Mrs. Franklin

“ Franklin as though any moment the door might open in answer to her. Mrs. Franklin turned to escape, but there was shouting in the street, the steely clang of hoofs on the cobbles. She felt trapped, outraged, indignant. It was horrible to be so frightened—so helpless.
"My man—my man——"
It got on her nerves. It was indecent—this animal crying out. These people were animals—ugly animals. She would never be able to forget them. It would be an ugly stain on her memory. Somehow they stood between her and Harry, so that she couldn't see him. ”

“ Mrs Franklin earned the family bread by taking in lodgers. She was far more active than her husband, who had a very small clerkship in the city; without her aid the children, Peter and Flossy, could scarcely have lived, but by dint of toiling from morning to night, of saving every penny, of turning and re-turning worn-out clothes, and scrubbing and cooking and brushing and cleaning, Mrs Franklin contrived to make two ends meet. ”

“ The cedar canoes, with gay carpets and cushions, and freight of girls and boys in white boating costumes, gave the needed touch of life to the peaceful Charles River. So Mrs. Franklin thought when she came down to see them off.
"I have not been invited," she said, "but I really think I must drive up this afternoon and see your encampment."
"Oh, do, Mrs. Franklin!" cried Gertrude, enthusiastically. "We would just love to have you come, and we ought to have a chaperon, though we are all brothers and sisters and cousins! She is the most perfect creature," she added to Bronson, as they moved off. ”

“ There is every reason to believe that Franklin's marriage vow was never dishonored during Deborah's life, lax as his conduct was before his marriage and lax as his diction at least was after her death. In the Diary from which we have already quoted quite liberally, Fisher, after narrating the extraordinary manner in which Deborah bewailed the troubles of her "Pappy," observes, "Mr. Franklin's moral character is good, and he and Mrs. Franklin live irreproachably as man and wife." ”

“ Franklin was simply that of a beautiful and brilliant woman, to whom coquetry was an art, and whose intellectual activity had been stimulated, and vanity gratified, by the homage of a brilliant, magnetic and famous man, who possessed to a remarkable degree the faculty of rendering his splendid intellectual powers subservient to purely social uses. It was no slight thing to a woman such as Madame Brillon to be the Vainqueur du Vainqueur de la Terre, and little less than this did all France at that time insist that Franklin was. ”

“ Indeed, the whole figure, from head to foot, looked like an oil painting of a period in French history when aristocracy had reached its acme. As a companion for a man of enforced leisure and unlimited means and no ties she had everything in her favor, physically and mentally. As Franklin stood looking at her, however, with all the admiration that was due to her, he found himself unconsciously comparing her,—this exotic—this most exquisite of rare orchids,—with the fresh, buoyant, healthy, clean, proud, spoilt girl who called herself his wife. ”

“ But the closest friendship that Franklin formed in England was with Mary, or Polly, Stevenson. To her, perhaps, the most delightful of all his familiar letters were written—letters so full of love and watchful interest as to suggest a father rather than a friend. It is not too much to say that they are distinguished by a purity and tenderness of feeling almost perfect, and by a combination of delicate humor and instructive wisdom to which it would be hard to find a parallel. ”

“ Franklin Blake!
Before I could say a word, I saw Mr. Franklin, a little surprised to all appearance, look up from me to Rosanna. Following his lead, I looked at the girl too. She was blushing of a deeper red than ever, seemingly at having caught Mr. Franklin’s eye; and she turned and left us suddenly, in a confusion quite unaccountable to my mind, without either making her curtsey to the gentleman or saying a word to me. Very unlike her usual self: a civiller and better-behaved servant, in general, you never met with. ”

“ He saw Caroline was no common thief, and Franklin no common man. There were moments when he actually believed the fact really was as Franklin represented—and, thus quailing under the torrent of eloquence to which the voice and manner gave something absolutely irresistible, half suffocated with rage and fear, he said with ill assumed indifference:
"Oh! very well, sir, very well. I will wait for my partners. Nothing shall be done rashly. Nothing from revenge. But the young lady shall not escape. Mr. Williams, go and see if Mr. Blake or Mr. Blanchard have come in." ”

