Beauty From Ashes (16 page)

“Me too. But I’m so, so proud of your almost instant success. Your papa would be so proud, too, he’d be hard to shush. You know that, don’t you?” She squeezed his firm, young arm. “What

I wouldn’t give to hear him boast about your rapid advancement with McCleskey and Norton! Your father, you know, was prone to a bit of exaggeration at times, but he’d have no need of it in bragging about his only son.”

“Do you still have bad times over Papa?” the boy asked.

“Yes. I don’t get overcome the way I once did, but I miss him terribly some evenings when it begins to get dark. When those times come, I concentrate my thoughts on you.”

“My cousin Menzies says his mother still misses Uncle William very much, too. The two Fraser brothers must have been hard men to lose.”

“They were. Not at all alike, either, in appearance or in personality, but they captured far more than a Georgia coastal island when they first came here as Royal Marines. They captured Aunt Frances Anne and me, too— entirely. Have you heard from your aunt lately?”

“No, but Menzies did write from school up in Cobb County that he and his mother are still trying to sell the Darien house.”

“Dear Frances could never bring herself to live in it again after William died.”

“I know, and although I mean nothing 203 deprecatory about her, I’m secretly quite proud that my mother had the courage and the strength to go back to the Lawrence cottage where we were all so happy with Papa.”

“You seldom mention your other cousin, Menzies’s brother, James.”

“I don’t, do I? Well, no two brothers could ever be as different as those two.”

“There are about ten years between their ages, you know.”

“James is on the high seas so much, I doubt that he and Menzies have had a chance to get to know each other as adults. Poor old James is so restless, constantly dissatisfied, it’s a good thing, I guess, that he’s a seaman. Life aboard ship and in foreign ports is probably all he could cope with anyway. I always rather liked the fellow.”

Even John Couper’s short laugh sounds like John’s, Anne thought.

“But I couldn’t keep up with James. For one thing, the man swears too much for me. I don’t think I’m prudish about his language. It just strikes me as showing a streak of—helplessness,

uncertainty about himself down inside. I hope you don’t think me critical.”

Again, she hugged his arm. “Critical? I think you are inordinately wise for a young man who just had his seventeenth birthday. Do you think poor James swears so because he feels he has to prove his manhood?”

“Something like that. Menzies is just the opposite. Oh, he’s a real man, even though he’s ten years younger than James, but he seems to have a different idea of what being a man means.”

“What do you think it means to him, Son?”

“A grasp on certain manly values— maybe even virtues—although he’s really funny and lots of fun. James seems to believe he needs to make people quake when he walks into a room. Menzies is satisfied to make people feel good all over. I don’t mean to make him sound like a budding parson, but he’s—I don’t know— I sometimes think of the word noble when I think of my cousin Menzies.”

“Then it’s no wonder I’ve always thought that his mother depends on him much the way I depend on you, young as you both are. John Couper, do I lean too hard?”

He laughed. “The only danger I 205 see is that I might get a big head from being proud that you do. And I pray every day I don’t disappoint you.” The boy stopped walking to look at her. “The truth is, I feel any little thing I can do for you, I’m also doing for Papa. I know I’ll never be able to take his place, but I can be the best person I’m able to be and hope with all my heart to help you.”

Anne hugged him. “John Couper, listen to me. The girls are truly dear to me. Pete, especially, is strong when I need her to be, but if I didn’t have you, there are times when I—I feel I might stop trying at all.”

“I vowed I wouldn’t bring this up, Mama,” he said when they’d begun to walk slowly ahead again, “but somehow I want you to know that the hardest times for me are when it comes all over me that you, my mother, who loved our little home at Lawrence so much, can’t ever go back there again. Right now, although I was recently promoted to head clerk for Mr. McCleskey, there’s no way I can rescue you, but I mean to find a way to get you another house someday. I know that sounds young and boyish now, but wait and see. I’m going to do it.”

“How can it be true that you sense so deeply, understand so much, at barely seventeen? What manner of boy are you anyway? I was really making some progress in my grieving, I think, when I had to leave Lawrence. I know there’s a sunrise over here at Hopeton, too, and everyone in my brother’s family is kind to me, but—Son, do you remember the whole family sitting together over on the Cannon’s Point veranda the day—the day we buried your father?”

“I was just a boy, but I’ll never forget that day.”

“You, above all the others, seemed to understand what moving back to Lawrence might do for me. You, at six and a half years, somehow knew I’d be helped by the Lawrence sunrises.”

