Free Beauty From Ashes by Eugenia Price Page A

just say that the dear man laughs just often enough to keep me on my toes. I’ve taught myself to enjoy the challenge.”

Chapter 5
    About noon the day before the birthday festivities, Jock’s son William Audley, his daughter-in-law Hannah, and two of their three children reached Hopeton with Hannah’s mother’s old nurse, Haynie, to look after the young ones.
    Soon after breakfast Jock had settled in his
    favorite veranda chair to watch for them and was delighted to see they’d at least brought their two older children to help celebrate his big day tomorrow. Three-year-old Anna was named, of course, for her grandmother, Anne’s lifelong friend Anna Matilda Page King. The child scrambled on her chubby legs up the front steps and threw herself into the old man’s lap, shouting “Grandpapa! Grandpapa!” at the top of her lungs. Tall, wide-shouldered William Audley, finer appearing and more adept at running a big plantation like Hamilton than his father had dared hope, followed with his only son, two-year-old William Page Couper, in his arms. It had been months since they’d visited Hopeton, but in no time the small boy was fighting for space on Jock’s lap, too, even though everyone knew he didn’t remember seeing his grandfather before.
    “It’s that Scottish charm, Papa Couper,” Hannah said, brushing an unruly lock of hair back from William Page’s forehead. “He just might remember you. After all, you’re unforgettable and everyone along the Georgia and South Carolina coast will attest to that.”
    “Which, of course, is the reason you’re so
    smitten with me, his son,” William 95 Audley joked. “Give us a nod when you’ve had enough of both squirming offspring, Papa. Haynie came with us, you know. She’ll take them off your hands when you say the word.”
    Still smiling, Jock Couper looked up at William Audley. Despite the determined smile, tears stood in his old eyes. “Aye, I’ll say the word, Son, when they’ve tired me. Right now, all I can think is that my memorable birthday is complete because all my family will be around me to cheer me on toward the century mark! All, that is, but your blessed mother, Becca, your equally blessed sister Isabella, your sweet niece Annie, and my fine son-in-law John Fraser.”
    At that moment Rebecca Isabella, James’s girl, burst onto the veranda and yelled, “I heard that through the parlor window, Grandpapa, and came as fast as I could get here to remind you it’s my birthday, too! And you still have both Rebecca and Isabella because my name is Rebecca Isabella and I’m right here. Does that make you happier?”
    Before he could collect himself to answer, the little
    girl was busily wiping tears from his cheeks with her pinafore.
    “Anne told me when we first got here,” William Audley said, “that you’d made her the central recipient of attention yesterday by surprising her with young John Couper, but something tells me you’re going to be center stage from now on, Papa. And”—he hugged his father’s neck— “well you should be. After all, how many men does God honor with such a long, full life?”
    Tears were coming again. They embarrassed Jock, almost angered him. He’d been crying too often lately and knew it was because of his advanced age. “Aye, Son, I’m grateful for my every year. Except for these infernal tears that keep spilling down me face as though I were an—an ancient lass!”
    Early on Friday, March 9, Anne found the aging Cannon’s Point butler, Johnson, in a narrow connecting hall that led to the Hopeton kitchen, built separately from the main house in case of a cooking fire. As she thought, her brother James, born to handle most details, had neglected Papa’s music for the day.
    “Oh, Miss Anne,” the 97 gentlemanly Johnson said, his face alight, “I shoulda known you’d remember! Mausa John Couper, he be discomforted like a man at the table without his dinner jacket if they ain’t no music fo’ his