“I’ll hurry,” I vowed, relieved that he was cooperating.
He grumbled again. “Don’t make me come after you, boy. Life here can be easy or it can be hard. You leave me out here, I will make it difficult.”
“Yessir.” I didn’t remind him he’d already made it considerably harder on me than it should have been.
He stood in nothing but a pair of woolen drawers, his painted legs offering no protection from the icy temperatures, and handed me the colonel’s uniform, his teeth already chattering.
I ran with the clothing clutched to my chest, slipped into the kitchen entrance, ducked past Mrs. Allen, and scurried up the stairs, not pausing to think or even plan, my ears peeled for the colonel. Ah, there. He was in the drawing room with a few voices I could not distinguish.
The clothing Grippy had discarded in his zeal for his costume was in the colonel’s wardrobe, awaiting his return, and I hung the dress uniform back where it belonged. The sleeve had a bit of black paint on the cuff, and the waistcoat bore a few flecks as well. Agrippa would have to address those issues when he wasn’t standing half-naked in the frozen woods.
I had barreled back through the kitchen, looking neither right nor left, and was almost in the clear, when General Paterson walked out of the stable, directly in my path.
He reached out to brace me, but my arms were filled, my momentum great, and I collided with his broad chest. I bounced back instantly and managed to keep hold of the clothes, but I was caught.
“What is the meaning of this, Shurtliff?” the general asked, more surprised than indignant.
“Grippy’s had a bit of a . . . mishap . . . and I’m bringing him his clothes,” I said, convinced the truth would serve everyone best, especially with the colonel’s uniform safely back where it belonged.
“Is this the same Agrippa Hull who sends you on a wild goose chase at least once daily?”
“Yessir. The same. But at present he is in sore need of his clothes, so I am choosing to forgive.”
He chuckled, the puff of his breath in the growing darkness reminding me not to tarry, even if the general chose to follow, which he did.
I stepped around him and hurried through the trees, the general close behind, and when Agrippa stepped out, shamefaced in front of us, I simply handed him his clothing without comment.
“Do you care to explain yourself, Agrippa?” the general asked, more laughter than censure in his tone.
“Never you mind, sir. Never you mind,” he said, hopping from one frozen foot to the other as he donned his breeches and stepped into his shoes, leaving off the stockings I’d included in the pile. No sense smearing them in paint too.
“And are those yours?” The general pointed at the black tracks in the snow leading off into the trees.
“Yessir,” Grippy confessed.
“It was harmless fun, sir,” I interjected. “Nothing more.”
“Hmm,” the general grunted. “Agrippa?”
“Yessir?”
“You owe the lad.”
“Yessir.”
“No more ridiculous lessons or instructions. No more poison testing.”
“No, sir.”
“Now if you will excuse me, I have other business to attend to. Alone. I trust you will both return to your duties.”
“Yessir,” I said, turning back to the house.
“Good night, General,” Grippy said, teeth still clacking, ignoring me altogether.
The general demanded the full story from me when he returned.
I acquiesced, but only after obtaining a promise that he wouldn’t punish Agrippa or indicate in any way that I’d divulged the details. John Paterson laughed until tears streamed from his eyes when I described Agrippa’s resourceful black boots and his jaunty impersonation of the Polish engineer. His mirth only grew when I detailed our chase through the forest and recalled Agrippa wearing nothing but his drawers and his paint, awaiting my return with his clothes.
“You should not have fetched his uniform. You’d already saved him. It would have served him right to endure a shaming.” The general chortled. “Someday I will have to tell Kosciuszko. No one enjoys a good story better than he.”
Surprisingly, Grippy did not bring up the episode again, and he seemed to hold no animosity toward me for involving the general, but after that, I made certain to take anything he said with the proper skepticism, suspecting a prank at every turn.
In the months of my enlistment, I had grown accustomed to men in all states of dress, but if General Paterson were to ever discover my secret, I suspected it would be the familiarities that would make him feel the most betrayed. Thus I strove in every way to serve him, and serve him well, while keeping a respectful distance.