of any age must concern herself with things that seem masculine, or foreign, or otherwise unpleasant. I speak frankly when I say that you are not as intelligent or educated as your sister Elizabeth, but you possess a capacity for captaincy that she, who is independent rather than a true leader, does not. I therefore confide this information to you with the trust that you will see that it is put to its proper use.

“I am informed by General Schuyler that, though the house at Saratoga has been rebuilt and the fields and orchards replanted, the harvests have not yet reached fruition, and as a result the farm is consuming far more money than it is bringing in. General Schuyler has considered selling it, but there is no one in these conditions of uncertainty who is willing to pay even a tenth of its worth, and parting with it would only be cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. Additionally, General Schuyler has not received his stipend from the Continental Congress for nearly two years, and though there is every reason to believe that he will be rewarded amply with land and other in-kind goods when the war is concluded, it is impossible to say when that day will come, or even if it will be decided in our favor.

“What I am trying to say, my dearest daughter, is that we are on the verge of ruin.

“It is therefore imperative that you and your sisters marry immediately, and marry well. In this regard, only Margarita is fulfilling her duty, but Master Van Rensselaer is still some years away from attaining his majority. Though the connections between his family and ours go back several generations, I worry that the Patroon will discover to what circumstances we have been reduced and will call off the engagement. So great is my fear that I urge you not to share this information with Peggy, who has not the discretion the Almighty gave to a screech owl and is likely to unnecessarily share this information with young Stephen, who would then be well within his rights to communicate it to his father.”

“Mama!” Peggy exclaimed when Eliza reached this point. “You libel me!”

“Oh, hush,” Eliza said. “You know you’re an unrepentant gossip.”

Peggy hushed. It was true.

“As for you, Angelica, I am going to advise you to do something that directly contravenes General Schuyler’s wishes for you and, as such, causes me no amount of consternation. Though Mr. Church’s family connections remain hazy to us, as do his business dealings and debts from his time in England, his successes here in America are plain enough to assess. Even General Schuyler has admitted that, though he dislikes Mr. Church personally, the man is remarkably adept at providing munitions to the Continental army at reasonable prices while simultaneously retaining a handsome profit for himself. I am told by both General Schuyler and other sources that those profits number in the thousands, and as such they outweigh any marks against him. Therefore it is with a heavy heart I am advising you—nay, directing you—to accept his offer of marriage and to finalize the union posthaste. If necessary, you should elope with him, for, though the news will wound your father, the general will take comfort in the fact that you are paired with a man whom you respect, and who can provide for you and ease the lot of his relations.”

“Angelica!” Eliza called to her sister behind the privacy screen. “Are you really going to do it? Are you going to elope?”

“Keep reading,” Angelica grunted as she writhed free from her dress. “We will discuss everything when you have finished.”

“Which brings us to Elizabeth. We sent her to Morristown with the expectation that she would meet some suitable young gentleman among the many officers in General Washington’s entourage. But it has come to my attention via Gertrude that Eliza has allowed her time to be monopolized by that nameless and penniless scoundrel Hamilton, who only last year oversaw the prosecution of dear Papa for crimes against his country, even though he was exonerated on all charges. I do not wish to go into that again.

“Undoubtedly, it is a testament to your father’s goodness of character and breeding that he speaks in the highest terms of Colonel Hamilton’s intelligence and potential despite that fellow’s transgressions against him. Nevertheless, Colonel Hamilton is an unacceptable candidate.

“Suffice it to say, as a woman I judge him with my heart and my purse. My heart does not forgive him for what he did to your father, and my purse hangs empty at my side—he will not fill it.

“In short, he will not do, and since Eliza is making no attempt to find a more suitable beau, I have decided to take matters into my own hands. I have been in correspondence with Susanna Livingston, the wife of Governor William Livingston and mother to your friends Kitty and Sarah. Their brother Henry is the same age as Eliza and has served as aide-de-camp to both General Schuyler and Major General Benedict Arnold, who led our boys to victory at Saratoga and regained for us our once and future beloved estate. Though his efforts on behalf of his country are nothing less than commendable, Mrs. Livingston tells me that she has seen certain signs of restlessness in Colonel Livingston, and indeed indications of incipient waywardness that suggest he is in want of a wife to cut short these libertine tendencies before they can become true vices. To that end, Mrs. Livingston and I mutually agree that is in both families’ best interest if he and Eliza marry immediately—”

“No—!” Eliza cried out, pressing the letter into Peggy’s hands.

There were two or three more paragraphs, but Eliza couldn’t bear to read further.

“Angelica?” she called in a forlorn voice. “Is it . . . oh, can it be . . . true? Am I to marry Henry Livingston?”

It was Peggy who answered her.

“Mama’s letter says he arrives on the twenty-fourth. That is tomorrow. He will only be in Morristown for one week. She wants the business concluded before he leaves.”

The business, Eliza thought grimly, as though I were so many bushels of corn to be sold at market.

“I have not seen Henry in some years,” Peggy said, squeezing her hands, “but Kitty wrote me last winter to say that he had turned out a fine young man.”

“He pulled my pigtails,” Eliza said dazedly. “When we visited the Livingstons in Elizabethtown when I was eleven. Henry would sneak up on me and pull my pigtails from beneath my bonnet.” She looked at her sister forlornly. “That is all I know about my future husband.”

“You know he’s rich,” Angelica said, stepping out from behind the screen. “What more do you need to know?”

Eliza looked up in surprise to see that her older sister had not changed into her nightgown, but into a simple traveling dress in dark wool, without corset or bustle.

“Sister? What are you doing?”

Angelica shrugged. The look on her face was one of defiant resolution. “I am doing what Mama directed me to do: I am eloping.”

“What—tonight?! That cannot be.”

“John sends the carriage for me at midnight. We will travel to Elizabethtown, and Governor Livingston himself will perform the ceremony. Not even Papa can object, if his daughter is married by a governor. We travel thence to Philadelphia, where John is establishing a base for his business so that it can better cater to both north and south.”

“But, Angelica! You cannot marry like . . . like a milkmaid in trouble, in front of a judge in a plain wool dress! You must have a trousseau and a dowry and a wedding at home like Mama and Papa’s, in bright silks, with family gathered around you.”

Angelica smiled benignly. “That will be your wedding, dear Eliza.”

“I will not marry Henry Livingston! I do not even know him.”

“That may be so, but you won’t marry Colonel Hamilton either. Mama and Papa will not allow it. They cannot afford it.”

Eliza was aghast.

“And you can’t elope either.” This last from Peggy forlornly.

“What do you mean?” Eliza said, turning to her younger sister.

“Mama writes that she worried that you might attempt to run off with Colonel Hamilton, but Papa assures her that Colonel Hamilton’s own sense of decorum will prevent such an outcome. She says he feels too much loyalty to Papa as a fellow soldier in the cause of revolution to betray his trust in such a manner. His guilt at being forced to prosecute Papa last year will only reinforce his desire not to further harm a man whom he esteems so greatly.”

Even as Eliza turned her back to Peggy’s words, she knew they were true. Alex was too honorable to steal a man’s daughter, especially the daughter of a man he had been forced against his will to do harm. She was trapped. Besides, as Angelica pointed out at the dinner table, Alex had yet to declare his courtship or define his intentions concerning their relationship, whatever they were.

So now she was going to have to marry Henry Living-ston, a boy she had last seen nearly a decade ago, when he had pulled her pigtails until her head was so wobbly she thought it would fall from her neck.

“If he so much as touches my hair now,” she said out loud, “I swear I’ll cut his hands off.”