Clayton County, Georgia, June 1874
"Don't dawdle," Scarlett snapped at Prissy as they stepped down from the train and moved briskly across the worn planking of Jonesboro station's platform.
Scarlett had sent a telegram from the Atlanta depot just that morning. If no one had received the message, Scarlett would just have to find someone willing to drive them out to Tara. There was bound to be at least one familiar face to ask for help.
Out front of the station, Will Benteen was waiting in the same rickety old wagon.
"How has this old thing not fallen to pieces yet?" Scarlett asked sharply as she settled her skirts about her on the sagging bench. Prissy clambered up in the back with the luggage and Will settled down next to her, his familiar long straw between his teeth.
"It's sturdier than it looks, Scarlett, and it's nice to see you as well."
"Oh - fiddle dee dee, of course I'm happy to see you, Will. You're looking well. How are Suellen and the children?"
"We're all doing just fine, though a mite tired with the new baby in the house."
"Of course," Scarlett murmured. She had sent a package full to bursting with baby things, and then completely forgotten about her new nephew. The Benteens' first son. She couldn't remember the baby's name. "And how is the baby?"
Will beamed in a completely unprecedented and uncharacteristic way as he told her all about his new son. Baby Robert's every wriggle was a sure sign of prodigious capabilities - ah, she remembered now, remembered rolling her eyes at Robert Lee and vaguely regretting that her own boy was also named for one of the men who had led the South into ruin. As Will rambled on, still with the wide smile that did not match his laconic Cracker drawl, Scarlett thought if she only had another baby - oh, if she'd only had that baby, the one they'd lost, for she possessed a certainty that had strengthened to nearly religious fervor in the intervening years that she would have had a son. She would not have named him after the South's failed heroes. Perhaps, as Bonnie had been named for Queens, their son would have been named for a King - for the Kings of Ireland! He would have been such a strong boy, in need of a strong name. If Rhett would only be willing to try again—
Scarlett was grateful that the wooded path to Tara kept their faces in shadow. Making sure Will's eyes were on the road, she hurriedly raised her right hand to dash the tears from her cheeks. It was silly to think such things. It was useless to look back.
Suellen was rocking the baby on the porch with her daughters playing in the front yard when the wagon rolled up to the plantation house. Will helped Scarlett down to the packed earth of the drive. Prissy made herself scarce, leaving the luggage for other help. The useless girl!
Scarlett smiled sweetly at her younger sister as she sashayed toward the porch steps. Her nieces clustered at her skirts, greeting her with exuberant voices. She kissed each on the forehead, but when she failed to provide presents, the girls returned to their games.
"You're looking well, Sue," Scarlett said with too much honey in her tone. Sue rocked, as if the motion of the chair constituted an acknowledging nod.
"So this is baby Robert?" Scarlett continued, her smile tightening with gritted teeth. Dutifully, she leaned over the small bundle in her sister's arms. The baby was pale, already washed out like his father, with wispy hair that lay pinkish on his soft scalp and faint brows that were barely visible. He was awake, his eyes open and still newborn blue, but given the rest of his coloring Scarlett figured they would pale to the color of sun-bleached sky, like his father's. "He's already such a handsome little boy," she flattered.
"Thank you, Scarlett," her sister responded evenly.
Scarlett stroked a finger gently down the naked arm that waved free of his light cotton blankets, and the baby caught her finger in his tiny fist. Her mouth went dry and her stomach convulsed. She slid her finger easily from the baby's grasp and quickly took a rocking chair across from Suellen.
Suellen's face was bland, her eyebrow quirking and smoothing so rapidly it might have been a trick of the sunlight through the leaves of a tree. "How are your children, Scarlett? Did you leave them in Atlanta?"
Although the tone was smooth and sweet, years of experience with Suellen had taught Scarlett to recognize better, but she refused to rise to the bait.
"Rhett took them to Philadelphia. They're opening a zoo there and he thought the children would enjoy it."
"But not you?" Suellen cooed, the corners of her pale mouth twitching.
