Beauty From Ashes (17 page)

different angle than did most people.

Without doubt, Heriot could hear Gentleman’s trot along the lane toward her home, but as always, she pretended she didn’t. She stood straight in a narrow path between the lush, dark green foliage of the camellias, peering intently into the sheer beauty of one huge blossom she held in her hand instead of dropping it into the basket on the ground beside her.

“I thought I’d just take this one separately— not include it in the camellia chain I’m making to hang around my mother’s neck,” Heriot said as Anne reined Gentleman to a stop on the lane nearby. The tone of Heriot’s voice, that she went right on looking into the fresh, velvety beauty of the flower as though she and Anne had, together, been talking and already enjoying the winter flowers, in no way surprised Anne. It was simply Heriot Wylly being herself.

“So, you’re making a camellia chain for your mother, eh?” Anne asked, still mounted on Gentleman. “Does she feel better today? Well enough to enjoy such a breathtaking gift?”

“Oh, only Mama knows how she feels, of course,” Heriot said, counting the blooms in the

basket with the free hand not holding the 217 prize specimen. “I just take something from outside to her every day, Miss Anne. And by the way, I think I’ll stop calling you Miss Anne, since come April 1, I’ll be forty-two years of age. Mama taught us always to call our elders Miss, but forty-two is a mature age. I’ll be calling you Anne from now on.”

On a slight laugh, Anne said, “Fine, Heriot. That way I don’t feel so ancient. Is Frances Anne with Mrs. Wylly upstairs?”

“Oh, I’ve been outside with my posies for more than an hour. I really don’t know where Frances is, but definitely in the house—shut away from the real world—tending poor Mama’s every need and complaint. Isn’t it sad to see the way Mama looks now? I don’t allow it to bother me too much, though, because I go on seeing her as she’s always been. The most stately and lovely woman I ever saw. Even when she turned seventy and seventy-five, I still saw her as elegant, dressed in the same style black silk gown my father adored on her. Do you

remember? Black silk with a kerchief of the snowiest cambric crossed over her breast. Her white, white hair, long and thick, coiled about her beautifully shaped head and topped with a cap of wide lapels. She was dignity itself and all of us held her in the utmost respect.”

“I do remember, Heriot. No one could forget Margaret Wylly, your wellborn mother— British to the core.”

Heriot laughed. “I’m an American and proud of it, but my mother never forgave the Americans for winning independence from the British Crown. If she could get downstairs now, she’d still be showing us all the portraits of Nelson and Wellington in our drawing room, declaring them `the greatest men of the nineteenth century.`”

“Even in her present state of such dreadful illness, she’s still `the lady of the manor.` It will be all right, won’t it, if I ride up to the house? I do want to talk with Frances.”

“That’s good, because she’s so bowed down these days. I doubt you can talk with Mama, but Frances Anne? Yes.”

As Anne dismounted and handed Gentleman over

to one of the Wylly groomsmen, Frances 219 Anne appeared on the front veranda, seeming not even to notice that her other sister, Margaret Matilda, was sitting in one corner of the shaded porch. As usual, Matilda was peering through her telescope toward Frederica Road, hoping against hope to glimpse someone—anyone—riding by. Anne knew this was Matilda’s favorite way to pass her time and that she frowned on being interrupted, so with only a cheerful wave, she hurried to embrace Frances.

“Oh, Anne, how good to see you!” Frances said with a smile that seemed not even to lessen the almost permanent furrows in her brow. “I’m starving for conversation and it is a relief not to have to explain either Matilda or Heriot to a caller.”

“I hope I’m not just a caller, Frances Anne.”

“Far from it. But let’s go inside. Heriot and Matilda don’t seem to notice there’s a chill in the air today. I’m sure one of our people has laid a fire in the drawing room.”

Seated across from each other beneath the famous portraits of Nelson and Wellington, the two women, after one of the expertly trained Wylly

women served them tea, just sat looking at the fire for a moment. Then Anne asked, “Your mother, Frances. Is she all right without you for an hour or so? I do long to talk.”

Frances Anne shrugged. “I wish I thought the poor dear lady might be left to rest for an hour, Anne. But I know what Heriot’s doing out in the camellia bed.”

“She’s busily gathering blossoms for a camellia chain to hang around your mother’s neck, she says.”

