Beauty From Ashes (61 page)

office and they for the depot. 825

Sam and Jessie greeted each other warmly after their long separation, and a short time later, in the handsome parlor of Anne’s house, Pete presented her mother to Jessie Demere.

The two women—Anne of medium height, older, and Jessie even taller than Pete, in her forties, with dark, penetrating eyes and black hair—stood looking at each other in silence for several seconds.

When Anne offered a chair to Jessie, Pete watched their guest for some indication of how she might direct their conversation. Jessie gave her no clue. Instead, she smiled at Pete’s mother, held out both her hands, and made no effort to hide the fact that tears had begun to stream down her somewhat severe features. Severe? Pete surprised herself for even having thought of such a word to describe good, kind, likable Jessie Demere’s face. But she had thought of it and seeing Jessie there, away from her own parlor and in strange surroundings, Pete did think Jessie’s angular face looked almost severe —until her smile came.

“All the way here on that horrible stage and then on the train, I tried to think what I could possibly say to you when finally you and I were face-to-face, Mrs. Fraser.”

Pete knew that her mother was masterly at being direct, but until she saw the flinty look in the pale, pale blue eyes, she also knew that in all the years of her life, she had never seen Mama look hard—even cruel. Pete was sure that every one of her sisters—maybe even John Couper, too, although he’d been gone so much as an adult—knew that Annie’s death when little Fraser Demere was born had somehow enshrined Annie in their mother’s heart. Or maybe, Pete thought, recognizing her own jealousy of her dead sister for the first time, the sisters decided that Annie, because of her ethereal beauty and position as the firstborn, had always been enshrined almost as a Greek goddess whose very soul was considered celestial.

“And can’t you remember what you decided to say to me when we first met, Mrs. Demere?” Mama was twisting the knife of her longtime resentment of poor, defenseless Jessie. Pete felt almost ashamed of her mother but struggled the harder to identify

with her parent—to understand how it had hurt 827 her for Paul to marry another woman so soon after Annie died.

“Please sit down, Jessie,” Pete said, her voice too loud, her words as explosive in the quiet room as they were harmless, merely polite, in themselves. “One of Mama’s best friends is her personal servant, Eve. Eve’s going to serve us lemonade and probably Mina’s delicious cinnamon buns anytime now. You’ll like Eve and our cook, Mina.”

That stupid spiel of hers, Pete knew at once, would only make things worse, more awkward. What on earth was she thinking of, suddenly blabbing about Mina and Eve? What must Mama be thinking of me? What must Mama be thinking, question mark! Why can’t I just keep quiet when there’s a difficult subject afoot? Sam’s favorite method of hushing her was to remind her that she must undergo some kind of violent physical spasm if a spell of silence filled a room—even for a minute or so. Dr. Sam! Sam to her rescue again. Good old Sam. She could change the subject and talk about him. Jessie knew and liked and respected

Sam from the years in Florida when he was the Demere family doctor.

“Dr. Sam, Jessie! I’m sure you’re dying to know all about how Sam’s doing in his Marietta practice.”

Clearly distracted by Pete’s irrelevant remark, Jessie turned to her, tried hard for a pleasant smile, glanced apprehensively back at Pete’s mother, then said, “Why, yes, Pete. As soon as your mother and I have something resembling a—a friendly exchange, I’d be ever so glad to know all about Sam.”

“I’m not really as dumb as that sounded,” Pete said, her flushed face showing how embarrassed she felt for talking too much. “I will be thirty-seven years old next month. Wouldn’t you think I’d know better? I—I’ve just been so eager for you to get here, Jessie, and you can be sure I’ll do all I can to make you feel welcome, just as you did for me when I visited at your farm in Florida.” As though she were seven instead of thirty-seven, Pete turned to her mother. “Mama?” she asked, almost pleading. “Mama, I think Jessie might like to freshen up after that long, cramped trip. Shall I show her

upstairs to her room before Eve serves 829 us?”

Mama, like Jessie and Pete, had been standing in the middle of the parlor. Without a word, she buried her face in her hands for an instant, then rushed to throw both arms around Jessie. Mama was not very tall, so she had to reach up to Jessie’s shoulder where, with no explanation, she began to sob.

In seconds, as though she’d just managed to realign her own emotions, Jessie was embracing Mama, both women weeping together, clinging to each other.

