Alex and Eliza: A Love Story(19)

“Variolation!” Mrs. Jantzen said, sneering. “Tell me why anyone would think that infecting someone with pestilence ought cause but further disease.”

“It’s a milder form that’s used for inoculation.” Eliza slowed her words as if talking to a child. “The scratch method is much safer. Look at how many of our soldiers have stayed healthy.”

Mrs. Jantzen huffed once again. “If God had wanted His subjects to resist the pox, He would have made us so.”

Eliza thought about saying that if God had not wanted His subjects to be so creative, perhaps He should have made them less ingenious. But she held her tongue. A little blasphemy would likely induce a faint in the good Mrs. Jantzen, and the thought of having to fan her awake—and send fresh clouds of perfume through the coach—was not to be borne.

Instead Eliza abandoned the conversation and peeked through a slit in the heavy curtain. Aunt Gertrude had written the family two months ago with news of Dr. Cochran’s plans to continue the inoculations while General Washington’s army wintered at Morristown. She had called it “work of the gravest importance” as military hospitals were overrun with soldiers confined in crowded wards that were breeding grounds for disease. “Inoculation,” she wrote with palpable hope, “could save hundreds—if not thousands—of lives.”

Eliza wanted desperately to be a part of the mission. She’d fired off a letter to her aunt to ask if she could help give the inoculations herself. If she could not fight, she could at least do everything in her power to make sure that those who did fight were as well equipped as possible. There were far fewer troops in the Albany area than there were farther south, of course, but they were vital to the capital’s security. Thanks in part to Eliza’s efforts, the battalions were all kitted out in smart new uniforms, stuffed with beef and porridge, and housed in some of the most comfortable mansions in the area, which had been seized from British loyalists. Inoculation seemed like the last noble service she could offer them.

She had begged her mother to let her make the journey south. Surely old Vincent was up to the task. Mrs. Schuyler had refused at first, saying it was far too dangerous, but Eliza had pleaded. She reminded her mother General Washington himself was spending the winter in Morristown, along with his senior staff and thousands of his troops. There was no safer place on the continent.

The mention of General Washington had not endeared Eliza’s plan to Mrs. Schuyler. General Schuyler’s court-martial was only recently completed, and even though he’d been exonerated of all wrongdoing in the Battle of Ticonderoga, she still felt that the military trial ought not to have taken place at all. Indeed, General Washington had gone so far as to write General Schuyler a letter of congratulations on his acquittal, but Mrs. Schuyler was unmoved. She was a steady woman, and slow to ire, but once one had earned her wrath, her forgiveness was hard to come by.

Almost as an afterthought Mrs. Schuyler had warned Eliza, “I suppose that foul Colonel Hamilton will be there as well.”

Colonel Hamilton had served as clerk to the prosecution during the trial. He had been studying to be a lawyer before the war broke out, and though he had left school to serve the revolution, he was still competent enough in the ways of the law and the military that he had been called upon to liaise between the court and General Washington’s office. It was yet another honor for one so young, but clerking for the prosecutor had supposedly caused him great pain, given his regard for the Schuyler family and his belief in General Schuyler’s innocence. He had written as much in a letter to General Schuyler, but Eliza’s father insisted on his presence. If General Washington was not going to preside over the farce of a trial, then he wanted someone close to the commander in chief to attend, so that Washington would be fully apprised of all that had gone on, and would feel that much more shame at capitulating to the political whims of the Congress.

Eliza thought to remind her mother of all this, then decided against it. Not that Eliza had given any thought to Colonel Hamilton’s presence in Morristown, nor did she have any opinion as to the high level of his intelligence. Not at all. Besides, recalling the past would only cause Mrs. Schuyler to get her back up.

But to her surprise, her mother had relented rather quickly. She saw the silver lining in Eliza’s plan. “There will be any number of unmarried officers in Morristown. Perhaps you will meet a suitable bachelor to replace the one who courted you so diligently and turned away.”

Her mother was talking about Major John André, the British officer who had strived to win her hand. Eliza had been a bit infatuated with him for a while, but in the end had turned down his suit. Perhaps she was too much of a patriot to accept the man, unlike Angelica, who was holding steady with her Mr. Church, despite his having left her and the country without proposing. Almost three years after her illustrious ball, Mrs. Schuyler was irritated to find her three oldest daughters still unmarried and mentioned this unfortunate state of affairs often.

“Oh, Mama,” Eliza said, running off to pack.



ELIZA PULLED BACK the curtain again and peered out. She felt Mrs. Jantzen’s glare and ignored it. The snowy fields and barren trees looked no different from those of ten minutes earlier, and soon enough she let the curtain drop of her own accord.

“I wonder how much farther,” she couldn’t help but say aloud.

Mrs. Jantzen opened her mouth for a retort, but was caught up by a jarring thump, followed by an even louder crack.