Beauty From Ashes (30 page)

“The boy writes to you regularly, I’m sure.”

“He does and we had the extreme pleasure of his company overnight right here at Hopeton earlier this month. Just before you returned to the coast, I believe.”

“Yes. I knew he was coming. James,” she said in an almost solemn voice, her smile replaced by a look that begged her brother to believe her, “I told Anna Matilda King day before yesterday that John Couper is my rock. That I’d be afraid of everything without him.”

Instead of the slightly critical, puzzled look James so often gave to those who didn’t quite keep up with the speed of his facile mind, he was smiling at her. Smiling broadly and leafing through

a neatly stacked sheaf of papers in one of his desk drawers. “As usual, Anne, you express yourself in hyperbole, but where John Couper is concerned, I must say that I fully understand why a mother would be tempted to exaggerate.” From the sheaf of papers he took out a single-page letter, leaned back in his chair, and announced that although her son hadn’t known the nature of the letter he brought with him from Savannah, James considered the message so unusual, so important, he would now read it aloud to Anne, trusting that it also imparted his own estimation of her only son.

She waited while James Hamilton took out his spectacles, shined them carefully, hooked them over his ears, smoothed the single page more than it needed to be smoothed, and began to read.

“Savannah

2 April 1851 James Hamilton Couper, Esq., Glynn County

Dear Sir:

We embrace the opportunity of the intended visit of your nephew, Mr. John C.

Fraser, to his relatives in your part 397 of the country, to perform a most pleasant duty in bearing our unsolicited testimony to his uniform rectitude of conduct while in our employ as clerk and soon to be head clerk. The temptations which beset a person of his years in a community like this have so far had no allurements for him, and with an extraordinary exemption from every specie of vice, strict attention to his business duties, and a high-toned moral principle, he bids fair to be in an eminent degree, the pride of his family and friends and an ornament to society.

We beg the favor that you will communicate the purport of this letter to his mother and sisters, to whom it would doubtless be a gratification to learn that the conduct of their relative meets the highest approbation of his employers.

Your Obdt. Servants,

McCleskey and Norton”

Overcome by the content of the letter, Anne slumped a bit in her chair, a smile lighting her face. “James! Oh, James,” she gasped. “How can I ever thank you enough?”

“Ah, it is I who can never thank you, dear

Anne, for the high privilege of knowing your splendid son not only as my nephew but as what I trust him to be, my friend as well.”

“Have you read the letter to his younger sisters yet?”

“No. I wanted you to know of it first. I did, however, read it to John Couper while he was here with us. Anne, I must urge you to make careful note that the Messrs. McCleskey and Norton, of their own volitions, wrote and sent this letter, even bothering to say in it that it is indeed unsolicited by John Couper.”

Anne knew her sudden, short laugh surprised her brother, but to her it was downright funny for anyone even to think that the boy would ever solicit such a letter. “Don’t be shocked that I laughed, James,” she said. “The very thought that a young gentleman like my son would ever dream of doing such a thing is, to his mother, only comical.”

Doing his best to smile, too—in fact, Anne thought it her brilliant brother’s pathetic best—James said a surprising thing: “I feel you must be aware, Sister, that from boyhood, I’ve recognized that you and our illustrious father had more or less laughed at most of what I think and do. I take no offense now,

surely, but I confess I did not 399 expect you to laugh at me for being so proud of your fine son.”

Anne rushed to throw both arms around James’s neck and was more than pleased when he quickly returned the embrace. “Dear, dear Brother,” she said, still hugging him. “I know I’m difficult for you and you’re right. You can be difficult for me, too, but we do care about each other and I love you more than ever for having saved that wonderful letter for me. Papa would be so proud of you. I’m sure I’ll wear it out reading and rereading it, so thank you from my heart. Just—just try to be as sensitive to what I’ve made up my mind to do with my own life as you’re being about the McCleskey and Norton letter. Can you be?”

Almost brusquely, he disengaged her arms from around his neck. That her impetuous gesture had pleased him she had no doubt, but this was James Hamilton, a gentleman so strict that even his own children were never allowed to play cards with each other in the Hopeton parlor.

