Alex and Eliza: A Love Story(49)

“No family? That’s terrible.”

Private Wallace just shrugged. “We hail from all across the north, and some even as far south as Virginia. The mails being what they are these days, most of our families don’t hear that we’ve been injured until we’ve been discharged or, you know, discharged.”

His eyes floated up toward the heavens, but Eliza’s fell to the bed, where she couldn’t help but notice the flat spot beneath the blanket below Private Wallace’s left knee where his ankle and foot should have been.

“I’m one of the lucky ones,” Wallace said, seeing where she was looking. “Bullet hit below the knee, so I still have the joint left. And the doc says I’m past the risk of infection. I just have to get my strength up, and then I’ll be making my way home to Massachusetts. I’ve been practicing my letters,” he said, indicating a small volume that sat, in lieu of a table, on the floor beside his cot. “I thought I might apprentice myself to a printer when I go home. If it was good enough work for Ambassador Franklin, I figure it’s probably good enough for me, too.”

Eliza passed a few more words with him before moving on to the next bed. The stories were much the same, at least where the patients were awake. The room was cold and the food was poor, but what they claimed really bothered them was the boredom.

Out of the fourteen to sixteen hours they were awake each day, they had human companionship for perhaps twenty or thirty minutes. Eliza decided that she should visit the ward every day; she would commission Peggy and Angelica to visit some of the other infirmaries in the camp. If she couldn’t gather supplies or money as she had done in Albany, and if she had not the medical skills her aunt possessed, she could at least read a story to a convalescing soldier, or listen to his stories about his home hundreds or thousands of miles away.



DARKNESS HAD FALLEN by the time she and the colonel had finished the rounds. Eliza turned to him. “I must thank you for bringing me here, Colonel Hamilton. I believe I can procure some more blankets for this ward, and even one or two more stoves. My aunt tells me that there are many empty houses in town.”

“It’s I who should thank you,” Alex answered. “I really had no intention of bringing you here today. Any other girl would have run away.”

“I’d like to think I’m not like any other girl,” Eliza answered. She hadn’t meant her answer to sound flirtatious—two hours in an infirmary can take that right out of you—but the words came before she could stop them.

“I like to think that as well,” Alex answered and, to her surprise, he laughed. “I swear, if ever there was a more ungainly swain than myself, I have not heard of him.”

“A swain, are you? Are you courting me, Colonel Hamilton?” she asked with a shy smile.

“If you can call courting taking a girl to an infirmary as an afternoon’s outing. And this after only recently getting her to talk to him!”

“That seems like ages ago now. I can’t even remember what I found so objectionable about you,” she said bluntly.

He grinned. “Well, I shall not remind you, then. Although I find it to be a fine twist that you ended up joining me in a barn after all!”

She almost gasped, but her smile betrayed her amusement, and they were back at her aunt’s house sooner than she would have liked.

She turned to him at the door. “I do not know that I should describe this afternoon as pleasant,” she said. “Nevertheless, I must admit that I did enjoy my time with you, Colonel Hamilton.”

“May I take that as permission to call again?”

“Somehow I don’t think you would stay away even if I asked you to,” she said, feeling quite as bold as Angelica all of a sudden.

“Oh, but I would. I would stay away, and ache for want of seeing you.”

Eliza had to laugh. She knew she should scold him for pressing his suit so insistently, but the visit to the ward had reminded her that these were not normal circumstances under which to entertain suitors. It was a war, and war laid bare the urgency of things. What might have taken months under different circumstances was now unfolding over the course of days.

“I expect to be busy during the afternoons seeing to the ward, but my evenings are likely to be free. If you wish to come by, I know my aunt and uncle always welcome your visits.”

“But will you?” The laugh lines at the corners of his eyes tightened into a fine squint. “Welcome my visits?”

“Please, Colonel. A girl must hold on to some mystery.” And, tapping on the tip of his reddened nose with a gloved finger, she went inside, but her heart was pounding all the while.



“WAS THAT COLONEL Hamilton?” Peggy’s voice greeted her. She rushed into the hall and pulled Eliza into the heated parlor after Eliza had removed her frozen, wet boots. “Louisa says you’ve been gone for hours! Tell all!”

Eliza opened her mouth, but didn’t know where to start. She shrugged.

“Colonel Hamilton and I paid a visit to Infirmary C.”

“You—” Now it was Peggy’s turn to be speechless. “I do not know what to say to that.”

“Neither do I,” Eliza said. “But I think I like him,” she said in a small voice.

It took Peggy a moment to process this. Then she squealed. “You like him!”