Beauty From Ashes (37 page)

Once the final papers were signed and they gained possession of their new home, the days flew by until it was nearly time for John Couper to return to Savannah.

The day he was handed the notice that several large crates were at the Marietta freight platform under his name was a day Anne would never forget. She was overjoyed at the sight of her son, flushed and excited as he directed the removal of Father Fraser’s huge old desk from a heavy cart

into the light-drenched parlor of the new 493 house. It was a sight she would be able to see again anytime she called it up. Anyone strong and young could have done what John Couper did, but his act had meaning for her beyond explanation to anyone. She held it close.

“There’s no other place for it, Mama,” the boy laughed as he stood back to size up the look of the tall piece against the inside wall of the spacious living room. “So stop bragging on me. It’s just too big to go anywhere else in the whole house! Sorry we had to remove that nice old ornamental piece from the top of it, though.”

“I’ll brag all I want to, John Couper,” Anne laughed, “but even my son couldn’t think of a way to raise the ceilings. Anyway, it’s a good omen. To me, Father Fraser’s cherished desk actually looks better there than anywhere else.”

Both hands on his mother’s shoulders, the boy looked deep into her eyes. She could feel his look, not unlike his father’s in the old days when John was trying to win a point with her.

“You’re going to be all right here, Mama,” he said, his voice solemn. “I’d give anything

if I didn’t have to go back to Savannah at the end of this week, but every minute I’m away I’m going to remember you with the expression I see on your beautiful face this minute. You’re a courageous, strong lady. I’m ever so proud to be your son.” When she said nothing, he grinned down at her. “It’s no wonder my father was so hopelessly in love with you. You’re not only strong, you’re truly beautiful. Didn’t he call you beautiful Anne?”

Feeling her face flush with pain and joy, Anne said, “Yes. But he was often a very biased man. In many ways you’re—you are more like him every day, John Couper. I want you to remember that always. I want you to be more like him—more and more and more like him. Even sometimes stubborn. He was, you know.”

“I know I seem stubborn to you because I’m insisting that we have to rent out or sell most of our people. We do have to, Mama. I signed the papers today for the dozen or so who’ll be working on the state railroad. I wish I earned more money than I do, but considering my age, I feel McCleskey and Norton are most generous with me.”

“They’re not generous at all. They’re just good

businessmen and they know how valuable you are 495 to their firm.”

“I told you I’ve given myself a new goal. Within three years I mean to own my own mercantile business.”

“John Couper! You’re not yet twenty!”

“Both my employers are still in their late twenties. As Eve would say, where is it written down that a man has to be any particular age to own his own business?”

She laughed. “Nowhere. Your father would call you an original.”

“He would? Why?”

“Because he was your father and because you’re his son.”

Saying good-bye to John Couper on Thursday, March 25, the very last day he could catch the Western and Atlantic from Marietta to head back to Savannah, was an impossible ordeal made possible by Louisa Fletcher herself.

“I know you wondered who on earth would be knocking at your door at this early morning hour, Anne,” Louisa said when Anne opened her wide front door, “but I know what day it is. Your handsome son leaves today. I’ve brought

Elmer and our carriage. Won’t it help some if you and the girls can go along to the depot with him? I thought it might give a—well, a kind of party atmosphere to what could be somewhat sad for you.”

“Louisa, Louisa, you are a friend! Thank you. June was going to take him in the dray we rented to bring the remaining crates here from the Howard House, but you’ve saved the day. Surely for John Couper’s sentimental mother.”

“Only another mother can understand the sharpness of saying good-bye to a child, even when that child will someday be back for another good visit. I do like to believe that you and I rather understand each other, Anne.”

By early May the spring green sheen, which spread across every gum and hickory and dogwood and pine standing across the nine acres on which the Greek Revival house sat in its majestic simplicity, had burst into white blossoms of dogwood, ivory magnolia, and chartreuse pine blooms. To Anne’s feasting eyes the blossoms seemed only to heighten the

multiplied spring-into-summer greens, 497 more visible each day when Eve drew back the bedroom draperies.

“Morning, Miss Anne,” Eve whispered eagerly almost every day. “Look out the window. We still here! You an’ me’s still here in our own scrumptious place. Wake up yo’ sleepy eyes an’ look for yourself. It ain’t no dream. Eve an’ June, they startin’ to git their brick cabin all straight, an’ the new flowered curtains you an’ Fanny make for me looks prettier every day they hangs there!”

