Benjamin Franklin's Bastard (17 page)

Soon enough, Franklin was climbing the stairs to Anne’s room nightly, and although Anne’s prime concern was keeping Franklin’s interest, her secondary concern was not disturbing the sleeping woman below. But as each successive night passed with Deborah continuing unaware, Anne began to relax, and after a while she actually began to enjoy her evenings with the brilliant, entertaining, and innovative Benjamin Franklin. How could she not? She learned something new of the man—of life—each time he came.

First was the “air bath,” as Franklin called it. Before coming into the bed he took off all his clothes and sat before the open window until thoroughly chilled, then plunged beneath the bedcovers and wrapped himself around Anne. At another visit he found an appropriate moment to launch a brief discourse on the method of the planets, at another the workings of the pores of the skin, the effect of the moon on the tides, how a waterspout formed. Anne devoured every bit of what he taught, and in turn Franklin paid her what she considered his finest compliment.

“There is nothing so attractive in a woman as a mind thirsty after knowledge and capable of receiving it.”

BUT THE SUBJECT ANNE
liked best was swimming. Franklin had begun to talk of it in a casual way one night, as he gave over his fingers to her mouth one by one, but Anne couldn’t let the topic go. “Do you mean to say a sailor would never drown if he only learned this simple thing?”

“Many hundreds fewer would.”

“And you know how to do it?”

“Do it and teach it. At one time I thought to make my livelihood as a swimming instructor for wealthy young men, but I took another turn.”

“But certainly you must be strong to learn it.”

“Certainly not. I’ve begun to teach William.”

“William!”

“He can’t swim far, but he will as he grows. Now, my dear, I do so love conversing with you, but if you would be so kind as to resume exactly where you left off—”

Anne picked up Franklin’s next finger and slid it into her mouth, slowly, never allowing the waiting fingers to rush her along. When the procedure had run its usual course, from fingers to arms to neck to chest to belly and down, after Franklin had lain immobile for some time, he lifted his head to study Anne.

“Who taught you such tricks, Annie? Who came up those stairs after me? Was it Wilkes? Or that corder?”

Anne didn’t answer.

“I don’t see either one of them so skilled in the art of love. What of the largehearted Grissom? All that quiet pondering he does; he must have come up with an idea now and then. And how many years were you right there above that shop? I’d be a fool not to suppose he got his turn with you.”

Again Anne said nothing.

Franklin chuckled and patted her cheek. “Wise girl.” But in another minute he burst out, “Good God, how I dislike the thought of it!” Another second and he added, “Although I suppose I should be grateful to him.”

He reached down beside the bed and fumbled about in his clothes; the next thing Anne knew she held a pound coin in her hand.

“What’s this?”

“Call it something toward your retirement. What else might I give you? I can’t have you walking about the house wearing a costly gown or a ruby ring, can I?”

“No.”

“But if there’s something inconspicuous you’d like better than a coin—”

Anne supposed she might think up a number of things she’d like, but nothing as much as she’d like the coin; in fact, her hand had already closed around it and drawn it under the bolster.

23

IT WAS DEBORAH WHO
received the new gown, and a silver tea set, and a maple table; Anne saw her pass through the parlor and stroke the polished surface of the table as if it were the silky head of a beloved child. From these gifts, as well as the coins Franklin continued to bestow, Anne discovered that somehow, without her noticing, the Franklins had become well off. But Franklin didn’t seem to care what his money could buy him beyond his two malleable women and more freedom; he hired more help at the press and spent more time in his study experimenting with anything that happened to come to hand.

One day Anne came upon Franklin at the kitchen table, watching William as he held a wood chip in one hand and a penny in the other, both objects thrust into the candle flame. Very soon William dropped the coin. “Hot!”

“Do you see, my boy?” Franklin said. “Metal conducts heat better than wood. The wood you can still hold comfortably in your fingers long after the heat has forced you to drop the penny. Do you understand?”

William nodded, but he would nod for his father whether he truly understood it or not—this too Anne had learned.

