"I know what you want," said the sea witch; "it is very stupid of you, but you shall have your way, and it will bring you to sorrow, my pretty princess. You want to get rid of your fish's tail, and to have two supports instead of it, like human beings on earth, so that the young prince may fall in love with you, and that you may have an immortal soul." And then the witch laughed so loud and disgustingly, that the toad and the snakes fell to the ground, and lay there wriggling about. "You are but just in time," said the witch; "for after sunrise to-morrow I should not be able to help you till the end of another year. I will prepare a draught for you, with which you must swim to land tomorrow before sunrise, and sit down on the shore and drink it. Your tail will then disappear, and shrink up into what mankind calls legs, and you will feel great pain, as if a sword were passing through you. But all who see you will say that you are the prettiest little human being they ever saw. You will still have the same floating gracefulness of movement, and no dancer will ever tread so lightly; but at every step you take it will feel as if you were treading upon sharp knives, and that the blood must flow. - Hans Christian Andersen: The Little Mermaid
Scarlett's cough had eased in the early hours of the morning, and they finally fell into an exhausted slumber. When they awoke, golden sunlight was already filtering through the heavy red brocade curtains, caressing the hard planes of Rhett's face and casting warm highlights over Scarlett's rich, dark hair. Drifting back from dreamless sleep, Scarlett lifted her heavy head from a broad, matted chest, consciously noting her body's nightly migration to his side, and into his arms, for the first time.
She blushed a color even deeper than her name when she realized how their limbs were entangled, and how very intimately her hip was pressed against his front.
"Sorry," she mumbled, mortified, yet somehow unable to bring herself to pull away.
The truth was, she didn't want to move. Her arms and legs, indeed her entire body, felt warm, and comfortable, and relaxed. She hadn't felt this way in years.
Rhett didn't answer, but made no effort to dislodge her. They remained thus entangled for several minutes in luxurious, half-awake contentment, as they had many times in the early part of their marriage before Bonnie was born - and then never again.
When she finally had the courage to look into his face, she was startled by its expression. There was desire in his enigmatic dark eyes, albeit battling with fatigue and caution. He wanted her, and, perhaps most surprisingly of all, he made no attempt to hide it behind his usual bland façade.
Gathering her courage, she whispered: "If you want, we can …. I mean, if we ….I wouldn't expect you to…."
Rhett started at the unexpected words. Gazing down, he saw that for once it was an honest offer, an offer to feed his hunger and maybe her own without demanding declarations of love. Perhaps he shouldn't be as surprised as he felt. While he had had ample opportunities for diversions outside of the marriage bed, the same was not true for her. She could not have lain with a man since …..
He pushed away the memories of that wild night, finding that particular train of thought not very conductive to his resolve.
Almost exactly three years, he couldn't prevent his swift brain from calculating nonetheless. Three years to the day.
They'd both lived a lifetime in those three years. Become completely estranged. Lost a child. Lost a friend. Separated. Lived apart. And now -
"I appreciate the offer, Scarlett", he said sincerely, "and it would be futile to deny that I'm tempted, seeing how we are currently …situated." She blushed again, looking so beguilingly innocent that he wondered how he'd be able to resist her. "But things are already complicated enough as they are, don't you agree?"
She nodded, unable to help feeling rejected, and turned her head. Sensing her body's sudden rigidity, he stretched out his hand and gently turned back her face. She intuited his lip's approach more than seeing it, and the sudden, unfamiliarly familiar softness of him startled her. There was a drumming sound in her ears, and a drowning sensation overcame her, like a sailor clinging to a final piece of driftwood before submerging into the sea.
As if floodgates of memory had opened, she suddenly recognized his taste, his scent, the touch of his tongue, sensations that were uniquely him, and for the thousand's time cursed herself for those life-altering five minutes during which she had banned him from her bed. He was right, she had been a child, a silly child, to give up kisses such as these! And now, after all these years, he was kissing her again, and it felt heavenly.
But as she tried to respond, she couldn't help but feel clumsy and awkward. How long had it been that she had kissed a man? Kissed him? Years. How her former girl-hood rivals would laugh if they knew …
Strangely enough, it seemed as if he was has hesitant as she, as if he, too, was reclaiming unfamiliar territory and was unsure of the reception. Perhaps, she thought to herself, one didn't kiss whores. And inappropriately enough, the thought made her giggle, a short, nervous sound, but a giggle nonetheless.
He seemed surprised, but she felt his smile against her lips.
"I suspect it has been awhile for both of us."
