The Conqueror

XXXV

That was the last of Hamil­ton's bat­tles in the Cab­inet. Jef­fer­son re­signed; al­though, in or­der that the Ad­min­is­tra­tion might, un­til the cri­sis was past, pre­serve an un­bro­ken front to the coun­try, he re­luc­tant­ly con­sent­ed to with­hold his res­ig­na­tion un­til the as­sem­bling of Congress. He re­tired to Mon­ti­cel­lo, how­ev­er; and apol­ogized to the Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury.

Hamil­ton, al­most im­me­di­ate­ly, was tak­en down with yel­low fever, which broke out sud­den­ly and raged with a fear­ful vi­olence. To the or­di­nary odours of car­cass­es and garbage, were added those of vine­gar, tar, ni­tre, gar­lic, and gun­pow­der. Ev­ery dis­in­fec­tant Amer­ica had ev­er heard of was giv­en a tri­al, and ev­ery man who pos­sessed a shot-​gun fired it all day and all night. The bells tolled in­ces­sant­ly. The din and the smells were hideous, the death carts rat­tled from dawn till dawn; many were left un­buried in their hous­es for a week; hun­dreds died dai­ly; and the city con­fessed it­self help­less, al­though it cleaned the streets. Hamil­ton had a very light at­tack, but Dr. Stevens dropped in fre­quent­ly to see him; he pri­vate­ly thought him of more im­por­tance than all Philadel­phia.

Ly­ing there and think­ing of many things, too grate­ful for the rest to chafe at the im­pris­on­ment, and striv­ing for peace with him­self, Hamil­ton one day con­ceived the idea of im­mers­ing yel­low-​fever pa­tients in ice-​wa­ter. Mi­crobes were undis­cov­ered, but Hamil­ton, per­haps with a flash­ing glimpse of the truth, rea­soned that if cold weath­er in­vari­ably rout­ed the dis­ease, a freez­ing of the in­fect­ed blood should pro­duce the same re­sult. He suc­ceed­ed in con­vinc­ing Stevens, with the is­sue that when the scourge was over, the young West In­di­an doc­tor had so many cures to his cred­it, where all oth­er physi­cians had failed, that the City Coun­cil pre­sent­ed him with a sil­ver tankard, grate­ful­ly in­scribed, and filled with gold­en coins. Hamil­ton's fe­cund brain, scat­ter­ing its cre­ations, made more than one rep­uta­tion.

Mean­while, he awoke one day to find Mrs. Croix sit­ting be­side his bed. She had left town in June, and usu­al­ly did not re­turn un­til late in Septem­ber. She wore a white frock and a blue sash, and looked like an an­gel about to do penance.

“I have come back to take care of the sick, in­clud­ing your­self,” she an­nounced, “I was born to be a nurse, and I felt that my place was here. I have come to see you first, and I shall call dai­ly, but oth­er­wise I am in Dr. Stevens's hands.”

Hamil­ton stared at her. He was not sur­prised, for she was kind heart­ed in her er­rat­ic im­pe­ri­ous fash­ion, and much beloved by the poor; nor was she afraid of any­thing un­der heav­en. But she was the last per­son he had wished to see; she was for his tri­umphant hours, or his fu­ri­ous, not for help­less in­va­lidism. He had longed con­sis­tent­ly for his wife, and writ­ten to her by ev­ery pack­et-​boat, lest she sus­pect his ill­ness and re­turn to the plague-​strick­en city. He was filled with a sud­den re­sent­ment that any oth­er wom­an should pre­sume to fill her chair. To for­get her un­der over­whelm­ing provo­ca­tion he had rec­on­ciled to his con­science with lit­tle dif­fi­cul­ty, for his ex­ten­ua­tions were many, and pu­ri­tanism had not yet in­vad­ed the na­tion­al char­ac­ter; but to per­mit an­oth­er wom­an to min­is­trate to him when ill, he felt to be an un­par­don­able breach of his Eliza's rights, and his loy­al­ty re­belled. So, al­though he treat­ed Mrs. Croix with po­lite­ness while she re­mained, he gave or­ders to Dr. Stevens to keep her away up­on any pre­text he chose. “I am too ner­vous to be both­ered with wom­en,” he added; and Stevens obeyed with­out com­ment.

