Beauty From Ashes (47 page)

have to own a few people, but although I guard my tongue at all times—or try to—I will not be in agreement even if I manage to stay quiet. Now, does it make you any more comfortable with me knowing how I really feel on the subject?”

“I reckon so.”

“Don’t you know?”

“No’m. You see, I’se been owned all my life, but by Miss Anne an’ nobody else.” Eve smiled. “That do make a big difference.”

“Yes, I’m sure it does. At least, I know you’re really Anne’s friend and that you have a wise as well as beautiful head.”

“Thank you, but I knows that. An’ you kin let your heart rest where Miss Anne’s concerned. Even after I loses my June—an’ he be gittin old—I promise you that Miss Anne, she have full use of my good head.” With no show whatever of pride, Eve added simply, “You right that Eve got plenty of wisdom for whatever her an’ Miss Anne got to face on any tomorrow.”

“I really count on that. Did you know?”

“Yes’m, I know ‘cause I know you one Mar’etta lady dat love Miss Anne for herself, not just for her family roots. Looks like you

feels the same ‘bout Mina’s buns, 633 too.”

“They’re delicious! Even without that tasty cinnamon icing, the buns themselves are masterpieces.” Louisa went on joyously with her tea and buns. “And doesn’t the house smell wonderful? Even with a separate kitchen out back, I could smell this tempting aroma all the way in here. Please tell Mina her buns are a huge success, Eve, and that I—was

Without a word, Eve had slipped across the parlor to a front window. “You smell sompin besides cinnamon buns, Miss Louisa?”

The sudden urgency in Eve’s voice caused Louisa to look up at her. The tall, lithe mulatto woman had pulled back the curtains and was yanking at the window, trying to open it.

“Eve! What’s wrong? It’s so windy outside, any more breeze in this room will cool my tea and buns. You’re frowning. Is something wrong out in the yard?”

“Sniff, Miss Louisa! Give yourself a good sniff an’ you’ll smell more than Mina’s buns! Come over here an’ sniff good!”

Beside Eve now at the open window, Louisa

caught the sharp, pungent whiff of something burning outside. The wind was stronger than before, and branches on Anne’s lovely magnolias were whipping in it wildly.

“Eve, there’s another fire! Dear, compassionate Father in Heaven, protect us somehow! Pray, Eve. Pray!”

“I’se already prayin’, Miss Louisa. My June, ole fool that he is, already headin’ toward the Square! Big Boy right ‘longside him. I sho’ wish Rollie hadn’t been hired out to the Denmeads. They could use his hep right now.”

“But June’s an old man! And by the look of that wind, it isn’t only the Square in danger— that fire could spread to every residence in town!”

“June be ole, but so’s his white head. He won’t do nothin’ crazy. Big Boy’ll look after him. It’s Miss Anne and Pete an’ Selina an’ Fanny I’se worried ‘bout. They all be down there in that Square!”

“Dear Lord,” Louisa half prayed, half addressed Eve. “And the whole town of Marietta sprawled here at the foot of the mountain right in the path of that wind and without anything to fight a fire except men’s muscles and buckets of water!”

“God done make one miracle, 635 ‘cause Mina ain’t made a peep from back in her kitchen. If she knowed they was a fire roarin’ down on the Square, she be hollerin’ an’ runnin’ ‘roun’ like a chicken wif its head cut off. Mina goes crazy wif fear over a fire!”

“It appears to be Colonnade Place burning—sending up those huge, thick puffs of smoke. And Eve, look how that smoke’s whipping around! Eve! Where are you going? Big Boy will take care of June. You said so yourself.”

“June ole an’ wise. It be Miss Anne an’ the girls I worries ‘bout,” she cried, flying out the door and across the yard. “Don’t you try to stop me, Miss Louisa,” she called over her shoulder. “I aim to find my ladies somewhere an’ bring ‘em home!”

Through the heavy smoke and gathering darkness, Eve found June first, his bent but still-strong shoulder forming part of a bucket brigade, and then she saw Big Boy about nine men down the line of pickup firefighters.

“Don’t worry none, Eve,” Big Boy gasped, without missing a beat with the next bucket

held out to him. “I done fin’ Miss Anne an’ her girls. Done sent ‘em packin’ off toward home. It be dark soon. But you pray, hear? Pray Miss Anne an’ the girls gits there and also that the firefighters from Atlanta git chere in time to help us. We ain’t gonna hold out much longer. Pray, Eve, pray!”

