Alex and Eliza: A Love Story(52)
“Password, Colonel?”
Alex opened his mouth, only to draw a total blank. The password?
He had forgotten the password—which was rather awkward since he was in charge of coming up with them.
“Er . . . Eliza?” he said after a moment.
“Colonel?” For the past month the passwords had all been names of birds.
“Elizabeth?” Alex said. “Beth? Betty? Betsey? Bits? Lisa? Liza? Eliza?”
“You tried that one already,” the guard said.
“And I shall keep trying it”—Alex saluted the guard as he sauntered past him toward the mansion—“for it is the only name on my mind. Feel free to shoot me, Corporal,” he added. “I am so in love that bullets will only bounce off.”
The lieutenant in command appeared suddenly and motioned to the young guard. He had heard the colonel’s frank revelation of love and felt pity for him. “Laurens is right, you are a gone man. It’s nightjar, Colonel Hamilton. The password is nightjar,” said Lieutenant Larpent.
“Nay! It’s Elizabeth Schuyler!” Alex called back over his shoulder. “That is the key that opens all locks, or at least the one to my heart!”
As he spoke, he grasped the door handle to the mansion and pulled hard, smacking his nose on its oak panels because it was locked. He tapped at his pockets, but he already knew they were empty: He had left his keys behind when he snuck off to see Eliza.
“I’ve got it, sir,” said Larpent, amused, as he got up to unlock the door.
“Yes, yes, thank you, Lieutenant,” he said sheepishly. “Long day, don’t you know. Running the army and, uh, that sort of thing.”
THE NEXT MORNING he received a note from Gertrude Cochran asking him if he would like to dine en famille with them that evening.
I know you graced us with your presence just a few days ago, but Angelica’s beau, Mr. Church, is in Morristown, as is Peggy’s Mr. Van Rensselaer, whom you met the other night. It seems a shame that Eliza should not have her own young man to dote on her, lest she feel left out. I am afraid we are only offering the usual venison stew, but the portions will be plentiful, and there is as much perry to quaff as you can hold.
Alex immediately dashed off a short note—“It would be my pleasure to be a guest at your table”—and spent the rest of the day contemplating the significance of Mrs. Cochran’s missive. Eliza’s aunt had attempted to play matchmaker before and could simply be doing so again. But there was something leading in her use of the words her own young man. Had Eliza spoken to her aunt? Had she told her that there was something between them? If so, this was the best news he had had all winter. Certainly their time together so far had been encouraging, but he didn’t want to assume too much. But he didn’t want to play it too cool either, lest she think he was careless of her feelings.
Fortunately General Washington was away and the workload was relatively light: the usual appeals to wealthy American businessmen and plantation owners asking for money or munitions or wool or food; the various summaries of troop movements and intelligence; the flood of letters of condolence for soldiers who had succumbed to their wounds or illness. There were only three today, a blessing.
By five, he was out of the office and back to his quarters, where he bade the manservant he shared with four other officers to press and brush his uniform into crisp neatness and polish his boots. There wasn’t time to heat a proper bath, so he stripped down to his tunic and hose and washed his armpits and nethers with frigid water from the basin, then splashed himself with rosewater and dressed in his freshened uniform. He would have liked to have brought flowers but it was the middle of the winter in northern New Jersey: Flowers were but a distant memory. But as he headed out he spied a small bowl of oranges on a side table. They glowed like little suns in the dim room, and he couldn’t imagine how they’d survived from whatever tropical clime they’d originated in. He shared this house with seven other officers and he knew the oranges were intended for all of them, but he knew that fresh fruit in February would be more welcome than three dozen red roses. He grabbed a sack and tipped the oranges into it and quickly headed out into the evening.
Lights were blazing in the main parlor of the Cochrans’ appropriated house, and multiple shadows could be seen moving around beyond the heavy curtains, drawn against the cold. Alex rang the bell and Ulysses let him in. He took Alex’s coat and hat in the hall, and showed him into the parlor.
The room radiated with heat. The three Schuyler sisters were present, Angelica and Eliza seated on a sofa and Peggy on a chair nearby, while Stephen Van Rensselaer and a short, portly man in his early thirties occupied a pair of cane chairs on the other side of the room. Van Rensselaer was out of earshot, yet the drone of his voice could be discerned from the expression on his face. Church stared at him blankly, clutching a goblet as though it were the only thing that kept him from bolting from the room.
Alex tried to catch Eliza’s eye, but Aunt Gertrude rose from the same wing-backed chair Eliza had occupied days before and interposed herself between him and his object.
“Colonel Hamilton! It is so good of you to grace us with your presence on such short notice, and so soon after your last visit.” She glanced at the sack in his hand. “And you brought your laundry!”
Alex laughed at her joke. “Actually,” he said, opening the top of the sack. “They’re—”