Beauty From Ashes (58 page)

Anne’s world, her very life, was already scattered and changed by the war, even though no battle action had yet crossed into the state of Georgia. Marietta itself was so changed, Anne felt at home only inside her own house. Since earlier that month, the men of the city had agreed to close their offices and businesses at five-thirty each day to allow time for every man, young or old, to drill in the town Square—which they

did daily as throngs of women and children watched from sidewalks and carriages. Fighting, though, had, insofar as she knew, been mainly confined to Virginia. John Couper was now stationed near Williamsburg, and his latest letter told her that her grandson, Fraser Demere, enlisted for a year in the Confederate Army, had just reached Richmond by train from Florida. There was great relief at the white-light house when Selina heard from her George Stubinger that he had escaped injury in the fierce early battle at Manassas, Virginia. He also said he’d chanced to meet, and make friends with, James Hamilton Couper’s son Hamilton in the same battle. There was an opposing pull at Anne’s emotions, though, when the Marietta newspaper declared the Confederate forces the winners, which would surely cause still more foolish boasting among Confederate soldiers that the Union armies would surrender in no time at all. Every scrap of news increased Anne’s inner turmoil. There were even days when she would have give almost anything if her own sympathies were with her native South. Oddly, Louisa Fletcher understood this better than did anyone else except Pete, who shared her mother’s convictions that

the Union must, by some means, be 785 restored.

Weeks inched by through the fall months as the trees turned gold and scarlet across Anne’s nine acres of land. Eve, as usual, kept the house filled with artistically arranged pitchers and vases of colored foliage and autumn weeds and grasses. Anne often forgot to thank Eve for her thoughtfulness but could always count on Eve’s knowing why she forgot.

“You don’t suffer one pain Eve misses, Miss Anne,” the still-lovely, ever more dignified mulatto woman kept reminding her. “When your heart hurt, Eve’s heart hurt too. But at least we knows John Couper be all right an’ livin’ in fairly good shape over in Virginia. We kin give thanks for that.”

Anne did give thanks daily, sometimes hourly, because even though she knew her son kept his letters as cheerful as possible, he did sound reasonably safe and in good health and seemed to be actually enjoying his life headquartered with his 10th Georgia Regiment near Williamsburg. He was finding life good—so good that Anne stopped reading on a certain page each time she passed

an evening going over every line of his letters. Her adored son actually loved the military as his father had loved it, and the letter telling her about his interesting social life in various Williamsburg homes was the one in which he vowed that after the war, he meant to make a career in the Army and never return to business.

“We gotta think one day at a time, Miss Anne,” Eve went on reminding her. “Not two but one. You borrowin’ trouble from tomorrow. Miss Anne, I needs to ax you something. Maybe it’s none of my bi’ness, but I knows in my heart that you go up against your son, your daughter Fanny, an’ who knows ‘bout Selina now that she so head and heart in love with a Southern soldier. But how come you so strong in favor of the Union when you born on Sn Simons the same as your chur’n—children— was. The same as John Couper an’ your gran’son, sweet Fraser Demere. I reckon it be plain why I favors the North. All us coloreds do, but why you think you does when it cost you so much?”

“What do you mean, it costs me so much?”

“You don’ thinks Eve knows how your heart wrench in two ‘cause you can only be sure of

Pete?” 787

“You know too much sometimes.”

Eve laughed softly, not at her, for the laugh showed only that Eve hoped to be understood. “You be in your sixty-fourth year, Miss Anne, an’ dat mean Eve be in her sixty-third. You want I should pretend to be dumb?”

“No, of course I don’t. I want you to be exactly as you are, and all I can tell you is that my precious father believed in the Union, my brother James Hamilton does, my husband did. Miss Fanny Kemble Butler certainly did, and she made the best sense to me of anyone I’d met until I became friends with Miss Louisa Fletcher, who’s a Unionist too. I can’t help acting on what I believe any more than you can, Eve. Besides, it just somehow seemed right to me for us to pay money to the good folk like Flora McLeod, who was John’s father’s cook and housekeeper in London, and the others who took care of us there. We didn’t expect their pampering solely because our skin was white! Theirs was too.”

After a short silence, Eve said firmly, “You knows you kin tell anything you thinkin’

to Eve.”

