Beauty From Ashes (72 page)

“I thought you said there were only three white women here. I’m counting four, lady, with the one just coming down the stairs. Lying to me will not go well for you.”

Louisa stepped forward. “Mrs. 979 Fraser did not lie to you, sir, I’m a guest in the house. I live out of the city and am in town only for the day. My husband is Dix Fletcher. His nephew is an officer of rank in your Army. Our home in the country has a permanent Federal guard to protect us from harm. I’m a strong Unionist. So is Mrs. Fraser and both her daughters present. Mrs. Fraser and her family are all British subjects and were strongly advised to display the English flag, having been assured that you would honor it.”

“Whoever told her that, flat lied, ma’am. What I tell all of you is fact. Anyone knows that English sympathies have been staunchly with the South through all this, and waving a British Jack in General Sherman’s face is like waving a red blanket at a bull. We’re taking this property to use as a hospital for our wounded men, and no tricks of any kind will change that! We need everything growing in that fine, big garden of yours, too, and it’s ours for the taking. So, no tricks or you’ll all be sorry.”

“But my daughter, Georgia, is the wife of Mr. Henry Greene Cole, sir,” Louisa

persisted. “Surely you know he’s in prison— moved to South Carolina recently from Atlanta —arrested by the Rebels as a Yankee spy! You can’t know so much without having heard of Mr. Cole, surely.”

“The name’s familiar, yes. We’ve heard of him. And the gentleman is indeed a true Unionist, but that proves nothing about the occupants of this house.”

“Except that Mrs. Fletcher here is my best Marietta friend,” Anne tried to reason. “I am trying to be truthful with you. Marriage to my late husband, a lieutenant in Her Majesty’s Royal Marines, made us all British subjects, although I was born on St. Simons Island, Georgia. Can’t you see, I’m trying to tell you the whole truth?”

Eve, who had returned from the kitchen with their okra brew, set down her tray and stood firmly and directly in front of Provost Allen. “She be tellin’ you the whole truth,” she said with authority. “Ain’t it even stronger truth when she be born a Rebel an’ turn to favor—our side? Mrs. Fletcher, she be Mrs. Fraser’s best white friend in

Marietta, but I be her bes’ friend!” 981

For an instant the tall, imposing figure of Eve standing there confronting him caused Allen to take a step back, the better to look her over carefully. “Well,” he said condescendingly. “Is that so? And what makes you think your madam might be on our side? I didn’t know niggers had a side in this war! Oh, I know they all think General Sherman came down to save them, and it’s true, President Lincoln freed them, but since when did niggers start to matter anyway?”

“We done always mattered,” Eve declared evenly. “And I be as free as you ever thought ‘bout bein’. Whatever you got in your head to do to my friend Miss Anne Fraser, you better take me into your plan, cause her an’ me, we’s gonna stay together forever an’ ever!”

“But you’re free now, black wench.”

“Yes, sir! Free to stay wif Miss Anne if dat what I wants to do, an’ it’s zactly what I means to do. So you got me to deal with, too.”

“Shut up, nigger,” he snarled at Eve, then turned to the others who had clomped into the house with him. “Give the boys outside the signal

to start. They’ll know where.” Of Anne, he asked, “How many bedrooms upstairs?”

“Four,” she answered weakly.

“That should work out just right. I want you, lady, and your two daughters moved upstairs and out of our way down here within the hour!”

“What?” Pete shouted.

“We both speak English, I think,” he replied. “And that means you, motherin-law of Henry Greene Cole, are to get out of this house now!”

“You’re ordering my guest to leave?” Anne gasped.

“Now! Whoever you really are—out! If you don’t go right now, you’ll pay a heavy penalty, lady.” Turning to Anne, who clung to Louisa’s arm, he barked, “That English flag must be torn down within the hour, too, or you’ll pay more than a heavy penalty, ma’am. You and your daughters. Now, lady, the door! Out!”

Two soldiers steered Louisa toward the front door and out onto the porch in silence. Over her shoulder as she hurried away, Louisa said, “I’ll do my best to come back, Anne. Or send help to you.”

“Out!” Provost Allen yelled. 983

Through the wide-open front door, from the yard Anne heard the cracks of what surely were rifle shots: cracks, splintering wood, louder cracks, yells and shouts, and some of the shouting in such foul language, she felt faint and reached for Pete’s strong hand.

“Are you firing on us from outside now?” Pete demanded.

