Beauty From Ashes (5 page)

the Boll`! Leastways, it’s one of your favorites. How come you ain’t singin’ too?”

“I know what they’re singing and I’m listening.”

“You know somepin?”

“I know one or two things. But what in particular?”

“It jus’ come to me that you might like African songs better’n you does them slow, sad ones they sings at Christ Church of a Sunday mornin’.was

“Oh, they’re not all slow and sad. But I do feel so, so much at home with the people’s music. Your people’s music. I think I always have, but what’s wrong with that? Why even compare the way the congregation sings at Christ Church with the way the men are singing now? Are you trying to start something?”

“Why I wanta do that? I hate that white man fo’ what he done to my sweet mama, but I’m half his child. So how come I don’t like them white songs at all? Honest, I ain’t in a fussin’ state. I done come with you today ‘cause I be partial to your ole papa, Mausa John Couper, too. I be happy to be at he ninetieth birfday party! I done bring a present for Mausa Couper!”

“You did? What?”

“That’s for you to guess and me to know,” 53 Eve teased.

“Did you paint a picture for him?”

Eve’s merry laughter caused Pete and Fanny to turn around from their seat in front of them to find out what was going on. Happy-natured Selina, now twelve, simply joined in Eve’s laughter as usual.

“I can’t tell you girls why Eve’s so amused,” Anne said, “but I’m sure she can.”

“Yo’ mama, she ax me effen I paint a pitcher for you Gran’papa’s birfday.” Still giggling, Eve added, “What else I gonna do? Take a steamboat to Savannah an’ buy him a gilsey gol’ gif’ in one ob dem fancy, high-price stores?”

“You think that’s funny, do you?” Anne wanted to know.

“Don’ you, Miss Anne? Don’ that make you laugh, too?”

“No, because I wanted so much to be able to do just that for him, Miss Smarty. Right now, I don’t have any more cash than you have to walk into one of those fine shops and buy a present even half good enough for my father.”

“Shame on you, Mama,” Pete said in her firm way, again squelching her own mother a little by acting more sensibly. “You know all Grandpapa Couper wants for his birthday is for us to be there with him—all of us.”

“Of course I know that, Pete. And I’d give almost anything if I thought there was a chance that your brother could come too.”

“Are you absolutely, positively certain John Couper won’t be there?” Pete asked almost impishly.

So impishly, Anne’s hopes shot up a little. “Pete! Don’t you dare tease me about a thing like that!”

“No, Pete,” Eve snapped. “I come to see that nothin’ upset yo’ mama, you hear me?”

“Who’s teasing?” Pete asked with her most innocent look.

So excited that she tried to stand up on the boat seat until Eve pushed her back down, Selina cried, “Pete, do you know but just aren’t telling us that our brother might be coming down from Savannah for Grandpapa’s nonagenarian birthday?”

“What word she say?” Eve asked, 55 genuinely puzzled.

“Nonagenarian,” Pete explained. “But that’s not quite the right use of it, Selina. Grandpapa Couper isn’t having his nonagenarian birthday. He is going to be a nonagenarian day after tomorrow when he turns ninety.”

“I’ve already turned twelve,” Selina said. “What am I called?”

“That’s enough, Selina,” Anne said. “Settle back down beside Fanny because June is about to steer the boat toward Uncle James’s canal. We’re almost there.”

“Ain’t nobody kin steer a boat like my June, is they?” Eve asked.

“Is there,” Anne corrected. “But I agree. June’s the very best. Won’t it seem strange—doesn’t it always seem strange—that Papa’s too old to be down on the dock to greet us when we reach Hopeton?”

“It sure do,” Eve said.

On impulse, Anne almost reached out to grab Eve’s hand, then drew back. She had never held Eve’s hand in all their years together. Her mother would have disapproved. Instead, Anne said, “I

—I need you on this trip, Eve. I need your encouragement.”

“You ‘fraid Mausa Couper he gonna die soon, ain’t you?”

They were both whispering now. “Of course I’m afraid. The old darling’s going to be ninety years old day after tomorrow. Why wouldn’t I be afraid? I—I don’t even know for sure that I could go on living on St. Simons without him.”

“Grandpapa Couper always used to meet us at the dock,” Selina piped. “Does having your nonagenarian birthday mean you can’t walk good enough to come all the way down the path from Uncle James’s veranda?”

“Something like that,” Anne answered absently.

