I took in a ragged breath torn between gratitude and confusion about the house. “You’re suggesting some financial trick.” Perhaps something that might lose me every last penny.
“It’s a political trick,” my sister explained. “It seems there are people for whom your husband’s indebtedness is more embarrassing than it could ever be for you.”
It took me a moment to guess her meaning. Then I understood. Federalists. It would hurt the party at the ballot box if it were to be publicly known that Alexander Hamilton, their founder—the man of American financial wizardry—had died in debt.
We’d already lost one presidential election to Thomas Jefferson. The party couldn’t risk losing another, so the Federalists would pay a great deal to keep Alexander Hamilton’s children from being turned out of house and home. And I found that more reassuring than I ought to have. “They intend to make me a loan?”
“A gift, actually,” Church explained. “A number of prominent men will establish a trust fund on condition of secrecy. It’s to be kept even from the children.”
I didn’t like secrets. I’d been hurt by secrets. But I had no interest whatsoever in giving the public another excuse to dishonor my husband’s memory. So Alexander’s indebtedness was a secret I could easily keep. My uneasiness came in the realization of how dependent I was now upon the mercies of others. My brother-in-law. The executors. The Federalists.
And even my sons . . .
*
“YOU LOOK DASHING,” I said, helping my eighteen-year-old Alex tie his cravat and turn up the corners of his starched white collar. “Your father would be so proud of you today.”
Alex forced a smile past the grief for his father that cast its shadow over this occasion. “Dashing, but not a dandy?” he asked, buttoning his neatly tailored blue coat, but eyeing the plainer black one hanging on his wardrobe.
“No, my sweet boy, not a dandy.” Like me, Alex was born unburdened with the expectations of an eldest but never pampered like the youngest. Whereas our Philip had been darkly handsome and rakish, young Alex was fair and freckled and gallant. And because he didn’t have his father here to take pride in him on this day, I must lavish praise upon him for the both of us. “To think, Alexander Hamilton’s namesake is graduating from Columbia College. Despite all your father’s many accomplishments, even he didn’t do that . . .”
“Only because of the revolution,” Alex replied, then took a deep breath, as if he needed to steel himself against the world as bravely as his father had done before him. “And he was given an honorary degree later, wasn’t he?”
I smiled softly, realizing how aware Alex was of the shoes he’d have to fill. He was now responsible for the support and care of six siblings and a broken-hearted mother. His father’s will had bade him to consider it his responsibility. Worse, I now had the unhappy duty of adding to his burdens. “Alex, I cannot allow you to go to Boston to take a position in the countinghouse as we’d planned.”
My son blanched. “But I’ve already agreed. Uncle Church and Mr. Pendleton say that I cannot now decline.”
“I know,” I replied, trying not to show how it vexed me that gentlemen all seemed to view me as an enfeebled creature, too broken by grief to know what was best for my own children. “But my wish is for you to stay in New York.”
Alex furrowed his ginger brow. “You worry I’ll fritter away my evenings.” A faint note of hurt underscored his words, as if he thought himself accused of gambling, drinking, or carousing. “Or that I might neglect church and not know right from wrong—”
“No,” I reassured him. “You’re a good boy.”
But Philip had been a good boy, too.
I wasn’t worried about the evil that my son might get himself into in Boston. I worried about the evil lying in wait for a son of Alexander Hamilton. Especially one who shared his name. Every day Alex was out of my sight, I’d live in fear of him being lured into a duel or simply murdered somewhere far from his relations or anyone who could help him.
Perhaps he, too, would be found floating facedown in a river like James Callender . . .
Of course, I could say none of this to my son without provoking some show of Hamiltonian bravado. So I only said, “I’m a sorrowing mother overwhelmed with the responsibility of caring for all your brothers and sisters. I can’t manage without you.”
It wasn’t fair what I was asking him, a young man on the cusp of making his own future. Hadn’t we fought to ensure that young men like Alex could choose for themselves how and where they lived, worked, and made a name? And yet, he swallowed down his objections even if with trepidation. “Am I to . . . to farm at the Grange?”