With this, Alexander looked to me, as if to applaud the superior merit of his argument, but I thought Philip had the right of it. That’s why I said, “We know Burr. He isn’t the sort of cold-blooded man who would murder his political enemies.”
Oh, how it chills me now to remember the way Alexander replied, “He is precisely that cold-blooded.”
Part Four
The War for History
Chapter Thirty-Two
Spring 1801
Harlem
IN A LITTLE rowboat upon the Hudson, the rising tide pushed us away from our old life toward the site of our new home, our place of respite, and of our exile . . .
For Jefferson was the president. And there was nothing to do but survive the outcome.
Alexander was never able to convince me, Philip, or his Federalist Party that Jefferson was for the best—but he’d managed to convince a single elector from Delaware to switch his vote, and that had been enough.
I could only hope his gamble paid off—especially since Martha Washington called Jefferson’s election “the greatest misfortune our nation has ever experienced.”
But since my husband had helped him win the election, we were cautiously optimistic that Jefferson would not seek reprisals against us for my husband’s long and vociferous political opposition.
“There it is,” Alexander said as he rowed us to shore, his eyes shielded from the sun by a straw hat that looked nearly comical atop his general’s head. He nodded at a bucolic spot on a forested hilltop. I looked up, a glint of sunlight off the dark green water momentarily blinding me, then I saw it.
Our new home upon this river along which I’d lived so much of my life. But unlike the Pastures or the little house at De Peyster’s Point or our rented town houses, this home was ours.
Thirty-five acres. Barns, sheds, stables, gardens, orchards, chicken houses, duck ponds, and all.
The existing little farmhouse was to be replaced by a much grander mansion that my husband wished to call the Grange, after the lands of his supposed noble ancestor in Scotland. And Alexander was trying to turn a mind long attuned to the architecture of government to the simpler architecture of a house. “What say you about black marble for our fireplaces?”
As we floated pleasantly along the muddy shoreline, alone together for the first time in a while, I smiled. “I say marble will be beautiful, but expensive.”
“I’ll take on new clients,” he replied. “Besides, your father is giving me timber. And what price is too great to pay for pure and unalloyed happiness with my excellent wife and sweet children?”
I wasn’t sure my husband could be happy away from the bustle of the city, where all the most important decisions were made. But now that Jefferson’s Jacobins had come to power—and my husband had decided to start a newspaper to point out their follies—it behooved us to get some small distance away from the inevitable riots and enraged mobs.
“I think I prefer white,” I decided. “Italian marble. Roman, if you will.”
“Then you will have it.” He laughed, leaning forward so that our knees touched inside the little dinghy. “For it has always been my creed that a lady’s pleasure is of more importance than a gentleman’s.”
And thereupon we lost an hour to conduct that surely scandalized the fishes.
Having run our little boat aground, Alexander laced up his breeches. Where his hat went, we didn’t know or care. “If this is how we’re to spend our days in the country,” he said, “I believe I shall quite enjoy the leisurely life of a gentleman farmer . . .”
Rearranging my petticoats, all soaked with river water at the hem, I blushed like a girl half my age. “You won’t think it’s so leisurely when you must plow a field or feed the animals and slaughter pigs for dinner. There are no patisseries or coffeehouses for miles.”
“Ah, my belle of the frontier,” he teased. “I shall have to take instruction from you. For I am as unfit for my new role as country farmer as Jefferson is to guide the helm of the United States.”
Then perhaps you shouldn’t have handed him the presidency, I wanted to say, but I was in far too good a humor to spoil the moment. So instead I said, “It’s peaceful here. It will be good for the children. Especially Ana.” Our daughter never fully recovered from the loss of Fanny from our household. She’d seem better for a time but lapse again into strange tempers. My husband tried to assure me this was quite normal for a girl of sixteen, and having been a girl of sixteen, I saw his point. “Perhaps here, in the country, she can have a pet.”