Thank you for your thoughts on the last chapter. To those of you that commented it had an Austenesque feel, thank you, and "I wish!" Charlotte's ardent suitor is hopefully not as quite as unpleasant as he appears, but I totally agree his address needs work. A lot of work.
HelenSES, DedicatedReader, and others who asked: This, believe it or not, is a flashback chapter. The format may be a bit odd, but it worked out that way somehow. I hope you enjoy.
Some maturish themes are discussed in this chapter.
When You are Old
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
- W. B. Yeats
Thad slipped through the hallway of the large Mansion in downtown Houston, and disappeared around a corner into a secluded sitting room. Here, at the other side of the wall, was a cushioned window seat, shielded by dark red curtains. He knew this house intimately – it belonged to Wade's Uncle in law, Hugh Walker – and he had long been allowed the run of it.
He settled himself down, and withdrew the letter from his pocket. He had received his mail from the Ranch only this afternoon, and had had no chance to familiarize himself with its content. There was always, somewhere in his body, a gnawing fear that something had happened to Rose. Being educated, and given to sarcasm as a defense against feeling, he had named it Níðhöggr.
Montpellier, France,
August 15th, 1892
My dear Thad –
Your letter, with its encouraging sentiments, was much appreciated. It has been merely four weeks now that Scarlett has left, but our hearts have their own timekeepers, which can easily stretch a minute into a year, or an eternity. So it was during the War, when I could not be away from her side for long - before the vastness of her absence became overpowering, and would inevitably reel me back in; from France, or England, or Charleston, much like a fish on a hook. I am feeling it now, the pull of that invisible line, only much intensified by many years of happiness. My younger self would have cursed love. My older self knows enough to realize that pain is, inevitably, the part and parcel of joy.
Thad pushed himself back into the shadows of the alcove. He had found several such partitioned recesses scattered about, installed for the use of the Lady of the house, who enjoyed reading in solitude, while watching the songbirds flit by in the garden. Now, there was nothing but darkness on the other side of the windows. The Walkers were giving one of their famous soirees, with a speaker, and a topic. The Mitosis of the Cell, being discussed tonight, would normally have held his interest. But Veronica Harper had been at her most tiresome, and even her older brother Claude, an acolyte of the Greek form of love, had propositioned him twice already. Claude's attentions were almost as persistent as his sister's, and even more unwelcome.
Rose has gone back to Scotland at my insistence, and Ella, Charlotte and Chase hover about me at hers - trying to persuade me to eat, or sleep.
The horror of hearing that Rose had been at the site of the monumental flood in the Alps washed over him once more. Primitive male possessiveness mingled with shame for not having been at her side.
You asked about my children's early years, perhaps with Rose in mind, and I have been giving the subject much thought. As I attempt to walk the venerable streets of Montpellier, I have been trying to cast my mind back to the beginning - for beginnings often hold the entire germ from which the stories grow, and unfold.
So I will weave my story, like the Old Wives have done since time immemorial, from mother to daughter. "Once upon a time", they say, and so I say as well.
"Once upon a time, in the beginning, there was …. you."
The brocade that concealed him was unexpectedly pushed back with determination. "Mr. Watling," a sour, female voice called. Thad cursed silently. Someone had found him after all. "May I have a word?"
He pushed his letter back into his pocket, and stood up, more to tower over the intruder, than from any particular feeling of chivalry.
The slight woman with the wispy brown hair that stood before him answered to the name of Odette Patterson. Her thin lips were pressed together disapprovingly. She disapproved of most things, and she disapproved of Thad more than others. She wasted no time with pleasantries. "As you may have heard, my daughter Elaine has refused her third eligible suitor this year. No amount of assurances will convince me that she is not refusing them on your account. You must stop toying with her affections."
He continued to stare at her. He had never toyed with her daughter's affections, and this dried-out bat knew it just as well as he. Words rose to his mind, words from his days on the streets, that would have wiped the condescending smirk off her pinched visage. He valiantly suppressed even cruder impulses, that included his fist, and her teeth.
Instinct made her sway back a step, and something like cunning flared in her face as she backtracked, more from diplomacy than from conviction. "Even if you haven't precisely encouraged her, you must know Elaine has developed a ….. tendre for you." She did not add, 'as incredible as that may seem', but he read the sentiments easily, as they spilled from her eyes. "I am sure you don't wish to be the cause of her unhappiness, or an obstacle for her future. Clarity over your….lack of intentions would set her mind at ease."
