Beauty From Ashes (8 page)

Fanny laughed too. “I’ve always heard from Mama that you put up with Uncle James’s strict ways by making jokes right to his face.”

“Your mama is exactly right. But he’s so kind and good to the children and to me, making him laugh at himself has come to be one of my favorite things to do.”

“And does he really laugh at himself?”

Aunt Caroline smiled. “Well, let me just say that the dear man laughs just often enough to keep me on my toes. I’ve taught myself to enjoy the challenge.”

About noon the day before the birthday festivities, Jock’s son William Audley, his daughter-in-law Hannah, and two of their three children reached Hopeton with Hannah’s mother’s old nurse, Haynie, to look after the young ones.

Soon after breakfast Jock had settled in his

favorite veranda chair to watch for them and was delighted to see they’d at least brought their two older children to help celebrate his big day tomorrow. Three-year-old Anna was named, of course, for her grandmother, Anne’s lifelong friend Anna Matilda Page King. The child scrambled on her chubby legs up the front steps and threw herself into the old man’s lap, shouting “Grandpapa! Grandpapa!” at the top of her lungs. Tall, wide-shouldered William Audley, finer appearing and more adept at running a big plantation like Hamilton than his father had dared hope, followed with his only son, two-year-old William Page Couper, in his arms. It had been months since they’d visited Hopeton, but in no time the small boy was fighting for space on Jock’s lap, too, even though everyone knew he didn’t remember seeing his grandfather before.

“It’s that Scottish charm, Papa Couper,” Hannah said, brushing an unruly lock of hair back from William Page’s forehead. “He just might remember you. After all, you’re unforgettable and everyone along the Georgia and South Carolina coast will attest to that.”

“Which, of course, is the reason you’re so

smitten with me, his son,” William 95 Audley joked. “Give us a nod when you’ve had enough of both squirming offspring, Papa. Haynie came with us, you know. She’ll take them off your hands when you say the word.”

Still smiling, Jock Couper looked up at William Audley. Despite the determined smile, tears stood in his old eyes. “Aye, I’ll say the word, Son, when they’ve tired me. Right now, all I can think is that my memorable birthday is complete because all my family will be around me to cheer me on toward the century mark! All, that is, but your blessed mother, Becca, your equally blessed sister Isabella, your sweet niece Annie, and my fine son-in-law John Fraser.”

At that moment Rebecca Isabella, James’s girl, burst onto the veranda and yelled, “I heard that through the parlor window, Grandpapa, and came as fast as I could get here to remind you it’s my birthday, too! And you still have both Rebecca and Isabella because my name is Rebecca Isabella and I’m right here. Does that make you happier?”

Before he could collect himself to answer, the little

girl was busily wiping tears from his cheeks with her pinafore.

“Anne told me when we first got here,” William Audley said, “that you’d made her the central recipient of attention yesterday by surprising her with young John Couper, but something tells me you’re going to be center stage from now on, Papa. And”—he hugged his father’s neck— “well you should be. After all, how many men does God honor with such a long, full life?”

Tears were coming again. They embarrassed Jock, almost angered him. He’d been crying too often lately and knew it was because of his advanced age. “Aye, Son, I’m grateful for my every year. Except for these infernal tears that keep spilling down me face as though I were an—an ancient lass!”

Early on Friday, March 9, Anne found the aging Cannon’s Point butler, Johnson, in a narrow connecting hall that led to the Hopeton kitchen, built separately from the main house in case of a cooking fire. As she thought, her brother James, born to handle most details, had neglected Papa’s music for the day.

“Oh, Miss Anne,” the 97 gentlemanly Johnson said, his face alight, “I shoulda known you’d remember! Mausa John Couper, he be discomforted like a man at the table without his dinner jacket if they ain’t no music fo’ his ninetieth birthday.”

“Of course he’d be miserable, and you and I are going to see to it that he’s happy. I’ll play the Hopeton pianoforte while everyone waits for dinner to be served, and then, on a signal from me, my son, John Couper, and William Audley will lead Papa into the dining room to your piping.”

Johnson beamed. “You reckon it be all right if I plays the bagpipes for the celebration, Miss Anne? Don’ forget Mausa Thomas Spalding, he be here, too.”