When Eve appeared at the door bearing a large, laden silver tray, Pete shushed her with a finger over her own mouth. Have I just watched a miracle happen, Pete asked herself? Poor Eve, that tray must be heavy, but anyway, she’s my witness. She witnessed the miracle, too.

A quiet, sad peace Anne did not even try to understand seemed to flood her very being as she still stood with her face buried in Jessie Demere’s shoulder. She was no longer sobbing. Jessie was quiet, too, but they went on clinging to each other as though both finally realized why.

Anne supposed Pete was watching them. Probably Eve, too, by now. More important, though, with all her heart Anne longed to say the right words to this tall, warmhearted, sympathetic stranger named Jessie Demere, the woman whose very name had pinched not only the courtesy but the humanity from Anne’s heart for all these bitter, misguided years.

Anne tried to speak. No words came.

“I’m—sorry, Mrs. Fraser,” Jessie whispered as the two still embraced, but without the former desperation. “Oh, because of so many reasons, I’m sorry to the depth of my being!”

Slowly, Anne disengaged her own arms and stepped back a little to get a better look at Jessie’s plain but appealing face. “In the name of all that’s good and holy, Mrs. Demere, I am the one who should be sorry.” She touched Jessie’s arm. “He—he’s—dead, isn’t he? My sweet, rosy-cheeked, tender Fraser is dead, isn’t he?”

“It was his idea that I come here myself, Mrs. Fraser.”

“My grandson, Fraser, sent you?”

“Exactly as if he helped me into that

stagecoach in Florida and off the train 831 here at the Marietta depot. I’m here because Fraser begged me to come. The night before he took his train to Virginia, he got me to promise that I wouldn’t allow you to learn of his death—alone.”

No one could eat even one bit of Mina’s tasty buns Eve had served, but they sipped lemonade and seated themselves about the room, with no one needing the formality of offering a chair. In fact, Anne was grateful that Jessie seemed to be so comfortable with her and had pulled her chair close enough to touch Anne’s hand now and then as slowly and carefully she told them all—Eve included—every word about Fraser’s leaving. She read the contents of his letter to his father, and finally—with Anne fighting more tears and Pete sobbing from her own grief—they learned that the boy had been shot in the head and did not suffer at all.

“But Jessie, Pete, Eve, I’ll never see that gentle, dear boy again on this earth! I guess no one ever learns how to accept those things as coming from God’s hand. Does anyone ever— learn?”

“I lost my whole family,” Jessie said after a time, “in a ferryboat accident not far from

my parents’ home in Nova Scotia. But I don’t think anyone ever learns to accept such tragedies as coming from God, because I don’t think God sends them.”

Anne stared at Jessie. “Then who does send them?”

“Our precious Fraser was killed in a war men chose to fight. God knew there would always be wars because He knows man’s nature. But He didn’t send this ghastly war. Men who hold their own opinions in higher esteem than human life declared this war. `God is love` according to the Bible. If He is love, Mrs. Fraser, how could He send something so terrible to shatter the lives of the human race He loves? He didn’t send this war, but if we allow it, He’ll make some use of it.”

“Who told you that, Mrs. Demere?”

After a time, Jessie said, “I honestly don’t know. Maybe it just came to me now. Why do you ask?”

“Because I’m almost positive a dear, dear friend of ours, Miss Eliza Mackay, said almost the same thing to me once. You and Miss Eliza didn’t know each other, did you, Mrs.

Demere?” 833

“No. I’m sure my husband knew of her. I believe there are Demeres in Savannah, and didn’t Mrs. Mackay live there?”

“Yes, she did,” Pete said. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if God Himself told Miss Eliza and Jessie the same thing. I doubt that He ever contradicts Himself.”

“But how could anything useful ever come out of such a tragedy as the sudden death of a tender, sweet boy like our Fraser?” Anne asked. “And what did you mean when you said God will bring something useful out of such a tragedy if we let Him? How can we let God?”

“I know only that I am almost forced to keep remembering not to allow myself to get comfortable in a mass of self-pity. That’s at least one thing I can do.”

Anne’s shoulders slumped, then straightened as she looked directly at Jessie Demere. “Thank you, Mrs. Demere. Oh, thank you! Even I can do that much. I can also try to tell you that even my own adored daughter, Fraser’s mother, could not have reared the boy to be more of a peacemaker than he was—is. Fraser is with my Annie

again now. He—he isn’t dead and he’s making peace right here in this room today, isn’t he?”