Half turned in her seat, Pete grinned. “And because dear old Grandmama Couper’s in heaven and can’t, or maybe wouldn’t, even think of fussing at you and him anymore, Mama?”

Anne bit her lip in silence for a minute, then deciding that today was no time for anything but happy exchanges, said with a smile, “You’re too smart sometimes, Pete.”

“Sometimes, because she happens to be our tutor,

she thinks she’s smarter than anybody,” 57 Fanny said.

“No grumbling today, Fanny,” Anne said, keeping her voice pleasant. “Just be glad you have such a brainy sister.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with my brain,” Fanny said. “I just don’t talk a lot. At least not compared with Pete.” With a short laugh, Fanny patted her older sister on the shoulder. “The truth is, Pete, I wish I had your gift of gab sometimes. No matter what anyone says to you, you always seem to think of something to say back. Don’t you ever feel shy? I do.”

With a grin, Pete answered, “Being a shy young lady becomes you, Sister dear. I must say, though, you just made quite an impressive speech. Don’t you think so, Mama?”

“I do indeed,” Anne replied, then added, “I will also say I’ve rather enjoyed not having to scold Fanny because she yelled during the years she was growing up.”

Pete’s grin widened. “I know I yelled when I was a young squirt. Sometimes I miss getting by with it now that I’m an old woman.”

“I don’t think it matters at all how old

any of us may be,” Selina said in her newly mature manner. “Nothing else is important now but that our Grandpapa Couper is going to be ninety. Isn’t that so, Mama?”

On a long sigh, Anne said, “Yes, Selina. Grandpapa Couper is the star on this trip. Along with little Rebecca Isabella, of course. She’ll be six on the same day. But all of us must find ways to make Grandpapa laugh and enjoy himself the whole time we’re at Hopeton. I’m sure birthdays get to be very important at ninety.”

“I wish my papa had lived to be ninety,” Selina said, her face as wistful as her voice. “Pete, you did tell me, didn’t you, that Papa sometimes called me Eena?”

“Yes, I told you that.”

“I wish I remembered how he sounded when he said Eena,” the girl said to no one in particular.

“I—I know it’s ridiculous, Selina,” Anne said softly, “but it’s still so, so hard for me to believe you don’t remember more about your father.”

“Should I try harder?” Selina asked.

“No, dear. There are times, though, when I— I almost wish I didn’t remember him quite

so—clearly.” 59

June signaled the oarsmen to move the big boat in at the north side of the Hamilton landing, and as though he had been holding a watch on their arrival, exactly at the moment they bumped against the sturdy pilings, James hurried out onto the dock’s platform, alone except for three of his people who would secure the boat and carry its contents.

It was never a surprise to Anne when her brother James Hamilton acted precisely by his watch. She did feel a bit of concern, though, because he came alone this time. “And a good day to you, Brother,” she called after he’d given them his formal bow and what seemed a guardedly pleasant greeting. “No one’s ill, I hope. We thought you and Caroline and all your children except your Yale scholar, Hamilton, would be out here to welcome us. Is everyone all right? Papa’s well as usual, isn’t he?”

“Everyone’s fine,” James laughed, reaching to help them, one after another, from the Lady Love while June, who climbed ashore first, pulled Eve after him up onto the sturdy dock.

“But where’s Margaret?” Selina wanted to know.

“And Robert and James Maxwell and Alexander and John Lord and Rebecca Isabella and little William? I thought I’d have all of them to play with—especially Margaret.”

“There’s bound to be a good reason why Uncle James came alone,” Pete said. “So, why don’t we just hold our horses until he’s ready to tell us?”

Anne, the last to be helped out of the boat, was giving Eve instructions about where bags and valises should be taken when she saw Eve nod emphatically toward James Hamilton. “I think Eve is urging me to pin you down, Brother,” Anne said, hoping her lingering anxiety about the whereabouts of the other family members didn’t show. “So I’ll just repeat my question. You’re sure, James, that Papa’s well? That no one’s sick?”

“Eve knows you better than I do,” James said easily. “The last time I saw you, Sister, I felt sure you’d stopped being such a worrywart. Everyone is in good health and our father is as excited as a boy at the prospect of his birthday celebration. Of course, so is my daughter Becca Belle. So, put a wide

smile on your face and make them both still 61 happier. Have I made myself clear? You’ll all find out soon enough why I’ve met you alone.”

“Can’t you give us even a small hint?” Anne begged.