Another time Anne came up late to her bed, William’s stomach gripe having kept her below, to discover Franklin standing naked at her washbowl, two of Anne’s stockings pulled over his hands, dipping them into the water and then holding them up to the air from the open window. As Anne came in he swung toward her—still an impressive figure even without his clothes and despite the addition of Anne’s stockings. He held out his hands.

“Two stockings of like thickness, one cotton, one wool. The wool stays warm even if wet; the cotton does not.”

All of this was intriguing enough to Anne, but none of it was as intriguing as that one thing that wouldn’t leave her alone. One night after she’d settled Franklin and he appeared to be reaching into his waistcoat for another coin, she stayed his hand.

“I’ve decided what I should like from you instead of that coin,” she said. “I should like to learn to swim.”

Franklin let out such a hoot Anne feared their discovery. “To swim!” He managed to get up and get himself dressed before he started again. “To swim! I see it now—the banks lined on both sides, Philadelphia
and
New Jersey, the ships hove to—”

“Summer’s not gone. We could go at night, slip down the hall and out the door—”

“And through the streets and down to the waterfront and strip off our clothes and—” Franklin hooted again.

FRANKLIN DIDN’T COME TO
her room for several nights. When he finally came he waked her from the deepest part of her sleep, carrying no candle, his form lit only by the tiniest sliver of moon from the window, holding out what looked to be Min’s hooded cloak. “Come,” he said. “Put this on. Go down to the shop and wait. Be
quiet.
” He wrapped the cloak around her, pressed his fingers to her mouth, and left.

Anne did as he said. In the shop she discovered Franklin’s apprentice, James. “Take my arm,” he said. Anne did. James led her down the solemn, black-night street toward Front Street, then along Front Street until they’d passed the last of the shops. Anne pulled back, but James tugged her ahead, across the street, into the thicket of trees that lined the riverbank. He kept on until he came to a large rock and stopped. Franklin stepped out from behind it.

“Thank you, James,” he said. “Two hours. No more.”

Franklin took Anne’s hand and led her through the trees until the river glistened in front of her and the ground turned to boggy, wet peat, then widened into hard, flat sand.

Franklin took Min’s cloak from her and let it fall to the ground. He kneeled and removed her shoes, rose and brought her shift with him, pulling it over her head. She stood naked under the moon, the breeze rippling and teasing her skin; Franklin peeled away his own cloak, shoes, shirt, and breeches and stood as white and naked as she, teeth gleaming at her across the dark.

“Come,” he said.

He took both her hands and backed into the water, pulling her with him. The water rose to her knees, thighs, waist, breasts, cold and thick and thrilling. Franklin’s hands came around her waist and he lifted her up, pulling her to him till she straddled him, here and there freeing a hand to fondle her breasts. He eased her onto her back, hands under her buttocks, and began to coach her: “Arms wide. Arch your back. Relax your neck.” They went along thus until all at once his hands fell away. “You float, Annie! Do you feel it? You see what the water is? It doesn’t sink you, it carries you!”

She felt it. She felt everything. First the sheer wonder of nothing but water touching her skin, then the wild freedom, last the peacock-proud triumph before she jackknifed and sank, but Franklin only laughed and pulled her up and turned her onto her stomach. He held his hand under her belly; he told her to paddle her hands and feel the water like thread being pulled through her fingers; he told her to close her fingers tight against each other and try it again. He showed her how to push her arms straight ahead of her and then circle them back, pushing against the water with her newly closed fingers, noticing the power; he told her to kick her feet like a frog. She paddled and didn’t kick. She kicked and didn’t paddle. Finally she got the both of them together and she moved. She
moved
!

Franklin’s hand left her belly and returned, left and returned, until she cried, “Leave me be!” and he laughed in delight. She beat against the water for a few short yards and turned and beat her way back, exhausted; she leaped into his arms and he kissed her and she kissed him back as if it were love. When she’d gotten her breath, she pushed away again and this time she felt calmer, beat less frantically at the river, let it work with her, but when she turned she discovered the river only worked with her in one direction; on the turn it became her enemy. Franklin had anticipated it, however, and was there to catch her and help her toward shore.

“Always best to cut across the tide, not against it.”

“To New Jersey!”

Franklin laughed again, then sobered. “No, no, no, you must never attempt that. In the middle the river rages too strong for any man. Now come, or James will think we’ve drowned.”

