Beauty From Ashes (23 page)

Couper family at his service. Will it 299 be held at St. Andrews church in Darien? I’m sure he’ll be buried in the family plot in Darien, won’t he?”

She felt John Couper’s hand touch hers. “Thomas Spalding is already buried, Mama,” the boy said gently. “He died on January 4. His service was the next day.”

Anne felt herself sway a little, then whispered, “Oh.”

“I’m almost as stunned as your mother, John Couper,” Miss Eliza said. “I forgot my manners. Let’s all sit down in the parlor. I know this is a shock for you, Anne. I’ll ring for Hannah to bring us some hot tea.”

“Tea would be nice,” Anne said, “but I’m really—all right, Miss Eliza. You see, in a way dear old Mr. Spalding’s leaving us has freed me.”

“Freed you, Anne?” Eliza Mackay asked.

“I know this won’t make sense—maybe not to either of you—but he was always like an uncle to me. One of the first good laughs I remember Papa and I sharing had to do with Uncle Thomas Spalding’s

downright dislike of music.” With a sad but affectionate smile on her face, she went on remembering. “My father and I could be quite mean, you know. In our teasing, that is. Eventually our `meanness` turned to my brother James Hamilton, but it really began by being aimed at poor Uncle Thomas Spalding. John Couper, you know how your grandpapa adored music of all kinds. `A mon cannot be blamed for filling his own house with the lilt of melody, now, can he?` Papa used to argue, tongue in cheek. And then, the old darling would signal Johnson to play his bagpipes until the whole house shook. It was torture for Uncle Thomas, I knew, but I also knew Papa felt free to tease like that because they held each other in such high regard. Anyway, the kind of humor I came by through those pranks of your grandfather’s has saved me a thousand times since.”

Smiling because she was smiling, Anne knew, her son asked, “And by some means not too clear to Miss Eliza and me, it’s saving you now, Mama?”

Overcome by sudden tears edged with a kind of joyful laughter, Anne said, “Forgive me,

both of you. I’ve always been so, so 301 fond of Thomas Spalding. I’ll miss just knowing he’s waking up to the beauty of his beloved Sapelo Island, but just think where he and Papa are now! They’re not only two nearly lifelong friends together again, there’s only harmony in heaven. Harmony and the singing of all the heavenly hosts! Do you think I’ve taken leave of my senses, John Couper? Miss Eliza? Laughing and crying at once?”

Anne caught the quick, puzzled though half-hopeful look her son gave Eliza Mackay, whose sweet, aging face was wreathed in a delighted smile. “Anne, no,” Miss Eliza said, her voice firm and sounding young. “You’ve probably just taken the kind of leap you’ve needed so desperately to take.”

“I have?” Anne asked.

“The leap of—well, I guess I’d call it faith, which we all need. The leap I needed and couldn’t take when I lost Robert. The leap you needed when you lost your John and all the other dear ones no longer here on this old earth with us. If we’re seeing clearly, through the eyes of God, we should all only give thanks that resolute,

strong Mr. Spalding is where he now is. His life, even on his beloved Sapelo Island, was an empty shell since his dear wife left him. Sarah Spalding’s gone to where her husband is now, and swirling about them both”—the older woman smiled again—“swirling about them both, undoubtedly under your father’s direction, Anne, must be all the music of heaven.” Miss Eliza looked at John Couper. “Do you think your dear mother and I have taken leave of our senses together, John Couper?”

“Far from it, Miss Eliza,” he said, hugging his mother as he spoke. “Anything that makes my mama laugh or even smile I support wholly!”

“And John Couper,” Anne said, interrupting his hug long enough to look him straight in the eyes, “I have been freed. The thought had never occurred to me, but I now see that the last remaining tie to this beautiful coast was cut when Papa’s best friend died. I know I didn’t see Thomas Spalding often, even when Papa was still with us, but the bonds held. All that was good in those bonds will last, but suddenly I think I’m ready to take your Marietta gamble.”

“Mama, you are?” 303

“I want my own home again enough to risk uprooting myself and my whole family. You’ll visit us in Marietta, won’t you, Miss Eliza? Promise?”

“I promise to try, my dear. And, in a way, it won’t be such an uprooting for you. People are moving up there to that marvelous climate often these days. The railroad has changed so much for all of us. And I just know your Fanny will be stronger there.”

