Alexander Hamilton to Eliza Schuyler
Preakness, New Jersey, October 27, 1780
How happy am I to think that one month more puts an end to our long separation; shall I find you my Dear girl as impatient to receive me as I shall be to fly to your bosom? . . . With transport will my heart answer to the question,will you take this woman to be thy wedded wife?
Prepare my charming bride to crown your lover with every thing that is tender, kind, passionate and endearing in your sex. He will bring you a heart fraught with all a fond woman can wish. . . .
God bless you My Darling girl. Mention me affectionately to your Mother and to Peggy. Tell all the family I love them, and assure yourself that my affection for you is inviolable.
A Hamilton
“LET US PRAY FOR SNOW ON YOUR WEDDING DAY,” said Catharine, watching their servant Moll pin a sky-blue band along the hem of Eliza’s white brocade gown. Eliza was a mass of pins. She wanted the more luxurious flounces removed so her gown better matched the austerity of the Continental Army uniform Hamilton would wear in the ceremony. Her mother had protested but Eliza, in an unusual display of stubbornness, had persisted.
“Oh, Mama, let us not hope for snow,” said Peggy. “We had so much last year, I almost wish to never see another flake ever again.” She was curled up in the window seat of their bedroom with Cornelia, working through the alphabet with her, but mostly trying to stay out of Catharine’s wake. Seven months pregnant, their mother already cut a wide, uncomfortable berth. She moved slowly and painfully and in fretful spurts, her feet and legs badly swollen.
“But snow on a wedding day portends fertility and wealth,” said Catharine. No matter how anglicized she and their papa had become in the way they decorated their mansion, dressed themselves, or entertained, Catharine’s Dutch heritage slipped out in superstitions. The blue ribbon on Eliza’s dress was part of that—it symbolized purity.
“What does fer-fertootully mean?” asked Cornelia, looking up at Peggy. She was about to turn five years old and had become obsessed with whatever her big sisters were doing or saying and the meaning of each and every word uttered around her.
“It means that Mama hopes Eliza is blessed with many lovely plums like those in our orchard!” Peggy pinched her little sister’s nose affectionately.
Grateful for the metaphor, Catharine carried it through to literal plums. “Isn’t it a wonderment that there are still some for the wedding party? Your papa is so proud of them.” She lowered herself into a chair, rubbing her stomach and sighing heavily. It was midmorning and she still wore her dressing gown, the biggest sign of how physically exhausted their mother was. Peggy earnestly hoped this would be Catharine’s last pregnancy. Her body was not as strong as it had been. Carrying a child was taxing for even the healthy and young, plus giving birth, even for a veteran mother, carried so many dangers. Peggy wasn’t sure that her papa would survive if Catharine died. His voice still carried honey when he addressed her as “my beloved Kitty.”
Despite her physical fatigue, Catharine was clearly delighting in the hubbub of wedding preparations. Eliza had confided to Peggy she’d considered running off to marry Hamilton wherever he was—it was taking so long for him to arrange leave from Washington’s staff to make the trip to Albany for their wedding. Thank goodness she had changed her mind—Catharine would have been crushed. And she never would have forgiven Peggy for helping another sister abscond.
Merrily, Catharine chatted on, “The feast will be grand. We will butcher a hog. We will have eel for stew. My only real worry is getting my hands on enough brown sugar for my family’s traditional wedding cake. I have hoarded some, as have your grandparents, but pulling together a full two pounds’ worth may be challenging.”
“Mama, you mustn’t use up all the family’s sugar on a cake for me,” said Eliza.
“Nonsense, my dear! This is your wedding day. It must be celebrated properly and with joy. Consider half the sugar as having belonged to Angelica. Since she chose to forgo a proper wedding and her devoted parents witnessing it, her amount of sugar rightly goes to you.” Catharine stiffened, clearly kicked by the baby, and muttered, “I cannot believe Angelica is not coming for your nuptials or for Christmas. Surely that husband of hers can manage without her for a few weeks.”
“But what about Peggy?” asked Eliza, ignoring the dig at Angelica. Peggy made her eyes huge and shook her head violently, anticipating what her middle sister would say next. But it was too late, as Eliza added in singsong voice: “You will need to save some sugar for her.”
