Beauty for Ashes

by Dorothy Love

  Wat Stephens. The mere thought of his name made her shudder. More than once he had bragged to Henry that he was sitting on enough money to buy the Bells’ farm with money for a calf left over. Carrie punched the pillow. She would never sell off everything, but Stephens had long had his eye on the twenty acres of Bell land that backed to Owl Creek. Though it pained her to even consider selling a single acre of it, especially to Stephens, the hard truth was that she needed money, and soon.

  The parlor clock struck the hour. Carrie drew up her covers and thought of Griff. For the first couple of weeks in January, he’d ridden out to the farm every few days to bring the mail. He never arrived without some small trinket for the boys, chocolate for her and Mary, and news from town. On the last visit, they learned that eleven students had appeared for the opening day of the new term under Mr. Webster and two more new tenants had moved into the Verandah.

  Carrie thought of her brief time at the hotel, when she had a job of her own at Nate’s bookshop, and life had offered more possibilities. Now there was only one course open to her: looking after Henry’s family.

  Griff had also said that one of the men who had come to Hickory Ridge for the horse race, a Mr. Blakely from Maryland, had fallen in love with the mountains and was thinking of building a fancy resort just up the rail line from town. That would mean an increased demand for timber and for men who could clear brush, build a road, and construct the resort itself. “If Blakely follows through,” Griff told her, his dark eyes alight with excitement, “this could be the beginning of better times for Hickory Ridge.” He’d hinted at plans of his own too, but despite Carrie’s hopeful urging, he’d been unwilling to share them. “I don’t want to say too much till I’m sure.”

  Lately his visits had grown less frequent. He was busy with his own plans, most likely, but land’s sakes, she missed him. Maybe one day soon, he’d—“Carrie?” Mary’s urgent voice drifted up the stairs. “Wake up.”

  Carrie grabbed her dressing gown and hurried into the hallway. Mary stood at the bottom of the stairs, holding aloft a guttering lamp that cast attenuated shadows on the wall. In the flickering light, her face shone pale as a moonflower.

  Carrie raked her hair off her face. “What is it? Leg cramps again?”

  “It’s time.”

  Disoriented and exhausted from long nights without sleep, Carrie frowned. “Time?”

  “The baby’s coming.”

  “Now?”

  “Babies don’t consider the clock. They come when they’ve a mind to.” Mary pressed her belly. “I’m going to need your help.”

  “I’ll hitch the wagon and fetch Dr. Spencer.”

  “It’s snowing,” Mary said calmly. “And anyway, there isn’t ti—oh!”

  “I’m coming.” Carrie hurried down the stairs. “What should I do?”

  She had helped Henry deliver a calf once and, another time, a litter of piglets. But a baby, Henry’s baby, was a different matter entirely. What if she made a mistake? Nerves skittered along her spine. Dear Lord, please help me. Help Mary and this little baby.

  “Help me back to the bed.” Mary’s face went white with pain. “And whatever you do, don’t let the boys come in here. You’ll need plenty of warm water. And the knife.”

  “A knife?”

  “To cut the cord, Carrie. And towels. I hope you aren’t squeamish at the sight of blood. There might be a lot of it.”

  Mary seemed preternaturally calm, but Carrie’s stomach roiled. She swallowed. “I’d better get the fire going.”

  Mary gasped as another pain gripped her. “Please hurry.”

  In the kitchen Carrie shoved kindling into the stove, lit a match and tossed it in, then added a couple of small sticks of wood. The kindling caught, sending gray smoke trailing into the room. She filled the teakettle and a pan of water and set them on the stove.

  “Aunt Carrie?”

  She jumped at the sound and whirled around. “Caleb?”

  “How come you’re up?” He blinked. “It’s the middle of the night.”

  “Your mother is having the baby.”

  His eyes widened. “Don’t we need the doc for that? He told me and Joe he has medicine that makes the pain go away.”

  “Ideally, yes, but there isn’t time, so I’m going to help.”

  He frowned. “You ever helped a baby get born before?”

  “No, but I’ve delivered baby animals, so I sort of know what to expect. And your mother will tell me what to do.” She smiled to reassure him. “She brought you and Joe into the world, after all.”