“She will be, Mama,” her son said. “And if I know my sister Fanny, nothing will cheer her as much as seeing our mother smile more often.”

“Oh, John Couper, I never meant to drag everyone down! Help me explain what I mean by that, Miss Eliza, please.”

“She doesn’t need to,” the boy said. “I already know.”

“You did say Pete likes Marietta, didn’t you?”

His lilting laugh came again. “She loves everything about it! I can just see her turning that charm on the defenseless Marietta natives. In typical Pete fashion, she even wrote to me

last week that she had yet to meet one person who hadn’t fallen under her spell!”

For a moment Anne sat on the edge of her chair, beaming. Then she said, a rare lilt in her voice, “Miss Eliza, John Couper is quite like his father in many ways, but sometimes I honestly think our daughter Pete is getting to be more like him every day.”

Neither John Couper nor Miss Eliza said a word, but Anne hadn’t really expected a response. It was just too fine a moment—that she seemed able at last to speak naturally about John and with almost no twist of the knife blade in her heart.

Even with wise, understanding Eliza Mackay under the same roof, always willing to talk about Anne’s difficult days of indecision, there were few times when Anne didn’t miss Eve, didn’t fidget and fret that to keep Eve from making the initial trip to the Wyllys’ with her, Anne had been forced to tell her it was an order that Eve remain at Hopeton. Miss Eliza would have welcomed Anne’s servant, but the Wyllys simply didn’t have room for her, and when Anne

had said good-bye to Eve, no one even 305 dreamed that she would be going straight from St. Simons Island to Savannah. At no other time Anne could remember had Eve been so insistent that she go too. Did her servant have a “knowing” that Anne wouldn’t be coming back to Hopeton in a few weeks? And what in the world would Eve think of John Couper’s plan for his mother to spend time in Marietta, Georgia?

After she’d told Fanny her plans in the privacy of Miss Eliza’s guest room they shared, the thought flashed through Anne’s mind that it should make no difference what a servant thought. Not true of Eve, she thought as she lay beside Fanny, wide awake, Eve so much on her mind that she knew sleep was out of the question. Fanny, of course, had accepted the idea that visiting Marietta was a good thing for her mother to do, not only because the girl generally believed her brother was right, but because such a time away from every reminder of grief upon grief would surely be beneficial for Mama. Anne sighed deeply. So happy did Fanny seem for her sake, she was already sleeping soundly, her quiet, plain little face barely visible in the flickering light of one candle. What

member of the Fraser or the Couper family, Anne wondered, was submissive Fanny like? She’s highly unlike her only brother and her two living sisters. Pete was anything but submissive. John Couper had always been a gentle but strong lad, even as a child. He’d been considerate with his mother in telling her of his Marietta plan, but certainly firm enough. Even Selina, though not headstrong, rushed to pour out her love on everything and everyone from a pretty bird’s egg found fallen from a nest to a newborn rabbit.

Only Eve, for all the years Fanny had been with them, had seemed able to know what Anne’s quiet daughter was really thinking. “Eve, I hate to admit it,” she whispered, “but you were right! I should have brought you with me. For all I know, Fanny hates the idea of going to Marietta. You would know the truth of it. And what makes me even wonder about Fanny, who never, never causes me a lick of trouble about anything? I’m sure she’d rather stay here in Savannah, where she feels at home. I’ll tell her so tomorrow morning. I know she’ll be relieved.”

After another loud sigh, which could easily have

wakened Fanny, Anne slipped out of the 307 bed, pulled on her warm robe, and moved the one candle to a small writing desk in a corner of the room. If she’d ever written Eve a letter in her entire life, she had no memory of it, but she was going to now. Heaven knew how long it would be before she saw her again, but it was only fair for Eve to know that a whole new way of life could be beginning for them both. Since the Central of Georgia departed from Savannah, John Couper was certainly right that she should board it while she was already here to go to Marietta. And breathing a silent prayer that her servant would understand half as much as she instinctively knew, Anne struggled to decide how to begin the letter.