Hamil­ton's con­va­les­cence was cheered by two facts: the re­vival of his spir­its and equi­lib­ri­um, and fre­quent as­sur­ances from his wife that for the first time in five years she was en­tire­ly well. She wrote that she had re­gained all her old colour, “spring,” vi­vac­ity, and plump­ness, and felt quite ten years younger. Hamil­ton was de­light­ed; for her courage had so far ex­ceed­ed her strength that he had of­ten feared a col­lapse. Al­though she de­test­ed the sight of a pen, she was so elat­ed with her re­cov­ered health that she wrote to him week­ly. Sud­den­ly, and with­out ex­pla­na­tion, the let­ters stopped. Still, he was quite un­pre­pared for what was to fol­low, and on the first of Oc­to­ber, his health im­proved by a short so­journ in the coun­try, he went to the wharf to meet the pack­et-​boat which in­vari­ably brought his fam­ily; his pock­ets full of sweets, and not a mis­giv­ing in his mind.

As he stood on the wharf, watch­ing the boat towed slow­ly to dock, his four old­est chil­dren sud­den­ly ap­peared, wav­ing their hats and shout­ing like young In­di­ans. James, who was as broad as he was long, and was wedged firm­ly be­tween An­gel­ica and Philip lest he turn over, swelled a cho­rus which ex­cit­ed much amuse­ment among by-​standers. To Hamil­ton's sur­prise his wife did not oc­cu­py her usu­al place be­hind that en­thu­si­as­tic group, but as the boat touched the pier, and all four pre­cip­itat­ed them­selves up­on him at once,--the three old­est about his neck, and James up­on his pock­ets,--he for­got her for the mo­ment in the de­light of see­ing and em­brac­ing his chil­dren af­ter three months of sep­ara­tion. He emerged from that wild greet­ing, di­shev­elled and breath­less, on­ly to dis­ap­pear once more with­in six long arms and a cir­cle of sun­burned faces. Hamil­ton re­ceived from his chil­dren an al­most fran­tic af­fec­tion; in­deed, few peo­ple mere­ly liked him; it was ei­ther hate or a love which far tran­scend­ed the bounds of such af­fec­tion as the av­er­age mor­tal com­mands. The pas­sion he in­spired in his chil­dren cost one his life, an­oth­er her rea­son, and left its in­deli­ble mark on a third; but for what they gave, they re­ceived an over­flow­ing mea­sure in re­turn; no man was ev­er more pas­sion­ate­ly at­tached to his brood, nor took a greater de­light in its so­ci­ety.

Sud­den­ly, through the web of An­gel­ica's fly­ing locks, he saw that his wife had ap­peared on deck and was about to land. He dis­en­tan­gled him­self hasti­ly and went for­ward to greet her. In a flash he not­ed that she was pret­ti­er than ev­er, and that she was af­fect­ed by some­thing far more ex­traor­di­nary than an in­crease of health. She threw back her head, and her black eyes flashed with anger as he ap­proached with the as­sur­ance of thir­teen years of con­nu­bial own­er­ship; but she greet­ed him po­lite­ly and took his arm. No ex­pla­na­tion was pos­si­ble there; and he es­cort­ed her and the chil­dren to the coach as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. Philip, An­gel­ica, and Alexan­der were sen­si­ble at once of the chasm yawn­ing be­tween the seats; they re­dou­bled their at­ten­tions to their fa­ther, and re­gard­ed their moth­er with re­prov­ing and de­fi­ant eyes. Poor Bet­sey, con­scious that she was en­tire­ly in the right, felt bit­ter and hu­mil­iat­ed, and sought to find com­fort in the in­dif­fer­ence of James, who was en­gaged with a cor­nu­copia and blind to the in­fe­lic­ity of his par­ents.

When they reached the house, Hamil­ton dis­missed the chil­dren and opened the door of his li­brary.

“Will you come in?” he said peremp­to­ri­ly.

Mrs. Hamil­ton en­tered, and sat down on a high-​backed chair. She was very small, her lit­tle pi­geon toes were sev­er­al inch­es above the floor; but no judge on his bench ev­er looked so stern and so in­ex­orable.