“I remember that, too.”

“Well, I was. Oh, I was helped by them. Over here on the mainland, the sunrise just seems so far away.”

“Poor Aunt Frances Anne hasn’t found a place where she feels at home either, I guess. I know it worries Menzies a lot. He tells me she’s about to make up her mind to move permanently to Savannah to be near him.

He’ll be starting in business somewhere in 207 Savannah at the end of next year, I think. He’s been studying business, and the Burroughs firm is interested in him.”

Impressed, Anne said, “Any mother would be proud to have her son work for the Burroughs firm.” She was silent a moment, then asked, “You know I’d love nothing better than being near you.”

“Who knows, Mama? Maybe someday I’ll be successful enough for you and all three of my sisters to live in Savannah, too. I’ve already thought of that, but could you really be contented away from St. Simons Island? Any more contented than here at Hopeton on the mainland?”

“We’re both dreaming, Son. And right now, if the truth were known, I can’t imagine being really contented anywhere except at Lawrence.” She forced a small laugh. “You see how spoiled your mother is?”

“Dear lady,” he said quite solemnly, “you’re anything but spoiled. You’re a woman of true, true courage and spirit.”

“Oh, am I? Do I actually seem that way to you now and then?”

“I know everyone used to say on St. Simons

that Grandpapa Couper spoiled you, but there isn’t a man anywhere at any age who could possibly be prouder of his mother than I. I wish I could think of a way to tell you that there have been times since Papa went away, since Annie left us, when I could almost see you grow wiser, stronger. Not only do I love you with all my heart, Mama, I admire you more every day. You’re always so straightforward, so honest with me. With all of us.”

“You almost convince me. And I want to be convinced. I want desperately to be the kind of mother you and your sisters need me to be. I long to believe your father is proud of me, too.”

Once more he stopped walking and took her hand. “We just have to be patient a while longer. Leaving you again in a couple of days will be harder than ever, but you and I are going to find a way to free you of being a rootless vagabond.”

Anne smiled up at him. “And while we wait, I’ll try hard not to act homeless. Do you believe me, John Couper?”

“I believe everything you tell me, milady. I always have and I always will. And Mama, you can believe what I tell you, too.”

After a hug in the middle of their spotless Hopeton cabin floor and a patient, almost halfhearted kiss of the kind June might have given one of the quarters children who had asked him to do something he had some doubts about, he laughed into Eve’s upturned face.

“You gonna be the death ob me, woman. What you want axin’ me to leave my fieldwork before buttermilk time to meet you here?”

Eve pulled his face down close enough to give him a proper kiss, then said, “Dat better’n any ole buttermilk dey gonna bring de fiel’ hands, now ain’t it?”

Her heart squeezed at the low, velvety sound of his laugh, and she thought how to this day Miss Anne must miss Mausa John laughin’ and wondered how she could even try to live anywhere on

this old earth should something happen to June.

“What you want special, Eve?” he asked. “A kiss like dat befo’ buttermilk time mean somepin good or somepin bad.”

She stepped back to look him straight in the face. “Eve, she got one ob her knowin’s. Like ole Gran’maum Sofy git. Wouldn’t s’prise me none effen Gran’maum Sofy, she got the same knowin’ dis very day!”

“Be your knowin’ good or bad?”

“You an’ me, we done got it settled, ain’t we, dat we goes ever’where Miss Anne an’ her girls goes to lib?”

“She own us, don’ she? Look like Miss Anne, she be de one to settle where we libs.”

Hands on hips, Eve took still another step back from him and flared. “You hush yo’ smart mouthin’ wif me, Mistah June! Ain’t I done tol’ you Miss Anne an’ me, we be more’n mistress an’ slabe these days? Ain’t I been tellin’ you her an’ me be friends for longer dan she eben knows? Dat we talks to each other like reg’lar womens?”

He snickered a little. “You done tol’ me till I knows it by heart.”

Eve tossed her elegant head. 211 “An’ what Eve tell you be true! Miss Anne, she knows as good as I knows now dat her mama, Miss Rebecca, she be dead wrong when she think—was

“I knows, I knows. Miss Rebecca, she be dead wrong when she think you like any other slabe woman anywhere on the face ob dis ole earth. She dead wrong cause you an’ Miss Anne you done decided she be wrong.”