When she was back in the armchair where she’d been sitting, he asked politely, “Now, do you feel you can tell me just what it is you have

planned, Anne? I can promise only that I’ll be totally honest with you in my reaction to it. I will say that I had a firm conviction when John Couper was here that he already knew what it is you mean to do. He said not one word about it, but I sensed that much.” After another check of his watch, he asked, “Do you think you’re ready to tell me now? My allotted time is running out.”

“Yes, James. I know about your rigid schedule and I also know I’m lucky to have been permitted some of your time today. But will you please just listen to me? Hear me out?” By the time she finished telling him of her own state of helplessness when she left Eliza Mackay’s house in Savannah and headed by train for Marietta, of her confusion at the lostness of her own life, too much of her allotted time had passed. But with all her heart, she’d tried to explain to him that even though she appreciated his family’s taking her and her children in, giving them a home at Hopeton, she also knew that they had been a disruption to James Hamilton and to his dear, hospitable wife, Caroline, and to the children still living there. She stopped talking for an instant when James failed to disagree with her using the word disruption. He did

say he’d be totally honest with me, she 401 thought. Well, he is being. I’ll just go on, not call his attention to something that could well ruin this already risky conversation.

“I can truthfully tell you, James,” she heard herself say, “that I would never have made the trip to Marietta had both Pete and John Couper not pushed me to do it. In fact, John Couper had already sent his sister up there. Pete was house hunting, living at the home of his Savannah friends the John Wilders. At their suggestion I stopped at the Howard House, and from almost the first moment I met the landlady, Mrs. Dix Fletcher—Louisa to me now—I knew I had made my own, my very own new friend. No one even introduced Louisa and me. She was simply the landlady at the hotel where I stayed. She is so much like Fanny Kemble Butler, I found myself drawn to her immediately!”

James made his first utterance since she began talking. He said, “Mrs. Butler, eh? Him-more.”

“I’m not even going to ask you what that means. I truly liked Fanny Kemble Butler. Found her stimulating. She stretched my mind,

put me at ease because so many of her ideas and convictions were like John’s. My John’s. She kept me on my toes, but I also felt at home with her. I feel the same with Louisa Fletcher, and somehow I believed her when she told me soon after we met that she also needed a new friend of her very own. Needed someone in whom she could confide, with whom she could be herself with no fears of criticism. Yes, James, like Fanny Kemble, she’s against slavery. She’s also a Unionist.”

“Well, you know, Sister,” he interrupted, “that I am certainly against secession of the Southern states from the Union!”

Anne stared at him. “No. No, I didn’t know that. How would I know? You and I have never talked about such things together. But I think I’m relieved that you are against such a dangerous idea as leaving the Union, and I thank you for telling me now.”

“Not at all,” he said and allowed her to continue.

She had a bit more trouble than she expected actually telling him that she had committed herself to buy rather than rent a large, handsomely simple

house, even though it would not be easy 403 to meet the payments against the final price of almost five thousand dollars. She quickly pointed out that the house would probably not be available until early 1852 and that John Couper was to receive a sizable raise in salary long before then. And that he seemed to have his heart set on making it possible for her to have a home of her very own in surroundings where she could, by God’s grace and her earnest effort, learn how to live again without so many people who had once filled her very life.

“I have known for several years that I’m being a burden to all my children, even Selina,” she continued. “It’s not fair to them. There have been times when I’ve actually allowed myself to think that because the three older children have been forced to grieve so much over me, they haven’t had a chance to grieve properly for their father, their sister Annie, their grandparents.” Sitting on the edge of the armchair, she pleaded with him. “James, James, please do your very best not to be annoyed with what I’ve done and most especially because I did it without consulting you. But you have your own life to live. If anyone knows your heavy financial responsibilities, I know them. I know I

may be doing a foolish thing, but I had to make my own decision, with the help of Pete and John Couper, and I have to begin now to take full charge of my life. You’ve always been available to help me in all the ways you could. I am sure, even though you and I are as different as two people can be, that I know the depth and quality of your feelings toward me, toward my children. But I had to do this on my own. Do you understand at all what I’m saying?”

