Hey, peeps. I've been busy and generally bad at writing, but here's an installment for this little story. It's half of what I had hoped the second installment would be, but since the second half was quite different in tone and would have taken me a few months to complete, I thought this was the way to go. As always, much love to iso and everyone who reviewed.
Gerald Alexander Butler was a fine little boy. Or at least his mother had reason to think so, proudly and privately, at least once every other day. He compared favorably not only to his two older siblings, who in their time had been but timid, mewling nuisances, but to his youngest sister as well, who up until that point had been his mother's undisputed favorite among her children. His preeminence extended beyond the circle of his immediate family, too. It was, after all, no surprise that he would be vastly superior to his pale Benteen cousins; and as for the only serious competition he had encountered, that of golden-haired Beau Wilkes, whom Scarlett had long considered the model of all a child should be, Alexander had vanquished that quite easily as well. It was not two weeks after his birth that Scarlett, looking down at her gurgling son, had impulsively decided that he was a much finer child than even Beau had been at his age. She had never after that revisited the question.
The reason for this precocious string of victories was not easily discernible. It couldn't be that Alexander was a handsome baby, for so had been his sister Bonnie, and her good looks were more likely to flatter her mother's vanity, seeing as they had come from her side of the family. Alexander, on the other hand, looked a lot like his father. Nor could the reason be that he was a well-behaved child, for he wasn't, not particularly. He could be a perfectly delightful baby, all cooing and smiles, and the one feature he had inherited from his mother, her dimples, undoubtedly helped his charm. But there was even at this tender age a thread of unmistakable stubbornness in him and he was quick to vent his protest in lusty fury whenever the world did not accede immediately to his wishes.
One would have thought the absence of paternal coddling might have mitigated that side to him, for it was that, above all things, that had enabled his sister to run wild. But while Alexander could not count on a responsive audience in his father, the way Bonnie had, he had found one in his mother. Of all Scarlett's children, he was the one least touched by Mammy's methods and famed discipline. Any suggestion that his whims not be catered to, nor his tantrums indulged (ideas she herself had championed for Bonnie in her infancy), Scarlett now carelessly waved aside. For, after all, Mammy had only ever raised girls. What did she know about boys and how they were supposed to behave? Scarlett had decided her son would be strong willed and spirited and, like most people, she easily mistook temper for character on that count. Besides, Alexander quieted without fail at the sound of his mother's voice, even when—especially when—he wouldn't for Mammy or Prissy. And he always gurgled happily and laughed when she smiled down at him. The particular circumstances of her pregnancy aside, this was one clear reason why he was Scarlett's favorite among her children.
The time after his birth had been difficult. He had been a January child, but it had taken Scarlett till April to finally be able to depart for Tara. It had made sense to stay in the comfort of the Atlanta mansion until spring was well under way, for newborn babies were frail and mothers needed time to recover from birth. She didn't remember who had pleaded that case (Dr. Meade, Mammy, Melanie? It hadn't been Rhett. He hadn't intervened at all.), but she had acquiesced. A strange sort of tiredness had come over her after Alexander's birth, as if she had emerged from a battle without knowing what it had been fought for or who the victor was.
Besides, she was dimly aware of something everyone around her knew quite well. Atlanta had to see the baby, if she was ever to regain any semblance of footing in town. People had to effuse insincerely about the boy being the spitting image of his father and oh, how happy Captain Butler must be to finally have a son of his own… That was to be the only tacit acknowledgment of their error and the key to her social restoration. And so the visits had started, as soon as Scarlett was well enough to receive. The people who came to call were those into whose parlors her sister-in-law had forcefully dragged her during Rhett's absence, the ones who had sided with Melanie—and, by extension, Scarlett—over India Wilkes that fateful spring. Melanie herself was always present for these visits, too. She sat near the door with her sewing, looking for all the world like a calm, grave archangel, ready to bar with the steel of the sword anyone who might be trying to leave.
She needn't have worried. The people calling on Scarlett for the first time in years had no reason to leave. They hadn't come to admit their own errors; they had come to get confirmation of other people's errors and be gratified. For months on end, they had smarted under the superior smirks of India's adherents, who had taken Scarlett's pregnancy as indisputable proof of her adultery. For months, even the most loyal of Melanie's partisans had felt the sting of humiliation and had regretted receiving Scarlett the previous spring. But now they were vindicated through the providence of Alexander's black eyes and slight fuzz of dark hair. They were vindicated and they were ready to mount their counterattack. For wasn't it despicable how India's supporters had taken for true and spread a vicious rumor that could have ruined the life of an innocent child? If they were capable of that, wasn't it probable that they had been taken in by a venomous lie from the very start, that they had slandered an honorable man and Scarlett for nothing? What better proof could one want?
India's supporters were themselves not immune to the sway of this argument. They had overplayed their hand on the matter of the baby's paternity and had now been pushed into castigated diffidence. Many silently withdrew their support of the cause in the weeks following Alexander's birth. Still others went further. They visited Scarlett and were welcomed back under Melanie's wing. They went quite happily, too, for they could feel the town teetering on the brink of a precipice. To preserve its unity, Atlanta had almost decided that it was time to sacrifice India Wilkes. Another push and everyone would decide that she had been nothing all along but a bitter old maid turned crazy with spite. And once that came to happen, the scandal would be buried for good.
