Beauty From Ashes (38 page)

“That isn’t one bit ladylike or neighborly of you, Pete,” Anne said as Eve refilled their glasses of cold tea while Anne rummaged through her bedroom desk.

“Neither is it ladylike to add that in my opinion, part of their neighborliness is just plain old curiosity about us, but I think it is. What on earth are you looking for, Mama? I thought you invited me to have some tea with you up here in your gorgeous bedroom.”

“I did invite you and if you have to be so nosy, too, I’m just looking for my diary. I’m ashamed to say I haven’t even laid eyes on

it since the first week we lived here. I 507 certainly do not deserve to be called a diary keeper. I’m not.”

Pete laughed and so did Eve. “Who call you a diary keeper, Miss Anne?” Eve teased. “You just tell me an’ Pete who call you a name like that and we give them a piece of our tongue.”

“It’s no laughing matter, and someday when I’m dead and buried, Pete will be sorry to see all those blank pages that tell nothing about any of the good times or bad times in our new place. Not even one name of a lady who’s called, not the name of a single carpenter, nothing.”

“I’ll know the name of every lady who called,” Pete said, her blue eyes twinkling, “and the way I’ll know is to check the town census because I’m sure everyone has been here at least twice!”

“I’ve always meant to keep that diary current,” Anne said, “as a kind of memorial to my well-bred mother, for whom you’re named, young lady, and I’ll thank you very much if you’ll stop making fun of me—Rebecca!”

“Watch yourself, Pete,” Eve said with a grin. “Miss Anne, she don’ call you Rebecca

lessen she mean bi’ness.”

Pete set down her half-empty glass, got to her feet, made an exaggerated curtsy, and strode toward the door. “I can take a hint and so can Eve. I just saw you find your diary in the top drawer of your desk, Mama, and we’re both leaving you alone with your memorable thoughts and entries. Come on, Eve. Mina needs us to help her shuck all that beautiful shoe-peg corn I picked from my magnificent garden this morning.”

“How you know she needs us? What Flonnie doin’?”

“Cleaning my bedroom and I don’t want her disturbed, so I volunteered our help. Follow me.” When someone knocked briskly on the front door downstairs, Pete said, “Jiminy cricket! Now, which one of the ladies do you suppose that is right in the middle of what is supposed to be a work morning?”

Without being told, Eve grabbed one of Anne’s freshly laundered day dresses from the clothes press and had it partly unbuttoned and almost ready to slip on when Anne stopped her. “No. You answer the front door, Eve.

I’m perfectly capable of putting on 509 my own dress. I suppose you’re not changing, Pete.”

“That’s right, Mama. I’m already bathed and wearing exactly what I mean to wear all day long. But run on, Eve. I’ll help her highness.”

Busily changing from a negligee to a crisp, much-mended blue day dress, Anne warned, “I don’t need any help, Pete, and don’t you dare try to do one thing to my hair. Eve’s already fixed it.” Abruptly, Anne began to smile and look around the spacious, comfortable bedroom. “Oh, Pete, Pete, just look around us!”

“I thought you were in a hurry.”

“I am, but except that we do have lots more company than we ever had at Lawrence or Hamilton, I want to tell you something. I’m beginning to love this house in the same way I once loved Lawrence. And you know something else? I’m sure your blessed father loves it too. Callers or not, I’ve promised myself that when one of these hopeful feelings comes over me, I’ll take a minute to savor it.”

Pete’s long, slender arms were around her.

“Mama, savor away! Savor all you want to. You deserve it. And even though he owes me a letter, I’m going to write to John Couper this very evening and tell him exactly what you just said. He and I so longed for you to be happy here. That is, as happy as you can be without Papa.”

“Pete, have you any idea how I thank you and your dear brother for giving me just the nudge I needed to move up here? And do you realize I must be getting shorter every year I live? When you put your arms around me, my head rests quite comfortably on your shoulder—just as when John Couper holds me in his arms.”

“Is John Couper as tall as Papa?”

“No. No, but he’s like him in so many ways.” Anne laughed softly. “Not as outwardly impetuous, but it was impetuous for him to urge me to uproot myself and come here to live. He really surprised me.”

Pete patted her shoulder. “Was it impetuous of me? I’m the one who visited Marietta first, don’t forget.”