“Don’ josh me, man! Jus’ listen. I gotta knowin’ dat say one day—maybe not anytime soon, but one day not far off—you an’ me an’ the girls an’ Miss Anne, we git us a house fo’ her to lib in again all her own an’ we all might jus’ find dat house way off from Sn Simons Islan’!”

His smile melted her momentary annoyance with him. “You done read me outa the Good Book dat `where you goes, I goes too.` Don’ you ‘member readin’ dem words to me, Eve?” His arms were out to her and she moved into them, her own arms circling his waist. “If you got a knowin’, dat be good enuf for June, Sweets.”

With one fist she gave him a quick, loving thump

on his deep chest. “You knows I turns to jelly when you calls me Sweets an’ you ain’t called me Sweets for how long?” Pressing her whole self hard against him, she asked again, “How long, June?”

“You knows June don’t keep records, Sweets. Dat be Mausa James Hamilton dat keep all dem fancy records, but lif’ up yo’ heart, woman. In my way, I’m fastened onto Miss Anne’s happiness as much as you eber was. It be pert near more’n ole June kin stan’ to hab to row dat pore lil woman off away from her papa to lib offa some other kin or frien’. Me an’ her papa spend a lot ob time talkin’. She always been his favorite. It be killin’ ‘im now to see her homeless like him.”

“Least Mausa Couper’s got a big, sunny room ob his own at Hopeton an’ he ben ninety years an’ more an’ my poor Miss Anne, she got to keep runnin’ here an’ runnin’ there so’s not to crowd up the Hopeton family too long at a time. Oh, my knowin’ be a good one, June. One day Miss Anne an’ you an’ me an’ de girls, we all gonna

hab a place to call home again!” 213

“You sure dat’s all your knowin’ say, Eve? Don’ it say where?”

“No. Not where. Not eben how we gonna find a house for her, but she tell me today she gettin’ sick an’ tired libin’ off charity an’ she eben talk about it to John Couper when he done visit her. Miss Anne, she changin’ eber day. She not Mausa Couper’s spoiled girl no more. But one thing won’t change ‘bout her, an’ dat be when she make up her mind to somepin she find a way.”

He kissed her forehead. “An’ when my Eve, she get a knowin’, it come to pass.” On another low chuckle, June added, “I sure be glad you born wif a veil ober yo’ face, wife. Sometime it be mighty good to know ahead of somepin happenin’, but June, he be glad dey ain’t nuffin ober dat face now.” He held her to him, his big, wide hand caressing her back. “It be too fine to see plain de face I love. Oh, Eve, you got de face I love. …”

Big Boy had always ridden along with Anne, turning in his saddle now and then to lift his giant hand in assurance that all was well. Today, though, the huge, gentle Ebo was fishing with Anne’s girls, and part of her, at least, was glad for the solitary gallop on Gentleman in and out of the shadows cast by a clear February winter sun. On this spur-of-the-moment visit from Hopeton to the Village, Frances Anne’s family home, Anne felt little of her usual dread. Oh, she knew poor Mrs. Wylly would be as pathetic as she had been for the months of what must surely be her final illness, but the compulsion to have a good talk with Frances had grown until Anne was almost excited to be going.

Even if Frances Anne’s mood was as dark as the last time, Anne felt somehow that today she would be able to help. With no concrete reason, she also felt Frances Anne might help her. There probably wasn’t a part of the coast between St. Simons and Savannah Frances hadn’t scoured for a home of her own once she decided she could never again live in the Darien house without her

husband, Dr. William Fraser. Of 215 course, Anne could probably afford only to rent, not buy, but at last she was ready to talk about it.

When Anne reined Gentleman off the Couper Road and into the leaf-shadowed lane that led back to the Wylly house, into her mind flashed the always painful memory of the day she had been forced, because of a shortage of money, to sell John’s splendid mare, Ginger. The memory of seeing a mere acquaintance of her father’s ride out of sight on the horse that had carried her late husband so faithfully still brought a rush of pain. More pain than on the day she’d had to leave her own horse, Gentleman, in her brother William Audley’s care at Hamilton.

But the first glimpse of Frances Anne’s younger sister, Heriot, cutting huge, pink camellia blossoms from the garden, helped dim the pain. Any encounter with the oddly attractive, but strange, young woman no one was quite ready to call crazy, but who was inevitably unpredictable, required concentration. Anne liked her. John especially had been downright fond of Heriot and said again and again that the girl merely saw things from a