Benjamin Franklin's Bastard (36 page)

“Her name was Maude. She was . . . she was not a royal governor’s wife. But I promise you, I was no more to her than she was to me, and she was happy enough to trade her silence for a milliner’s shop.”

“And her child? She was happy enough to trade her child?”

And there was the other question that had haunted William throughout his life. Had the woman who’d borne him ever shed a tear for him, or wondered about him, or even tried to discover if he’d grown up as she’d have hoped? This woman had chased him through every year of his life; had he ever chased her in a like way?

But Elizabeth seemed to sense what her last question might have done to William, and she answered it for him. “I know she wasn’t happy. But what choice had she? And it was her mistake too, wasn’t it? You must live with its consequence and so must she.” She paused and added, “But must the boy?”

Elizabeth. His cherished Elizabeth. She went on. “We should be able to do more for him here with us, William. Surely you must have thought of this. You must inquire.”

“You would have him here?”

“I would have him here.”

48

WILLIAM WROTE TO HIS
father. The letter was heartfelt and honest, conveying Elizabeth’s eagerness to take in William’s son, adding in William’s concerns for a father so distant in such tumultuous times. Indeed, according to the domestic and foreign papers that William perused, his father’s popularity was declining abroad in direct proportion to its rise at home. William told his father this too. Whether his arguments won the day, or whether—as William heard it rumored—his father was just barely able to escape England with his scalp, that May he came home, bearing the newly named—or renamed—Temple Franklin with him.

The timing was poor. While his father was at sea, a small skirmish at a village called Lexington in the still-troublesome colony of Massachusetts had set all the local militias out marching and drumming and fifing, but William had been too distracted by his son’s and father’s pending arrival to perhaps pay it the attention it deserved. Indeed, he was taken aback when father and grandson first stepped into the governor’s parlor and the elder Franklin stopped just inside the door, staring up at William’s full-length portraits of the king and queen.

But then Elizabeth appeared. She went up to William’s father, kissed his cheek, took his arm, and led him past the portraits toward the best chair. As soon as she had him properly settled, she turned to Temple, who stood motionless himself but still outside the parlor door, looking around at the massive staircase, the polished floors, the gleaming sconces, the lovely black-and-white mural of Passaic Falls that William had had painted. The falls were the first thing he’d fallen in love with in New Jersey, but not the last, and here, finally, was Temple to enjoy it.

“You’re so like your father I feel I know you already,” Elizabeth said. “Come in and tell me what you think of your new home.”

Temple took several slow, thoughtful steps into the parlor; he too fixed on the portraits of the king and queen in their gilt frames. “ ’Tis quite fine,” he said. “Not at all what I thought America to be.”

Elizabeth laughed. “Nor I.”

Temple brought his eyes back to Elizabeth. “But you like it here? You don’t wish to go home?”

“My husband is here. And now, my son.
This
is home. Come. Sit down. This, I think, will be
your
chair, here.”

ELIZABETH. HIS ELIZABETH. OH,
how she shined! All through dinner she refused to be disconcerted by the elder Franklin’s stiffness, by her husband’s nerves; she directed the conversation to neutral things—Temple’s London school, his interest in law, his impression of Philadelphia, of America. William had expected some hint of accusation from Temple—
why did you not think to send for me till now?
—but none came. William glanced sideways at his son as often as he could do so unobtrusively, but it was soon clear that his father had delivered to him a fine-looking, well-mannered, well-spoken boy. It was going to be all right, William thought. It was going to be fine.

And then Elizabeth headed up the stairs linked arm in arm with an exhausted Temple, leaving the other father and son pair below. William led his father from the dining room back to the parlor, where on his instruction his father’s favorite brandy had been set out, but once inside the door, faced again by the portraits, the elder Franklin paused.

“I find it curious that you choose to honor our oppressor so.”