“I’ll never forget that, but no, I expect you to be daring. And darling, very little you do has surprised me in years.” She smoothed her old

blue dress. “Am I presentable?” 511

“No matter who’s down there this minute, Mama, she won’t be half as lovely as you are —every minute.”

Louisa Fletcher was downstairs. Eve had just seated her in the parlor and was heading back to Anne’s room to give her the good news. “I know you glad it be Miss Louisa Fletcher come to call, Miss Anne. I tell her you be glad an’ relieved, too.”

“I just told Pete she hadn’t surprised me in years and now I’m telling you the same thing, but Mrs. Fletcher will understand exactly what you meant by being so forward. Now, you and Pete are supposed to be helping Mina in the kitchen. So scoot!”

“We scootin’, but it look like you want to know Miss Louisa she got a look on her face.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“If she don’ have somepin good to tell you, Eve gonna be mighty surprised. She grinnin’ all over.”

“Louisa, my dear,” Anne said as she held out both hands to her friend. “I was sure that bright August sun made this room seem so light, but I think now it’s your smile! Has something wonderful happened for you? For Dix? For the girls?”

After a quick embrace, Louisa said, “Probably the most wonderful thing in all the world has happened, and I could almost not take time to finish those dreary hotel accounts before rushing straight here to tell you. If I’d thought a telegram would have reached you before I could, I’d have sent one!”

“Louisa, what on earth?”

“I know I’ve never come right out with it, but Anne, I all but hate being a hotel landlady, and although he’ll never come right out with much of anything, my poor Dix hates being the landlord in someone else’s establishment.”

“Then your husband is tired of the hotel business, too?”

“Oh, I think he’d like owning his own hotel, but, yes. The poor man stays worn down from such heavy responsibility. In Savannah, you know, Dix owned and operated his own cabinet and

lumber business until the dreadful 513 fire. It looks very much as though we’re both going to be set free.”

“My dear, if that’s what you want, I’m happy for you, but you and Mr. Fletcher are so successful at it. Everyone who stops there speaks of your splendid management and hospitality. We chose the Howard House over the Marietta Hotel for my first visit here because it was recommended all the way down in Savannah, and mainly because of `those lovely Fletchers.`”

“I know, but Dix and I lived in Savannah for something like fifteen years. Savannahians are biased in our favor”—Louisa laughed— “except for the slavery hotheads. But Anne, aren’t you one bit curious about how we’re making our escape from behind the counter of the Howard House lobby?”

“Of course I’m curious. Just trying not to be nosy.”

“My dear husband, Dix, is going to be appointed a United States Marshal for Cobb County!” Still laughing with delight, Louisa began to applaud her news. “I expected you to look puzzled at the thought of Dix as a U.S.

Marshal. That is why you’re looking so perplexed, isn’t it?”

“Frankly, yes. The man’s so soft-spoken and quiet.”

“And—tough.”

“Mr. Fletcher is tough?”

“All my life I’ve risen before dawn. First as a child, forced to help my widowed mother with my younger sister and the housework, later because I loved to study in solitary quiet. But if you doubt my husband’s firmness, you should have heard him lay down the law to me last year because now and then after a long day at the hotel, I slept until first light!”

Now Anne laughed. “That’s almost more than I can believe. When will you be leaving the hotel?”

“Oh, I doubt we’ll live anywhere else. Not for a while anyway, but Anne, my beloved friend, I’ll have time during the day for us to shop, to take walks, maybe even to make short trips here and there, and all exactly when we want to do it.”

“You’ll have so much more time with your daughters, too,” Anne said. “Have you told them yet? Is Eliza too young to understand what a treat it will be

to have you free?” 515

“I have said not one word to any person in the entire city except you, and I beg you not to tell even your own daughters.”

“Oh?”

“It isn’t that I don’t trust them. It’s just that the whole idea sounds too good to be true, but once Dix is back in Marietta from Macon later this month, the appointment as marshal—if God is kind enough to let it be true—should be safely in Dix’s hand. Then we’ll have a party to celebrate. Dix seems quite pleased, not only with the chance to become a United States Marshal but with the whole idea of having been selected to attend the Macon convention, too.”

“Louisa, dear, you’re so excited you’ve forgotten to say a word about a convention! I take it Mr. Fletcher is to be a part of the Whig nominating session.”

