“Stephen, this is Deborah Samson,” the general introduced, and the reverend bobbed his head in greeting and brought out a Bible, which we were instructed to sign. Anne and the reverend signed their names as well.
Then the pews without parishioners and the long windows with their new colored glass bore witness to a marriage so impossible and improbable, it felt like one of my dreams.
But it happened. And we were. Man and wife. John and Deborah, though until that moment, I felt Deborah had hardly existed at all.
“And in the Book of Revelation we are given this admonition,” Reverend Holmes intoned, and John smiled down into my eyes. It had all begun with Revelation.
“‘Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter.’”
And I promised that I would.
We ate supper alone in an upstairs room at Anne’s house, and though the dress made me feel beautiful and left John agape, I was not at all sad when he helped me remove it.
And then he loved me perfectly and patiently, and I loved him back with all the fire and fortitude I’d applied to every other aspect of my life.
“You are not just Samson. You are Delilah,” he mumbled, his mouth and his hands on my skin. “How can that possibly be?”
“You are a good teacher, sir.”
“You cannot call me sir when we are lying here without our clothes.”
“Then I will call you my dear Mr. Paterson,” I declared.
“No.”
“My beloved general.”
He rose up on his arm and pressed his thumb to the tip of my chin and a kiss to my brow. “Better. But no.”
“I always thought of you as Elizabeth’s John,” I confessed, and immediately hated myself for it. I had gone straight from soldier to spouse, and I’d never been a coquette.
He was sadly silent though he did not withdraw. “You are not very good at this part,” he said.
“I will be,” I vowed, fierce, and the sadness lifted with the corner of his mouth.
“There’s the Samson I know. Bound and determined to excel in everything.”
I pulled his body back to mine, desperate to practice.
“How about dearest John?” I suggested against his lips.
“Dearest John implies that there is a dear John. I want to be your only John,” he whispered, coaxing my flesh to yield for him once more.
“My only general.”
“Samson . . . please,” he begged.
“John,” I said, full of contented surrender, and he shuddered at the sound.
26
LET FACTS BE SUBMITTED
I had not slept nearly enough. My skin was sore and my chest was tight. I felt in equal measure wonderful and ghastly, and I missed the general with an intensity that made my eyes tear. He had left me only hours ago.
“I have become ridiculous,” I whispered, but my censure did not change my feelings in the slightest. I had become a new creature. Not Deborah. Not Shurtliff. And not any version in between. I was a woman. A wife. A wanton? I nodded. Yes, that too. And like a snake shedding its skin, or a bird hatching from an egg, it was not an entirely painless experience.
John kissed me goodbye at dawn and rose, washing his teeth and tying back his hair, demanding I remain in bed.
“You are not my aide, Deborah. Not here. Not now.”
I ignored him and gathered the implements to shave his face. He pulled me into his lap and wrapped his hands around my hips, and when I finally finished the task, we were both dappled in lather, and the front of my new nightgown was soaked through from his nuzzling.
“It is a wonder you are not cut to shreds,” I murmured against his lips. I set the blade aside and my nightgown followed, and when the general finally left the pretty house on Society Hill, I had been thoroughly and completely ravished once more.
“I will return this evening,” he said, pressing his cheek to mine. We still had not settled the details of my discharge, but I was too spent to do anything but murmur, “Yes, sir.”
“John,” he reminded.
“Yes, my darling general.”
I fell back to sleep to the clip-clop of hooves on cobbles, my last thought of him. When I awoke again hours later, a maid had set out a dress and underthings, as well as a pair of slippers that were a tad too wide and a pinch too short. That she had entered the room without waking me set my cheeks aflame and caused me to marvel all the more. I was not myself at all.
I donned the clothes, even the corset, though I didn’t lace it up as tightly as Anne had. I was flushed and sore and famished, but when I sat down to tea in Anne’s drawing room, I found I couldn’t eat.