Beauty From Ashes (13 page)

I could see him again—try to tell him 161 I’ll do my best. Oh, dear girl, I do thank you.”

“It’s all right. I did all I know how to do —just say it right out. I wish I could be Annie for you. I told Grandpapa I did, and he convinced me that Annie knows all about everything. Mama, do you really believe my sister Annie knows about the two of us in this bed, holding on to each other because there’s no one else to hold on to?”

Anne waited. “Yes. I have to believe she —knows.”

“She’d think of a way to break through to you, to reach you in your agony over leaving Lawrence. I do know that.”

“Annie might think of another way, Pete, but if you can just give me a little more time, I’ll prove to you that you found a way too.”

The memory of the near miracle of her visit with Papa the morning after Pete had managed to bring her to her senses would, Anne prayed, never leave her. Once she’d recovered from the shock of

her first sight of him, grown gaunt and hollow-eyed in the day and a half they’d been apart, the first semblance of peace came. A soft, bright, dependable grace fell on them both, and the few verbal exchanges they’d shared would stay in her memory for as long as she lived. Not the exact words they spoke to each other. Their true message lay beneath and above their conversation. For every future hour she lived on this earth, she would cling to that unexpressed exchange. A grace melded their two hearts that spring morning at Hopeton in her father’s room, and Anne knew it would have to hold her through all the years she would be forced to live away from Lawrence and without Papa.

That he already had one foot in heaven that morning was plain. Especially when he smiled his nearly toothless grin and whispered in a rolling Scottish burr, “Ya stayed away from me because ya had to, Annie, lass. I disappointed you for the first time in your sweet life. I had to tell you so that James Hamilton wouldn’t, but I did not do it well. Lying here since, I see I should have given you hope, at least, that you dinna have to leave Lawrence right away.”

She stared at him. “I—don’t, Papa?”

“Oh, you do have to leave, child. But 163 coastal stor-rms are not always bad ones and people have lives and hearts to consider as well as gales off the water. We bend our lives to the winds and the rains to the extent we can. Beyond that, we’re gamblers. The hateful words were no sooner out of my mouth when I saw plain as you see the long, Scottish nose on my face that you’d break if you made the effort to obey me without time to prepare yourself. You even tried to tell me you needed—time. I was too tor-rather-not up to listen.”

“But James Hamilton will never agree for us to spend another stormy season at Lawrence. I don’t need to tell you he’s already been lecturing me since I was here with you last.”

“But turning ninety should give a mon a bit of an edge, even with James Hamilton. I’ll try everything to persuade him. I’ll even beg for his pity. I live on his charity, too, Anne.”

“Papa, you’ve done so much through the years for James Hamilton. I can’t bear to think that you might have to humble yourself with him in order to help me.”

“I’ve only tried the best I could for all

my bairns,” he said as the familiar, nearly devilish smile lit his sagging, folded face. “But now I mean to try out an adage I’ve heard used by other aging folk. ‘Tis said the older a mon comes to be, the more eccentric he has a right to be.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“Simply, that if my daughter Annie wants to take her sweet time leaving Lawrence, I mean to demand it of your brother, the Old Gentleman! Let him think what he will of me for it.”

She dared a half smile. “He’ll think you eccentric, to say the least. But let’s try it. Even James Hamilton can’t do anything more than refuse. And if you win with him and he agrees to allow me to stay a little longer, you mustn’t worry about us if a storm comes.”

“We will be taking a big risk daring to think the old Lawrence cottage will withstand even one more buffeting. Perhaps you may ready your sweet self before a really bad one str-rikes. But you and I always reveled in a bit of a game of chance. Every time we mar-rather-ched in a bad storm, we dared the lightning to str-rather-ike us!”

“I know, but I also know that every time we 165 marched, James scolded us. Papa, I don’t think he’ll agree at all. I’m not afraid at Lawrence. It’s the only place I haven’t been afraid since John went away. But my brother won’t think us just eccentric, he’ll think us insane! And I don’t want you upset.”

