Beauty From Ashes (43 page)

As Anne walked beside Pete toward the entrance to the Howard House, she said, her voice confidential, “I want you to know Fraser and I went a long way together when we talked in my room earlier today. I need to tell someone that I’ve—misjudged Paul Demere all this time. Thanks to his son, I feel I’ve lost almost all my bad feelings toward him. I was wrong.”

She felt Pete squeeze her arm. “I know you were, Mama, but you have to forgive yourself.”

“Yes.”

“The truth is you just never liked Paul. All the rest of us liked him fine. I know Papa did. You didn’t for a reason that’s no one’s business but yours.” Nearly a head taller, Pete looked down at her mother. “In your eyes, there wasn’t a man on earth good enough for Annie.”

“I don’t know why you and Eve have to be so smart!”

“Eve knew, too?” Pete asked.

“Yes, she did.”

“Mama, are you going to admit to her that she and I were right? That at least some of your heartache was because you’d blinded yourself to even the possibility of a good streak in Paul Demere?”

Because Louisa was coming toward them across the hotel lobby, Anne only whispered curtly, “Maybe I will and maybe I won’t, Miss Know-it-all!”

“How do you do, Mrs. Fletcher?” Pete said, using her most ladylike manner. “We’re invited to the Denmeads for dinner and it would mean everything to Mama for you to come along.”

“What my daughter meant to say, dear

Louisa,” Anne said, “is that it would 577 mean a lot to us all. To the Denmeads, too, I’m sure.”

Louisa’s good smile never failed to lighten Anne’s spirit. “Well, I’m not a working woman any longer. Why not? My husband has a business appointment for dinner anyway with Mayor John Glover. Yes! I’d love to go, but is there room in your carriage?”

“I’m afraid not,” Pete said. “I thought perhaps you could drive Mama out in Mr. Fletcher’s buggy. I know what an expert you are.”

Louisa laughed. “Flattery will get you anywhere you choose to go, dear Pete. I’d be honored to drive your charming mother, my new best friend! The buggy’s ready to go. My husband won’t need it, though. He’ll be glad to walk.”

Though without much warmth, the January sun was clear and bright as the two women settled on the buggy seat, both bundled in heavy cloaks. Louisa drove deftly along Canton Road in the direction of the Denmeads’ place on the outskirts of town.

“I thought sure there’d still be patches of snow when we reached the edge of town,” Anne said. “There aren’t. I don’t see a single place where it hasn’t melted.”

Louisa looked at her friend. “Anne, you didn’t invite me to tag along to discuss the weather, now did you?”

“No. I need to tell you something truly important. At least, I feel it’s going to be very important to me from now on.”

Louisa listened intently as Anne told her in some detail of the meaningful, sweet time she’d shared with her grandson this morning and, as though she was showing her a rare treasure, handed her the miniature of her daughter Annie, which the boy had insisted his grandmother keep until time for him to leave.

“I had only a silhouette of Annie in profile. Just seeing this almost perfect likeness of her face again means—everything,” Anne said, seemingly unmindful that tears rolled down her face.

The Fletchers’ horse knew the way to Ivy Grove, of course, so Louisa studied the lovely face in the portrait with great care.

“Anne, Anne,” she said at last, 579 “I admire you more than ever for having lived through a single day without this beautiful, tender daughter.”

“I haven’t lived through a single day with any grace,” Anne said in her honest, direct way. “Even my servant, Eve, knew I was making everything harder by staying bitter toward Annie’s husband, Paul Demere. The truth is, I never liked him, so I blamed him for her death in childbirth. Of course, I flared at Eve for accusing me of such a thing.” And then she surprised Louisa by adding, “It—it might not be so hard from now on, though. This is the important part, Louisa. My grandson, only eleven, somehow found a way to melt my icy bitterness toward his father. You see, the boy let me know, by showing me that lovely miniature his father arranged to have painted of her on their honeymoon, that Paul Demere wants young Fraser to keep my Annie fresh in his memory. That’s the only likeness Paul owns of her. He gave it to the boy. Fraser also vows his father wants him to call his stepmother Miss Jessie—not Mother. Oh, Louisa, mothers can be quite unreasonable. It’s still hard for me to admit, but I have been. I have been!

I’d give anything if I could ask Annie’s forgiveness.”

