Chapter Text
Angelica Schuyler Church sat in the drawing room, reading quietly, as her two youngest boys, Alex and Richard, played nearby. A sudden, urgent knock at the door startled her mid-phrase, waking her infant namesake daughter and eliciting a tiny, furious squeal from the cradle beside her chair. She rushed to answer it, expecting it would be her nephew, Philip Hamilton, back shaken but likely unhurt: her husband John had mentioned loaning his pistols to the boy for a duel, and while frightening for participants and their loved ones, duels so rarely resulted in serious wounds or death. She opened the door, fully ready to give Philip a piece of her mind for being so reckless, but the sight that awaited her outside stopped her in her tracks.
An unfamiliar young man, so similar in appearance to Philip's father Alexander that he could almost have passed for one of Philip's brothers, stood before her, tears in his eyes and blood smeared across his hands and clothes. Behind him, she could make out two other men carrying a stretcher. A stretcher that held her nephew. Philip's face was ashen as the men carried him up the porch steps, and he moaned and writhed fitfully. A bandage around his waist was soaked through with blood at both sides, and another around his arm had begun to stain. The young man between her and the stretcher took her hands cautiously:
“Mrs. Church, we didn't know where else to go. Your home was the nearest place to the dueling grounds we could think of, and Philip is badly wounded. Please, can you help?”
Angelica nodded numbly, half in a state of shock at the sight before her:
“Come in. I'll find somewhere for him to rest comfortably, and wait with him for the good Doctor. Hurry now, don't let the children see!”
What would little Alex say, seeing his cousin like this? What impact would it have on Richard, only just three years old?
Philip whimpered as the men lowered him onto the bed in the guest room, calling faintly for his mother and father in a voice that sounded so young, so boyish and so frightened for his nineteen years. Angelica sat in a chair by his bedside, clutching his hand and feeling utterly helpless as Dr. Hosack arrived and bustled around the boy, hemming and hawing and fretting and ultimately unable to do much of anything except administer laudanum for the pain:
“The bullet cut a path straight through his abdomen, as good as destroying the intestines, and lodged in his arm,” the man declared solemnly, “it would take a miracle to save him: even if he somehow survives the bleeding, the inevitable infection from such terrible internal injuries will surely kill him within the week. This should ease his pain, but I know of no way to prolong or preserve his life, and I fear that attempting to do so would ultimately only cause him more suffering.”
The drug had the desired effect, sedating and soothing Philip, but only briefly. Soon he sobbed again in pain, once more half-conscious and trembling, tears tracing tracks down his pallid face. She gently hushed him, stroking his hair back from his cheeks and brow, where it clung in curling tendrils:
“Shhh, Pip, darling. I know. I know it hurts. Just keep breathing. Keep fighting. Your mother and father will be here soon. You're being so brave, love.”
Hadn't Alexander or Eliza received word yet? What could be taking them so long?
Philip leaned his cheek into her hand a little as she continued smoothing his hair, and those intelligent, affectionate eyes, so like his father's, fluttered open halfway, a little unfocused from the pain and medicine, but bright with recognition nonetheless:
“A-aunt Angelica?”
“I'm here, Philip. I'm here. You're alright.”
“Aunt Angelica... I did what Father and Uncle John said. I aimed for the sky.”
Her heart sank: whoever had gone against her nephew was no man of honor if he'd fired when he saw Philip aiming to delope.
“A-and guess what? After all was said and done, Mr. Eacker finally apologized.”
George Eacker. That awful little man. A lawyer and outspoken political enemy of her brother-in-law. And now, it seemed, he'd become the murderer of her nephew.
“And you forgave him?”
The unspoken extension, even after he shot you?, hung in the air as she marveled at the courage and kindness her young nephew had displayed.
“Of c-course. It's the right-” he paused, gasping momentarily for breath, “-the right thing to do. The Christian thing to do, as you and Mother have so often said. Was-” another gasp before he finished meekly, as if seeking her approval, “-was I wrong to?”
“No,” she murmured, amazed by his grace and composure in the face of such pain, “oh, Pip, no: you were a better person than I could have been in your position. Than most people could have been. I'm so, so proud of you.”
Cradling his face with one hand as he began to lose consciousness again, she silently prayed the rest of the family could be as brave and patient in the inevitable aftermath as he was now. She feared Alexander and Eliza, their bond already weakened by the publication of the Reynolds Pamphlet scarcely four years ago, would fall apart under the weight of such a devastating blow.