She dipped a quill and pushed back the odd, awkward resentment and unease she felt more and more often because a woman as intelligent and reliable as Eve needed anyone’s permission to do anything. Anne’s life had certainly been simpler in the old days when she’d given the whole slavery issue almost no thought. John had changed that. John and the fascinating, opinionated British actress Fanny Kemble Butler, who had visited St. Simons Island briefly just before

John went away forever. One thing was certain. As soon as a permanent decision had been made about where Anne might be living and receiving mail, she meant to write to Mrs. Butler. More than a year had passed since Anne saw in a Savannah paper that in November 1849 Pierce Butler had divorced Fanny and that the poor woman was now entirely deprived of even seeing either of her adored daughters.

Breathing another silent prayer for the dynamic, deeply spiritual woman, whose abolitionist views on slavery had cost her a slave-owning husband as well as her children, Anne turned her thoughts back to Eve. Because she’d been so hurt when Anne left Hopeton without her, Eve had said good-bye with no sign of a smile when the two last saw each other. Thankful that she’d long ago taught Eve to read and write, Anne began the difficult letter.

Savannah, Georgia

10 January 1851

Dear Eve,

I am writing this letter to you by the light of one candle. It is dark outside and Fanny is sound

asleep in our bed at Miss Eliza 309 Mackay’s house. I’m sorry not to have written to you when I decided suddenly that I needed a good, long talk with Miss Eliza and so came here straight from the Wyllys’ on St. Simons. I hope my brother has told you by now where I am.

Even he doesn’t know that John Couper has convinced me to take a train from here when my visit is finished and stay, for a short time anyway, in a place called Marietta, Georgia, where so many people go to get away from the heat and fever on the coast. You may think I’m crazy, but John Couper is a wise boy. And Miss Eliza agrees that the change will do me good. No one had told me, but Pete has been in Marietta for some days now and loves the place. She is hunting a house for us so that the girls and I, you and June, and some of our other people can again have a place of our very own. And Eve, I will not, I cannot, make such a big step without you. We are friends for always, Eve, and I send my best to you. I will write again either from here in Savannah or after we are in Marietta. For another week or so you could write to me here in care of Mrs. Robert Mackay. Mail comes to Savannah every day

except Sunday. I trust you to tell Selina my latest news and to begin thinking about packing the few pieces of furniture, clothing, and other personal belongings we brought from Lawrence to Hopeton. I will write to Master James Hamilton myself. I am writing first to you, though, because I wanted you to know the minute I was sure that this is what I should do for now. I hope you are not still cross with me for leaving you there. Do you think you and I are ready for a new experience? Am I ever going to be happy again or at least peaceful without John? I do promise that June will, if I decide to stay in Marietta, be right up there with you. Will I ever be myself away from the coast? Will I miss the coastal light too much? Your mother and grandmother are dead now, too, so neither of us has much to hold us down here. I miss my father. I need you with me. I know John Couper and Fanny would want to be remembered to you and June, as do I. Hug Selina for me.

Yr lifelong friend,

Anne Couper Fraser

Anne was up before daylight after her first night in Marietta, Georgia. The hotel bed without the warmth and completeness of John beside her made her feel as though he’d gone away only yesterday. Not once had she failed to miss him for the first minutes alone in any bed since the day he left her, but this was different. Confusing. More confusing than it should have been simply because she was in a strange place. God knew she had slept in nothing but unfamiliar places for the nearly twelve years she’d struggled to live in some semblance of normalcy without him. The nice room she’d rented at the Howard House on the bustling Square in Marietta wasn’t unlike rooms in the English and Scottish inns where she and John had stopped all those years ago. Why was the rhythm of this new, tumbling, uneasy night upsetting her so now? Her tall, definite, strong, loving daughter Pete would be joining her at the Howard House by noon today. The whole

tumultuous idea that Anne might benefit by moving away from the bittersweet familiarity of the Georgia coast to entirely new surroundings had struck her son, John Couper, as a way to give her a new, meaningful life. He had formed a friendship with the young John Wilders of Savannah, who, during their frequent visits to the scenic village of Marietta, had already rented a house called Oakton beyond the edge of town. Drusilla Wilder, according to John Couper, was falling in love with the pleasant, increasingly popular resort town in the Georgia up-country some three hundred miles north of the coast. John Wilder, in his midthirties as was Drusilla, owned a thriving business in Savannah, but the attraction for permanent living for them both was Marietta. Of course, thanks to John Couper, Pete had been welcomed and warmly entertained by the Wilders. Soon their driver would be bringing Pete to stay with her mother at the Howard House on the northwest corner of the Square.