“How well I know what she’s doing! Poor Mama. Such an offering scratches her thin, tender old skin, and yet she goes right on being kind and gracious to Heriot. She’ll vow deep gratitude and endure the scratching until Heriot wanders back outside again.” Frances set her teacup on the table beside her chair. “Anne, I’m so glad to see you! We haven’t seen each other in over two weeks and—was Unable to finish her sentence, Anne’s sister-in-law began to weep.

On impulse, Anne started to jump to her feet, then sat down. “You—you probably need to do exactly what you can’t help doing this

minute,” she said. “There are times when the 221 load grows so heavy, only the relief of tears helps at all. You know I understand that. Pay no mind to me—unless you’d like me to hold you while you cry.”

Stiff and straight in her chair, Frances Anne’s whole body showed the struggle against more tears to be painful. “I dare not let myself weep, Anne,” she said, taking out a handkerchief. “Mama always knows and it agitates her terribly. She feels so guilty anyway. Feels she’s a burden to me because she knows Heriot and Matilda never really learned how to be responsible.”

“Perhaps they both know—in their own ways. Matilda’s very good with the meals. She runs a splendid household. Heriot does what she believes in doing.”

“Doesn’t she though? You’ve always been so kind to Heriot, Anne. I’m grateful for that. I love her very much. I don’t understand her at all, but I do love her.”

“`Heriot understands herself,` John used to say. Perhaps that’s what matters. Wherever it is that Heriot lives her interior life, she knows

it well. Is at home in it. John was fond of her.”

“I know. So was my William.” After blowing her nose and drying tears from her cheeks, Frances Anne asked, “Will we—you and I—ever learn how to live without the Fraser brothers, Anne?”

“No. If you mean will we ever be the same women we were when we had them with us, no, we won’t be. But do you remember the times I’ve told you what Miss Eliza Mackay explained to me when she lost her handsome, dashing Robert Mackay so long ago?”

“I remember your telling me, but tell me again, please. I’m so tired physically, I guess, I don’t think very straight. Would you please tell me once more?”

“As with most things in Miss Eliza’s life, this is not easy, but it is simple. I can still see the way she looked at me when she said, `Anne, I began to have some hope for myself the day I saw for the first time that I could live the remainder of my life without Robert only—only if I lived each day as though I were living the second half of my married life.` Those may not be her exact words, but I could tell it was a credo

with her. She knew she’d never love 223 another man as she loved Robert Mackay. You know you’ll never love another man the way you loved William. I know I’ll never love any man but John. Living through all the dreadful adjustments—all the fresh waves of missing the little and big things—seems somehow possible as long as we’re doing it as the second half of the great adventures we shared with them. I can’t explain it. Neither could Miss Eliza, but Frances, it’s true. Making our way through each day, even by means of this seemingly thin connection with William and John, is possible. It is the second half of our married lives. There’s a connection still there. In however nebulous a way, there’s still a connection with them.”

As though a tight cord had loosed at least a little, Anne could see Frances’s weary body sag against her chair back. “Yes. I—I’ll try this time to remember what Miss Eliza said.” After a long moment spent staring into the snapping fire, Frances added, “You know I want terribly to sell the Darien house.”

“John Couper told me you were trying to when he was at Hopeton at Christmas.”

“Our lives run parallel in a lot of ways, don’t they? You know I care so deeply about my older son, James. You also know I depend on Menzies above everyone else on earth now that his father’s gone.”

“As I depend on John Couper. Do we lean too hard, do you think?”

“I don’t know. But doesn’t each bring out dependence in us? Were there ever two boys like Menzies and John Couper, Anne?”

With an almost sad smile, Anne said, “I don’t think so. Do—do you see James often? I know he’s at sea now, but when he’s here on the Island staying with the Ben Caters, does he ride up here often? Am I being nosy?”

“Certainly not. Except for Menzies, who sometimes seems a thousand miles away up in north Georgia at his Marietta school, you’re the person closest to me, Anne. Ask me anything, only don’t expect satisfactory answers all the time because I’m afraid I know very few answers myself these days. It’s ghastly watching one’s own once magnificent mother—die. I know your father’s nearly ninety-one, but at least he can talk with you

when you’re together.” She paused. “But 225 isn’t it dreadful having no home to run to?”

