The Articles of Confederation had made less a new nation than a loose alliance of states. Hamilton and my father dreamed of something grander. And oh, how it filled my heart to see them together each night, talking through ideas, my father’s wisdom tempering my husband’s more passionate arguments—I took great pride in realizing that I’d given my father more than a son and my husband more than a father; I’d given both a trustworthy friend.
We were happy. I was never happier, I think.
In addition to getting to know my own little family that spring, we also had the chance to become better acquainted with Angelica’s. With the war winding down, Mr. Carter found more time to spend with us at the Pastures. He was debonair and worldly, and I could easily imagine how my brother-in-law’s dashing looks had won over Angelica. But his English reserve made them an odd match. Still, watching their four-year-old Philip hold my little boy on his lap for the first time filled my heart to bursting with the idea that our children would all grow up together, running these fields and playing in the river with their own New Netherlander children’s troops just as we had.
The only thing we needed now was for Peggy to add her own little brood . . .
I decided to broach the matter at the Pinkster festivities, where Albany’s slaves and freedmen performed African dances to wild drumbeats and sold us oysters and herbs from brightly colored carts. Pinkster was a time for setting aside the usual order of things. Blacks, whites, and Indians mingled and played games. Slaves slyly mocked their masters with relative impunity. And sweethearts stole away without any thought to propriety. So when a gentleman admirer dropped a bouquet of azaleas in Peggy’s lap and she rejected his suit out of hand, I said, “Alexander’s no Barbary pirate, I suppose, but I’m married off now, so what’s stopping you, Peg?”
Seated beside me on a quilt, a bucket of shucked oyster shells beside her, Peggy rolled her eyes, some sharp retort no doubt on her tongue. But before she could speak, Angelica dropped down beside us, smoothing her skirts. “What’s this about Alexander being a pirate?”
I chuckled, wondering if my husband’s ears were burning at the foot of the hill where he and my brothers were playing a game of ninepins. “Peggy once wished I’d marry one.”
Peggy batted her eyelashes and coyly threw each of us a glance. “For all you two know, what with how busy you’ve been making babies, perhaps I’m already betrothed.”
I gaped at her audacious reply. “You must tell us all the details at once.”
“It best not be a certain young Van Rensselaer boy,” Angelica said with a sly laugh. Stephen Van Rensselaer from our Blues troop, she meant, who was to turn eighteen in the fall. And who had spent much of the spring paying call to the Pastures. “I overheard Papa say he is far too young to marry.”
“Fortunately, Mama doesn’t agree,” Peggy said with a self-satisfied little smirk.
I could well imagine that our mother might truly approve of the match. Mama had always hoped that her daughters might marry into one of the great families of New York. And given the unconventional choices Angelica and I had made in husbands, Peggy might be my mother’s last hope until our little sisters came of age.
It was a bit unusual for a woman of Peggy’s age to marry a younger man, but then again, Stephen was set to inherit one of the largest and oldest estates in New York, so there were great advantages to the match, too.
I gave Peggy’s hand a squeeze, wanting her to find the same happiness I’d found. “Well, if you have Mama on your side, Papa will surely give his permission.”
Peggy bit her lower lip, then it all came out in a rush. “He has given his permission. On the condition that we wait until Stephen finishes his studies and is old enough that his family should not object. Also on the condition that we don’t tell anyone. Which is too cruel!”
I laughed and felt badly for laughing, because it did seem some manner of cruelty to make Peggy keep this secret. So, to distract her, Angelica and I devised all manner of dinner parties and other socials, where my sisters and I played the pianoforte and my brothers played the German flute to the amusement of all. And some of the most amusing gatherings were attended by the newly married Colonel Burr—whose dry wit was a charming accompaniment to my husband’s more sparkling playfulness.
In the months after our first meeting, Burr had become a near-constant fixture at the Pastures as he and Alexander shared Papa’s library in their studies of the law. At all hours, they could be found hunched over their books and papers, debating one point of law or another. I knew very well, of course, the brilliance of my own husband’s mind. But it surprised me that Colonel Burr proved quite nearly to be Alexander’s equal. For at every meal, party, and gathering, they insisted upon demonstrating their intellects, trying to outshine one another to the amusement and, sometimes, exasperation of all.