by Sally Cabot
All the heat left Anne’s extremities. This was why Franklin had come up to her chamber—to tell her she must go. She clawed through every argument against and began to spew them out. “ ’Tis no madness, sir; you’re right to fear what your wife might do. She’s not balanced in her mind. I’m here to keep our son healthy and unharmed. While I do it I’m bringing some comfort to your wife. If she were to discover me suddenly gone . . . If she were to learn by some mischance of my relation—”
But Franklin cut her off. “No, my dear. That trick won’t work anymore. You might not flinch at causing my wife and me some trouble, but I’ve seen you with William now, and I know you would never do anything that might cause him shame.”
“Perhaps not. But think of the greater damage to all were Deborah to discover you in this chamber.”
“You needn’t fear that, I promise you. Anyone in such a laudanum daze doesn’t go about climbing stairs.”
“Sir, I’m heartily sorry for your poor dead boy—indeed, I could hardly be more brokenhearted were he my own, but you must—”
It was as if she’d jostled a tankard of ale. The tears began to course down Franklin’s face, winking gold in the candlelight before disappearing into the shadow beneath his jaw. “My poor dead boy,” he said. “My poor, poor boy.” The candle in his hand wobbled and tilted dangerously, casting shadows like disturbed ghosts against the walls. Anne leaped out of bed and took the candle from Franklin’s hand, setting it on the floor, attempting to steady him with a hand beneath his elbow; he felt as fragile as a piece of dry straw. She led him to the bed and sat him down.
“I beg you to forgive me,” he said. “But ’tis an odd thing, is it not? That you alone of all my acquaintance can best understand exactly what it is I suffer? The one boy dead, the other . . . the other—”
“The other is a fine boy. He’s committed no sin. Don’t allow your wife to make him carry ours. But he’s like any other boy, sir—in want of his father’s regular attention.” Anne stressed the word regular but the word Franklin heard was another.
“Our sin! You would call it ours? No, my dear, you were no whore, at least you weren’t till I got through with you. ’Tis my sin alone.” Franklin dashed a hand at his wet face and pulled himself free of her grip. “I have tried to make it right. You must grant me that. I’ve tried to make it right for all. And what is the result? The four of us here together. I thought to myself, I’ve mastered my old passions; I’m able to manage this, such an old tale needn’t be retold. And then you lay down on my parlor floor.”
He is mad, Anne thought. And perhaps ill. He attempted to stand and staggered. “I seem to have lost my knees,” he said. “Entirely fitting that I crawl about upon them, I know, but just the same, it makes for something of a difficulty when it comes to those stairs.” He barked out a laugh. “Perhaps I should give over my wine and take up Debby’s laudanum.”
Anne took his elbow again. “Here. Rest a minute.”
Franklin sat down on the bed again and leaned forward, head in hands.
“I seem to have lost all my strength just when everyone needs it most,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m to do for any of us now.”
He was trembling. Anne stood, looking down at the top of the soft, fair hair that had left so clear a mark on her son. The boy and the man were one the part of the other, and he’d never denied it, had, indeed, tried to right it, taking on considerable trouble to himself in the righting. Anne thought of husband and wife alone in their separate beds and wondered what on God’s earth she might possibly do to help them—how the pair would comfort each other with their touch, if they could only find their way there! How Franklin needed that touch! And right then all the pity for Franklin that Anne hadn’t managed to conjure up in the past began to run over her like warm oil. She sat down beside Franklin and peeled away the nearest hand that still covered his face; the fingers were as cold as an unlit stove. She took the hand between hers and rubbed it, then took up the other. He drew his hands out from hers and lifted them, cupping her face. “My Annie,” he said. “My sweet Annie. Can you know how I delighted in climbing those stairs with you at the Penny Pot? Can you know what utter joy and comfort it was?”
Comfort. That he would use the word Anne had just pondered seemed significant to her—that they would come to the same place at the same moment; so large a word in one sense, but also so small a one, requiring so small a thing. Anne leaned forward and touched her lips to Franklin’s forehead as a mother might kiss a despairing child, or a whore might kiss an old and favored customer long after the whoring had stopped. And then she kissed him again, as the whore would.
Franklin pulled back, looked at her. “Here’s the truth of it, Annie. I am, by nature, a monogamous creature. I am not, by nature, a celibate one.” He smiled as bitter a smile as Anne had ever seen in him. “How fortunate that Man is possessed of reason; he may reason his way into everything he yearns to do.” He reached for her but she slid away, rose and shut the door, collected the candle and moved it beside the bed. She pushed him down onto the bed tick, loosened the drawstring on her shift. She was concerned about the drink in him, but he rose to meet her as of old, only this time it wouldn’t be as it was of old, this time she would be the one who said when and where and how.
FRANKLIN DIDN’T CLIMB THE stairs to Anne’s room for another week. Anne knew something more of the man now, and could watch the old battle between his monogamous self and his non-celibate self rage; indeed, she happened to witness the exact moment when the monogamous self lost. One morning in the kitchen Deborah shrugged out from under his hand, as had become her way, and Franklin looked across the table at Anne and caught her eye as if to say, You see, I’ve tried; now I give myself over to you. Anne would admit to a kind of thrill shooting through her as she met and read that look—Benjamin Franklin, hers. But soon enough the fact of the thing bore down on her. Anne could never claim Franklin as Deborah had claimed him, but it didn’t matter; she only needed the piece of him that kept him climbing the stairs to her room. At first Anne had feared that was the piece that would get her cast out of the house, but now she saw that it was the very piece that would keep her here, near William. She was not the Anne of the Penny Pot days. She could now do all the things that she’d learned to do so well, old for her but new for Franklin, and she could read the same fresh delight in his body as easily as she used to read it in his eyes. The Franklin that Anne now eased above stairs was not about to send her away anytime soon.
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 laughe
d 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.