Of Wildflowers and Gunpowder

Chapter 17

The next morning, after an early breakfast alone in my room, I came downstairs struggling to carry my trunk. Lafayette came out from the parlor and helped me set it beside the open door where slaves were putting the luggage onto a horse drawn wagon.
"Are you ready for the journey, Mademoiselle?" He asked, escorting me into the main headquarters where Washington was speaking in low tones to Alexander Hamilton. When I came in, they looked up with smiles and greeted me as if nothing had happened.
Benjamin came into the room hurriedly and stopped mid-sentence when he saw me.
My throat caught in my chest at their hesitation and I was desperate to know what was happening but too afraid to ask. It wasn't my place.
"Louisa, may I enlist your help in the dining room for a moment?" Ben asked, signaling with his eyes for me to join him.
I followed him into the other room and he took my hands in his own, which were clammy and warm. "I apologize for being so harsh with you last night," he said, his face softening, "I-I don't know what came over me."
I smiled and put my hand on his jaw comfortingly. "It's alright, my dear, I am sure I will be harsh to you someday in our future also. I forgive you." When I mentioned our future, he looked away.
"Benjamin Tallmadge," I said, my voice breaking a little, "what is going on?"
"Nothing, love. I am simply anxious for the journey ahead of us. Thank you for understanding." He kissed my hand with a bow and strode back into the parlor.
Understanding, I thought, is the one thing I seem unable to do.