Scarlett could not - and would not - explain it to her sister, so she shrugged as if the separation was of no importance. She hoped, if she seemed not to care, it would appear that she had not been interested in the trip - and not that she had not been invited. "They'll join me here in a few weeks."
Suellen scowled openly. It rankled her that Scarlett came and went as she pleased, rusticating for pleasure but free to return to the cosmopolitan city - and all her attached wealth - whenever she chose. But Scarlett had as much ownership in Tara as she did, and Suellen knew as well as her sister and husband that without Scarlett's unfaltering support over the years, Tara would not be supporting any O'Haras. They might have held on to the property without Scarlett's money, but it would be a ruin, not a productive farm. Unable to take on that quarrel, Sue cast her mind about for another angle of attack.
"And Captain Butler? Will your husband be joining us? He never has been out to Tara, has he."
Scarlett's green eyes flashed. "Rhett's a very busy man. I'm not sure he can stay long."
"However did he find the time to take the children to Philadelphia?" Suellen questioned with wide-eyed innocence. "Oh, well, it's a pity he couldn't have balanced the trip to spend more time here with you...all."
Scarlett looked away across the lawn and set the chair to rocking, too quickly. This had all happened so fast - Rhett's trip with the children, her decision to go to Tara - her request for him to bring the children here. She had not thought this through. Would he deposit the children on the doorstep and leave immediately? What ammunition that would give Suellen! Yet it might be better than the alternative - what if he did intend to stay at Tara? Where would he sleep?
All of Atlanta had gossiped about the shameful truth of her marriage bed, known of the separate bedrooms and the scandalous proof of it in the somehow well-known fact that Bonnie had slept in her father's room. It was too much to hope that Suellen, even out here at Tara, might have remained ignorant. Even if no vindictive correspondent had exposed her in a letter, Suellen had been there for that terrible time after Bonnie's death, been in the house when Rhett had locked himself away from everyone, in his own bedroom, with Bonnie. Sue was too keen in her jealousy and malice toward Scarlett not to have noticed. But Scarlett couldn't ask for a separate bedroom to be made up for Rhett at Tara. Knowing what was still, after all, a rumor, as no polite conversation could be had to verify it, was entirely different than acknowledging it in the open with such a request.
Her stomach fluttered so rapidly she couldn't help but touch a palm to her belly, as if the firm pressure might calm her. She was torn between nerves and giddy anticipation, and wanted no part of either feeling. What if Rhett did stay at Tara - what if he stayed with her?
It was too wonderful, and too dreadful, to contemplate. They hadn't shared a room in years, half a decade, hadn't fallen asleep in the same bed except for that one time - and he had been gone in the morning, taking most of her foolish, tentative hopes with him. And what hope had remained, what little she had clung to as that new life had grown within her, had been bitterly and painfully lost upon his return. It would be foolish to hope now. Rhett's feelings were clear as mud to her, his motivations and actions confusing and misleading. She couldn't begin to guess at him. What would he do?
If he stayed, what would she do?
Scarlett felt the slight quaver of the floorboards under her feet just before a familiar voice said, "Miss Sue, time fo' dat baby to be sleepin."
"Mammy!" Scarlett cried, turning her head back to her sister as their old caregiver bent stiffly to take the baby boy. Scarlett couldn't help the hot flare of anger and jealousy that fired her cheeks with color. What about her own children? Mammy had left them in Atlanta for supposed retirement out here at Tara - if she could still care for Suellen's brats, why had she left Wade and Ella? Why had she left her, Scarlett? Her mouth tightened into a mulish line.
"Aft'noon, Miss Scarlett. Been too long, chile, too long since you come to see yo old Mammy. What you makin' such a sour face for?"
With an effort, Scarlett curled her lips into a more pleasing smile, full of docile sweetness - a smile too familiar to Mammy, who saw through most of her deceptions and charms.
"It has been too long, Mammy, but now that I'm here, I hope to stay the whole summer. If it's not too much trouble," she added, simpering at Suellen, who scowled but did not protest.
"Didn't you bring yo babies to come see ole Mammy?"
"Wade and Ella are in Philadelphia with Rhett. They'll be here in a few weeks."
