Love & War (Alex & Eliza #2)(68)

There was a knock at the door then, and Sally entered with a covered tray, which she set on the table beside the glasses of beer, then opened to reveal a large plate of Yorkshire pudding and roast smothered in gravy, along with a pair of scones glittering with sugar.

“Will there be anything else, Mrs. Childress?”

Caroline was still too overcome to speak in a normal voice, so Alex thanked the maid and sent her away. He insisted she eat some of his meal to calm herself, and took his leave.

“I hope you will forgive my outburst,” Caroline said as she walked him to the door. “It has just been such a trying time this past half year.”

“There is nothing to forgive,” Alex said, putting on his hat. “Our court date is in four weeks, but you will see me many times before that, I’m sure, as we go over the facts of the case one last time, and review your testimony.”

She crossed her arms. “You know, Mr. Hamilton, besides my children, seeing you is the only thing that brightens my day.”

Alex ignored the comment. “Good night, Mrs. Childress,” he said, in a professional tone. “I will see myself downstairs.”

Caroline suddenly remembered something. “You never did tell me the name of opposing counsel.”

“Didn’t I?” Alex said. “He is a former colonel I knew slightly from my days in the army. His name is Aaron Burr.”





21





A Change of Venue


   Debtors’ Prison


    New York, New York


   March 1784


If the time Eliza spent at debtors’ prison made her a little uncomfortable, there were other factors in its favor. The walk was not long, the weather was becoming increasingly fair, and the sitting itself only took an hour. Yet over time, Eliza came to realize that the preliminary sessions with the charcoal stick were not so Earl could “learn how her face painted,” as he put it during that first meeting, but so that he could drink up half the contents of the flask she had brought him, which settled the tremors in his hands.

Although she and Peggy and Angelica had all had fun at parties, the Schuylers were by and large a temperate family, and Eliza had never encountered someone who didn’t simply enjoy alcohol, but actually seemed to need it. She had always thought her mother a bit of a fuddy-duddy whenever she cautioned against “the vice of excessive drink,” but she could hear Mrs. Schuyler’s warning voice in her head whenever she placed Alex’s flask into Mr. Earl’s trembling fingers.

His moist, slightly quivering lips, the slitted, almost accusative eyes all made her nervous. Yet the sketches he turned out one after another were exceedingly lovely, and when he actually began to paint—it was remarkable! The way he brought out the shine of the lace in her bodice, yet still managed to convey the contours of the skin beneath it. And the pink in the ribbon at her waist, echoed by the light flush of her cheeks. It was as if she had sat not in a small, windowless prison cell lit by a single candelabra, but in the finest of drawing rooms with a chandelier blazing overhead. What impressed her most were the eyes: dark and serious, inquisitive even. They were the eyes Eliza saw when she looked in the mirror; sometimes when she inspected the painting she expected them to blink back at her. Any man who could paint like that, and on a cup of whiskey, could not be said to have a problem with alcohol. Could he?

During their sittings, Earl would grill Eliza for news of the latest society gossip, which Eliza would answer as honestly as she could. In fact, everyone in their circle seemed remarkably well-behaved, and Earl teased her that her stories offered little distraction for an incarcerated man. She did notice, however, that whenever she brought up Alex, he changed the subject. “Forgive me if it seems gauche, dear Mrs. Hamilton, but no single man likes to discuss a beautiful woman’s husband. Can you not find me one rich widow I can pine for, or, failing that, an unhappily married socialite I can spirit away?” Eliza half imagined that he meant her, yet there was nothing insinuating in his tone as he spoke the words.

After a month of once-or twice-weekly visits, however, the portrait was nearly finished. In fact, the portrait had seemed done to Eliza for more than a week, and she was under the impression that Earl was drawing out the experience for the sake of the company, or the whiskey.

For her part, even as she disapproved of his excessive drinking, she enjoyed being around him, as he did endeavor to ask her about her childhood, her thoughts on the topics of the day, and her opinions on the changes happening in the city. Eliza greatly missed conversation—Alex was working so hard, he was hardly ever home, and it saddened her to think that Earl knew more—and was more interested—in her day-to-day life than her husband. While Alex had started to come home a little earlier a few weeks ago, and had been extra-attentive, almost as if he were courting her again for a spell, he was back to his old, late-night habits as the case drew nearer. Sometimes she anguished that they would never have time to start a family; for how could they, if they seldom had time together, and when they were in each other’s company, one or both of them were asleep?

Earl was explaining “over-painting” and “varnishes,” and she turned back her attention to the portrait. If she looked closely, it did seem to her that the picture acquired new degrees of luminescence and depth with each visit, but it could also be the power of suggestion.