“ JEMIMA.
Mrs. Franklin, a widow lady of very considerable fortune, inhabited an elegant house on Richmond Hill, kept a number of servants, and had the most splendid equipage in the whole neighbourhood. She had an only daughter, to whom she was fondly indulgent, and on whom she determined to bestow the best education that could possibly be procured for her, let the expense be what it would. ”

“ It was with unwilling admiration that Franklin noted the girl's return to courage. He had to confess to himself that the fearless tilt of her chin and the superb grace of her attitude, which was as far from being self-conscious as though she were standing in the corner of a crowded drawing-room, pleased him. It was to be a fight, then. That was evident. The spirit of the huntsman rose in him as he realized this.
"Will you ring the bell for your maid?" he asked, making the first attack, "or shall I?"
She shook her head. "Pray don't trouble, there's plenty of time." ”

“ There is a vast difference between the situation of a man, who relies upon his memory for the scattered incidents of his past life, and that of a biographer whose field of vision takes them all in at one glance. It is true that Franklin did not know, before he left London, that Deborah had married, but the reasons he gives in the Autobiography for desiring to return to Philadelphia are only that he had grown tired of London, remembered with pleasure the happy months that he had spent in Pennsylvania, and wished again to see it. ”

“ Her femininity had triumphed. But with Franklin it was different. Was it possible that the more he was with her the less he was attracted? Here was something on which to concentrate and use her wits.
It was, therefore, with the excitement of having found something to do, a new game to play at, a new chapter to begin, that she dressed for lunch. The muddle in which she left her stateroom,—skirts that she had looked at, considered and discarded, stockings and shoes all over the floor, shirts and ties all chaotic in the drawers,—was a sight to see. ”

“ Franklin must have said to himself as he scanned the sun-embrowned face, the strong features, the well-rounded forehead, the bushy eyebrows, uplifted as if the clear orbs they shaded were ever on the watch, the large nose not wholly Roman but very near it, the full lower lip suggestive of good cheer fully appreciated, and the projecting chin, all borne with the upright precision of a man who had worn a uniform from his childhood. ”

“ Adieu, dear good girl, and believe me ever your affectionate friend.
On the return of Franklin from England, he resumed his correspondence with Miss Ray; but Miss Ray she was no longer, for the divination of the conjurer had not failed him, and she was then married to William Greene. In a letter to Mrs. Greene, dated January 23, 1763, this fact leads to another smutty joke on Franklin's part over the arithmetic of matrimony, the worse for being jestingly ascribed to Mrs. Franklin, who, he said, accepted Mrs. ”

“ Franklin, however, was capable of the most courteous gallantry to ladies. In France he delighted the most distinguished women of the court by his compliments and witticisms. When about fifty years old he wrote some letters to Miss Catharine Ray, of Rhode Island, which, as coming from an elderly man to a bright young girl who was friendly with him and told him her love-affairs, are extremely interesting. One of them about his wife we have already quoted. In a letter to him Miss Ray had asked, “How do you do and what are you doing? Does everybody still love you, and how do you make them do so?” ”

“ Like an incision in the rind of a beech, which spreads wider and wider with each passing year, is, as a rule, every human failing, as time goes on, and poor Mrs. Franklin, now that senile decay was setting in, seems to have been but another confirmation of this truth. But faithful wife that she was, after the receipt of this letter from her husband, she was scrupulous enough to send him receipts as well as accounts; for in the early part of the succeeding year he writes to her: "I take notice of the considerable Sums you have paid. ”

“ It was solely to meet Franklin again that this sophisticated, ambitious, luxury-loving, unscrupulous woman became a member of the Vanderdyke house-party,—to see again the man who, alone among men, had touched her heart and awakened her passion. Like a girl from a Convent school, young and sweet and inarticulate, she went. Imagine her anger and distress at finding on her arrival at the Vanderdyke barrack that she was asked to add her congratulations to those of the family and their friends on the marriage of Franklin and that "damn girl," as she called her. Imagine it! ”