Thad felt a violent burst of irritation – at Elaine, for not being more circumspect, at this cadaverous imitation of a woman held upright by nothing but pride. He saw the tentacles of death in her – the sallow skin, the quickening of her breath, the way she had pushed around the food on her plate, and winced during dinner. There was a growth inside of her, slowly moving outwards, gaining mastery over everything she had once believed she controlled. He pitied her, as the living pity the dying, but he had lived in proximity to death for too many years to believe in its redeeming qualities. She would die as she had lived, narrow-minded and unforgiving, and she would continue to despise him until the end.
He still said nothing. After staring at him steadily for another minute, she seemed to resign herself, and let the curtain drop. He heard her soft footsteps fade down the hallway.
He returned to his letter.
Of course, all children are beginnings, and at the same time, ending. Endings of an epoch of life. A universal fact, you may rightly say, but one that had remained hidden from me, until you came along. You were the first creature that forced me to look beyond myself, and my immediate pleasures. The first person entirely dependent on me for survival. The first person to tie me to a city, to a place. I knew that I resented your for it. It took me much longer to realize I loved you for it, as well.
In retrospect, it is perhaps not strange that the first person I loved, and resented, was a child.
Thad exhaled. They had, over the course of their lengthy correspondence, mutually agreed on frankness. But some truths still had the ability to cut to the core.
What can I tell you about your birth that you don't know already, that might take the sting from such unsettling beginnings?
Not much, Thad thought, and braced himself for whatever was to come.
In 1858, I had just come back to Charleston from South America. My avowed object was to see my mother, and my younger sister, even over my father's objections. Less than five minutes after pushing open the double doors of Charleston's most popular Saloon, I was made aware that my brother Charles had got a young woman from our father's plantation 'in the family way', and washed his hands of the affair. I was mildly shocked, just as everyone else had been. Such dalliances were not the custom of my rather staid younger sibling. If it is any comfort, I believe he cared for Belle in his own manner – unless I am very much mistaken, it remained the only such incident in his life.
A true gentleman, Thad thought, wryly.
I tried speaking to Charles - to encourage him to do the right thing by his child, but he would not see me. No matter what he may have felt for Belle, or for you, it was not sufficient to own up to his short-comings in front of his wife, and perhaps, himself.
So I made it my business to look up the unfortunate girl.
It is tempting, here, to expand my tale, and crown myself with undeserved virtues, but I vowed to be a candid narrator, even to my detriment. Having escaped marriage and fatherhood for so long, I was not eager to step into the role of the guardian. Thus, my motives for stepping in were not entirely pure: I wanted to prove myself morally superior to my brother, the darling of the Charleston establishment. I wanted to infuriate our father, for I was certain my meddling would be reported back to him. But there was also kinship – the kinship of one outcast to another – that united us, even before you were born.
As you know, I found Belle, who was living under the most constrained circumstances, only a few months from her delivery. Belle was still struggling to make sense of her downfall. Having been disowned by her father, she was forced - you know this already, but it will nonetheless pain you to hear it again – to work in a shady brothel in order to survive. A brothel that catered to, shall we say, rather diverse tastes. I gave her money, found her a more comfortable apartment, and visited her regularly until you were born. It was the first time that I was a young woman's sole support, almost the provider for a family – a role that, for almost thirty years, I had studiously avoided. .
I was able to spare her from having to work again until after you were born, and we agreed I would finance your education. She looked upon me as her hero and savior, the person who would give her child a better life. This was another novel experience. She asked for no money for herself – she had resigned herself that the world of brothels would be her lot – but she would not hear of a similar fate for you.
Thad felt a frisson of compassion for the frightened young girl his mother must have been, but pushed it back resolutely.
I was not there during her labor, but I came by the next day to see the baby. I remember studying you. You looked so much like Charles, or how Charles may have looked, had he been the size of a kitten. A kitten with an impossible mop of black curls. You looked at me, or so I fancied, and your little fist curled around my finger. I vowed to provide for you, as long as you needed me.
"Mr. Watling." Thad looked up from the pages once more with irritation. Was there no end to the interruptions he would have to endure? He waited for a moment, and when nothing further happened, he himself pushed aside the red brocade.
A young girl in maidenly white tulle stood before him. She was fairly tall for her age, her hair a pleasing ash blonde, that gleamed with the sheen of polished wood. Her soft hazel eyes dominated a pretty, evenly cut face, with her mother's straight nose and thin lips.