Mammy's eyes sharpened but Scarlett kept her face purposefully placid, and the old black lady harrumphed. "Philadelphie! Cain't be good for those chirren to be spendin' time up North, I don't know what Cap'n Butler thinkin', takin' those babies up there. And Philadelphie a Yankee city!" Mammy's voice became harder to hear as she shuffled back in the house, but she kept up her monologue, switching now to her old, familiar ruse of criticisms under her breath that could not be acknowledged and therefore, neither rebuked nor denied. "Takin' those babies up North, and leavin' their momma down here. I jes' dunno what Cap'n Butler be thinkin, doin a thing like that, when I know sho as everyone else he ain't been spending near enough time at home of late..."
Scarlett's sweet expression darkened into a scowl before the door had swung shut behind Mammy.
"I see she's not too old to take care of your baby," Scarlett snapped, rounding on Suellen who continued to rock placidly. "I let her come home to retire, and here you are making her work again!"
"I'm not making her do anything, Scarlett. She wants to help with the baby. Been a long time since she had a baby to take care of."
"She's old. She needs to rest. You shouldn't let -"
"Why should I stop her from helping me with one of my babies? Didn't she raise all three of your children? She didn't come home to retire, Scarlett, she came home because she was broken hearted when your daughter died. More broken hearted than you, as far as I could tell, and no wonder since she did more raising of that child than you ever -"
Scarlett's firm slap spun Suellen's head to one side and the sound rang clearly in the still country air. The three little girls on the lawn stopped their tea party and turned as one to stare, open-mouthed, at their mother and aunt, both now standing on the porch.
"Don't you ever talk about Bonnie," Scarlett hissed, before turning on her heel and escaping into the white house.
Up in her room, her old, familiar room, Scarlett sank heavily on to the threadbare coverlet on her soft mattress. It gave easily beneath her slight weight. She toed the rag rug beside the bed, bent to unlace her boots and, tugging them off, pressed her stockinged feet into the thick knots. The rug was soft from long use.
The bed was smaller than her bed at home, the bed that had once been theirs. It was hard to remember what it was like to share a bed with Rhett, and hard to picture him in this sanctuary. In her memory, he loomed so large that it seemed impossible he would fit, even alone.
Scarlett wiped angrily at the wet on her cheeks. Suellen's words, thoughts of Rhett and beds, it all led back to Bonnie. A year barely gone and it did not feel any different. There had been no magical moment of relief granted by that bitter anniversary.
How dare Suellen! Scarlett pushed herself off the bed and started to pace. Suellen had three little girls all healthy and strong, her new baby boy; kind, loving, dependable Will for a husband. She had no idea, and never had, what Scarlett had sacrificed and suffered for her family - including Suellen! Hadn't it all begun back in the dark days at Tara during the war? Hadn't she worked all day long, bent over rows of cotton in the burning sun, worked her fingers bloody and raw? They had all looked to her for answers, barely a girl herself and responsible for feeding and clothing and protecting the slaves and the children and her sisters, and Gerald, and Melanie. She had married Frank to save them all - given up her own home to keep the roof over their heads! And the work had never ended, ever; it was never enough to make sure her family would stay safe.
Suellen had no idea. She had lived off Scarlett's strength and charity; her sister's life and livelihood were secure because she, Scarlett, had made it so. Scarlett jerked up the bedroom window, opening it to what little breeze stirred the July fug, then strode across the room again.
As she paced, Scarlett's fingers were busy on the buttons of her bodice, tugging them free until she could shrug it off and pull at the ties and hooks of her skirt. She threw the clothes carelessly over the bench at the dressing table. She bent her arms awkwardly behind her back to tug at the laces of her corset.
Suellen was an ungrateful bitch. Scarlett stopped, unhooked her busk, tossed the corset after her dress. "Ungrateful bitch," she hissed out loud. It made her feel better, took some of the stress and tension from her shoulders. She stood up straighter and rolled her shoulders comfortably. Bending, she untied her garters with quick tugs and slipped the stockings from her calves as she stepped over to the bed. She shoved the coverlet off the foot and crawled up on the clean, soft sheets. Laying back, her carefully pinned hairstyle poked her head uncomfortably. She looked up at the ceiling as she pulled pins from her head and collected them in the dip above her chemise-covered belly button. She ran her fingers through her hair to make sure all the pins were out, then gathered them in one hand and carefully poured them into a puddle on the floor. Scarlett punched the pillow and flopped back down.