“I know Papa’s day wouldn’t be complete without his oldest friend, Mr. Spalding, and I also know he despises music of any kind, but this is Papa’s birthday—not his. There’s going to be music and lots of it. Fanny’s getting to be quite good on the pianoforte, and I might even persuade her to wait for her dinner and play through most of our meal. Don’t you think Papa would like

that?”

Johnson’s low, mellow chuckle had always been like music to Anne, and she joined him now in a good laugh at Thomas Spalding’s expense. “Might be Mausa Spalding get a bad bout of indigestion, but Miss Fanny, she so sweet and obliging, she agree to play long as you wants her to.”

“Now, we know all of Papa’s favorite piping tunes. Can you still play them?”

“Yes, ma’am, I kin. But I knows his mos’ favorite be the `Maxwell March.` That be good to play while everybody go to the table, but you reckon it make Mausa Couper miss his wife, Miss Rebecca, too much?”

“Oh, Johnson,” Anne said, her voice tender. “It should not be a secret to anyone why Papa has always favored you. You’re so considerate—and you do know him, don’t you.”

“Me an’ Mausa Couper, we been friends a long time, Miss Anne. You reckon `Maxwell March` might spoil his joy in this day? I knows he so partial to it cause Miss Rebecca, she be a Maxwell, but we want his day to be the bes’.was

“It will be. I think the `Maxwell 99 March` would be perfect. After all, Papa’s good sense tells him that at age ninety, it can’t be too long until they’re together again. But, oh, Johnson, what will we ever do without him?”

While Johnson piped the rousing strains of the “Maxwell March,” tears streamed again down Jock’s smiling face as John Couper and William Audley led him into the dining room, followed by his old friend Thomas Spalding—on the arm of his own butler, who made the boat trip from Sapelo Island to look after his master. All the other dinner guests, except the young children, formed a merry procession into the long room, the table gleaming with silver, china, and crystal. As planned with Johnson, Anne had played softly while the guests waited in the parlor for dinner to be served, and as they sat down at the table, she smiled her pleasure when obedient, willing Fanny took over the keyboard.

Anne was seated between Pete and little Rebecca Isabella Couper, the child flushed and excited because today she had turned six and was permitted to sit at the grown-up table. On Papa’s right, in the

place of honor, was Thomas Spalding, his now almost toothless mouth working as he made a real effort not to show downright displeasure because his good friend Jock seemed unable to function without all that noisy music.

“Why do you think Mr. Spalding’s making such faces all the time?” Rebecca Isabella whispered to Anne.

“He just doesn’t care for music, I’m afraid. But bless his heart, he’s so fond of your grandfather, he wouldn’t have missed this day for anything.”

“Mr. Spalding really hates music? Even Johnson’s good loud bagpipes?”

“I should imagine especially Johnson’s good loud bagpipes.”

Of course, Caroline and James Hamilton had planned a superb menu, and under their watchful eyes it was being served flawlessly. After the soup bowls had been cleared, silver covered dishes of vegetables were brought in, and as though someone had slipped into the parlor to give her a signal, Fanny struck up a grand flourish on the keyboard as Johnson entered, followed by none other than Papa’s longtime chef, Sans Foix

himself. On the great entrée platter 101 Johnson carried with such care and elegance was her father’s favorite of all Sans Foix’s culinary masterpieces from the old days when the Couper chef reined supreme at Cannon’s Point: a completely boned, crisp, browned turkey looking exactly as though its skeleton were still in place!

Anne began the applause, which then spread around the long table while everyone gasped and exclaimed and wondered aloud how James Hamilton managed to keep Sans Foix’s presence a secret. No one had even seen him arrive from Darien, where he’d lived since Jock left Cannon’s Point four years ago, after Becca’s death.

Grandfather Couper, smiling broadly, lost no time in commending his friend. “The wor-rather-ld’s greatest chef, my old friend of many years, Mr. Cassamene Sans Foix, who, though a free person of color, served my every gastronomic need for more year-rs than either he or I care to recall. Hail to you, old friend. Hail to you, old friend!”

