Win, and nothing would ever be the same.
Lose and, well, my husband, my father, my family, my friends—we stood to lose everything.
Knowing what was at stake, I didn’t mind my husband’s late hours. What alarmed me was Alexander’s arrival to our room in the middle of the afternoon. I’d never before seen him so distressed. Sitting up in bed, where I’d been endeavoring to rest away a headache and sore throat, I ran my gaze over him, trying to determine what could be wrong.
Slamming the door, he stomped inside and threw his satchel to the floor. His cloak followed in a great flourish of dark fabric, all the while he muttered and cursed to himself. Slipping out of bed, I wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, and he came straight to me, his blue eyes stormy. “You shouldn’t get up. You need rest.”
“But—”
“There’s been an unexpected change,” he said, a strangeness to his voice, a wildness to his expression. “I am no longer a member of the general’s family.”
I almost couldn’t make sense of the words. “I don’t understand.”
He pulled me to sit on the edge of the bed. “General Washington and I have come to an open rupture. He accused me of treating him with disrespect.” My husband’s tone was equal parts anger and dismay.
I took his hand. “You? Disrespect His Excellency? I cannot imagine it. Tell me what happened.”
Alexander squeezed my hand and then rose. For a moment, he stared into the fire, and then he began to pace, as he so often did when agitated. “There is very little to tell. He asked to speak to me, and I nodded, then continued down to hand Tilghman a letter. The marquis asked me a question, to which I gave the most concise of answers because I was impatient to return to the general.” Hamilton heaved a breath, his hands raking at his auburn hair. “But instead of finding Washington as usual in his room, I met him at the head of the stairs. Do you know what he said? That I’d kept him waiting ten minutes and had treated him with disrespect. Can you imagine?” Alexander whirled on me. “I sincerely believe my absence didn’t last two minutes.”
“Of course,” I said, my mind racing. “It was just a misunderstanding. Surely this can be remedied.”
“No, it cannot.” He shook his head. “I argued that I was not conscious of any disrespect, but since he thought it necessary to tell me such we should part. He agreed. So here I am.”
Alexander had barely finished recounting the tale when a knock sounded upon our door. My husband crossed the room and opened it, the rusted hinges creaking in protest. And I heard Tilghman’s voice from the other side. “General Washington has sent me. May I come in?”
“I don’t think so, sir. My wife is indisposed.” Alexander gave a curt nod and made to close the door.
I was aghast at his rudeness. “I am perfectly well,” I called, not willing to let him use me as a rationale for not resolving this disagreement. And I was becoming accustomed, at this point, to my husband’s colleagues bursting in upon us at any hour of day or night. “Invite poor Tilghman in to get warmed by the fire.”
After a pause, my husband relented, and the colonel entered and gave me a bow, even as a coughing fit had him clasping his chest.
“Let me get you some raspberry leaf tea with honey,” I said, pouring from the pot I’d made myself downstairs at the boardinghouse’s hearth.
“Thank you, Mrs. Hamilton. You’re too kind.” Tilghman accepted the cup.
Meanwhile, Alexander seemed impatient at all the niceties, but I paid him no mind. “I hope you bring good news from headquarters,” I said, giving Tilghman a meaningful look, and I imagined I saw in his eyes a mutual understanding. This must be fixed. While it did sound as if His Excellency had been in ill humor, Alexander had never before responded with such stridency. They were both simply overworked. Overburdened by the weight of the war and the coming battle.
Sipping at the herb tea, Tilghman addressed my husband. “Sir, General Washington bade me to reassure you of his great confidence in your abilities, your integrity, and your usefulness to him. He wishes nothing more than to reconcile. He explained that his terseness came in a regrettable moment of passion and that he is sorry for it.”
Relief flooded me. Given the circumstances, how could tempers not flare from time to time? And how gracious for a man of General Washington’s stature to be the one to offer amends. But my husband remained silent and didn’t seem at all relieved.
Not even when Tilghman continued, “He wants a candid conversation to settle this.”
Alexander crossed his arms. “Neither of us would like what would be said in a candid conversation.” He shook his head, resolution settling into his handsome features. “I won’t refuse if he insists, yet I should be happier if he would permit me to decline.”
I barely withheld a gasp at this outrageous reply. And Tilghman blanched, overcome with another coughing fit. “You won’t even speak with him?”
My husband’s voice turned to steel. “I pledge my honor to you that he will find me inflexible. He shall, for once at least, repent his ill-humor.”
At hearing this, Tench set down his cup hard on the side table and abandoned every last vestige of his usual formality. “Alex, what the devil can you be thinking?” It was precisely what I wished to ask. “For pity’s sake, man, you know the situation at headquarters . . .”
“I do,” Hamilton replied, stiffly. “But don’t worry that I’ll leave it all upon your shoulders. Reassure the general that I won’t distress him or the public business by quitting before Humphreys and Harrison return from their assignments. I will comport myself with the same principles and in the same manner I always have. My behavior will be as if nothing happened. But I