Suellen wouldn't spoil this. She was home, her children would be joining her, she had time until then to rest - and think. Her husband might come to stay.
No, she wouldn't let Suellen spoil anything about this summer.
...
In the middle of the night, Scarlett jerked awake with pounding heart and tear-damp face. Her afternoon nap had left her feeling rested; too rested. Her sleep too easily disturbed. Familiarity had not made the dream any easier to bear in the dreaming, but instead of clinging to fear when she awoke she was resigned. Resigned to the interruption, to the loss of sleep as her mind struggled to avoid the dream by staying awake despite her conscious wishes. Resigned to the grim feeling of loss which unfurled emptiness in her breast, and that never lessened for familiarity. The fears were too strong, too current. It seemed all too believable that she might be striving forever after a man who would never again turn back for her.
The late afternoon and evening had passed uneventfully. No one mentioned Suellen's cruel comments on the porch. Her sister didn't apologize, but perhaps she realized no apology would have been accepted. Supper had been cordial between the adults and dominated by eager questions from the girls. Grateful for an excuse not to converse, no one had reprimanded the children for speaking out of turn.
The sight of Suellen's baby in Mammy's arms still made her heart quail and blanched her face, but Scarlett had held her tongue.
Sighing, Scarlett rolled toward the window and slipped her arms beneath her pillow. The moon was low and bright, shining strongly into her bedroom. It was only days away from being full; it would probably have reached that peak state by the time her children arrived in Philadelphia. Would it wane and wax and grow full again before she had her family home?
"God bless the moon, and God bless me," she whispered, an old snippet of verse half-remembered from her father, and wished fervently for some measure of blessing in her life.
...
With Suellen's accumulated bitterness temporarily expunged by her first barrage of insults, the sisters were able to live together peacefully if not exactly harmoniously - mostly, by avoiding each other.
Scarlett spent morning hours shut up in her mother's old study, reading the accounts from the store and writing detailed notes directing Hugh in its management. She reluctantly set work aside when Mammy came to scold her to dinner. Tara never failed to invigorate her, and after the midday meal she would set out with Will to see the fields, walk the verge of the Flint River on her own, or take her calm old mare out along the familiar paths and trails of her youth. Out in the County, on her own land, work was easily forgotten. The pulse of the world around her had a familiar rhythm which was a balm unto her busy mind.
Tara was calm; too calm, without Ella's constant, disordered interruptions. She missed her daughter, as she had never cared to before. But, she tried to defend to herself, I've never really been away from her before. Not like Bonnie, when Rhett took her away. Though it made her uncomfortable, she had to admit to herself with that sometimes deplorable streak of innate honesty that she wouldn't have missed Ella before. Ella was still flighty and annoying, but a bright spot of loving optimism between Wade's anger and Rhett's indifference.
Scarlett despaired of Wade during her long afternoons. She hoped the gift of this trip with his stepfather might help, but it was just as possible if not even more likely that he would come home even angrier, unwilling to be left behind by Rhett, left to stay with her and unhappy about it still. She allowed herself a futile moment to wish she hadn't given up on him in those months when Rhett had taken Bonnie, hadn't allowed his shyness to rebuff her and his animation in Melanie's company to hurt her. If she had known how to reach him then, perhaps he wouldn't be so very far now.
More than anything, Scarlett thought of Rhett, but though she had come to understand him better in September, it was not an insight that helped her now. "Not yet," he had said, but she didn't know what to make of those words. Was afraid to pin any hopes on them at all.
A clumsily written card from Ella arrived with the mail. The note made scarce mention of the zoo but presented an encyclopedia of ice cream flavors she had tried. There was nothing from Wade, but Rhett had added a concise postscript, squeezed in tiny script at the bottom of the card: "Everyone well. Join you at Tara before August." She cursed the lack of grammar in the note which made it impossible to guess if he included himself in that statement.
