Benjamin Franklin's Bastard (38 page)

But now William must write something worse. Far worse. But what choice did he have? How else to keep the only accomplishment that could not—it could
not
—be credited to his father—this governorship? How to keep his
life
? William wished only to go on as they’d gone on before; it was his father who wished to change it all, ruin it all, cast William into obscurity for all time as the “great inconvenience,” the “base-born brat,” to elevate himself as “the great genius of the day,” as he was already being called in the newspapers.

William got out of bed, relit his lamp from the fire, returned to his library, and sat at his desk. He drew the blank piece of paper toward him again and began to write.

It has come to my attention that a secret delegation moves northward through New Jersey with plans to prevail on the Canadians to enter into the confederacy with the other colonies. The delegation consists of: Samuel Chase, Charles Carroll, John Carroll and

There William stopped. He could not. But he could not not.

William set down his pen, covered his letter with his arms, dropped his head onto his arms, and wept.

51
Philadelphia, 1776

THE BOY CAME BACK,
without his grandfather but with a girl, one who’d served at the Penny Pot for barely a month before she’d run away with a deserter off one of the ships. Anne had seen this girl about town since, showing some wear but still shining bright enough to latch on to the occasional man for a month or two before casting him off in the face of a better offer. But Temple Franklin? What kind of offer could a boy his age make to such a girl?

The same old one, as it turned out. They ate a platter of bread and cheese and drank a bottle of wine while Anne took note of Temple Franklin’s long, slender fingers, his long, delicate nose. Just as Temple’s father had grown to be handsomer and taller than his father, so Temple had grown to outshine them both in looks, and both the younger Franklins seemed to have captured at least a measure of the elder’s charm; Anne watched the way Temple leaned into the girl and whispered, then drew back and smiled, then leaned in again and whispered. The girl laughed, shook her head, laughed again, and then Anne saw it, the glint of silver passing from boy to girl, the girl’s hand opening and closing and opening, looking from the coin to Temple Franklin and back again, as if to determine which shone brighter, or whether, if added together, the shine would grow bright enough.

Temple stood up and walked toward Anne where she lingered yet, at the foot of the stairs. He smiled at her as another had smiled at her, as sure of the result as the other had been. “How much for a bed?”

“Full up,” Anne said.

The boy gave a sheepish grin and shrugged, perhaps his most charming performance yet, and would have turned away, but Anne caught his arm.

“Perhaps your grandfather never mentioned to you that I used to care for your father when he was young.”

“No! He made no mention!”

“How fares your father?”

The boy’s face, so open the moment before, took on a wary look. “He writes he is well.”

“And you answer his letter as fast as all dutiful sons do, which is to say never quite fast enough?”

The boy smiled again, familiar again. “Next you’ll tell me to go home now and write my letter.”

Anne looked behind Temple; the girl had gone, taking Temple’s coin with her, as Anne had hoped she would do—nothing like receiving a cheap lesson while still young. And oh, this boy was so young! He was William in those years when Anne could discover all that was new in him only glimpse by glimpse; William when he ran away to be a pirate, William when he turned to soldiering and she fretted over his fate as his father never seemed to do.

“You’ll find your own time for your letter,” Anne said. “Come and join me for a plate of mutton stew and we’ll talk of your father.”

But again, the face turned wary. Had his father or his grandfather warned him of talking of the family to strangers? “I thank you for the kind offer,” he said, “but indeed, I must go.” He picked up her hand and bowed over it.

52
Perth Amboy, 1776

WILLIAM’S FATHER HAD ONCE
taught his son a method he used when addressing any difficult decision—“prudential algebra,” he called it—a listing of the pros and cons of the case, canceling one against another of equal weight until only one option was left. With something like hope William set aside his half-written dispatch and pulled a fresh sheet of paper from his desk. He labeled the left side pro, the right side con, and sat considering the matters that might be worthy of a list with such deadly intent. Any such columns of his father’s would no doubt be filled with world affairs and discoveries that would shatter long-held suppositions and beliefs—William hadn’t a prayer or an intention of competing with that; let the son’s list read like the boy’s it was, for there in the boy he was stuck.