  “Is she going to die?”

  “Of course not. She’ll be fine. The baby too. You’ll see.”

  “Jimmy D. Washburn’s mother had a baby and she died.” A sob caught in his throat.

  Carrie opened a cupboard, looking for a towel. “I won’t lie to you, Caleb. Sometimes that does happen. But your mother has been in bed all this time, resting, so she’ll be strong enough for when the baby comes. You mustn’t worry about it.”

  He nodded and threw both arms around her. “I’m sorry I hit you that time. I’m sorry for showin’ Joe how to start a fire and for not mindin’ you. I’ll try to do better.”

  She stroked Caleb’s mussed hair. “I grew up with a big brother. I know how boys behave.”

  He pressed his face to her dressing gown. “You don’t know what else I done. I chopped up Papa’s best fishin’ pole.”

  “Oh, Caleb.”

  “Ever’ time I passed by it in the barn, I thought about him.” He looked up at her, his eyes wet. “I figgered if I got rid of it, I could forget all about him, and then maybe I wouldn’t feel so bad. But it didn’t work.”

  “No. But I know how you feel.”

  The kettle shrieked. Carrie made tea and handed him a cup. “I was only a few years younger than you when my parents died. It hurt so bad I wanted to forget them too. But my granny talked about them every day. She told stories about my mama and how she loved to sing and gather the wildflowers that grew all over Muddy Hollow. How my daddy came courting her one time riding on the sorriest old mule Granny’d ever seen.”

  “He shoulda had a horse like Majestic.”

  Carrie smiled as she took the kitchen knife from the cupboard. “Pretty soon I started looking forward to Granny’s stories. They made me feel closer to my mama and papa.” She patted his arm. “It wasn’t forgetting that made me feel better. It was remembering.”

  Caleb sipped his tea and made a face. “You aren’t mad at me for chopping up the fishin’ pole?”

  “I wish you hadn’t done it. Henry set a lot of store by that pole. But I understand why you did it.” She laid a hand on his shoulder. “Now, I need you to go back upstairs and stay with Joe. Do not come down until I call you. No matter what sounds you hear, you stay put. All right?”

  “I guess.”

  “Not good enough.” She draped a towel over her arm and lifted the pot of boiling water from the stove. “I need your solemn promise.”

  “I promise.” He ran from the kitchen.

  When Carrie returned to the bedroom, Mary’s eyes were bright with pain, her skin shiny with sweat. Her damp gown clung to her thighs.

  Carrie set the towel and water aside. “How are you? Is the pain really bad?”

  Mary nodded. “Worse than when Caleb and Joe were—ahhh!” She gripped the bedcovers and went rigid until the pain passed. Then she leaned back against the pillow, her breathing ragged, her body limp. “I—I don’t think I can take this.”

  “I know it hurts. But it won’t be long until you’ll hold Henry’s child in your arms. You’ll have a part of him back again.”

  “Yes, but—oh dear God!” Mary clenched her teeth. Rivulets of sweat ran down her face.

  Instinctively Carrie gripped Mary’s hand. “Hold on. Just a little long—”

  The wrinkled, misshapen creature entered the world in a rush. Her hands trembling, Carrie cut the cord and lifted the child, who lay silent and motionless in her
arms.

  “Carrie?” Mary rasped.

  The world receded. Carrie’s heart pounded. What to do? She couldn’t lose this baby. Please, God. Please help me.

  “I don’t hear a cry,” Mary whispered. “The baby’s dead, isn’t it? And it’s my fault.”

  Carrie felt the child’s chest. A heartbeat fluttered, but the skin was turning blue. She blew into the baby’s nostrils, tiny puffs of air. Nothing. Holding tightly to the baby, she swung it in a wide arc, back and forth, praying that the rush of air would fill its tiny lungs. Still nothing. Carrie realized she was holding her own breath.

  Then, at last, she heard it—a faint mewling sound that quickly grew into a lusty, full-bodied cry. Carrie bathed the tiny child, tears of sadness and relief streaming unchecked down her face. It’s a boy, Henry. Someone to carry on your name. And thank God he’s all right.

  She swaddled the child and handed him to his mother. “Mary, here’s your son.”