...
Charleston, South Carolina, July 1874
"Why don't we stay here?" Wade asked with a poor, unpracticed imitation of nonchalance during their last supper in Charleston.
"This is not your home, Wade," Rhett answered. He allowed himself a sideways glance down the table to his mother, but her face was just as bland as his own best mask.
"But it's your home now, isn't it?"
"No, it is not," Rhett replied, neither a lie nor the truth.
"But you've been away from Atlanta. You don't live with us anymore."
Rhett did not need to see his mother's face to know how hollow his excuses and denials had become. "I have had business in Charleston, Wade. That is all. I've been back in Atlanta—"
"But you don't live there. Most of your things aren't in your room." Wade lifted his chin defiantly with this casual confession of snooping. His emphasis on "your room" was obvious.
"That's enough, Wade. I promised your mother not to keep you both away too long. It's time to go home."
"But that's not my home! I don't want to go back. Please, Uncle Rhett," he pleaded, his voice cracking, "can't I live with you?"
"You have a home in Atlanta," Rhett said, sidestepping the question of his own home and where exactly that was without finesse.
Wade's face grew stormy. "I hate it there. I hate her!"
"Wade Hampton!" Rhett barked, his voice louder and harsher than he had ever used with her children. He ripped his napkin from his lap and slapped it on the table with a heavy smack. Ella, whose unwatched face had been screwing up as her lower lip trembled, suddenly burst into a wailing sob. Eleanor pushed her chair back with a scrape.
"Come, Ella, let's go get you ready for bed, darling," Eleanor soothed, helping the little girl to unsteady feet. Eleanor cast a knowing look at Rhett over Ella's crinkled ginger curls, understanding but with a hard twinge in the corner of her eyes that also cut a subtle warning. Eleanor had too many years of practice at sheltering distraught younger siblings while parental rage had broken over a defiant black head.
Ella's eyes skewed wildly between her brother and her stepfather, but she clutched Eleanor's hand and let herself be led from the room.
Wade shoved his chair back from the table, but if he had intended to storm out of the room the blackness in Rhett's face stopped him short. He crossed his arms over his skinny chest and glared at his stepfather with a force that appeared almost alien in the usually soft brown eyes Rhett had never seen as anything other than placid.
"You are out of line, Wade, to talk about your mother like that."
"What do you care," Wade muttered.
"She deserves your respect, Wade. Even when she isn't here. She has worked hard - as hard as any man, and harder than most - your entire life to protect you, to provide for you."
"Aunt Melanie took care of us."
Rhett sighed heavily. This wasn't his place - wasn't any sort of discussion he wished to be having. Wade's question was too perceptive. What did he care?
"Your Aunt Melanie was a very special woman, son, and I know you spent a lot of time in her care. I know she - she was not like Scarlett. No two women could have ever been more different than your mother and Aunt Melly, but they both loved you. Your mother loves you. She doesn't show it like Aunt Melly, but that does not mean she loves you any less. Wade, I don't think you realize, you might not be alive if it was not for all the hard work your Mother put in during the war, the risks she took to get you - and your Aunt, and Beau - out of Atlanta."
"I don't care," Wade said, with pubescent irrational stubbornness. "I want to stay with you."
"And I am going to Atlanta, and to Tara."
"But you're not staying," Wade disdained. "I want to go with you."
Was he staying? Would he ever? Could—
"You belong wi—"
"No!" Wade yelled. "I hate her, I don't belong there, everyone hates me and talks about her and - and - and you," he confessed. "I know you left us. Raoul said it. He said I should be ready for a new stepfather because you're going to divorce her."
"I am not going to divorce your mother," Rhett promised, surprised that it came with the smooth confidence of truth.
No, whatever else he might or might not feel, he knew at least he couldn't go through with that. This neither here nor there arrangement, back and forth under the pretense of keeping down the gossip, was not a solution, but neither would be divorce. He had to stay away or stop running, but he had tried both before and failed. He wasn't sure which cliff to pick the second time around, but he knew he wouldn't walk away again if nothing - no one - was there to break the fall.