     "The women will be marching in the back, and taking turns sitting in one of the luggage wagons when they need a break," an officer told me as I tied my cloak around my neck, "I trust this will be satisfactory to you, miss?"
I nodded graciously and thanked him, looking out over the thousands of soldiers milling around, making last minute preparations for the march. Benjamin was gone, somewhere near the front on horseback with Washington and his aides.
The marching was slow and tedious but I was in good company. The other women were wives with their children in tow, single girls looking to find a husband, cooks and doctors like me, and everything in between. I knew many of them, and even delivered some of their children, so it was a wonderful reunion as we marched along the winding trails of New Jersey.
My head throbbed and I longed to abandon my shoes and stays. "My dear Louisa! Is that you?" I turned to find Margaret Harrison with her baby in her hands, an enormous smile on her face as she embraced me.
"I haven't seen you since you delivered my Georgiana in Morristown! How are you, child?"  She was the wife of Lieutenant Harrison and had been forced to follow the camp because she had no one to support her at home without her husband.
  We became friends through her pregnancy and I was the one who delivered her little girl almost six months ago.
     "I am doing well," I replied, taking baby Georgiana in my arms as we marched, "it has been a busy few weeks recently but things seem to be settling down now."
      Her face lit up. "I heard all about your ordeal with the British! I am so glad you are alright. Now...the people in camp have been talking, and they are saying that you and Major Benjamin Tallmadge are going to be married sometime soon. Is it true?"
I forced a smile. "We are not engaged. Simply-" my voice caught in my throat, "simply friends. That is quite alright."
She raised her eyebrows and asked, "If you are not going to marry him and you are too busy to be a doctor full-time, why are you in the camp? What are you so busy with?"
Not going to marry him. The words pierced through my heart like a knife. Of course I had alluded to that and she certainly didn't know the whole situation, but to hear them said so matter-of-factly felt like my whole world was ending.
     "Oh, well, I do some mending and cook and...I am still a doctor," I stammered, careful not to reveal my participation in Washington's spy ring.
     A few women climbed out of the wagons and there was a flurry of activity as others tried to take their place for a few hours. I could tell Margaret wanted to join them and I was anxious to get out of the conversation. "Why don't you take a rest?," I suggested, "I will care for Georgiana out here."
     Gratefully, she obliged and ran to the back of the moving covered wagon, clumsily jumping onto the trunks and folded canvas tents.
     I held the baby close and sighed in despair. It would take us at least a week to reach Virginia and if I had to endure any more curious friends or prying gossips, I wasn't sure what I would do. It must be so much easier to be a man, I thought to myself as my uncomfortable shoes sank into the muddy road and my flowery petticoat accumulated a few inches of grime.
     The sound of horse hooves behind me grew louder Benjamin appeared next to me on his horse. I tensed a little. "How are you doing?" he asked earnestly, the feather on his ridiculous, ornate hat flopping as the horse lumbered along beside me.
     "I am fine, but what are you doing back here?" I replied, smirking as he reached down to mess up my hair.
"I couldn't stop thinking about you up there so I wanted to check on you. If you would like, you could ride with me on my horse." I laughed, my breath billowing in a frozen cloud of fog.
"I am fine, Benjamin. Can you imagine the General's face if you brought me up there on your lap?" It was his turn to laugh.
     "Is this your new child?" He mused jokingly, gesturing to Georgiana who was beginning to whimper and shiver in my arms. I smiled, some of my wariness fading away as we talked. Perhaps the tension between us had been purely my imagination.
     A few of the women glanced at us with judgmental expressions, pointing and whispering. To them, I was a promiscuous orphan girl trying to win the affections of a prominent soldier for my own pleasures and finances. If only they knew how far that was from the truth.
"I should probably head back up to the front," he said, straightening himself on his horse and pulling wrapped rations of corn and meat from beneath his cloak, "Share this with the women. We don't plan to stop until long after nightfall and the soldiers will be Washington's first priority when it comes to being fed. Stay safe, Lou."
He nodded with a small smile as the horse trotted forward, soon lost in the crowd of marching soldiers.
Georgiana was beginning to cry and I looked around for someone honest-looking to entrust with the rations to pass out since my hands were full with the baby.
Suddenly, I found myself surrounded by women not much older than me with angry looks on their face. Most of them were prostitutes.
"Are you planning to share that food? Did you think we wouldn't notice?" One of them crooned, eyeing Georgiana as she walked beside me like a tiger hunting its prey. I sucked in a shaky breath and pulled her tighter to my chest, my grip on the wrapped packages of rations tightening.
"Oh no," I stammered, trying to explain myself, "I am going to share these! I-I am not trying to take them for myself, I promise! Here, I'll go ahead and give all of you your rations right now...since you asked."
     "You think you are better than us?" A girl said, her voice thick with hate, "You think that simply because you are a whore to Washington and his aides that you deserve special treatment?" I was speechless.
     "I'm not-" I argued, feeling heat rise in my cheeks, "that's not true!" One of them laughed and shoved me roughly into the back of one of the wagons. "Everyone knows it. We see you going into his tent all the time...where else would you ever get the money to buy such fancy dresses?"
This was an argument I couldn't win, I realized. If I told them the real reason, which was because I was receiving letters to take to Long Island and bringing intelligence to Benjamin and Washington, I would compromise the entire spy ring.
So, instead, I bit my tongue and let their accusations hit me.
"This child," one mused, running her finger across Georgiana's shivering face, "who is the father? Do you know? Is it Tallmadge? The Frenchman? We all heard about your long trip with him from York City. Or perhaps it is the General himself!"
"This is not my baby," I said calmly, wrenching Georgiana away from the hands of the women. This was a fight for the safety of the child and even my own, one that I wasn't interested in letting my pride continue.
"Now, if you would like to have the rations, you could have just asked," I said with a sigh, pressing the packages into the arms of a girl who hadn't said anything to me yet. "I beg you to share with the other women here. Please. I don't think any less of you and it is important that you all know that."
They glanced at each other warily before turning away from me, directing their attention to the food.
Fighting back tears, I made my way to the wagon where Mrs. Harrison was resting and climbed on awkwardly. "I think she is hungry,"
I lied, handing over the bundle of blankets to her. She thanked me profusely and I nodded with a small smile before leaving them alone in the wagon.
As I walked alone, I touched my bandaged arm and stifled a sob. This is so hard, I thought. I was exhausted and discouraged and in pain and so, terribly, desperately lonely.