Benjamin Franklin's Bastard (34 page)

The next Anne read of Franklin he was gaining more Quaker friends and losing political ones by defending Negro education. Undaunted by the criticism, Franklin ran for his old seat in the assembly, but lost by eighteen votes in the face of a campaign against him composed of false—and true—rumor: An Indian lover. A hatred of Germans. A bastard child.

FRANKLIN SPIED ANNE AND
made straight across the tavern floor to her. “Ah, my old friend.” He caught up her hand. “Or the Widow Hewe, as the name is now?” He lifted an eyebrow.

Anne chose to ignore the eyebrow. She retrieved her hand and led Franklin to a seat by the fire. Without asking she went away and returned with a tankard of milk punch. Franklin pointed to the chair opposite, but Anne waved at the restless crowd around them. She must stay on her feet.

“I hear you leave for London on a new mission soon,” she said. “With your wife this time?”

“No.”

Anne waited, sure that the old invitation would be renewed, but it wasn’t. In fact, Franklin soon began to exhibit those signs of increased intensity, which meant he was approaching the true reason for his visit.

“What news have you of Grissom?” he asked at last. “I understand he’s widowed too.”

“Yes,” Anne said, but again nothing more, for there was little more to be said of it. At his wife’s death Anne had written Grissom a heartfelt letter of condolence, but the next time she’d passed him in the street, he’d avoided meeting her eye. For many months little was seen or heard of him, but she continued to make the occasional excuse to pass the shop, and one day was surprised to see him back in it, taking his son to task by shaking out an apparently improperly filled bolster onto the floor.

Anne returned her attention to Franklin and found him leaning forward in his seat, staring fixedly at her. “Tell me, then. Why didn’t you come with me to London? What did you get for yourself by staying behind?”

Anne circled the room with her arm. “A tavern. What do you suppose I’d have gotten if I’d gone to London with you?”

Franklin sat back, attempting to look offended. “You’d have gotten—and given—a fine old time!” He continued to gaze at her darkly, but after a while he began to laugh, and much to Anne’s surprise and his obvious delight, she laughed with him.

Franklin pointed again to the chair, and this time Anne pulled it out, sat down, and waved to the girl for another milk punch. Once they were alone again, Anne said, “Now tell me of William.”

All mirth evaporated; Franklin’s brow creased. “I could tell you a thing or two of William.” But then the brow eased. “Yes, I
could
talk to you of William.”

He began. William lived beyond his means, blaming the poor salary set by the New Jersey Assembly, declaring his extravagant lifestyle necessary for the sake of his position. He was courting the wrong friends. He was ignoring his father’s good advice as to the proper handling of his constituents. But he was also building better roads, feeding and clothing the poor, treating fairly with the Indians, banning gaol for debt.

My son, Anne thought, but didn’t say.

Never said.

45
Philadelphia, 1774

BENJAMIN HAD BEEN WISE
enough this time not to promise Deborah any three- or six-month return, and Deborah had been wise enough to refuse to allow Sally to accompany him; what would her days have been like if both Benjamin
and
Sally had gone? This second absence had now stretched far beyond the first, entering its tenth year, with no definitive word on when Benjamin might come home, and here sat Deborah, rereading his letters and looking for hints. Again. But this time as she reread the letters one after the other, she was better able to notice the steady change in tone—it was all business between them now.

I have sent six coarse diaper Breakfast Cloths; they are to spread on the Tea Table, for nobody breakfasts here on the naked Table . . .

There is also 56 Yards of Cotton printed curiously from Copper Plates, a new Invention, to make Bed and Window Curtains; these are my fancy . . .

The Oven I suppose was put up by the written Directions in my former Letter. You mention nothing of the Furnace . . .

I received the two Post Office Letters you sent me. It was not Letters of that Sort alone that I wanted; but all such as were sent to me from any one whomsoever . . .

Send me a little draft of the Lot you have bought that I may see the Dimensions, and who it joins upon. Who have you for a Tenant in the House, and what Rent do they Pay? Have you got the Carpets made? Have you mov’d everything, and put all Papers and Books in my Room, and do you keep it lock’t? As to oiling the Floors, it may be omitted till I return: which will not be till next Spring . . .

