Love & War (Alex & Eliza #2)(54)
While they talked, Peggy began idly returning the silver to the display cabinet. To Eliza’s delight, her sister put everything back exactly as it had been, the four-legged serving dish flanked by the candelabra, the illustrated salver bookended by the cake plate and soup tureen. “Such lovely pieces, and so nice to have things that mean something to you rather than to some relative long gone from this world!” Eliza blushed and didn’t say anything, happy that she hadn’t had time to replace all the silver with china as she’d planned.
About a half hour after Simon had gone, Rowena returned. The housekeeper’s face went ashen when Eliza told her of the dinner plans, but then she steeled herself and muttered, “Just leave it to me, Mrs. Hamilton,” before disappearing into the kitchen.
About an hour after that, a stout woman dressed in the drabbest of drab browns appeared. Improbably, her name was Violetta. She was Peggy’s new lady’s maid, a fixture from Stephen’s youth, who looked as though she’d be more comfortable gelding calves than adjusting a corset. (“But you’d be amazed at what she can do to a wig with a teasing comb and lard,” Peggy enthused. “Her creations are positively sculptural!”) Violetta brought two boys from the Rutherfurds with her, and after a brief consultation with Eliza (“I will make do with what I have to work with, Mrs. Hamilton”), had the lads shifting furniture about like a general rearranging wooden soldiers on a painted map, banishing Eliza and Peggy to the second floor.
It wasn’t until they mounted the second-floor landing and Eliza caught a glimpse of herself in one of the two-year-old dresses that were her usual outfit around the house that she realized she still had to come up with something to wear. Peggy, of course, looked exquisite. You’d never know she’d just spent three days on the road. She was wearing a spring-green gown, with delicate pale yellow embroidery and tiny but detailed pink and periwinkle flowers. She wasn’t wearing a wig, but it didn’t matter with Peggy. Her raven tresses seemed only to have grown more lustrous, and her coiled braids, though probably meant to be practical for travel, still managed to give her the regality of a Greek statue.
Eliza, on the other hand, had been living without a lady’s maid for the first time in her life, and had been doing her hair by herself for nearly a month. She had wound it up in the simplest bun, with but a few spiraled wisps to frame her face. Alex, who never shied away from pomp and circumstance in public, said he much preferred this look for day-to-day life and endearingly called Eliza his “sweet peasant girl.” But she knew that such a look would not do to entertain guests like the Rutherfurds and Morrises, who, if not quite as wealthy as Schuylers and Van Rensselaers, were nevertheless important local gentry.
But before she could wonder how to rectify this alarming situation, Peggy was pushing her down on the simple cane-bottomed stool Eliza used as a tuffet in front of her vanity. She grabbed a brush and comb from the Spartan surface of the table, pulled the pins that held Eliza’s hair, and met her older sister’s eyes in the mirror before them.
“You cannot imagine how long I’ve waited to do this.”
Eliza couldn’t help but blanch. “You’ve never styled your own hair in your life!”
“Silly, I’m not going to do this alone,” Peggy said, as Violetta entered the room with crimping irons and powder.
16
Dinner Is Served
The Hamilton Town House
New York, New York
January 1784
A little over an hour later, Eliza could hardly recognize herself. Violetta had teased her mane into a dramatic halo with a spiraled fall that hung down to her shoulders and accentuated the taut, slender column of her neck. In front were the same wisps of hair that had been there before, but they were somehow longer and more elegant, and the whole mass had been dusted with powder, giving it an adamantine sheen.
Eliza’s face and décolletage had also been powdered, so that her exposed skin blended almost seamlessly into the silver dress Peggy had picked out for her. Eliza protested at first, saying the silver silk with its metallic bronze piping was too severe for her. But as she glanced in the mirror, she saw that Peggy’s eye had been unfailing and that Alex’s “sweet peasant girl” had been revealed to be in possession of a refinement and power that she hadn’t suspected was in her. She didn’t know whether to be pleased or frightened.
Violetta, however, was less confused. “My dear,” she breathed, returning to the room after assessing the situation downstairs. “You clean up quite well.” Then, hearing the impertinence in her tone, she quickly assumed her professional demeanor. “Mr. Van Rensselaer has arrived, along with Mr. and Mrs. Rutherfurd and Mr. Gouverneur Morris. I have taken the liberty of impressing Simon as footman. He is serving them a cordial.”
“A cordial?” Eliza knew that she and Alex had nothing so fancy in the house. Indeed, all they had were casks of Mrs. Childress’s hearty but humble ale. She turned to Peggy. “More of your stores?”
Peggy nodded. “One of Stephen’s tenants brews a remarkable honey wine. Sweet yet surprisingly delicate. Very potent, though—sip slowly.”
Eliza laughed and turned back to Violetta. “Thank you, Violetta. Please tell my guests I’ll be right down. Has there been any word from Mr. Hamilton?”