“Yes, thank God, I do know. And what I’m thinking is how much I long to hear from my brother James Hamilton. If only he would write to me! I admire him almost as much as I admired Papa, but I need him now to be more than my brilliant, practical, talented brother. I need him to be close, to share his heart, what he’s thinking these days. I need him to hold me, to talk with me, to tell me I’m not an inferior mother because I can’t bring myself to side with my own loved ones over what some call a merely political problem. I know what Papa would say. He’d say, `It’s more than a political problem. Daughter, this is a matter of life and death!` And Papa would be right. Oh, Eve, he would be right.”

“You also reads Mr. Goodman’s newspaper, like I does. June, he read it too.”

Anne took a step toward Eve, a half smile on her face. “I’m so proud of you for teaching June to read.”

“When somebody like you gives such a gif’ to me, ain’t I gonna pass it on to the man I

loves?” 789

“I suppose you’ll just go on to both our dying days surprising me, won’t you?” Anne said. “Did I answer your question about why I’m a Unionist even when my dear, dear John Couper could be killed in the cause of the Confederacy?”

“You answer me good. It be jus’ like June says. He done splain it to me long ago. I jus’ wanted to hear you tell me.”

“All right, Miss Smarty, now you tell me what June really thinks of me for going against my only son after all he’s done for me.”

Eve’s best smile lit her face and seemed to light her very soul. “June say one thing ain’t nobody ever gonna learn be wrong. He say a thing an’ it jus’ keep on ringin’ true. June, he throw back his white head an’ say, `Miss Anne, our Miss Anne, be the bravest woman North or South!`”

“Oh, Eve, thanks for telling me that. I think so highly of June as a human being, it—helps me. But I’m not brave at all. I’m just plain confused and lonely and scared.”

The winter days moved almost artificially toward Christmas, and it did matter deeply that there was Eve, who could be counted on to understand her. Except for Louisa and Pete, every white person she cared about—outside of Miss Eliza Mackay in Savannah—seemed to have been swayed in some measure to the Confederate side. Miss Eliza was Christian enough to care for the tragedy of both factions of the bloody Civil War. Anne’s middle daughter, Fanny, had hopelessly sided with her almost pathetic Corporal Buster Matthews, now also in Virginia with the Rebel forces. Selina, her youngest daughter, didn’t disagree in so many words but seemed now to hold almost no belief in anything beyond God’s power to keep her true love safe in the midst of whizzing rifle shot and bursting bombs. Selina’s life revolved around her charming, Louisiana-born Captain George Stubinger, still writing her spirited, sometimes humorous letters, although he was obviously in almost daily danger. Anne had begun to wait each night for the helpless, heartbreaking sound of Selina’s weeping because she had chosen to wait to marry George until the war was over.

Because there were painful, personal thoughts 791 Anne felt could only be written in her diary, each page was scrawled with the hope that no one anywhere would ever read what she was compelled to write.

December 1861

What manner of mother am I? George Stubinger’s latest letter reported some three thousand Confederate boys killed or wounded in only one of the two battles in which he’d already fought! And why is it so hard for me even to admit that poor Fanny’s beau, Buster Matthews, writes a rather good letter. Despite our disagreement, Fanny goes on sharing Buster’s letters with me, and I wish I could at least let her know I’ve noticed his fairly cultivated writing. He, too, is somewhere in Virginia, not far from a place called Sharpsburg. How can I not fall in line with these brave young men my daughters love so much? How can I still cling to my resentment of Buster Matthews when word could come at any moment that he has been wounded or killed? Above all, how can I not agree with my only son, whose coastal plantation roots seem far deeper than my own—far

stronger. Now we know that sweet Fraser Demere, Annie’s boy, has also reached Richmond, as willing and eager to lay down his young life as is John Couper, in a Cause I simply cannot embrace. Could even my best friend, my lover, my beloved John, help me explain myself to myself? Why, when so many others with my background can change their minds from Unionism to embrace the Rebel notion that somehow it is acceptable to God for us to own another human being? Why, when it would save me so much agony, can’t I see their point of view? I ask myself over and over. Did my John suffer this pulling apart when, for love of me, he was forced to become a plantation owner? A slave owner? I’m a slave owner this minute! I still own the people, down on the coast, not yet sold by John Couper or James Hamilton. I live in a splendid house partially bought with the proceeds of the sale of those people. I still own Eve and June and Big Boy and Mina, and all the while Eve begs me never to make her leave the security of my home. How is it possible to live as I live—a contradictory, stubborn old woman.

