Beauty From Ashes (21 page)

“What do you think, John Couper?” Miss Eliza asked the young man seated in the place of honor at her right. “If the other Southern states follow us, will it settle the troublesome question of whether slavery will be sanctioned or prohibited in the regions acquired during that dreadful Mexican War? And do you agree that now that Georgia has accepted the terms of the Compromise, the other Southern states will follow us?”

He laughed—the laugh that never failed to twist Anne’s heart because it was so much like John’s. “Ladies, I swear to you that I know only what I’ve read in the newspapers—the same as all of you have. Georgia accepted. I expect the others to follow. But if you want my opinion, I feel sure the passage of one of the

resolutions, the Fugitive Slave 273 Law—which, if I understand correctly, is one of the main Compromise concessions to the South—will eventually cause a barrel of trouble in the North. I hate to say this, but the new Compromise may work for a time only, then turn into fertile ground for much more hostility. We can all be thankful, though—that is, those of us who care about preserving the Union—that Grandpapa’s best friend, Mr. Thomas Spalding, was chairman of the Georgia convention. Whether it’s true the other Southern states mean to follow Georgia, we all know that Spalding is strong for keeping the country together.”

Anne wanted to rise from her place at the table and raise a glass to her son. Could this strikingly handsome, maturing, wise young man with the melting eyes and wide shoulders be the same person as the small boy whose grubby little hand had steadied her that long-ago day on the Cannon’s Point veranda and who’d spoken the words she’d never, never forget? “I guess maybe when there’s enough light, Mama, the shadows just sort of go away, don’t they?”

Once more now, John Couper had somehow

steadied her, was actually shedding light for her just by being there. He was also shedding light on Anne’s own growing feelings about keeping the Union together. As with slavery itself, she had never really thought a lot about whether she agreed with Papa and Mr. Spalding about the importance of the Union. She was, thanks to her son, aware today that her scattered political notions were jelling at last. With all her heart, she hoped the Union would hold. I must write to Fanny Kemble Butler and tell her, she thought, wishing painfully that she could also tell John. Could somehow let him know that their only son was again shedding light for his mother more surely than had any Lawrence sunrise.

“Old Mr. Thomas Spalding was nominated unanimously from McIntosh County,” Sallie Mackay was saying. “It’s a great honor, but after all, he’s the only person still alive who was present when the Georgia Constitution was drawn up.”

“But isn’t he awfully old and feeble?” Kate Mackay asked. “I thought after his wife died, he’d gone into seclusion in his big mansion on Sapelo Island.”

“Not when he can try to help his country,”

Anne said, her thoughts running back 275 to her own father’s ninetieth birthday party at Hopeton, when Thomas Spalding did indeed strike her as looking far older than Papa. “He isn’t the kind of man not to act on his principles,” she went on. “Papa used to say that Thomas Spalding was as strong and resolute as he was humorless. He didn’t have any humor, you know. And unlike Papa, who plagued him during every visit to Cannon’s Point by ordering Johnson to play and play the bagpipes, he hated music of any kind!”

“Still, those two were fast friends,” Miss Eliza said, her memories of the two planters bringing a smile to her gentle face. “The last time I spoke with Mr. Spalding, he assured me—and I’m not the only person he assured—that before he saw our country broken apart, he would prefer to see himself and all his kin `slumbering under the load of final monumental clay.` How he does love the word United in the name of our beloved land! Almost, I’ve thought at times, as much as he loves his precious Sapelo Island plantation.”

“When he agreed to chair the convention,” John

Couper said, “our Savannah Georgian quoted him as declaring that his feeble health and declining years would not prevent his attending, even if he died on the road to or from Milledgeville.”

“Well, I certainly hope he’s safely back on Sapelo again by now,” Eliza Mackay said. “Wasn’t your wonderful father also present when our Georgia Constitution was drawn up, Anne?”

Anne smiled at her hostess. “Yes, Miss Eliza. Papa was there.”

Again, John Couper laughed his father’s laugh. “And if I know my grandpapa, his spirit was on hand cheering his old friend Spalding at the Milledgeville convention last month, too. My Scottish grandfather John Couper believed in the union of all our states, didn’t he, Mama?”

