Caller of Lightning Read online

  It was a complex maneuver, and one the young man had not previously experienced, to find himself in the lead while, in all actuality, being led. Mary glanced back at Ben and her husband and winked, then finished whisking the young man away.

  Collinson raised an eyebrow to Ben as the two moved inside, with Franklin following the older man to his study. “Please, sit here,” said Collinson as his servant, Jemmy, brought in a tray of refreshments. “Lemon water and small biscuits. Both very good. Do not fear, I will return to the object of your inquiry, but for the moment I believe these will help revive you somewhat. I assure you that your son and servants are being similarly encouraged.”

  Ben happily surrendered to his host’s offer. The lemon water was a treat he rarely tried. It was slightly sweet at room temperature, with just a hint of tartness, and surprisingly refreshing. “Tell me,” he asked. “Do you have tea water delivered, or are you far enough from the city that you can draw on your wells?”

  Peter shook his head. “We still have to have it delivered. So long as you are in London or its environs, my advice to you is simple: if it doesn’t come out of a cask, or hasn’t been boiled first, don’t drink it.”

  Ben nodded and sipped. “It was the same when I was here before. In the Colonies we only have to worry about that in city-center. Tea-water and swill farms aren’t as common.”

  “Fascinating.” Collinson leaned against the edge of his desk. “The structure of the young cities out there is so different. Which means different problems must be accounted for, it would seem.”

  “That is a marvelous way of stating it—young. And so true, though a bit narrow. I think it is a question of age. The populations are younger, lacking the centuries of sharing space that European cities have.” Ben gestured with his cup. “Through time comes density. A city is a generational boat that carries our bloodlines from past to future, becoming ever more compounded, and complex, as the deckhands repair the hull and sails.”

  “I like that imagery. And obviously learning and ideas grow along with the generations of families, and governance becomes more complicated. Amid the labyrinthine solutions the population implements, so too must that population’s rulers create more detailed machinations and methods to stratify themselves and retain the power of rule.” While Ben sipped and chewed, Peter deftly returned to the topic they had left before. “For instance, there is the game the Penns play. In London, the most effective way to influence the rich and powerful is to be equally rich and powerful, or at least to appear so. Old money has a natural distrust of young money—and the Penn fortune is only aged to a vintage of three generations, so they overspend to compensate. You can meet in a patrician’s fine house, but if he can never meet in yours because it is too simple and utilitarian, then he will never take what you have to say seriously. Oh, he’ll listen, if you are connected to powerful enough people, or if he thinks inviting you to one of his gatherings will be useful to him in some manner, either political or social. But will he consider? Will he act?”

  Collinson smiled wryly at Ben. “These are things you must consider. As Commissioner Franklin, I imagine you will get invited to many a gathering, because of your name, your reputation, and your temporary value as a curiosity. But if you do not act like them and live like them, they will never truly consider you one of them.”

  Ben sat still for some while, considering this advice in silence. As a Quaker, Collinson was accustomed to such rumination, and comfortably left his friend to his thoughts. While Ben pondered he let his gaze wander, truly taking in the room. It was an exploration he could have continued for days, for Collinson’s study was packed with the tools and record of a lifetime in search of discovery. What must have been a thousand books crowded shelves that stretched along two walls from floor to ceiling, and partway along a third. Etchings of flora, cardiovascular systems, maps, and even some occult symbolism filled the little bit of wall space remaining. Framed to the side, in a place of apparent honor, Ben spotted the Pennsylvania Gazette article in which he had written up the methodology of the kite and key experiment.

  When Ben finally spoke, it was to change the topic. “Let us leave Parliament and the Penns for the moment. I see you have been holding out on us, you fiend.” His tone of mock severity was clearly in jest. “Here I thought you were generously searching the dusty attics of England to send us poor unenlightened souls in the New World the best books you could find. But no. What do I see here? A collection that makes any private collection in the Colonies pale by comparison. Even my own!” Ben lowered his face to both hands as if shamed and disgraced.

  “Thank you for your horror and detestation, Ben. A finer compliment I could not hope to receive, from such an old friend I have never before met.”

  “I loathe your collection and yearn for the day I can steal it from you, Peter,” Ben continued jovially. “If only I could unlock the wonders in my own library, as I am sure you can here.”

  Collinson gave Ben a long and thoughtful look, as if he were trying to make up his mind about something. This obvious change in demeanor surprised Franklin.

  “May I be more serious for a moment? I have wondered, Ben, if you realize that I sent you the most precious of all my collection in that batch I shipped in the Spring of 1752. Yet in five years I have heard nothing from you about them. This has confused and concerned me, but I dared not refer to them without risking exposure to the wrong parties.”

  Ben’s hand shook with a sudden rush of memory. For just a moment he felt himself back in his workshop, rendered the next thing to unconscious by an idle flick of an intruder’s hand. Gasparini. He realized that he had not thought of that morning in some time.

  “I am sorry to report, Peter, that not that long after you sent them, one was destroyed. A mysterious man broke into my home and incapacitated me. What he did with the book in question, which he was examining when I caught him, I cannot explain, nor would you credit me if I tried. Suffice for now to say that it no longer exists. But the others remain safe. He showed no sign of being aware of them.”