“Now,” said Hamil­ton, who was cold from head to foot, for he had an aw­ful mis­giv­ing, “let us have an ex­pla­na­tion at once. This is our first se­ri­ous mis­un­der­stand­ing, and you well know that I shall be in mis­ery un­til it is over--”

“I have not the least in­ten­tion of keep­ing you in sus­pense,” in­ter­rupt­ed Bet­sey, sar­cas­ti­cal­ly. “I am too thank­ful that you did not hap­pen to come to Sarato­ga when _I_ was pros­trat­ed with mis­ery. I have gone through ev­ery­thing,--ev­ery stage of wretched­ness that the hu­man heart is ca­pa­ble of,--but now, thank Heav­en, I am filled with on­ly a just in­dig­na­tion. Read that!”

She pro­duced a let­ter from her retic­ule and flipped it at him. Even be­fore he opened it he rec­og­nized the fa­mil­iar hand­writ­ing, the pro­fuse cap­itals, of Mrs. Reynolds. For­tu­nate­ly, he made no com­ment, for the con­tents were ut­ter­ly dif­fer­ent from his quick an­tic­ipa­tion. It con­tained a minute and cir­cum­stan­tial ac­count of his vis­its dur­ing the past year to Mrs. Croix, with many oth­er de­tails, which, by spy­ing and brib­ing, no doubt, she had man­aged to gath­er. Fail­ing one re­venge, the wom­an had re­sort­ed to an­oth­er, and fear­ing that it might be lost among the abun­dant and sur­feit­ing lies of the pub­lic press, she had aimed at what he held most dear. The let­ter was so minute and cir­cum­stan­tial that it would have con­vinced al­most any wom­an.

There was but one thing for Hamil­ton to do, and he lied with his un­sur­pass­able elo­quence. When he paused ten­ta­tive­ly, his wife re­marked:--

“Alexan­der, you are a very great man, but you are a wretched­ly poor liar. As Mr. Wash­ing­ton would say, your sin­cer­ity is one of the most valu­able of your gifts, and with­out it you could not con­vince a child. As if this were not enough, on­ly yes­ter­day, on the boat, I over­heard two of your in­ti­mate friends dis­cussing this in­trigue as a mat­ter of course. There was not a word of cen­sure or crit­icism; they were mere­ly won­der­ing when you would add to your en­emies; for as this wom­an was des­per­ate­ly in love with you, she was bound to hate you as vi­olent­ly when you tired of her. I think men are hor­rors!” she burst out pas­sion­ate­ly. “When, un­able to bear this ter­ri­ble af­flic­tion any longer, and un­will­ing to wor­ry my poor moth­er, I took that let­ter and my grief to my fa­ther--what do you sup­pose he said? Af­ter he had tried to con­vince me that the sto­ry was a base fab­ri­ca­tion, and that an anony­mous com­mu­ni­ca­tion should be de­stroyed un­read--as if any wom­an liv­ing would not read an anony­mous let­ter!--he said, cross­ly, that wom­en did not un­der­stand men and nev­er made al­lowances for them; and he went on to make as many ex­cus­es for you as if he were de­fend­ing him­self; and then wound up by say­ing that he did not be­lieve a word of it, and that the let­ter was writ­ten by some­one you had flout­ed. But it seemed to me in those aw­ful days that I was awake for the first time, that for the first time I un­der­stood you--and your hor­rid sex, in gen­er­al--I do! I do!”

She looked so adorable with her flash­ing eyes, the hot colour in her cheek, and the new per­son­al­ity she ex­hib­it­ed, that Hamil­ton would have fore­gone a tri­umph over his en­emies to kiss her. But he dared not make a false move, and he was ter­ri­bly per­plexed.

“I can on­ly re­it­er­ate,” he said, “that this let­ter is a lie from be­gin­ning to end. It is writ­ten by a wom­an, who, with her hus­band, has black­mailed me and jeop­ar­dized my rep­uta­tion. I treat­ed them as they de­served, and this is their next move. As for Mrs. Croix, I re­peat, she is a most es­timable per­son, whose bril­liant wit and tal­ent for pol­itics draw all pub­lic men about her. There is hard­ly one among them who might not be vic­tim­ized by a sim­ilar at­tack. I doubt if I have called half as of­ten as many oth­ers. As for the friends whom you heard dis­cussing my vis­its--you know the love of the hu­man mind for scan­dal. Please be rea­son­able. You have made me the most wretched man on earth, I shall be un­fit for pub­lic du­ty or any­thing else if you con­tin­ue to treat me in this bru­tal man­ner. I hard­ly know you. No wom­an was ev­er more loved by her hus­band or re­ceived more de­vo­tion.”

