Alex and Eliza: A Love Story(66)
“But is that what a marriage is?” Eliza said. “Learning how to ‘manage’ your husband so that he doesn’t oppress you? Praying for his departure rather than yearning for his return?”
“My word, Eliza, everyone always said you were the sensible Schuyler sister!” Kitty laughed. “And here you are, mooning about romance like some latter-day Juliet. Listen to me, Cousin. We live in a new country—a country that will be larger than any in Europe by three times, and with unlimited possibility for expansion. And we are our country’s gentry—its kings and queens, princes and princesses, dukes and duchesses, its barons and earls and—”
“I am quite familiar with the order of ranks,” Eliza snapped. She did not appreciate the turn this conversation had suddenly taken.
“Then you are also familiar with our responsibilities.” Kitty fluffed up her enormous flounces. “Yes, we command great prestige and power and wealth compared with the rank and file. But we also owe a duty to our position in society. The common man and woman are free to marry whom they choose based on nothing more than base physical attraction, but we are bound to make unions that preserve our fortunes and estates, which provide the structure and indeed the occupation on which plebeian lives depend.”
Peggy tittered.
“Indeed,” Eliza said, turning to her sister. “And no offense intended, Peggy, but I’ve heard Stephen wax on about his holdings and tenants more than once.”
“No offense taken. He does tend to go on and on about out the patroonship.”
“But,” Eliza continued, turning back to face Kitty, “isn’t that what we’re revolting against? The unfair advantages of aristocracy? The tyranny of a distant king deciding one’s fate based on what suits his interest, rather than one’s own?”
“You talk of politics, Eliza. That is men’s business.” Kitty took a long pull from her glass and banged it down on the side table. “We are women. We tend to the home front.”
“And why should that be?” Eliza demanded. “This is a new country, as you say. Why shouldn’t it have new laws, new customs? And why should not those customs extend to the home itself. To—to love!”
For the first time this evening, Kitty’s expression cracked, though her makeup almost managed to conceal it.
“I sense your heartache, Eliza,” she said finally. “The news of your flirtation reached us, too. You mourn the loss of a great love that you think could have surmounted the difficulties of rank and fortune. And I agree, he is quite a charming bastard—in every sense of the word. However, I must point out that Colonel Hamilton never proposed to you. You may have thought love conquers all, Eliza Schuyler, but he knew the rules of the game.”
Eliza steeled herself for Kitty’s next words.
“And the truth is, dear sister-in-law, even Alexander Hamilton realized he wasn’t good enough for you.”
29
Tortoise and Hare
Continental Army Headquarters
Morristown, New Jersey
April 1780
The meeting with General von Knyphausen had been a wash. Alex was unsure whether the acting commander even bothered to come to Amboy, but when it was conveyed to the British contingent that Colonel Hamilton would be negotiating in General Washington’s stead, a terse note arrived from the British warship docked so boldly offshore: General von Knyphausen would not meet with anyone other than General Washington. To parlay with an underling was beneath him. It was, Alex reflected, the same language General Washington had used when he refused to meet with General von Knyphausen.
These aristocrats! Alex thought with some annoyance. Their infatuation with rank and face make their own lives ridiculously difficult! And even worse, they don’t recognize how it inconveniences the lives of the rest of us.
Although in the case of thousands of prisoners of war, inconvenience seemed like a deeply inadequate term. While generals and colonels jockeyed about whose sleeves were decorated with the most epaulets and tassels and stripes—as if rank were measured in gold thread!—their privates and ensigns and corporals huddled in rags in prison cells and work camps.
All in all, not a great day for diplomacy.
But what made everything worse was that now he had no excuse to stay away from Morristown, which meant that he would be in town when Eliza married that Livingston bounder—not in the actual church, perhaps, but it was right across the square—and he would hear the bells ringing and see the throngs of well-wishers cheering on the new bride and groom from his windows. He tried to delay the journey back to headquarters, but Lieutenant Larpent was in such high spirits about making the night’s entertainments that he wouldn’t be held back, and Alex, though miserable, was not so mean-spirited that he could spoil his assistant’s fun just because he himself was not going to partake.
It rained the whole way, adding insult to injury. The roads were a soup of mud, and even though their mounts were as eager to be out of the chilly drizzle as their riders, they refused to move beyond a canter, lest their hooves slip out from under them in the mire. The journey to Amboy had taken but three and a half hours. The slog back to Morristown took more than six. By the time the men arrived, they were sodden and iced to the bone. Alex charged the grooms at the stables with brushing out their weary mounts until they were thoroughly dry and serving them a double ration of oats, and then he and Lieutenant Larpent hurried as fast as their chilled bones would carry them to the Ford mansion. Despite the exhaustion of the journey, Larpent was still excited for the party, but all Alex could think about was grabbing a few bites to eat and crawling beneath the covers.