by Sally Cabot
William’s father rose from his chair and paced and near shouted, not his usual method when attempting to carry a point, but of course this point was already lost. “Elizabeth is a lovely creature. She’s wealthy. She’s brought you important friends. She shines at court. Only think, William, think if she’ll shine in America. If she’ll be content in America. Think what kind of a wife, what kind of a companion she’ll make for you.”
Curious, William thought, coming from the man who’d married Deborah Read. But then again, look who William’s father would have chosen for his son instead of this delight of all London, Elizabeth Downes: Polly Stevenson, the landlady’s daughter. In other words, Benjamin Franklin would look no higher for William than he’d looked for himself.
BUT WILLIAM BELIEVED THAT in time Elizabeth Downes would conquer his father as she’d conquered him; indeed, his father was as charming and polite to Elizabeth as he was to any other woman of his acquaintance, and perhaps that was why William underestimated the intensity of his father’s disapproval or disappointment, whichever it should be called. After two years of stalling about London essentially unemployed, William’s father booked a passage to America that would put him well out to sea on September 4, 1762, the day William and Elizabeth were married at St. George’s in Hanover Square with all the pomp and splendor such a couple deserved.
ONE WEEK AFTER THEIR marriage, with Elizabeth by his side, William marched past more gilt and jewels and towering murals and tapestries to kiss the king’s ring and accept his appointment as royal governor of New Jersey, swearing to uphold his oath of allegiance to the Crown till death. Even as he backed away from the king’s presence, William felt utterly changed; he’d achieved this prize by hard study both inside and outside the Inns of Court, by doggedly pursuing the right kind of advancement with the right kind of people, by displaying his increasingly impressive political skills. This was his and his alone. At last, William Franklin was legitimate.
And then William stepped outside those glittering, magnificent halls to face the smoke and filth and ugly rumors: His appointment had come not because of his qualifications and connections but because of his father’s connections, despite his father’s diplomatic failures, despite his father’s disapproval of the appointment, expressed so eloquently with his public and private silence on the subject.
42
Philadelphia, 1763
BEFORE HE LEFT ENGLAND, William Franklin made out a will providing for his wife, Elizabeth, and his bastard son. He pressed the Mortensens to continue to keep the child’s identity a secret, not wishing to arrive at his new post burdened with unseemly gossip or to distress Elizabeth; he could not have foreseen—or perhaps he could have—of course he should have—that the older, private gossip would gain its first public audience, fanned into flame by his royal appointment.
Without the supposition of some kind of backstairs intrigue, it is difficult to account for that mortification of pride, affront to the dignity and insult to the morals of America, by the elevation to the government of New Jersey of a base-born brat, wrote John Adams of Massachusetts. Philadelphia’s John Penn chimed in. I am so astonished and enraged at it that I am hardly able to contain myself at the thought . . . If any gentleman had been appointed it would have been a different case . . . I make no doubt but the people of New Jersey will make some remonstrance upon this indignity put upon them.
Such was Elizabeth Franklin’s introduction to America. The papers caught up with them at the wharf, but as Elizabeth had already lost almost every meal along with most of her courage while at sea, newspapers appeared to be of little interest to her. The couple stepped out into an icy Philadelphia winter rain to the welcome sight of their father’s enclosed carriage. As William’s father leaped out of the carriage to assist the obviously weakened Elizabeth, a good deal of William’s hurt at his father’s refusal to attend the wedding dissipated. The pale and stumbling Elizabeth was in no condition to charm anyone, but it soon appeared there was no need, for William’s father set out to charm her instead, and it took less time than it took to drive the carriage to the Franklin residence.
Even William’s stepmother did her best with Elizabeth, hurrying her into bed and waiting on her with soup and tea as her digestion grew to tolerate it, but he could see that his stepmother’s trademark on-again off-again attentions and often inappropriate comments and questions were wearing Elizabeth down further. When William made what he thought was a tactful suggestion to allow Elizabeth her sleep, Deborah, ever on tenterhooks around him, shot back that she wasn’t used to the kind of luxury that allowed for a woman’s sleeping in the daytime.
Had Elizabeth heard? Apparently. That night, as they lay back to chest against the cold, she said, “William, is there some trouble between you and your mother?”
William, himself worn down by the crossing, his concern for his wife, his anxieties over meeting his father and stepmother after prior acrimonious partings, his digestion no longer accustomed to Deborah’s heavy buckwheat cakes, blurted out, “She’s not my mother.”
Elizabeth rolled over, touched William’s face. “I know this. Do you think I can’t read a newspaper? Who was she, then?”
“I don’t know. He’s never said.”
Elizabeth reared back. “You never asked him?”
“Of course I asked him. He said that Deborah was my mother and wouldn’t go past that.”
“Well, you must demand the truth of him.”
A surprisingly fierce wave of resentment took hold of William. How dare this new wife of his take his lifelong struggle and bring it down to this single, clipped sentence, as if it were so simple a thing, so easily remedied?
