My Dear Hamilton by Dray Stephanie & Kamoie Laura

Author:Dray, Stephanie & Kamoie, Laura [Dray, Stephanie & Kamoie, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, Romance, Adult, Politics
Amazon: B072F14H1Z
Goodreads: 41014257
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Published: 2018-04-03T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Four

August 1793

Philadelphia

BRING OUT YOUR dead!”

In the high stink of summer, when Philadelphia’s outhouses overflowed gutters and dammed up alleys filled with trash, an outbreak of illness emptied the streets of rioters. An illness that may well have prevented the overthrow of the government. For now, instead of mobs shouting in front of our house, we heard only clacking carts carrying fly-bedeviled corpses.

Yellow fever.

The same horrible illness that had killed Jenny.

The fever started, they said, amongst the dock workers. They suffered chills and tremors that eventually gave way to blackened, bloody vomit. The illness spread swiftly, with fatal effect and without known cure. People in good health one morning would drop dead the next day. In the hurry to stop the spread of the contagion by getting the victims into a grave, some were likely buried alive. And when vinegar-soaked handkerchiefs and garlic offered little safeguard against the disease, everyone who could flee the city did so.

Everyone, it seemed, but us.

As late summer turned to early autumn, Hamilton believed that the business of keeping the government going in the face of anarchy was more vital than ever. “Jefferson will make much of my supposed cowardice if I leave now. I have to set an example. If I flee, it will only increase the panic, which is depopulating the city and suspending business. But you and the children should go.”

He looked away when he said this, his profile a study in agony. And I realized that he was giving me permission. Acknowledging my power to abandon him, as I had so recently threatened to do. All of it under the face-saving cover of exigency.

No one would blame me for leaving the capital at a time like this. And after the crisis had passed, we could say Mrs. Hamilton simply can’t abide Philadelphia, but the secretary visits his children at the Schuyler home from time to time . . .

That’s how it was done in high circles. Perhaps I could make that choice. Perhaps I would make that choice. But I was not ready to make it today. “We can rent a summer house a few miles outside the city,” I suggested. “Close enough that you can return for work if need be.” Encouraged by his nod of agreement, I added, “And I could ride with you, some days. Except for the few free blacks in the city who volunteered, nurses in Philadelphia cannot be had for any price. I’ll help tend the sick.”

“I cannot allow that. You’re a mother with small children, and there’s no known immunity to the disease.”

Alas, he had no immunity to it either.

The next day, returning from his office at the treasury, he made it only two steps into the front door before falling to his knees and retching into a brass urn that normally held umbrellas. And at the head of the stairs, I nearly stumbled in an effort to get to him. “Alexander!”

We left that night by carriage, the children piled atop one another like cordwood.

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