“ I concluded. "Well, Lily'll make an uncommon fine peeress, Franklin, my boy."
"It's not a laughing matter," said Franklin, solemnly.
"Oh, isn't it," said I.
"I love that girl, Van, like—like blazes. But hang it, don't you know."
"If she is fit to be a gentleman's wife, she is fit to be a peer's wife," I observed, sententiously.
"Rot!" said Franklin Ford, briefly.
"But then she isn't fit to be either," said I.
"She's a dashed pretty girl," said Franklin, irrelevantly. "Have a cigar?"
"No, thank you," said I. "The prettier a tobacconist's daughter is, the worse his cigars are;" ”

“ Franklin’s place, I should have called her in. When you are ill-used by one woman, there is great comfort in telling it to another—because, nine times out of ten, the other always takes your side. Perhaps, when my back was turned, he did call her in? In that case it is only doing my daughter justice to declare that she would stick at nothing, in the way of comforting Mr. Franklin Blake.
In the meantime, Sergeant Cuff and I proceeded to my lady’s room. ”

“ Obviously Franklin had not given her away. She was still the heroine of this family drama. Up went her spirits. Optimism came back like the sun after a storm, and living once more for the moment and leaving the immediate future on the knees of the gods she became the life and soul of the house-party, teasing the matinée idol, complimenting the producer, saying little deferential things to her aunt, and playing the game of badinage with the guests with all the finish and daring of a champion. ”

“ This is far from being a complete list of the French women with whom Franklin was on terms of affectionate intimacy. To go no further, we know that Madame Brillon, in addition to writing to him on one occasion, "Give this evening to my amiable rival, Madame Helvétius, kiss her for yourself and for me," granted him on another a power of attorney to kiss for her until her [Pg 530] return, whenever he saw them, her two neighbors, Le Veillard, and her pretty neighbor, Caillot.
The truth is that Franklin had a host of friends of both sexes in France. ”

“ When Franklin met her first, during one of his brief visits to New York, he found her very cosily ensconced in a tiny apartment, gracefully furnished, over a dressmaker's shop in East Fifty-sixth Street, from which, clothed to perfection, she drove forth nightly in her limousine to dine at the best houses. She had come to the United States to catch a husband. Her experience had taught her that a husband is a more permanent institution than a protector. She was determined to marry money. ”

“ Mrs. Franklin permitted her daughter to accept the offer, but undauntedly refused to accept it herself. This is her own account of the matter to her husband divested of its illiteracy.
I was for nine days [she said] kept in a continual hurry by people to remove, and Sally was persuaded to go to Burlington for safety. Cousin Davenport came and told me that more than twenty people had told him it was his duty to be with me. I said I was pleased to receive civility from anybody; so he staid with me some time; towards night I said he should fetch a gun or two, as we had none. ”

“ She gave a nod and a smile to the stewards and ate with such excellent appetite that their efforts were well rewarded. The sun was cheerful, the saloon was cheerful, the stewards quick and willing, and Franklin,—yes, Franklin was certainly a very good-looking person. Bother the yacht, and her people and what had happened to Brownie, and the loss of a maid! Life was full of fun. ”

“ The frank and humane temper of Sir John Franklin won the affections of the settlers. He thought favorably of their general character, appreciated their moral worth, and shared in their notions of convict discipline. The insults of which he complained were the acts of a few: a philosopher would have smiled where he deprecated; and have felt that the salary of office is not more certain than the enmities which surround it. [Pg 226]
The alleged ascendancy of Lady Franklin in public affairs it would be useless to discuss. ”

“ Franklin's arrival by the early train was entirely attributable to one of Mr. Franklin's freaks. Being asked, upon that, whether his galloping off again on horseback was another of Mr. Franklin's freaks, I said, "Yes, it was;" and slipped out of it—I think very cleverly—in that way.
Having got over my difficulties with the ladies, I found more difficulties waiting for me when I went back to my own room. In came Penelope—with the natural sweetness of women—to kiss and make it up again; and—with the natural curiosity of women—to ask another question. ”