“Only one, madam,” James Hamilton said in his most grandiose manner. “And that is that immediately on entering my entrance hall, you will find our father waiting for you—arms wide, face aglow— but as part of the plan, he will be alone too.”

Holding her brother’s arm as they walked up the landscaped path toward the Hopeton mansion, Anne kept nagging him. “You’re just not the kind of person to plan surprises, James. Anyway, it isn’t my birthday. Your aging sister has already had her fifty-second earlier this year.”

Smiling down at her, James asked, “Who said anything about a surprise for you, Anne? And I beg to differ that I’m not a man to plan surprises. Our father’s oldest and dearest friend, now that Mr. James Hamilton is dead, informed me this week by the post that he will indeed be able to attend Papa’s birthday celebration day after tomorrow. That’s going to be a surprise and I

arranged it.”

“Mr. Thomas Spalding is coming from Sapelo Island? Oh, James, that will please Papa no end! But I thought Mr. Spalding was too feeble to travel.”

In as proud a tone as he ever allowed himself, her brother replied, “I’ve arranged to send one of my schooners for the old fellow. It—it could be the last time he and our father will actually have time for a good, long talk together.” Smiling down at her again, he added, “But I’m sure I haven’t said a word about a surprise for my sister Anne.”

It seemed to old Jock Couper, further paining his stiff back by trying to sit up straight on one of James Hamilton’s highly polished Queen Anne chairs in the Hopeton entrance hall, that Anne and her brood would never get there. For a man nearing his ninetieth birthday, he felt fairly well, he supposed. As ready for the excitement of being the guest of honor at such a memorable occasion as a man could expect, but for him, waiting had never been easy.

He squared his bent shoulders and tried 63 to sit erect for the anticipated moment when the apple of his eye, his daughter Anne, and her children trooped through the gracious front door of his son’s fine plantation house. How can it be, he thought, that my Anne is now a lady of fifty-two years! To his fading old eyes she was as lovely as ever. A bit thicker at the waist, perhaps, but there were advantages even to old age and dimming eyesight: Anne, to her doting father, looked as bonnie as ever. Bonnier than any of her three sweet daughters would ever be. Pete, always his favorite if he were to tell the truth—which, of course, he meant never to do—could talk her way out of any predicament she might be likely to encounter. Jock Couper, himself a facile talker, relished the trait in her. Like her tall, handsome father, Couper’s lamented late son-in-law, Pete seemed at times to talk too much, but the lass never failed to speak with content and remarkable wisdom for her age.

Pete, he believed, was somehow different from other young ladies of her years. He’d never forget the day he’d urged her to tell her mother that she meant not to marry because she still felt bonded to her

dead young playmate, William, Anna Matilda King’s boy. How, he often wondered, had Anne received such a decision by her eldest living daughter when she had been so deeply attached to Pete’s splendid father, John Fraser? One thing about which Jock Couper felt absolutely certain was the plain fact that Anne’s youngest, Selina of the long, dark curls, had been born to fall in love and mother young ones. And Fanny? How old was Fanny now? Seventeen, he thought, and like his own late daughter, sweet Isabella, not precisely what a mon would term lovely to look upon. Never one to settle for mere hoping when he could pray, Jock Couper prayed often that there would be another lad, as perceptive and kind as was Isabella’s Theodore Bartow, ready to marry Fanny despite her shy plainness and because of her deep-down inner worth.

Any minute now, he should, even if his old ears did feel much of the time as though they were stopped up, hear laughter and good talk from outside. If Anne and her girls had boarded the Lady Love early this morning as James Hamilton had instructed them to do, they should be nearing

Hopeton by now unless the same sunny, 65 clear skies that hung here above the mainland had thickened closer to the shore where they embarked from his large Cannon’s Point dock. The Lady Love drew too much water for Anne’s little Lawrence Creek. He sighed heavily. Lawrence. What dreams he’d held for Anne and John, living in the well-remodeled little Lawrence cottage on their return from London with blessed little Annie and Anne carrying Pete, their second child. He’d seen some of his dreams come true, too. Tall, restless young John Fraser had worked so hard trying to learn how to become a successful planter—had worked and sweated and turned his fine mind to what must always have seemed to John the rather dull lessons every prosperous planter needed to know. The lad had succeeded, too, despite his love of travel and adventure, despite his sense of failure because his old regiment no longer needed his brilliant military skills.