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Laurens fears his daughter might break her brand new straw hat from the vice grip in which she holds it. Her eyes are pure fury, blazing with an anger he’s never seen in any woman’s eyes, never mind those of a girl at so young an age. She is just six years old, he reminds himself inwardly, feeling somewhat winded by the fact in and of itself - already six? Has it been so little time since… well…
Today it’s the cold that bothers her. Ordinarily, back home in South Carolina, she complains of nothing but the heat and all the pain it causes her. One moment it’s the sweat dripping down her nape and the next it’s the sunburn she can already feel nesting under her skin. Either way she makes a fuss of it. Laurens had thought this move to New York would alleviate her climate-sensitive temperament, but to no avail: now she demands a shawl around her shoulder at every instant of the day. He is certain that the moment they step into the Hamiltons’ parlor, she shall demand a seat before the hearth, too.
Presently Laurens can do little more than sigh. He would wonder if he had not raised her to be a gentlewoman, but with that musing comes the prospect that he’s scarcely raised the girl at all. Perhaps he might have blamed her mother - it seems the most realistic option - yet his Christian soul loathes to speak ill of the dead. Thus he says nothing, he blames no one, and he clasps his hands in prayer that they might reach the Hamiltons’ abode without accident.
“Father,” Frances begins, shuffling after him down the crowded cobblestone street. Their home town of Charles Town is busy at all times of year, what with its reputation as a reputed center of commerce, but New York is a microcosm in and of itself. It’s like navigating a storm-tossed sea, and on a ship with a tattered sail at that.
It’s understandable that Laurens doesn’t hear her the first time above all the hustle. But then she tugs on his arm, cries, “Father!” and he’s no reason - nor desire - to ignore her now.
Though he does flinch, if only momentarily. Sometimes he forgets that she was raised in Europe - only sometimes, though, for then her mouth is open again and the words she speaks, accented so evidently with British crispness, remind him once more of how farflung a childhood she had. He himself was educated extensively overseas, but it had never been at the sacrifice of his rather southern way of speaking. Frances, by contrast, sounds every bit the English gentlewoman. As if she was the foe Laurens had spent the last five years fighting independence from.
He grits his teeth, glancing down upon his daughter’s brown, bobbing head. She barely comes up to his knee; Martha’s short stature, it seems, has trumped his own significant height. “Yes, Frances?”
“What is that? Up ahead, Father!”
He follows her outstretched, somewhat pudgy finger toward the source of her dismay. There’s so much to see, it takes a moment for him to concentrate. Then it becomes clear what distresses her: a woman of the night staggering about in midday.
Had he not been a most kind gentleman, Laurens might have been moved to shout, For shame! For shame!, as the state of her dress is pitiful: that is to say, almost nonexistent; and the manner in which she conducts herself bears all the bellringers of drunkenness. Where she procured alcohol at such an early hour and who let it into her grimy hands is beyond him. What he knows is that he needs to steer his daughter away before she becomes too thoroughly enraptured.
“She is just a funny lady,” Laurens explains. He places his hands on his daughter’s shoulders, one for each side, and begins to physically rotate her against the crowd and away from the sight of the lusty, drunken woman. “Did you not hear? Some performers are going to put on a play downtown next weekend.”
“Are they really?” marvels Frances, her eyes glistening with excitement. Laurens would never have put it past his daughter to be artful, yet the passion she holds for acting surprises him. He wonders from whence it came - perhaps seeing Shakespeare so artfully reenacted in London? Though was Martha ever the play-going type? It shames him now that he does not know.
“Yes, my dear, and you would not want to spoil yourself for all the big surprises, now would you?”
This last bit emerges through clenched teeth, and his tone is dire for it. Thankfully Frances seems to understand, allowing herself to be moved with the proddings of their father as he seeks out an alternate route to the Hamiltons. Any backroad will result in a much longer trip, but it is worth it, he thinks, for the price of his daughter’s purity.
For a moment he is reminded of all the terrors he endured under his father’s intense sermoning. Whatever the subject, the words sin and abomination had always figured quite heavily, which had terrified him as a young boy, as was their intent. He resolves now never to unleash such vitriol upon his young daughter, while recognizing with startling clarity that they are of an age of change - not all of which will be good.
Such as the new, inventive ways men continue to protect their right to keep others in bondage…
Laurens is so lost within his own head that a few moments pass where he doesn’t realize he’s throwing his weight behind a largely stationary and displeased child. Stepping back from her, he feels panic rise within his throat. Oh no, he thinks, what now? Carefully he puts on his most diplomatic look: “Now, Frances…”
Without preamble, the girl throws down her arms. Her shoulders slouch with the motion, kicking her thick brown hair - of which he’d spent much of his morning taming into semi-presentability - out into a ringletted cloud. Color swells across her cheeks while the rest of her face contorts in resentment. “How much longer?”
“Not much,” he says, trying to take his daughter’s arm again. But she won’t give it to him.
“I’m tired,” she says, before adding, “and I’m hungry.”
“I’m sure Lady Hamilton will have fixed you something by the time we arrive.” It’s a lie through the skin of his teeth, beyond his personal displeasure of even alluding to the Hamilton woman. Really he hates to impose; assuming the lady of the house will burden herself unawares for their sakes must be some sort of blasphemy. Yet it is the only thing that will reign his daughter in.
His gamble works. A new light storms into his daughter’s eyes, and her figure jerks up into position. She’s like a soldier awaiting orders - he’d seen less prepared men stand before the Baron von Steuben. “Then what are we waiting for?” she cries, her voice desperate. Now it is she that takes his arm, ready to guide him through the streets. “Let’s continue then!”
Laurens shakes his head, smiling. He allows himself to be led by his daughter, while instituting subtle directions so she doesn’t drag them even further into this cosmopolitan maze. He is bewildered sometimes by the sheer force of will exhibited within her; it reminds him that she is indeed his daughter. A fact for which he is unexpectedly grateful.