Louisa’s lovely laughter came again. “Anne, forgive me! I am indeed excited, and yes, Dix will be attending the Northern Conscience Whig Convention in Macon on the eighteenth of this month. I think he’s going in a lost cause, from his viewpoint. Dix and those meeting with him are

Winfield Scott men. They’ll name Scott as their nominee, I’m sure. I’d much prefer Daniel Webster, but he’ll already have been nominated by the Third Party Convention the day before Dix even attends the Macon gathering.”

“You and your husband disagree on nominees?”

“Nothing serious and I don’t even bother to try to convince him. He’s so closemouthed, it’s impossible, really, to have a true discussion with the man. Both Scott and Webster disapprove of slavery. As does Dix, of course. I just happen to be a great admirer of Daniel Webster. I always prefer true statesmen in politics to military men, anyway. It does seem to me gentlemen in general regard women as lacking in any understanding of government.” She laughed. “You and I won’t live to see the day, Anne, but they could just find out how wrong they’ve been. Let them make a few more messes comparable with the Mexican War. They’ll find out. Men call women tricky, but even tricky actions spring from the mind and not from gun muzzles.”

“Louisa, I do agree. If God created human beings with brains, why isn’t it better always to use those brains ahead of the trigger finger?

Why, I’ve always wondered, do we have 517 to have so many political parties? Won’t the Whigs end up powerless when they can’t even agree about the North and the South? What is this new faction people are beginning to talk about—the Republican Party? I’m ignorant about so much of politics, especially now that as John’s widow, I’m a British subject, but I’ve heard rumors that the Republicans are growing stronger in the North.”

“Would you be interested to know what I think?”

“Of course.”

“I predict—but only to you, Anne, since my dear husband is so flattered to have been selected to attend the Northern Conscience Whig Convention—that the Whig party will vanish one day and the Republicans will take over.”

“You mean there will be only two political parties?”

“Something like that. As long as there is an American South, there will be Democrats, I’m sure, even though they are divided at best—for and against the Union, for and against the evil institution of slavery.” Louisa paused. “My dear, do I offend you by speaking my mind so bluntly on the

subject of controlling the very lives of other persons? You—you simply don’t seem like a slave owner to me.”

“Well, I am.”

“But at least we can talk about it and remain friends. Look, I did not come here to speak of freeing the colored among us. I came to gloat and share my joy in the prospect of my own freedom—mine and Dix’s—from the bondage of being innkeepers. Poor Dix took over the management of the Howard House only because of losses in Savannah. He’s seldom mentioned despising it. He’s too much a taciturn New Englander to complain, but I know the man. He’s hated the unending burdens of innkeeping as much as I do. Besides, it is an honor to have been appointed a United States Marshal.”

“You aren’t worried that he might be imposed upon by whoever takes over the management of Howard House if the two of you are still living there?”

Her most joyous smile lighting the intelligent face, Louisa tossed her dark head. “We have absolutely no plans, and even that is pure relief!”

“Well, early next year you both have at least

one night’s social plans. I 519 simply cannot put off my daughters’ desire to give a fairly large dinner party. We’ve set no exact date yet, but without you and your kind husband in attendance, I’m sure I’ll never be able to boast about our very first real social function. Say you’ll come, dear Louisa.”

“Of course we’ll come. You’re wise to wait for winter, though. It will be much cooler then and the handsome cadets will be on hand in full force at the Georgia Military Institute. I have to keep an eye on Georgia constantly when they are here, or she’s at a Howard House window signaling them with her waving blanket. Well, I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess. Selina does it from your house, too! But she’s nearly sixteen and Georgia’s only fourteen.”

“Louisa, Louisa, how often do you stop to realize the weight of responsibility we each carry as the mother of three daughters?”

“Not often enough, I’m sure. But I’m equally sure that the goal of my life is to carry that God-given burden with the greatest care I can muster. It is a burden for any mother. But oh my, what tender burdens our girls are,

Anne.”

“I’m sure it’s no secret to you,” Anne said after a moment’s thought, “but I do envy you.”

“You envy me? You with this lovely house and Pete old enough and sensible enough to share the responsibility of her younger sisters? You with as splendid a son as any woman ever had? I could easily envy you, especially for Eve. She’s not only a superb servant, her devotion to you is such that any woman would be green with envy. You have everything, Anne!” Louisa’s broad, pleasant face looked abruptly stricken. Her mouth fell open, then uncharacteristically closed again as she went toward Anne, arms out. “Oh, my friend, my friend. Or are you still my friend after such a thoughtless, insensitive outburst?”