“Oh?” Catharine sat up, smiling broadly. “Is there something I should know?”
“No, there isn’t!” Peggy’s voice was sharp, despite Eliza smiling at her so hopefully. The hurt of not hearing from Fleury was festering into a gaping wound. Eliza had just rubbed salt into it.
“You will need to curb that tongue of yours, child, to catch a husband,” Catharine chastised. “And stop talking politics so much. Men wish to discuss that sort of thing with other men, not women. Such a pity you do not possess your sisters’ singing voice.”
Peggy glowered at Eliza.
Silently mouthing “I’m so sorry” at Peggy, Eliza tried to repair the damage she’d done. “But Mama, Colonel Hamilton tells me that many officers were quite taken by our Peggy’s eloquence and her charming wit and especially her command of . . . French.” Eliza emphasized the word French as if it were Frenchman, smiling at Peggy in her gentle way of teasing.
“Hmpf. She does have that. Like her papa. Well, let us hope by the time our Peggy is to be wed, the war is over and trade flourishing again. Surely with Rochambeau’s arrival the French and Patriots can end the war by summer.”
Peggy bit her lip from responding to her mother’s criticisms of her and her lack of understanding that the disasters which had decimated the Continental Army in the South during the summer would most likely keep any spring campaigns to simply being desperate fights to regain a toehold in those states. She stared out the window. Peggy knew she should be accustomed to it by now, but she still brushed away a tear of disappointment at her mother’s favoritism for Eliza. She no longer blamed her middle sister for her extra portion of motherly love. Eliza’s gentle spirit deserved all the affection she received. But didn’t Peggy’s loyalty to the family and hard work earn her the same, or at least something equal even if different?
Because she was focusing her gaze to the river, endeavoring to ignore her mother, Peggy heard the sentinel’s muffled cry: “Riders to the house!”
She hugged Cornelia and pointed. “See the men coming. What pretty horses!” She watched the riders, recognizing the navy capes, the dark-blue-and-buff uniforms. After a few moments she could make out faces. “Ooooohh, E-li-za,” she sang. “Guess who?”
Eliza turned white, then pink, and then darted to the bedroom door, knocking over poor Moll in her haste.
“Oh no you don’t!” Catharine hoisted herself up and barred Eliza. “The groom cannot see the bride in her wedding dress before the ceremony.”
Eliza looked like she would burst into tears.
“Oh, Mama,” Peggy said, “tradition be damned. Poor Eliza hasn’t seen Hamilton for months!”
That was a mistake.
Catharine drew herself up to an austere regalness that would shame England’s crowned queen. “We will discuss your language later, Margarita. But for now, I need to dress to meet my new son-in-law. Eliza, you—no, you must do as I say.” Catharine reached out to take hold of Eliza, who was hopping up and down, desperate to make for the door. “You must put on a different dress. You must. Wear that lovely salmon-colored frock.”
Catharine turned to Peggy. “Your papa is in town ordering blankets to be made for the Oneida since they lost everything they had in those raids. Congress, of course, will do nothing for them. He is paying for them himself.” She shook her head and muttered something under her breath. “He will not be back for hours. So, you must greet the colonel. With your best manners, mind you. Take Cornelia with you.”
Orders issued, Catharine swept from the room. Dutifully, Peggy took Cornelia’s hand. Eliza helped Moll up from the floor, begging her pardon and her help in stripping her dress off as quickly as possible! As she headed for the stairs, Peggy could hear Eliza squeal as pins pricked her in her scramble.
Hamilton stood in their wide front hall, hat in hand. Planted on the wall-to-wall floor cloth—painted in large midnight blue and white checks to resemble the grandest of European marble floors—the slender, graceful man looked almost like a statue one would find in a chateau. Motionless, he gazed upward. His eyes wandered over the vaulted ceiling, its richly carved dentil molding, the crystal chandelier, and then down to the elegant wallpaper of hand-painted scenes of Roman ruins that Schuyler had brought back from England. His mouth was hanging slightly open.
