by Sally Cabot
SO FIVE YEARS HAD gone by, and here was the old tap, tap, tap. Or more accurately, as Anne had failed to move at the first sounds, Crack! Crack! Crack! Grissom at last? Her thoughts too disordered to sort, Anne threw back her bedcovers, wrapped her shawl around her, lit a candle, and went to the door. Franklin stood there, but not the same old Franklin of the confounded and confounding half smile, the smile that could never decide if she were angel or devil—this Franklin had decided what she was.
“Where is he? Where’ve you got him?”
“Grissom?”
“Grissom! So that’s how this happy marriage works! No, not Grissom, blast it! William. Is he here?”
“Why on earth would he be here?”
“He’s run off. I know you told him who you are. Where else should he go but here?”
“I’ve told that boy nothing.”
Franklin stopped looking frantically around Anne’s room and brought his eyes back to her face. Anne looked back without a flinch. At forty Franklin had grown even wider in the shoulders and back but had begun to thicken at the waist, his hairline had begun to creep backward, slightly lengthening his forehead, but his chin remained firm, his eyes keen. The decided look in them softened to a rare confusion.
“Do you mean to say you’ve said nothing to him? Not when you took him or any time since then?”
“He knows nothing of our relation. He knows nothing of me at all. He doesn’t even recognize me when we pass.”
Franklin took a visible breath and it gusted into the room like a small tornado, lifting the loose hairs that lay on Anne’s neck. He peered at her a time longer. “I find I must believe you in this, although I was quite convinced otherwise. He’d begun to ask questions, abuse his mother. I assumed you’d explained yourself to him and painted her black in the process. It seemed the logical—” Franklin stopped, and looked at her in new defiance. “It was no ill usage at home that brought him to this, I promise you!”
“And it was nothing I said that brought him to it, I promise you.”
Franklin, calmer now, studied her longer. He may have decided to believe her, but he wasn’t through blaming her. “God’s breath, woman! It was madness to take him!”
“Yes, it was. I admit that to you now. I saw it aboard the ship, when I realized that I’d carried him into danger—” Anne stopped. “The ships.”
Franklin stared. “Good God! The ships! Of course it would be the ships! ’Twas all he ever talked of! What can be wrong with me that I shouldn’t think of a ship, with the pirates running all over town flashing their gold and calling for crew.” Franklin wheeled for the door.
Anne dropped her shawl, picked her gown off the peg, and pulled it on over her shift. She wrenched open her case of drawers in a hunt for a pair of stockings and Franklin heard the complaint of the wood—he swung around, saw her standing with the stocking in her hand and plucked it out of her fingers.
“My dear Anne, you can’t think to come with me at this hour.”
“I might help you search. Think of all the ships tied up just now at the wharfs! I might—”
“He’ll be on one of the privateers—there are but four of them in port. Think how it will look. You must keep here.”
Of course he was right. Of course she couldn’t help search. Again, as Grissom once told her, it was more of that madness only love for her son ever drove her to. Franklin tugged the stocking free of her hand, crossed to the bed, and, taking into account the circumstance, laid it out with considerable care.
“You must send me word at once,” Anne said.
“I shall.” Franklin strode to the door a second time, stopped a second time. He came back into the room, picked up her hand, kissed it. “God love you, my girl,” he said, “for God knows I cannot.”
ANNE SAT UP WITH some of her mending, waiting for a message from Franklin, thinking about what he’d said of pirates. She might have thought of the ships, but she hadn’t thought of pirates, and she didn’t like to think of it. She’d heard of them, of course, seen them, in fact—privateers authorized under the king’s letters of marque, set loose to rob and plunder any ship sailing under a French or Spanish flag; she’d also heard of some of those men—and boys—killed, some of the ships sunk. It was true that some came home rich as kings; Anne could imagine the fifteen-year-old William as she’d known the seven-year-old William, eyes alight at even the thought of a ship, but she could also imagine the fifteen-year-old William lying on a ship’s deck, painted all over in his own blood. She’d once thought William not bold, and here he was, ready to sign on to as bold an adventure as could be, while she—a woman whose courage had once been admired—sat trembling.