The word
oppressor
drew William up in surprise; he hadn’t heard so strong a word out of his father’s mouth before. And that these should be amongst Benjamin Franklin’s first words to the son he hadn’t seen in ten years might have foreshadowed for William what was to come. Fool that he was, it did not.

“They only occupy their rightful place, sir. This is, after all, the royal governor’s residence.”

William’s father drew solemn eyes from the portraits to his son. “Indeed, they do occupy their rightful place. ’Tis you who do not. ’Tis time you give over this unnatural life of toadyism and become your own man.” The eyes hardened. “Past time.”

The words were not new ones, but when conveyed in a letter already months old on its arrival, the conviction must have gotten lost; the knife buried under the words in this face-to-face declaration took William as much by surprise as the word
oppressor
had. But the fact that his father could utter them standing in the royal governor’s house, paying the governor none of that which he might consider his due, rankled William as much as or more than the portraits had rankled his father. Further, that his father could expect—no, demand—that he resign a post that was his sole source of income, identity, and purpose, only to support a doomed cause, meant to William that his father had lost all sense.

William drew himself up and answered his father in the clear, concise manner of discourse he’d first learned from him. “In the past we’ve agreed that Parliament has erred, but I hope we might likewise agree that we may trust in it to correct its course and continue to govern America with more discretion and freedom than is currently enjoyed by any other nation on earth.”

William was dumbfounded when his father exploded.

“Under what hill of horse dung have you shoved your head? Parliament hasn’t enough discretion to govern a herd of swine! Resign your post! Get out now before you’re dragged out wearing a tar-and-feather coat!”

“I’ve taken an oath of allegiance to the Crown! Nothing these mad zealots do will ever induce me to swerve from the duty I owe His Majesty!”

“And what of the duty you owe your father? What of the disrespect and humiliation you heap on me by keeping this course?”

“Yes, I keep my course! I have not changed! ’Tis you and these madmen who fly about with any wind that humiliate
me,
make me assert my loyalty over and over to those who should never have cause to doubt it!”

“And your loyalty to your father goes for naught? You, of all people, would put a king who cares nothing for you or your countrymen before that?”

You, of all people. Oh, William knew what his father meant by that, as would Elizabeth, who had just then come to the door with eyes glowing wet but flashing hot at the same time. She came into the room trembling, and William was flooded with love of her and of her courage—only one who feared so could truly possess it.

Elizabeth stepped up to her father-in-law and spit out her words like bitter seeds. “Sir! I ask you to mind where you are. At the head of those stairs is a boy only a few hours arrived into his father’s home for the first time, and this is the impression he is to receive?”

William’s father fell silent. “I apologize to you for my heedlessness of the situation,” he said at last. “You are quite right to chastise me. But if I were able to shake your husband free from this place, you would thank me for it eventually. Now, as I find myself far more tired from my journey than I first seemed, I must beg leave to retire for the evening.”

FOR THE REST OF
the visit, William’s father remained at his charming best—when in the company of Temple and Elizabeth. On his final night he came to William’s library, stood square in front of his desk, and began it a second time, but with a chill that William found vastly more terrifying than the former heat.

“Is this your final word? You’ll stay at your post? You’ll continue to bow and scrape and play toady to these madmen?”

“I dispute who the madmen are, Father. If you and your friends think the most powerful monarch on earth will allow these colonies to be ripped out of his hands by an ungovernable mob, then
you
must keep hold of that title.”

“My son,” William’s father said, but only as if he was marveling at ever having claimed him as such.

William was still struggling to decide on the meaning of those two ponderous words, as well as the best way to respond to them, when his father continued. “Now we must talk about Temple.”

William relaxed. “Nothing could have gone more smoothly. He and Elizabeth get on famously. She’s remarked to me every night what a fine boy he is—well educated, well mannered, so likable. I must credit you, Father. You’ve clearly taken considerable time and trouble with the boy.”

