Beauty From Ashes (35 page)

during the day. She is awfully pretty 465 to be older, but even when she’s laughing or smiling, I have a strange feeling that she’s sort of blinking back tears, too. Is that because I know her husband is dead?”

“You’re a most perceptive girl, Georgia. I feel the same way about her, and I know that she and her beloved John Fraser were deeply, deeply in love. They stayed in love for all the years of their lives together, too, according to what she told me. But Pete also confided how much other sadness her mother has had to endure since he died. Not only both parents and a sister, but Anne’s own firstborn daughter died too—her sister and daughter within two years of the time she lost Mr. Fraser.”

“Oh, dear,” Georgia whispered, in awe of such sorrow. “I’ll be ever so kind and thoughtful with Mrs. Fraser, I promise. Could I ask you something?”

“Have I ever refused you, Georgia, when you need to know?”

“Are you and Papa deeply, deeply in love the way Mrs. Fraser and her dead husband were?”

Louisa kept her smile in place. “Your father is an honorable, hardworking man, Georgia. He and I have known each other since I was about your age or longer. He’s not always interested in everything that interests me, but we do share music, books, and our total devotion to you and your sisters. And speaking of music, weren’t you supposed to be at the keyboard long ago?”

Georgia sighed. “Yes and I’m going, but oh, Mama, talking to you makes me feel so grown-up and—intelligent.”

“Thank you, my dear. Now, run along to your practicing.”

“I like it that she calls the Bostwick house her white-light house, don’t you?”

“The truth is, child, I like everything I know about Anne Fraser.”

On Wednesday afternoon, January 7 of the new year 1852, John Couper took Miss Eliza Mackay’s old front steps two at a time, and when Miss Eliza herself answered his knock, he was relieved.

“Come in, John Couper,” she greeted him warmly. “I wish you knew how glad I am to see you this very afternoon.”

Hanging his heavy cloak and top hat in her entrance hall, he grasped both her hands and asked why she seemed particularly pleased “this very afternoon.”

“Because I’m all alone except for my servants back in the kitchen, and I need to talk to someone. Come on, it’s warmer in my parlor.”

John Couper seated the aging lady in her rocker near the roaring fire and then took a chair opposite.

“Nothing’s wrong, I hope, Miss Eliza.”

“Oh, son, with all my heart I hope nothing new has gone wrong in our poor, troubled country. Mark Browning hasn’t brought my newspaper yet today, but he will when he can. I know both Mark’s favorite statesmen in Washington —Henry Clay and Daniel Webster—are ill. We need those men.”

John Couper gave her a quizzical smile. “You’re not the typical Southern lady, are you, Miss Eliza? I hear a lot of talk in the firm where I work, you know. Mostly, since I’ve barely turned nineteen, I keep still and listen, but Southern businessmen are more and more rankled that the South is coming to resemble a Northern colony.”

“I know. And women aren’t supposed to have opinions on such things, but the equality of our region and the states to the North must be clung to. I own some people, but I’m against the spread of slavery into our Western Territories, and I’m old enough to want the Union of all the states preserved.”

“You sound like my Uncle James Hamilton Couper. He’s a big slave owner but a strong Unionist. Mrs. Mackay? I came here today

for two reasons—aside from the pleasure 469 of seeing you again. May I speak freely?”

“John Couper, you already know that’s a rule in this house. I hope all our guests can always feel free to say whatever they want. I admit I worry some about keeping all our states together, but one of the surest ways to break us up is for people in both regions to stop speaking freely and honestly together. I do hope you’re not going to tell me your dear mother can’t visit Savannah again before she moves to Marietta!”

“Oh, no, nothing like that. She and my sisters should be here when the Welaka docks tomorrow. They’re all looking forward to time with you, and one of my reasons for coming today is to thank you from my heart for your kindness to my mother during all these lonely years while she’s had to move from one friend’s home to another. She’s always seemed so much more cheerful after a visit with you.”

“This time I’m just going to listen. I know she’s bound to be the proudest mother anywhere because of your swift rise in your business firm, my boy. And you say you’ve just turned nineteen?”

