Benjamin Franklin's Bastard (20 page)

Grissom’s jaw loosened, revealing how tight it had been. “I played handkerchief with him.”

“And then you stopped visiting.”

“For reasons that must surely be clear to you. That isn’t to say the visits couldn’t be resumed.”

So that was the scheme. Grissom would return the boy, and in exchange he’d get Anne back in his bed, and in exchange for
that
he’d resume his visits and his reports on William for Anne to turn over again and again until the next week’s visit came around.

“You’re a great friend to Mr. Franklin,” Anne said. “You always were. I’ve long wondered what the favor must have been that requires you to repay it over so many times. First you do his nasty errands for him, next you take me into your shop—keep me in your shop when you had good reason not to—and now you come on this mission for him. Perhaps you have your own secret. Your own bastard hidden in the country. What is it, Mr. Grissom, that makes you always do his bidding? Why
did
you take me in, an unknown girl of questionable repute—just to ease his conscience for him? Why do you come here for him now?”

Grissom blinked. “Franklin knows nothing of my coming here tonight. I did so only in hope of preventing a further tragedy. I know you to be sensible over most things, but I also know that this wouldn’t be the first time your feelings for this child have driven you to do insensible things. I could see you embarking on this thoughtless flight and then later, when it was too late, realizing just how thoughtless a thing it had been. I repeat, I am willing to return the boy for you, before charges are brought against you and your life ruined any more than it already has been.”

Anne flushed. Her life
ruined
? This man could use those words to her, this man who had groaned out his joy to her night after night without end? Anne pulled her money pouch out of her pocket and lifted it in the air for Grissom to gauge its heft. “Do you call this ruin?”

Grissom only looked at her with those unreadable eyes. Oh, no doubt he took great pride in thinking he kept himself to himself so well, but Anne could have told him how she’d read those eyes well enough as he held her breasts in his hands.
Glorious,
Franklin had called her breasts. And the shipwright! The shipwright had said he’d give his firstborn child if he could but hang such a pair off his wife’s chest . . . But Anne had no time for thinking of shipwrights—she must think of ship
masters
. She must think of William. What was best to do for William. And what was best for William required that she play another kind of part now.

Anne reached for the arm of the near chair and allowed herself to sag into it, every bit of the long day helping to bear her down. She drew a breath. She exhaled and closed her eyes and left them closed a good while; she heard Grissom shift his feet, clear his throat. When she opened her eyes, she allowed every minute of uncertainty and fear she’d ever known to show.

“You’re right of course, Mr. Grissom,” she said. “But the boy’s had a long and tiring day; he sleeps now. I shouldn’t like to send him home worn down and out of sorts. Allow him his rest and come back on the morrow.”

“I dislike leaving Franklin in such a state.”

“ ’Tis only a few hours more. Surely I’m entitled to a scant few hours in my son’s company before sending him away from me forever.”

Grissom watched her. Anne watched him. What
was
he thinking? She couldn’t guess. He leaned forward and opened his mouth as if to say one thing, but then said another. “I’ll be back in the morn.”

26

ANNE ENTERED HER SISTER’S
kitchen and found Mary there alone, sipping a cup of tea. She rose to fetch another cup, but Anne waved it away. “I’ve an errand,” she said. “William’s as tired as I’ve seen him and won’t wake; on the slim chance he should, please tell him I went for a walk and will come to him as soon as I return.”

Mary reached out, gripping Anne’s wrist, her fingers like an eagle’s claws. “Annie. You must take him back. You know this, I know you do. Only think—”

Think! Was that all Mary and Grissom could offer her? Was thinking not all Anne had done for what seemed days and weeks? Years? What could Mary know of the things Anne must think of, serene and happy in her little home with all her children about her?

“I have thought. And now I must do.”

“But do
what
?”

“What I must. I’ve done it before, and you’ve gained by it; I’d think this was little enough to ask in return—that you mind my son an hour, no more.”

Mary’s hand dropped from Anne’s wrist as if Anne had just bitten her, which she supposed she had. She didn’t care. “Well?”

Mary nodded. Anne flew.