Pirate,
William wrote under pro, and
Alexander Annard’s Classical Academy,
but before he could name a third thing his pen had already traveled across the page to the right. Across from
Pirate
he wrote
Privateer,
and drew a line through both, the one canceling the other out. And what of
Annard’s
? Had not his father listened to his stepmother, pulled him out, and returned him to the hated printing office? Across from
Annard’s
William wrote
Printing Office
and lined that pair of entries out. But he returned to the pro column and quickly, before he could drift over to the right side of the page, he wrote
King’s Army, Law Studies with Joseph Galloway, Inns of Court, London, London, London,
set down his pen, and sat back in his seat.

For what came next was Elizabeth, the royal appointment, the royal oath. William had become who he’d become, and in the end, prudential algebra couldn’t solve that. For William, now, there was no choice. He was who he was. He picked up the columned sheet and tore it down the middle, tore it again, crumpled it. He pulled into place the letter he’d begun so many hours ago and read what he’d written thus far:

It has come to my attention that a secret delegation moves northward through New Jersey with plans to prevail on the Canadians to enter into the confederacy with the other colonies. The delegation consists of: Samuel Chase, Charles Carroll, John Carroll and

William picked up his pen, inked it, and carefully etched the last name into the paper:
Dr. Franklin
.

THE FIRST REAL THUNDERCLOUDS
rolled toward William at the beginning of June, when a new, illegal Provincial Congress was formed, William’s own legitimate assembly declared void, and his salary stopped. The storm broke on June nineteenth at two in the morning, when someone began to pound violently against the thick doors of Proprietary House.

William was sitting at the small desk in his bedchamber writing a letter to his son, Temple, unwilling to leave Elizabeth to do his usual work in the library because of the increasingly poor state of her health. William began by confirming plans for the boy’s summer visit, and continued by inquiring after the health of Sally and her family. He paused. Went on.
How fares the old man after his Canada travels? Was his health greatly impaired? Nothing ever gave me more pain than his undertaking that journey.
Just remembering that pain had caused William to set the pen down, just as the pounding on the door commenced.

Elizabeth sat up in bed. “William! What is it? Who knocks at this hour?” But William was already at the window. A half-moon lit what was on most days an impeccably manicured lawn, but on this night fifty mounted and armed militiamen were churning it to mud.

“Nothing, my love. One of my father’s overly dedicated mail couriers. You know what they say of them—ride all night without a stop for a cup. Go back to sleep.” William crossed to the bed and kissed his wife’s forehead, already clammy, but he couldn’t afford her a second more.

He left the room and met his servant Hamilton at the top of the stairs, as white or whiter than Elizabeth.

“ ’Tis the rebel militia, sir! Come with an order from—”

“Shut your mouth,” William hissed. “Alarm her and you’ll be mucking out the stable.”

As William stepped off the last stair and saw the militiaman standing in the foyer, it gave him pause to consider how swiftly he’d chosen to blame a mail carrier—and indirectly, his father—for the early-hour disturbance, but he took care not to let any hint of that old bitterness reach his face for fear the obviously nervous militiaman at the foot of the stairs might find some courage in it.

William greeted the man by pointing to the dispatch he held in his hand, acknowledging neither his illegal rank nor his right to be standing in the royal governor’s house. The militiaman stepped forward and handed William the sealed and folded parchment. “From Colonel Sirling, First New Jersey Regiment.”

First New Jersey
rebel
regiment. William Franklin, who’d kissed the ring of King George himself, who was an appointed officer of the British Crown, William Franklin was to have his wife’s peace disturbed by this? William broke the seal on the document in disgust, read in disbelief. One of his couriers had been intercepted carrying “a treasonous letter” to the Crown, and William had been declared “an enemy to the liberties of this country.” Colonel Sirling had ordered William’s arrest, and he was to be transported to Burlington, to await the “will and pleasure of the Continental Congress.”

