Love & War (Alex & Eliza #2)(77)
He lingered then, staring at her, and for a moment Eliza thought he might even kiss her. She even imagined him leaning in, their lips meeting, his arms around her waist . . .
And then, with a thoroughly unromantic cackle, Earl whirled toward his canvas, grabbed a brush and stabbed it against his pallet, and Eliza realized with a mixture of relief that in the end, like all men, his first love was his work.
She didn’t know whether she was relieved or disappointed, but her mind filled with a picture of Alex’s face and she was overcome with tenderness. Such fragile creatures, men, she thought. What on earth would they do without us?
24
If It Please the Court
New York State Supreme Court
New York, New York
March 1784
Suddenly, after ages of interminable back-and-forthing, the day of the trial was upon him.
Alex had been preparing for months. He knew the legal issues inside and out. He could cite English and Colonial precedents as well as the dozens of different—and conflicting—statutes the various new states had passed to handle the loyalist issue. He knew Caroline and Jonathan Childress’s story backward and forward. Yet he still felt like he did on that long-ago day when he walked into a King’s College classroom as a newly arrived immigrant, deeply conscious of his Caribbean accent and hand-me-down clothes. He had practiced law in Albany for a year and argued before the bench numerous times, but he couldn’t shake the worry that he was about to be judged based not on his research or his arguments but on who he was. A Johnny-come-lately in a world of silver spooners and blue bloods. A striver.
However, the courtroom itself was oddly soothing. Alex reveled in the sober probity of its lines: the beamed ceiling and the paneled walls, both lacquered in a cool blue-gray, gave the room an elegance that recalled a Greek temple, without the ostentation of friezes and scrolls and naked statues. The benches were as solid as pews, and simple arched windows allowed the wet March sun through in angled rays. Even the floors were of well-trod planks, their varnish worn away to a smooth paleness, attesting to the steady passage of justice through these halls.
And if nothing else, it was convenient. The case was being tried in City Hall, just a few steps from his front door.
He arrived early and waited for Caroline on the front steps, wanting to escort her into the building and to the courtroom. The case had not received any press, yet he had heard whisperings here and there. The war hero Alexander Hamilton was defending a loyalist! Was he one of those secret monarchists, who had fought to toss out one king so that he could enthrone one of his own choice? The federalists outnumbered the loyalists two to one, but their leaders were numerous and fractious, preventing any one person from amassing too much power. But the loyalists were rudderless and adrift. If someone were to step up to defend their interests, that person could find himself with a full third of the country at his back. The potential for power—for income and, should the tide turn that way, votes—was enormous. And all this speculation about Alex was being focused through the slim, delicate form of Caroline Childress, who was less a lens than a funnel through which a raging torrent was about to pour. Alex wanted to make sure she had all the support she needed, lest she be washed away in the flood.
On Alex’s advice, Caroline arrived at City Hall on foot rather than in a carriage. It was important that she not appear too prosperous, as though she had grown rich off British silver during the occupation. He had also purchased a black coat for her. It was crucial that everyone, even spectators, be reminded that she was, after all, a war widow, no matter which side her husband had died fighting for.
“Good morning, Mrs. Childress.”
Mrs. Childress started, before accepting his hand gravely.
“Mr. Hamilton! I did not recognize you in robes and wig!”
Alex smiled uncomfortably, and resisted the urge to scratch beneath the stiff hairpiece screwed on over his own perfectly ample head of hair. He found the custom of judicial dress to be ridiculously formal and archaic—one of the many lingering Briticisms he, like Eliza, hoped would soon be abolished from American life. But for now it was the custom, if not the law, and so he had let Eliza pin the dusty-smelling wig to head and sprinkle it with powder, then donned the long black wool robe.
“We make a fine pair of shades,” he joked. “Though put a hat on me and I fear I would look like a country parson.”
If Caroline heard, she didn’t answer, but only wrung her hands, staring at the people passing by on the street.
“I suppose it is the very purpose of the costume,” he continued. “To submerge the individual, as it were, behind the anonymous veil of the law.”
Caroline let this statement, too, pass without answer. She was clearly nervous, and at length she glanced at the low, cloudy sky.
“I fear we will have rain before lunch.”
Alex offered her his winningest smile. Her anxiety was perfectly understandable, but a nervous client looked like a guilty one. He needed her calm, and perhaps slightly sad, the aggrieved widow rather than the greedy schemer.
“Then let us hie inside, where we will be protected by the sturdy joists and pillars of justice.”
Together they headed through the foyer and up the stairs. They found the courtroom perhaps three-quarters filled with spectators. A few were witnesses for one side or the other, a few had the look of reporters, with their tattered notebooks and knife-sharpened pencils, but most were clearly there out of curiosity. The courts have always attracted gawkers, just as the church has. People are fascinated by the collision of the individual with a force that has the power to convey life or death, liberty or bondage, riches or poverty. Sometimes they had a vested interest in one side or the other, but often it was just the process itself that drew them.