Anne shuddered. “That’s almost the worst part of all. I honestly don’t know how you endure watching your dear mother worsen every day, but it would help so much if you just had your own home to go to now and then. And Frances, you’ve looked and looked for a house!”

“I know. I don’t know that I would realize it if I had found my place by now, though. Anne, I know you asked how much I see of James. I didn’t answer. He rides up off and on when he’s in port, but even when we’re in a room together, we aren’t—together. Menzies is more like William each time I see him. They’re the same build and height, same manners—all gentility, sensitive to my every thought. And like William, Menzies seems to have nothing to prove. James, on the other hand, is—well, even if I am his mother, I can tell you the boy’s almost crude at times. I’m sure you’ve heard that.”

Anne said nothing.

“I’ve tried to tell myself he takes after his Grandfather Fraser, merely a little hard-shelled,

uncommunicative. I honestly don’t know why the boy seems so set on pushing his way through this life instead of making some small effort to get into the rhythm of it. Menzies was born knowing. I don’t love Menzies more. I just know where I stand with him.”

For a time, both women sat in silence, looking at the fire. Finally, Anne said, “Frances, I don’t think either of us is going to find anything resembling contentment until we find homes of our own. My blessed papa can’t be with us much longer. Nor can your mother. I’m so lost at times I—I’ve even dared to think I might do something I never, never believed I’d even think about.”

“Anne! What are you saying?”

“Have you thought we might both get a fresh beginning if we left our lifetime sanctuaries here on St. Simons Island and started all over again in a new place?”

Frances stared at her, then said, “I—don’t know! Darien was fine, but it was fine because William was there. Are you—are you financially able to leave the area, Anne?”

“No,” she said almost lightly. “I’m certainly not financially able to do anything but accept

charity from friends and relations, but lately it 227 doesn’t keep me from dreaming. When does Menzies finish at Reverend White’s school in Marietta? How long will he be up there?”

“Another year. Marietta must be an almost heavenly climate and they tell me the scenery is breathtaking. I suppose you’ve decided you and I should move to Marietta! Wouldn’t that be awfully far from John Couper?”

Now they both managed a laugh. “I haven’t decided anything, but doesn’t it sound exciting— even daring to do a little dreaming? Do you think our children aren’t going to have homes and families of their own one day? Isn’t it time you and I began to get acquainted with—ourselves? As women? As women alone in the world who need desperately to be closely acquainted with someone? Isn’t it rather exciting, if slightly crazy, to dare to think that you and I could find a way to dig ourselves out of the holes we’re in?”

“But Anne, widows just don’t pull up roots and leave their families, do they?”

“Who said anything about leaving our families? You couldn’t make it without at least an occasional visit with Menzies! I’d never make it without

seeing John Couper now and then. Other families separate sometimes, but people visit each other, Frances, and write letters. When John Couper was with me at Christmas, he vowed that he and I would find a way to free me of being a rootless vagabond. Those were his very words, and Frances, I believe the boy.”

“Oh, I know you do. I do too. And Anne, thanks for your plucky attempt to cheer me a little today. I really can’t think straight, though. With Mama so ill, needing so much care, I guess I simply get up in the morning praying for enough grace to push me through one day at a time. You did make me laugh a little and for that I’m grateful. You and your wild ideas of our leaving St. Simons!”

“Did I go too far? I know I’m changing some. Eve notices too, but I do wonder if I’m changing in the right direction? We both have heavy family responsibilities now. Papa can no longer walk more than a few feet across his bedroom even with help from Johnson. Your mother has been bedfast for weeks. Still, we do have time to think things through.”

Frances gave her a quizzical look, as

though taking her seriously for the first time. 229 “Anne, you’re not just chattering, are you? You’re not just trying to cheer me up.”

“I don’t know the answer to that any more than you do. I’m sure of only one thing and that is my need to stay near Papa as long as I have him. Dr. Holmes says he could last another year or he could be gone within weeks, even days. And here I am all the way over here on St. Simons, not knowing!” She paused. “Do you sometimes seem to hit peaks and valleys, Frances? I mean, does hope come to all of us in little spurts, do you suppose? I had myself really hoping—dreaming—a few minutes ago. Now I’m suddenly half sick with worry over Papa.”