Love & War (Alex & Eliza #2)(48)
Most of the new laws were fairly routine and, if scattershot, unobjectionable. However, there were a sizable number that concerned the new country’s relationship with the substantial portion of its population—by some accounts as much as a quarter of the country—that had remained faithful to King George during the war. Perhaps the only place the loyalists weren’t represented was in the victorious American legislatures, who had purged them from their ranks, and now wanted to punish their defeated co-citizens for their misplaced allegiances. A few were executed as traitors and a few more were imprisoned for collusion, but most were simply fined or else had their property seized, and still more were denied the right to work in their chosen professions.
Alex wasn’t surprised by the vindictiveness—war was a vicious thing, and it had brought out the worst in the British, as their prison boats testified—but he was still dismayed by it. The United States and its territories was a vast country, larger than any of the nations of the Old World, save Russia, but its population was relatively tiny. Nearly all of its people clustered along the eastern seaboard, leaving large swaths of territory virtually uninhabited and thus undefended. There was no way such a nation could survive if three-quarters of its population was in conflict with the other quarter. They would have to find common cause and recognize that, for better or worse, they were all Americans now. As Benjamin Franklin had said at the signing of the Declaration of Independence: “We must, indeed, all hang together, or we will most assuredly all hang separately.”
And so, one day’s work stretched into two, three, then the whole week. Meanwhile the office remained devoid of clients. Though Alex had written letters to several dozen friends, acquaintances, friends of friends, and a few total strangers announcing his presence in New York, his door remained silent and his mailbox empty save correspondence related to the formation of the new government.
And because he didn’t yet have a secretary, he was forced to deliver most of his notes himself. Having left the horse Laurens had given him at the Pastures (the cost of stabling it in the city was nearly equal to the rent on his house!), he had to rely on the city’s hansom cabs or simply hoof it.
The weather, though quite cold, was not unbearable, and it wouldn’t have been unpleasant work if it hadn’t been so time-consuming, and if the bills had not continued to pile up, and if any of it had borne pay dirt.
Alex was adamant that they would not resort to Eliza’s suggestion that they write her father for a loan or two. But after two weeks, Alex began to fear that he was going to have to start haunting the courts like that breed of dishonorable attorney who preys on hapless individuals who have inadvertently run afoul of the law, or fallen victim to unscrupulous merchants or landowners, only to forfeit still more of their possessions as payment to attorneys defending them from charges that never should have brought in the first place.
Sometime during the third week, however, just after the noon hour (Alex knew because he had only a moment ago pulled his watch from his pocket, wondering if it was too early to pop down to the tavern on the corner of Stone and Broad streets), there came the sound of a knock at the door of his outer office.
Lacking an assistant, Alex rose from behind his desk to answer it himself. If he was surprised that someone had knocked at his door, he was still more shocked to find that the person on the far side of the portal was a woman, not much older than his Eliza. Both the woman’s coat and bonnet, Alex noted, were of fine wool, but well-worn, and told a story of a prosperous person fallen on hard times. When Alex saw the black satin mourning ribbon affixed to the sleeve of the woman’s coat, he instantly understood. The young woman was a widow, her husband no doubt a casualty of the recent war.
“Good afternoon,” he said, extending his hand. “May I help you?”
“Good afternoon,” the woman said in a formal, though not unfriendly, tone. Her handshake was similarly peremptory. “I was told these are the law offices of Mr. Alexander Hamilton?”
Alex felt a proud smile flicker across his face. It was the first time he had heard the words said out loud. “Indeed, they are, Mrs.—”
“Childress,” the woman said. “If he is not too busy, I wonder if I might meet with him.”
Alex laughed. “He’s not too busy at all. Please, do come in,” he continued, stepping aside and gesturing her into the office. “May I take your coat?”
“Thank you,” Mrs. Childress said, removing her coat. Alex hung it up on a peg, then led the woman into his office, where he was mortified to realize that there was no second chair. How had this not occurred to him in more than two weeks of occupancy? He scurried behind the desk and pulled his own chair out and offered it to Mrs. Childress.
If his new client—he hoped she was a client, and not a woman looking for work—noticed the irregularity, it didn’t show on her composed, though somewhat tense, face. She sat down and stared straight ahead, while Alex, after weighing his options, decided to half lean, half sit on the corner of his desk, so that he would not be standing right next to her, forcing her to crane her neck up at him.
After several seconds of silence, Mrs. Childress said, “Could I have a glass of water?” She didn’t look at him when she spoke.
“Ah, of course,” Alex said, somewhat nervously. At least there was an ewer in the room, which he had topped off from the street well when he arrived that morning. Only one cup, though. He discreetly wiped it clean, filled it, and handed it to her. She took it in one of her black-gloved hands, but didn’t drink from it, instead placing it on the corner of his desk.