  “Another boy?”

  Carrie smiled. “Henry would bust his buttons if he knew.”

  Mary squeezed Carrie’s hand. “I like to think he does know, somehow.”

  “Me too.” She helped Mary to bathe and change, and left to check the fire in the stove. Now that the child was safely delivered, she was weak with relief and exhaustion but too keyed up to sleep. She made tea and carried a tray to Mary’s room.

  Mother and child were sleeping. Watching the rise and fall of Mary’s breath, Carrie felt her old resentments falling away. They might never be the best of friends, but she and Mary were truly a family now, bound forever by the child they both loved. She wished Mary a peaceful rest, free of the longing for the life that was lost to her now.

  Mary’s life had not turned out as she wanted. Perhaps no one’s did.

  Perhaps the secret to a happy life was to want the one you had.

  The Atlantic lay still and pewter-gray, reflecting the late February sky. Bundled into his overcoat, Griff stood on the battery, watching a fishing boat approach the harbor. His throat tightened. He’d forgotten how much he missed the sights and smells of the low country, the excitement of moonless wartime night voyages aboard the Nightingale. He’d missed Charleston too, the way a man misses a well-loved woman.

  At one time he had known the city’s every nook and cranny—the ornate mansions on Queen and Meeting Streets built with money from rice plantations dotting the banks of the Pee Dee River. The gaming houses, the busy wharf, the elegant theaters. St. Philip’s Church, where he attended services as a boy. He recalled countless Sundays spent wedged between his parents and his brother, trussed into scratchy wool suits and stiff boiled collars, tight shoes pinching his feet. He loved the sound of his mother’s voice lifted in song, the peaceful hush that descended as the prayers were read, the dust motes swirling in the bright Carolina sunlight, the tantalizing sea smells riding on the sultry breeze coming through the open windows.

  But Charleston was a changed place now. St. Philip’s bells no longer chimed the hours, having been melted into cannons during the war. Vast stretches of the city from Hassel Street clear up to Tradd had burned to the ground back in sixty-one, leaving a swath of smoking ruins, their insides seared to nothing. Here and there ghostlike shells of homes still stood, reminders of a way of life that was now irrevocably lost. In his opinion, it was this loss, more than any physical ailment, that had sent his father to his sickbed.

  He jammed his gloveless hands into his pockets, turned, and walked along Meeting Street toward his father’s house. Uncertain of the reception awaiting him after so long an absence, he’d left his bags at the train station. If he was turned away—a distinct possibility—he’d simply head back to Hickory Ridge.

  He regretted that he hadn’t ridden out to Carrie’s place before leaving town. But Philip’s telegram, with its terse message, “Come home,” had arrived on the same day as his meeting with Gilman at the bank. A trip to Carrie’s would have meant missing the evening train and then a two-day wait for the next one. Distracted, he’d scribbled a hasty note to her, intending to leave it with the postmaster, only to find it later in the pocket of his overcoat. Stupid. He hoped Carrie would understand. As uncertain as he was of his welcome in Charleston, he nevertheless wanted a chance to say good-bye to his father. He feared he might already be too late.

  Arriving at the Rutledge house, he pushed open the wrought-iron gate, hurried past the tangle of neglected gardens, and climbed the steps to the verandah. Before he could ring the bell, the door opened. There stood his younger brother, bleary-eyed and unshaven.

  Philip motioned Griff inside. “Thank God you came. Father has been asking for you.”

  Griff shucked out of his overcoat and hung it on the hall tree and blew on his hands to warm them. “Then he isn’t—”

  “Not yet. But soon, I think. Dr. Pettigrew was here yesterday.”

  Philip’s voice cracked. “He didn’t offer us much hope, I’m afraid.”

  Griff nodded.

  “Susan was here most of the night. I finally sent her home to rest for a while. You need coffee?”

  “If it isn’t too much trouble.” Griff looked around his boyhood home. Nothing, not even the draperies, had changed. On the hall table stood a silver bowl filled with apples. Oil portraits of his mother still hung above the massive fireplace and along the stair landing. A small forest of silver candlesticks crowded the mantel. The furnishings gleamed and smelled faintly of beeswax. His heart ached with loss.