“Yes, ma’am. Last month, in fact. Maybe I should tell you first that my sister Pete

and I are really behind Mother’s move to Marietta. I put a lot of stock in my sister’s judgment, in spite of her sometimes impetuous ways. She’s been old enough through all of Mama’s many sorrows to have observed her, not only as her mother but as a woman struggling to hide her hard grieving for the sake of the children—all of us. Pete and I planned the initial trip to Marietta because, thanks to my friends the Wilders here, I became convinced that not only everyone’s health, but Mother’s shattered heart will be better up there in that splendid weather.”

“I’ll certainly miss her visits, but so many people speak of Marietta’s temperate weather, fine water, and clear air, it will be a comfort to Anne knowing her children are likely to be healthier up there. More and more Savannahians go up every year just to avoid fevers here, you know. You’ve made a wise decision, John Couper. Did you ever have any doubts?”

“No, ma’am. And, of course, I’m going by train with Mother and my sisters when it’s time to make the trip. I’ll stay as long as I think she needs me. Mr. McCleskey and Mr. Norton are most understanding of the responsibility

I have.” 471

“And how blessed your mother is to have you!”

“No young man ever had a more important mother than I have, Miss Eliza.”

She laughed a little. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a son use that expression before. Any mother would swell with pride to be called important.”

On the edge of his chair now, looking directly at her, John Couper said, “I— I need to say something to someone outside my immediate family, and I’ve chosen you. I want you to know that from the day we lost my father—and I was only a small boy then—I’ve had one purpose in my life. That is to take care of Mother, to do everything possible to give her back at least a little of the pure joy and happiness she knew with my wonderful father.” He saw tears well in Miss Eliza’s eyes and added, “My father was a very hard man to lose, Mrs. Mackay. He and my mother were in love from the first moment they met, you know. I don’t have his charm, but at least I can help see to her material needs. I mean to help her buy the house up there she loves so much.”

“Have you seen the Marietta house?”

“No, but if Mother likes it as she seems to now, it’s fine with me.” He smiled. “She calls it her white-light house, you know. Since the day we buried Papa, she’s clung to the hope she seems to find in—light. I’m not as poetic as Mama, but I have always seemed to understand why she’s needed light to cling to. But she can tell you about the house. That’s part of the reason she’s so glad to be spending a month or so with you.” His smile faded. “That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Her kind face gave him the courage he needed to ask her if she and his mother had ever discussed the question of slavery. “Does she talk to you about it at all? There are so few people with whom anyone can speak freely on the subject.”

“We’ve discussed owning people, yes, son.”

“Then you know my father was against it.” She nodded. “I don’t think Mama ever thought much about it until Mrs. Fanny Kemble Butler came to St. Simons before my father died. She’s said very little to me, but Mother owns twenty-one people. There are only three cabins on the nine acres around her Marietta house. We, like most others over the past few years, have had little money. Mother is going

to need more than she now thinks once she’s 473 moved up there. I know she needs new clothes. So do my sisters if they’re to make the right impression in Marietta. Of course, Fanny is an expert seamstress and Pete can tutor some, but Mama’s going to have to agree to permit me to sell and rent out some of her people. She can take only Eve and June, Mina and her daughter, Flonnie, Big Boy, and Rollie to look after her up there. I know my mother, though. She will not want to sell a single person or even rent anyone out, Miss Eliza.”

“And you want me to talk to her about the necessity of doing both. Is that what you’re driving at, John Couper?”

“Yes, ma’am. It would relieve me a lot if you could see your way clear to do that while she’s here. I’m happy to say that Mama has already found a Marietta lady, Mrs. Louisa Fletcher, the landlady at the Howard House hotel, who seems to be as fond of her as my mother is of Mrs. Fletcher. I’m deeply thankful that she’s found someone she likes so much, but—was

“But, outspoken Louisa Fletcher is from

Massachusetts and deplores slavery. She and her husband, Dix Fletcher, both come from the North. I know them slightly. She’s a glorious singer. I’ve heard her often here at Savannah’s Christ Church. He sings too, I believe, although they are very different persons. Louisa has definite opinions. The Fletchers lived here for several years, you know, until his cabinetmaking business burned.”

