Read Online Beauty From Ashes by Eugenia Price - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Eugenia Price
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those sweet but strained evenings after Mama got so she could bear to play her pianoforte again without Papa there to sing. Six years separated the two sisters. Pete wasn’t all that much more grown-up than Fanny. I’m seventeen, she thought. How could Pete be so much more mature? And why did Pete seem not to care a fig about falling in love? Heaven knew, Fanny cared. But where did she ever go to meet eligible young men? Their little cottage at Lawrence was so rundown that Mama wouldn’t dream of entertaining, and evidently because of the financial panic all over the country, no one, not even Grandpapa or Uncle James Hamilton, had any money to fix it up.
Mama couldn’t bear to live anywhere else. Everyone knew that. No one who knew Mama believed she could make it through her days without the almost daily beauty of the sunrise over the marshes. Fanny hadn’t said much about it, but when Pete wasn’t looking, she too went first thing to their bedroom window, hoping as Mama must have hoped every morning for either clear skies or just enough
clouds to heighten the beauty. Would Pete 87 have made fun of her if she’d seen Fanny checking the sunrise? No. Pete did it too. Being Pete, she just went in plain view of Fanny or anyone else who happened to be nearby. Pete did everything that way, always seeming sure that if she did it, whatever it was, it would work out just fine.
Look at Pete now, Fanny thought, wondering what on earth her sister found to discuss so vehemently with Uncle James’s two sons, James Maxwell and John Lord Couper. After all, they were only about twelve and fourteen. How could Pete find such an animated subject for conversation with either of them?
In some ways I’m better with grown-ups, though, Fanny reminded herself. At least Mama says I am. “I never have to worry about what startling thing Fanny might blurt out before people,” Mama often told Pete. “I wish you’d think for two or three seconds before you say whatever it is your thinking, Pete. You are a young lady now.”
When Aunt Caroline, holding four-year-old William by one hand and little Rebecca Isabella
by the other, hurried to the window Fanny had been standing near during the excited hubbub in the room, her aunt was laughing. Then her still very pretty face abruptly took on a look of concern. “Fanny, my dear, is something the matter? Why are you over here all by yourself when the others—me included—are acting like silly children about to open Christmas presents?”
Fanny took care to give her an especially cheerful smile. “Oh, you’re just not with me much anymore, Aunt Caroline. I’m—I’m the dull, quiet one in our family. I just enjoy watching instead of taking part. Nothing’s the matter. Honest.” Fanny looked around the handsomely furnished room. “If I lived here at Hopeton, I think I’d never leave this glorious parlor of yours. What a beautiful house you keep for Uncle James!”
Aunt Caroline laughed again. “My dear girl, you know perfectly well your uncle selects every stick of furniture, every candlestand, every piece of tapestry and damask for every chair.”
“But you really adorn his house. Some people think he’s stiff and—well, difficult because he’s so precise and careful about everything, but you’re happy
with him, aren’t you? And you’ve always been 89 fun-loving.”
“I declare, Fanny, you should talk more often. You’ve a golden tongue—like your handsome father always had.”
At that moment Fanny saw little Rebecca’s laughing face turn serious. To get her attention, the child pulled at the end of Fanny’s best silk scarf. “Cousin Fanny, does it feel terrible having your father dead?”
“Rebecca, what a dreadful thing to ask our cousin!”
“No,” Fanny said. “I think it’s a perfectly plausible question. Yes, Rebecca. Sometimes it feels really terrible. Especially in the evenings when I miss the way he used to sing for us while Mama played.”
When Eve,
Mama couldn’t bear to live anywhere else. Everyone knew that. No one who knew Mama believed she could make it through her days without the almost daily beauty of the sunrise over the marshes. Fanny hadn’t said much about it, but when Pete wasn’t looking, she too went first thing to their bedroom window, hoping as Mama must have hoped every morning for either clear skies or just enough
clouds to heighten the beauty. Would Pete 87 have made fun of her if she’d seen Fanny checking the sunrise? No. Pete did it too. Being Pete, she just went in plain view of Fanny or anyone else who happened to be nearby. Pete did everything that way, always seeming sure that if she did it, whatever it was, it would work out just fine.
Look at Pete now, Fanny thought, wondering what on earth her sister found to discuss so vehemently with Uncle James’s two sons, James Maxwell and John Lord Couper. After all, they were only about twelve and fourteen. How could Pete find such an animated subject for conversation with either of them?
In some ways I’m better with grown-ups, though, Fanny reminded herself. At least Mama says I am. “I never have to worry about what startling thing Fanny might blurt out before people,” Mama often told Pete. “I wish you’d think for two or three seconds before you say whatever it is your thinking, Pete. You are a young lady now.”
When Aunt Caroline, holding four-year-old William by one hand and little Rebecca Isabella
by the other, hurried to the window Fanny had been standing near during the excited hubbub in the room, her aunt was laughing. Then her still very pretty face abruptly took on a look of concern. “Fanny, my dear, is something the matter? Why are you over here all by yourself when the others—me included—are acting like silly children about to open Christmas presents?”
Fanny took care to give her an especially cheerful smile. “Oh, you’re just not with me much anymore, Aunt Caroline. I’m—I’m the dull, quiet one in our family. I just enjoy watching instead of taking part. Nothing’s the matter. Honest.” Fanny looked around the handsomely furnished room. “If I lived here at Hopeton, I think I’d never leave this glorious parlor of yours. What a beautiful house you keep for Uncle James!”
Aunt Caroline laughed again. “My dear girl, you know perfectly well your uncle selects every stick of furniture, every candlestand, every piece of tapestry and damask for every chair.”
“But you really adorn his house. Some people think he’s stiff and—well, difficult because he’s so precise and careful about everything, but you’re happy
with him, aren’t you? And you’ve always been 89 fun-loving.”
“I declare, Fanny, you should talk more often. You’ve a golden tongue—like your handsome father always had.”
At that moment Fanny saw little Rebecca’s laughing face turn serious. To get her attention, the child pulled at the end of Fanny’s best silk scarf. “Cousin Fanny, does it feel terrible having your father dead?”
“Rebecca, what a dreadful thing to ask our cousin!”
“No,” Fanny said. “I think it’s a perfectly plausible question. Yes, Rebecca. Sometimes it feels really terrible. Especially in the evenings when I miss the way he used to sing for us while Mama played.”
When Eve,
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