And then he kissed her again, and it was no longer awkward. What started as a tentative exploration was suddenly a maelstrom of dark energy, pulling them down, fusing their lips together, freeing their hands to probe, and touch, and grind themselves closer as conscious thought left and instinct took over.
At the very last moment he pulled himself away. Looking down into her flushed face, he stilled his erratic breathing with an effort, and managed to smile wryly.
"You're a tempting little morsel my pet, even to those that have every reason to know better."
She glared balefully at him through her sooty lashes, but managed to bite back the tart reply that rose to her lips.
He waited for a few heartbeats to see if she would take the bait, and when it became clear she would not, he merely tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and pinched her cheeks lightly. Then he put on the clothes he had discarded last night, and left.
She remained motionless on the large bed, unsure what, if anything, had changed between them.
~~oo~~
He paused in the darkness of the hallway, his mind going over the scene in Scarlett's bedroom this morning. He had not intended to kiss her, and he was surprised to find he didn't regret it. She'd been exquisitely responsive, even more so than during that other night, confirming his long-held belief in her sensual potential if she ever got past her inhibitions – or rather, shed her obsession with a certain honorable gentleman.
The thought of Ashley made him grimace, as it always did, and any softer thoughts fled from his mind. He mentally shrugged his shoulders. It had just been a kiss, after all.
He checked on Thad, who looked somewhat better this morning. His skin was cooler, and his color had improved. Prissy, in her shrill soprano, reported that she had been able to feed him almost a whole bowl of chicken soup. After conversing with Officer Jones for a few minutes, Rhett left to go get breakfast. He made a mental note to tell James to move some of his clothes back into Scarlett's room when Jones was downstairs. Now THAT would be an interesting conversation.
It was only then that he saw Wade, sitting on a bench in the nursery at the very end of the hall. Rhett could see his slumped form clearly through the half-opened door, an unnatural pose for any twelve-year old to hold.
He had the volume of Andersen's Fairy Tales on his lap that Rhett had brought from England for the children. Ella and Bonnie had always loved the story of the Little Mermaid, and forced Rhett to read it to them over and over again.
So he had read it, sarcasm creeping into his voice at inopportune times.
Perhaps the problem was that he sympathized with the little Sea Creature. Being forced by circumstances to remain silent about your desperate love was indeed like walking on knives.
Rhett stepped into the nursery, a room he usually avoided. Scarlett had moved Bonnie's things out of his room after he'd first left, moving her bed and her dolls back into the corner of the nursery where they had first stood. She had then gone to exchange all of the furniture and even the curtains in his room, making it as impersonal as a hotel suite.
Although she had not consulted him he'd been strangely grateful. At least he wasn't assaulted by memories every time he opened the door to his bedroom.
But now, seeing the small bed by the window, he winced. And on the large armchair where he used to read to the children lay a large striped cat, a grown-up and lazy version of the straggly kitten Bonnie had brought back from Charleston. It regarded him through slit-like eyes, causing his heart to contract with sadness again.
"Wade." The children had gotten somewhat lost in the chaos that had descended on the household with Thad's arrival, mainly being told to be quiet and stay out of the way. And Prissy, who usually minded them, was busy nursing Thad. Rhett felt a sting of remorse.
"Wade."
The boy lifted a listless face, and then dropped it back into his hands without replying. He had his father's soft brown eyes and brown curls, but he also possessed more than a hint of his mother's stubborn streak.
"What's wrong, son?"
Wade pointed to the door, out into the hallway. "Who is the boy Uncle Rhett? Is he ...…your boy?"
Rhett hesitated, then opted for the truth. "No. But he was my…..ward…..when he was growing up."
"What's a… ward?"
"Someone that isn't your father, but takes care of you. Like …...a stepfather," Rhett replied, choosing an analogy he hoped Wade would understand.
"Why is he here?"
Apparently, the inquisition was not over. The boy would make a fine lawyer when he was grown.
"He was hurt, and he had nowhere else to go."
"He was the boy you were thinking about when Bonnie was born," Wade said, with determination. "I knew you were thinking of some other boy."
Rhett cast his mind back to that discussion. The details were hazy at best, but not to Wade, apparently.
"Do you see him? Do you go visit him where he lives?"
"Not for a long time, Wade. I haven't seen him for years." Too late, Rhett realized that Wade wasn't looking for reassurance about his own relative importance over Thad. Wade's next words confirmed his suspicions.
"You left him, too." Wade said. "Just like you left me."
"I didn't leave you, Wade. I….."