For the first time in her life, Peggy felt slightly ashamed of her wealth. Clearly Hamilton had never seen the likes of her family’s mansion before. When she called to him and he turned, she spotted fear in those exquisite violet-blue eyes. No greed, no self-satisfaction or sense of new ownership. Rather, a self-conscious intimidation. He masked it quickly, of course. But Peggy had seen it—pitied it—and she promised herself to remember it in the future when Hamilton aggravated her. She was learning his swagger might be more defensive bluster than actual arrogance.
Out of this kindness for her soon-to-be brother, Peggy ignored the comment of his companion, James McHenry, who whispered before they realized she was nearby, “Well, Hammie, you’ve got it made now.” She was really coming to detest the man.
What a shame McHenry had to be the one to stand by her sister’s groom. But Peggy knew Harrison was in Virginia because his father had died, Meade was getting married himself, and Lafayette was in Philadelphia meeting with Congress. Tilghman had to remain at headquarters with Washington—how that poor fellow must be drowning in papers as the sole aide-de-camp dealing with the work typically handled by five or six men.
Hamilton’s eyes drifted hopefully behind Peggy, trying not to show disappointment that it was she rather than Eliza before him.
“She’s coming,” said Peggy, approaching the men to curtsy, with Cornelia, suddenly shy, hiding behind her.
Hamilton kissed Peggy and then dropped to his knee. “Is this sister Cornelia?” he asked solemnly.
Cornelia peeped out from behind Peggy’s wide skirt to nod.
“I hope we are to become the best of friends,” he said.
“Do you know how to get the ball into a Bilbo catcher?”
He smiled. “No. But would you show me?”
The little girl nodded and darted away to retrieve the toy.
While he was still kneeling, Eliza appeared at the top of the landing, she and her rose-tinted gown bathed in sunshine from its window. Their father had so loved his voyage to England that he had ordered the molding on the stair boards be carved to look like waves, the balusters twisted to resemble ship cables. Schuyler couldn’t have designed a prettier descending stage for his daughter to sail down to embrace her lover, who staggered to his feet, dumbstruck.
Even McHenry sighed.
A week later, on December 14, Eliza and Hamilton pledged their love to each other in the Schuylers’ best parlor. Papered in deep blue and papier-mâché medallions gracing its ceiling, the large room glowed with the hearth’s fire, candlelight, and the irrepressible smiles of the groom and his bride. All Eliza’s family, save Angelica, stood witness for her, including Aunt Gitty and a beaming Dr. Cochran, who proudly claimed total responsibility for the match. Even the boys stood rapt and quiet as Hamilton slipped onto Eliza’s finger a wedding band of two interlocking rings, one engraved with her name, the other with his.
Missing was Richard Varick. The military court had recently cleared him of any guilt regarding Benedict Arnold’s treason, and the loyal Dutchman had returned to his home in New Jersey. But what kept Varick from traveling to Albany for the nuptials was the fact he had joined his local militia. Determined to still serve, even though now a low-level foot soldier, he was standing watch every other night. Schuyler explained this to Cochran, who’d asked where Varick was.
“But he sends his best wishes to the lucky groom and his bride,” Schuyler said, smiling with pride at Eliza and then at Peggy, adding, “And he hoped that Miss Peggy’s health was excellent.”
Catharine perked up. “Now there’s a worthy gentleman who would make a girl a good husband! Take good aim when you throw the stocking tonight, my dear.” Catharine referred to the tradition of bridesmaids throwing balled-up stockings over their shoulders at the bride. Whoever it hit would be the next to marry.
Rolling her eyes, Peggy took a bite of the wedding cake, refusing to respond.
Catharine had indeed managed to find all its ingredients. The scent of molasses, lemon peel, almonds, raisins, currants, brandy, rum, butter, and a king’s ransom worth of sugar drifting from the outside kitchen for the six hours it baked had set everyone’s mouths to watering. It had been months since any of them had tasted anything sweet. John, Jeremiah, and Rensselaer had already gobbled up two pieces each.
“Oh, Kitty, don’t you know?” tittered Aunt Gitty. “The child’s—”
Cochran had been watching Peggy and spoke quickly to interrupt. “Kitty, this is the best cake I have ever tasted. I could use it to revive dying men on the battlefield, I could. Don’t you think, my dear?”
