owl?” I wrinkled my nose, picturing the heavyset predatory owls who hunted mice in the barns at home. “I thought you said that French is the language of love.”
“It is,” he said, his voice low and dark as he pressed me back against the door to kiss me. “Je t’aime au-delà de tous les autres, ma belle, bien-aimée, ma Eliza.”
And without knowing a word, I understood.
* * *
As the days grew longer and warmer, the army—or what remained of it—began to return to life, like a great slumbering bear after a long winter. The soldiers drilled with more purpose, openly eager to challenge the enemy again. All of Jockey Hollow buzzed with rumors of when the camp would break for summer, and where the various regiments would be sent next to meet the British in battle. The next campaign could be a counter to the siege of Charleston to the south, through Virginia and Georgia. Each day brought more tales from Congress’s meetings in Philadelphia, from spies across the Hudson in New York, from letters from Georgia and Carolina. All carried stories of more British troops arriving, of more guns, more cannon, for the sole purpose of finally bringing an end to the war.
The most popular rumor, however, had the Continental Army waiting until the French troops landed in Rhode Island, and then joining with them in an attack upon the city of New York, across the Hudson River. Part of this plan (or so it was said) also involved the defense of the fortifications farther up the river at West Point—which by curious coincidence was the same West Point that my father was urging as an appointment and fresh start for the disgraced General Arnold.
The only thing that anyone seemed to agree upon was that things would change, and soon, and that the war would begin anew. The British general Henry Clinton had completed his triumphal victory over Charleston, and was reported to be sailing back to New York with a large company of troops. Emboldened by this news, small groups of British soldiers from New York were already to be seen in New Jersey, launching small attacks on the populace that were meant to draw His Excellency out of Morristown earlier than planned.
So far these small attacks had been contained by local militiamen, but those of us still in Morristown became more and more ill at ease as the attacks grew closer to the encampment. Few civilians wished to find themselves in the middle of a campaign. One by one, the wives and families of officers who had wintered with us in hired houses packed up their belongings, bid their husbands and friends farewell, and began their long journeys back to their homes, scattered across every colony.
As a general’s wife, Mamma had witnessed this before, and she was determined to stay with my father here at the camp until, as she said, she could see soldiers marching to battle from her front door. Lady Washington and Aunt Gertrude likewise took this forthright stance, the three older ladies standing confidently beside their husbands as our little community shrank around us. We now also had an additional sentinel at our house posted to guard both front and back doors, and Mamma and I did not go about the town without the company of at least one soldier. I’m not certain if this was an order from His Excellency, or a request by my father. Mamma, Angelica, and I understood, and we did not complain. Because of Papa, we would have made valuable prisoners had we been captured.
It went without saying that I, too, remained in Morristown, relishing every moment that Alexander could spare for me. I pressed him as much as I could for more information on the army’s plans for the summer, but even though he wrote and read all of His Excellency’s orders and letters, he couldn’t offer any more definite news than anyone else did. It truly did seem that the army’s movements were the proverbial game of cat and mouse. His Excellency possessed neither the men nor munitions to strike as he might choose. Instead he was forced to wait and watch, and then react to whatever the British did first.
Angelica remained with us until late May, long enough to attend the last assembly held in honor of the French ambassadors. But finally she, too, began to worry that she might become separated from her children for the entire summer, and made arrangements with her husband’s people to return to her home in Boston.
We took one final stroll about the little town on day before she left. It was odd to see how much it had changed in the last weeks. The original owners of the houses that had been leased to the army had now returned to Morristown with their families, and were busily planting new gardens and making repairs to their properties after the long winter. To them, we represented the army and all its inconveniences and hazards, and they made no effort to acknowledge us except as unwelcome interlopers, soon to be gone. We missed the familiar faces that we’d come to know so well these last months, and the town that had earlier felt like another home now had nothing but strangers to it.
No wonder, then, that Angelica and I walked closely together on that last afternoon, our arms linked and our heads bowed beneath our wide-brimmed straw hats, and our guard following at a respectful distance behind. I was going to miss my sister mightily, and though we promised we’d soon meet again later in the summer at our parents’ house, we were both acutely aware of how our plans could be overturned at any time by the war. Most of what we’d had to say to each other had already been said, and we walked largely in companionable though melancholy silence.
“With weather this fine, you should be home in time to see the roses behind your house bloom,” I said as we passed a garden with bushes already in bud. “There were snow-filled days this winter that I doubted I’d ever see flowers of any sort again.”
“Marry Hamilton,” she said suddenly. “Now, as soon as it can be arranged. Don’t wait any longer than you must.”
I stopped walking to face her, and she stopped, too.
“Angelica, please,” I said. “You know we’re to wed in December, when he can arrange for sufficient leave.”
“And I say to wait so long is to tempt the very Fates,” she said, her expression uncharacteristically somber. “I’ve considered this with great care, Eliza, else I wouldn’t have spoken now. Marry Hamilton now, while you can.”
I sighed unhappily, for in my heart I agreed with everything she said. “Why do you torment me by saying such things now?”
“I don’t intend to torment you,” she said, resuming our walk at a slow and measured pace. “It’s what the men are saying now, of how they cannot wait to go back to war and fighting, and—and I do not wish any misfortune to befall your dear Hamilton before you’ve become his wife.”
“Do you believe I’ve not thought that for myself?” I was kicking my petticoats forward with each step, venting my fear and frustration on the new grass. “Each time I bid him good night I wonder if it will be the last. You know as well as I how perilous and sudden a soldier’s life can be, and I worry constantly on his behalf.”
She nodded, her face mirroring my own beneath the sweeping shadow of her hat’s brim. In the last weeks, she and Alexander had developed a considerable regard for each other as a true brother and sister might, and exactly as I’d hoped they would. True, that undercurrent of flirtation that Alexander had first noted occasionally reappeared on Angelica’s side, but because I knew it meant nothing, I took little notice of it, and he soon learned to deflect it with practiced ease. But that same regard meant that she shared my concern for his welfare, and that it was genuine.
“I worry for him, too,” she said. “He is still so young a gentleman, with so much brilliance and promise but at the same time impetuous to a fault. As long as he remains an aide-de-camp to His Excellency, I suppose he’s as safe as any soldier can be.”
“But all he wishes is another command, and another chance to prove his bravery and courage with no regard for his own safety,”