"Mother told me that you wished to speak to me." He could hear the hope in her voice, and even without it, the faint flush that stained her cheeks would have betrayed her. He cursed Odette Patterson, and all debutantes, with equal measure.
He contemplated his options. Might as well deal with it now, rather than later. "Your mother is concerned about you, Elaine. She fears that you might have …..hopes ….that cannot answer."
Her cheeks flushed a deeper red, in embarrassment and disappointment. She did not pretend not to understand him. "I do not harbor such hopes." At his quizzical expression, she continued, bravely, "I know my family would never agree, and you are too good – too kind! to attempt to convince me to go against their wishes. But don't you see …that I cannot accept another man's hand, when I now know what it means to love?"
He resisted a facile and condescending comment on her youth, and merely said, as gently as he could, "Love comes in many forms, Elaine. Finding one that cannot answer does not mean you will never find another one that will." A platitude, and a poor one at that, but like most platitudes it contained a half-truth that might placate her, and make her go away.
She held up her neck, proudly, and smiled a wavering smile. "I will wait, then, until it happens for me." He watched her go, the demon of sympathy clawing at his heart. She was younger than even Rose, and facing the immanent loss of her mother. And who was he, really, to judge anyone for an inconvenient affection?
He returned to his seat, praying he would be able to finish the rest of his letter without further interruptions.
Looking back, I regret not keeping you with me. Then, still in the throws of youth and bachelorhood, it seemed an impossible idea to tie myself down with a baby I was not really responsible for - or so I told myself. It seemed to make sense for you to stay with a neighbor of Belle's while she worked, and it also seemed to make sense to enroll you in a boarding school in New Orleans when you were five, and had started to ask questions.
I told myself I would visit you often, and I convinced myself you lacked for nothing. Of course, we now know this was far from accurate.
And old, half-forgotten migraine pulsed at his temple like a drum. The memories of those first few weeks in the boarding school were as indelibly imprinted on him as the scars on his leg. When he had cried himself to sleep every night- only to be awoken by a band of tormentors when he finally did drift off. When it reached a point where he contemplated jumping from a third-story window, the abuse had suddenly eased. Not because of anything he did or did not do, but merely by the arrival of an even smaller, even newer boy named Kenny.
My next child, or so I felt, was Ella.
Thad was grateful for the shift in topic. Ella had always interested him. Perhaps because she, too seemed to belong to no one.
Scarlett's marriage to Frank Kennedy had been a mistake, a horrible joke that the Fates had decided to visit upon me. Or so I firmly believed. She tried to conceal her condition from me as long as she could, but she did not know that I was watching her – always watching. That every change in her body, in her movements, in her face – no matter how minute – would immediately be apparent to me. I knew, I am convinced, almost before she did. And I wrestled over many sleepless nights with the images, now inescapable, of her in another man's bed. The torment was indescribable, even more so as I had to continue to play the rôle of the disinterested friend. Every instinct told me to flee, to put at least physical distance between myself and this torture. But I could not leave. The stubborn girl insisted on driving her buggy through the most dangerous parts of town, in the pursuit of the Mammon, or, as she herself would have put it, survival. So I stayed to protect her, no matter what the costs to my sanity. And the only way I could contrive to stay sane was by pretending the baby she was carrying was my own.
Thad stopped reading, as another memory intruded. He was standing in Rhett's Villa in Charleston, hearing his young cousin Gerry cheerfully inform him Rose had accepted Beau Wilkes' proposal that very morning. He remembered the sensation of being eviscerated alive, of having his heart carved out of his chest by a deadly, casual blade. He attempted to imagine driving Rose about town, heavy with Beau Wilkes' child. Even in his imagination, the pain was unfathomable.
And the child? I have always loved Ella with that same sense of love and obligation that she engendered in me before she was born. Once more, love and resentment became two sides of the same coin.
Ella. His father had daughters, but she was the closest thing he would ever have to a sister.
Then there was Bonnie – the first child of my body. And hers.
His mind returned to that day in New Orleans. The little girl in the dirty blue dress. Rhett's helpless pride.