Allen laughed uproariously. “No, we’re just gatherin’ firewood from the pretty pickets of your fence. Now, get your nigger workin’, you white women work, too, because we’ll be back in exactly one hour and we expect the entire downstairs to be open to us and emptied of all your personal belongings. Oh, are there any men on the place at all? Any niggers?”

“They be one very old, weak man out in the brick cabin,” Eve offered. “An’ one giant ‘bout sixty. Dat be all.”

“Is the old man sick? We don’t need no sick old people to look after.”

“No, he ain’t sick. He just—old.”

“Why do you need our house, a private residence, when every business and public building

on the Square is empty and ready to serve as a hospital?” Pete asked.

Provost Allen laughed but completely ignored her question.

Not understanding why Eve ordered him to take down the English flag he had so recently put up on Miss Anne’s second-floor balcony, Big Boy worked as fast as he could as the sad, helpless voice of his almost lifelong friend June sounded in his ears: “Why they do’n this to our lady folk, Big Boy?” June was still pleading for an answer when Big Boy hurriedly took the tallest ladder and headed for the main house, June still walking after him. “Why de very mens dat come down to free us wanta treat our lady folk so bad? Don’t you let nothin’ happen to ‘em, Big Boy. Not a finger to be laid on Miss Anne, Miss S’lina, Miss Pete, or my Eve, you hear?”

Big Boy heard, all right, but as he ripped the small English flag Miss Anne had sewn with her own fingers from the spot where he had so carefully nailed it, his heart pounded wildly. Big Boy was scared. He was always scared of what

he didn’t know about, and nobody seemed 985 to know anything about what the Yankee soldiers might be aiming to do. Nobody. Not even Miss Pete. Not even Evie, who always seemed to know most of everything that went on.

In exactly one hour, after everyone—including Mina, Flonnie, and Big Boy—had carried and carried, the Yankees came back in force to find Father Fraser’s huge desk empty, Anne’s fine china and crystal gone, the linen closet bare, and Anne’s three favorite chairs removed from the parlor.

The Federals brought over a dozen more soldiers, who marched across the well-kept front lawn through the remnants of the broken and split picket fence, which Big Boy had given a fresh coat of whitewash just the other day. The troops were followed by a dozen or so drays piled with tents, blankets, a pitifully inadequate supply of mattresses, and one gun carriage bristling with weapons.

For the remainder of the afternoon, while Selina’s infant screamed with discomfort from an upset stomach, Anne, her two daughters, and Eve

knelt beside the front windows in Anne’s bedroom on the second floor, peeping out at the nightmare that was turning their once lovely lawn into a military encampment. Dozens of tents were being raised and mysterious-looking tables set up in rows that not only covered the lawn, which had lain green and beautiful behind the picket fence they’d all loved, but stretched across Anne’s flower beds and up onto the porch itself.

The Fraser women and Eve, huddled behind the draperies of Anne’s bedroom windows, spoke almost not at all. Even Pete, who always had such trouble not talking, only growled what seemed to Anne to be the same questions over and over again: “How long do you suppose they mean to crowd us out of our own home like this? When do you think they’ll start hauling in wounded soldiers?” No one bothered to try to answer. No one knew what to say.

Finally, when campfires began to flare across the yard, sending black smoke up and into the house through the open windows, Selina started to weep. “Our lovely white picket fence, Mama! They’re building fires out of our pretty fence to cook their meals!”

“S’lina, you make eberthing worse for 987 your poor mama wif both you an’ lil Johnny cryin’ at once. Why didn’t I bring some of my peppermint to make tea for Johnny? Even a spoonful or two of my mint tea help his lil stomach. Why I not bring it?”

“Because smart as you are, Eve, even you can’t remember everything on an ugly day like this one’s turned out to be,” Pete scolded. “Stop blaming yourself. We couldn’t have done any of it without you to help us. Selina, do you think Johnny might stop crying if you picked him up and held him for awhile? It might stop you from crying, too!”

Selina’s teary voice was abruptly stronger. One more look out the window and she was too angry to cry. “Mama! They’re stealing all the vegetables in our garden! They’re picking the last of our good tomatoes and cucumbers—and my squash, some of it still blooming. And listen! I hear them in our chicken coop! The chickens are squawking something fierce. Oh, Mama, if only George were here, he’d know what to do.”

“Well, he isn’t,” Anne said firmly. “Neither is your brother or your father. But God

is! Try to remember that.”

