Chapter Text
July 1804
“A Miracle,” the top headline of the New York Evening Post proclaimed in large, bold font. Eliza bent to collect the stack of newspapers piled in front of the door, scanning quickly over the article in the dim afternoon light. Below the glowing prose sending boundless thanks to the French army surgeons and merciful God for having preserved America’s most treasured ornament, she noted another headline in smaller text: “Vice President Burr Flees Southward Ahead of Possible Indictment.” She fought a wave of blind rage at the sight of the name as she crumpled the stack under her armpit and pushed open the front door of the townhouse.
A rumble of thunder echoed somewhere in the distance.
“Steady,” David Hosack cautioned from the back of the wagon. He awkwardly maneuvered himself down backwards onto the cobblestone street and motioned for the others to follow. “Slow and steady, men. We’ll beat the storm yet.”
One of William Bayard’s servants jumped out of the wagon beside Hosack and reached back to lift the wooden handles of a stretcher. A low groan of pain issued out as the stretcher slid off the solid foundation. Eliza watched as Hosack tenderly adjusted the blanket over her husband, leaning forward to inspect something on his middle, before gesturing towards the house. Alexander clutched at the side of the stretcher so tightly his knuckles were white, his jaw bunched and locked to hold back a scream.
They were moving him too soon, Eliza thought, pressing herself against the door to keep it open wide as possible. A fever flush still colored his gaunt, sunken cheeks. They could only pray the stitches holding his abdominal cavity closed held fast through all the jostling.
She knew the Bayards hospitality had begun wearing thin after the long two weeks of constant bustle and activity, with doctors, well-wishers, and reporters knocking at all hours, but that alone would never have been enough to convince her to undertake the risky move. No, it had been Alexander who had prevailed upon her in the end. Of course it had. She’d never been good at resisting him in the best of circumstances.
“Where am I?” he’d mutter, head rolling restlessly on his pillows. Too feverish to retain her explanations and assurances, he would plead with her, over and over, “I don’t want to be here. I want to go home.”
She simply couldn’t bear to refuse him anymore.
Alexander whimpered as the two servants navigated the front steps, not quite able to keep the stretcher level. “Please,” Alexander said, breathless. His voice was barely audible, strangled with pain.
“Easy,” Hosack said.
Her hand grazed over Alexander’s as the stretcher passed through the door. He didn’t relax at all. His expression remained twisted with indescribable agony.
“Just through here,” Eliza said, gesturing down the hall towards the parlor.
She’d already ordered the furniture moved and their bed from upstairs brought down. Seeing the difficulty with managing even the front stoop, she was relieved she’d planned ahead. He never would have made it upstairs. The first few droplets of rain began to ping on the rail as Eliza pushed the front door closed.
“If you could bring some water and towels, Mrs. Hamilton, that would be a help,” Hosack requested, a consoling hand brushing her arm.
“Of course.”
She slapped the crumpled stack of newspapers down onto the front hall table before hurrying downstairs to collect the needed supplies. The headline occurred to her again as she reached into the cabinet for a water basin. A miracle, they had called it.
“The ball must have pieced the liver,” she recalled Hosack explaining to the French surgeons who had arrived just hours after her on that terrible day. “He has no sensation below the waist. With no exit wound, and the sharp pains in his back, I fear the bullet has embedded itself into the spine.”
“I’m well aware this is a mortal wound, gentlemen,” Alexander had said calmly, so infuriatingly brave in the face of his certain death.
“Non,” said one of the French doctors. “I do not believe this is so. If you will consent to surgery, General Hamilton, we may yet save your life.”
Shock had registered on his face. His eyes had met hers, confused and questioning. Should I, he seemed to ask her.
“Yes,” she’d said without a moment’s hesitation or thought of the consequences, beyond a frantic, aching need to keep him alive. She would do the same again today, even knowing the cost: the blood, the screams, the abject misery.
Fighting away the memories, she poured water into the basin, collected some spare towels, and began to climb the stairs. The hiss of the rain was audible as she passed through the foyer, even over another rumble of thunder, louder and closer now. She paused briefly at the window, watching the magnificent fury of the sudden summer storm.
“No. No. Please.”
She turned at the sound of her husband’s moans.
Alexander screamed.
“Mrs. Hamilton!” Hosack called over the cry of raw, desperate pain.
She flew down the hall, water sloshing all over the floor in her haste. In the parlor, she found Hosack attempting to pin down her husband. Alexander’s head rolled on the pillows, out of his mind with the pain. The scream had transformed into a series of low, agonized moans that were no less heartbreaking to hear.
She shoved the towels and the now nearly empty basin onto the table. “What’s wrong? What should I do?”
“Come hold him. He needs to be still while I clean out the incision and touch up the stitches.”
Coming to Alexander’s side, she glanced down at his bandages, stained with pink and red, unwound and pushed aside. The long, jagged surgical incision, which ran the length of his belly, was swollen, red, and bubbling faintly from the alcohol Hosack had just poured over it. She returned her gaze to Alexander’s face and placed her hands over his shoulders.
“I’m here. You’re all right.” Her voice was faint, her assurances woefully inadequate in the face of his anguish.
