In the end her uncle Amos, whom Jane adored and Franklin loathed (his contempt of his suit all too obvious) beat him to it. A polished Pirrson was delivered to the Amherst house addressed to “My Most Talented Niece,” and Jane wept as the men heaved it up the steps. Everyone gathered to hear her play Mozart allegros and Für Elise. She followed this with an improvised piece, childish and light, that Jane dedicated to her deceased brother John. This brought on sustained applause from all including the delivery men, though Jane’s grandmother later took her aside and asked her to never play the tune in her house again.
Her grandmother was not at home when, a few months later, Jane played it for Franklin.
They weren’t alone in the sitting room—Jane’s sisters came and went—but the music, once started, blotted out everything but the two of them. The melody was sweet but almost gratingly so, like an infant’s burbling that prevented one from sleep. Nevertheless, Franklin was undone. The sensation he had was of deep recognition, a glimpse of himself in a mirror that was truer than others precisely because of its blemishes and distortions.
When she was finished he was astonished to touch his face and find his fingers glistening with tears. It was as if they belonged to a future version of himself, a phantom looking back at this moment and mourning it for reasons he couldn’t possibly know.
He crossed the room to place his hand over hers, still hovering over the keys.
“Marry me.”
“I thought we already were,” she said. “Shall I play it again?”
She didn’t have to. He would remember it always. There was the sense that, for better or ill, her composition was their love song, a theme to be repeated over time. He couldn’t say that he liked Jane’s music. But it was theirs.
“Please,” he said, and stepped away without moving his eyes from her back. “If you would do me the kindness, Jeannie. Yes, please.”
* * *
Their wedding was held in the Amherst house. Green bunting hung over the door as Franklin approached with his father, the only other guest on the Pierce side. The old man was dressed in his military finery, medals polished, mustache so heavily waxed its tips drooped like tubers feeling their way into his mouth. He was also slightly drunk (“Resolved,” as he put it) from the sips taken from a flask allegedly handed down by Washington himself. In the carriage, his father had offered a drink to Franklin, who declined with a shake of his head, though in truth he wished for the resolve of whiskey to burn in his own belly.
Inside, the Appletons and people of local importance greeted the Pierces with relief. Franklin was shuffled into the parlor, given instructions by the minister, and handed a crystal glass of cider all so swiftly he had the impression there may be another wedding after this and they were running behind schedule. Then he heard the real cause of everyone’s haste: Jane was crying upstairs. Deep-throated sobs that everyone in the house wanted to be free of as soon as they were able.
Franklin stood listening to the impressive anguish of his wife-to-be with the rest of the guests. He was grateful for the cider, the sipping of which gave him something to do. In time, Jane’s cries were joined by the calming voice of her mother. What was happening now would prove a pattern for his wife: the dread of a forthcoming event, the summoning of will, and finally the steely execution, the sharp Appleton chin raised in a show that others referred to as brave. Franklin regarded her as such too. And yet sometimes—on this day, his wedding day—he couldn’t entirely prevent a bitterness at the wailing upstairs. Why was her struggle with everything, even with happiness, a sign of courage, and his reaching for that same happiness a proof of selfishness?
It was so quiet when Jane stifled herself they could hear the creaking of the stairs as the bride made her way down. Because Jane was the musician of the family there was no one to play the piano for her entrance, so that they listened to the gritty scrape of her heels on the boards as if they signaled the approach of a midnight specter.
The brave chin came first, followed by puffy eyes and mouth alighting at the sight of her groom. Franklin felt the need to take her away to somewhere safe. He would never have guessed Jane was having the same thought about him.
The secret she held as she stood next to Franklin and spoke her vows was that her tears in the dressing room upstairs weren’t caused by anxiety over the marital bed, nor bidding farewell to being an Appleton girl and becoming the wife of a congressman. She had grieved about those things on other occasions. Today, before her mother demanded entry, she wept out of fear as she listened to the things Sir told her.
He appeared in fully realized human form, though Jane was unable to look directly at him. Like the reflex that turned one’s gaze from the sun she could only take in the details of his appearance in glimpses. His face refined, but unnaturally so: lips too thin, nose too pointed, all too white. She would say he wore powder on his skin except the powder was his skin, crumbly and bleached. His tongue didn’t fit his mouth so that as he spoke it reached out with a predatory intelligence, stealing tastes of air.
She had been looking at herself in the standing mirror when she noticed a movement behind her, quick as a sparrow flying past the window. When she turned he was there. Already speaking. Already making his way to the bed where he sat straight-backed on the edge and looked at her knowing she couldn’t match its stare.
“Jeannie,” it said.
She couldn’t answer. The thing’s indifference to her horror compounded her horror. As it calmly formed its words she cried louder and louder. The words reached her nonetheless.
“I thought it was a proper occasion for me to be clearly heard,” the voice explained. “You have done so well. And I have come to celebrate with you. Our day of union.”
He wasn’t naked, but his clothing lacked the wrinkles or dye of any fabric she’d seen before, so that it was a part of his being, a way of matching his surroundings as certain lizards can alter their color. Black jacket and trousers, starched shirt buttoned to the top. No belt, no tie. She took note of these details to avoid looking into its eyes.
“I am your friend, am I not?”
She didn’t think this was so in any way.
“Yes,” she said.
“This man—Franklin. I chose him. And I was right to choose him.”
“Why?”
“He will deliver us.”
In the cellar of the Bowdoin house Sir had been a line of darkness. In subsequent visits it had been notions in her head. Now it was a man, but at once more distinct and less real than any man. In its progression it was like a dream moving from the night into the day.
“You are special,” it went on. “Ready to see and feel and learn.”
“What do I do?”
“Let him love you. Love him in return if you wish.”
“I wish—”
“It will be difficult. But I promise there will be rewards.”
“For Franklin too?”
The thing cocked its head an inch too far.
“He will have his own campaigns,” Sir said.
Jane’s mother knocked at the door. Before the echo of it silenced, the being was gone, leaving behind a wordless message like perfume on a pillow. It would never leave her. Her husband was intended for a seat at a table set for gods. She would be witness to remarkable things.