Angelica’s gaze searched the room. “I’m told the president’s levees are very formal. Are we to be announced, or curtsy as in a royal court?”
Madison cringed. “I’m afraid we’re in a wilderness without a single footstep to guide us. And here we are setting an example for the whole world.”
The whole world. I gulped to think that might not be an exaggeration. After all, no one seemed to know what should be proper in a republic. We were all grasping for ways to behave.
When the president first arrived in the city, he’d been mobbed with well-wishers, job seekers, former soldiers, and gawkers of all classes and variety. Now people—if well dressed—were allowed into his mansion on Fridays. Out of respect for his own majesty, when the president went out, he did so in a richly appointed buff carriage, pulled by six gleaming white horses and two drivers in presidential livery. But he also made a point of taking a walk every day at two o’clock, to see and be seen on the streets—which, though cleaner since the war, still echoed with the noise of rattling carts, roaming livestock, and merchants hawking their wares.
We weren’t even sure what to call the president.
Mr. Adams, in what my husband called a fit of madness, had suggested “His Highness, the president of the United States and Protector of their Liberties.” That had been roundly condemned as having the foul stench of monarchy about it. And perhaps because the antifederalists dared not criticize George Washington, they turned their merciless venom on Vice President Adams, addressing him as “His Rotundity” and “The Duke of Braintree.”
Just then, the hall broke into applause when Washington appeared at the front of the room, Adams standing beside him. Before a backdrop of gold stars upon a blue field, the president offered the shortest of possible welcomes, as if he were embarrassed by the attention, then gave a nod that bade the musicians to play.
With the majority of revelers looking on, Washington led a minuet. Alexander turned to me, holding out his hand. “Shall we?”
Finding Angelica and Peggy in animated conversation, I readily accepted, and soon we were moving through the formations. The crowd and low-hanging crystal chandeliers quickly heated the room, and the wax was still warm when it dripped down onto our shoulders from the candles. And I became acutely aware of the envious stares of ladies, all of whom, it seemed, wished to dance with my handsome husband.
They whispered behind their fans, tittered when he came near, and one of his young female admirers was so entranced that she did not notice that one of the chandeliers had set fire to her ornate ostrich feather headdress until one of the president’s aides clapped the feathers in his hands to rescue her.
“Ask Angelica to dance next,” I said to my husband when our set came to an end.
He kissed my hand. “As you wish.”
I’d no more than sipped at a cup of punch when President Washington appeared beside me. “Mrs. Hamilton,” he said, his tone formal as ever.
“Good evening, Your Excellency, and congratulations.”
“May I have the pleasure of this dance?” Washington asked with a little nod.
A most brilliant entertainment indeed! “Oh, it would be an honor.”
The president pulled me into the center of the dance floor and guided us through the figures of the minuet with his characteristic dignity and grace. And all the while I felt the weight of hundreds of gazes—congressmen, cabinet officers, foreign ministers, and those of their wives and daughters—and my conversation with Angelica came rushing back. Had President Washington singled me out because he intended to make my husband one of his cabinet officers? The thought caused me less anxiety than it had before—for, knowing that Washington and his lady were leaving behind their beloved home at Mount Vernon to serve this country again, I could hardly argue that Alexander and I shouldn’t reconcile ourselves to a lesser sacrifice.
When the music ended, the president bowed, and I beamed. Especially as my sisters ran up to exclaim over the mark of respect he’d paid me. “Mrs. Prime Minister,” Angelica whispered, probably too loudly, considering that we were suddenly encircled by ladies with whom I had only the most sparing acquaintance.
Except for my old friend Kitty Livingston.
Though we hadn’t often spent time together since Morristown, I was pleased to see her now. “Kitty!” I cried, at first surprised that she’d come to town for a visit without telling me. Then altogether startled when she turned her back, as if I were a stranger. “Kitty, have we been so busy with our lives you’ve forgotten us?”