With an almost sly grin, John Couper said, “I confess I hoped you knew them. Mrs. Fletcher especially. Mother’s so attached to most of our people, I’m going to have some trouble talking her into letting me do what I must do with part of her property and—was

“And you think I can convince her to listen to you first before she listens too intently to Louisa Fletcher?”

“Something like that.”

“I can’t promise anything, John Couper. I think I must warn you, though, that where my heart is concerned, I might just be almost exactly where your mother is when it comes to selling people—or renting them out.” Miss Eliza thought a minute, then said, “Your mother is a sensible woman, though, John

Couper. And would never want to be a 475 burden to you in any way.”

“I know that.”

“I also hope you know you mustn’t allow all you’re doing for her to come in the way of living your own life.”

He grinned. “Miss Eliza, Mama is my life these days.”

Late on Monday, February 23, by the time Anne and her children had changed trains at the town now being called Atlanta, Anne wished impatiently for Eve, who, with June, Big Boy, Rollie, Mina, and Flonnie, had to ride in the Negro car at the rear. Trying to tidy her hair with one hand while she held a small looking glass from her portmanteau in the other was nearly impossible, especially with all the jerking. They’d been in this car for only several minutes, but the train had chugged to three stops in the night darkness—black except for the frightening showers of sparks that blew about the ladies’ car where they rode. Burning chips and splinters scattered

in the wind along the length of the entire train, blown from the wood fire that powered the engine and the wood-burning stoves providing heat in the front and the back of each car.

Seated near the front of the coach, Anne felt her face alternately singed and chilled, depending on how much time had passed since the conductor last fed the stoves with fresh wood. She felt grown to the stiff, unyielding seat of the Western and Atlantic ladies’ car as she’d felt grown to almost identical seats on the Central of Georgia and then the Macon and Western, all through the exhausting, muscle-bruising day since they’d boarded this morning in Savannah just after first light.

Only twenty miles left to travel north and she would be in Marietta. John Couper’s regular, cheering smiles buoyed her, but her boy, seated now beside her, looked so exhausted she could have wept.

John Couper could, of course, ride with her and the girls in the ladies’ car since he was their escort, and Anne was somewhat relieved to have had a few minutes with Eve on the platform in Atlanta when they’d all changed trains there.

“We gonna git to Mar’etta any 477 time now, Miss Anne,” Eve had said with her best smile. “June say it ain’t but ‘bout twenty miles left. Why you don’t make up your min’ to think hard ‘bout all we got to be thankful for, till we gits there. Think ‘bout you havin’ your own house to go to soon.”

Anne scooted her body to a slightly more comfortable position on the hard seat and began to try her best to mind Eve. She could certainly be thankful for Miss Eliza Mackay’s promise of daily prayers for them all as they worked to settle into their new surroundings. She was grateful for Miss Eliza’s reminder that Anne would now have her first real chance to learn to live through the second part of her married life without John. Able, at least, to make her own decisions. She gave silent thanks for that, but why had a one-day train trip so exhausted her? So exhausted all of them? Even young Selina had dark circles under her eyes. Were they so weary because they knew this was the real wrench? The last severance from their beloved coast? Their last good-bye to St. Simons Island, with John’s dear body left behind in the tree-shaded churchyard at

Frederica along with her parents, her sister, and her Annie? But didn’t she believe, as she had the day she’d said good-bye to John at his graveside, that he knew about the white-light house in Marietta? And if John knew, didn’t Papa and Mama and Isabella and Annie also know?

Eve was right. She should be sorting out the good things. Even the rattling screech of the train wheels and the shimmer of excessive heat, which she could actually see reflected in the oil lamp of the railroad car, reminded her that just a few years ago the more than three-hundred-mile journey from the Georgia coast to Marietta by stage would have taken anywhere from three to five days, depending on the condition of the roads. The train was bringing her there in only one long day.

When the car lurched to a stop that could have knocked Anne off the seat, John Couper held her, kept her safe. She could be forever thankful for her son, who would always—even so far away in Savannah—find a way to protect her and Pete and Fanny and Selina. All three girls appeared to be napping now. She was thankful for that, too, even though Pete was forced