“Why yes, husband,” Gitty answered, a bit puzzled, and then started to begin again, “The child’s . . .”
“The child is no child, Gitty, and she is sitting right here,” Cochran said, shaking his head slightly.
How Peggy adored her uncle!
“Indeed the lady,” Hamilton chimed in, “has no shortage of suitors, Mrs. Schuyler. Or may I now presume to call you Mother?” His smile was captivating.
Catharine melted and completely forgot what her sister-in-law had been saying.
Peggy would need to thank Hamilton later for that.
As Catharine and he talked, Cochran motioned for Peggy to sit by him on the settee. He took her hand and leaned in. “I know all about your Frenchie, Meaghan-fay-Meaghan. Don’t be misunderstanding me. Thank the Lord for the French. They are good allies. Lafayette is the noblest of men. I would take a musket ball for him. Almost did.”
Peggy started to protest, but he waved her off. “Your Fleury is a brave man. The lads at Fort Mifflin most like would have been slaughtered without his determined refortifying, night after night, as the British tried to blast them to hell. There’s not a man more admirable on the battlefield. But these French noblemen all committed to liberté and égalité?” Cochran snorted. “That’s a bit of a hornet’s nest for them once they go back to their country of aristocrats and king, don’t you think?” He tilted her chin up so he could look into her eyes as he ended, “You wouldn’t want to be living in France now, would you?”
Actually, the idea of traveling to France sounded rather exciting to Peggy! But before she could say so, everyone in the room broke into laughter. McHenry had staggered toward Eliza, his Madeira glass drained, semi-falling to her feet to try to grab her shoe. It was an old wedding game—a way for groomsmen to ransom a bride’s slipper back to her in exchange for a kiss—but Eliza was far too modest a woman to enjoy such frivolity.
Peggy was about to tell McHenry to stop being an idiot when Eliza stood and gracefully stepped aside. “Peggy, dearest,” she said, “would you mind going upstairs to bring my present for”—she paused and smiled happily—“my husband.”
Already, Eliza was different.
Upstairs, Peggy easily found Eliza’s wedding present for Hamilton. She had embroidered a gorgeous linen mat to frame a miniature oval watercolor portrait of him. In rainbow-colored-silk threads, she used all manner of crewel stitches—stem, chain, split, satin, French knots—to create fleur-de-lis corners and twines of blossoms, even tiny butterflies. Flawlessly sewn, the delicate art was a visual symbol of how Eliza planned to focus her life and talents on pointing out Hamilton’s best attributes.
As Peggy picked up the crewelwork, a letter dropped to the floor from underneath it—another of Hamilton’s ardent notes. Peggy reached down to retrieve it and tuck it back into Eliza’s carefully ribboned batch, without reading. She was well past snooping into her sisters’ love letters but her eye fell onto her own name—my Peggy.
Tell my Peggy I will shortly open a correspondence with her. I am composing a piece, of which, from the opinion I have of her qualifications, I shall endeavour to prevail upon her to act the principal character. The title is “The way to get him, for the benefit of all single ladies who desire to be married.” You will ask her if she has any objections to taking part in the piece and tell her that if I am not much mistaken in her, I am sure she will have none.
A play about “the way to get him”? Peggy felt her face turn red. “From the opinion I have of her qualifications”—what did Hamilton mean by that? What was he insinuating? Did he think her an artful actress, her feelings feigned? Or that she was . . . she was . . . actresses were considered nothing short of whores by many people. . . . Did Hamilton think, oh God . . . Peggy softened the words she might have used . . . too openly ardent? Despite his compliments in Hartford?
Then worse thoughts: Had Fleury shared an opinion . . . something indiscreet to Hamilton? Did Fleury think these things?
Hands shaking with confusion and embarrassment, Peggy read the next line, to find it directed at Eliza: For your own part, your business is now to study the way to keep him, which is said to be much the most difficult task of the two . . .
She felt herself almost growling. There he was again, making Eliza feel like she had to earn his continued interest. But the next lines at least reassured Peggy for her sister’s sake: though in your case I thoroughly believe it will be an easy one . . .