For her part, Scarlett was only very distantly attuned to these subterranean currents in the town's life or the imminent defeat of her enemy. All she knew was that the visits she was receiving, necessary though they were, were also excruciating. They rivalled any social gathering she had ever attended, even those dreadful sewing circles Melanie had forced her to attend last spring, in tediousness and awkwardness. They were like a prolonged nightmare that stretched her nerves to their breaking point and left her tired and aimlessly irritated at the end, with no possible relief in sight. And as bad as they were, they got much worse once Rhett started attending as well.
The first time he returned home to find her entertaining guests, he stopped in the doorway and assessed them sharply while he bowed, as if trying to divine the reason for their presence. But then his eyes found Melanie seated by the door—her hands crossed patiently in her lap, like she was presiding over a gathering of children— and he fell into his role as he advanced into the room, as if she had given him his cue. He had been a distant, courteous stranger to his wife for months, but now he suddenly bent down and kissed her cheek. Scarlett started in shock before she could control herself, and felt the weight of scrutiny immediately on her. To cover the misstep, she raised a hand to briefly caress Rhett's jaw in response. He smiled an odd little smile that looked half bitter, half cynical, and she suddenly thought that, if not for the dozen eyes trained on them, she would have gladly sunk her nails into his face. She had slid into a sort of apathy towards him after Alexander's birth, but now there was a knot of anger in her throat at this charade.
And the play was not over yet. Rhett had so far manifested precious little interest in Alexander. He had in fact behaved the way men of his station did with their children, the way Scarlett had once assumed he would behave as a father, before witnessing his extraordinary devotion to Bonnie. She did not know why she should be so hurt and humiliated by that behavior now. He had come to see his son the day after he was born. Hands planted firmly in his pockets, he had stood by the crib in her room and uttered some platitude she could never afterwards remember. He hadn't offered to hold Alexander that day, nor had he at any point after that. All he had to offer when he saw his son were mild, disinterested comments about the pace of his growth. Yet now, thrown on a stage in front of Atlanta, he rocked on his heels in front of the bassinet and then carefully reached down, clearly intending to pick up the boy.
"He's just fallen asleep," Scarlett said, an edge of curt vehemence in her voice.
"Ah, of course," he murmured and stepped away from the bassinet. There was a flash of something in his eyes—relief, disappointment, anger at her for thwarting his performance? She didn't know and didn't care. She couldn't have stomached the spectacle of him holding Alexander at this late date. How dare he come here to play the doting father, she thought savagely, how dare he?
"You must be so proud of him, Captain Butler," Mrs. Bonnell said with a smile.
"He is the light of my eyes," Rhett replied gravely, inclining his head, and Scarlett pressed her nails into the flesh of her palms, wishing she'd scratched his eyes out when she'd had the chance, Atlanta's gossips be damned.
She would have felt more strongly about it had she understood the full extent to which the town's sympathy centered on Rhett these days. They pitied him for being married to Scarlett (whose faults were legion, even if she had not, after all, sunk to adultery) and they had a keen, compassionate sense of how last year's scandal must have affected a man like him. That, too, was Scarlett's fault, even if she had been innocent, for Caesar's wife ought to be above suspicion. Yet here Captain Butler was, standing gallantly by her and his son. Should he continue to suffer for his wife's sins? Should his newborn son be punished? The esteem Atlanta had for Melanie aside, this wave of sympathy for Rhett was what drove the mending of Scarlett's reputation in the first months of 1872.
And while she was unaware of it, Rhett wasn't. He was now constantly present when Scarlett was receiving. He always arrived after the guests, dropped a casual kiss on Scarlett's cheek and sat down by her side to accept congratulations on his son, affecting a humbly pleased air that irritated her to no end. He sometimes tickled Alexander's tummy or chin with one finger if she was holding him. He had never again tried to pick him up from the bassinet. And, however unbearable the pretense was to Scarlett, the picture they painted together worked. In the first week of April, almost a year since the scandal had started, the Elsings came to visit. Mrs. Elsing herself had not come, but Fanny said her mother was in bed with a cold and sending her regards. The war was well and truly won.
When the Elsings had finally left, and Rhett was walking Melanie to the door, Scarlett sank against the back of the settee, exhausted. She closed her eyes against the terrible headache building behind them and rubbed her forehead tiredly. She couldn't summon the energy to return to her room. All she wanted was dark and peace, for Alexander to sleep a few solid hours, for no one else to come visit this week, this month… All that had happened since the birth had depleted her thoroughly; she felt beaten down and ready to retreat. Even her fury at Rhett, which had carried her through the first visits he attended, had ebbed away and now she was just tired and helpless. And there was little shelter to be found in her room. The previous week her nightmares had returned. She dreamed as always that she was running through fog, but now the fog was as thick as molasses and she was slowed down in it and finally drowned. She woke up drenched in sweat but unable to scream, as if the suffocating weight was still covering her mouth. These were restless nights, punctuated only by Alexander's cries, and they sapped away the energy she needed to find a way out.
"How would you like to go to Tara tomorrow or the day after?" Rhett's voice cut through the silence unexpectedly. She could tell he had come back and was hovering in the doorway, but she did not want to open her eyes and see his expression. His voice was kind, not in that dispassionate way it had been of late, but almost like his old voice, when he still cared a little about what she did. She was comforted by it and nodded without opening her eyes. The following day she was on the train to Tara.