Eve, Anne supposed, would eventually vary her almost rote morning greetings, but she really hoped not. Anne liked her days begun on the throaty melody of Eve’s pure delight, not only in the light-filled beauty of the big house —Anne’s very own—but in Eve’s brick cabin. “Do you suppose you’ll ever stop calling the house where you and June live your brick cabin, Eve?”

“No, ma’am, ‘cause I never, ever dream that Eve an’ June they have a real brick house. Why you didn’t tell me my cabin be made outa bricks like me an’ June was rich

folks?” Her good smile flashing, Eve turned from preparing Anne’s bathwater. “This be a happy day, Miss Anne. You seem ‘bout zactly like your ole smilin’ self now that we finally here, an’ Eve plan to keep you that way.” Mixing hot with cool water in the huge, hand-painted porcelain bowl on the washstand, Eve asked, “Why you ain’t said something ‘bout me?”

“What am I supposed to say about you?”

“Don’ I be talking good now that we lives in Mar’etta, Georgia, ‘mongst the high-up folks?”

“Oh, I’m sorry! Every day I’ve meant to tell you how proud I am of you. Will you forgive me?”

“Yes’m. June, he don’t seem to mind neither. In fact, he tell me last night arter —after—we done got in bed that he felt like he married to a Ebo queen!”

“Are there Ebo queens?”

“How Eve know that? Eve ain’t no Ebo. She jus’ love the groun’ one ole Ebo walks on!”

“I know, and sometimes I wonder if you have any idea of my downright joy that you and June still have

each other. Do you know how glad that 499 makes me?”

“Co’se I know,” Eve said, sponging and rinsing Anne’s back, then drying it quickly because the morning was chilly, even in May. “I also knows I shoulda lit a fire in this room. How I keep forgettin’ it get cold in the night way up here?” Reaching for one of the new, warm undergarment vests Fanny and Pete had bought yesterday right out of a regular store down on the Square, Eve said, “Put this on, Miss Anne. A genuwine store-bought vest keep you good an’ warm till the sun come out.”

“What makes you so sure the sun’s going to come out? I know these bright, white walls make it seem light anywhere in this house, but I’d swear I heard it raining just before you opened my curtains a while ago. The trees are dripping this minute. See for yourself.”

“The sun, he comin’ out later, though.”

“How can you be so sure about everything?”

“‘Cause June, he say so.”

While Eve hooked the back of her bodice, Anne mused, “Do you remember how you and I used to tease my John because he was always wrong when

he tried to guess the weather?”

“Yes’m. I remember. Mausa John, he never wrong for you, though, Miss Anne. Even when he foolin’ you ‘bout something, he be right for you. You ever thought how safe you are now?”

“Safe?”

“Safe, ‘cause from now till you an’ me gets to heaven, you can’t ever lose Mausa John again. Someday, Eve gonna need you bad, ‘cause someday, him bein’ fifteen years older than me, Eve gonna lose June—jus’ like you lose Mausa John. But you ain’t never gonna have to say good-bye to Mausa John, not ever again. You ever think of that?”

After a silence, Anne said, “No. I—I guess you’re right, though. How old is June now?”

“He be a lot older than Mausa John was when you lose him. You an’ me’s in our fifties.”

“Do you have to remind me of that?” Anne thought a minute. “June must be—Eve, his hair’s as white as snow, even though he looks like a man in middle age. But do you realize June is nearly seventy years old? Oh, we could neither

one ever do without him!” 501

“Someday we gonna have to, Miss Anne. Eve, she done settle that within herse’f.”

“How? Tell me how a woman who loves a man the way you love June can ever settle a thing like that? Eve, I haven’t settled it within myself—and John’s been gone nearly thirteen years!”

Eve’s eyes brimmed, but she stood very straight. “It be different with Eve.”

“What on earth do you mean by that?”

“A lot of your trouble settlin’ yourself was not havin’ a home of your own no more. It cause you trouble tryin’ to find a place to lay your head, Miss Anne. That will be decided for Eve. Eve belong to you. You the one says where Eve lib after June, he gone to heaven.”

Anne frowned as she studied the woman’s expressive face. “What are you telling me, Eve? Are you saying that by some means it won’t be as hard for you to lose June? You can’t mean that!”