“Mrs. Fraser, yes! Oh, yes. It would help me still more if you gave me permission to call you Miss Anne. If you’d please, please call me Jessie. We’ve missed so much not knowing each other all this time. May I call you Miss Anne?”

“No, you may not,” Anne said with a real smile. “I want you to call me Anne. Miss Anne makes me feel old. And does your forgiveness toward me really go far enough for you to let me call you Jessie? Does it?”

“There’s no more need for you to be forgiven, Anne. We didn’t even see each other for all these years, so how would you know that Paul Demere never stopped loving your Annie? Had you known that, you wouldn’t have disliked me so much, I’m sure.”

Pete jumped as though something had scared her. “Jessie! What a thing to say! You’re the mother of Paul’s six other children. How can you say he kept on loving my sister and even imply that he didn’t love you?”

Jessie grinned. “I didn’t imply that,

Pete. In Paul’s way and with every bit 835 of room he had left in his basically kind, good heart, he loved me, too, as the mother of his children. But the poor man struggled all this time with his own emotions because Annie was his first love. And I think he made it through his days because somehow, although we never mentioned it, he knew that I knew he couldn’t love me the way he loved her. I did know it, and because everyone told me, including Paul, that Fraser was just like her, I got through my days too. There’s another Scripture in the Bible to which I go on clinging. I think it’s somewhere in the book of Isaiah and it speaks of `beauty for ashes.` That’s very real to me. Beauty can come from ashes. What Paul has left to give me has made my life—beautiful. Beauty does come from ashes, if we give it time.” She dabbed at her eyes. “You see, I loved Fraser as though he’d been my own.”

Jessie Demere took the train back toward Florida on October 11, allowing herself only two full days to rest after the long, strenuous trip up to Marietta. Anne couldn’t remember two more meaningful days than those spent with the woman she had stupidly allowed herself to resent for so many years.

Toward the end of October 1862, the citizens of Marietta were sending clothes, towels, and bedding to the busy Confederate hospital at Ringgold, where Fanny was now head nurse. Until Jessie’s visit with the sorrowful news that Anne’s grandson had been killed in the bloody battle at Sharpsburg, Maryland, Anne had found one excuse or another not to take part in Marietta’s Confederate war effort on behalf of the wounded soldiers there.

But then Louisa Fletcher told her that the medical director from Knoxville was in Marietta, looking over buildings suitable to be used as local hospitals. After a pause, Louisa reminded Anne gently, but firmly, that suffering was suffering whether North or South. Ashamed, Anne weakened. After all, her own son could end up in any of the growing number of Confederate hospitals! Surely, John Couper’s mother, no matter how strong her political convictions, could find time to collect and help Pete deliver bedding and clothes for other Confederate boys in need after the growing number of battles being fought. The weeks during which the war seemed distant, because no battles had yet been fought in Georgia, were coming to an end.

“The medical director told Dix yesterday, when he tore himself away from his hammer and nails and our new house at Woodlawn long enough to pay a short visit to Marietta, that they were expecting six to seven hundred sick and wounded soldiers in about a week! It doesn’t have to mean that you and I do not support the Union Cause with all our hearts, Anne,” Louisa said. “It means that God has given us a chance to show that we

have found His great love abundant enough 839 to cover everyone!”

As usual, Louisa was right and Pete was right, too, when she finally became an active participant in collecting bedding. “I can’t help doing it, Mama,” Pete said, throwing her cape around her shoulders before leaving the house in a heavy shower because she’d promised an elderly Marietta lady to pick up some sheets and blankets before noon that day. “The war is spreading, Mama, and no one believes an end is in sight. They’re fighting or getting situated to fight in Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky, Louisiana, and, of course, they’re fighting terribly in Virginia. Come with me, Mama. I need help, and Big Boy is ready to take us in the carriage to make our bedding collection. You won’t get very wet.”

On a deep sigh, Anne said, “What difference could it possibly make, Pete, if I do get wet? Some of this bedding might help your brother. It seems as though Jessie Demere’s visit has freed me, but I’m not at all sure I like being freed. Hiding one’s head in the sand can be quite convenient at times. Oh, and