A clattering sound drew Creighton to the pantry, where he found Sophie scrubbing her hands in a basin. Still smarting from the drubbing he’d received at cards, he snapped, “Where have you been?”
Sophie glanced up in surprise. “What gives you the right to ask?” she demanded, forgetting for the moment all about humility. She took a deep breath and, with obvious effort, offered a more demure reply. “I was in the printing shop. Was there something you wanted?”
“A drink—of something besides water.”
“I am very sorry, but the doctor does not approve of”—she hesitated, searching for the proper term—“strong beverages.”
Creighton stared at her. “Just what does he consider a ‘strong beverage’?”
“Anything besides water, I am afraid.”
Creighton shook his head in disgust. “Peter says he’s considered a genius; if you ask me, he’s simply daft.”
Sophie frowned. “I do not know this word.”
“Crackbrained.” Creighton twirled a finger alongside his head. “Fou.”
She gave him a contemptuous look and went back to scrubbing her ink-stained hands. “If you think that, then you are the one who is daff-ed.”
“Oh? What would you call someone who receives visitors with nothing on but a nightcap?”
A snicker escaped her. “Do you mean that Dr. Franklin was the one with nothing on? Or the visitor?”
Creighton gave a grudging laugh. “Dr. Franklin, of course. Did you know he does that?”
“Well . . .” She snickered again. “I have never actually seen him do it. I am not permitted in his chambers, except to serve food or refreshments, or to clean. But I do know that he considers it important to . . . comment dit-on? . . . to allow the body to breathe.”
“Hmm. I find I’ve always been able to breathe well enough with all my clothing on.”
Sophie responded not with a snicker but with a full-fledged peal of laughter so engaging and uninhibited, so totally lacking in humilité, that Creighton couldn’t help being caught up in it. Then Sophie seemed to recall all at once her distaste for the English. Her laughter died away; she turned her back to him and set about preparing a pot of tea.
“Tea doesn’t qualify as a ‘strong beverage,’ in Dr. Franklin’s opinion?” Creighton asked.
“Actually, this is for me.” All trace of warmth was gone from her voice, but as though determined to give tolerance another try, she asked, “Would you like a cup?”
“Yes,” he said, and considered adding thank you, but couldn’t get it out.
“I will be back in a moment.” She slipped out the back door and returned bearing a steaming cast-iron teakettle. “The summer kitchen is out there,” she explained, indicating the direction with a tilt of her head, “in a separate building.” As she filled the teapot with hot water, she said, “I believe Dr. Franklin’s objection to tea is not a matter of health, but of principle.”
“Oh, yes. I forgot.” Creighton sighed and shook his head. “The tea tax and the Boston Tea Party happened years ago. I can’t believe the Yankeys are still harboring a grudge.”
Sophie gave him a severe glance. “Some injustices are difficult to forget,” she said, and something in her tone told Creighton that she was not speaking of taxes on tea.
They lapsed into a silence so awkward that Creighton was almost glad when Dr. Franklin appeared in the kitchen doorway. To Creighton’s relief, the old man was fully dressed, lacking only a coat. Despite the warmth of the day, he wore a curious round hat made of fur. Though a long fringe of white hair emerged from beneath the hat, Creighton suspected that the crown of Franklin’s head was bald, and that the old man was vain about it. He was tempted to ask why it wasn’t important for the top of the head to breathe.
Franklin gave Sophie a fatherly kiss on the forehead, then turned to beam at Creighton, rubbing his hands together as though in anticipation. “Ready to go to work?”
Sophie looked startled. “You are not putting him to work in the printing shop?”
“I am.” Franklin reached down and squeezed Creighton’s upper arm with a grip that was surprisingly strong for a man with gouty hands. “We have use for both his brawn and his brain.” Though Creighton resented this familiarity, he was grateful, at least, that the doctor had been tactful enough not to mention the humiliating card game.
Sophie’s brown eyes blinked rapidly, as though she were warding off tears. “We have done well enough until now without any help.”
“Only because I’ve overworked you shamefully. Besides, these old arms are getting too weak to sling forms full of types about.” He patted her hand gently and whispered, “Don’t worry, my dear. It will work out fine; you’ll see.” Franklin ushered them outside and then followed, walking with a pronounced limp and wincing a little with each step. “The infernal gout is worse today,” he said. “I tried administering electric shock to the area, but it gave only a temporary respite from the pain.”
The printing shop lay a dozen yards behind the main house. It was a squat, ugly structure made of hewn logs. “This was once used to house slaves,” Franklin said. Creighton muttered to himself that its purpose had not changed much, but the old man either did not hear the comment or chose to ignore it. Sophie heard, though, and cast Creighton an unpleasant glance.