Bet­sey al­most re­lent­ed, he looked so mis­er­able. But she replied firm­ly: “There is one con­di­tion I have a right to make. If you agree to it, I will con­sid­er if I can bring my­self to be­lieve your de­nial and your protes­ta­tions. It is that you nev­er en­ter Mrs. Croix's house again, nor see her will­ing­ly.”

Hamil­ton knew what the promise would mean, but his mind worked with the ra­pid­ity of light­ning in great crises, and nev­er erred. He replied prompt­ly:

“I will see her once, and once on­ly--to give her a de­cent rea­son for not call­ing again--that I un­der­stand I am com­pro­mis­ing her good name, or some­thing of the sort. I have ac­cept­ed too much hos­pi­tal­ity at her hands to drop her brusque­ly, with­out a word of ex­pla­na­tion.”

“You can write her a let­ter. You can mere­ly send po­lite ex­cus­es when she in­vites you. You are very busy. You have ev­ery ex­cuse. Grad­ual­ly, she will think no more about you--if it be true that she is noth­ing to you. You have your choice, sir! Ei­ther your promise, or I re­turn by the next pack­et to Al­bany.”

But Hamil­ton, al­ways con­sid­er­ate of wom­en, and de­spis­ing the weak­ness and bru­tal­ity which per­mits a man to slink out of an amour, would not re­treat, and Bet­sey fi­nal­ly set­tled her­self in her chair, and said, with un­mis­tak­able de­ter­mi­na­tion:--

“Very well, go now. I shall not move from this room--this chair--un­til you re­turn.”

Hamil­ton caught his hat and left the house. Al­though he was pos­sessed by the one ab­sorb­ing de­sire to win back his wife, who had nev­er been so dear as to-​day, when for the first time she had placed him at arm's length and giv­en him a thor­ough fright, still his brain, ac­cus­tomed to see all sides of ev­ery ques­tion at once, and far in­to the fu­ture, spoke plain­ly of the hour when he would re­gret the loss of Mrs. Croix. He might for­get her for weeks at a time, but he al­ways reawak­ened to a sense of her be­ing with a glow­ing im­pres­sion that the world was more alive and fair. The se­cret ro­mance had been very dear and pleas­ant. The end was come, how­ev­er, and he was ea­ger to pass it.

His eye was at­tract­ed to a chemist's win­dow, and en­ter­ing the shop hasti­ly, he pur­chased a bot­tle of smelling salts. The act re­mind­ed him of Mrs. Mitchell, and that he had not heard from her for sev­er­al months. He re­solved to write that night, and per­mit­ted his mind to wan­der to the green Is­land which was al­most lost among his mem­ories. The respite was brief, how­ev­er.

To his re­lief he found Mrs. Croix in her in­tel­lec­tu­al habit. The la­dy, who was read­ing in the door of her boudoir above the gar­den steps, ex­claimed, with­out for­mal greet­ing:--

“I am trans­port­ed, sir. Such de­scrip­tions nev­er were writ­ten be­fore. Lis­ten!”

Hamil­ton, who hat­ed de­scrip­tions of scenery at any time, and was in his most di­rect and im­per­ative tem­per, stood the in­flic­tion but a mo­ment, then asked her at­ten­tion. She closed the book over her fin­ger and smiled charm­ing­ly.

“For­give me for bor­ing you,” she said gra­cious­ly. “But you know my pas­sion for let­ters; and if truth must be told, I am a lit­tle piqued. I have not laid eyes on you for a fort­night. Not but that I am used to your laps­es of mem­ory by this time,” she added, with a sigh.

Hamil­ton went straight to the point. He told her the ex­act rea­son for the nec­es­sary breach, omit­ting noth­ing but the episode of Mrs. Reynolds; one cause of re­proach was as much as a man could be ex­pect­ed to fur­nish an an­gry wom­an.