When Deborah came to the letter dated August 1765, she paused. On Benjamin went about carpenters and paint and rents, never knowing as he wrote how close he’d come to losing it all. The Stamp Act had come to America, and Benjamin, in London, had at first underestimated the violent hatred of the act at home. While riots broke out from colony to colony, he wrote making recommendations of his friends for the positions of stamp agents; it was therefore believed that he defended—or perhaps even crafted—the hateful law. Rants against Benjamin Franklin appeared in the newspapers, and a rumor flew about that his new house was to be burned to the ground, filling Deborah with rage. This was Philadelphia’s thanks for her husband’s years of service, for Deborah’s sacrifice?

William had heard the threatening talk in New Jersey and sent a carriage to fetch Deborah and Sally to the safety of the governor’s mansion; Deborah read the letter that came with the carriage and all her old resentment, long at the simmer, began to boil.

Honored Mother, This carriage will deliver you and Sally to New Jersey where you must stay in safety until this fuss over the Stamp Act blows past. There is no need of staying in town and suffering such humiliation as Father’s enemies would inflict upon us all.

Humiliation,
was it, to stay and defend her home? Deborah called it
humiliation
to run to New Jersey. But Sally, all there was left for Deborah on her home soil, Sally who at twenty-two was fast growing into the kind of companion that Benjamin might have been had he only retired at home like most sensible men—Sally must be kept safe. Deborah contrived the kind of excuse that was like as not true—William’s wife was ill and he’d asked Sally to come nurse; the girl was packed off.

Soon the warnings began to roll in in earnest; a cousin, the cousin’s brother, even a neighbor came to tell her an actual mob had formed and was approaching her home. Deborah sent the men home for weapons, and while she stationed herself with a loaded musket at the upstairs window, the men waited below behind the barricaded door. Just past dark she heard them, the catcalls and hoots like a barn full of drunken owls; next the torches came into view. Deborah got up and lit the lamp beside her; let them see who they tormented! Let them remember who her husband was and all he’d done for them and their town!

The tactic appeared to have some effect. As Deborah resumed her seat, musket held high, the mob slowed; the collective nerve seemed to fail. The catcalls grew halfhearted, several torches sputtered out and weren’t relit, the crowd began to thin at the edges, and within the half hour the street before her door was empty again. Deborah went below and handed her cousin his gun and her thanks; the men went home and Deborah went to her bed, lying down fully clothed, until her heart had returned to its normal rhythm. Then she rose and began a letter to Benjamin.

WHILE DEBORAH WAITED FOR
Benjamin’s answering letter she had time—three months—to write four more. She believed herself to be a dutiful correspondent, not only in the letters she’d sent but in the ones she hadn’t: She’d told Benjamin every detail of her handling of his business affairs but left out any mention of the angry answer from William over her refusal to come to New Jersey, of his disapproval of a young man named Richard Bache of whom Sally had grown fond. She tried to conceal from Benjamin her growing gloom, but she couldn’t answer his numerous questions about curtains without admitting her indifference to the matter; she was forced to respond to his repeated inquiries about his friends that she seldom went out anymore.

Finally, in November, Benjamin’s letter came.

I honour much the Spirit and Courage you show’d, and the prudent Preparations you made in that Time of Danger. The woman deserves a good House that is determined to defend it.

Deborah’s spirits lifted at the receipt of that letter, and again when news came that after a speech Benjamin made to Parliament arguing against the Stamp Act, it was repealed. Her spirits flagged again after an altercation with the workmen, who refused to carry on without the master of the house on hand; her mood dipped again after harsh words from William over her decision to allow Sally to marry Richard Bache; they dipped again, and again . . .

DEBORAH FLIPPED THROUGH THE
packet of letters faster, stopping only at those hints that might tell her what her future might hold.

It seems now as if I should stay here another Winter . . .

I this Morning am to set out for a Trip to Paris . . .

I shall chuse to leave England about May or June . . .

I must stay a few Weeks longer . . .

I hope to be able to return about the middle of next Month . . .

As you ask me, I can assure you, that I do really intend, God willing, to return in the Summer . . .