Hurrying as fast as her aching legs would take her up Decatur Street toward Miss Anne’s house, Eve realized that until tonight she had never thought about simple, good Big Boy praying. It was dark now, so that the leaping flames from the burning shops and stores and nice Mr. Denmead’s warehouse and the post office and the Howard House were lighting the sky for miles around. She prayed. Oh, how she prayed. And felt a new strength rise within her from somewhere. Somewhere? she asked herself. From God. From Sweet Jesus. Because Big Boy was praying too. Never again would she think of the huge Ebo as a backward child. From now on, Big Boy would be what he really was —a godly giant. Somewhere in the Bible it said, “Except ye become as little children …” Ebo Big Boy was the right kind of little chur’n. And if only she could find Miss Anne, she’d

gladly confess she’d made a 637 mistake and thought chur’n instead of children as she was supposed to do.

And then, over her own tangled thoughts—as tangled as Miss Heriot Wylly’s had ever been—she heard the distant beat of many hooves. Heard it over the yells and whistles and cries of men shouting orders to each other as they worked— borrowed slaves along with the town’s men of stature and means—hauling, carrying, throwing, scooting furniture, bags of wheat, cotton, and huge barrels out of the crackling, blackening warehouses, away from the flames and into the street. But that steady beat of hooves could mean only one blessed thing, an answer to the prayers of every person within sight of that ugly fire that was changing the village of Marietta forever. The prayers for help from Atlanta’s fire company had been heard. The company was heading toward Marietta. Their crying to God had been heard and He was sending help.

“Eve! Oh, Eve, here we are! We’re hitting for home as fast as we can go. June’s all right. I found him. How did we miss seeing you before now? Eve! It’s Pete. Mama

and the girls are with me and we’re all right.”

Then Miss Anne’s arms were around Eve, and without one inkling that she may seem forward to do it, Eve was holding Miss Anne in her own arms … holding her, holding her, rubbing her poor back, murmuring aloud to Sweet Jesus some of the almost painful gratitude she felt to have found her loved ones at last. …

Within a few weeks, a hue and cry went up all over town at the prospect of the actual receipt of Marietta’s first very own hand-powered fire engine, delivered from Atlanta, where it was built.

It arrived on Canton Road near the Square, where it would be housed in an all-brick building and manned, in case of another emergency, by the town’s own fire company. The bell was late arriving, but when it did come, the city celebrated in the midst of the charred ruins left in the Square by the third, and worst, fire yet. Everyone, even practical Pete, who thought such tardy pomp and pretention ludicrous, attended the ceremony.

“You might just as well go and enjoy yourself,

Pete,” Selina told her sister 639 excitedly, struggling into the new Swiss muslin Fanny had just finished. “This is going to be a different kind of celebration. It has to do with progress in Marietta.”

“Progress, my foot. If ever I saw the barn door closed after the horse was gone, this is it! And your new dress is going to brush against some old burned-out crate or sidewall just as sure as anything. You and Fanny are both dressed to a fare-thee-well. What are Fanny and Mama doing outside in their good clothes?”

“Gathering flowers and leaves. Haven’t you heard? We’re going to decorate the new fire bell so it will look really festive and show our civic pride in it.”

“Sometimes I can’t believe this town even though we live right in it. Any old excuse for a social event, but don’t worry, I’m going too, and I’ll applaud and cheer with the best of them. Are we meeting Miss Louisa Fletcher at their new hotel?”

Selina giggled. “Miss Louisa would love hearing it called a hotel in the condition it’s in right now. Mr. Dix Fletcher closed the deal with

Mr. John Glover at least two years ago just for the old Breakfast House. How long do you suppose it will be before all those thirty-two rooms he’s adding will be finished?”

“So we can jump right in and begin giving parties there?”

“Well, sure. When Miss Louisa gets through supervising it all, the Fletcher House will be perfect for parties of all kinds!”

“Of all kinds is right,” Pete said mockingly. “Anyway, we have to celebrate the new fire bell first, and I’m sure Mama and Fanny have enough flowers by now.”

