Chapter Eleven
Rhett headed towards the buffet pavilion; he might as well get something to eat. The afternoon was draining away; soon it would be evening, and the dancing would begin. Rhett was looking forward to it, although he suspected the ballroom would be stuffy and crowded. But he would get to dance with Scarlett, and that would make any amount of stifling discomfort worthwhile.
Whistling tunelessly, he turned the corner of the house and came upon an unexpected scene. A young girl, no more than sixteen, sobbed in the arms of a young man Rhett had no trouble identifying as Beau Wilkes, who stroked her hair to comfort her. Wade scowled at another man, who met his eyes with a studied air of hauteur. Rhett took an immediate dislike to him; since he was a complete stranger, it could logically be inferred that he was one of the bridegroom's English relatives.
"Penelope is a nice girl, from a good family, not some trolllop you can treat as you please," Wade was saying, his voice precise and very cold. "Though even a trollop would probably object to being handled as roughly as you handled poor Penny. If it weren't for the fact that this is my sister's wedding day, I would thrash you to within an inch of your life, and consider it a deed well-done. If her father had seen this, you would quite probably be dead, sir, and if Penny decides to tell him, that may still happen. Certainly I won't raise a hand to prevent it, so be warned."
"You expect me to be afraid of some – some backwoodsman?" the young man sniffed. "Why, none of them would dare to touch a member of the Kemp family of Lancashire!"
"I assure you, you're wrong," Rhett said, stepping forward, hoping to talk some sense into the young Englishman. "Some of these men would just as soon kill you as not, just for being a foreigner, and even the ones who don't feel that strongly about it wouldn't put up with you manhandling a nice girl."
"And who are you?"
"My name is Captain Rhett Butler."
Evidently the man recognized it, but not in a way that encouraged him to be sensible. "The one who used to be married to that pretty strumpet who's the bride's mother? The one who divorced -" Rhett's fist meeting his jaw silenced whatever other offensive words might have been uttered. The man fell backward and lay still.
"Cousin Rupert, I assume?" Rhett said
"Rodney," Wade corrected gravely, though his lips quivered as though he held back a smile. "The one who looks like a walrus. Personally, I think his family sent him here to get rid of him; man's an embarrassment. If they can force him to stay in this country, they'll probably make him a remittance man, more's the pity. I'd prefer to see him starve, myself."
"He does seem an unpleasant character," Rhett agreed. "And what he was saying about your mother was completely unacceptable."
"Oh, I agree entirely," Wade said. "If you hadn't done it, I was going to hit him myself. Penny, are you all right?"
The girl sniffled, but pulled away from Beau. "I-I'm fine, sir. Just a little shaken up, and my dress is stained -" There were indeed grass stains all along the hem, and at the knees. Evidently, the cad had knocked the girl down, and Rhett felt a grim satisfaction that he had hit him.
Briskly, he turned to Beau. "Can you get your Aunt Scarlett's attention, privately? Tell her that she's needed here, alone?"
Beau nodded grimly. "I can. I'll be back in a minute." Gently he set the girl aside, then turned and headed toward the reception pavilion, barely visible around the corner of the house.
"Scarlett will be able to provide you with a change of clothing, I expect," Rhett said to Penelope. "Knowing her as well as I do, I imagine she has dozens of dresses. I can't see her doing without an extensive wardrobe, somehow," Rhett said. "So the next question, Wade, is what to do with him?" Rhett jabbed Cousin Rodney lightly in the rib with the toe of his boot.
Wade sighed. "It would please me if we could toss him in the river like a piece of garbage, but obviously, that isn't really feasible. I'd like to keep him quiet until the end of the evening, though, for Ella's sake. He's just the type who would make a public scene."
"Well, let's do it then. We'll tie and gag him, and leave one of the servants with him so he won't choke to death on his own vomit. Put him in one of the old slave cabins, blindfolded, so he won't know who did it. Let him go once Ella and her husband have left."
Wade looked at Rodney with a critical eye, then smiled at Rhett. "Sounds good to me," he said cheerfully. "It's certainly no more than he deserves."
By the time Beau returned with Scarlett, Wade had found some rope and proceeded to truss the British guest up quite thoroughly. Hearing the story, Scarlett only sighed. "All right, but make sure one of the servants stays with him every moment, " she told them. "We can't afford to have him die; that would bring too much scrutiny down on us. Come, Penny, darling; let's allow the gentleman to attend to the trash, and we'll find you something else to wear."
The two women went into the house, and Scarlett noticed the shyly admiring way Penny glanced at Beau. Before they had even gotten into the house, Scarlett made her decision; having analyzed everything she knew about Penny and her family's economic status, she believed the girl would be perfect for Beau. The only question was a matter of character, and by the time they had selected a dress, Scarlett had a pretty clear idea about that, as well.
First, she tempted her with dresses. Scarlett herself, at Penny's age, would have loved to have the entire wardrobe of an older but still attractive woman to explore. Penny, however, looked overwhelmed, and even when Scarlett carelessly waved a hand at her wardrobe and said, "Go ahead, dear. Anything you like," her movement towards the opulent clothing was hesitant.
What Penny eventually chose was a plain day dress of ivory silk, with a neckline that had only a slight scoop – it showed no buzzum, as Mammy would have said – and tiny capped sleeves that would show off her arms and make her neck look longer. 'Modest,' Scarlet thought, 'and yet, it suits her well. She has a good sense of style.'
By the time she had helped the younger girl to wash her face and brush out her hair, Scarlett had decided that Penny would be perfect for Beau... if, that is Beau could be persuaded to see it. Men could be so contrary about things like that, and Penny, with her warm hazel eyes and fine brown hair, was not as flashy as some of the other girls. By the time the two women emerged into the bright afternoon sunlight, Scarlett had a plan for that, as well.
