IN JULY, Benjamin Franklin did come to dinner.
He and his nineteen-year-old daughter, Sarah, drew up in a chaise in front of the house. In back of the chaise a saddle horse was tethered.
Aunt Catharine ran out to meet them. She hugged Sarah and then, after Mr. Franklin gingerly allowed himself to be helped down by his daughter and Uncle Greene, she embraced Mr. Franklin, too.
"Easy, my dear." he advised, even as he returned her embrace. "Easy. I suffered a fall on leaving Mecom relatives in New York. I bruised my chest."
"Oh, my dear." Aunt Catharine drew away, but placed a hand on his coat front, tenderly. "The poor chest." Then she kissed the side of his face.
I was embarrassed for her. How could she act so? I looked quickly at Uncle Greene, but he was only smiling.
"And did you not yet invent something to heal it?" Aunt Catharine asked coyly.
We brought him into the house, into the parlor, where Aunt Catharine immediately brought coffee for him and Uncle Greene. She hovered over Mr. Franklin while he and Uncle Greene launched into a lively discourse about the Stamp Act, which Mr. Franklin said would be repealed soon. "Until they come up with something else," he added.
What I was taken with most was the flirtatious manner that Aunt Catharine used toward him. And so openly! How can this be? I asked myself. Uncle Greene is a good-looking and respected and prominent man. How can she flirt so openly with Benjamin Franklin, in face of all the gossip that has swirled around about them?
In face of the fact that she herself had never cleared up the matter of the affair which she still thought lived between her and her husband?
The Franklins stayed for a week. In that time, I twice came upon Aunt Catharine and Mr. Franklin alone in the parlor. Once they were sitting together on the settle, heads bent over some papers they had in hand, giggling about something.
Another time Mr. Franklin was seated in a chair and near to dozing and Aunt Catharine came up behind him to wrap a throw around his shoulders in the most tender manner.
He came sharp to attention to look up at her. She smiled lovingly down at him, put her head down near his so their cheeks touched, then their lips brushed and, for a brief second, lingered.
I gasped. Both looked up to see me.
And then, from her position behind him, Aunt Catharine gave me a wink and a small smile. And I recollected her words to me: Women always have a right to flirt. If it is kept a harmless pastime. Done properly, it gives us power.
I ran from the room, my feelings swirling in my head. I admired Aunt Catharine on so many counts. I wanted to be like her in so many ways. But in that place inside you where you know things are wrong but you don't know yet why, and you don't want them to be wrong, I knew that someday I would find that she was lying.
***
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S daughter, Sarah, was a student of the harpsichord, and during their stay she played it constantly. Uncle Greene went to Providence almost every day, and on two days he took the esteemed Mr. Franklin with him, thank heaven. Or Lord knows what might have transpired in our house. Twice Aunt Catharine took me and Sarah on visits to friends.
It soon became plain to me that Sarah adored her father, who often put his arm around her and told her how wonderful her harpsichord playing was. My heart ached for my own father, now happily married to Rebecca Ainslie, who was expecting their first child. Pa was building another family now.
In that week I became morose. My spirits fell low. I scarce spoke at the table.
Of course, Aunt Catharine took notice right off, she who was training me to be a social butterfly. "Caty, what's wrong, child? You're not eating."
It was not the evening to be unsociable. We had other guests, too, some of Uncle Greene's Whig friends.
I looked up at her. I did not answer.
"Caty?" she asked again.
This time I answered. "I miss my pa," I said.
She sighed. "Caty, this is not the way I expect you to behave when we have guests. If you can't behave, you must apologize and go to your room. Now."
One of the Whig friends, a young man named Nathanael Greene, had frequently been a visitor at Uncle Greene's house. I'd never paid mind to him. He was some distant kin to Uncle Greene and had usually been morose in his own right.
My cousin Sammy had told me Nathanael had been totally smitten with Sammy's older sister Nancy, and that she had grown tired of him and severed the romance and broken Nathanael's heart.
