Beauty From Ashes (46 page)

“What’s wrong with that, pray tell?”

“There’s nothing wrong with it, for goodness’ sake. It’s just that you’re always saying how glad you are that you don’t have to be tied down looking after small children and worrying about them the way poor Aunt Frances Anne has always had to worry about our cousin James. He’s the only child she has left now to care for her in her old age.”

“I’d just as soon you didn’t talk 617 about that, Fanny. Have you ever seen anything outside our immediate family hit our mother so hard as Menzies’s sudden death? We’ve watched her go through so much, sometimes I think I can’t stand to look at her sad, pretty face again. I honestly think if she didn’t know Aunt Frances was with Miss Eliza, she might try to go smack into all that sickness in Savannah just in case she could find a way to help Aunt Frances.”

“Oh, I don’t think she’d do that,” Fanny said.

Surprised at how definite Fanny was all of a sudden, Pete asked, “And why not, Miss Know-it-all?”

“I don’t know anything for sure, but our mother isn’t stupid. I overheard her tell Miss Louisa Fletcher just yesterday that she’d been through so much herself in the past few years, she’d only make matters worse for Aunt Frances if she tried to talk to her. Mrs. Fletcher was here to tell Mother she felt sure her husband was going to buy the Breakfast House down by the tracks from Mr. Glover. I guess there was little or no damage to the building from the fire back in

September, and people flock there to eat breakfast when the trains stop.”

“I thought Mr. Fletcher was thinking about becoming a farmer.”

“I guess he can do both, Pete. Businessmen are making a lot of money in this town these days, and it seems most business deals are paid off a little at a time. Mr. Fletcher will have until 1859 to finish paying Mr. Glover for the Breakfast House.”

“I just wish we knew a way to get our hands on some of the cash that keeps flowing around. You know how Mama hates buying on credit.”

“You did a lot of eavesdropping during Miss Louisa’s visit yesterday, didn’t you, little Sister?” Pete asked.

“I’m a good listener.”

“And I wonder if you ever forget anything!”

The letter from Miss Eliza Mackay in Savannah came on Friday, December 8, 1854, just after Anne had finished a tearful admonition to Fanny and Pete, making it plain that there would be no decorations or any other kind of celebration or gift giving this Christmas out of

respect for Aunt Frances Anne’s 619 fresh grief over Menzies, who had been in his grave a little less than three months. Pete picked up the letter for her mother at the post office when she’d walked there hoping for some word from her favorite, young Fraser Demere in Florida. There was only Miss Eliza’s letter, though, and Pete tried and failed to smile at her own disappointment. Fanny was right more often than anyone expected and had continued to tease her older sister because of her unusual attachment to their sister’s child.

“I don’t see anything wrong with enjoying Fraser’s letters to me, and heaven knows there’s been little enough to lift anybody’s heart around this house since we heard that Menzies had died. It’s a good thing John Couper finally let us know the doctors who survived the fever believe the epidemic is over. At least no one’s died this week. I was really worried that Mama herself might get sick worrying about John Couper’s going back when he did.”

“Well, I didn’t get sick,” Anne said, surprising them from the parlor doorway. “And I suppose this is a common subject to be discussed these days every time my back is turned.”

“You didn’t mean that to sound as cross as it sounded, did you, Mama?” Pete asked.

“No, of course not and I’m sorry. Did you girls go by the post office?”

“Pete did,” Fanny said. “And she brought a letter for you from Miss Eliza Mackay in Savannah.”

“Well, give it to me, Pete!”

“I suppose Selina’s down at the Fletchers’,” Fanny said. “I was hoping she’d be back by now to help me with the darning.”

“She’s at the Fletchers’ talking boys with Louisa’s daughters, I’m sure,” Anne answered absently while breaking the seal on Miss Eliza’s letter. “I do hope Mrs. Mackay’s written a full report on poor, heartbroken Frances Anne.”

“Wanta read by yourself, Mama?” Pete asked.

“No. Stay, both of you, but I will scan what she’s written, alone first, if you don’t mind.” For a minute or so, Anne’s eyes flew over the still-firm, clear handwriting, and then she gasped. “Oh, no! Dear Lord in heaven, not this too! Pete! Read it aloud. I—I can’t!”