For the first time on this celebratory day, tears

stood in Anne’s eyes. She had known—oh, she had known painfully since the day of her mother’s death—of Papa’s heartbreak because at such an advanced age he could not live out his days at his beloved Cannon’s Point. She had known as surely as anyone except Papa himself that in the night silences he lay alone in his empty bed at Hopeton wondering, perhaps even worrying, about the welfare of this or that Cannon’s Point olive tree, this or that sago palm, his orange groves. Of course, he worried less because skillful June, Eve’s husband, lived at Anne’s place on adjoining Lawrence Plantation and not only tended Papa’s trees and flowers, but made regular trips to Hopeton to report on them. No one but June knew every bush and tree so intimately—almost as intimately as did Papa himself. But however frail his old body, the Couper brain had remained sharp, and Papa was fully aware that Cannon’s Point could never be its old, flourishing self again. He knew well that with cotton prices so low, James Hamilton had undoubtedly been selling off slaves from both Cannon’s Point and Lawrence. As far as

Anne knew, no one had actually 103 told Papa, but he of all people understood the pervasive financial pinch of dropping cotton prices in Liverpool, and he of course worried.

Did he know, she wondered, the somehow terrifying fact that eighteen people from both places, under the persuasion of other Island Negroes who learned through their grapevine of the rising unrest on some mainland plantations, had already run away under the cover of darkness? The news had terrified Anne because such a large part of her mind still believed that she knew their people were, each one, loyal to the Coupers and the Frasers.

In normal times James Hamilton would already have arranged for the runaway slaves to be hunted down and returned under the Fugitive Slave Act—a “dastardly law” according to Fanny Kemble Butler—in effect in the United States since the Constitutional Convention in 1787, when it had also been decreed that a Negro was only three-fifths of a person.

Anne’s eyes met Eve’s as Eve stood at the foot of the table, watching the sheer pleasure on Mausa Couper’s face as he eagerly

anticipated San Foix’s turkey. Anne did not return Eve’s smile. She forced her thoughts back to Papa as she watched him happily hand the huge silver knife and carving fork over to young John Couper because his old hands trembled so much. What, she wondered, did Papa really think of those old constitutional laws? What, for that matter, did James think of them? Anne herself had never given thought to any of that until Fanny Kemble Butler regaled her one afternoon during her stay on St. Simons Island about the evil injustice of slavery and all laws that protected it.

Why am I thinking of that now, of all times, she asked herself. This is Papa’s big day, his big celebration, and I’m allowing dear Fanny Butler’s extreme ideas to upset me. Were they extreme? Of course. But as Anne’s tender John used to say, “Some extremes are to be treasured, my dear. Can you honestly say you believe there is an extreme where goodness is concerned? Consideration for our fellow man? Isn’t June a man? Isn’t Eve a woman? Can we possibly be too humane?”

“You’re frowning, Aunt Anne,” Rebecca

Isabella, her dinner partner, said for the 105 second time before Anne really heard, because her mind had leaped so far away. “Is something wrong, Aunt Anne? How did Grandpapa’s old cook, Sans Foix, get all that turkey’s bones out and still make it look whole the way a real roasted turkey looks?”

“Listen to me, Rebecca. I’ve wondered about that for my entire life—since before I was as old as you are now. I’m fifty-two and I’m still wondering. Sans Foix doesn’t even allow the other people in the kitchen to find out. He works his magic under a clean white tablecloth and even Grandpapa doesn’t know how he does it!”

“Are you teasing me?”

“I am not teasing you. I’m telling you the truth. In fact, I’m sure your grandpapa doesn’t even want to know how his old friend does his magic deboning. That would spoil his fun!”

“I’m glad Grandpapa likes to have fun.”

“Did I ever tell you, or did your father ever tell you, that when I was young like you, your grandfather and I used to march around the big Cannon’s Point porch every time there was a huge rainstorm?”

“No! You did? Didn’t you both get

awfully wet?”

“Of course we got wet—soaked. In fact, your papa always thought my papa and I were a little crazy, I think. We got even with him, though. We both called him the Old Gentleman, even when he was just a young boy like your brothers Robert and James Maxwell.”

“Lean down so I can whisper something to you, Aunt Anne, will you, please?”

“Why, yes. What is it?”

“Sometimes my papa acts a lot older than Grandpapa Couper.”

Whispering back in the same conspiratorial manner, Anne said, “Oh, I agree! I agree one hundred percent. And do you mind that your father is so—so well behaved compared with Grandfather Couper?”

“Oh no, I don’t mind at all. Papa’s awfully kind, but it’s a lot more fun to be with Grandpapa.”

“And will you just look at how Grandpapa’s enjoying his birthday dinner? He’s eating and eating and he’s asked Johnson to refill his claret glass again. I hope he doesn’t overdo.”