For some time he sat behind his large desk in silence, his eyes still on the businesslike script of the letter about John Couper from the owners of McCleskey and Norton. Finally, he said softly, “I’ve always meant to help you in any way I could, Anne. I’ve always meant to— to understand you. I’m not at all sure that I do understand you, but I believe you and I accept what you’ve done without consulting me. I also ask your forgiveness because your brother James Hamilton Couper was—still is, along with most other coastal planters—unable to lay hands on an extra dollar with which to assist you financially. I felt ashamed that due to the nation’s economy, I could not repair your house at Lawrence because I was unable to borrow money. Not for repairs, not for enough extra

hands to work your land over there on St. 405 Simons. I can assure you that otherwise I would never have leased Cannon’s Point to anyone outside the family.”

“Oh, James, hush! Don’t ever say any of this again. Don’t even think it. Just tell me you’re glad I even think I might have made a good decision for me and my children. Whether or not you believe I have, tell me you’re glad I believe I have. Can you do that?”

After another check of his watch, James got to his feet. “I can truthfully say I am glad if you believe you’ve done a wise thing, Sister. But could we go over once more the actual amount of your income from John’s military pension?”

“Why, yes, James, but it hasn’t changed. Not in pounds at least. I receive forty pounds a year as my widow’s pension and until Fanny and Selina are twenty-one, ten pounds a year for each of them.”

“I believe at my last check, one British pound is equivalent to something above four dollars in American currency. Am I correct?”

“As far as I know, yes. And John Couper vows he can send us money each month when his salary goes up.”

“The lad means that, too. I’d stake almost anything I own on his faithfulness to you, Anne. It’s just that this is an enormous decision for a woman to be forced to make alone.”

“I wasn’t forced to make it. I made it on my own, Brother.”

“The truth is, you’re not alone. You’ll never be alone as long as you have your splendid son, John Couper.” James picked up the letter and handed it to her. “I do thank you for telling me of your plans at last and I want you to have this letter to keep. I also want you to join me in the sure knowledge that our own father would be delirious with joy if he could read this letter about his namesake and grandson. I’m proud of my sister, too, and I want very much for you to believe that and to remember it. Now, our interview must come to an end, Anne. It’s five minutes past the time I normally allot to reading poetry in the morning before I ride out to inspect my fields. I’ll see you to the door.”

Throughout the soft, sometimes rainy, sometimes sunny spring back on the coast, Anne and her three girls packed and unpacked. They made what she knew to be farewell visits to friends in Darien; to her brother William Audley’s family at Hamilton on St. Simons, where she and John had spent so many happy years when their children were growing up; to Anna Matilda’s home at Retreat. And when Frances Anne Fraser came to see her sisters at the Wylly plantation, the Village, she spent time there too.

She, Pete, Fanny, and Selina had outwardly fallen back into the tiresome drifting about from relative’s house to friend’s house, almost as though the whole trip to Marietta had been only a dream. Now and then her youngest daughter would complain because so much time had to go by before the Marietta house would be empty so that they could move into it.

“You haven’t even seen our new home, Selina,” Anne would say to her. “Don’t you like it at all down here on the coast anymore?”

“Oh, Mama, I’ve always liked it fine

here, but that was when we could go home when it began to get dark. Home to our own place. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to make up our own minds what we want to eat every day?”

Yes, yes. Anne could not have agreed more surely with her fourteen-year-old daughter, growing prettier, her dark brown hair curlier, with the passing of every day. The dragging passing of every day. What they were all doing during this odd, forced interlude was at times sickeningly like what they’d been doing through the sorrow-filled, helpless weeks, months, and years during which one after another of their loved ones left them. But in Anne’s secret heart—and she knew in Pete’s, too—the white-light house on its rise of land just off Decatur Street in Marietta was continuing to undergird everything they did to fill these waiting days with a brightness and security yet unknown to Fanny and Selina.