“Why?” he retorted. “I know who my father is. The rest is of no consequence.”
Elizabeth drew farther back from him; he could hear a new, raw edge in her breath; she reached out and touched the dimple in his chin. “This is his,” she said. “And your fine height. And some say your charm.” She drew a finger down his long, narrow nose. “But whose is this? The newspapers also called you ‘the handsomest man in America.’ That didn’t come from your father alone.”
William struggled to turn the mood. “You think my father unhandsome? Come now, Elizabeth, surely you’re the littlest bit smitten; after all, most women are.”
William reached for his wife to give her a playful squeeze, but she stretched farther away. “You see what you do, William? You make your father all. All! I’ve long noticed this. Whatever he is, he’s but half what you are. You have a right to know what the other half is.”
“I told you,” William said, irritated again. “Who bore me is of no consequence.”
“It was of consequence to her,” Elizabeth shot back. “And it was of consequence to the one who raised you up. Everything, William. Everything is of consequence to everything else.”
Elizabeth rolled away from him. William attempted to listen to her breathing to determine if she slept, but his own was so labored it blocked out any other sound.
THE NIGHT HAD EXHAUSTED William more than it had rested him, but in the morning his concern was all for Elizabeth. He’d held out hope of her speedy recovery and a quick resumption of their journey to New Jersey, but it turned out that his wife’s lungs were having some trouble adjusting to the clean Philadelphia air after the coal smoke in London. The doctor was sent for and advised against stressing her lungs further with winter travel, but William, already anxious about his pending reception in his new colony, could not risk any additional ill will by languishing for weeks in Philadelphia. Neither could he face telling Elizabeth she must stay in this single cramped room in his parents’ house, eating Deborah Franklin’s pancakes and listening to her carp at William’s father. This was not the life to which Elizabeth Downes was accustomed. This was not the life he had promised her.
Once again, William took the problem to his father, who saw the situation so clearly and quickly that William was embarrassed. “You’ve grown too fine for us, have you?”<
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William began to stutter out a half-backtracking, half-forward-moving explanation, but his father stopped him before he’d managed to stumble into too great a danger. “I understand the difficulty for you under this roof, William. I also understand who your wife is, and who you’ve become, perhaps something better than you do. I further understand the political situation; you cannot cower in Philadelphia with a new royal appointment awaiting you in New Jersey. Ask our friends the Galloways if they’d like to host Elizabeth—they keep more to your new style of living and have even had a nurse in lately for the daughter’s confinement; then you and I may travel in clear conscience to New Jersey.”
William peered at his father. “You and I . . . together?”
“Unless you feel I should be of no use to you.”
Opposing answers pummeled William from both sides. What would the Franklin prudential algebra say here? His father the much admired editor and writer. His father the famous scientist. His father, in whose shadow he must forever travel.
“Thank you, Father,” William said. “I should be honored to have you by my side.”
WITH GUT-CLENCHING RELUCTANCE WILLIAM left a teary Elizabeth behind in Philadelphia and set out with his father for New Jersey. Filled with trepidation after the derogatory accounts in the papers, admittedly still somewhat uneasy in his father’s presence since his abrupt London departure, frozen and bone jarred by icy ruts in the ill-kept roads, William had imagined another kind of start to his new life. He had not imagined starting it, again, as that bastard boy who had been whispered about in Philadelphia’s hallways and streets. As they drew through town, William found himself fallen back into his old habit of scanning every strange woman’s face, looking for something of himself. Everything is of consequence to everything else. Damn Elizabeth, he thought, for bringing all that up again.
William looked sideways at his father, also apparently on edge in this new, close quiet after such bustle and commotion in the Philadelphia house. “Thank you, Father,” he said. “ ’Tis an uncomfortable time of year to make such a trip.”
“Nonsense. I should like to see you launched.”
“Into a position you’d preferred I didn’t take.”
“I make it a rule that when a thing is done, I don’t go back and worry it to death. We make our decisions in this life and we live by them, good or ill.”
Was this an opening offered? But even if wasn’t, what next chance would William have?
“I assume you’ve seen what’s written about in the newspapers,” he started.
“I have.”
“I should like to know . . . I think I have a right to know . . . there was something said of a kitchen maid named Barbara, of a . . . of a street woman left to starve to death, of—”
“We had no kitchen maid named Barbara. No one has starved to death. The whole of what you need to know is that you have a father and mother who have done the best for you they could in keeping with their individual circumstances. For a man of your resources, that should be—it must be—enough. But as you raise the topic, tell me what arrangement has been made for your son.”
The cold carriage grew warm. For a moment William’s throat failed to work. “I’ve provided in my will,” he managed at last. “His bills are to be forwarded through a friend. I left instructions that until I’m settled into my new post his true identity should remain secret; I didn’t wish to jeopardize the people’s regard until I’d proved capable of doing them some service.”
“And then? Do you intend that he come to live with you?”
William hesitated. “I’ve a new wife to consider.”
“Yes,” William’s father said. He might have added, As did I, but he did not, for if he had, William might have added, And my son will not suffer as did I.