Anne sat up watching the dawn come on, but no message came from Franklin. She dressed herself and went to the shop, but what work she did was a poor effort. At noon a messenger came to the shop, carrying a letter to Grissom. Grissom opened it and crossed the shop to Anne’s table. He handed her a separate, sealed piece of paper and Anne saw her name scratched across it in Franklin’s familiar hand. She tore it open.
He was discovered aboard the Wilmington and removed. A thousand thank yous. You took and now you give back—the score is settled between us for this life.
The letter was unsigned. Of course.
34
WILLIAM FRANKLIN DOUBTED THAT his father would ever understand what it had taken for him to board that privateer. To a man like Benjamin Franklin, who could take an idea—any idea—and leap after it with the confidence of one who saw exactly where it led long before anyone else had even registered the words, such a step would seem small enough, but to William it was as large as the sum of his young life. As large as death.
It was Deborah who drove William out of the house day after day, but as he wandered through the stark, late-day streets he felt no great affection for his father either, a father who’d allowed his wife to stand there and call William a villain, who’d told William to apologize for doing nothing but attempting to find out the simple truth about himself, a truth his father had long denied him, continued to deny him, even after his own wife had as much as admitted how false the original account was. Deborah Franklin was not his mother. She was ashamed to call herself his mother. And instead of thinking of himself as the legitimate offspring of one of Philadelphia’s most admired citizens, William must now consider that he was likely the bastard son of that man and . . . whom? Whom?
William left the house one day driven by a particularly violent storm of mortification and rage; he walked and walked and ended, as he always ended, at the wharf, and there he saw the Wilmington, bathed in the shine of the gold she’d brought to the Philadelphia streets. In front of the ship the Delaware River stretched toward the horizon as smooth as a well-worn road, leading . . . away. That was all William cared about. It would lead him away.
William found the shipmaster, a taut, sun-blackened man lit by his own fire, whether made up of greed or glory William couldn’t tell and couldn’t care; the shipmaster’s reasons were his as William’s reasons were his, and neither was asked nor offered. The deal was struck and William returned home, sneaking in without speaking to or seeing anyone, going to his room and putting together what he hoped at least faintly resembled a sea kit. He considered and decided that his father, at least, deserved the courtesy of a brief note. In writing the note, a sense of the finality of the words brought on a rush of affection that in truth had seldom waned, and the pen stuttered over the paper, leaving rough starts and stops that William had little time to remedy. Honored Father, he wrote. I’m gone to make my own way. I’ll not burden you again in this life. Your devoted son, William.
It was dark by the time William boarded the ship, any aura of gold long gone, the river no longer a bright, glimmering road to fortune but an empty black void, suddenly reminding William of a much smaller boy, a seemingly much bigger ship, a darker night. Who was that servant who’d whisked him away in darkness and taken him aboard that ship? He could no longer remember her face o
r her name, only the way she’d begun to frighten him. He did remember the early, wild excitement of actually being on a ship, being allowed to steer a ship! Had he understood that a ship tied to a dock didn’t need steering? He doubted it. He’d believed in it. All of it. But next had come that hollowing fear when he realized the servant and even the strange man had disappeared, and he was alone in the dark on the enormous ship with the black water far below him. What next? The crashing relief at the sight of his father coming up the gangway and striding across the deck to scoop him up and take him home.
Much as his father did again aboard the Wilmington.
Shouldn’t William have foreseen the same old conclusion to the same old play? But this time there was no relief, just more of that burning shame, intensified by a jeering crew and a screaming captain, with William’s father as William’s father always was, the voice in William’s ear as gentle and sensible as warm pudding, the arm around his shoulder as hard and irrefutable as a fireplace crane.
