For the next two days I did not see Nathaniel at all. I moped in my chamber; I went over some last-minute changes in poems sent to me by the printer for that purpose. I turned down two invitations. And I cried.
Two or three times I heard his footsteps in the hall as he passed my door on his way out. Once those footsteps paused and I held my breath. But there was no knock. He went on. I ran to the window to see him getting into his carriage and then being driven away. To some assignation with Mary Enderby, I supposed.
Likely, I would have perished if Benjamin Franklin hadn’t come to call the day after that. It was dismal and raining. All of London seemed to be weeping for me.
Midmorning, Maria brought a note from Nathaniel summoning me to his apartment. My heart pounded. He has forgiven me. I rushed down the hall and knocked on his door.
His footman ushered me down another hall to Nathaniel’s bedroom and study.
He was in a dressing gown, writing at a desk in front of the hearth, where a low fire burned. He did not look up.
“Mr. Franklin has come to call on you. He is in my parlor. I wish you to extend my regrets.”
Something was amiss. Benjamin Franklin was colonial agent for Pennsylvania and a very important personage. He was in demand in all the high-placed salons, at political gatherings, and at country estates on weekends.
“You mean you haven’t received him?”
“No. Surely you can negotiate that now, can’t you?”
He had not forgiven me, then.
“But—”
“Yes?”
“What will he think?”
“Mr. Franklin will think what he wishes to think. Thus far, not George the Third, Parliament, nor Lord North have been able to influence him. I certainly can’t expect to with my meager talents.”
“For you not to come with me is a slight to me. But more so to him, Nathaniel.”
“I hardly think it will affect the constitutional relationship of the colonies to the mother country,” he said. Then he bent his head to his work.
I left the room hearing Prince’s voice. If Benjamin Franklin calls on you over there, you see him, Phillis. Even if Mr. Nathaniel doesn’t like it. Promise.
Mr. Franklin stood as I entered Nathaniel’s parlor. He smiled as I curtsied, and he took my hand and kissed it.
“The little black poetess,” he said.
“You honor me with your visit, sir.”
“And where is your protector?”
“He begs your forgiveness, sir. But he is tied up with matters of business.”
He sat down heavily. “Americans always are. In England I am deemed too much an American. And in America too much an Englishman. I sometimes think I belong nowhere.”
“I can appreciate the feeling, sir.”
He took my measure. “I can only ponder on your dilemma. Toasted here in London, and at home in bondage.”
“My people are good to me, sir.”
“So am I good to my slaves.”
I was pouring his tea and near dropped his cup. “You have slaves?”
“Yes. Though my wife cares for them as if they were her own children. And she has helped me become uneasy about holding them in bondage. She visited a school for Negroes in Philadelphia and sent one of our servants to the school. He is doing admirably.”
I nodded.
“Slavery is senseless,” he went on. “It drains the economy more than it replenishes it. However, I came late to condemning it as a moral evil.”
“You attacked it as an outrage against humanity in the Chronicle,” I said.
“Ah, someone has seen to the finer points of your education. Always mention something flattering about a visitor.”
“I need not flatter you, Mr. Franklin.”
He nodded and sipped his tea.
Now I heard Scipio’s voice. When you get to England, you breathe some of that pure air. And you get yourself free. Sooner or later someone will tell you how. You’ll see.
That person was sitting here now in front of me.
Prince had all but told me when he said Nathaniel did not like Franklin. Scipio had all but told me in his tale of the slave Somerset.
I held my breath and waited. I made small talk. “Do you miss America?” I asked.
“I have violent longings for home, which I cannot subdue but by promising myself a return next spring or fall.”
“But you have many good friends here.”
“Yet I am fearful that some infirmity of age may attack me before I get the opportunity to return home.”
A quiet moment passed between us. He smiled and my spirit quickened to some gentleness in him, some benevolent concern.
“I love the English summer,” he went on. “Parliament has adjourned and left me free to wander. I spend long weekends on country estates. Lord Dartmouth invites me often. He is a good man and sincerely wishes a true understanding with the colonies. But he does not seem to have strength equal to his wishes.”
“Nor do any of us,” I said.
He set his teacup down. “What do you wish, child?”
Tears came to my eyes. “To be free,” I said.
He was not surprised. “Do you know that you are free here in England? By virtue of simply setting foot on its soil?”
“Is that what you have come to tell me?”
“I felt it my bounded duty. I speak of Judge Mansfield’s decision.”
“I have heard tell of it.”
“Who told you?”
“A Negro friend back in Boston. But I would not know how to secure this freedom. I am dependent upon Master Nathaniel. I cannot move a step to the right or the left except by his leave and under his protection.”
“Fetch me paper and quill,” he said.
I did so, quickly. There had been a whispered urgency in his voice.
Quickly he scratched something on paper, folded and handed it to me. “This is the address of my house on Craven Street. I board there, but Mrs. Stevenson allows me to think of it as my own. If . . .” He paused. “. . . When you are ready to announce to your master that you wish to take your freedom, send a note around to me. Mrs. Stevenson will always receive you and attend to you if I am away.”
