Beauty From Ashes (31 page)

Before Anne and Pete had left Marietta for this indefinite stay among their coastal friends and family, Anne had called on Lawyer Bentley in his office overlooking the courthouse in the Square. She had genuinely liked the tall, energetic man and believed him when he

promised to write to her at Hopeton 409 at the earliest possible moment, as soon as he had a firm idea of when the Bostwick relatives would vacate the mansion. The house to Anne—to almost anyone, in fact—was indeed a mansion. She would need time to see to the crating and shipping of what little of her own furniture she’d need to take. Thoughtful Mr. Bentley, along with Louisa Fletcher, had promised to find warehouse space for it if it happened to arrive before Anne and her girls got there. The list of what to ship had been made in her mind so often, there would be no actual need to write it down when the good news finally came. She would want them to have their own beds, although all her furniture, once so cozily tucked into the blessed Lawrence cottage, would look out of place in the larger house. But feathers plucked years ago from Cannon’s Point fowl made their mattresses exactly what each one longed to have again. Of course, the high, high, heavy desk, a gift from Father Fraser, which still stood in the small Lawrence hall, must accompany them. In her memory the simple, plank ceilings of their new home were high, but would they be high enough to accommodate Father

Fraser’s handsome, towering desk?

“I don’t think you should try to curb yourself one bit in thinking these things through while there are still months to wait,” Anna Matilda told Anne almost every time she visited Retreat. “Give yourself all the room you need to dream, and it’s only natural for a woman to wonder about placing furniture. Isn’t it a good thing the house is partly furnished? It does seem to me as though God Himself has guided this whole venture for you, Anne.”

Spending ten days in June with her sister-in-law Frances Anne Fraser at the Village, Frances’s family home near Cannon’s Point—the Couper and the Wylly families had been close neighbors and warm friends for all of Anne’s young years—had special meaning for Anne because by now she knew she wasn’t merely imagining that she and Frances could indeed speak their minds together.

“I suppose you’re right,” Frances Anne said as they sat on a favorite moss-cushioned, fallen log in the Wylly woods near the old house. “We probably have, simply because of our strict upbringings, mostly

talked around things together, even when we 411 talked alone. I really tried, knowing how you loved the old gentleman, to conceal some of my own annoyance with Father Fraser back when he and my William were both alive. Especially during our years on the Ridge in Darien, the old fellow got on my nerves and not for any special reason. I just didn’t want Father Fraser interrupting the blessed privacy William and I had so cherished. I’m a little ashamed of myself now, but”—she laughed softly—“not very. Just as you’re not really ashamed because you complain that you’ve had to move from one place to another for all these years since John died. And that strangers are living now at Cannon’s Point. You’re not ashamed, are you?”

“No. If I’m honest, I’m not, and it doesn’t have one thing to do with my gratitude to you, to my brother William Audley and his family, to Miss Eliza in Savannah, to Anna Matilda, and certainly to James Hamilton and Caroline. Everyone has been most kind to my girls and me, but isn’t it marvelous that even though it’s taken us years, you and I no longer need to pretend we’re only one way about something?

That we can say flat out that we felt, or feel, two ways about lots of things? I wish we could admit that to everyone we know, don’t you?”

“My sister Heriot does, you know. She spoke bluntly, even to the point of contradicting herself, to our dear, proper, British mother before she died. Of course, people call Heriot peculiar in her head.”

“My John didn’t call her that. He used to say any conversation with Heriot Wylly was a relief because it was always so plain that she wasn’t trying to fool anyone.”

Frances turned to look at Anne. “I’m glad you mentioned John so easily. I’ve always thought you didn’t speak of him often enough for your own sake. Do you know why it’s always been hard for you to talk about him?”

“For the first few years, yes. I was afraid I’d burst into tears. After that, basically, I guess, the children. My grief has not been easy for them to carry. They shouldn’t have had to carry it. That’s one of the big reasons I’m moving to Marietta to live, in case your quick brain hasn’t already caught on. I must stop being a heavy load for them—for the girls and for John

Couper.” 413

“And you’re convinced that moving away—that far away from the old, heartbreakingly familiar haunts—will help you lighten their loads?”