The year 1858, during which Marietta was rebuilding after the fire, was so hectic and busy for Louisa Fletcher that she was both glad and sorry she had finally given in to her long-held desire to keep a daily journal. Her husband, Dix, was now in the process of paying off his indebtedness to John H. Glover for the purchase of what had been called the Breakfast House, and Louisa was in the midst of the final

chaos from Dix’s extensive remodeling 641 of their new hotel, now called the Fletcher House. It fell to her to purchase furnishings for the added thirty-two guest rooms. She still had no love for innkeeping, but, being Louisa, she was of no mind to leave the exterior of the newly redone building in the hands of anyone but herself. The Fletcher House would offer the best accommodations and food, and its very shape and look would add to the elegance and beauty of the town. With all the extra duties, plus her regular work as landlady, she resented the number of blank pages in her journal. More than anything else, Louisa loved to write, especially reviews of each new book she devoured.

Slipping through her entries, or lack of them, her usually dependable sense of humor helped quell her irritation over the unfilled pages. She smiled a bit to herself as she scanned her journal’s entries early in the year 1859. Seldom had she failed to commend herself for having kept her vows about improving herself: She had kept her resolution to cease complaining about how much she hated hotel life, and her gratitude was growing for the gift of Anne Fraser’s friendship.

“I love Anne as though she were a member of my own family,” she had written in January 1859, “and although Dix’s passion for life in the country out at Woodlawn, his eighty acres at the edge of town, and my own love of city life drive me to the brink of annoyance, I doggedly work at teaching the children near Woodlawn because a seemly wife obeys her husband. It is teaching me to be a better Christian, and I thank God I have Anne Couper Fraser as my best friend. She has learned to live with the loss of so much of her life, I am kept on guard over my own soul’s impatience. I now know I can share anything with Anne and still count on her support of me as I struggle to grow spiritually.”

Many pages were also given to the interesting quandary among the members of her immediate family because one of Marietta’s most prominent and wealthiest gentlemen had fallen head over heels in love with her beloved eldest daughter, Georgia. No one, not even Louisa, could find a single flaw in the suitor, Mr. Henry Green Cole, except that he was twenty-three years older than Georgia! The man was even a strong, sensible Unionist, which, of course, pleased both Louisa

and Dix, especially now that the normally 643 clear, clean air over Marietta was thickening daily with ugly talk of how greatly the South would prosper were it only to secede from the Union.

Aside from these high political qualifications, Mr. Cole, a kind and thoughtful gentleman, was the owner not only of the newly rebuilt Marietta Hotel on the Square, but of countless valuable tracts of land in Cobb and many surrounding counties. He was educated and had come south from New York as a well-paid civil engineer during the construction of the new rail systems, heavily responsible for the continuing prosperity of Marietta. Georgia, Louisa’s journal made clear, was so in awe of Henry Green Cole that her feelings bordered on downright fear. His tender, minute-by-minute consideration of the pretty twenty-one-year-old girl won her over, though, and they were to be married at St. James Episcopal Church on August 25 of the year 1859.

“With three eligible daughters, Anne,” Louisa told her friend one late January afternoon as the two sat in the Fletcher House parlor, talking through one of Louisa’s rare free hours,

the winter sun still high in an almost cloudless sky, “it won’t be long until you’ll be facing the excitement, joy, and anxiety over their futures that I now face with my daughters.”

Anne laughed a little. “Don’t be too sure. Selina, my youngest, yes. With the new Georgia Military Institute in session now, I fully expect her to find her one and only any time.”

“And she’s a beautiful girl!”

“Thank you, but the only one of the three for whom I have much hope of a happy marriage is Selina. There isn’t a sweeter, more amenable child anywhere than my Fanny, but let’s face it, Louisa, she’s no beauty. And so far the only young man who’s shown her any attention is Buster, that dreadful Matthews boy with the impossible mother. I honestly couldn’t wish anything to come of that. I love Fanny too much.”

“Of course you do! He’s a boor, Anne. Not only because he’s one of those fire-eating seceshers, as Mr. Goodman calls them in his paper, but Fanny can do a lot better than that smart aleck. Only a mother could love him, if the woman known as his mother is capable of any

measure of real loving.” She laughed 645 dryly. “I don’t sound like a Christian at all, do I.”

Then their talk shifted to Pete. In some detail Anne told Louisa of the tragic day she and Pete, while Pete was still a small child, rode frantically from their home at Hamilton Plantation on St. Simons to the Kings’ Retreat when Anne’s closest childhood friend, Anna Matilda King, sent for her to come quickly to help with her sick child. “Nothing would do Pete but that she had to ride with me. We rode hard, both of us praying all the way, and the girl, not quite eight then, was in a panic that truly frightened me. You see, Louisa, I don’t expect marital happiness ever for Pete because, as self-contained and opinionated as she’s grown to be, she swears she loved, and will always love, young William Page King, her best playmate.”