Chapter 10: The Unfortunate Rake

Don't muffle your drums and play your fifes merrily, Play a quick march as you carry me along, And fire your bright muskets all over my coffin, Saying: There goes an unfortunate lad to his home

Rhett had ordered Pork to carry her body up to his bedroom. She lay with her legs crossed and arms outstretched. Her face was puffy from exposure to the water. The undertaker said that it was to be expected. She didn't even look like Bonnie. Weeping, he lay down next to his daughter. She would have been a queen. She would have had everything his money could buy. But she didn't want that! He cursed himself. She wanted me and Scarlett to love her and love each other. And we've failed. In every way we have failed her.

You're no kind of father! He cursed himself. You're no kind of husband, either! You're a disgrace! This child was an angel, a saint. And you wanted defile her and make her a queen. Queen of what?

His voice was so high and shrill it didn't even sound like his own. The effect of it threatened to make him physically sick.

You did this to her! He kissed her cold hand as he castigated himself.

He picked her up as he had done so often when she had been alive and only sleeping, arranging her little head directly over his strong, beating heart.

His eyes began to move over her body. Her nose was not Bonnie's, her ears were not Bonnie's, Rhett thought with fresh desperation. Perhaps this isn't Bonnie at all! Perhaps she is alive somewhere!

The child's eyes opened. They were dark, like little quartz stones. Her gaze met his.

"Where's my Daddy?"

"I'm here, darling. Your Daddy's right here. I won't leave you, I promise."

"My Daddy is dead. He died along with me and Mother. Take me to him!"

"I'm here, Bonnie. I'm right here."

She observed him coldly. "No. I don't know you."

Rhett set her down on the bed and began to rub his eyes frantically, thinking that he was indeed hallucinating. He took one more look at the body, sleeping peacefully as though he had never disturbed it.

"Melanie!" he called, his voice weak. "Let us set the service as soon as possible."

He returned his gaze to the child, who rested on the coverlet. "You're mighty pretty, child. But you're not my Bonnie."

When the little girl awoke, she could not see, so tightly had the bandages been wrapped around her eyes.

"Will she ever look normal, Doc?"

Old Doctor Dean addressed the man. "Only time will tell, sir. Only time will tell."

"You've been sayin' that since we brought her home, Doc. That's been near three months ago."

The child owned a chilling clarity within her mind in which she felt her life divided into two parts: life before her accident and life after it. The life she had led before inclined her to see the man and his wife who had taken her in as enemies. I'm a wicked girl, she thought. And even so, they had been good to her, so she attempted to stifle this inclination and felt terribly ashamed of herself. The man had told her that she had been reborn, given a new start by God Almighty.

"We're fixin' on havin' her baptized next week, once them bandages come off," the man's wife chimed in from above the girl's head.

Doctor Dean said nothing and continued to treat the girl.

"I've a notion to name her Mary Grace," the woman continued. "I always set a store by the name. I do hope she'll be pretty one day."

"She's of God!" the man declared. "I saw her come back to life with my own eyes!"

The doctor's face betrayed a hint of irritation. His voice was impassive and insensitive, his mind already focused on other cases which needed his attention.

"Time will tell," the Doctor parroted. "You should be grateful her health is good. Else she'd never have survived this."

The man lurched up, feeling slightly offended. "God delivered her!"

The Doctor's lips moved convulsively. "Medicine did, my good sir."

The man was clearly ready to strike at the Doctor for his blasphemous speech.

"If you'll excuse me, my good man, I'll come round next week and remove the child's bandages."

"And she'll take and speak then?" the woman asked, her tone accusative.

The Doctor's head moved until his eyes rested upon the little girl in the big bed, her face covered in white plaster. His eyes remained there for a moment before he addressed the woman. A strange sensation of recognition filled Doctor Dean, a feeling which he did not explore further. She was a case, nothing more.

"I do not know, ma'am. Regrettably even we physicians are not granted all the answers."

"I reckon that's the first honest words out of your mouth this day, Doc. Mary Grace here is in the hands of God, Doc…not yours."

"Amen!" said his wife.

Scarlett had awoken with the sense that she had missed an opportunity. She had endured a wild dream in which Rhett was chasing her through a never-ending cloud of mist that reverted very suddenly into her chasing him. He had resisted and given her a mighty blow to the head, and then disappeared into the mists from which he had come. At his disappearance, she had felt the weight of a lofty burden leave her shoulders and she had arisen from her bed filled with arch anticipation. Perhaps today would be the day that he left for good.

Patches of sunlight sifted through the shutters and spattered her pale face with golden color. She stretched and realized that there was no getting out of bed. It was as though she was tied there by an invisible anchor. Rhett entered around ten o'clock. She observed his eyes, hoping to detect something within them which would signal his immanent departure, but there was nothing in them to suggest that a decision had been made.

Scarlett's face paled as he climbed into the bed next to her, kissing her forehead almost tenderly.

"How are you feeling this morning, Mrs. Butler?"

He stretched his long legs out in front of him lazily, ignoring the look of furious impatience upon his wife's face. He wrapped his arms around her, ignoring her groan of pain as he pulled her tightly to him. Her head fit neatly under his chin as though they were two puzzle pieces meant to be set together. Little beads of sweet were forming on her forehead, as though she were being forced to lay there in the intimate way, powerless to do anything but endure his presence.

I must be strong, she willed herself, I must be ready for him to leave me. I won't cry and plead for him to stay. I won't, I won't!

"Mrs. Wilkes has begun her confinement today."

Rhett felt a surge of energy within her body and he cupped her face in his large palm.

"She's going to die." Scarlett groaned, her face contorted in pain.

Automatically, he released his hold on her. "She isn't, Scarlett. And neither are you."

She began to shout frantically, as though she had been completely seized with terror.

"Scarlett!" Rhett's eyes were pleading. "Mammy! The laudanum! Mammy!"

Scarlett continued to struggle against him, but he pushed her down with all his force as the old black woman poured as much of the medicine down her throat as Doctor Meade had allowed. Slowly, her arms began to stop flailing and her black lashed eyes began to close.

Rhett fell to his knees in earnest prayer, watching over his wife with an agonized expression on his face.

"He really loves Mother, doesn't he?" the ginger-haired little girl observed from behind the half-closed door.

"No," the boy, her brother, said quietly. "He's just now realizing that he'll have to go on with life without her…and that's what scares the hell out of him."

A/N: Everybody that has stuck with this story, thanks for the support. It's an acquired taste, this Irish fairytale business. And it's been interesting making each little sub-story analogous to the larger GWTW plot. So, we're in the home stretch. I hope to be concluding this story this week, and then promise to start back work on The Rhett Butler Affair (so all you folks that prefer the standard 'non-metaphorical/allegorical' story, you're in luck)...So, keep reading! Reviews kind of make my day, so...you know the drill!