Scarlett and Penny met the three men also headed back towards the reception. "Are you certain no one noticed you?" Scarlett asked Rhett.
"As certain as one can be. Wade took us the back way, the way no one but the servants ever uses, so we should be good. We got Burl to watch him; he's a good boy, dependable. He won't let anything happen."
The heat of an August afternoon was giving away to the softer glow of evening, and between them and the pavilion, couples could be seen strolling arm and arm, enjoying the breeze that usually came up an hour or so before sunset. Little groups formed, merged temporarily, then re-arranged themselves in what seemed like an endless kaleidoscope of patterns; with a knowledgable eye, Scarlett saw that several of the young ladies were using that flexibility to bring themselves to the attention of the gentlemen they had chosen.
Penny wasn't one of that kind, however. She had fallen silent once they were back in the company of the young men, leaving Scarlett and Wade to carry much of the burden of the conversation. Scarlet had seen her give Beau another of those shy looks of admiration, however, so she felt quite justified in drawing Beau aside as they came to the pavilion.
"Beau, could you do your Aunt Scarlett a big favor?" she asked, giving him her best smile.
"I can try, Aunt Scarlett," Beau said warily. "What is it you want me to do?"
"Well, when I was helping Penny to change out of her stained clothing, I noticed that she seems rather shaken up by her experience with that dreadful man. Not that I can blame her; Great Balls of Fire, it would be enough to shake anyone's nerves! So could you be a dear and keep an eye on her this afternoon? Make sure she eats, and meets people, and doesn't have time to dwell on things? Maybe even dance with her at the ball?"
Beau looked relieved. Aunt Scarlett, he knew from experience, was capable of asking for perfectly outrageous and impossible things, but this was simple. "Of course, Aunt, I'd be glad to," he told her.
"Thank you so much, darling," she told him as she slipped past him into the pavilion to take up her hostess duties.
The ballroom at Tara had once seemed like the largest possible place to hold a dance. The Scarlett who had danced in some of the finest ballrooms in London, smiled a bit wistfully at the thought of that other, younger Scarlett, the one who had not yet experienced war, or poverty, or heartbreak. Then she sniffed at her own silliness as she greeted still more of the arriving guests with practiced smiles and air kisses.
That other, younger Scarlett had not experienced real joy, either, or selfless heroism, or true love. She had been spoiled, and selfish, and more than a bit foolish. Given a choice, all the older Scarlett really envied was that seventeen-inch waist; nowadays, if she tried to lace tighter than twenty-one inches, she saw black spots in front of her eyes. Scarlett was not sentimental, and would waste no more time thinking of the past...
Except Rhett was here.
Even as she stood in the receiving line beside Ella and her new husband (oh, and she was a mother-in-law, now; wasn't that a hoot?), her eyes followed Rhett in the crowd. He was taller than most men here, and one could usually see his dark hair from anywhere in the room, but even when the crowd temporarily hid him from view, she discovered that she had no trouble finding him. As if he were true north and she the needle of a compass, she could sense his presence, and pinpoint his location within seconds.
She had not expected that.
She thought she was over him.
She had been over him, dammit! She had moved on, she had married another man and lived happily with him, proudly bearing him two children, and when he died, she had thought she might die, too, so deep and real was her grief.
But she had not died. She had lived, and here she was, in a crowded room with Rhett Butler, and even when he was hidden from her view behind one of the pillars, or a particularly large knot of people, even then, she knew exactly where he was. And what, precisely, was she going to do about that?
She had always thought that if she met Rhett again, it would be with the indifferent civility of old acquaintances, who no longer had strong feelings of any kind for each other. They had moved on; anything else was absurd to imagine.
Wasn't it?
The receiving line ended; it was time to begin the dancing. The bride and groom would start the waltzing; after they had circled the floor twice, the mothers would join in with their chosen partners (neither Ella nor Justin had a living father), then gradually, the rest of the guests. Scarlett had asked Wade to partner her; it seemed only right, and would offer occasion no for gossip or speculation. As the music began, she saw his familiar and beloved form coming toward her, and she waited, watching Ella and Justin. They looked so well and so happy together, he with his gleaming blond head, she with such lovely auburn hair. She had made a beautiful bride, Scarlett thought proudly. She only hoped her daughter's married life would be blessed, as well.
Wade was beside her now, holding out his hand. Before she could take it, however, a suave voice that she knew like the sound of her own breath said, "My dance, I believe, Mrs Fontaine."
When she looked into his dark eyes, she knew that the amused smile he wore was only a cover. A refusal from her now would hurt him. She hesitated – not long enough to injure, only long enough emphasize that she could have, and knew it – then she placed her hand in his, and they began to dance.
One of the arts that a fiction writer struggles for is timing; the sense of when to begin, and end, a particular scene, and all I can say it, this scene is over. It took me just as much by surprise as it may be taking you, and disappointed me as much, for I had a whole page of notes on witty things they were going to say to each other, and foreshadowing of future events and all of those lovely tricks that writers try to get into, and none of that matters. Because:This. Scene. Is. Over.
I'm truly sorry. The muse has spoken, and I can't afford not to listen, 'cause she's a real *itch when I ignore her.
Review. If you hate that the scene ended there, let me know; if you review by profile name, I'll write back and try to explain it in more detail. You can throw (metaphorical) rotten tomatoes at me, and I'll be glad to listen. Scarlett and Rhett are going to get their opportunity to talk, just... not tonight. Again, all comments welcome.