Did he say anything else about Peggy? Quickly, she skimmed more.
’Tis a pretty story indeed that I am to be thus monopolized, by a little nut-brown maid like you . . . A spirit entering into bliss, heaven opening upon all its faculties, cannot long more ardently for the enjoyment, than I do my darling Betsey, to taste the heaven that awaits me in your bosom. Is my language too strong? It is a feeble picture of my feelings—no words can tell you how much I love and how much I long—you will only know it when wrapt in each others arms we give and take those delicious caresses which love inspires and marriage sanctifies.
Oh my! Peggy quickly folded the letter up and read no further. No, there was nothing more in that letter that she should read!
But a play? A lesson book for “getting a man”? Wat de hel? Dutch curses aplenty jumped into her head as she hurried to the stairs with Eliza’s crewelwork.
As she descended, Peggy resolved to pull Hamilton aside to ask him about his meaning. But Eliza’s exquisite gift and the beautiful inlaid workbox Hamilton presented her inspired too much praise among the family for Peggy to catch his attention. Before she knew it, the evening was over. Hamilton had retired to the back bedroom with Eliza. The new couple had climbed the ocean of those stairs together, his holding her hand and smiling a gentle, warm reassurance akin to the one Eliza had blessed him with as she coaxed him into a minuet. The look he gave her sister had taken Peggy’s breath.
That night, Peggy felt very alone until little Cornelia clambered out of her trundle bed and asked to crawl into Peggy’s large canopy one—the one in which she and Eliza and Angelica had giggled and read and cried and shared their dreams as an inseparable trio, and now never would again.
“It’s snowing,” Cornelia whispered as she nestled against Peggy and fell asleep.
For days, a wondrous happiness of new love permeated the Schuyler mansion. McHenry even wrote a poem that had a few moments of inappropriate innuendo, as Peggy would expect of him, but ended with a pretty hope:
Now genius plays the lovers part;
Now wakes to many a throb the heart;
With ev’ry sun brings something new,
And gaily varies every view . . .
All these attendants Ham are thine.
Be’t yours to treat them as divine;
To cherish what keeps love alive;
What makes us young at sixty-five.
Maybe the Irish aide-de-camp wasn’t such a jackass after all, thought Peggy. She followed his lead in terms of showing deference for the dreamy haze that hung over her sister and forced herself to wait to question Hamilton about the meaning of his note. But as Christmas approached and mail riders came and left, bearing wedding messages from Washington and Lafayette but no letter from Fleury, Peggy began to grow desperate.
It was as if she had imagined all their encounters—that Fleury was purely a figment of her dreams, or a ghost.
Finally, one early morning before others were awake, Peggy found Hamilton in the family’s yellow parlor, writing letters to headquarters. He would return there after New Year’s. “Colonel!” She rushed into the room.
He looked up, surprised. “Alexander,” he corrected her.
But she didn’t return her brother-in-law’s pleasantries. She didn’t think about what consequence there might be to Eliza by revealing to her new husband that Peggy had read one of his love letters—even though Eliza had not knowingly shared it. “I need to ask you, sir, why you think I am appropriate to act a drama designed to teach women how to ‘get’ a man.” She crossed her arms and glared.
He looked at her blankly.
She was about to repeat herself when Prince materialized. “Excuse me, Miss Peggy. We have a message that a group of French officers will make the ferry across the Hudson this morning. Want me to send your father’s sleigh to the wharf to retrieve them?”
Peggy gasped. “French officers, you say?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Oh, it must be. Finally! Fleury had come!
Peggy felt like she could fly. “Oh, yes, Prince! Harness the horses, but please tell Lisbon to wait for me. I am going to ride to the wharf with him!” Realizing her voice was way too giddy, she made herself sound like a lady of the manor. “One of us needs to greet them properly.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Prince nodded as he excused himself.
Peggy hoisted her skirts and ran to the door to fetch her cloak and muff.
“Peggy!” Hamilton called after her.
But she was already to the bottom of the stairs.
“Peggy, wait!” he cried.
She ran up the steps two at a time.
“Peggy!” He climbed after her.