After a moment Louisa said, her voice tender, “Annie forgives you. You’ll just have to remember that she now lives in the very presence of the Forgiver. God is a veritable artist at forgiving. He created forgiveness. Where would we all be if He hadn’t?”

When Louisa returned the miniature to Anne, who placed it carefully back into her reticule, Louisa asked, “Will you keep me posted? I think it might help if you simply tell me now and then as we live our days as friends —as special friends—that you are remembering that Annie has already forgiven you.”

Anne said nothing but reached to give Louisa’s arm a squeeze.

For the distance of a quarter mile or so, they rode along in silence. Finally, Anne said, her voice far steadier, “Thank you. Thank you. I’m sure I’m ready for our day with the Denmeads now.”

Their visit was not only pleasant, the conversation with the Denmeads at dinner challenged Anne so much, she found herself steadily glad that Louisa was there too. At the first opportunity, perhaps after John Couper and young Fraser had said good-bye on Saturday morning, she intended to have a real talk with her best Marietta friend. Heaven knew she would need to keep her own mind occupied after the boys left, because this time she would be saying good-bye to her son for at least six months and to young Fraser for longer than she dared face.

Except with Louisa, Anne had not ventured to discuss one word about politics or even broach the subject of slavery with any of the new friends she’d made. That the political atmosphere in Marietta was unlike the position on the coast— as unlike as night and day—she had no doubt from the start of her new life. No one had told her, but she guessed that the Denmeads of Ivy Grove probably owned more slaves than did anyone else, not only because she’d seen some of their people that day but because the Denmeads owned more than eighteen hundred acres of land. Still, at dinner she had

heard both Mary and Edward Denmead declare themselves to be Unionists, declare their faith in the singular vision of the United States forefathers.

Of course, as Anne well knew, not every Unionist necessarily believed that slavery was wrong. After all, her own brother James Hamilton, one of the largest slaveholders in a slave-owning county down on the coast, believed staunchly in the union of all the states and reminded her, the last time the two had talked, that she mustn’t allow her unforgettable friend Fanny Kemble to convince her that everyone in the North was an abolitionist. “That, dear Sister, is far from the truth. I’m in correspondence with an antiabolitionist Northern Whig gentleman who declares that the abolitionists mean to agitate until Southerners are driven to madness—the madness of secession—at which time there will be plans to free all Negroes. Men such as my New England correspondent dread that, because he believes that if slavery is outlawed, the Union cannot endure. Like me, he is a strong Unionist. Seek no simple answers, Anne. There are none.”

Anne remembered her brother’s words because he

so seldom discussed politics with a 583 woman. She had felt honored; yet now, living a whole new life, she was oddly annoyed with herself for having been honored in such a demeaning way. On the coast, for much of her lifetime the troublesome issue of owning people had almost seemed natural to Anne. Oh, Papa and Thomas Spalding despised it, but both were large slave owners anyway. Fanny Kemble Butler herself had vowed to Anne that Anne’s father, Jock Couper, “turned to jelly when I brought up the ugly subject in his presence. Still, in his good heart, he knows his tyranny over the lives of his Negroes is against the will of God. Only God Himself is fit to be a master.”

These disturbing, yet somehow freeing, thoughts had been crowding Anne’s mind as she rested alone in her bed at the end of such an eventful and stimulating day. The children—John Couper, Fraser, and all three girls—were outside cutting dark, shiny, green magnolia leaves at Eve’s insistence and, of course, under her direct supervision. She and Mina had decided that dinner tomorrow, and each day before John Couper and Fraser must leave Marietta, had to be a celebration, which

to Eve meant decorating the house with fresh greenery cut, of course, under her eagle eye.

Anne had watched them all for a few minutes. They were having a good time and, except for Pete, seemed totally involved in their project. Because Pete kept looking up at Anne’s bedroom window, as though something weighed on her mind, Anne went to bed. Pete was so smart she equaled Eve at times in the almost weird way she had of sensing her mother’s most private thoughts. Pete’s life in Marietta was, so far as Anne could tell, not exactly exciting for a young woman in her late twenties. She had met no young man who appeared to interest her. As always, she hated to sew and scoffed at fancywork of any kind. Her eldest daughter’s one mission seemed to be seeing to her mother’s happiness. I wonder if I need to worry about Pete more, Anne thought, as she turned down the coverlet and plumped the bolster before stretching out on her bed.