"The other boys—" Wade hesitated.
"Ah," Rhett said. The other boys were always the worst, your peers more capable than anyone else at cutting into fragile pride. "It takes a lot of courage not to listen to what the other boys say; or to listen carefully and make your own decisions, especially if they are contrary to what your friends are doing." Some of the anger had faded from Wade's face, loosening the clench of his jaw and the tightness around his eyes. He hung on Rhett's every word. "I have always known you to be a very brave boy, son. I was there, when you were barely more than a baby, the night we all fled Atlanta." Well, the boy had been pitiably terrified, but he had survived. In a way, that took bravery enough.
"They talk about Mother."
"And do you believe them?"
"I - yes - I don't know."
"You know your mother much better than anyone else, who hasn't lived with her for twelve years."
"But you're gone," Wade said. Rhett understood. If some things were true, things Wade didn't understand, how could he tell the difference?
Rhett's head felt heavy and leaden, and he fought the urge to drop it into his hands and give up. He must hold out until Wade was appeased.
"Wade, there are - things - between your mother and me that you cannot understand. I am taking you home to Tara. I cannot promise to stay, but I will come back."
Wade's face crumpled and he flushed with embarrassment as he began to cry. Rhett stood and went to his stepson, pulled the boy gently from his chair and into his arms. Wade sobbed into his chest.
"I want to stay with you," Wade said jerkily, fighting his tears. Rhett let him cry until his tears had dried up. He put his hands on Wade's shoulders firmly and, bending, looked him in the eye.
"Your place is with your mother, Wade. She loves you very much. I want you to think about that when the other boys, or anyone else, talks about her. I want you to make your own decisions."
Wade wiped his leaking nose with his fist. Rhett smiled with reminiscent mockery as he let go of Wade's shoulder with one hand to offer him a handkerchief. "What about you, sir?" Wade sniffed.
"Blow your nose," Rhett said, and Wade complied. "You can write me any time. Send a telegram; if your mother takes on over the cost," he chuckled, "tell her I'm good for it."
"I -" Wade began, not yet willing to give up, as stubborn as his mother. But Rhett's face was set, and Wade sighed. "Thank you," he mumbled.
"I'm think it's time for bed now," Rhett said gently.
"Yes, sir."
Rhett leaned against the railing at the foot of the stairs, one arm wrapped casually around the newel post, watching Wade trudge upstairs to bed. Once the boy was out of sight down the hall, he turned to go back to the dining room for a nightcap - or seven - but the quiet noise of a throat being cleared arrested his motion and drew his reluctant attention to the parlor.
Eleanor Butler stood in the warm glow of lamplight just inside the threshold. She raised one elegant silver brow in a gesture that somehow communicated amusement, command, and judgement all at the same time. Rhett grit his teeth and moved in her direction instead, and followed her graceful gesture to one of the dainty chairs that he had sent her last Christmas.
Rhett stretched his legs out and crossed them at the ankle. He forced himself not to fidget, not to feel like he was a boy again preparing for his mother's gentle chastisement that had always been far more effective than his father's overbearing brute force. He gave his mother a level glance, but he was no longer a boy; he had more than enough patience to hold his tongue until she made the opening move.
"Wade is unhappy," Eleanor said, driving right to the heart without pleasantries.
Rhett sighed and planted his feet flat on the floor, leaning forward to bracket his forearms against his thighs. "I can see that."
"Hmm," Eleanor murmured. "Did you, before tonight?"
Rhett scowled down at his hands. "He wanted to come with when I - left Atlanta in April. I thought he was restless because Beau Wilkes was moving away. His cousin," Rhett explained. "Melanie's son."
"Hmm," Eleanor hummed again. Rhett raised his head to smirk at her.
"Are you composing a song, Mother?" It was Eleanor's turn to scowl. Rhett smiled openly in return.