Most of the building was now occupied by two items. One was a long, low table whose surface was covered with a sheet of iron. At one end of it was a huge stack of blank paper; along the back of the table was a row of wooden bins, each containing dozens of small squares of gray metal. When Creighton looked more closely, he saw that these were pieces of lead cast with letters of the alphabet and punctuation marks, all of them backward.
The other item was a huge frame, taller than he was, constructed of oak beams six inches square, bolted together, with a wooden platform projecting from it. It had the appearance of some bizarre engine of torture—perhaps a sort of guillotine. But where the blade would have been on a guillotine, there was a massive iron screw with a handle attached to it; at the base of the screw was a thick iron plate.
“This is the printing press,” Franklin told Creighton, who had already guessed as much. The old man proceeded to explain in great detail who had invented this type of press and when, and how it functioned. Bored, Creighton glanced at Sophie behind Franklin’s back. She shrugged helplessly, as though to say, He’s always this way; you may as well get used to it.
When Franklin finally finished his lecture, he turned and tapped the iron-covered table. “And this is the composing table, where Sophie sets the types.” He glanced at a wooden frame filled with row after row of lead letters, and his eyebrows rose. “You’ve set one page already?”
Sophie gave a self-satisfied smile. “As I told you, I can manage very well alone.”
“So I see,” said Franklin. “But I’m afraid there’s one word you’ve forgotten.”
Sophie frowned and leaned over the form. “Where?”
“Here.” Franklin picked up a long L-shaped wooden stick and, using a pair of tongs, swiftly snatched a series of letters from the type cases and lined them up on the stick to form the word humility.
Sophie blushed and lowered her gaze. “I am sorry. I will try more hardly.”
“I know you will, my dear.” He patted her hand again. “You’ve been handling the types with tongs, I trust, not with your fingers?”
She nodded. “It is un peu plus lent . . . a little more slow . . . but I am improving.”
“Good. I don’t want your hands ending up as mine have.” He flexed his thick fingers and added, to Creighton, “The lead produces pain and stiffness in the joints, and eventually leaves the hands numb. Women once used lead as a cosmetic, you know. Over time, they lost all feeling in their faces.”
Behind his back, Sophie darted a mischievous glance at Creighton that seemed to say, There he goes, lecturing again. Then, obviously remembering her prejudice against him, she looked away and fiddled with the composing stick.
Franklin rubbed his hands together. “Well, enough talk. It’s time to work. First of all, I’d like you to carry that form over to the press for me.”
Creighton gave him an incredulous look. “I thought you wanted me for my reading ability. I’m not accustomed to manual labor.”
“Well, you will be, soon enough.” Franklin gestured meaningfully at the tray full of type. When Creighton still hesitated, the old man said, under his breath, “Remember our agreement?” Creighton grudgingly bent over and seized the tray. Franklin put a hand on his arm. “Wait!” He reached down and fastened two metal clamps that held the frame together. “Mustn’t forget that, or the whole thing will fall to pieces.”
The tray was far heavier than Creighton had imagined. He staggered and nearly dropped it, eliciting a gasp of dismay from Sophie. “Be careful, s’il vous plaît! That is a whole morning’s work!”
Creighton felt his face go red with anger and embarrassment, not to mention effort. He wrestled the tray onto the bed of the printing press and then sat on the edge of the table, panting. While he watched, Franklin inked the type with a roller and laid a sheet of blank paper atop it. Then he slid the type and paper into place beneath the iron plate, which he called a platen. When he pulled on the handle, it turned the screw, pressing the platen against the paper and the paper against the type. After a moment he released the handle, slid the type form from under the platen, and peeled away the paper. It was no longer blank but covered with words, sentences, paragraphs.
Creighton was unaccountably and unexpectedly fascinated by the transformation. Though he had read, or at least been assigned to read, dozens of journals and books, he had never given a moment’s thought to how they were made. For the first time he considered how very curious, almost incredible, it was that something as abstract and ephemeral as words and ideas could be captured and conveyed through such a mundane, mechanical process as printing.
He was struck, too, by how symmetrical, how elegantly simple the page of print looked as Franklin spread it out on the table to dry, by the stark beauty of black on white, like flakes of soot on snow, and by the heady smell of the ink, dark and bitter and a bit intoxicating—not unlike the smell of the stout beer he and his former companions drank during long, idle evenings at the alehouse.
Creighton’s longing for his old haunts, which had been pushed to the back of his mind by all the events of the past few days, came to the fore again, as painful as ever, like an old wound opening. Still determined not to let his face betray him, he turned away from Dr. Franklin, only to meet the gaze of Sophie. She gave him a look of curiousity, mingled with concern.