As had become Anne’s almost daily 793 custom, she found herself hurrying toward the Square to seek understanding and consolation from her friend Louisa Fletcher, who not only sympathized with her but agreed with Anne’s loyalty to the Union. Hoping to calm her nerves a little so that she would not be a too difficult caller for Louisa, Anne took advantage of the pleasant December day and walked from her house to the Marietta Hotel. Still more panic arose in her when she realized that by the first of January 1862—soon—Louisa might be living temporarily in a spacious cottage with her married daughter and that they would no longer have easy access to the private talks Anne had come to depend on in the large, roomy hotel.

“You’ve come for help, Anne,” Louisa said. “How I hope I can give it to you. I can tell by the terrible sadness in your eyes that something drove you here this morning.”

“No, I’m ashamed of myself,” Anne said, trying to smile. “Nothing special has happened, but I am such a bundle of contradictions some days, I can’t be alone with myself. Will you think I’m completely crazy if I tell you there are times when I almost wish I

could find an acceptable reason to change my thinking? I love my son so much, Louisa, I’m sure I’ll die, too, if—if they kill him. And yet, I long so for our poor nation to remain one, I find any shred of news about a Union victory makes me feel hopeful. I shouldn’t feel that way, should I? I’m a born Southerner. As are my children. Can you understand that I’m living with my very being torn in two?”

“You must believe I understand, Anne, or you wouldn’t be here telling me this.” Then, after a long, thoughtful pause, Louisa picked up a letter from the small table between their chairs. “I have a letter for you. I picked it up at the post office this morning and planned to bring it to your house before dinnertime.” She handed the letter to Anne, then watched the expressive face closely as Anne scanned the elegant script on the envelope.

“Oh, Louisa, dear Louisa! I’ve been praying for a letter from my brother. I knew somehow you’d help me if I came to you today, but I had no idea of this!”

“You speak of it so seldom, but I’m sure, no matter how much you love your handsome house here,

that you miss your Island far more than even 795 I know.”

Breaking the ornate seal on the letter, Anne said, “I do! I wake up some mornings and imagine I’m actually smelling that blessed, pungent marsh mud. May I read James’s letter aloud to you, Louisa?”

“Of course you may, but do feel free to scan it yourself first.”

“No! I don’t want to read it alone.”

Louisa frowned at the stark fear in Anne’s eyes. “What is it, Anne? You look frightened and you haven’t read a line yet.”

“I’m frightened every time I open a letter from anyone these days. And James writes so seldom, there must be something wrong.” Hands shaking, Anne smoothed the two pages over her knee and began to read aloud.

“My Esteemed Sister,

Since my time is, as usual, rather limited, I must tell you first that in spite of the chaos in our land this year, I am happy to report that Hopeton and the surrounding plantations will undoubtedly produce thriving crops.

However, everything I must write is not to be, alas, in such a cheerful vein. My own heart and that of my beloved wife, Caroline, are numb with grief and shock at the news just received from our eldest son’s superior officer at Manassas Junction, Virginia.”

Anne stopped reading, her chin trembling as Louisa could see her eyes dart ahead in the letter. Louisa went to her and threw both arms around her friend. “Something happened to your nephew Hamilton Couper, Anne? The fine young man who roomed with your son in Savannah? Don’t feel you have to force yourself to read the remainder of the letter aloud. Just know I’m here with you. Oh, Anne, my sweet friend, I’m with you in all ways!”

“My God, Louisa! My God in heaven, it’s—begun! These next lines in James’s letter say that his handsome, brilliant son Hamilton wasn’t killed in a battle. He died of typhoid fever sometime after he fought in the battle near Manassas—was

The bitter sound Anne made was neither a sob nor a laugh. Some ghastly, heart-tearing sound between the two, Louisa thought as she began to smooth

Anne’s only slightly graying hair 797 in helpless, loving little gestures.

After a time, Anne whispered, “You always know, don’t you, Louisa? Thank you for not saying a word. What is there to say? My poor brother. Is—is there anything harder than losing a child?”