  “Is Calpurnia still keeping house for Father?”

  “Calpurnia?” Philip led the way to the dining room, where a silver coffee service waited on the marble-topped sideboard. “You have been away a long time, brother. Cal passed on—” He paused while he poured coffee into two bone-china cups—“four or five years ago. Her daughter Daisy comes in a few times a week to tidy up.” He handed Griff a cup. “Otherwise, Susan helps me look after things.”

  Griff sipped the bitter brew. “Susan’s a good woman.”

  “But not good enough for you,” Philip said without rancor.

  “We wouldn’t have been compatible. It has nothing to do with her character. I’m certain you’ll be very happy together.”

  The faint chiming of a bell sounded. Philip set down his cup. “He’s awake. Ready to go up?”

  Griff nodded, his heart thudding. Stupid to fear his father’s opinion at this late date. He wasn’t a callow youth of fourteen anymore. He’d made a more than respectable fortune during the war, and he was on the verge of a new enterprise that he found challenging and exciting. By his own measure—which was all any man should care about—he was a success. And yet there was an empty place inside him where his father’s approval belonged.

  He followed Philip up the curving staircase to his father’s room overlooking the summer kitchen and the carriage house where long ago Griff had stolen his first kiss. It seemed now like another life, as if those languorous low-country summers had happened to someone else.

  They went in. The curtains were open to the weak winter light. In the grate, a fire leapt and crackled. A small side table was littered with a half-empty water pitcher, a glass, several small brown medicine bottles, a wrinkled handkerchief. A pile of books lay haphazardly on the floor.

  “Father?” Philip said softly. “You’ve been asking for Griff, and here he is.”

  Their father, wasted and pale, blinked and struggled to sit up. “Griffin?”

  Griff moved to the side of the bed. “Hello, Father.”

  “I—I didn’t think you’d come.”

  “I wanted to see you. It’s been a long time.”

  His father nodded and extended a mottled, clawlike hand. “Good . . . to see you, son.”

  Despite all the strife between them over the years, Griff’s eyes filled. This wizened, helpless shell of a man was the man who had given him life. And now all Griff could think of was the good times. Those years before his father’s expectations collided with Griff’s own wishes and dreams.
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  “Sit.” Charles Rutledge motioned his eldest son to a chair. “Tell me . . . where . . . have you been?”

  “Here and there. Most recently in Tennessee.”

  “Did you . . . go to that horse race in Kentucky last spring?”

  Griff smiled. Horses and horse racing had always been the best thing they shared.

  “The Derby.” Griff shook his head. “But I rode in a race this past fall. A magnificent colt called Majestic. Sixteen hands high, a wide-rumped, stubborn cuss, but fleet of foot. And a stride like I’ve never seen before. You’d have loved him.”

  The squeak of carriage wheels sounded in the street below. Philip rose and looked out. “Susan’s back. Will you excuse me, Father?” Philip sought Griff’s gaze. “Ring the bell if you need me.”

  Their father waved him away. When Philip had gone, he turned to Griff. “I’m glad to have a few minutes alone, Griffin. I don’t have much time and—” He coughed and motioned for a glass of water. Griff held the glass while his father sipped, the water dribbling down his stubbled chin.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t try to talk, Father.”

  “But it’s important that you understand why I’m leaving . . . everything to Philip.”

  The old resentments came rushing back. Anger replaced the pity he’d felt just moments before. But how could he argue with a dying man? “You don’t have to explain. What’s done is done. And I don’t need the Rutledge money. I never wanted it anyway.”

  “Exactly.” The old man’s watery blue gaze held Griff’s. “You always were the enterprising one. From the time you were small, you had the instincts of a survivor. Philip, on the other hand, needed much more direction.”

  “And he’s more malleable too.” The fire had burned low. Griff added another log and tapped it with the poker. “I understand he’s going to marry Susan Layton. I suppose I should congratulate you both.”

  His father sighed. “The joining of family fortunes is a time-honored way of life in the South.”

  Griff stood with his back to the fire, his hands clasped behind him. “I’m well aware of that. And when I refused to play along with this time-honored tradition, I was disowned.”