A couple of days later...
Pierre was pacing up down in his hotel room. He was holding and reading a letter. In reality he didn't need to reread it. He had read it about a million times and he knew its contents by heart. Frustrated he crumbled it and threw it in the fire burning in the fireplace along with a cursing. Amazingly enough it wasn't a letter from one of his many girls, who insisted that they were madly in love with him and hoped that he would alter his decision that he wasn't a "marrying man". This was a letter from his uncle Gerald O Hara where he accused him of being responsible for Atlanta's latest scandal.
Damn Rhett and his common jokes! He thought. Because he couldn't believe that Rhett's latest behavior was anything else than a joke.
He had returned in the South a few days ago and they had received an invitation to attend a fund-raising bazaar for Atlanta's hospital. Rhett declared full of irony that he was in no mood to spoil his night with all this patriotic fools hearing their rumblings about South's certain victory, and instead he suggested spending a delightful evening at Belle's who was also throwing a party on Rhett's recent success. Pierre laughed but declined and he explained he had an important family matter to attend.
This ball was the perfect opportunity to see Scarlett again. He hadn't contact with her for over a year. They had never lose contact for such a long period of time before. They always mailed and he felt as if she was always near him. Let alone the fact that during this year he had faced and escaped death several times and she had become a wife and a widow.
Truth be told, Scarlett tried to communicate. At the beginning she sent countless letters which always ended up to fire without him reading them. He was furious with her. She promised that she wouldn't do anything stupid and she would wait for his return before taking any decision. And shortly after that she accepted the first proposal of marriage made to her just to make the wooden- headed honorable gentleman Ashley Wilkes jealous. She had sacrificed and ruined her own life, and the life of that innocent boy Charles Hamilton over a spite.
He was determined to never speak to her again. And he kept his word for more than a year, but when he learned from her mother that she was worried about her, that after Charles's death, she was so lonely and miserable, that the trip to Savannah and Charleston didn't do much to cheer her up he felt his anger over her evaporating and his heart softening. He had to admit it, he missed her. So he decided to come to Atlanta, where she lived with Charles's sister to see her again. Deep inside, he had a suspicion that this visit to Atlanta had more to do with Ashley Wilkes and less with "coming closer with Charles's family" as his aunt Ellen told him, but he knew that it wasn't the right time to remind her another sad story of the past. His only purpose was to cheer her up.
His heart twitched when he saw her. Thinner and paler than ever. Dressed in black. No dimples in her cheeks, no sparkle in her eyes. That girl couldn't be his Scarlett, he thought. She was reserved at first. He hadn't answered to her letters and that had hurt her pride. But it took just a "How is my beloved girl" and one of his smiles to make her brake. She confessed everything to him among sobs.
"Oh Pierre! My life ended. Nothing happens to me anymore. I know you must think I am an awful person, but that's the truth and you are the only person I can be honest with. I feel nothing, why do I have to pretend and pretend? Please don't start with your I told you so's now!"
"I wasn't going to say such a thing" he simply said and caressed her hair.
She left a sigh of relief. She started to open up.
"I work as hard as every other girl in that hospital but tonight when everyone will have fun at the Bazaar i have to stay at home and cry for my dead husband. It's bad enough I can't go to parties or be around people but I have to be dressed like a crawl too. This is pure torturing, I can't handle it anymore, I am returning to Tara," she declared.
But Pierre knew things would be worst for her there. The countryside was deserted and that her sisters' upcoming marriages wouldn't improve her spirit. He couldn't let her leave, he had to find a way to keep her in Atlanta where he could often visit her.
So he decided to make his proposal even though he knew it was quite inappropriate for a young widow to attend a ball. He was rewarded with a wary smile and a kiss.
Despite Pierre's best intentions, Scarlett's mood didn't seem to get any better at the bazaar. He could tell she was suffocating in her formal decent black dress and of course dancing which always used to cheer her up was out of question. They were sitting at a quiet corner of the room along with Melanie, who was also there to support her beloved sister- in- law in a vein effort to stop the vile gossip which surely would follow Scarlett's first attempt to return in social life.
She kept nagging, whispering her complaints in his ear. "If this is your idea of having fun, you have another thing coming. It's worse than I could ever imagine. Everyone is looking at us, as if we are criminals or something like that! Look at Mrs. Merriweather and Mrs. Elsing, I am sure they are talking of me," she throw an angry glance toward their direction. "Why don't they just mind their own business?"
He left her side only for a couple of minutes, just to talk to Dr. Meade, who was organizing the fund-raising bazaar. But a couple of minutes was all she needed. He watched her from the other corner of the room. She looked like herself again. With the exception of her mourning clothes, she was again the Belle of five counties. Her charming smile was back, and so was the glow in her eyes. She was talking with a man, whose back seemed very familiar to Pierre.
I will be damned, he thought, What the hell is Rhett Butler doing in Atlanta?
He remembered that his cousin fiercely detested the man when he introduced them at Twelve Oak's barbecue. But now they seem to get along pretty well. No matter the reasons why he was attending a boring patriotic ball, Pierre was silently thankful for them, as it was the first time during his visit that he saw Scarlett happy again.
But then, the unthinkable happened, and the situation got completely out of his control. He saw Rhett bidding in order to dance with his cousin and Scarlett accepting his invitation. There was no doubt, her reputation was ruined forever.
Of course he forced her to return home as soon as possible, but deep inside he knew that this wouldn't diminish the scandal a bit. Maybe he just made things worse, but it was the only thing he could do at the time.
To make things even worst a letter from Tara arrived just a couple of days later. It was the same letter he had crumbled a few seconds ago, in which uncle Gerald ordered him to bring Scarlett back to Tara immediately. Pierre though was sure that burring Scarlett alive to Tara wasn't the best solution. He loved her too much to do it and to be honest with himself he recognized that she was right. It wasn't fair for her to spent the rest of her life alone and miserable. She had to take her life in her hands again. He decided to help her. He would appease her family's worries in order to let her stay in Atlanta and he would promise them that he would visit Atlanta as soon as possible to keep an eye on her.
Then he thought of Rhett Butler. He had to talk to him. About his reasons why he was in Atlanta and about his intentions towards Scarlett. Suddenly he realized that his best friend and his beloved cousin were so similar creatures, too similar creatures to be exact. Was it possible that he was the right man for her?
He rejected the idea as completely absurd. Rhett, just like himself wasn't a "marrying man". He couldn't imagine him with a wife and children, as he couldn't imagine himself in the same position, not ever. Eventually, he would cause her more pain, and he wasn't sure that Scarlett could handle any more bad luck.
So he just had to keep Rhett away from her. He knew that both of them would come to Atlanta quite often during the next months in order to attend their business deals. The Yankee ringer around confederate ports was becoming increasingly tight so they had to transfer their "deals" in the mainland. He was also aware of the fact that nothing could keep Rhett away from something he wanted. He had to create a diversion. He thought of the only other person in the world who didn't want Rhett meeting Scarlett again. Non other than his old friend Belle Watling. Surely she wouldn't like it if she learned that she was about to lose her man by a eighteen years old girl. He laughed mischievously. He knew what his next step would be. He had to return to New Orleans at once...