“Do you remember it, Mama?” Selina asked.

“I mean to.”

“So do I, but most of the time I forget, or it really doesn’t help at all. I’m so scared!”

The soldiers hadn’t even paid them the courtesy of knocking on the front door when they came back inside, but Anne was sure that by now there must be about twenty men downstairs barking orders, cursing, calling out names, and grunting as they moved heavy pieces of the Fraser furniture from room to room.

Pete and Eve went to check the chickens, and Selina had no sooner left the room to settle Johnny in his crib when Anne heard an almost gentle, young man’s voice in the hall outside her closed door. Heart pounding, she listened again over the continuing hubbub downstairs.

“Mrs. Fraser? Mrs. Fraser, I know you’re up here, but could you please signal where—which room? I’m sure what I found will be most important to you. Where are you, Mrs. Fraser?”

Realizing suddenly that his slight accent was

British, she felt a small wave of 989 relief. Even though the Union Jack had evidently caused this trouble, the clipped, cultivated cadence of a British accent somehow calmed her a little. “I—I’m here,” she called and startled herself by opening her bedroom door to a stranger.

The slightly built, brown-haired young man who stood there, immaculate in his blue uniform, cap politely in hand, was also holding the large framed painting of Anne’s beloved John, which she and the girls had neglected to bring upstairs in their frantic haste to clear out the first floor.

“Oh, sir,” she gasped, reaching to touch the portrait. “How did you know? This is my most prized possession—my dearest possession! It’s—it’s the portrait of my late, adored husband, Lieutenant John Fraser of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines! I can’t think why I would leave it downstairs out of my sight. Thank you! Oh, how can I begin to thank you for saving it, for bringing it up to me?”

“Shall I carry it into your bedroom, ma’am? And then, perhaps I can find a nail to fasten it to the wall.”

Anne was touching John’s face in the portrait now. The cleft in his strong chin, the plume on his handsome Marine bonnet, which he had been holding in his hand when the picture was painted. “How can I ever thank you? Please tell me how!”

“By trying not to hold the men with me in such low esteem. They’ve been fearfully rude to you and your daughters. I do apologize, but I assure you not all of us are haughty monsters, even though some have surely acted that way.”

“I know you’ll have to go back downstairs soon,” Anne said, “but if you’ll step into my room, I think we may find a nail in one of my dressing table drawers. My daughter Pete believes in hoarding nails.”

Carrying the large portrait into Anne’s bedroom, the young officer asked, “Your daughter’s named Pete?”

“That’s her nickname. She’s the one with red hair. Such a help to me. Keeps me on my toes in all ways.”

Hurriedly, the soldier did his best to center the portrait on the wall Anne chose, used one of his heavy boots as a hammer, secured the

picture, replaced his shoe, and bowed. 991 “I owe you another apology, ma’am. I should have introduced myself since I’ll be staying in your house in one of the downstairs rooms. I’m Captain David Porter. My parents came to the United States when I was twelve. I’m a citizen now. And thanks to my late father’s influence, I grew up understanding and revering the American love of liberty.” He smiled—a smile Anne knew she could come to depend on—and added, “I doubt that it’s necessary to tell you that I’m a great believer in the Union Cause.”

“Yes, Captain Porter, I’m sure you are. I was born, along with my living children, right here in Georgia, but I’ve come to be a Unionist too. My Scottish father believed so in liberty for everyone, he’d be a Unionist were he alive.” She glanced at John’s portrait. “My late husband, although a British subject, would be staunchly pro-Union too.” For a moment she allowed her eyes to linger on John’s face. “I do thank you—I hope you know—for retrieving his portrait. No one can ever do a more wonderful thing for me.”

A booming voice shouted David Porter’s name from downstairs.

“I must hurry back down,” he said, giving Anne a light, impulsive hug. “But remember my name. I’m a doctor and if you need me, I’ll do my best to be of service.” From the doorway he smiled back at her. “Those aren’t just words, Mrs. Fraser. I want to be your friend. Partly because you’re such a lovely lady, but also because somehow I think we’ll come to understand each other.”

He closed the door, and Anne stood looking at it as she listened to the quick, easy sound of his boots descending her stair. “He’s—he’s so like John Couper,” she said aloud to herself and to John’s portrait. “This young man is very like our son, dearest. David Porter is my latest gift from God. I hope you know! Oh, how I hope you know. …”