Pete grabbed the letter and started reading. 621

“My dearest Anne …

I have never written a harder letter, so forgive the brevity and I’ll get right to the point of it. Your sweet, shattered sister-in-law Frances Anne has just been devastated by still another blow. Her older son—the only remaining child—was killed in what people are calling a drunken brawl three days ago on the waterfront. The papers say James and two German sailors, ashore from their merchant ship only two days, began with merriment that ended with poor, hapless James Fraser found floating face down in the Savannah River. I beg you, Anne, to ask your girls to join you in praying that I will find some small words of comfort for Frances Anne. At least, that she may be given something of her old, courageous will to live. The woman at times seems so full of despair and sorrow over her dependable son Menzies’s death, it is almost as though she hasn’t room left to grieve for James, whom she loved greatly because of the boy’s prevailing, enormous need of constant help. Frances will, I know, pass through many stages of

grief this time, and only our loving Lord can sustain her. One thing is certain, Anne, she does not want you to come to her. She loves you too much and feels her crushed heart could not endure watching you work at trying to comfort her. I ask you to believe that I fully agree with her and urge you not to beg to come.

Your friend,

Eliza McQueen Mackay.

Postscript: James was buried in Laurel Grove beside Menzies. Your fine, rosy-cheeked son, John Couper, was a pallbearer and I know sends his love to all of you there, as I send mine. Frances seems more strongly attached than ever to John Couper now that he is the only living male member of your family to carry on the name Fraser.”

Miss Eliza Mackay continued to write occasional notes to Anne, but despite trying to participate with her girls at the various Christmas and New Year’s social events in

Marietta, Anne carried a heavy 623 heart for Frances Anne into the late fall of the next year, 1855, and wrote more often than ever to John Couper.

“I probably only clutter his busy life with my incessant pleadings for word of his aunt, but I go on believing that your brother understands and doesn’t dread still another letter from his mother. Do you think I’m fooling myself, Pete?”

“Mama, I don’t see how any young man could do more to prove to you that he lives his life around concern for your well-being. Don’t you hear from him at least once a week?”

“Yes, yes, I do. It’s just my worrywart heart. The boy’s written faithfully. And how he’s tried to reassure me that Aunt Frances Anne is doing all she can do under the circumstances to live her life. I do wish she’d agree to spend the remainder of the year with Miss Eliza, now that they can all live in town again. I’m sure being in a completely strange place at the Brownings’ Knightsford was hard for her, no matter how beautiful it is out there on the Savannah River. As do a lot of coastal people, she feels comfortable and at ease in Miss

Eliza’s home on East Broughton Street. That wise old lady and both her daughters have a way of making everyone feel so welcome, even needed.”

“I think they do need company. Two spinster sisters and an aging widow can soon rattle around in a big old house like that. And poor old William Mackay has gotten so fat and moody, I hear, he’s not much company anymore.”

“I don’t think that’s very nice, so don’t repeat it.”

“I have no intention or reason to repeat it to anyone. Mama? Is Aunt Frances Anne really going back to St. Simons to live at the old Wylly place with her odd sisters Matilda and Heriot?”

“You know she’s written only once—that sad, heartbreaking letter pouring out her false guilt because she can’t seem to grieve for poor dead James the way she goes on grieving for Menzies.”

“I know. You must have read us that letter a dozen times. And I think it’s pretty normal for her to be that way. Menzies was her—John Couper. She relied on him to be on hand to take care of

her for the remainder of her life. Does 625 Mrs. Mackay think Aunt Frances Anne is going to try life at the Village with her sisters?”

“Yes, she does. They’re both difficult for Frances Anne, but they’re family. When you’re a little older, you’ll understand that.”

“What do you mean? I’m almost thirty, I’m an old maid and I do understand. I understand a lot more than you sometimes think, Mama.”

Anne grinned a little. “Yes, I imagine you do. In fact, I hope you do.”

“Well, I do, although I’m not quite sure whether your hope for my understanding is for your sake or mine. But, never mind. One thing I know. No one can depend on Heriot for anything beyond fresh flowers from her gardens, and if I had to watch Margaret Matilda Wylly sitting in that chair of hers on the porch watching for any chance visitor who might come out their road, it would depress me more than poor old fat William Mackay could ever do. I’m sure you’re right about family, that Aunt Frances will eventually go back to St. Simons to live at the Village, but that’s when I’ll increase my prayers for her,

believe me. She doesn’t need more gloom. It’s gloomy enough shopping now and then on our own Square here since our second fire last month. All Marietta businessmen seem to think about is opening new businesses and making more money. When on earth do you think they’ll get down to setting up our own fire company?”

