Free Benjamin Franklin's Bastard by Sally Cabot Page B

“He’s full weaned. He takes a pap of bread and water but it should be milk, now we’re to the season for it. He likes the air but wants good blanketing.” She went to the table and picked up the freshly laundered clothes, but Franklin said, “We’ll not be needing them.”
    Anne looked down at the stains that would never come clean in the wash, the frayed corners from so many washings. Of course; the Franklins would have better ready. But Anne had something better ready too. She took the scarf from her shoulder and handed it across. “Keep it by him. ’Twas his grandfather’s.”
    Franklin took the scarf and tucked it into his pocket with care; he took the infant and cradled him against his waistcoat. Again, he opened his mouth to speak, but again Anne shook her head. “Go,” she said.
    He did so. And she hated him—oh, how she hated him—for it.

11
    DEBORAH FRANKLIN HAD SAID yes . She reminded herself of this over and over again through the next few days. It was done. She’d said yes. At the time she’d imagined that the first conversation with Benjamin, the agonized decision that resulted from it, must be the hardest part of it; indeed, it had been easy enough to hem clouts and shifts, to send Benjamin out for a sturdier cradle than the one he’d first purchased, but she hadn’t anticipated the great upheaval that would then take place inside her head. Most often the questions came when they lay together in the dark, after they’d pleased each other and just before Benjamin had drifted off to sleep; Deborah hadn’t slept in a fortnight.
    “Who knows of this infant?” she asked.
    “No one but Grissom.”
    “Grissom!”
    “It was necessary to enlist him. I didn’t like to get any more acquainted than I was.”
    Deborah could find little to argue with on that point, but she couldn’t hold the main question back. “Who is she, Benjamin?”
    “No one, Debby. You may guess the sort. No one who knows us could know her or know a thing about this birth, I promise you that.”
    “And what are those who know us going to think when a child suddenly appears in our house?”
    “They may think as they like.”
    “ ‘There goes Benjamin Franklin’s bastard and that fool woman who agreed to take it up!’ Or perhaps they’ll think another thing and say, ‘Well then, that explains that so-called marriage!’ ”
    “Not within my hearing, or they’ll be sorry for it. Do you forget that I’m now the editor of the Gazette ? You must get your chin up, Debby, for his sake. You do, and I promise you, in another six months, any questions regarding this boy’s sudden arrival will be long forgot.” There Benjamin pulled her close and began to comb her hair with his fingers, a thing Deborah particularly liked—the firm but gentle working of his fingers against her scalp, the soft tug at the roots—and she found herself disinclined to raise any more questions, voice any more doubts. That didn’t mean that she believed all that Benjamin said—she rather believed that questions surrounding the editor of the Gazette might live on longer than they might if the man were, say, a chimney sweep—but only time could prove either case.
    Later, however, after Benjamin had left off playing with her hair and gone to sleep, Deborah discovered that she felt even more unsettled about the idea of this boy than she had before she’d brought the subject up. She followed the thread of unease backward through all the soothing words and then forward again till she landed on the sore spot—Benjamin had said that she was to get her chin up for the boy’s sake . Was all to be for the boy’s sake now? Was Deborah’s interest never to figure in it? Deborah pushed the thought away. Benjamin believed her heart large enough to hold him and this boy-not-her-son in it; she must believe his heart at least as large as that, large enough for a son and a not-his-wife.
     
    LATER YET, ANOTHER QUESTION occurred to Deborah. “When this