SHE CROSSED THE DAMP
fields, hugging into her thin shawl, summer gone now. She knew Allgood’s house and had even walked past it once with William, pointing it out to him—
a shipmaster lives there
—but the dark and her new direction confused her; by the time the pastures had disappeared and small houses had turned to larger, she began to falter. Grissom’s voice, Mary’s voice, Ezekiel Lee’s voice hammered after her, slowing her further, but she could think and think all they liked and it would make no difference; she could not—she
would
not—give up William again. She pushed on, holding the golden image of her son in front of her like a lantern, until she recognized the impressive brick facade of Allgood’s home; she allowed herself no pause but continued up the walk and raised the heavy brass knocker on the door.

As Anne had anticipated, a servant answered, her surprise at seeing a strange woman alone at that hour plain. “Please,” Anne said. “Your master, at once. ’Tis an emergency; I come from his friend Robert.” Robert, who’d come to see her with Allgood a dozen times or more; if Robert happened to be sitting in the shipmaster’s parlor on a visit of his own, Anne’s scheme was shredded, but she doubted Robert was a parlor kind of friend.

Indeed, it took Allgood under half a minute to appear at the door. As had Franklin, he stepped through it and drew it closed, but he possessed none of Franklin’s charm under duress.

“You! What the devil do you think, coming here? What of Robert?”

“Nothing of Robert, sir. ’Tis I who need your help. I didn’t like to say so at the door. I must leave Philadelphia. Now.”

“And what in bloody hell do you expect me to do about it?”

“I thought, as you and Robert are such good friends to me, sir, you’d do what you could to assist me, and quickly, before your wife is disturbed. I took a chance on finding you home, but as you
are
home, this means your ship is still here; when does it sail next and where?”

“It goes nowhere for a fortnight. I can be of no help to you. Now get on.”

“But have you no friends amongst the other captains? You must know of someone sailing to New York or Boston soon. Or shall I call again another time? Then, of course, I should run the risk of missing you and finding only your wife at home.”

Allgood opened his mouth, but his brain must have caught up to it there. He closed it. “Wait in the stable.” He stepped back and closed the door.

Anne headed in the direction Allgood had pointed, toward a low building pale against the thickening dark at the end of a fine sweep of lawn. She stopped outside the heavy double doors and listened, but heard no sound; she lifted the bolt and slipped into the steamy smell of wealth: horse upon horse neatly stalled on fresh hay, leather newly oiled, bins full of grain. The horses smelled Anne in their turn and began to stir, first one and then the next all down the long row. To keep from thinking, Anne tried counting them in the dark, but hadn’t gotten beyond six when she heard Allgood working the door.

He stepped up to Anne and slapped a letter into her hand. “The
Falmouth.
’Tis tied up at the Market Wharf. Give that letter to Captain Simms and he’ll take you to Boston. Be gone.”

Allgood left. Anne stood. There was little reason for it, this sense of a fresh-cut wound, for the whole transaction had gone exactly to plan, but in all her dealings with men Anne had seldom left a disgruntled one behind, never one anxious for his acquaintance with her to end. She was quite sure she could fly after Allgood, offering him a last three-shilling ride wherever they happened to fall on his fine lawn, even put on his breeches if it were required, but it wasn’t her risk to take alone. She now had William to consider, perhaps awake and crying for her in the strange house. She now had her son.

ANNE COULD HEAR WILLIAM
from outside the door. She thrust it open and ran up the stairs. Mary sat on the boys’ bed, the candle on the floor casting wild, flailing shadows across the slanted ceiling: Mary’s hands reaching for William, William batting them aside. “Mama!” he cried.

Anne hurried up to him and cupped his hot, damp face in her hands. “Hush, now. Here I am.”

William looked up at her, pulled free, loosed a fresh gush of tears. “I want
Mama
!”

Oh, how Anne’s womb twisted at that cry! But, “Very well,” she said. “We were to go aboard a ship first, but if you’d rather go home now—”

“A ship!”

“Come, William. Get into your clothes as fast as you can or it will be gone.”

What would Anne have done if William had refused? She would never know. The lure of a ship was enough for even this not-bold child.

BELOW STAIRS MARY STOOD
between them and the door, candle in hand. “Anne.”