THE EPISODE DID LITTLE to improve the mood at home. William entered rooms and walked out again if Deborah was the only occupant; he spoke to her, where possible, through his father, or even the baby Sally, deciding the best way to show his stepmother how little he cared if he pleased her or not was to put all his efforts into pleasing Sally. Most of these maneuvers only caused Deborah to lose more and more control of her tongue, which only caused William to act more and more hateful, with the single exception being that he developed a true affection for this little sister, who was fast becoming, in her innocence and ignorance, his best ally.
But it turned out William in fact had another ally, neither innocent nor ignorant: his father. He saw, he heard, he tried and failed to smooth it; in the end he understood that there would be no peace at home with both son and wife under the same roof and he came up with a solution that pleased most parties. He enlisted William in the king’s army.
OH, HOW WILLIAM LOVED the army! The order, the neatness, the single focus, the chance to succeed and to advance to a legitimate title that drew him honest respect, even from his father. William had achieved the rank of captain, as high as he could advance without a purchased commission, an investment his father was disinclined to undertake, and there it seemed to William that his army career had ended.
But somehow, somewhere, in amongst all the pacifist Quakers of Pennsylvania, William’s father managed to prevail in a plan he’d long nurtured of building defenses along the western frontier; the expedition was actually put forth in the assembly and accepted, and Benjamin Franklin, chief defender of defense, was asked to head it. No one dared object when the father then turned around and enlisted his army captain son to aid him—in fact, to lead him, for what did William’s father know of armies? It was William who planned and executed, but of course on their return to Philadelphia it was the elder Franklin who was praised and cheered, although to give him his due, he asked for none of it, and in fact rode seventy-five miles in two days in order to sneak into town ahead of a parade that was rumored to be forming to honor him. The end result of the expedition? As William remained stopped at captain in the king’s army, his father was made colonel of his own home-grown militia.
But William refused to be stopped at home, where the words devil child and villain could too easily haunt his days. He began to think of another profession that prized order and rules, that preferred neat rows of books with well-ordered shelves over his father’s method of unclassified piles and unlabeled crates and boxes. With his father’s reluctant permission, and no doubt his stepmother’s relief, he moved out of his father’s house and began to study law with a friend of his father’s named Joseph Galloway.
35
Philadelphia, 1748
DEBORAH FRANKLIN TOOK UP the letter from Boston and announced without looking at her chart, “One shilling.”
Fulsom fished out his coins and counted. “Ah, Mrs. Franklin, I find myself sixpence short.”
“Then it shall be delivered to you on the morrow in the penny post. To help you in your accounting, that will make it seven pence you’ll need to scrounge out.”
Fulsom stared at her. “I assure you, Mrs. Franklin, you may count me good for the sixpence and give me my letter today. I’ve waited on it a fortnight.”
“Then another day shouldn’t mark so great an addition to your waiting, should it?” Deborah turned to the next customer. “Good day to you, Mr. Hughes. How many do you leave with us? Two for Boston, three hundred ninety miles. We now run three mails a week this time of year; you may expect it to arrive Thursday next. And one for New York, one hundred six miles, that should arrive by Sunday.”
Out of the corner of her eye Deborah observed Fulsom leaving the shop and stopping in the street to lay out his mistreatment to one of the Shippens, not friends of Benjamin’s since he’d organized the militia, but Shippen seemed to hold enough respect for the Franklins—or his mail delivery—to listen without taking a side in it. That was the best Deborah got from Philadelphia society, but it was better than she’d gotten before now, and she liked it. She liked her life. She liked working in the shop with Benjamin so near, she liked those evenings when she had Benjamin’s undivided attention as they discussed the day’s accounts; above all, she liked her daughter, Sally.
It had taken seven long years after the death of Franky for Deborah to bear herself another child. After four years—the length of time it had taken her to get Franky—she decided that God was not through punishing Benjamin for his old sin, and something jagged and unlovely began to grow in her in place of a child: When she looked at William she saw only those old sins and resentments that could never be held to account. But when Sally was born, Deborah could look at her and see all that was good in Benjamin and herself, as if it had been saved up and let free in this one sparkling, amiable child who was sure to win every heart she encountered. Sally was not as pretty as William, but her stolid features and sturdy limbs were Deborah and Benjamin together, and Deborah would insist to any who would listen that Sally was nearly as bright as William ever was. Benjamin was determined that his daughter would learn what a young girl should learn in order to best serve her role in life, but Deborah was determined that she would learn what a young girl might learn of all of life; unlike the mother, the daughter would not be left out.
