Oh, the relief of that idea. I couldn’t deny that the elegance of my sister’s household was more in keeping with expectations—to say nothing of the absence of children, chickens, and monkeys.
Though, on this particular afternoon, with such grave news hanging over our heads, the monkey looked to be having a salutary effect on the men. For when I went out to refill their glasses, I found my husband and Mr. Madison, heads close together, laughing and teasing the creature as it swung from the tree by its tail and pelted them with leaves.
“Where did the little devil come from?” Madison wanted to know.
“Our neighbor won the monkey from a sailor in a card game,” my husband explained.
“A British sailor or a French sailor?” Madison asked, archly, as if ready to come to fisticuffs about it. Whereupon they both laughed before their conversation turned to finance and Alexander’s upcoming position—topics that had me retreating back into the house.
The next afternoon, Angelica and I tried to call upon Mrs. Washington, only to be denied access, as I feared. The street had been roped off so that carriages would not disturb the president’s rest. I returned home early, dejected, only to find the house strangely empty and quiet.
“Jenny?” I called, but when I had no answer, I guessed she must have gone to the market.
It was too soon for Alexander to be home, and yet, from up the narrow stairway, I heard my husband’s voice, soft and tender, speaking of love.
Not stopping to remove my hat and gloves, I climbed the stairs and cautiously pushed open the door. There I found Alexander seated on the floor of our bedroom, rocking little Fanny in his arms where she slept, his lips pressed to her hair as he murmured that he would love and care for her.
“What’s happened?” I asked. “Has she fallen ill, too?”
Hamilton didn’t look up. Perhaps he couldn’t. “Her father is dead.”
Oh, poor orphaned girl! I didn’t ask how. I supposed it didn’t matter. What did matter was that my grief-stricken husband looked nearly as broken and vulnerable as when he’d received the news of John Laurens’s death.
His voice catching, Alexander said, “Her sisters are still too young and impoverished themselves to take care of her. I know it’s too much to ask . . .”
I knelt and pressed my forehead to his. “You needn’t ask. We’ll keep her. We’ll love her as our very own. Why, with those bright black eyes of hers, Fanny could pass for my daughter.”
He peered at me, tearily. “I fear it’s too much of a burden on you, my love.”
“A small burden when compared to the ones you shoulder,” I said.
For it was in his pain for this little girl, and the obligation he felt toward her, that I finally understood his calling. Not just to help provide a future for the child of one fallen comrade, but to provide for the children of all of them. The ones who had been orphaned in a war he helped unleash, in battles he helped plan, and mutinies he put down. He was, I knew, trying to keep the promise he made to make this a better world.
And, I felt sympathy for all that my husband was trying to do.
Fortunately, by the grace of God, the skill of the doctors, and the stoic disposition of the president, George Washington survived his ordeal that summer. But the scare made us all realize how much the country needed this man.
And I embraced the fact that the country needed Alexander Hamilton, too.
* * *
With special trust and confidence in the patriotism, integrity, and abilities of Alexander Hamilton of the City of New York in the State of New York, I have nominated, and by and with the advice and consent of the senate, do appoint him Secretary of the Treasury of the said United States.
—GEORGE WASHINGTON
September 13,1789
New York City
Dinner parties and balls filled our evenings, now that Alexander was a member of Washington’s new cabinet, and at every one I reveled in having Angelica’s tutelage in becoming the socialite wife of an important man. I studied my sister as she conversed in French, made literary allusions, shared gossip—always the gentlest kind—and carried herself with an air of dignity and charm.
And while the wit and guile of society would never come as a natural talent to me, I began to understand it as a craft that could be practiced. Especially when I had such a good and loving teacher as my sister.
But our celebrations were abruptly cut off by a pair of unexpected blows.
After seven months in New York, Angelica received word that her children were ill. Frantic to hold her babies in her arms—even if it meant returning to John Church—my sister made haste to sail back to England. An ocean would again separate us, and she’d be in her husband’s grasp. He could keep Angelica from us forever if he wanted. That was a husband’s power.
And I was devastated to think I might never see her again.
“Take heart, my angel,” Alexander said, to soothe me. “Your sister wants to live here in America, near to us. And she is precisely the sort of woman who knows how to get her way.”
He meant to make me laugh at the idea that it was Angelica who would make Church bend to her will, as she so easily bent everyone else to it. But I couldn’t even smile. “What if her ship is lost? What if—”
A thousand calamities seemed possible. But I cut myself off from expressing any of them when my sister’s carriage pulled up in front of our house. I did my best to dry my eyes, wipe my tears. But when she’d finished kissing all my children farewell, Angelica drew me aside and smoothed at my cheeks with her thumbs. “You’ve