“Frances Anne, I have to believe that!”

“You’ve always been able to convince yourself of almost anything, haven’t you, Anne?”

Anne stared at her. “I have?”

“Yes. To me, you have.”

“Do you think wanting to leave this dear, beautiful Island and move into my white-light house is fooling myself?”

“I suppose I’m not quite sure.”

“Well, I am. Oh, that doesn’t mean Pete or Fanny or Selina won’t catch me brooding, missing their father, longing to hear him tell me what he thinks of our new life up there. Frances, you’ve looked and looked for another place to buy since you found you could no longer bear being in your Darien house without William. You should know, if anyone knows, that where one lives makes a big difference. You’ve rented a house in Savannah now where you’ll move soon. Don’t you feel relieved? Don’t you think just being in new surroundings, making new friends, will give you the

security you haven’t had?”

“I can’t seem to sell my Darien house. I have to live somewhere.”

“What are you driving at?”

“I think I’m only trying to find out if my dearest friend, Anne Couper Fraser, really wants to leave St. Simons Island. Don’t forget, I was one of those who received all those homesick letters from London and Scotland when you were over there. And you had John with you in those days. I’m trying to get you to convince me that this big gamble is one you truly want to take, Anne. I do love you very much. Is that so strange? Have you faced the day you’ll be forced to say good-bye forever to the coastal sunrises and sunsets of St. Simons? Have you thought what it might be like never to see, as you’ve always vowed you could see, the very air above St. Simons turn from yellow gold to white when spring comes each year? Have you faced the day you’ll just drive up to Frederica, board a steamer for Savannah, and be gone—maybe forever? Have you wondered at all how hard it might be for you to attend your last service in the little church under the big oaks at Frederica? To take one final look at John’s grave? At Annie’s?

At Isabella’s? At your parents’ 415 handsome tombstones?”

In a quiet, steady voice, Anne answered, “Yes.”

“Is that all you can say—yes?”

She nodded. “And the reason I can say just yes is that otherwise I’d have to return to the same old round of living nowhere that was truly mine. I know I’ll be saying good-bye to the one spot I love above all others, Frances Anne, but I’ll be going toward something new—something that is going to be all of my own making. I’ve lost so many persons dear to me, guides for my entire life. At times Annie or John or Papa guided me hour by hour, but they’re gone. My girls and John Couper are doing all any children could do to try to take their places, but it is my life and I alone am responsible for it. Who knows? I may find that I have a strength I never even dreamed I’d need. The only way to find out is to try myself. Thank you for knowing me well enough to have some idea of what my final good-bye to this blessed place will mean to me, but do believe me when I say I have to do it. Otherwise I’ll never

again know who I am or why.”

The hot, sticky months of July and August passed somehow, with Anne looking almost daily for a letter from Mr. Fred Bentley, Sr., in hopes of learning something definite about when she and her girls could expect to move into their new place in Marietta. The actual last farewell to her beloved St. Simons Island, its surrounding marshes and serpentine coastal salt rivers and creeks, loomed as full of dread as ever; but the days were rare—especially when the heat and dampness seemed unbearable—when she harbored the slightest doubt that she had made the right choice.

The heat-heavy summer months were spent at Hopeton, and James’s wife, Caroline, showed such patience, kindness, and downright good humor with Anne and her brood that she somehow endeared herself to Anne more than ever before. The two became so

close that Anne found herself trying to unravel a mystery she had never, never expected to solve. A mystery that certainly was none of her business. Still, she wondered how such a happy-natured young wife had managed all these years not only to get along with a strict, almost humorless, brainy husband, but to keep him adoring her. Everyone praised James Hamilton for his astute mind, his diverse interests, his invaluable contributions to science and agriculture as well as his spreading fame as an amateur architect and a scholar, adept at almost any imaginable subject, while too little attention was paid to Caroline, Anne thought. Highly cultivated guests from all over the east coast as well as from abroad vied with each other to visit James, to learn from him, to make careful studies of the nearly perfect plantation operation that was Hopeton. But who truly felt comfortable with the man except the pretty, dark-haired, even-tempered Caroline? Even his children behaved as though he were their schoolmaster instead of the loving, generous father he surely was.