So it was that Deborah sat, taking stock of all that had finally come right with her world just before it all flew apart.
FIRST WAS THE SHOP. Benjamin came home one night lit up with more than just the milk punch at the tavern; he pulled Deborah out of her chair, spun her around, and kissed her. “Meet your newborn husband,” he said, “fresh out of the printing business forever. I’ve turned it all over to my new partner, Mr. Hall—press, shop, Gazette—together.”
At first Deborah couldn’t comprehend it. “Turned it all over! What on earth do you mean to do with yourself?”
“I mean to sit back and collect my share of the income from Mr. Hall and otherwise do as I like. Step up and make something useful of myself. Lie down and celebrate it.” He caught up her hands and attempted to tug her toward the bedroom, but Deborah shook herself loose.
“And the post office?”
“William can manage the post office.”
William can manage the post office. William, who would want her help the least of anyone’s in it. “And what of me? What am I to do? Retire to our rooms and—”
“The rooms go with the shop. I’ve rented us a new house on Race Street, away from the bustle of all this commerce, so I may do my thinking in peace.”
“Thinking about what?”
“About it all, Debby. About the what and the why and the how and the what if.” And as if he suddenly realized how behind he was already in all this thinking, he floated away from her and into his study.
DEBORAH SLEPT LITTLE THAT night, her mind in turmoil as she attempted to chase after all that Benjamin had said and what it likely meant to her life, but Benjamin appeared to have no such difficulty. He
slept and rose at the usual time and went into his study again, until a message arrived that drew him out of it in some haste. Later, when Deborah went into the room to collect his empty cup, she spied a half-finished letter lying on his desk. The letter was addressed to Cadwallader Colden, a frequent correspondent of Benjamin’s in New York.
My Dear Friend,
I am settling my old accounts and hope soon to be quite a master of my own time. I am in a fair way of having no other tasks than such as I shall like to give myself, and of enjoying what I look upon as a great happiness, leisure to read, study, make experiments, and converse at large with such ingenious and worthy men as are pleased to honour me with their friendship or acquaintance, on such points as may produce something for the common benefit of mankind, uninterrupted by the little cares and fatigues of business.
Deborah stood as she was, reading and rereading that letter for some time. What could she make of a life that held no other tasks but those she would like to give herself? She couldn’t begin to imagine such a life, for it required a shadow Deborah to follow her around and do all the rest of the things she would have to abandon in pursuit of her own enjoyment. She knew better than to imagine herself producing something for the common benefit of mankind, but as she read through the letter a second time, and a third, she discovered that its beginning was by far the least disturbing part of it. Reading. Studying. Experimenting. Conversing with ingenious and worthy men. Where were Deborah and Sally in any of it?
NEXT CAME ELECTRICITY. IT was true that the move to the new house occupied much of Deborah’s time, but it hardly slowed Benjamin in the plan he’d laid out in his letter. For many years Deborah had gotten used to all the odd things that leaked out of Benjamin’s study and got strewn about the house: a dark cloth and a white one laid side by side on the south windowsill to see which absorbed more heat (the dark one); the dead flies he’d found drowned in his bottle of Madeira and set out on that same sunny windowsill to see if they might revive (some did, some didn’t); the plants that cropped up in every room for the purpose of purifying the air (not so far as Deborah could determine); an empty honey jar hung from the kitchen ceiling on a string that was to have proved something or other about ants if Deborah hadn’t removed it and thrown it out. But now all the experiments were about a single thing: electricity. Electricity. Deborah couldn’t comprehend the workings of it, nor could she think of a single use for it; worse, it took up more of Benjamin’s time than press, shop, and post office put together. And worse than that, along with the electricity came William.