"Rhett. I've held my tongue because I did not want to meddle in your life. You're a grown man, and I haven't had a say in your affairs for almost thirty years." Rhett sat back in the chair, his brows lowering. "You've spent more time here than at home this year - no, Rhett, this is not your home," Eleanor said with more snap to her voice as he sat up, mouth open, ready to interject. "You aren't happy, either, darling. You are at loose ends. You claim Wade as a son - well, your son needs you at home. And, I dare say, your wife might appreciate you there as well."
Rhett stood and paced to the tall front windows. "You do not know what you are talking about, Mother."
"No, I do not, you are quite right. I do not know, because you have never shared that part of your life with me. I have met your wife exactly once, when you both were so overthrown by grief it hurt to look at you. But I know you have a wife, and two children - stepchildren you have always claimed as your own. Rhett, I don't care what has happened, but you belong with your family. Darling," Eleanor said more softly, coming to lay a hand on Rhett's arm, "your father cast you out of this family. You had no say in the matter. Why would you throw away your own family?"
"I left Scarlett."
The room was silent for a long moment in the wake of Rhett's gravely voiced confession.
"Rhett?" Eleanor's quiet question barely broke the stillness.
"I left Scarlett last September. She would not - will not - agree to a divorce. I told her I would come back to Atlanta often enough to keep the gossip down."
Eleanor removed her hand from her son's arm.
"It is - complicated. Our lives - our life together. Scarlett…" Rhett sighed heavily.
"Are you happier?"
"Mother—"
"I see an unhappy man, Rhett. Did leaving Scarlett make you happier?"
"So much has happened. Melanie's death - Bonnie…"
"What comfort is there in the world for your daughter's death, if you can not find any in the arms of your own wife - her mother?"
Rhett turned his head from the window to face her. He moved with slow restraint, but the savagery in his eyes sent a chill down Eleanor's spine. She took an involuntary step backwards.
"Scarlett has no comfort. After Bonnie's death, she blamed me. She told me I killed my little girl. She is cruel, callous - self-centered - she -" Rhett stopped abruptly, and his expression cooled. His eyes became hooded. "I'm sorry, Mother."
"Rhett, I don't know your wife, but I know you. Are you happier?"
Rhett turned back to the window. After a minute with no answer, Eleanor crossed the room to leave. At the door to the hall, she paused and looked back at his stark silhouette.
"Rhett, you are always welcome in my home. You are my son. Your father's actions could not change that, nothing will change that. I look only to your own happiness, darling."
Rhett's head jerked in a nod, and Eleanor turned away.
When his mother's footsteps had faded, he went back to the dining room and helped himself to a generous pour of the brandy on her sideboard. He would have preferred whisky; his flask was upstairs. Rhett stood at the foot of the long table and sipped the sweet, fiery liquor.
The servants had cleared the table and extinguished the lamp. In the dark, he let his mind relax, let the ghosts surface. The grace of Melanie was a whisper against his soul. He saw his father, tight-lipped and red-eyed, always disappointed in him. Bonnie - his dearest, his daughter, the light that had gone out of the world. And in his mind's eye, frightening for the strength of the apparition, he saw Scarlett seated at the head of the table. Her stubborn chin was lifted as regally as a queen's. He tried to force disdain into the eyes of his vision, to curl her lip with loathing. He tried and failed to control his own subconscious. He saw instead her cheeks flushed pink, her mouth parted, her eyes soft and limpid - saw her as she had been when they were at their own dining room table in the middle of the night, on the anniversary of their daughter's death. He closed his eyes to banish the ghosts, but was overpowered by memory, the sensation so strong he could feel her warm palm against his cheek. He turned his head into the empty air.
Rhett opened his eyes and set the unfinished brandy glass down. Tomorrow he would bring her children home.
Not a lot to say about this update, except that I love Will Benteen and I think my characterizations of both him and Suellen are colored by the Scarlett miniseries. I enjoy some of the dialog enough that I still turn on the first 1-2 episodes every so often. "Does the name Lincoln ring a bell with you?" (I also enjoy the miniseries' Henry Hamilton). Not a big fan of Scarlett overall although I have heard the audiobook is more tolerable - I got the cassette tapes off eBay and a USB tape player that lets you rip to MP3 so I will find out for myself in a day or so when I'm done uploading that!