Anne’s one interview with her older brother had seemed to close the subject of her risky move away from the coast to a strange place, but

the more time she spent with Caroline, the more 419 she found herself needing to discover, if such a discovery were really possible, just what James Hamilton’s view of his sister might be. During that one talk he had told her he was glad to find her happy with her decision and had briefly discussed her finances, but little more. And even though Pete kept trying at meals to find out more of what her uncle truly thought, even she failed.

One late August morning as Anne and Caroline were cutting roses in James Hamilton’s prized rose garden, Anne decided to come right out and ask Caroline a nervy question. “If all you want to do is close my mouth when I’ve asked what I mean to ask you, Caroline, will you just say so? I warn you my question is blunt.”

Standing in a row of deep red, fragrant Miranda roses, Caroline looked around at Anne with a warm, affectionate smile on her expressive face. “Have I ever given you the slightest reason to suspect that I’m secretive with you, Anne?”

“No. Otherwise I wouldn’t have dared open my

mouth in the first place.”

Still smiling, Caroline said, “And you hesitated at all to be blunt with me because you’ve always hesitated to be blunt with your brother James Hamilton.”

“You’re too smart sometimes,” Anne said, returning the open smile. “There are certain occasions, Mrs. Couper, when I give myself the pure pleasure of thinking you just may be a lot smarter than James. At least in the ways that matter most to people.”

Clipping a long-stemmed rose, Caroline said quite casually, “I’m waiting to hear that blunt question.”

“Are you sure?”

“So sure, in fact, that I’m downright curious now,” Caroline answered. “Only I do hope it isn’t the same old question at least twenty people must already have asked me during the years I’ve been married to your handsome brother.”

“It isn’t the same one. I promise. It’s surely no news to me that most of our family and friends never stop wondering how it is that you and James Hamilton appear to get along so well when you’re not only seventeen years younger

than he, but also wholly in love with 421 life and laughter. I know the answer to that one as much as anyone can know it, I think. My question—my probably quite rude question—has to do with the kind of love I still have for John. Caroline, do you really still love James Hamilton so much that when he enters a room, you have to control the very beating of your heart?”

Caroline went on smiling as she dropped another rose into the basket beside her on the perfectly mulched ground. “Anne, I dare any wife to claim the love of a kinder, more generous, more thoughtful husband. In all the years we’ve been married, James has never spoken a harsh word to me.”

“Well, why should he?”

“Because I had so much to learn about how to be his wife. And if you think I didn’t know your dear father, John Couper, wasn’t behind his marrying me while I was so young, you’re wrong. That’s the old-fashioned, European way. Find a young wife and train her by your own standards.”

Anne stared at her. “You knew Papa said that?”

“Of course I knew it.”

“How did you know?”

“James Hamilton told me while he was proposing to me.”

“I suppose he also told you he’d decided long before he fell in love with you that he had selected and written down the exact date he believed was the proper time for him to marry.”

“He did. That was also part of the dear man’s proposal.”

“And you didn’t mind that he wasn’t declaring his undying love for your charms and beauty?”

“No, because I’d heard for years—all through my childhood—that James Hamilton Couper was the most particular man on earth. Surely, the most particular man on earth wouldn’t have selected an ugly, bad-tempered, stupid girl to marry!” Caroline looked Anne straight in the eye. “What you really want to know has more to do with you than with me, doesn’t it?”

“What?”

“You heard me. It surely can’t be too long before you will hear from your Marietta lawyer. Then, soon after that, you’ll be leaving us. I certainly do understand why you asked your question, because I’m sure my dear husband let you find out very little of how he

truly feels about your going away from the 423 coast to live.”

A slow smile crossed Anne’s face. “Are you a mind reader?”

“Maybe. How else would I keep my balance with a husband who, except when he’s writing letters to me, tells me almost nothing?”