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Chapter Twenty-Seven

I discover more and more that I am spoiled for a military man. My health and comfort both require that I should be at home—at that home where I am always sure to find a sweet asylum from care and pain in your bosom. . . . You are my good genius; of that kind which the ancient Philosophers called a familiar; and you know very well that I am glad to be in every way as familiar as possible with you.

—Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, November 1798

New York City

April 1, 1800

It was gone past two by the time Alexander made his way to his own stoop.

Along Broadway, the houses were all dark. Even the strange little wooden house where the German candlemaker, Slidell, resolutely kept his workplace despite the fine brick mansions grown up around him was nothing more than a blot in the darkness, without the man himself in his accustomed place on his wooden stoop, in his apron and cap, defiantly smoking his pipe.

In a few hours, smoke would begin to emerge from chimneys, servants would creep out to sweep the stoops, Slidell would hang out his candles, and the carts would begin to rumble down the street, bearing casks to taverns and goods to market, but for now all was still, an artist’s etching, all line and shadow, with no people to mar the scene.

A single point of light came from one of his own windows. Betsy’s teeth must be bothering her again.

Alexander let himself in, discarding his hat and gloves. He’d thought he’d been as quiet as he could, but Eliza met him on the stairs, a shawl over her nightdress, shading her candle with one hand. “Shhh. I just put Betsy back down. Did you win your case?”

“Levi Weeks is back in the Bridewell.”

“Convicted?” Eliza’s hand dropped and the strong light fell across her face. “But your speech . . .”

“Not yet uttered. Colden is still calling witnesses. We’ve been adjourned until tomorrow. The jury is sleeping in the picture room.” Alexander hadn’t realized how tired he was, or how much every bone in his body ached, until that moment.

“Have you had anything to eat?” Eliza didn’t wait for an answer. “I saved supper for you.”

He followed her as she rummaged in the larder, retrieving a plate covered with a napkin, with slices of cold roasted mutton, turnips, and potatoes, placing it before him on one of the table mats she had woven with her own hands.

Alexander poked at a piece of mutton. “I’m worried I’ve done the boy a disservice.”

“Your oration is brilliant,” Eliza said indignantly.

“You heard it often enough,” said Alexander ruefully. Eliza, as always, had been his first audience and critic, listening and suggesting while she mended torn breeches, kissed bruises, and doled out bread and butter.

Eliza stood over him, the candle in her hand. “If you won’t believe me, then what about Betsy? Betsy approved.”

“Betsy drooled.”

Eliza’s lips turned up on one side. “That is her way of showing her regard.”

“Some of the jury were drooling by the time Lansing called for an adjournment,” Alexander admitted, “but I doubt it was a sign of their regard. Our defense is a shambles.”

Eliza gave up any notion of going back to bed. She set the candle down and sank into the seat across from Alexander. “Why do you say that?”

“The girl never took her own life; it’s plain to anyone. But Burr and Livingston—they say our business isn’t to find who killed Elma Sands but merely to show that Levi Weeks didn’t.” Alexander lifted his face from his hands. “Eliza, you remember the Bedlow case. The jury acquitted him but he was hounded all the same.”

Brockholst might have won the day in court, but it was Alexander he had retained later on, to try to clear his name. Admittedly, the methods Alexander had used might not have been the most orthodox—he had concocted a letter in the girl’s name—but none of it need have happened if the case had been conducted properly in the first place.

“If we can’t give the mob the true villain—what sort of life will this boy have? And he is a boy, barely more than a boy, not much older than Philip. What boy that age doesn’t make a fool of himself with the wrong woman? Think what scrapes I might have got in if I hadn’t had the good fortune to find you.”

“Hmmm,” said Eliza. In the shapes cast by the candle, Alexander could practically see the long shadow of Maria Reynolds.

“And then there’s the girl,” said Alexander. “Elma. Brockholst would be content to savage her reputation and forget that she was the one who was grievously and mortally wronged. What do they know about the shifts forced upon women who are preyed upon by the men who were meant to protect them?”

Like his mother. His brilliant, determined mother, who had been punished again and again for the crime of surviving.

“If they spent any time with the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children,” said Eliza firmly, “they would understand better.”