“He did indeed,” she said. “And so did your Scottish father, Son. And I now realize that I believe in the Union, too!”

The next morning John Couper wanted to show off his mother to his friends at the Exchange Coffee House on Bay Street. Leaving Fanny behind

to placate Miss Eliza’s longtime 277 cook, Hannah, he escorted Anne proudly into the popular dining room and ordered a lavish breakfast for them both.

After he had introduced her to six or seven of his friends from the mercantile world of Savannah, he reached across the table where they sat in a secluded corner and patted her hand.

“I’m doing well in my position with McCleskey and Norton, Mama,” he said, beaming at her, “and I’m fairly proud of the work I do, but far more proud that you’re my mother and at last I can let a few important colleagues treat themselves to looking at the most attractive lady in Georgia.”

His mother laughed almost merrily. “Normally, you don’t exaggerate,” she said. “But when you go as far as you went just now, you’re exactly like your father.”

“I’m proud of that, too.”

As he held out a basket of steaming biscuits, John Couper saw the smile leave her still-lovely face, so he wasn’t at all surprised when she said softly, “I’ve learned somehow to find my way through days and weeks and

months and years without him, but I miss your father so much!”

Again, he touched her hand. “I know. At least, I try to know. I think about all that far more than I mention to you.”

“You’re just right with me. You have always been just right with your old mother, John Couper. I can’t imagine my life without you in it. Pete, with all her impulsive ways, is far more than merely headstrong; she’s turning out to be a truly strong woman. I’m more and more dependent on her. And you know how amenable your sister Fanny is and helpful in every way. Even your baby sister, Selina, is beginning to carry her part of family responsibility so gracefully that I sometimes forget she won’t be fifteen until November of this year. But you’re my rock. I feel safe just knowing you’re my son. Our son. How I longed to give your father a son. Finally I did and the handsomest, most intelligent, talented, compassionate son any two people ever had. Don’t forget him, John Couper. Don’t ever allow what memories you have of your beautiful father to— dim.”

“Am I at all like him? I know Papa was

far more worldly-wise than I’ll ever be. 279 More traveled. Surely more colorful in all ways, but”—he grinned boyishly—“I’d like to think that now and then I make you think of him.”

“Your laughter is so like his at times, I feel I can almost reach out and touch him again.”

Pleased by that, John Couper said, “Would you like to know the things I remember most about Papa?”

“Yes! Oh, yes, I would.”

He stopped buttering a second biscuit, laid it down, and told her as best he could that his most vivid memory of his father was his singing—his command of every pair of listening ears, his singular way of reaching out as though to pull every person in the room to him as the silvery melodies flowed. “I’ve never known another man who filled every room he entered as Papa did, and without seeming to try at all. That he filled a room was far less important than that he filled our lives with strong, happy energy and light. I remember him from some of our family evenings at Lawrence, Mama, as almost glowing. I also remember he sometimes changed moods abruptly. Was he as much like quicksilver as I think?”

He watched her pale, sky-blue eyes

fill with tears, but she was smiling. “Oh, yes! How is it possible that you were sensitive to that when you were such a little boy the last time we were all together with him?”

“I’ve just always believed he was one of those rare men who have the capacity to scale great heights of joy and excitement and then, maybe because of some secret feeling of inadequacy to be the kind of man you deserved, he would slide down, down, down until no one but you knew how to rescue him.”

He could tell that she was listening intently, but when he’d mentioned his father’s mercurial moods and a possible reason for them, her eyes had left his and were now staring as into some secret infinity that would always belong only to Anne and John Fraser.

When she spoke at last, her voice was both tender and firm. “I knew it all along, Son,” she began, “but now I’ve just had it confirmed forever that I can truly depend on you to understand me, to guide me, to help me hold on to some shred of my real self even in the midst of this ghastly, rootless, unbelonging time in my life. When I’m with you, and maybe only when I’m with you, I feel hopeful again. What sense of hope

I had left, after your father went away, 281 my own father helped strengthen. Now, thanks to you, I almost belong again.” A fleeting smile crossed her face. “Don’t worry, don’t feel burdened. I’ll never consciously be a weight around your neck, but it’s all right, isn’t it, if I tell you that some indefinable trait in you has made me believe that I will someday—sometime— belong somewhere again? I’ve lost touch with myself since I had to leave my beloved little Lawrence house. But you knew that, didn’t you?”