“Who knows, Pete? I don’t think there’s a single woman in town who doesn’t know we need one. Even strong-headed Mrs. Matthews was going on about it last week. Between tirades against the Union, of course. You know I haven’t gone once to the Square since this fire. Does it really depress you to do our shopping?”

“You bet it does. If Selina and Fannie weren’t so boy-happy, it would depress them, too, but Marietta loves its social life as much as it loves money, and those two don’t seem to think of much else but off-the-shoulder dresses and billowing evening skirts. Our Square is our showplace, or it was. Now those burned shops and the charred remains of the Marietta Hotel, along with all the other blackened buildings, would depress anybody but my two sisters. All Selina can think about these days is finding something

new to wear. She doesn’t really 627 surprise me, I guess, but my usually sensible sister Fanny does, and Fanny’s ready to go shopping with her every time Selina gets the urge.”

“Well, surely there won’t be another fire anytime soon, and if even one businessman has a grain of sense, he’ll agitate until something is done about getting our own firefighters and some decent equipment.”

“Depressing or not, I have to go to the Square right now,” Pete said, “for some more binding tape. And about those businessmen and a new fire department— do you want to bet?”

“No, I don’t want to bet, but if we have another fire, help will have to be brought all the way from Atlanta, and that’s twentysome miles!”

Anne was grocery shopping in the almost restored Square with Selina, Fanny, and Pete when Louisa Fletcher reached the white-light house late in the afternoon on the fine, though windy, spring day of April 13, 1857. Louisa stood alone in Anne’s elegant parlor while Eve prepared to serve tea. Mina had just baked cinnamon buns, and the spacious house was filled with their mouthwatering aroma.

Louisa, who always needed to watch her ample figure, made one more effort to rearrange her windblown hair before a long, gilt-framed looking glass on the wall that faced the spot where hung the handsome painting of Anne’s late husband, John Fraser, one fine hand holding the striking bonnet of his Royal Marine uniform. Louisa was extremely fond of Eve and looked

forward to her return with or without cinnamon buns.

“You lookin’ at Mausa John, ma’am?” Eve asked from the doorway to the parlor, a large silver pot of tea and a generous supply of buns gracing the tray she carried. “He be one fine-lookin’ gent’man, Miss Anne’s Mausa John, an’ how dat woman did love that man!”

Beaming, Louisa turned to Eve, her nose wrinkled with joyful anticipation of Mina’s fragrant buns. “Oh, Eve, I do know she loved him. She’s talked and talked about him to me in the five years you’ve all lived here. In fact, each time I enter this room, I feel I should greet the handsome gentleman myself.”

“Mausa John, he like that. I bet he’s laughin’ right now, if we could only hear his voice. He a big man for laughin’ an’ singin’. An’ Miss Louisa, he sing better’n any bird. I reckon she done told you the name of their favorite song.”

“Was it `Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes`?”

Eve smiled. “I knew she done tol’ you dat. An’ if you don’ think I’m being forward,

I oughta tell you never, never to sing that 631 song where she can hear you. I knows you sing like a bird, too, an’ Miss Anne, she love your singin’ at church, but she ain’t never allowed nobody to sing or play their song since he went away from her all them years ago. You thinks me forward for tellin’ you never to sing it?”

“Eve, Eve, haven’t you caught on by now that I know way down in my heart what close friends you and your Miss Anne really are? Haven’t you guessed that unlike so many people here, I don’t consider conversation with you as anything but good and welcome? That you and I simply exchange ideas much the same way your mistress and I do?”

“The same as you and Miss Anne?”

Louisa laughed a little. “The same, and I’d wager that if the two of us had more time to talk, we’d both find out that we agree on far more than meets the eye.” Then she looked directly at Eve. “You must know that I’m the object of much criticism in this town because I let it be known that neither my husband nor I believe slavery is God’s will for anyone. If he presses on with his notion to begin farming out at Woodlawn on a small scale, I’m sure Mr. Fletcher will