Still able to hear the children laughing from outside in the big yard, she assumed the footsteps on the stair must belong to Mina or her daughter, Flonnie, come to discuss something about tomorrow’s celebration dinner already in progress in Mina’s

big kitchen. 585

When Pete appeared in the open doorway to her room, Anne made no effort to hide her surprise. “Pete, how on earth did you get up here? You were in the yard cutting branches only minutes ago!”

This time Pete’s devilish grin did not conceal that she was plainly worried. “It was easy, Mama. I just did what we always do. I used the stairway. It leads right up here from the hall downstairs.”

“You sound like Eve.”

“Teasing you?”

“No, being a smart aleck. But enough of that. What’s worrying you?”

“Does something have to be worrying me just because I came to talk to my own mother? You weren’t asleep, were you?”

“Far from it. We had such stimulating dinner conversation at the Denmeads’ today, how could I fall asleep? I was—thinking. And oh, Pete, isn’t there a lot to think about? Aren’t things different up here in Marietta from the way they are on St. Simons or in Brunswick or even in Savannah?”

“You mean the way people up here look at slavery and even the Union?”

“I thought you were mighty quiet during dinner at Ivy Grove.”

Again the grin. “Why, Mama, I’m always quiet and ladylike, aren’t I?”

“Be serious. I need to talk to you, too. Did I talk too much today about knowing such a famous lady as Mrs. Fanny Kemble Butler? Oh, I forget she isn’t calling herself Butler anymore since her family tragedy—the divorce. She’s just Mrs. Fanny Kemble now.”

“I’m surprised she still calls herself Mrs., aren’t you?”

“No, she has two girls. She must hope the Mrs. will keep the tongues from wagging. I haven’t heard from Fanny in years, but she’s probably still performing in different places all the time and doesn’t want her daughters to pay more than they’ve probably already paid because of her divorce.”

“That old Mrs. helps clean up a woman’s reputation, I guess. I know people—some of them—give me funny looks up here for not being

married so far up in my twenties.” 587

“You only imagine that.”

“Is it really true that Mr. Pierce Butler divorced her because she couldn’t bring herself to believe in owning slaves?”

“Pete, you’ve been taught all your life not to use the word slave.”

“I know it. Papa and I used to laugh about it together.”

“You and your father laughed about it?”

“Sure we did. You said at dinner today you certainly do remember how Papa disapproved of slavery.”

“You used it again!”

“And I’ll probably keep on using it. People are different up here. You know the Denmeads are strong Unionists, but they have to own a lot of people to work all that land and keep that big house.”

“Your uncle James Hamilton believes in the Union, too. Not all planters who own people are what they’re now calling disunionists. Oh, Pete, are things getting worse in our country, or does it just seem that way because people talk more freely about it up here?”

“We haven’t run into any Southern

fire-eaters yet, thank heaven. Do you think we have, Mama?”

“I hope not! Of course, that’s hard to know for sure in Marietta. The people are successful in the main with an apparently bright future. I’m sure there may be a few of what you call fire-eaters, but those we’ve met are so cultivated and genteel, most would consider it bad taste to bring up anything so controversial, I’d think. Wouldn’t you? Marietta folk seem not to want to rock the boat.”

“I’m not as smart about people as you are,” Pete said, frowning. “Mama? Are we Unionists?”

“Because of your father, dear, we’re British subjects.”

“I know, but does that keep us from having an opinion about all this secession talk we keep hearing and reading about? Didn’t your favorite newspaper man, Mr. Robert McAlpin Goodman, tell you one day when he called on us soon after we came here, that more and more Southern men besides the late old South Carolinian John Calhoun are plumping for the South to secede from the rest of the country? I know Mr. Goodman hates the idea. And writes about how bad he

thinks secession would be. You must want 589 the Union to stay together, Mama, or you wouldn’t read Mr. Goodman’s writings the way you do.”

“I come by my love of the Union naturally, Pete. Your Grandfather Couper believed with all his heart in it. So did your father.”

“I know Papa did. He told me himself.”

“You actually talked about the Union with your papa, Pete? You were only fourteen when he— left us.”