"You never left Bonnie. You would never have left her. But you left us. Me, and Ella, and …..him. " His eyes, so unlike Scarlett's, were still staring at him with pent-up resentment. "I guess Bonnie is the only one you really liked."
Rhett shook his head. "No, Wade. That isn't true. I …"
But the boy had turned back to his book with finality.
~~oo~~
In the kitchen, he found Elsa, Scarlett's German cook, entertaining Ella.
Elsa had never been overly found of Rhett, a sentiment shared by most of Scarlett's newer staff and, apparently, her son as well.
"Gut morning," Elsa muttered in reply to his greeting. Her expression would have curdled new milk.
He stroked Ella's head, wondering if she, too, harbored thoughts of resentment towards him. He suspected she didn't – the small face was still turned towards him with child-like adoration – but he guessed it would not be long before she, too, would take on a different opinion about his role in her life.
Half-heartedly, he asked about breakfast.
"We haff no more pancakes," Elsa informed him with what he suspected was silent glee. "And we haff no more bacon. We haff se old bread from yesterday with butter and strawberry jam."
He didn't much care for strawberry jam – or old bread for that matter - as he suspected Elsa knew well. But he was hungry, so he accepted a slice of bread with a boiled egg and coffee, talking to Ella while he ate. She seemed cheerful and happy to be allowed to play all day without anyone telling her to practice her lessons.
Chief Parker arrived half an hour later to pick him up for the station. The carriage rolled slowly through the familiar streets, but Rhett, his mind occupied by the events of the morning, took in very little of his surroundings.
Chief Parker, who had been making polite chit-chat, fell silent when he noted his companion's lack of responsiveness and seemed content to gaze out of the window as well.
They entered the makeshift police station that had been erected in one of the abandoned warehouses on Decatur Road while the original building was being renovated. When they entered, it was the smells that hit Rhett like a physical assault; smells of sweat, and urine, and fear. Rhett had an unpleasant flash-back to the camps during the war, to his time in the Yankee prison, which had smelled much as this. His impulse to leave grew stronger.
Yet he stood quietly and waited in the seeming chaos but actual order of the Chief's overflowing office, while a young man in uniform was sent to fetch the prisoner the Chief had wanted him to meet.
A few minutes later, they brought in a handcuffed black man. He was chewing tobacco, and spit out casually at the sight of Rhett. He was tall and muscular, with depthless dark eyes not unlike Rhett's own. He had a pleasant face, creased with laugh-lines, and an astute observer would have suspected that frowning, as he did now, was something he did not do often.
"I don't remember ever having seen him before", Rhett said, honestly, after studying him briefly.
"This is Sal. He works for my sister's husband, who overheard him make some remarks about you. He swears you shot and killed his brother-in-law when you were back in Atlanta after the war."
Rhett raised his eyebrows in quizzical surprise.
"I recall there was an incident outside of a local barroom for which you were charged, and briefly imprisoned, by the Yankee government," Chief Parker stated. "With regards to the shooting of a Negro. Sal here"- he pointed to the black man in handcuffs - "is the brother-in-law of the man who was shot. I gather they never did find out who committed the crime."
Rhett and the man called Sal stared at each other for another brief moment in silence.
"Well?" the Chief said finally. "What have you go to say for yourself, Sal?"
"Ah din' see it but ah knows it wuz this man that killed 'im," the black man stated, evenly. "Ah knows fer a fact Jim had a mouth on 'im, and Ah knows what he sometimes say to white wimmin when 'e was in 'is cups wuzn't right. But it wuz bad times back then. We'd all just been freed but there wuz no work. We were starvin' an' there was nuthin' to eat. My sister 'ad five chillen and when 'he died they had nobody to take care of them no more."
He gave Rhett a level stare, his pleasant face now hard and contemptuous. "My famly takes care of our own, Captain Butler. We done raised those chillen an' they'll live in a better world than Jim did an' make 'em proud. But it ain't easy to make yo way with no father to look after you. You done tore their family apart over somethin' a man said when 'e was drunk and desprat, never mindin' he was a good man with people dependin' on 'im. You could have done lots of things ter put 'im in 'is place but you done shot 'im and you took 'im from 'er and from the chillen and from his Momma who still ain't over it neither."
Rhett didn't reply. He looked at the other man, and his expression, had Scarlett been there to witness it, wasn't unlike it had been that night Atlanta burned, and he had watched the young soldier struggle and fall under too heavy a burden. It was that same look of blinding, desperate insight he had as he now looked into that black face, an insight just as chilling in its emotional intensity, albeit diametrically opposed in content.
