My husband and I were put into bed together as, at this point, it could do no harm. “My poor Betsy,” Alexander whispered beneath the blankets, trying to warm me within the embrace of his own trembling arms. He was trying to give me the last of his warmth, though he couldn’t spare it. “Now I’ve done this to you, in addition to everything else . . .”
It was this embrace, I think, that cracked the wall of anger I’d erected between us. It was our first truly intimate embrace in months, and I knew it might be the last. Together we tossed and turned in sweat-soaked misery upon pillows that Dr. Stevens had stuffed with lavender, chamomile, and peppermint. Until—to our terror—we both awakened feeling better.
No fever. No chills. No aches. Not a trace of them.
I’d gone to sleep so weak I couldn’t walk, much less dress for breakfast. But now I had the appetite for a hearty meal and the energetic desire to cook it. Doctor Stevens forbade that we should exert ourselves in such a way—but he said that no harm could come of a gentle stroll, to stretch our limbs. So I gingerly donned a muslin chemise and Alexander pulled on only a shirt and breeches. And together, warily, we emerged blinking into the bright yellow sun, walking together to a quiet field where lingering wildflowers dotted the dried stalks, and where yellowing leaves rained gently down upon us from the trees.
I couldn’t remember a time walking anywhere with my husband when the world was so quiet and peaceful and beautiful. A portrait of nature painted by a divine hand. Perhaps we’d already died. Perhaps this was the quiet and peace of heaven. But then, where was God?
Matching my husband’s stride, I asked, “How do you feel?”
“Much recovered,” he said. “And you?”
“Much recovered, too.” And though I feared to speak the words aloud, I thought it best to face it bravely. “Which means we are soon to die.”
“Betsy,” Alexander scolded with enough sternness to tell me that he had his wits about him and knew the strange progress of the disease as well as I did.
“Aren’t you afraid?” I asked, knowing he hadn’t made his peace with God.
And yet my husband, who’d once seemed to crave oblivion, asked, “What have I to fear? A pleasing calm suspense. Let the Earth rend. Let the planets forsake their course. Let the Sun be extinguished and the Heavens burst asunder, were it not for the dread of our children to be left alone.”
I crossed my arms at an answer that could only be made by a man who had given the matter some thought. “So, you fear that we’re dying, too.”
“But I wouldn’t have said it.”
This hardly seemed the time for him to finally learn to govern his tongue. “I’d rather not waste time pretending all is well.”
His eyes squinted in vague amusement. “Do you know that is the first thing I loved about you? You’re entirely without guile.”
Now I felt vague amusement. “Such flattery.”
His shoulders rounded defensively. “It’s true. I didn’t want to love you, Betsy. In truth, I tried not to love you. But your sincerity allowed me to trust you. And I’ve never completely trusted in anyone else.”
“Surely that is to overstate it.”
In answer, he stared far away down the dusty road. “I was too often the victim of bad characters in my childhood. Unscrupulous persons happy to make a dirty, hungry, begging, bastard boy imperil his soul for a bit of supper.”
He never told stories about that childhood. Never explained how he’d been made a victim of unscrupulous persons. Certainly, he’d never revealed anything he’d done to imperil his soul for a bit of supper. “Will you tell me how?”
Hamilton’s jaw tightened, released, then tightened again. “Only if you insist, because it’s deeply humiliating. It will also likely vanquish anything that remains of your love and make me hate myself as an inveterate sinner besides.”
I didn’t insist. I only walked beside him in silence.
Finally, he cleared his throat. “Poverty leaves a tarnish on a boy with no parent to guide him. An indelible stain. But when I met you, a pure angel without pretense, I was vain enough to hope that loving you would cleanse me instead of spatter you with the muck of my past. And I am sorry, Elizabeth. I am unworthy of you. I am a creature of a mud pit that I never can seem to climb out of, no matter how hard I try.”
Yet, he did try. Everything he’d done had been a mad scramble to escape. To persuade the world that he was not that dirty, hungry, begging bastard boy, but a man of true stature.