A work in progress, based on real people, real lives. The title character is Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, wife of the great Alexander Hamilton. Though he cheated on her in the first public sex scandal of the republic, he loved her. He called her “the best of women, the best of wives.” Following is a little of the prologue, which takes place 50 years after his death in the duel with Aaron Burr.
Excerpt from Betsy (c) Ruth Sims
PROLOGUE
THAT WHICH WAS, IS
November, 1854
Washington City, District of Columbia
The cardinal flew away, deserting the windowsill and the breadcrumbs she had put out, and the old lady’s smile faded. “Prisoner,” she muttered. “That’s what I am. A prisoner. He can fly away. They won’t even let me go out walking alone anymore.” She thumped her walking stick on the carpet. “A prisoner!”
Only five years ago she had walked for miles to visit elderly friends, and she had done it in rain, shine, or snow. Now they wouldn’t let her. They fussed over her. Everyone fussed; they were making an old woman of her. It was not fair.
Her faded eyes were no longer as black as the weeds she wore, but they still saw sharply. Her memory was better than her daughter’s. And if she put aside her small amount of vanity and used the ivory ear trumpet she still heard quite well also. But sight, memory and hearing aside, she supposed she had to admit age was catching up with her body. She heard them–when they thought she couldn’t–refer to her as elderly.
“Ninety-seven,” she mumbled. “It’s a number, that’s all. “Elderly!”
Her thoughts returned wistfully to the walks she had always taken. As a girl she had shamelessly hiked her skirts above her ankles, taken off her shoes and crossed creeks on the slippery stones. She had climbed trees like a boy. She had walked hills and valleys, and “¦ “Ninety-seven,” she said again, defeated. They were right. She was…elderly.
These days her exercise was taken in the garden, only in good weather, and never alone.
She touched the old gold locket that dully gleamed on her bodice, which she was never without. Alex had given her the locket and its contents on the first anniversary of their meeting. In it was a lock of his hair, still bright auburn, and a little poem he had written for her. The paper was fragile and had crumbled in places. She had repaired it with needle and thread many times, but there was nothing left that was firm enough to repair. It didn’t matter. She would soon no longer need it.
Slowly her eyes became dreamy. Not long ago at all. If she shut out the present world she could recapture that frigid winter day when they met. She was twenty-two again, General Schuyler’s favorite daughter, and her body was lithe and strong, and her hair was ink-black and thick. She knew she wasn’t a great beauty like her sister Angelica, but it didn’t matter. She was young and healthy and she had dancing black eyes.
…………..
On that snowy day she had just arrived in a sleigh at headquarters in Morristown, bearing a message from her father for General Washington and a little gift from her mother for Martha”¦
One aide divested her of her warm hooded cloak and fur mittens. Another went to fetch hot chocolate while another led her to a chair near the fire, as if she couldn’t find it unescorted. A fourth knelt before her, took one snow-covered boot in his bare hands, and looked boldly up at her.
She forgot the other boys as she stared into the depths of eyes that were such a dark blue they were nearly violet. As he removed the first boot, he grinned in a way that could only be described as charmingly impudent. Her breath stopped for a moment. Oh, those blue, blue eyes! Auburn curly hair. Very white teeth. Red, white, and blue, she thought. He even looks patriotic. He held her bootless left foot in his hand far longer than he needed to and the heat of his hand sent her blood racing. She knew a blush had risen to her face.
Then he released her foot, quickly removed her other boot, and stood. “Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton at your service, Mistress Schuyler,” he said.
She stifled a laugh. How strangely formal for a man who had just had his hand””and he had beautiful hands, she noticed””wrapped around her almost naked foot. And despite the respect in his voice, an impudent rascal still lurked in his blue-violet eyes. She did not have Angelica’s experience with men, but even she recognized that the young soldier would like to remove far more than her boots”¦
0 COMMENTS
Lee Rowan
15 years agoOh, I’m looking forward to this. With all the nonsense lately about ‘real’ America and the deliberate muddling of what the Constitution really says, it’s a good idea to remember that the founders had some pretty radical notions. And Hamilton’s one I really don’t know that much about.
Sorry to be her so briefly–my computer’s in its last throes and I’m trying to shift everything to a new machine. I’ll have to come back and read these excerpts when things slow down.
Ruth Sims
15 years ago AUTHORLeeeeeee! Great to see you even for a short while. I’ve been working on one version or another of Hamilton’s story for a very, very long time. I can’t make up my mind whether I want to do it from his viewpoint or hers. I think there are so many books about him already out (though no novels I can think of) that hers would be different. I adore her. She was a widow twice as long as she was a wife, and she spent 50 active years fighting for his reputation which the Jeffersonians were doing their best to destroy. She was pretty, shy, but gutsy. She had a husband women threw themselves at, and who, for all his brilliance, had very little common sense. She lost her 20 year old son in a duel, her 18 year old daughter, who was close to her brother, went mad from shock, lived to be elderly herself, and never recovered. Then she lost her husband in a duel three years later–at the same location and using the same guns as her son. And when her son was killed she was pregnant with her 8th child. She had to have been as humiliated as Elizabeth Edwards when he wrote his pamphlet admitting to the affair with a married woman (who blackmailed him) in great detail, ( he had a reason for writing it) but she stood by him. That part of the story is good from either viewpoint, which is why I can’t decide. Choices, choices, choices.
Good luck with the computer woes! Mine’s so old I’m afraid I’m soon going to be in the same boat.
Ruth Sims
15 years ago AUTHORBTW, I think he’s the only one who understood international finance enough that he could get us out of the present mess! Hamilton, where are you now that we need you? Lord, genius that he was, the man, as I said, was a damaged child inside who had no common sense. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut even in his day; I can only imagine what he’d do with instant messaging, texting, and FaceBook!
Lee Rowan
15 years agoThe more things change, eh? I think Americans need to get over the idea that someone who is really, really good at something has to be equally good at other things. Humans have faults.
You might try alternating their POVs – or use his known writings interspersed between her scenes.
Ruth Sims
15 years ago AUTHORI have to admit — I didn’t think of that. It might just work!