I, Eliza Hamilton. Susan Holloway Scott

Чтение книги онлайн.

      CHAPTER 7

      As eager as I was for Alexander and my sister to meet, circumstances—and the dignitaries from abroad—prohibited it for several days after Angelica’s arrival. He was in demand at headquarters from the moment he rose in the morning until whenever His Excellency finally released him at night, which was late indeed.

      One of Alexander’s most valuable talents was his fluency in the French language. His late mother had spoken little else to him as a child, and as a result he could not only converse with the nuance of a native Frenchman, but also compose letters and other written documents with ease. Almost sheepishly, he claimed that he’d no real separation between English and French in his thoughts, and that one language was much the same as the other to him.

      To me who spoke only English and a smattering of Dutch learned from older relatives and from church, Alexander’s facility in French was a marvel, and another mark of his genius. To His Excellency, however, who likewise spoke only English, it was an imperative.

      While the French ambassador had brought an interpreter with his people, wisdom dictated that each party have their own for the sake of impartiality. Alexander served as interpreter for the Americans. But the French interpreter proved more familiar with the strict English spoken in London palaces, and found our rustic version difficult to comprehend. Alexander was called upon to answer every conceivable question for the visitors, from describing the assorted rifles and muskets employed by our troops to explaining the humble fare that His Excellency was forced by necessity (and to his embarrassment as a host) to serve his exalted guests.

      But Alexander was employed for a more somber occasion, too. Joining the French minister was Don Juan de Miralles, a gentleman of distinction from Spain who was likewise interested in the American cause. Alas, poor man, he was stricken with a severe biliary complaint that defied the best efforts of the surgeons to relieve, and after great suffering, he perished in his bed at the headquarters. In his last hours, Alexander was able to offer him words of comfort and sympathy in his native tongue.

      When he described this sad scene to me later, I expressed my surprise that he spoke Spanish as well as French.

      “It’s not often of use here in New Jersey,” he said with a cavalier shrug, as if yet one more singular accomplishment meant nothing. “When I was a boy, I took my first studies with the Sephardim children on our island, and from them I learned Spanish, and Hebrew besides. If His Excellency ever entertains an emmisary from the Levant, I’ll doubtless be called into service then, too.”

      “Wasn’t there a Christian school for you to attend instead?” I asked in my innocent ignorance.

      “There was,” he said evenly. “But because my parents weren’t married, I wasn’t permitted admission to the Anglican school.”

      I gasped with indignation on his behalf. “How un-Christian of them! To punish a child for the sins of the father!”

      “Since my father was no longer in evidence, I suspect it was more the sins of my poor mother that they wished to punish,” he said. “The Sephardim were considerably more forgiving.”

      As always whenever he revealed more about himself, I listened in fascination, and pity for the outcast little boy he’d once been. It was as much about how he spoke, however, as what he said: without any shame or regret, but simply as a matter of fact. Other men would have buried such a childhood behind half-truths or not mentioned it at all, but Alexander didn’t do that. He swore that he cherished the truth, and there was no finer example of his honesty and lack of any perfidy than this. No wonder I loved him all the more for it.

      While I didn’t share all of his past with Angelica (that was his to tell, not mine), my proud description of his learned accomplishments only increased her impatience to meet him. I was every bit as eager, for I longed for these two whom I loved so dearly to be as pleased with each other as any true sister and brother might be. I felt sure it must happen, with even Fate conspiring by making their names so similar: Angelica and Alexander, both beginning with the same letter and with the same number of syllables.

      Yet when at last they came together СКАЧАТЬ