“No’m. I don’ mean that. June, he take half of Eve jus’ like Mausa John take half of you.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“I mean where I lives will always be settled for me. You do that.”

“Eve, it isn’t right for you to go confusing me after all these years. Why do you keep doing it?”

Swiping tears from her face, Eve answered in a voice that told Anne nothing. “‘Cause it be true. You owns Eve’s whole life now. When June take part of it away, you still own what’s left. Looks like you’d know that, Miss Anne.”

“But I also need to know if that’s good for you or bad? Does it comfort you that you and I will always be together?”

“Where would Eve go without you?”

“I suppose that’s the only answer I’m going to get.”

“Yes’m.” On her knees, Eve ordered, “Stick out your foot so’s I can put on your stockings. Dat be the only answer you gonna get, ‘cause it’s the only one I knows.” Finished with the stockings, Eve got up. “The more I talks to other nigger womens ‘roun’ here, specially the ones that sticks their chins in the air when they reminds me they is `free people of color,` the more I wonder if belongin’ to you

really be good or bad.” The sly grin 503 came. “Today, it be good! June, he say the sun come out after noon an’ I got me a real brick house an’ you got you a white-light mansion an’ we be—us. That good, ain’t it?”

“I might have known you weren’t going to give me a straight answer,” Anne said, tossing a light woolen shawl around her shoulders. “How often do you talk with other people of color?”

Eve only shrugged and changed the subject. “What time you reckon your new Mar’etta friend, Miss Louisa Fletcher, get here to take you to the shops on the Square? I know you be eatin’ your breakfus with her at the hotel she live in, but you needs at least one cup of coffee before you goes out on this chilly morning.”

“No, I don’t. Mrs. Fletcher will be here any minute and that only gives me time to say good morning to my girls before Pete starts Selina’s lessons. I have a little money today. John’s pension came in the mail yesterday. Is there something you and June need for your brick house? I can try to find it in one of the shops while I’m out with my new friend.”

“How come you call her your new frien’? We

done been livin’ here nearly two months now an’ anybody knows to listen to you an’ Mrs. Fletcher talk you be real frien’s with her.”

Anne smiled, then sighed. “I suppose you’re always going to be nosy.”

“I speck so.” Eve was smiling, too. “If it have to do with you, Miss Anne, it my bi’ness to nose ‘roun’. I likes Mrs. Fletcher jus’ fine.”

“I’m sure she’d be relieved to learn that. And I do thank you for helping me dress.”

“You ain’t got to thank me all the time. You never used to do it. Eve help you jus’ the same, either way.”

“I know, but if I feel like thanking you, I believe I’m free to do it. Don’t you?”

Eve’s grin was both impish and affectionate. “I’se free as any nigger ever be with you, too. You might say I’se also a free person of color, ‘ceptin’ I don’t stick my chin in the air ober nothin’ but my brick house! I ain’t met one that calls herself a free person of color that got a brick house.”

“Well, you do and you’re also hopping from one subject to another as though you’re just trying to mix

me up. I asked if you needed anything 505 for your house. Could you bring yourself to answer me?”

“Scuse me,” Eve said, still grinning. “I didn’t mean to do wrong. I would like to have a strip of some kind of string or ribbon to tie back my new curtains, so when June’s sun come out later like he say it do, all that white light you loves kin git into my kitchen too. Don’t spend much ob Mausa John’s money, though. Pete, she tell me you got only enough to pay for yo’ house.”

“A yard or two of ribbon or shiny cord won’t cost much,” Anne said. She then added with a hint of a smile, “I’m glad you reminded me, though, that we’d have none of this beauty and privacy if John’s pension didn’t keep coming. I’m going to think about that a lot from now on, Eve. He’s still taking care of me. Still taking his tender, loving care of us all.”

During most of the first months spent at the white-light house on its rise of land in Marietta, life was hectic and noisy, even

at times confused as—according to Anne’s means—workmen came and went, making minor repairs even while she and her girls attempted to do at least a small amount of entertaining. In fact, there had been no escaping it, because most of the warmhearted, genteel ladies of Marietta paid call after call welcoming Anne and her fatherless family to town.

“I know they’re being kind,” Pete complained one hot, almost airless August morning, “but wouldn’t you think someone would pass the word that we’re just not settled yet, Mama?”