A Girl Called Samson (73)

“He said we were to let you rest. He left with Colonel Jackson and said he was meeting Colonel Sproat at Peekskill.”

“Why?” It was all I could do to keep my voice steady.

“Van Tassel—the loyalist who let you sleep in his barn—turned up dead. General got word of it, and he was gone within the hour. I would have gone, but Colonel Kosciuszko wants me here.” He kept eating his breakfast, seemingly unperturbed by the general’s sudden departure and the fact that I’d been left behind.

I collapsed into a chair, calling on all the fortitude I had left not to break down. I had no sympathy for Van Tassel—good riddance—but it was a mission I should have been on.

“General Paterson did not say . . . anything about . . . my position?” My heart was thundering, and I pressed my hands to my chest, bidding it slow.

“Like what?”

“My leg has been slow to heal. I fear the general needs a new aide.”

“You’d best let him decide that.”

“When is he expected to return?”

Agrippa shrugged. “He was worried about a slave named Morris. He’ll be back when he’s made arrangements. I suspect a few days is all.”

“Morris,” I breathed, ashamed of myself. What would become of Morris, his boy, and the woman named Maggie? I doubted I would ever know.

“I cannot just sit here. I’ll go mad,” I whispered. And I would. Better that I know my fate immediately than have it drawn out until the general returned. Maybe he expected me to quietly go while he was away. That thought brought a rush of new anguish, and I propped my head in my hands, jostling the breakfast Mrs. Allen placed before me.

“Are you unwell, Bonny?” she asked, laying her hand against my brow. Grippy’s nickname had become common among the entire house staff.

“No, ma’am,” I muttered, and she tsked, shrugging.

“The general said you were, and that I should go easy on you whilst he’s away. But if you are feeling better, I can certainly keep you busy.”

Grippy kept shoveling his breakfast into his mouth, not even looking up from his trencher. Unlike me, he looked as though he’d had a fine night’s sleep; his clothes were pristine, and his closely cropped hair accentuated his handsome head.

“We found your horse. And did the general give you your book?” Grippy asked suddenly, as though he’d just remembered the outing of the day before.

I pulled my breakfast toward me but didn’t eat. I didn’t want to lie, I couldn’t confess all, and I sat, staring at the healthy portion of potatoes and sausage, evidence of the haul we’d recovered from the raid on the depot.

“And who’s Elizabeth? You said you didn’t have a girl back home. Your book is filled with letters to Elizabeth,” Grippy said. “I think it upset Paterson, seeing her name . . . Probably brought his own Elizabeth to mind. What are the odds of that?”

“My Elizabeth is his Elizabeth,” I said softly, revealing yet another truth to Agrippa Hull. It probably wouldn’t matter. I would soon be gone.

Grippy ceased his shoveling and raised his eyes slowly to mine.

“Elizabeth’s uncle was a reverend in the town where I was raised. He looked after me,” I explained. “Elizabeth looked after me too, in her way.”

“So you knew General Paterson . . . before the war?”

“Yes. I knew of him.”

“And he knew of you?”

“I had never met him.” That wasn’t exactly what he’d asked, and Grippy recognized the evasion.

“The general doesn’t like secrets, Bonny.”

I nodded inanely.

“Have you been keeping secrets from the general, boy?”

“No. No, sir.” Not anymore. The general knew everything.

“Benedict Arnold was his friend. I warned him the man was no good. Too fancy. Too obsessed with his own face and form. Spendin’ money and livin’ like a king while everyone around him went without. The general said he wasn’t always that way. He defended him . . . and then Arnold sold him and everyone else out. Paterson went home to bury his wife, and Arnold saw his chance to surrender West Point to the British. You know the rest.”

I nodded. “Arnold got away, but his plan was exposed.”

“And General Paterson had to come back here to clean up the mess, even though none of it was his fault. He blames himself for not seeing it. No one else does, but the general thinks he let everyone down.”

Dear God, I’m beginning to think I have no instinct for character at all.

The general’s words from the night before took on new meaning, and the chasm in my chest widened.

“John Paterson is always cleaning up everyone’s messes.” Agrippa sighed. “And he never, ever asks a thing in return.”



The general did not come back to the Point the next day or the next, and I did not leave. I couldn’t. I had no formal discharge and no place to go. But most of all, I could not bear to retreat or concede, though I presumed it was what the general expected.

I worked myself into a stupor each day, collapsed into my bed each night, and rose to do it all again, much to the delight of Mrs. Allen and the rest of the staff in the Red House. I tried to make a plan but mentally recoiled at the very thought of leaving, and suspended any introspection or decision until General Paterson returned and made it official.