“Of course I knew it. Nothing that’s happened to me as a man has hurt me half as much as seeing my own mother—homeless. I also haven’t forgotten that I promised you we’d find a way together to change all that one day. Didn’t I?”

“Yes, and if I admitted how wholeheartedly I’ve leaned on your dream, you’d be ashamed of me.”

He laughed. “Mrs. Fraser, I could never be anything but proud of you, and if you’ve finished with your eggs and biscuits, I have some news that just may make you proud of me. And prove that what I promised is more than a dream.”

She looked ten years younger as she leaned forward, her face eager. “What news? Now you’re being exactly like your father. Don’t make me guess. What’s your news? Did you find a house somewhere—any kind of little place without a leaky roof where the girls and I can live to ourselves again?”

“Not so fast,” he laughed. “No house. Not yet. But I did receive a rather impressive promotion at work, and beginning this fall, I’ll be earning enough salary for us to at least rent a modest cottage somewhere. If we can find one you like.”

“John Couper, I’d be contented in an empty molasses barrel if at the end of a day or a visit, I could open my own door and sleep again in my own house! But tell me about your promotion.”

“Could I order more coffee for you, ma’am?”

“No, no, thank you. Just talk. What will your title be in this new position?”

This time when he laughed, John Couper knew it was like his father’s. “I have no idea that there’ll even be a new title,” he went on, “but my goal in life, Mama, is to have my own mercantile business someday, and Mr.

McCleskey will begin this summer to train 283 me to become his assistant. He’ll teach me how to order for the planters who deal with our firm, how to make cotton selections on my own, and many other dull-sounding but progressive duties. By fall of this year 1851, or maybe even sooner if I learn quickly, my salary will be almost double what it is now.”

“Of course you’ll learn quickly. So quickly, Mr. McCleskey’s head will swim!”

“There have been indications of something like this in the offing and”—he grinned—“that’s one reason you haven’t heard from good old Sister Pete as often as you’d hoped. She’s now way up in Marietta, Georgia, milady.”

She gasped. “Pete’s up in Marietta?”

“She is indeed and although you haven’t heard from her, I have.”

“I’m not sure I like being kept in the dark like this! Who’s in Marietta with Pete?”

“Two good Savannah friends of mine. Mr. John R. Wilder and his wife, Drusilla, who’ve been going to Marietta for long visits for some time. They’re both absolutely smitten with the idea of buying property up there in order to live

at least part of every year in that marvelous climate, even though John’s business is here in Savannah. They like it so much and the future of the town is so promising, he thinks it’s wiser to own something rather than just pay hotel rent at the Howard House as they’ve been doing. The Wilders were going to Marietta anyway, and it seemed to Pete and me a good time for her to make the trip and do a little scouting.”

“I gather you and Pete have been discussing this for some time.”

“Both of us would give anything if we could really help you, Mama.”

“I know that, but if I’m honest, what you’ve done, you and Pete, with your secret, surprise planning, has me dumbfounded. Oh, I know both your hearts. But Son, I need time to think. Does Fanny know anything of your plans?”

He grinned. “Not yet. I want to learn Pete’s firsthand opinion of Marietta before I mentioned it to anyone. It can’t be news to you that more and more people from down here and from Florida are going to Marietta to escape our heat and dampness. The United States Census Bureau calls it the most perfect climate anywhere. There are

breathtaking mountain vistas, healthful 285 mineral waters, and pure freestone drinking water. But what makes it even more attractive as a place to live are the residents. The people of Marietta are said to be unusually congenial, highly cultivated, refined folk.” He leaned toward her. “In short, it sounds almost good enough for my mother. Wouldn’t you like it if we found a place for you and the girls and let you find out? A place with its own key, its own door, both of which belonged to you? You could try living there for a while—only as a trial—so that you wouldn’t feel forced, bound in any way. Mama, I so want you to have the freedom to be yourself again!”