I took the folded paper and thanked him.
“I have a niece, Sally, living with me. She is from the English side of my family and nineteen. And I have seen to the education of my grandson, William. He is twelve. He goes to school in Kensington. I shall be happy to avail myself to you in any way that I can.”
“Oh, thank you, sir!”
He got up and waved away my thanks. “I come late to speaking out against the evils of slavery,” he said.
Then he was gone.
Sooner or later someone will tell you how, I heard Scipio say, you’ll see.
“Is that what you truly want, Phillis? Are you sure of it, then?” Nathaniel’s face was ashen as he turned from his desk to look up at me.
“Yes,” I said.
Sighing heavily, he tossed aside the letter he was reading and for one long and dreadful moment said nothing.
I waited, expecting the ax to fall. It had taken me full two weeks to approach him and tell him I had decided to take the freedom that was mine simply for the taking. Those two weeks were not without anguish.
It seems I hadn’t slept in all that time, but lain awake listening to the carriages rumbling along on the street outside. I had much to ponder.
Nor had I taken sufficient nourishment. Maria had threatened to tell Nathaniel I wasn’t finishing my meals.
“Clear the air for me, Phillis,” he said, sounding bored. “Are you telling me you wish to stay here? And not return home? To my parents who have done so much for you?”
“I have pondered it,” I said.
“And?”
“The thought of not seeing them again has sore afflicted me. I would have you write and ask them to free me when I return home.”
“And? If they refuse? Then you will stay here? And consider yourself free? Simply by virtue of breathing the pure air of England?”
His sarcasm cut me. I said nothing.
“So, then, this letter of mine carries not only a request. But a threat.”
“No threat is intended, Nathaniel.”
“Well, well.” He gave a short laugh. “The little black poetess has been doing more than receiving accolades here in London. She has been plotting, is that it?”
“I have not been plotting, Nathaniel. Just thinking.”
“Not alone, though, I take it. Surely someone has been tutoring you in your rights. Do you care to tell me who that someone was?”
I bowed my head and kept my silence.
“It was Franklin, wasn’t it? I smelled a rat the day he came to call. Damned upstart Franklin. He does more harm than good. Disgusting old man. Isn’t he content with meddling in politics? And bringing us to the brink of separation with the Crown? Must he meddle in personal lives, too?”
I raised my head. “Nathaniel, I knew about Judge Mansfield’s Somerset decision before I came to England,” I said softly.
His eyes narrowed. “Yes, but Franklin must have cleared the path for you. What has he done, offered you asylum?”
I shook my head no.
“Don’t flummox me. What would you do if I gave you leave to go this day? Where would you go?”
I felt a shiver of fear. “This day?”
“Ah. Not prepared for that, are you? Freedom is a juicy morsel to contemplate. But it makes for meager fare on the plate and cannot sustain you.”
“I would make my way,” I said with dignity.
“There’s no profit in pride, Phillis.” He got up and began to pace. “You can’t eat it when you’re starving. It will not warm you when the winds blow cold.”
“I can live from the proceeds of my poetry. You always said I would someday be free by the fruits of my pen.”
“I see.” He went to look out the window. “You can live from your poetry here. But not at home. They will still not accept you at home.”
“I shall manage.”
“In Boston as a free woman, you’ll not be wearing any fancy frocks such as the one you have on now.”
“I seek things more suitable to the immortal mind.”
“How laudable. I have underestimated you. You pretend to be amiable and demure, but you are an independent, ungrateful little baggage.”
I said nothing.
“Why do I get the feeling you are doing this to punish me because I am marrying Mary Enderby?”
I faced his back. “You do underestimate me, Nathaniel.”
He turned from the window. “Regardless of your reasons, it will come to ill, this freedom of yours. Mark this day that I have said it. You play with fire. You and the colonies.”
“The colonies?” I gaped. “You liken me to the colonies?”
“Yes.”
“All thirteen? Or just one?”
“Don’t be saucy. You think I haven’t minded all the metaphors of iron chains in your poetry? And wanton tyranny? Boston is a hotbed of sedition. Living there has addled your brain.”
“My brain has never been clearer, Nathaniel.”
“Yes, well then, you will understand when I say that I cannot predict the outcome of this freedom with the colonies. But I can with you. It will be the death of you, Phillis. Your ruination.”
I felt a knell in my bones.
“Nevertheless, it is my place neither to give it nor to refuse it It is the place of my parents.”
“Then you will write in my behalf?”
“I shall pen Father a letter this day and mail it. Or would you prefer to take it to him yourself when you sail on the twenty-sixth?”
I gasped. “We’re leaving? But we haven’t seen the countess yet. And I am to be presented to the king and queen as soon as the Court of Saint James reopens with the new season.”
“You are leaving, not I.” He sat down and began to write.
I felt something ominous in the air.
He finished with a flourish. “George the Third and Queen Charlotte will have to muddle through somehow without meeting you. My mother is ailing. I had a letter on the seventeenth. She requests you home. Unless you wish to stay until my father sends your free papers. In that case you will not see my mother again. I strongly suspect that she is dying.”