For Mrs. Croix was very an­gry. At first she had pressed her hand against her heart as if about to faint, and Hamil­ton had hasti­ly ex­tract­ed the salts; but the next mo­ment she was on her feet, tow­er­ing and ex­pand­ing like an aveng­ing queen about to or­der in her slaves with scim­itars and charg­ers.

“Do you mean,” she cried, “that I am flout­ed, flung aside like an old cra­vat? I? With half the men in Amer­ica in love with me? Good God, sir! I have known from the be­gin­ning that you would tire, but I thought to be on the watch and save my pride. How dare you come like this? Why could you not give me warn­ing? It is an out­rage. I would rather you had killed me.”

“I am sor­ry I have blun­dered,” said Hamil­ton, humbly. “But how in Heav­en's name can a man know how a wom­an will take any­thing? I had such re­spect for your great in­tel­li­gence that I thought it due you to treat you as I would a man--”

“A man?” ex­claimed Mrs. Croix. “Treat me like a man! Of all the supreme­ly sil­ly things I ev­er heard one of your sex say, that is the sil­li­est. I am not a man, and you know it.”

Hamil­ton has­tened to as­sure her that she was de­lib­er­ate­ly avert­ing her in­tel­li­gence from his true mean­ing. “You have nev­er doubt­ed my sin­cer­ity for a mo­ment,” he added. “You sure­ly know what it will cost me nev­er to see you again. There is but one cause un­der heav­en that could have brought me to you with this de­ci­sion. You may be­lieve in my re­gret--to use a plain word--when you re­flect up­on all that you have been to me.”

He was des­per­ate­ly afraid that her anger would dis­solve in tears, and he be placed in a po­si­tion from which he was not sure of emerg­ing with a clear con­science,--and he dared take home noth­ing less. But Mrs. Croix, how­ev­er she might feel on the mor­row, was too out­raged in her pride and van­ity to be sus­cep­ti­ble ei­ther to grief or the pas­sion of love. She stormed up and down the room in in­creas­ing fury, her eyes flash­ing blue light­ning, her strong hands smash­ing what­ev­er cost­ly of­fer­ing they en­coun­tered. “Wives! Wives! Wives!” she screamed. “The lit­tle fools! What are wives for but to keep house and bring up ba­bies? They are a class apart. I have suf­fered enough from their im­per­ti­nent in­ter­fer­ence. Am I not a wom­an apart? Will you as­sert that there is a 'wife' in Amer­ica who can hold her own with me for a mo­ment in any­thing? Was I not cre­at­ed to re­veal to men--and on­ly the ablest, for I waste no time on fools--the very sub­li­ma­tion of my sex--a com­pan­ion­ship they will find in no sil­ly lit­tle fool, stupid with do­mes­tic­ity? Am I to sub­mit, then, to be baulked by a sex I de­spise--and in the great­est pas­sion that ev­er pos­sessed a wom­an?” She stopped and laughed, bring­ing her lash­es to­geth­er and mov­ing for­ward her beau­ti­ful lips. “What a fool I am!” she said. “You will come back when the hu­mour seizes you. I had for­got that your fam­ily re­turned to-​day. You are in your most do­mes­tic mood--and I have been in­flict­ed with that be­fore. But there will come an hour when nei­ther your wife nor any oth­er mor­tal pow­er will keep you away from me. Is it not true?”

Hamil­ton had turned pale; his ready imag­ina­tion had re­spond­ed with a pre­sen­ti­ment of many des­per­ate strug­gles. He rose, and took her hand forcibly.

“No,” he said. “I shall not re­turn. Be­lieve me, that is the hard­est sen­tence I have ev­er pro­nounced up­on my­self. And for­give me if I have been rude and in­con­sid­er­ate. It was the re­sult of the de­sire to have the agony over as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. I should have found the an­tic­ipa­tion un­bear­able, and I do not be­lieve it would have been more sooth­ing to you. There is no rea­son why your pride should be wound­ed, for this is not the re­sult of sati­ety on my part, but of an im­per­ative ne­ces­si­ty. Shake hands with me.”

She wrenched her hand free and, seiz­ing a vase, flung it in­to a mir­ror. Hamil­ton re­treat­ed.