A Girl Called Samson (109)

Both men scrambled to my side, and Dr. Binney tried to help me sit up, but I was unable to do anything but list to the side, and he propped my head instead and dribbled a bit of water into the pool of my cheek.

“I have never seen someone so ill with the fever who has come back from it,” Dr. Thatcher said.

“Dr. Thatcher,” Dr. Binney said, censure in his low voice. “She has defied the odds thus far. In every way.”

“What is your name, madam?” Dr. Thatcher insisted, peering down at me. “You must tell me this instant. General Paterson will be made aware of your duplicity. I will let him decide what will become of you.”

“Please don’t tell him,” I said, and somehow managed to form the words. “The general . . . didn’t . . . know.”

If Dr. Binney gave a response, it was not audible, and I was past caring anymore. It was finished. Over. And I let myself slip away, hoping this time I would not wake. Surely it would be better for John if I did not wake.





27

ALL ALLEGIANCE

I was moving but not flying, not soaring untethered above the earth as I’d longed to do. I heard wheels over cobbles, the screech and jostle immediately identifiable as well as the man who carried me.

“Almost there, General. Almost there,” Grippy called. It was night, or maybe the darkness was just the weight of my lids over eyes that couldn’t open.

“John?” The tremor in his arms and his chest ran through me. I was terror and hope mixed with humiliation. He tightened his embrace and pressed his lips to my brow.

“Hold on, Samson.”

“Does . . . Agrippa . . . know?”

“Yes. He knows you are my wife.”

“Oh, John. I’m so sorry.”

“Do not say that.” His voice shook with temper, or maybe it was grief. The darkness of the carriage left me guessing.

“Did . . . Thatcher?”

“Yes. Thatcher told me where you were.”

“I cannot go back to West Point,” I mourned.

“No,” he whispered. “I doubt either of us can.”

“Forgive me, General,” I begged. “I wanted . . . only . . . to stay with you.”

“Do not leave me, Samson,” he choked out. “Promise me you will not leave me.”

I was able to form simple sentences. That was a great improvement, and I would have told him—promised him—had I not drifted off again, cradled in his trembling arms.



“John?”

The weight of his hand was in my hair and on my cheek, stroking and steady, and I turned my face into it, seeking the scrape of his palm and the scent of his skin, and he said my name. I was stronger every time I woke, and every time I did, the general was there, seeing to my needs.

He brought me a glass of water and insisted on feeding me a bit of broth and bread, though I insisted I was capable of feeding myself. The candlelight flickered, and I’d lost all sense of time, and I desperately needed a toilet, a bath, and a bit of fresh air.

When I asked, all were provided, John refusing to leave any of the tasks to his sister or her servants. It was odd, lying naked in his arms without passion, odder still to be washed and dressed and fed, but he ignored my protestations, feeble as they were.

When he tucked me back into our marriage bed, opened a window, and sat down beside me in the chair he’d hardly left, I fought off the pull of exhausted slumber and reached for his hand. I needed an accounting of events. He was deeply subdued, and I feared the worst.

“Tell me what has happened,” I insisted.

He breathed in deeply, as if he too had needed the airing out, and began to speak.

“Dr. Thatcher came and found me Wednesday evening and told me you were lying in a hospital bed near death. He could hardly look at me when he reported that you were not what you seemed.” He cleared his throat. “I was shocked, and he misinterpreted my . . . response . . . as surprise. I did not correct his assumptions. He still thinks I didn’t know.”

“Praise God,” I whispered. “I feared you would confess all.”

He battled for control and lost it several times, his hand gripping mine, before he spoke again. “He said you begged him not to tell me. Why, Samson? Why would you do that?”

“I only wanted . . . to protect you,” I breathed, and he laid his head down on the bed beside me, his big shoulders shaking, and groaned into the mattress to drown out the sound of his own torment. I laid my hand on his head, needing to touch him, unable to do more.

“I thought you had run,” he cried. “I came back here, to Anne’s house, and you were gone. Anne and Stephen had left for Trenton, and the servants did not know where you were. And I . . . I was convinced I’d scared you away. Your uniform was gone. I thought you were gone too.”

“I do not scare so easily, General.” I tried to smile, to coax him to smile, but he did not lift his head.

“Why did you leave?”

“I wanted to walk about on my own. I have no freedom in a dress. I did not know I was ill . . . really ill . . . until it was too late.”

“My father died of yellow fever,” he whispered. “It hits fast. He fell unconscious, just like you. And he never woke.”

“I am so sorry, John.” It was the only thing I could say. And I was. Desperately, truly sorry. I was so weak I could hardly move, but my mind was clear, and I knew I would recover. I wasn’t sure the general would. He had not raised his head from the mattress, I could not see his eyes, and despair radiated from him.