  Collinson’s eyes widened in concern. “I never meant to put you in such danger. I had only your best interest at heart.” It was his turn now to compose his thoughts. Ben gave him the time he needed by reading the spines of the books on the nearest shelf to his right.

  Eventually Collinson continued, “I had hoped the strange script would intrigue you and impel you to understand its contents.”

  “The journals were clearly written in one hand, but many languages. I recognized one of them for Latin, but it appeared to be a cipher; those portions of the text were in no Latin I ever studied. I spent a good deal of time with them after the attack, of course, trying to puzzle out the mystery. But like you, I felt constrained to keep their existence to myself. And much as I have enjoyed our correspondence, and believed I could trust you with any knowledge I might have, once written down words are at risk of wandering. After what I experienced . . . well, as I wrote in Poor Richard’s Almanack, ‘Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.’”

  Peter looked at Ben sadly, slipping into the familiar Friend’s language of plain speech for a moment, “I believe thee had no choice.”

  “Peter, it was the only time in my life that I have ever felt powerless.” Ben set his glass of water down and refilled it. His throat was uncharacteristically dry. “I know you meant me no harm. I do feel that you are all that is benevolent and good in this world. So please tell me—why did you send me those volumes? What was your purpose?”

  Collinson’s gaze intensified. “Do you know the story of how I came to be accepted as a fellow of the Royal Society?”

  Ben shook his head.

  “In October of 1728, I wrote to Sir Hans Sloane, then President of the Society, about some odd events I witnessed in Kent. Within a month, he had proposed me for fellowship.”

  Ben placed his empty glass of lemon water on the tray and gave his friend his fullest possible attention.

  “It
turns out they were receiving many reports of strange goings on, with each reporter looking for answers that the Society could not provide. Something about my report stood out. It convinced them that I would be able to offer an explanation to the Royal Society, even though it be one unpalatable to the world at large.” Collinson paused. “I would be less than credible if some of those reports became public.”

  He shifted in his seat, thinking carefully on his choice of words, “I have done my duty here and found that I have been able to be of some service to the Royal Society and to my country in the endeavor. But reports out of the Americas continue to grow, and we have no means to investigate them, much less mollify the reporters or resolve the described experiences. I thought you might be the right person to take up those duties in the Colonies, Ben. I still do. I cannot think of any other person so well positioned, or so well suited to the task. People genuinely like you. They will talk to you when they might not to others.”

  Ben looked aghast. “I cannot imagine what you mean. I am a businessman, a philosopher, a thinker, not a—” He stopped, then started again. “Yes, I am embarrassingly inquisitive. Yes, I tend to root into a problem, any problem, until I solve it. I cannot bear to be left in the dark when the light is but a step away.”

  Peter nodded encouragingly. “Go on.”

  Ben thought, Dare I tell him? Will he actually understand? My Debby does, just perhaps. But William now entirely disapproves. I can no longer share any of this with him. Thinking of Debby and Sally, and the rest of what he left back home, he suddenly understood that William’s diversion by Mary was neither incidental nor an accident, but rather a full acknowledgement of Ben’s particular predicament with his own son. Somehow, they knew.

  For a moment he stared at Peter Collinson in frank astonishment. “This is why you proposed me for membership? This is what the Royal Society wished of me when they elected me as a fellow last year? Not for my research into Natural Philosophy and the electrical fire, but to help them study and lay bare the truth of occultism, magic, and the supernatural through a deistic approach of study?”

  “You were my recommendation to receive King’s George’s grant, yes, and he approves of you. The work is more than that, for certain, but as beginning descriptions go, I have heard worse.”

  “So while I am here attempting to unwind the struggle between the Penns and the Assembly, you will share with me the discoveries into the occult the Society has made?”

  Collinson nodded. “Of course. But why do you assume the two are separate?”

  London, England

  July 30th

  16

  No Secrets

  Ben chose to travel to Craven Street by dog cart. His house slave Peter sat next to him, staring in wonder at the sights. London was quite literally twenty-five times the size of Philadelphia, and Ben knew his slave had never seen anything like it.

  No, Ben thought, not slave. Here I must abandon that word.

  He was well aware of the fact that more than fifty years earlier, English courts had struck a blow against the slave trade by ruling that any negro coming into England was automatically free: as Chief Justice Holt had put it, “One may be a villein in England, but not a slave.” It was something his abolitionist friends spoke upon, missing the greater truth that the merchant courts ignored the ruling.

  He noted with mild surprise that this change in Peter’s status did not displease him—the relentless speeches against the practice of slavery that Isaac Norris and a few others had made were apparently taking hold. But it raised a thorny issue. If on English soil Peter was free, now, then to take him back to Pennsylvania and slavery would make Franklin himself complicit in that freedom’s loss. It would be as if he had personally caged Peter and put him on the block.

