Alex and Eliza: A Love Story(82)
“There are families whose greatness lies in their past, and in their legacies,” Mrs. Schuyler answered. “That is a quality much to be admired, for tradition is what binds us as a society. But there are some families, like some nations, whose greatness is a future development, and that quality, though harder to discern than the prestige of manor houses and coats of arms and titles of rank and office, is no less valuable, if, indeed, not more so.”
General Schuyler put his arm around his wife and drew her near.
“What Mrs. Schuyler is saying,” General Schuyler added, “is that it is the Schuylers who would be honored by a union with so brilliant and noble a personage as Colonel Hamilton.”
“So I can marry him?” Eliza said, her eyes flitting between her parents and Alex. “I can say yes?”
“You had better,” Mrs. Schuyler said, “or I shall never forgive you.”
Eliza turned to Alex. Alex felt his body fall away from him. The only thing that kept him rooted to earth was his hand in Eliza’s.
“Then, yes!” Eliza exclaimed. “Yes, yes, and yes, I will marry you! Yes! Yes! Yes!”
36
Poor Man’s Wife
The Cochran Garden
Morristown, New Jersey
August 1780
For his entire lifetime Alex had been dragging his past behind him like a heavy chain. He was an open man with no secrets to hide, yet he had all the insecurities of an outsider. From his melancholy youth, he was ever needy to earn a foothold in respectable society. Whether by the zest in his pen or the zing of a bullet past his ear, he wanted to make a difference in the New World by his own merit.
It was true he had hitched his horse to General Washington’s wagon with roaring success and was now on the verge of ascending into polite society by becoming one of the Schuyler family. And yet, as much as thriving as the right-hand man to General Washington and becoming the son-in-law to General Schuyler thrilled him, there were always the nagging doubts from the wounds of his childhood. Would people regard him as marrying into the Schuyler family only to access their wealth? How could Eliza Schuyler possibly believe he could provide for her as a husband?
He had written her reams and reams of letters, as well as a poem that she kept folded in a locket around her neck. Her letters were full of love and anticipation, matching his for enthusiasm and tenderness. He was the luckiest man in the world.
Their wedding was set for December, when there would be the winter lull in fighting, and he would be able to take a few weeks off for the ceremony and the honeymoon. But it was now August, and while he did not doubt her love for him, he wanted to make certain she knew what she was getting into.
Taking a few days’ leave to be able to see his beloved, he returned to Morristown, his heart in his hands.
ELIZA DUG HER hands into the dark earth, happy to be out in the sunshine of Aunt Gertrude’s vegetable garden on this hot summer day. Alex had returned from the battlefront unexpectedly that morning and just escorted her home from church. While checking the garden for any hint of greenery to add to Aunt Gertrude’s luncheon table, she found small green squashes already gone to seed.
“Alex, is there anything more beautiful than dropping a seed in the earth and then waiting for it to become something perfectly useful? These tiny seeds will be cucumbers by next midsummer, sitting in the middle of Aunt Gertrude’s table as finger sandwiches. How perfectly practical it must be to be a farmer’s wife.”
Alex circled the flagstone border that enclosed the garden for the third time. It was not often that he could manage a visit, but it appeared there was a certain urgency to this one. He looked like a man who had something to get off his chest, and she’d unintentionally led him right to it with her innocent question.
“How practical must it be, you ask, to be a farmer’s wife, Betsey?” Alex stopped in his circle and approached her straight on. “Rather the question, I should think, is, how practical must one be to be a farmer’s wife? Or a poor man’s wife? How practical must one be to forget about beautiful dresses and elegant dinners and a house full of servants to prepare it all at a moment’s notice? How practical does a poor man’s wife have to be to be content with a book by candlelight instead of a night at the opera? How practical to watch your hands grow rough with gardening and milking and churning and all the work that is to be done just to make it from one dawn to the next?”
Eliza looked at Alex. Ah, so that was his worry. He had said as much, in his lovely letters.
She saw the dread in his face and wanted to make it disappear. “But, my darling, I merely meant I love to garden. And I love to sew. I meant nothing more than that. What is it, dearest, what are you trying to tell me?”
“I fear, Betsey, that our love, deep as it is, is not enough to nurture a lifelong marriage. Marriage is in many ways a business partnership and I fear you are getting the rough end of the deal by marrying me.”
Alex ran his hands through his hair and opened his palms. “I confess I have not been as brilliant in managing my own monetary affairs as I have been in managing the affairs of state. Money and land never seemed to matter to me until now. But now there is you and our future children to consider. I must take care of you in the best way I know how. And I do not know that I am good enough.”
Eliza put down her trowel and brushed off her hands. She’d left her bonnet inside, and her face had quickly pinked up under the sun. She opened her arms to him. “Come here, to me, Alex. I shall show you what I care about.”