This insight negated the other, wiping whatever nobility may have been attached to his eleventh hour enlistment - save only one, and even that had been eroded by time and subsequent events to ethereal nothingness. It was futile to deny that all Causes he had ever fought for had been lost, in more ways than one.
He felt empty. It was a different kind of emptiness than he had carried around as a mantle after Bonnie's death. That emptiness had been the absence of emotion. This emptiness had claws, and knifes.
"I'm sorry," Rhett said, so softly that the other man could barely catch the words.
"I can't fergive you," the other man replied, not even particularly unkindly. "Ah belive that's not fer me ter fergive, but for 'im." He pointed skyward. "But Ah's never 'armed you or yours, and ah don't intends to start."
The silence sank again, this time with an air of finality. The young officer led the prisoner away.
Chief Parker broke the reverie. "I'm inclined to believe him," he said, "and I have no interest in what may or may not have happened to some uppity darky before this administration was even in place. But unfortunately, it means we're back to square one when it comes to our suspects." He sighed. "I hope we will learn something from New Orleans, or …."
Rhett nodded absent-mindedly, the pallor still very visible under his dark skin. It had been a day of reckoning for him – days of reckoning, if one counted the more underhanded but no less successful accusations Dr. Harrison had leveled at him with regards to Scarlett. He needed time to think.
He declined the offer of a carriage ride home, and instead slowly walked through the dusty streets of Atlanta. He had no particular fondness for the city – he had only returned here in the past because it housed Scarlet – but here he was again, deaf and blind to the youthful bustle of a restless people eager to hold on to their meager gains in the midst of the recession.
His steps up Peachtree Street took him past First Baptist Church, and suddenly, on impulse, he walked down the narrow path, opened the door and stepped into the coolness of the interior. He had been an atheist for decades, gradually shedding the remnants of his religious upbringing as he had shed the mores of society. He had seen too much grief and injustice to believe in a benevolent deity, and he didn't intend to start now.
But for some inexplicable reason he now lingered in the shadows of the church, staring at the simple white altar in the semi-darkness.
Behind the altar was a stained glass window of some craftsmanship, depicting the pivotal scene in paradise where Eve hands Adam the apple, the serpent mockingly wrapped around the tree in the background. Below the scene, painted into a rising, then falling bow, were words. "Eritis sicut dii, scientes bonum et malum". You will become like God.
For most of his existence, he had steered clear of guilt, and of its clogging companion, regret. He had refused to believe in absolute mores or absolute values, and refused to be guided by society's dictates. He was forty-six now – no longer a young man.
In the semi-darkness, Rhett sighed. He had been right to reject some of society's edicts. Wrong to embrace others. And worst of all, he had to admit that the choice to embrace, or reject, had been guided by self-interest and vanity, and not by compassion.
And for the first time since Bonnie's death, his eyes were moist with tears.
When he came out into the sunlight, he noted a beggar woman slouched by the gate, rose bushes ranking above her face.
He dug in his pocket and gave her whatever money he found. It felt like a woefully inadequate gesture.
I always wondered about Rhett's casualness with regards to that murder – his readiness in shooting someone who was "uppity to a lady" which he, as a "Southern Gentleman", had to avenge by death. I'm not sure he did it merely because the other guy was black – after all, he mentions just as recklessly shooting a Yankee soldier, and he always craved Mammy's respect. But he never openly rejects slavery, despite his obvious intelligence and ability to recognize people of worth. He is still a product of his upbringing there, unwilling or unable to take that final step.
Rhett was clearly able to see past society's stereotypes when it comes to gender roles. He's ahead of his time there: his money sets up three women in business, Scarlett, Belle and Mrs. Merriwether's bakery, and he has no objection to Scarlett working. So I think he could be made to see the injustice of slavery, and the injustice of his own actions in taking a life when not strictly necessary, if faced with them - as he is here.
Just like Helen, I believe Rhett got away way too easily after Melly's death, and needs to pass through fire, either literally as in Dixie's wonderful story "Where all Roads End", or metaphorically, as in others. And of course, I need a line-up of potential suspects for the shooting.
The Little Mermaid was translated into English in 1872, so it's not completely unlikely that Rhett got ahold of a copy. And to those of you that know the Disney version, it's actually a terribly sad story, the Prince marries someone else and the Mermaid dies, unable to ever proclaim her love.
And again, thank you for your reviews. Each and every one of your words always brighten my day.