“Don’t.”

“I will. Do you not see? Where can you possibly—”

Anne held up the letter. “We’ve a ship waiting on us. We must go.” She put the same confidence into her voice that she summoned whenever she faced a new man, but it didn’t have the same effect on Mary. She took the letter from Anne’s hand and broke the seal. Anne snatched it back and read the few lines, with Mary leaning over her:

Honored Sir,

The bearer of this note is a woman of such character as you might imagine; she has made certain threats you might also imagine, but it will serve us both to have her gone. I ask as the greatest favor that you deliver her to Boston, and if you keep her aboard till you do I shall repay you twofold on your return.

Your obedient servant,

J. Allgood

“Anne,” Mary said again.

Anne refolded the letter, carefully lining up the two halves of the broken seal. She took the candle from Mary and touched it to the wax, melting away its imprint but resealing the letter; perhaps Simms wouldn’t notice, or perhaps he would, but it mattered little. Either he trusted Allgood to pay him or he didn’t. Either Anne trusted to this chance or she didn’t. She had a ship to Boston and she had fifty pounds and she could make more the minute she landed; it was as good a plan as she could make with so little time. Anne repeated the words to herself:
It was as good a plan,
but in truth the letter she held felt newly flimsy in her hand.

THEY WALKED, AND THEN
Anne walked and carried William, and then William walked again, silent now, gripping ferociously to Anne’s hand. She took care to keep off the main ways, coming at the Market Wharf along the riverbank, and managed to discover the
Falmouth
without being discovered herself, or perhaps the truth of it was that any who saw the muddy clothes and disheveled, whimpering child at her side would think her just another of the city’s whores and pay her no mind. The sight of the ship brought William out of his sulks at last, and he was so fast over the gangplank that Anne feared losing him amongst the crates and barrels that loomed like dark ghosts across the crowded deck. Anne approached two men hunched around a lantern reading a log.

“I’m after Captain Simms.”

The nearest of the two men, short, solid, and square, as if designed for keeping upright on a slanting deck, lifted eyes so deep socketed Anne couldn’t in fact say she saw them. “You have him.”

Anne handed him Allgood’s letter. He read it, looked again at Anne. “It says naught about a boy.”

Anne made a quick assessment of Simms and decided there was little hope of winning an argument over the fare, but she also decided he was no different from any other man. She said, “I’ll pay for the boy. However you like it.”

Simms’s head lifted; he turned to his companion. “Bleeker, give this lad a turn at the helm.”

Bleeker picked up the lantern and led William ten feet aft to the great wheel. William looked back at Anne, but only once, his eye drawn compulsively to the huge wheel. It will be all right, Anne thought. It will be all right after all. She continued to say it as Simms stepped away to speak to his mate, as she was led below to a compartment fitted out with a good-size berth, mahogany cabinets, a desk, and two lamps, all bolted to the walls. The rigidity of the furnishings troubled her—nothing could move—or leave—but she stepped into the cabin, turning to speak her opening lines, and found herself in air, half carried, half shoved onto the berth, the captain’s weight bearing her down.

“Hold!” Anne attempted to wriggle free of him, affecting her most confident laugh. “You must let me show you—” But Simms didn’t pause. He yanked away what clothes he needed to yank away and slammed into her with a ready violence that even after all these years of teasing men into impatience came as a surprise. Very well, she thought. Very well. Let him get his job done and move on so she could see to William. It took him even less time than the shipwright, but when Anne again attempted to wriggle free he pinned her again. Began again. When he finished he got up and went out without a word; Anne barely had time to pull her skirt into place when the door opened and the mate stepped in, already working his buttons.

Anne sat up. This man could not hold the power of the captain over her, this one she could manage as she’d managed two dozen others like him. “ ’Tis not free,” she said. “I’ve already paid the captain for our passage. ’Tis three shillings to you, sir.”

The mate didn’t slow. Indeed, he was already at the bed, his breeches riding down over his buttocks, ready as any man Anne had ever seen. He was big where the captain was small, amiable where the captain was fierce. He returned Anne’s smile. “And I’ve already paid the captain for
you
.”