I had never known anyone with a broken heart before. I did not know how to speak to anyone with a broken heart. So I had studiously avoided Nathanael Greene, except to notice that he limped. Did that come from a broken heart as well?
Now he spoke up for me.
"I know what it means to miss one's pa," he said, in a rich, mellow voice. "I live with my pa. And I miss him."
What a curious thing to say! Our eyes met across the table.
He had clear, quiet eyes. He was a large man—I had noticed that—at least six feet. He had a firm, no-nonsense face, a mature face. He must have been at least ten years older than I, but there was, somehow, a twinkle in his eye when he looked at me, as if to say "I know all about pas—don't you worry."
Only what he did say to Aunt Catharine, without looking at her, but still looking at me with that twinkle in his eyes, was "Don't make her go to her room, please. She's going to eat. And if she isn't making conversation, well, I'm sure it's because she hasn't got anything to contribute to this tired talk about politics. Isn't that so, Caty?"
I blushed. Just because of the way he was looking at me. No man had ever looked at me that way before. "Yes, sir," I said, "that's so."
"Don't call me 'sir,' please. It makes me feel old. Call me Nathanael. And Mrs. Greene"—he nodded at Aunt Catharine—"Mr. Greene"—he bowed his head at Uncle Greene—"much as I'd hate to miss the lively discussion I know is to follow this scrumptious dinner, I would be delighted if you'd both give me permission to take a walk in the garden later with Caty. I can't help but notice how she's grown up over the time that I've been coming here. I promise to be nothing less than honorable."
***
HE WAS, in reality, twelve years older than I. And when we sat down on the bench in Aunt Catharine's garden, he fair made me shiver and shake and aware that I was a woman and he was a man.
It was the first time in my life I had ever felt this quickening.
He sat close to me though he could have left space between us. I was well aware of the closeness, but he never touched me, not even my hand. His mere presence was sufficient to put me in a state of terror. To think that this man, this handsome man, wanted to take time to pay mind to me.
We talked. He left no spaces, no silences.
He was the son of a Quaker preacher. His mother had died when he was eleven. He was curiosity driven. He loved reading—Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Ferguson's Essay on the History of Civil Society, not to mention Roman history—but he did not lord it over me.
"Why, until a certain age, my only education was the Bible," he said. "I had to beg my pa for a tutor."
"And do you spend most of your time at books, then?" I asked.
"I wrestle iron into anchors. I stoke furnaces. I plow fields. And now, with the help of some of my brothers, I'm building myself a house in Coventry. But I still live in the family home in Potowomut. And I've often seen you, Caty, when you ride your horse by my house."
I stared at him. "You saw me? Did you know who I was?"
"Of course. I'd been here in this house to your uncle's meetings many times, though you'd never spoken to me. I thought you didn't like me. Or thought me a pipe-smoking old man who cared nothing about anything but politics."
"You're not an old man. And no, it wasn't that."
"What was it, then? Why did you never so much as give me a glance?"
So he'd noticed! And he'd cared! And here I'd thought all along that he hadn't even known I'd existed. I felt my face flush, knowing I had to say some words, make some sense, or come off like a complete idiot.
"I heard from my cousin Sammy Ward that you had a broken heart. I was afraid to talk to you."
His face went sad of a sudden, but just for a moment. "His sister Nancy. I'm over that now."
"Since when?"
"Since tonight, when I got to know you."
I gulped. What did one say to that? I wished Sarah were here. She'd know. But I found then that I knew, too.
"But you are so much older," I protested. "Why would you even be interested in me?"
"I warn you, Caty, I am. And tonight I intend to ask your uncle if I may begin to come round and see you on a regular basis. We both have time to get to know each other. I can wait. Are you agreeable to that?"
I said I was. Then he said he thought we ought to go back into the house. He must keep his word to my aunt and uncle. For, after all, he had promised to be nothing less than honorable. Could I abide with that, he wanted to know?
I told him yes, I could. He took my arm and guided me back into the house. And his touch thrilled me, even though it was honorable.