Creighton wanted neither from her. He rose and stepped outside, where he could at least look up at the same sky that spread over England. A familiar giant figure appeared in the rear doorway of the house. “There you are!” Peter called. “Is Dr. Franklin—” At that moment Franklin emerged from the printing shop. Peter snatched off his hat and nodded respectfully to the old man. “Good morning. Mr. Jefferson sent me to fetch you. They’re having a meeting at the Café.”
“Very well. Wait for me, will you?” Franklin beckoned to Creighton. “Could you come inside? I have need of your brain now.”
The way Franklin put it stirred something unfamiliar inside Creighton. He felt a little baffled, a little flattered, almost. He couldn’t recall the last time anyone had needed him for anything more significant than to round out a game of cards or to escort some unattractive cousin to a ball. He followed the old man back into the shop.
“Would you proofread this for me?” Franklin indicated the page of crisp, orderly type. “My eyes are not what they were.”
“Proofread?”
“Check the text for typographical errors—mistakes.” He handed Creighton a pencil. “Please circle any you find.”
Creighton scanned the page. “Half of this is in French.”
“Sophie will see to that. You need concern yourself only with the English.” He gave Sophie a farewell wave. “I’m needed elsewhere, my dear. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
Creighton sat on a stool, rolled up his sleeves, and, with a sigh, poised the pencil over the paper. This was too much like schoolwork to suit him. But if there was one thing he was good at, it was finding flaws, and each one he discovered gave him a curious sense of satisfaction.
He was only slightly distracted from his task by the actual content of the text. For the most part it treated matters of interest only to the local residents: the price of a barrel of drinking water was being raised to twelve reales; a fine of two pesos would be levied on anyone who failed to keep the drainage ditch around his property free of refuse; a theatrical performance of that old favorite, The Indian Father, would be presented on Saturday next at the Maison Coquet.
Two brief items did catch his eye enough to make him linger over them. One was a proclamation from the new governor of Louisiana, Colonel de Galvez, forbidding the fighting of duels—apparently a common practice here. The other told of a prominent landowner whose home had been raided by something called maroons. Creighton had heard the term used only in connection with pirates, who sometimes abandoned, or marooned, their victims on desert islands—a plight he could certainly identify with.
“By maroons, do they mean pirates?” Creighton asked Sophie, who had taken a seat next to him in order to scan the French half of the paper.
“Escaped slaves,” she said absently. “They live in the swamps.”
“Oh. What about this one?” He pointed his pencil at the word créole. “Cree-ol-ee?”
“Cray-ole,” she corrected him. “They are the descendants of the colons—the original settlers, both français et espagnols.” She frowned at the dozen or so words he had circled. “Can those all be mistakes?” She sounded exasperated, as though they were his fault.
“I wouldn’t have circled them if they weren’t,” he replied defensively.
She gestured dramatically at the columns of French, which were practically unmarked. “Regardez. Two errors, seulement.” She glared again at Creighton’s side and shook her head. “It is your English language. It is so stupid.”
“Stupid?”
“Oui. It is so . . . what is the opposite of logical?”
“Illogical. But—”
“So illogical. Instead of one word to mean one thing, you have two or three, or eight.”
“That’s not so—”
She ignored him. “En français, when we mean it is cold, we say froid. Simple, n’est-ce pas? But you . . . you may say cold, or you may say chilly, or you may say freezing, or nippy, or icy, or frosty, or fridgy—”
“Frigid. But—”
“Or as cold as charity, or as cold as Christmas, or—”
Despite her complaints, Sophie obviously had a command of the English language that was good enough to talk circles around him. In self-defense, Creighton clamped his hands over his ears and hummed “Over the Hills and Far Away” until Sophie finally ran down.
When he took his hands away and glanced in her direction, her head hung down in contrition. “I am sorry. I am not much good at humilité, am I?”
“No.” Without quite meaning to, he added, “But neither am I.”
“I have noticed that. It is a pity, n’est-ce pas, that we cannot put our words down somewhere and correct all the mistakes before we actually say them.” She rose from her stool. “Well. If you would take the form to the composing table, I will reset the words that I made wrong.” As Creighton struggled to transfer the tray of type, she said, “I was not really upset with you, you know, or with your language. I was upset with myself, for making so many errors.”
“I know.” Creighton had to admit that, though Sophie might be no better than he was at humility, when it came to apologizing, she had him beaten by a mile. As he sat watching with interest, she undid the clasps on the type frame and then, glancing at the printed sheet for guidance, plucked out the offending letters and replaced them with the proper ones. Her quickness and dexterity amazed him. When the task was done, she stepped back and nodded in satisfaction. “Voilà. Now it should be parfait.” She turned away to wipe her hands with a cloth.
Creighton bent over the table and, taking a deep breath, grabbed hold of the tray of type—forgetting to fasten the metal clamps that held it all together. When he lifted it, the rows of type collapsed. Letters and punctuation marks rained down upon his feet and upon the floor, bouncing and scattering like hailstones.