“Let your old father decide that, Annie, lass. I’ll send for James and do the best I can.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” she murmured. “Oh, Papa, I don’t like for either of us to be beggars! I hate it. And there is another way. I haven’t told you this before because I was too afraid your Scottish pride would get in our way, but Mama’s cousin, Willy Maxwell, has offered to look after me. With no strings attached at all, he seems really to want to help me should I ever need it. He has ample funds. He’s a good man. Willy’s honest and his offer was freely made. Could you buy enough time from James Hamilton for me to write to Willy— to tell him of my dreadful need of house repairs? I vowed I’d never accept such an

offer, but Papa, I can’t see how I’ll live away from Lawrence!”

He stiffened, his brow furrowed. “Daughter, I’ll thank you never to mention such a thing again. As dear and generous as your mother was, she and Willy were wellborn Maxwells, socially my betters. No Couper man would ever allow his daughter to accept a farthing under such circumstances. Now, don’t puddle up on me. I’ll do my very best to convince James Hamilton. To get him to let you wait at least a few months before you uproot your family, but not a farthing will we ever accept from a Maxwell! Is that clear?”

Anne waited. He was growing so agitated, so pale, she could say only, “All right. All right, Papa. I’ll do as you say.”

“And don’t tuck into your mind the thought that once I’m dead and in my grave in the churchyard you can ever dream of doing a deed like that. Do ya hear-rather me, lass? Never, never, never!”

James Hamilton watched his father closely throughout dinner that day, sensing somehow that Jock was

working hard at charming him. Papa seemed 167 even more frail than usual, his once ruddy face pale, but he’d insisted on being helped downstairs to dine with the family. He not only repeated two or three boyhood incidents from his childhood back in Lochwinnoch, Scotland, but laughed more often than seemed indicated, since he must have remembered telling them the same stories often in the years past. While dessert was being served, James was not at all surprised when his father cheerfully urged that the two of them—father and son —retire alone to the parlor to enjoy their flaky berry pie.

Of course, James agreed, and when Eve had served them and gone, he waited patiently for Papa’s next move. That his parent intended to ask some enormous favor James had no doubt. But instead, the old man launched into still another often-told story about the day he’d been caught throwing snowballs at his Scottish father’s parishioners as they left church. Two or three sentences into the yarn, James interrupted.

“Father,” he said in his courteous but no-nonsense way, “I do believe you’ve told that tale so often I could repeat it to you word for word.

There’s something far different on your mind, and since I do allot only forty minutes out of my day’s schedule for family dinner, I’d appreciate it if you’d come to the point of what it is you mean to ask of me.”

After savoring a huge bite of pie, his father gave him a long, almost pleading look. “James Hamilton, through all the years of your successful, accomplished life, I’ve borne a double burden—all the pride a father could ever have in a son and along with it, the almost equal burden of feeling inadequate beside you. You have contributed to the fields of horticulture, architecture, botany, conchology, and certain aspects of engineering to the extent that one day, even long after you’re gone, teachers in great universities will refer to your work, your name will appear in textbooks to be used by young men seeking to follow in your matchless footsteps, and—was

“Thank you, Father. I’m pleased if anything I’ve done makes you proud, but if I’m not mistaken, there’s something else on your mind.”

“And you seldom are mistaken, Son. Aye. There is something else. ‘Tis about your sister and her children and the rundown condition of the Lawrence house.

You know, I’m sure, that the once 169 sturdy cottage at Lawrence has been—still is —the one place Anne has ever felt belonged to her. And so, deep in my bones I believe that fertile brain of yours could, if you’d set yourself to do it, think of a way that our blessed Annie could stay on in the place that has so tenderly sheltered her since the dark, deep-shadowed day she lost her beloved husband, John. Son, you and I must find a way to allow your sister to remain—was

On his feet, towering above his shrunken father, who was balancing his berry pie on his lap, James Hamilton again broke into the long speech his parent was trying to make. “Interrupting a gentleman as revered and respected as yourself, Papa, goes against every ounce of breeding you and my late, esteemed mother bestowed on me, but interrupt I must and forcefully. I haven’t mentioned it to you because I wanted to spare you any shred of worry until she and her daughters are safely out of the Lawrence house. But I’ve had it inspected carefully, and to have permitted her to stay as long as I have was a foolhardy act on my part. Carpenter ants have eaten away—are, at this moment, eating away—at the very supports under the

room where Anne sleeps at night!”