She darted into her bedroom. Hamilton dashed into his, where Eliza still slumbered. He reemerged in time to block his new sister as she skipped to the stairs—flustered, ecstatic, wrapped in fur and hope. “Peggy, stop.” Hamilton held a letter in his hand.
“Oh, I don’t care about that anymore, Alexander! Fleury is here!” she exulted.
She kissed him on the cheek and made for the steps.
But he caught her arm. “I doubt it. You don’t want to rush down to the wharf.”
She tried to yank her arm away, but he held fast. “I need to tell you something.”
“What?” She laughed. “That you are a secret playwright? It doesn’t matter.”
“Peggy, I’m not sure what you are talking about. But I need to tell you something.”
His expression stopped her. He led her to a chair and made her sit in front of a wallpaper medallion of a wrecked temple. Peggy felt her heart sink. “What is it?” she whispered anxiously.
“I need you to hear something that Fleury sent me.” Hamilton knelt and took her hand. “He wrote to me of politics mostly and then he . . .”
Peggy snatched away the letter to read for herself:
Mrs. Carter told me you was soon to be married to her sister, Miss betsy Schuyler. I congratulate you heartyly on that conquest; for many Reasons: the first that you will get all that familly’s interest, & that a man of your abilities wants a Little influence to do good to his country. The second that you, will be in a very easy situation, & happin’s is not to be found without a Large estate. The third (this one is not very Certain) that we shall be or connect’d or neighbors. For you most know, that I am an admirer of Miss Pegguy, your sister in Law; & that if she will not have me; Mr. Duane may be cox’d into the measure of giving me his daughter; this Litle jest is between you & I. It woud be very improper for anybody else.
Peggy looked up, ashen, nauseated. “M-Mary Duane? Or Sarah? Adelia?” Their father, James Duane, was another New York delegate to Congress and a family friend. She knew his daughters—they were lovely creatures. “Fleury has courted one of the Duane girls?. . . As well as . . . as me?” Her hand flew to her mouth to stop herself from retching. The letter was dated late October, well past that good-bye kiss at Hartford. If he really loved her, how could he even consider a second choice?
Head swimming, Peggy was vaguely aware of what Hamilton was saying. “He is a valiant fighter, Peggy. Fleury is quick to act with courage and decisiveness—at every battle, every chance for heroism. He is the best of the professional soldier in this way. He responds with the same zeal to a chance for glory in civilian life as well, for”—he paused—“for conquest. But just as the heat of a skirmish well fought subsides, so do perhaps his affections.” Hamilton grimaced as Peggy shook her head, putting her hands over her ears.
Gently he took her hands so she could hear him. “I have also heard that Fleury may be already committed, my dear, to a cousin in France. Not that such an engagement could not be broken. And I do not doubt that you captured his heart, Peggy. I saw it myself. But I also see with what unshaking devotion you can love, with what passion of spirit. You remind me of . . .” He hesitated, and his voice lowered with a sense of tragedy. “You remind me of my mother, my beautiful, fiery mother. She adored my father. But he was shallow in his ardor. It evaporated like a puddle of water in a tropical sun, and he left her. Left her to raise my brother and me alone. Left us with the stigma of being illegitimate in the eyes of the law, bastards.”
Gone was all Hamilton’s usual posturing. His voice grew raspy. “My mother was much abused by the men in her life. When she dared to leave her first husband—to whom her own mother had essentially sold her into a loveless marriage when she was but sixteen years old—the brute convinced the Dutch court of Saint Croix to jail her for several months for disobedience and alleged promiscuity.” He shook his head. “But she was not cowed by them. When they released her, my mother defiantly fled to another Caribbean island rather than return to her husband as ordered. She had a dreamer’s heart and a soldier’s bravery.”
“Much like you.” Hamilton squeezed Peggy’s hands. “I say this with all brotherly love and admiration: you deserve, my Peggy, to have someone whose gaze is for nothing and no one but you.”
Shakily, Peggy stood. She untied her cape. She forced a polite smile and murmured “thank you” before retreating to her room. She wished to let her heart break in private, although Peggy was sure the sound of its crack would rumble like an earthquake.