It couldn’t be two hours, Anne thought, but indeed, when Anne stopped threshing the water she could hear James calling, low and forlorn, “Master! Master!” But she didn’t want to leave the river. She pushed against Franklin, but he held her tight, carried her out, dried her with his shirt as if he were drying off his horse, even dressed her and wrapped her again in the old cloak. He took her hand and led her back into the woods where James waited. Anne clung to Franklin’s hand an extra minute, loath to let go of the night’s magic, but Franklin worked his hand free. “You mustn’t be seen with me at this hour,” he said, but what he meant, of course, was that
he
mustn’t be seen with
her.

James led Anne back to the Franklin home; as they entered the hall, Anne noticed Franklin’s coat hadn’t yet been returned to its peg and decided to wait inside the door until he appeared. This time she took
his
hand and silently tugged him toward the stairs, wanting more of him, the rest of him; she toppled Franklin into her bed and fed him into her and urged him to his end, but it wasn’t, after all, any different from before. What had she expected, that it
was
love, that kiss in the river? And was that even what she wanted? What
was
this ache in her?

After Franklin left, Anne slipped out of bed, wrapped herself in her shawl, and slipped down the half flight of stairs to William’s room. He lay as he always lay, curled tight around the edge of his blanket, thumb in mouth, hair fanned out behind him as if he’d been carried on the wind and dropped there, someone’s pale fairy child, so unlike her darkness, and yet . . . Anne leaned down and touched his perfect ear, his delicate nose, his slender fingers. Hers.

Not hers.

THERE WERE TIMES WHEN
Anne was quite sure Deborah knew what went on above her, and other times when Anne was equally sure she didn’t. According to Min, Deborah had given up her daytime anodyne but continued to take it at night, which must have helped to keep her safe asleep. The notable upturn in Franklin’s spirits could be explained by the fact that he might be expected to have come out from under the sharpest edges of his grief, but the shop seemed to distract Deborah too; her talk at table was all of the soaps and lampblack and linseed oil that she’d brought new to the shelves. She was greatly improved, but Anne couldn’t—and hoped Franklin couldn’t—trust her with William’s care even so. One morning Deborah stumbled on the hearth and spilled water from a steaming kettle onto William’s foot; Anne took that as an accident, but another day she came upon the woman attempting to trim William’s hair, or so she said—a long bloody scratch ran from his ear to his cheek. From that episode forward Anne haunted William throughout the house.

One early Sunday Deborah came into the kitchen dressed and combed for the world. “I shall go to church today,” she said.

Franklin, taking care not to meet Anne’s eye, said, “Excellent!”

“And I’ll take William.”

There Franklin couldn’t help but allow his gaze to cross with Anne’s, so hard did she stare at him. “Best take Min to mind him,” he said.

“Min doesn’t attend Christ Church. She’s Presbyterian, like you.” Deborah laughed. Coming from Deborah, the sound was so strange that it distracted Anne from its cause, but she understood it better once she came back to it; Franklin called himself Presbyterian, but he never attended services and had recently begun to contribute to every church in town, as if determined to take up every chance—or make every friend. But Franklin’s chances—and friends—were not that moment’s concern.

Anne said, “I’ll go along and mind William.”

Deborah shot Anne a new, determined look. “I’m able to mind my son. William, come, you need a clean shirt and your best jacket.”

William leaped up from the table and left with Deborah.

Franklin looked again at Anne, another thought now clearly on his mind—two hours, alone—but Anne had no time for playing at housekeeping. “I’m going to follow them as far as the church,” she said.

“Oh, come, Deborah’s herself again; there’s no need of—”

“I’m going to follow them.”

DEBORAH SET OFF BRISKLY,
William’s hand held tight, and Anne, trailing behind, could see how alight the boy grew under that simple attention. He looked up at his stepmother again and again, smiling wider each time; he skipped a step after every two. Anne was briefly distracted by the noise from the Sunday butcher’s shambles, the smell of fresh blood and raw, opened animal wafting along the street, but William’s attention was fixed the other way. “The ships!” he cried, pointing to the distant masts.