“Heaven forfend,” I said, glad Alexander wasn’t present to hear this prediction, for it would have sent him spiraling into a rage.
What I wanted was to celebrate with my sisters that we were all together. The three of us. Our children playing together outside. Our husbands good friends. Just as I’d once dreamed we’d be.
So I did my best to soften Angelica’s temper until the three of us were laughing together as we did when we were girls. “I’ll call her Lysbet for short,” I said to Peggy of the new daughter in my arms. “And I am sorry, Peggy. I wanted to call her Margaret but my husband is still persuasive when he desires something.”
She snorted. “Oh, and I’ll bet he knows just how to persuade you, too. No doubt it involves his—”
“Say no more!” I said, laughing despite myself. “There’s an innocent babe here.”
Chuckling, Peggy smoothed her hand over Lysbet’s downy hair. “Call her what you like. It’s just good to see you happy again.”
I was happy, I realized.
The advantage of the Reynolds scandal was that I no longer had anything to hide. I found satisfaction in my work—and in Alexander’s. For on the Fourth of July, we’d toasted the state legislature’s passage of a law establishing the gradual abolition of slavery. And shortly thereafter, Alexander had taken me to scout a property he meant to buy for our home—a high, wooded place not far from the river.
The country still feared an American war with France—with that tyrant, Napoleon Bonaparte. But with Washington and Hamilton at the head of our armies, we could be in no safer hands.
*
Doctor, I die hard. But I am not afraid to go.
—GEORGE WASHINGTON
December 1799
New York City
George Washington’s passing shook the very foundations of the country. Few men on earth had done more to earn eternal rest than the former president, but we were left like children frightened to face a world without him. Even Alexander, though he was loath to admit it.
Nevertheless, like a grieving son, my husband went to Philadelphia to march in a somber funereal procession in honor of his fallen chief, wearing a black sash of mourning, leading a white riderless horse from Congress Hall, accompanied by a solitary drumbeat.
But where were the rest of the country’s supposedly great men?
One would have searched the assembled crowd in vain for Jefferson, Madison, or Monroe. Though I could well imagine the three Republicans clustered around a dinner table, wickedly toasting Washington’s demise and the opportunity it now gave their party to rise to power.
For my part, I was forced to steal away to the privacy of my room so that the children would not see my tears fall as I remembered the first time that godlike man spoke my name in welcoming me to his military encampment.
My heart bled for Martha.
She must feel so alone now, I thought. Inconsolable. She’d had children from her first marriage, but none with Washington. And she’d had only two years with her husband after a lifetime of public service. Only two years to sit together upon their piazza overlooking the Potomac and dine together in the privacy of their rooms. And yet, even then, I knew Mount Vernon resembled a well-resorted tavern, with people stopping by for a glimpse of the former president and in expectation of southern hospitality. A meal, a room for the night, a stable with feed for their horses—all at Washington’s expense, of course.
We consumed him, I thought, clutching the pendant I wore containing his hair.
We might not have chopped off Washington’s head and lapped up his blood from the paving stones as the French mobs did with their king. But we’d taken the best years of his life—his sweat, his toil, his wisdom, his vigor and energies. And what did we give him in return? For eight years we called him president. Now we called him the Father of the Country.
Who then, was the heir?
All eyes, it seemed, turned to an increasingly erratic President John Adams. But finding him wanting, some looked to Alexander Hamilton. And for the first time, I found myself almost grateful for the exposure of my husband’s infidelity. Because it meant that he hadn’t the stature to run for the presidency. Not now, at least.
We were stuck with President Adams. The alternative was unthinkable.
The alternative was Jefferson.
“Did you remember to deliver the parcel to Widow Rhinelander?” I asked Philip when he absconded with a piece of bread, trying to slip out the back door.
“I could scarcely forget, with all your reminders.” My tall son leaned against the butcher block table in the basement kitchen of our rented town house, affecting a manly devil-may-care pose. He was still dutiful about helping to deliver baskets to the needy, but having graduated from Columbia College, he would not be at my beck and call for long. He was grown now—and keen to prove it. “Fortunately, Mrs. Rhinelander has a very pretty girl living next door to her . . .”