The crestfallen old face tugged at James’s heart. “Son, ar-re ya sure? I know the porch roof is half off, I know the wooden shutters are loose and banging even in a breeze off Lawrence Creek, but James, are you su-rather-re? If you are, even a small gale could bring Annie’s bedroom crashing to the downstairs!”

“I am sure, Father. As sure as that I am the most embarrassed of men not to be able financially to repair the house for my dear sister. Since there’s no one to make the land productive, it would be foolish in the extreme to spend a penny on repairing the cottage for any reason except the high regard we all feel for Annie, but she must pack at once and be over here on a permanent basis within two weeks. I can see I’ve startled you. I am also well aware that you have done everything in your power to spoil my sister for all of her fifty-two years. I know you long to dissuade me, but it can’t be done. My mind is made up and it was made up for me by the simple expedient of facing facts. Anne and her daughters could be seriously hurt—even killed—

were we to have anything resembling a 171 severe storm.

“

His father leaned toward him, started to speak, and then sank back in his chair. “And I all but gave Annie my word that I’d convince you to give her at least several months to prepare her dear heart for living out her life with no place to call home.”

“You didn’t make such a rash promise, did you?”

“Well, all but a promise. Have you thought about how crowded you and Caroline and your family will be when Annie and her three girls move in here to stay?”

“You know in your heart that they would always be welcome in my home. But as plain as the realization that they have to get out of Lawrence is that for at least certain periods of time, she and her daughters will have to visit around among friends and relatives. Of course, the instant I can see my way clear to adding a room here, I will most certainly do so, but—was

“James, you’re not a hard man. You’re brilliant, astute, but I never considered you hard.”

“If I’m hard, sir, it is only because I treasure the very lives of my only living sister and her children. While young John Couper was here with us, I had a letter waiting for him in Savannah. Captain James Frewin was kind enough to bring the boy’s answer today. He agrees with me entirely.”

“You’d made up your mind before the boy even arrived for the holiday with us, eh?”

“I had indeed. I wrote to him the same day I told you.”

“Couldn’t bring yourself to tell the lad such ugly news to his face during his visit with us?”

“Taking potshots at me will not help a whit, Father.”

Tears brimmed in his faded blue eyes, but all the fight had not yet gone out of him. “I find it difficult to believe the boy agrees with you about forcing his mother to live from pillar to post.”

“He has no choice. That is, unless he wants to chance growing into manhood as an orphan.” James felt his own heart about to break, but he forced himself to speak firmly. “We are talking of taking a chance on my sister’s very life, Father.”

“I know. I know. And I know my 173 grandson, John Couper, does agree with you, James. A letter was, of course, the best way to tell him.”

For a moment neither spoke. Then James said, “I’ll spare you the pain of telling Anne, Papa. I’ll tell her myself this afternoon after I’ve inspected the work being done on my barn.”

“James, you’re right as always. For Annie’s sake, because I’m the only one who knows how crushed she’ll be that all hope is gone, I should be the one to tell her.” He sighed heavily. “But your old papa’s not only older than the marshes, he’s also weak. You’ll have to tell her. I find I haven’t the strength or the courage.”

By a little after 9 a.m., some three weeks later, Papa’s old plantation boat, the Lady Love, was again moving with a steady, rocking motion, water slapping its worn cypress sides, out into Buttermilk Sound. The early April breeze held a slight chill as it touched Anne’s face, but she scarcely

noticed and was only half listening to the familiar rhythm of her oarsmen’s rowing song. The odd African beat had, from her childhood, been a part of her, but this morning she could barely sense the jagged, almost drumlike rhythm. Mostly she was numb. This was no ordinary visit over the waters that separated St. Simons Island from the mainland, where Anne’s brother James Hamilton lived in his mansion at Hopeton. In tow behind the Lady Love was a flatboat piled with boxes, valises, trunks filled with personal belongings, and a few pieces of furniture—her favorite bedroom rocker and John’s old kneehole desk—things she couldn’t bear to have out of her sight. She and her three daughters were leaving Lawrence forever on Thursday, April 5, 1849, to live off the charity of relatives and friends.