  Ben ignored the sights and smells of London, musing instead on this conundrum. It had never been a secret that he did not personally favor the practice of slavery, and yet he owned slaves and had allowed his own paper to run advertisements for human sales and trades. Yes, grants of freedom for all his household slaves were included in his Last Will and Testament; but that act had been a sop to conscience. Suddenly the grand moral pride he had felt when making that choice seemed pure hypocrisy; the act itself a small, shameful thing, too late by three-quarters and then some.

  If he were to truly begin to investigate and report upon the secrets of the occult world, as Collinson had proposed, must he not also lay bare his own flaws and secrets? After all, only a coward would choose to hide in silence when wrongs cried out to be made right.

  The dog cart bounced over the cobblestones as they passed Hanover Square, coming ever closer to the shores of the Thames.

  “Peter?”

  “Yes, Mr. Franklin?” Peter was comfortable enough with Ben that he didn’t look back, instead keeping his gaze locked on the city’s passing wonders.

  “I plan to send William traveling while we are here, to expand his circles.” Ben sighed. “He must learn and grow as his own man, ’stead of riding the tails of my coat. But I am unsure that he is ready for it.”

  “I don’t think he’d see it that way, Mr. Franklin. Young Captain Franklin would say he tends you, so as you don’t get lost in your own ideas.”

  “Indeed. And what do you think of William and his opinions? You have no need to blunt your tongue. Not here, not now. Truth is a far greater currency than sparing my feelings.”

  Peter glanced back in surprise. “I don’t think I understand the question.”

  Ben shook his head. “You understand perfectly well, you’re just attempting to avoid it because you think I will not like your answer. Please, go on.”

  Peter’s jaw clenched. “Captain Franklin is proper.” Ben started to speak, but Peter put up his hand, begging a moment. “Insists on being called master, as is his right. Dresses in a manner that no one could comment on. He has earned his officer rank at a young age. True to him, he is a perfect example. But I think he looks down on everyone. He may act proper, but I doubt he thinks about other folk proper. He and King, well, I’m surprised you left the two of them alone back at the inn.”

  “I thought we could square away the new lodgings better by ourselves.”

  “Probably right,” Peter nodded and continued. “But I also understand where you worry. Neither of them likes the other. If Captain Franklin calls King ‘boy’ or ‘negro’ and the two of them are alone, I can’t tell you what might happen.”

  “Why would that be a problem?” Ben asked in surprise.

  Peter worked his jaw for a second as his own words caught up with his ears. “Aw, Shango forgive me. I overstep. Never mind, Mr. Franklin.”

  “Peter,” Ben paused, gathering the thought, “what do I not understand here?”

  Peter shook his head. He hadn’t meant to open this sack of rot, but what was done was done. “Please don’t take offense at this. A man must love his son, and take pride in him. That’s as it should. But Captain Franklin and King, they’re just like a striker, one of ’em flint, the other one steel. They spark each other.”

  “Surely any problems are King’s fault.”

  Peter just stared at Ben, saying nothing.

  Well, I asked him for truth, Franklin thought. He blinked. “How did I not know this was how you felt?”

  Peter shifted uncomfortably on the dog cart’s bouncing seat. “Do you know the opinions of the cats that hunt mice in your scullery?”

  Ben shook his head. “It’s not that bad, surely.”

  “Yessir, it is. But as much as the two of them hate each other, and they do, that’s not my biggest worry. What scares me most is that neither of them trusts the tricks you can do now.”

  “Tricks? What are you—I—” Ben found himself suddenly speechless. It was not his natural condition, which made it all the more discomforting.

  “You know what. I don’t have to say. Guess I was most grateful for the fog—don’t mind admitting I was pretty scared, hearing those French cannons and thinking we were a
bout to sink. But you fixed that.”

  Ben found his voice, but it was less certain than usual. “I thought within the family only Debby and William knew. You know too?”

  “Yes, Mr. Ben. We all do. Sally, Jemima, everyone in the house except King knew before we left, and it’s plain obvious King knows now. Sally even runs around mimicking you, yes she does. King, though, he’s stopped talking ’bout you to me, but I see it in his eyes. And except for him . . . well, we that know, we all work hard to make sure you aren’t discovered.”

  “I . . . ” Ben hesitated. “I have no secrets, do I?”

  Peter shrugged noncommittally. “You think you do.”

  “Craven Street!” The driver called back.

  Peter leapt down off the dog cart and released the steps. As Ben exited the conveyance, he did something new to him. “Thank you,” he said.

  The door at number 7 Craven Street opened. A slightly stout, immaculately dressed woman came out onto the steps. “Mr. Franklin, it is indeed a pleasure to meet you. I have been told much of your more creative characteristics and find them delightful.”

  “You must be the Widow Stevenson,” Ben bowed slightly. “It is a pleasure for me as well. Mr. Charles spoke quite highly of you, and I am most excited to see the domicile. ‘No more neat and tidy lodgings will you find in the city of London,’ he said.” Ben smiled warmly. “Allow me to introduce my man Peter to you.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you as well, Peter,” Mrs. Stevenson replied.

  “Thank you, ma’am.” Peter ducked his head.

  “As to the quality of my lodgings,” she went on, “quite right. Me and my ladies keep a right proper arrangement. Respect the house, and the house will provide.”