A Girl Called Samson (110)

“My uniform is gone,” I murmured. “They took it from me.” It was not the most important thing, but it signified something deeper, something we had to face. John was not wearing his uniform either.

“No.” He shook his head. “I have it. I knew you would want it. Grippy carried your things. I carried you. No one even saw us leave the hospital except for Dr. Binney. He was worried about what would become of you. He is a very . . . decent . . . man.”

The general had thought to retrieve my uniform. In that moment, I loved him more than I’d ever loved him before, and tears began to leak from the corners of my eyes and wet the pillow beneath my head. For several silent moments, I wrestled my emotions back the way I’d bound my breasts, wrapping them so tightly they would never expose me. But those days were done, and I had a new mission.

“What will become of me?” I asked after several minutes of weighty silence. “And what will become of you?”

Finally he raised his head. “I told Dr. Binney and Dr. Thatcher that I would see to your welfare and no charges would be brought. It felt like a betrayal not to claim you . . . or explain you . . . but I saw no benefit to either of us to make our relationship known or to expose you further.”

I studied him, eyes wet, hardly breathing. He stared back, his gaze bleak, his jaw tight.

“I have seen to matters here in Philadelphia. My work here is finished, and I requested a thirty-day furlough. But I will resign when it is up. And we will go to Lenox when you are well. If that is what you want. Is that what you want, Deborah? Am I what you want? Or have I simply trampled over your wishes to reach my own desires?”

“Oh, John,” I breathed. “You are the only man in heaven or earth that I want. But you cannot resign. You would never forgive yourself. And I would never forgive myself.”

“Why?” he gasped.

“I will not be the reason you break your word. You made a pledge to your men. You promised you would stay, all the way to the end. You promised Phineas.”

He rose from the chair, agitated, torment in his every step, and made a slow circle around the room, stopping to pull the night air into his lungs before he returned to my bedside.

“I have clearly made more promises than I can keep. I made one to you nine days ago, a promise before God. And you were taken from me the very next day. I cannot leave you, I can’t do it. Not now. I don’t have the strength. And you can’t come with me to West Point. Dr. Thatcher’s discretion will only go so far. He will not be silent if we try to continue as we have. A newspaper printed something very similar to our circumstances today, though names weren’t used.”

“Dr. Thatcher knew me when I was a child. He knew Deborah Samson. Yet he did not guess?”

John shook his head. “He did not.”

“So Grippy . . . is the only one who knows . . . everything?”

“Yes. He and Anne. She and Stephen returned today. I will let Anne handle the reverend, though at this juncture, he only knows that you’ve been ill.”

“Will Agrippa talk?”

“No. There is none more loyal than Agrippa Hull, though he is still in a state of shock. I think he feels a little . . . foolish. And awed. He says he should have known. He said he knew you were running from something, he just didn’t know what. And he can’t believe I married you.”

“Yes . . . well. He can’t be more shocked than I was.”

The general was silent then, studying me, morose.

“Will he stay with you? And watch over you?” I asked. “He can serve as your aide.”

“I cannot go back to the highlands,” the general argued, but that was his love talking, not his duty, and John Paterson was nothing if not valiant. He knew what he had to do. He simply did not want to do it.

“You can. And you must, General.”

His groan was more like a bellow, a warding off of reality.

“There was a time I wanted to be someone,” he said. “When I dreamed—albeit quietly—of my name being bandied about and my actions recounted among the men. Benedict Arnold wanted to be someone too. And he was.” He ran his hands through his loose hair and shook his head. “He’ll always be someone . . . that’s the odd thing. He has exactly what he wanted. He has fame. No one will ever forget the name Benedict Arnold.”

“God has a sense of humor, doesn’t He?”

“He gives us what we ask for,” he replied, nodding. “Every unrighteous, foolish desire. So I have learned to ask for nothing. I didn’t even ask for you. I just took what I wanted. And look what has happened.”

“What has happened, John? Tell me.”

“No one will remember the name John Paterson, and I don’t care a whit. You know that. But the way I have served—the effort, the sacrifice, the time—I have to believe it matters, that it all matters. The glory is not mine. Or even ours. The glory is what God makes of our sacrifice. But you are one sacrifice I am not willing to make. And He knows it. I cannot lose you . . . and I am convinced that is exactly what will happen.”

“You won’t lose me. I would follow you anywhere.”

His eyes filled and his hands clenched. “But you cannot follow me, Samson. You cannot follow me anymore. You can’t even stay here, in Philadelphia. Do you understand?”