And here it was winter again. Deborah thrust the pile of letters aside and picked up the pen, despair and anger mixing now, taking charge of her words.

Varius air the Conjeckters of our nabors sum say you will Cume home others say not. I cante say aney thing as I am in the darke and my life of old age is one Continewd State of suspens. I muste indever to be Contente but fear I lose all my reseylushon and this verey dismall winter will be verey long.

Sally came into the room. “What, Mother, are you not ready? We must leave soon! Mr. Whorton expects us in time to dine.”

Deborah laid down her pen. “I’m ready.” She got up, fastened her shawl, and followed her daughter and her new husband outside. Ahead of her on Market Street, Deborah could see the crowd; ever since the trouble over the Stamp Act, Deborah had stayed shy of any such large gatherings and she lagged behind.

Her son-in-law tried to ease her. “ ’Tis only a whipping, Mother. Come along.”

But Deborah had never been able to stomach a whipping either, and by the time they reached Mr. Whorton’s the poor victim’s cries had brought on one of her fiercest headaches. Mr. Whorton came to the door himself to hurry them in out of the ice and cold, and Deborah found herself leaning more heavily than usual on his arm. He spoke and she didn’t hear; she tried to speak and her tongue wouldn’t move. There were people around her, more people gathering around her, but she couldn’t tell who they were. Oh, she was so tired of all of it! So tired of trying to make sense of it, of trying to be heard! That was what she thought of—her extreme tiredness—and then the blackness came down.

46

ANNE WAS PASSING BETWEEN
tables on her way to mind the fire when she heard one of her patrons speaking Deborah Franklin’s name. She slowed.

“An apoplexy,” the patron said. “She was dining at Whorton’s and they had to carry her home.”

“Dead?” a second patron asked.

“Not dead, no. I called there this morn. But she’s insensible—no speech, recognizes no one in the room.”

“And Franklin in London yet.”

“Of course he can’t say he wasn’t warned. ’Tisn’t her first, and the doctor wrote him after the last, hinting that if he wanted to see his wife again he’d best come home.”

“Well, he didn’t come home.”

“But the daughter’s with her. And the son’s come racing over from New Jersey. She’s not alone.”

Anne moved on with her work, fumbling tankards, forgetting names, mindless of all but those overheard words.
The son’s come . . .
Three streets away he was. Now. It was no place for Anne to be, of course—under normal conditions she wouldn’t be welcome—but if this report was true and the woman wouldn’t recognize her, and as the son never had, what could be the harm? But what the gain? None, except to see him, perhaps for the last time. Reports from New Jersey had been sparse, but on the whole, complimentary, even after the bloody stamp crisis. William had taken a circumspect course by refusing to either attack or defend the act, thus avoiding much of the turmoil engulfing a number of the other American colonies, but when Boston emptied three shiploads of tea into Boston Harbor, William supported the royal line, that Boston must pay for the tea; until they did, British warships would blockade Boston’s harbor. Philadelphia, and apparently the main of her sister colonies, responded by sending food and fuel overland to the beleaguered Bostonians as fast as they could load and dispatch their oxcarts, and the day Anne heard that bit of news, a steady pressure developed behind her eyes. A line was being drawn, and William appeared to be positioning himself on the other side of it—the king’s side; how would such a line ever be crossed? William’s father, according to the chatter at the Penny Pot, despite some early wavering, was now firmly with the Bostonians. The line became a trench, dug deeper with each new issue of the
Gazette
. The pressure behind Anne’s eyes grew.
Would
she ever see her son again? And then he arrived in Philadelphia to attend his stepmother’s illness and for the second time Anne found herself walking the streets toward the Franklin home, uninvited, unwanted, undaunted. She must see her son.

A FANCY ARCHWAY MARKED
the entrance to the courtyard where Deborah Franklin now lived, and back on Market Street, Anne walked through it just as brazenly as she’d once walked through the print shop door. She approached the house and knocked. The servant who opened the door was not Min, the older woman no doubt long dead and unremarked; this one accepted her pronouncement, “Widow Hewe. Come to call on Mrs. Franklin,” without question and waved her in.