“Yes.” A crisp sheet of paper, black with narrow, densely filled columns, floated out of the elder Franklin’s pocket and dropped onto William’s desk. “Here’s my latest accounting for Temple’s expenses while he was with me at London. You see I’ve made separate note of food, clothing, schooling, books, miscellaneous items. You should find it a handy guide going forward as you will no doubt be moderating your own lifestyle to accommodate it.”

William looked down at the paper and blinked. “Thank you, Father. I . . . I am unable at just this time . . . The legislature has again refused my request for a rise in salary, and what they allow me at present wouldn’t support a pair of oxen let alone a governor and his wife.”

“Not this particular wife, surely. And now it must support a son as well. What plans have you formed concerning his schooling?”

“I’d thought Eton—”

“So you would send him back to England. And how would you pay for a school like Eton on your governor’s salary?”

William couldn’t. Of course he’d thought of Temple’s schooling, but he’d hoped that his father would continue as he’d begun, fronting Temple’s expenses until William was in a position to repay them. Looking up at the elder Franklin now, his face so scarred with bitterness at even the mention of the words
Eton
and
England,
William was shocked by the change in him. How had they come to these opposite poles? It was just not possible that his father actually believed something good for America could be spawned by this rebellion.

But neither was it possible that his father would pay for Temple to enroll at Eton.

“Perhaps New York,” William tried, thinking of his Loyalist friends there, but apparently his father was thinking of them too. His face hardened further.

“I should like to enroll Temple in the academy.”

William looked down at the ledger on his desk, so carefully inked, with such deadly purpose. His father would enroll Temple in the academy that he had founded. In Philadelphia. The
free
academy. The money was the convenient excuse, of course; he had come here to discover how fixed William was in his Tory views, and now he was determined to get Temple away from them. But the money was the thing that would tie William’s hands. He had none. He had a wife. And a son?

“I’ve only just begun to know the boy,” William said.

“He must keep with me during the school season, of course, but he would stay with you the remainder of the summer, and return to you at the school holidays. You must think what’s best for him.”

“I must talk with Elizabeth,” William said, although both men knew the matter was done.

WILLIAM’S FATHER LEFT FOR
Philadelphia the next morning.

“I hope next time we meet events will have moderated enough to allow us a better accord,” William said at the carriage door.

“The only event that can bring us into accord is for you to resign your royal appointment and honor the father and the country to which you were born,” his father answered.

WILLIAM WROTE TO HIS
father the following week, apologizing for any disrespectful words he might have spoken, trusting that neither man would allow a difference in their politics to affect their personal relation, promising his continued gratitude to a father who had done so much for a son who could only struggle harder each day to deserve all he’d been given.

William’s father never answered his son’s letter. In August he wrote to Temple, sending him instructions and travel money to Philadelphia.

49
Philadelphia, 1776

THE PENNY POT HAD
changed; Anne had changed it. The old smoke-filled, beer-soaked main room remained, but in the back Anne had added a smaller room and filled it with cloth-covered tables, upholstered chairs, a Pennsylvania Fireplace on the hearth. Here she began to draw another kind of patron, one who wished to assemble with like-minded gentlemen for thoughtful, constructive discussion that was best kept apart from the general public. Privately, Anne called it the “Common Sense” room, after the recently published pamphlet that seemed to provoke the most conversation. She was therefore unsurprised one day when into it walked Benjamin and William Franklin.

But of course it wasn’t William. William was grown and gone, the royal governor of New Jersey, and this was a boy not older than sixteen, surely, but just as surely a Franklin by blood and manner, if not wit.

“Allow me to introduce to you the Widow Hewe,” Franklin said to the boy. “Widow, may I introduce to you my son’s godson, Temple Franklin?”

The boy dipped his head with perfect form but said nothing. Anne said nothing. William-but-not-William had cost her her own wits.

“We come for some pudding and pie. Shall we sit here by this wonderful fireplace? What clever fellow contrived that thing? I wonder. And what clever lass decided to purchase it?”