Everything is of consequence to everything else, William thought, as they rode on in silence.
WILLIAM’S FEARS—THE IMMEDIATE ONES—were assuaged when a troop of cavalry with swords drawn and plumes high rode out through driving snow to meet them, followed by sleighs full of cheering ladies, with bonfires and salutes lighting the roadside as they entered the capital. William’s speech was welcomed heartily, he suspected both for its content and its brevity, and later, at the nearby tavern, his health was drunk along with the king’s.
WHEN WILLIAM FINALLY MANAGED to collect Elizabeth and show off her new home, the proud moment was dulled somewhat by the fact that Elizabeth’s lungs appeared to like New Jersey no better than they did Philadelphia. She arrived in the “wilderness,” as she called it, shivering and barely able to breathe; she spent the first two weeks in the governor’s mansion under a thick bed rug with hot poultices on her feet and chest, while William plied her with biscuits and sherry and largely useless words of encouragement.
AS THE FIRST MONTHS ran themselves out, William dashed about with his new duties and then came home to attempt to soothe his wife. William could never quite decide whether his wife’s nerves caused her attacks or whether the attacks caused the nerves; if she started up in her bed at the howl of a wolf her breathing would grow labored, but was it because of the sudden draft or her anxious state? Whatever the original cause, once the lungs began to struggle, her nerves began to fray, causing the lungs to struggle more, and around and around they went. William did discover a thing or two that helped: He would draw his wife back inside the blanket’s warmth, ease her down onto her right side, and rub her back in gentle circles, talking quietly and steadily, until the lungs under his hand stopped working like the gills of a near-dead fish.
WILLIAM’S FATHER WROTE HIM a letter, or rather, he pretended to write him a letter; it appeared obvious from the formal style that the composition was in fact a first draft of an autobiography. He claimed he sent it to William “imagining it may be agreeable to you to know the circumstances of my life,” and William was forced to admit that it was. Oh, yes, it was, but the real meaning of the letter soon became clear: William’s father wanted to remind him of his humble beginnings and the benefits of the Spartan lifestyle in which his father had been raised. Just the same, William tore into his father’s words, chewing and tasting and swallowing each one before finally spitting them out, but the particular words he was after weren’t there. William was mentioned but a few times, first in 1755 and last in 1757. His mother wasn’t mentioned at all. His father did confess to a youthful affinity for “low women,” despite the “great inconvenience”; was that what William’s mother had been, a “low woman”? Was that all William had ever been, a “great inconvenience”? Almost as disturbing were the passages about his stepmother: “I pitied poor Miss Read’s unfortunate situation,” Benjamin Franklin wrote. “I considered my giddiness and inconstancy when in London as in a great degree the cause of her unhappiness.” And so he assumed a married state with her, “and thus corrected that great erratum as well as I could.” Having recognized the obvious disparity between mother and father, having witnessed the overwhelming resentment of the mother, a new horror began to torture William: Where was he at the time of this “correction”? He must have appeared at around the same time; had he in any way influenced it? Could his father have married this near-illiterate Deborah Read only to give William a proper home? If he had, there was nothing on this earth that William could do to make up to his father for such a sacrifice. And worse, if Deborah Read was the better choice, what must his real mother have been? The old rumors began to take on more verity; William’s father’s silence on his mother’s identity only seemed to prove the case more fully.
William was a bastard, yes; now he must add to it that his mother was likely a whore.
43
Philadelphia, 1763
DEBORAH FRANKLIN PULLED OUT the packet of her husband’s old letters and began to read them from the beginning again.
LONDON, JULY 27, 1757
My dear Child,
We arrived here well last Night, only a little fatigued with the last Day’s Journey being 70 Miles. I write only this Li
ne, not knowing of any Opportunity to send it. Billy is with me here at Mr. Collinson’s, and presents his Duty to you, and Love to his Sister. My Love to all. I am, my dear Child, Your loving Husband,
B. Franklin
LONDON, NOVEMBER 22, 1757
My dear Child,
I have now before me, your letters of July 17, July 31, August 11, August 21, September 4, September 19, October 1, and October 9. I thank you for writing to me so frequently and fully. The agreeable Conversation I meet with among Men of Learning, and the Notice taken of me by Persons of Distinction, are the principal Things that sooth me for the present under this painful Absence from my Family and Friends; yet those would not detain me here another Week, if I had no other Inducements, Duty to my Country and Hopes of being able to do it Service . . .
LONDON, DECEMBER 13, 1757
Dear Madam,
Having had the pleasure for several months past, to be personally known to what you will readily allow, to be your better half, having had for many years a very high opinion of Mr. Franklin; I must confess it was very unequal to what I now know his singular merit deserves. Now madam as I know the ladies here consider him in exactly the same light I do, upon my word I think you should come over, with all convenient speed to look after your interest . . . Dear madam, I am Your most affectionate, Humble servant,
William Strahan
LONDON, JANUARY 14, 1758