There was little time for her sorrow, however. By that evening Peggy was helping to play hostess for the four French officers who had arrived to visit—the chevaliers de Chastellux and de Mauduit, Comte de Damas, and the Vicomte de Noailles. Their army settled into its winter hiatus in Newport, the four Frenchmen had decided to spend a month touring the sites of the Revolution. They wished to meet the renowned General Schuyler, to learn of his Canadian expeditions, and to see the battlefield of Saratoga. Given their closeness with Rochambeau, Schuyler needed to fete them well to keep them happy and enthusiastic about the American cause.
So Peggy bubbled like the fermented cider she raised during their toasts. She danced with them as Noailles played the violin. She listened politely to Chastellux discuss his translation of Romeo and Juliet into French, in which he had added a happy ending. Far more satisfying that way, he declared. And far from the truth, thought Peggy, but she said nothing.
If Hamilton believed she was a gifted actress, Peggy proved it that night. She was polite, gracious, flattering—while completely dead inside. Until she heard McHenry respond to a comment made by one of the officers who wished Peggy would smile. “Surely then,” the Frenchman said, “she would be as beautiful as Mrs. Carter.”
Always Angelica, fumed Peggy. She slowed her walk as she passed behind them, to hear what the men said next.
McHenry clearly did not realize Peggy was within earshot. “Mrs. Carter is a fine woman indeed,” he gushed. “She charms in all companies. No one has seen her, of either sex, who has not been pleased with her.”
The French agreed.
“Peggy, though,” he continued, “perhaps a finer woman, is not generally thought so. Her own sex are apprehensive that she considers them to be poor things, as Swift’s Vanessa did. To be admired as she ought, Peggy needs to please the men less and the ladies more. I have told Hammie he must tell her so. If he does, her good sense will place her in her proper station.”
McHenry took a sip of his cider and lowered his voice to finish. “I must tell you, though, you should not desire too many smiles from her. She wants better teeth to be as pretty as her sisters.”
Peggy stopped in her tracks. Jonathan Swift’s character of Vanessa was condemned and ostracized because of her wishing to discuss philosophy and matters of state with men. She was a kind of literary Diana or Athena, but without the respect granted those ancient mythological figures. And Peggy was supposed to smile at these men, no matter what she was feeling? And her teeth? Her hand shot to her mouth, humiliated. They were a tad crooked and she was indeed missing one or two, but that was how God or Nature had made her. There was nothing to be done—no ribbons, no curling irons, no corsets that could change their appearance.
Had McHenry said these things to Fleury? Had he lowered Fleury’s opinion of her somehow with such gossip? Her soul seethed.
Perhaps the heat of her humiliation and fury radiated to them, because the men suddenly turned. The French blanched at seeing her. McHenry smirked.
Peggy lowered her hands from her mouth, balling them into fists by her side. If only she could challenge this jackass to a duel, to avenge her honor. Men could. Why couldn’t she? Why did she—required by society’s scriptures to be ladylike—have to passively accept such affronts?
But perhaps she didn’t. Hamilton’s admiration for his defiant mother came to her. And if the Revolution had taught Peggy anything, it was that there were all sorts of tyrannies that needed to be challenged and turned upside down. Carter’s quip about the sword of her wit came to Peggy. She drew her weapon.
Taking a step forward, she fluttered her eyelashes as she had seen Angelica do a thousand times, to make what she said next a total surprise attack. She kept her voice silky. “You needn’t worry about my ever smiling on you, Colonel McHenry. And I fear with such . . . gallantry”—that word she said with steely sarcasm—“few other women will, either. Indeed, Colonel, I worry for you that Swift’s Vanessa would consider any man ‘a poor thing,’ who seeks to entertain and garner the friendship of other men by gossiping and criticizing women. If you are to ever find happiness with a woman, Colonel, I suggest you follow your own advice: please the men less and the ladies more.”
Peggy flipped open the feathered fan that hung at her wrist. Fluttering it back and forth, she curtsied to the Frenchmen, gracing each of them with a wry, close-mouthed smile.
Then she swept away, leaving them guffawing at McHenry for the rapier hit she had laid him. “Touché!” They could use her in battle, they said.
Indeed they could, she thought with a raised-eyebrow smile meant just for herself.