The will and pleasure of the Continental Congress
. Good God, that it had come to this! That one of the king’s own royal governors must sit and wait on the whim of an illegal mob that dared to call itself a congress! It could only be considered proof of a world gone mad, proof that all William was and all he stood for was now to be tested to the utter limit. It was proof—and there it took William some time to even spell out the thought in his head—it was proof that the rift between William Franklin and his father, who now sat on the Continental Congress, was complete.

William worked to keep any hint of his mental disarray from his face, to focus on the document. He read it again, so enraged that the black letters turned red and wavered on the page; he waited till his vision cleared and read it a third time; this time he saw that he needed to swallow what he needed to swallow until he was able to marshal some support. He was not, after all, friendless.

“You will allow me to inform my wife?” Without waiting for an answer he turned for the stairs, making sure to take each one with an even, measured tread. They would not see him run. Not yet!

Elizabeth was at the window, gripping the sill, leaning forward as if to peer out, but William had long experience in identifying the nuances of posture and knew that she also leaned so in an effort to capture her fleeting breath.

“Soldiers, William!”

“Yes, my love.” William had already gone to his desk in the corner and begun to write furiously. “And I must go with them until the court clears the matter up, and so I must get this letter off at once to the chief justice. I promise you, it shall be resolved and I shall be back home almost before it’s been dispatched.”

“But, William! At night!”

“Hush, Elizabeth. Keep your breath.” William finished his letter to the chief justice. He grabbed another sheet and began to write, this one for the press, for his people.

To be represented as an enemy to the liberties of my country merely for doing my duty to their future happiness and safety is sufficient to rouse the indignation of any man not dead to human feelings. I appeal to every individual in the province to vouch for me. Let me exhort you to avoid, above all things, the traps of independency and republicanism now set before you, however tempting they may be baited. No independent state ever was, or ever can be, so happy as we have been, and still might be, under the present government . . .

He sealed and addressed both papers, went to the landing where the other servants were hovering, and handed Hamilton the pair of envelopes, peppering him with instructions he’d no doubt forget by the time he reached the stairs. He returned to Elizabeth, folded her into his arms, began the circles against her back.

“I do not—”

“Hush, now. Hush.”

Elizabeth fell silent, but the breath came no easier under his hand; it didn’t matter, he couldn’t wait. Already, here came the steps on the stairs, and he would not allow them to upset Elizabeth by arresting him in her presence. His Elizabeth. Dear God, what was to become of Elizabeth? But as he tore down the stairs that question had already become supplanted with another: Had his father, from his seat on the congress, sanctioned this illegal act, or had he stood as a lone dissenting voice of reason amid a pack of rabid wolves howling for the arrest of the only American-born governor on the continent?

William reached the bottom of the stairs just as sixteen soldiers with guns and bayonets drawn charged through the doors, but down the stairs behind him hurtled Elizabeth.

“William! Dear God in heaven! What do they do to you?”

“You mustn’t fret, love. ’Tis all show. They won’t dare harm an officer of the Crown.”

“But, William, tell me, what shall I do? Shall I send word to your father?”

“Yes, write to my father,” William answered, but only to ease her, for of course his father already knew of it.

53

THE JOURNEY TO BURLINGTON,
to the seat of the Provincial Congress, was long, exhausting, and mortifying; William was paraded under guard past the laughing, spitting crowds of farmers and shopkeepers who’d once cheered his arrival in a colony he’d done nothing but better. The Brunswick inn where they stopped for the night only heaped more humiliation on William; he was confined to a filthy room and so rigidly guarded he was forced to relieve himself into a bucket in public view. At daylight he was kicked awake and without food or drink thrust back into the carriage and delivered to another filthy inn at Burlington.