“Almost assuredly,” my husband said when he returned home to find Georges already fast friends with our Philip. The two youths ate heaps of cold mutton and buttered bread while falling into easy conversation at the table. They made a handsome pair, Lafayette’s redheaded son and Hamilton’s brown-haired boy.
After supper, Georges complimented Ana on her songs, saying she might one day sing at the opera house in Paris. And my delighted girl blushed with pleasure from head to toe.
“Why can’t young Lafayette see the president?” I whispered as we watched from across the hall.
My husband grimaced. “Because the French ambassador is refusing to attend Washington’s levees on account of the presence of exiles like Noailles. Jefferson tried to argue that these are public functions and anyone is welcome, but the new French government won’t listen even to him . . . if the ambassador sees Lafayette’s son in Washington’s presence, they might demand we return the boy to France.”
“Those murderous animals can’t have him,” I hissed.
That was something over which I would be prepared to stand and fight. And Alexander rubbed at the small of my back to calm me. “They may argue the president is violating our neutrality by harboring the son of a French traitor—”
“Lafayette is no traitor!”
Alexander hushed me. “Believe me, my love, it afflicts me with as much indignation as you, which is why I’ve been acting the part of a secret go-between. The president wants to embrace young Lafayette, but cannot take the lad in. Not yet.”
“Then we must.”
Unexpectedly, my husband wandered away from me, down into the kitchen. I found him with both hands upon the butcher block, his head hung low.
“Alexander, if the president cannot shelter Lafayette’s son for fear of offending the French, we can. We should. We must. And when I think of how you must have felt when you were his age, coming to this city alone . . .”
Alexander sighed, staring up at me. “Here you are, ready to open your arms to another desperate child for my sake—and this after I’ve done so much injury to your faith in me that you’d cross town with a scrap of paper to verify my fidelity . . .”
So he knew what I’d done. Why I’d gone to an unknown address. And I was filled with shame, wondering what sort of weapon infidelity was that it should repeatedly cut both its perpetrator and its victim long after they’d forgiven one another. “I am sorry.”
With generosity, he waved away my apology. “You’re merely testing the ground with your foot, to make sure it’s solid.” He left unspoken the question, but will you ever be sure of me?
No wonder marriage required a vow before God and witnesses. It was no easy thing. And yet, the struggles somehow made me cherish it more. Made me cherish him more. Made me cherish, too, that we could offer a home to Lafayette’s son.
And not only for my husband’s sake.
If the worst should ever come to pass in our country, I might be forced to send my own children across the sea to safety. I saw in Georges both the untrusting boy my husband had been, and my own son, if the Jacobins had their way. And it made me feel like the protective lioness I’d vowed to be.
I didn’t know Lafayette’s wife, but we were both married to revolutionaries. And we were both mothers. So I was determined to take care of her hunted son, no matter what.
* * *
“THE PRESIDENT WILL not stand for reelection,” Alexander announced as he guided me into his law office. We were supposed to be on the way to a dinner party to be held in the home of his new law partner, Nathaniel Pendleton, and we were both dressed very grandly for the occasion, but he’d insisted we needed to stop to retrieve some papers.
My stomach dropped. Not at the news, for I think I remain one of two people in the entire nation who was not surprised—the other being Martha Washington. No, my foreboding stemmed from knowing that Washington’s presence at the helm of the government was what allowed Alexander to retire. After six long months, we’d finally sent Georges off with our love and best wishes to be received by President Washington. The boy was so studious, helpful, and sensible that it left us both a little bereft to part with him, but I’d also been hopeful that it was the last political crisis in which we’d be embroiled.
Now I feared to be embroiled in another. Absentmindedly shoving teetering stacks of books and papers out of his way, Alexander was despondent. “President Washington says he can no longer endure to be devoured in the prints by a set of infamous scribblers.”
“Who can blame him?” I asked, taking note that one whole shelf of the wall-length bookcase behind Alexander had been devoted to storing the latest gazettes. No one wanted to serve anymore. Not when, under our new government, any man, whether a gentleman or a scoundrel, could say whatever he pleased and print whatever libels he wished without consequence. And the ignorant populists, spewing tobacco juice as they ranted, took full advantage. As if the notion that all men were created equal somehow meant that one need not aspire to knowledge and ability—all distinctions of class, breeding, or merit discarded, all notions of civility deserted.
Months ago, the president had persuaded James McHenry, Hamilton’s old friend and fellow aide-de-camp, to serve as secretary of war. And Mac couldn’t find it within himself to disappoint his old general. But six of the most talented men in America had turned down the post of secretary of state simply because the irrational calumny heaped upon the heads of public officials was so calculated and unrelenting as to put a man and his family in fear for their lives.
The distrust and