Tears were streaming down into his hairline as he swallowed convulsively. His eyes were clenched shut against the pain. “Please. It hurts. Make it stop. Please.”
“Almost done,” she promised, though she had no idea if it were true. Turning to Hosack, she asked, “Can’t you give him something?”
“I’ve given him as much laudanum as I dare, and I’ve numbed the site best I can. Hold him still. I’ll be quick as possible.”
Alexander screamed again as Hosack poured more alcohol. His upper torso thrashed in a futile attempt to curl up against the pain. Eliza pressed her weight down on his shoulders to try to keep him still.
A whimper of her own fell past her lips.
**
Eliza sat curled up in an armchair beside the bed, clad in her nightgown with a blanket tucked over her lap, a crumpled letter resting atop it. The storm still raged at the windows, the house otherwise quiet with the children staying at Angelica’s until Alexander was settled. Candlelight glittered on the medical instruments and vials decorating every available surface. Her head rested against the back cushion as she studied the uneven rise and fall of Alexander’s chest.
“You were wrong,” she whispered.
She’d found the letter sitting on his desk in his office when she’d gone up to change that night, her name prominent on the front of the envelope. Her goodbye. Her life without him yawned before her with sudden clarity, so real she almost believed it were true. Only the sight of his struggling breath when she’d raced back downstairs had alleviated the flood of panic that had consumed her upon finding the note.
The desperate message, the fear underpinning it, had brought the sting of tears to her eyes. These were the words he intended to leave her, the words meant to be her explanation, her consolation, after his untimely death. And they were so, so wrong.
The sound of her voice seemed to rouse him. His eyelids fluttered lightly, then slowly blinked open. He gazed up at the ceiling for a long moment before turning his head towards her. She forced an approximation of a smile, willing away the urge to shake him.
“Hi, honey.”
He blinked at her.
She slid from the chair to sit on the bed, her hand reaching out to touch his forehead. His skin felt slightly cooler to the touch. She raked her hand back through his hair affectionately. “You’re a little cooler. I think your fever’s coming down. How do you feel?”
“Mm. I….” His voice faded out, rough and hoarse from his earlier screams, but he seemed to be struggling towards coherence, fighting off the fog of drugs and fever for the first time since his nightmarish surgery.
“Do you want some water?”
He nodded slightly.
She poured some into a cup and carefully held it to his chapped lips. After two small sips, he turned away. She placed the cup back on the table and wiped the dribble from the corner of his mouth. “Better?”
“A little.”
“Do you want to try some soup?”
Revulsion passed over his features. “No.”
“I know the laudanum upsets your stomach, sweetheart, but you have to eat. What about just some broth? That shouldn’t make you sick, and at least you’ll have a little nourishment.”
“I can’t.”
She sighed, brushing her knuckles over his hollow cheek. He’d hardly eaten in the past weeks; he’d let her ply him with a few mouthfuls of soup a few times, but couldn’t seem to stomach anything more substantial. He seemed to be wasting away in front of her.
“We’ll try later,” she decided. A compromise.
He jerked his chin a little.
This was the longest, most coherent exchange they’d had. He was blinking heavily, clearly drowsy, but he was still awake and seemed able to talk. Her mind spun with all she needed to tell him. She reached for his hand, seizing the opportunity.
“I got your letter.” Confusion wrinkled his brow. “The one you left on your desk.”
“Oh.”
“You wrote that I would rather you die innocent than live guilty.” A justification for himself that he’d imputed to her, she’d understood. “That’s not true. I want you to live. Always. No matter what. I need you to live.”
He stared at her for a moment, considering the words.
“I used to think that about Pip,” he said. A rough cough forced its way out of him, his lungs aggravated by the attempted speech. His whole body tensed with pain, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes again.
Her hand glided over his chest in an attempt to soothe him as she hushed him. “I know, sweetheart. I wish that, too.” Her throat felt thick around the words.
“No. I don’t, now.” He took a shallow, uneven breath. “I thank God for his mercy in taking our boy quickly. I wouldn’t wish this fate on a dog.”
She sat back, stunned.
His eyes seemed to be pleading with her. “I’m in so much pain, Betsey. So much pain. I don’t know how much longer I can bear it.”
“It will get better,” she promised.
He closed his eyes, overcome with another wave.
His request at the Bayard’s came back to her suddenly with new, dreadful meaning. “I don’t want to be here,” he’d kept telling her, over and over. She stared at him, wondering for what exactly he’d been pleading—if that had really been a request to go back to their townhouse at all.
“You’ll get better,” she insisted more urgently. “You will. I promise. Just stay with me. Please. Just stay. I can’t lose you. I can’t.”
She was crying, now, curling towards him, her forehead pressing against his. The stress, the sleeplessness, the fear all overwhelmed her. Grief for a life not yet lost came out in uncontrollable sobs.
“Shh,” he said. His arm moved weakly on the mattress, raising just enough to brush his fingers over her cheek. “I’m sorry. I’m here. I’m still here.”
She clutched her hand around his and squeezed tight.
“The will of a merciful God must be good,”* he’d written to her in his goodbye letter. Was this good? Merciful? A miracle, as the papers proclaimed?
What was God doing?
What sort of miracle was this?