“She said she felt like she was being interrogated by a seasoned solicitor and turned them over to me. That’s how . . . that’s how I got involved. I didn’t mind. Writing to you about the lead-up to war actually helped me solidify and clarify my own beliefs.”
“Your letters were my favorite. I think . . . if I had not been born a girl, a servant girl, I would have liked to study law. Were there women in your classes at Yale?”
“No. But I’ve no doubt you would hold your own.”
“Are women allowed at any of the colleges?”
“No. They aren’t.”
“Perhaps after the war . . . if I remain Robert Shurtliff, I could go to school.” My heart started to pound. I had not even dared dream beyond the days I was now living. But maybe I could simply live as a man indefinitely. Or at least until I’d accomplished all I wanted to do that required a pair of pants and bound-up breasts.
“You would continue this charade?” he asked softly. “Is there nothing about being a woman that appeals to you?”
“Many things,” I murmured, but I did not list them. I yearned to feel the swish of a skirt around my legs and the weight of my hair as I brushed it. And there were many things that interested me now that had not compelled me before I met him.
The mere thought made my breasts ache and my belly thrum, but I ignored that impossible longing, distracting myself with conversation. “Nathaniel told me once that I should stop trying to be something that I am not. But that’s not what I’m doing.”
“No?” he snorted.
“No. I’m trying to be something . . . that I am.” He let the statement settle, uncontested, so I continued. “Elizabeth told me I would someday be a woman who inspired much admiration. She was very kind to me.”
“She was kind to everyone,” he said.
“Hmm.”
“What? What is hmm?”
“That does not comfort me. If she was kind to everyone, it is not nearly so special that she was kind to me.”
“Ahh,” he murmured. “Well, I know of no one else she wrote to the way she wrote to you,” he said. “You were dear to her.”
Emotion stung my nose. What a day it has been.
“She answered my letters for almost a decade. And you did too,” I added. “Though . . . you were very different in your correspondence.”
He was and he wasn’t, but I had discovered that I liked to tease him. It was a suitable outlet for my affection and a good distraction from the ache in my chest.
“I hope so. I was not writing to a soldier. I was writing to a precocious young girl.”
“You were kind to me too.”
“Of course I was.”
“But I expected you to look like Reverend Conant. Or Deacon Thomas. Or even . . . George Washington.”
He snorted.
“Maybe Benjamin Franklin?”
He began to laugh.
“Have you met Mr. Franklin?” I asked.
“I have indeed. He is quite popular with the ladies.”
“It is his intellect.”
“Oh yes?”
“A smart man is always attractive. What a life he has lived!”
“Indeed.” The general yawned, and I yawned in response.
“Good night, Samson. You made me proud today.”
My emotion welled again, and this time it ran over, trickling down my cheeks. I turned onto my side, away from him, so he wouldn’t see.
“Good night, John,” I whispered. It was only as I drifted into sleep that I realized I’d done it again. I’d called him John.
22
A LONG TRAIN OF ABUSES
For a lazy two weeks, the garrison at West Point was self-satisfied and sleepy, caught in the afterglow of a successful operation. Flags were taken down, artillery was stored, and normal schedules were slowly resumed. It wasn’t too hot. It wasn’t cold. It was peaceful and quiet and almost easy, and it didn’t last. Heat and boredom are almost as miserable as marching in the snow, and idle hands and minds are more prone to discontent.
Temperatures soared the first week in July, and a hundred men from General Paterson’s brigade decided it was time to have a party of their own. Fed up with the inactivity and the months without pay, they’d abandoned their posts in the dead of the night and congregated in White Plains, sending word to the general that they would return to work when they’d been given what they were promised.
The Point was in chaos, and General Paterson sent Agrippa racing north to New Windsor to deliver a message to the commander in chief, while he assembled a force from various encampments up and down the North River to go after them and defuse the situation.