I was secretly elated when Scarlett told me she was with child, although I successfully strove to keep it from her. Just as I kept everything about me hidden from her, at least everything that mattered. Bonnie's very existence was a trick, a connivance. I knew Scarlett did not want children, and I knew she did not want mine anymore than the next man's. However, I kept from her the existence of such methods that might have prevented their arrival in this imperfect world. I wanted a child by her. I wanted Ashley Wilkes to have tangible, irrefutable proof that she was mine. I wanted to relive that fantasy that I had when she was carrying Ella, only this time, the baby would truly be mine, and she would be sleeping in my bed. I wanted, for once, to revel in a pregnancy.
Of course, I had deluded myself.
One always does, Thad thought.
On a much deeper level, I wanted our child. Born of my love, if not hers. Something of both of us to go into the future, and announce to the world and future generations that I had once held her body, if not her heart.
But revel in the pregnancy, I could not. I was watching her again, only this time, I was watching her because I hoped against hope that this baby would change things. I searched for sigs of love, and found only irritation. When she announced her pregnancy, she also threatened to cut Bonnie from her womb. I never lost my fear that she might do something desperate, and die from a botched abortion over this child that I had forced on her. No, my boy – it was not the sublime experience I had hoped for.
I'm sure it wasn't. Thad had firm opinions about Rhett's contributions to the failure of his marriage, but he had to acknowledge how heart-breaking it must have been to provide the woman he loved with every material comfort, but still be forced to live with the shadow of another man in her heart.
Once Bonnie was born, it was as if the world had shifted on its axis once more. I had a beautiful, perfect daughter. I fell in love, utterly and completely, for the second time in my life. All the more deeply because I was beginning to lose hope that Scarlett would ever return my affections. So I focused the entire force of my adoration on our daughter. The blending of our gametes became a substitute for the blending of our hearts and spirits that I craved. If Scarlett would not love me, Bonnie did. And in return, I loved her fiercely, and unwisely. You know to what end.
The little girl in the blue dress danced in his mind again. But he could not be sure if he remembered her accurately, or if Rose's face had long ago superseded her true features. Perhaps it had been she, after all, who had paid the steepest price for their collective folly.
Then came the child whose existence I knew of merely for a minute before it was ripped from me. The child Scarlett lost through her fall on the stairs. The fall that I had provoked through my careless words – words that meant to infuriate. Words that killed.
I still wonder about that child. At night, when I cannot fall asleep, it sometimes comes to me, that little soul that I denied life. I wonder if it would have been a girl, or a boy. I wonder if it would have changed the trajectory of things, had I known that she wanted it. For she did want it – amazingly enough, for once, she wanted my child. Although I did not find out about it until much later. Too late, I thought. But I was wrong. It is never too late for those kinds of revelations. It helps its restless ghost to know that it was wanted, or so I tell myself, when its small light flits through my dreams.
Thad tried to imagine a child of his, and Rose. He tried to imagine losing it. He couldn't.
Then, there was Rose. Rose, who had come too soon.
Not for me, he thought. She came almost too late, for me.
Rose was conceived before I had a chance to establish a firm position vis-à-vis further children. Every instinct rebelled against it. Against opening myself up once more to the possibility of such agony. I told myself that we needed to wait in any case –until our future was more certain, until our relationship had proven, or disproven, itself as durable enough to bear the weight of such a decision.
But then there was that night in the cabin in Colorado, that night of the anniversary of Bonnie's death. I was almost paralyzed by pain – even more than usual – and I was careless. There was a unique irony attached to the thought that the sister who looked so much like her was conceived one year to the day Bonnie had left this earth. It added to the muddle of my feelings towards the growing baby. Over time, the plethora of emotions in my heart boiled down to one tangible focus – fear. Fear for Scarlett's health, first and foremost. I could still hear the agonizing screams in my mind after her fall from the stairs, and her miscarriage.
Strangely enough, it was an easy pregnancy. She was overjoyed. It thrilled me to see her so happy to carry my child, but it thrilled me only because of her, of us. I did not extend that thrill to the new life between us. If anything, I resented it, that it would break up that budding, new-found intimacy between myself and Scarlett. On a deeper level, I feared loving Rose would kill her, just as I had killed Bonnie, or that loosing her as well would kill me.
Thad stopped reading for a moment, and looked through the curtains. The sitting-room was empty. He got up, and paced about the room several times, unable to contain his need for motion. In some ways, Rhett's account of Rose's conception and birth was more difficult to read than his own. He had, over the years, built up a multitude of defenses against the grief inherent in his biography. He had no such defenses against the image of a dark-haired little girl whose father did not want her.
After a five year break came the twins. Another unexpected pregnancy. Scarlett was overjoyed. She had always wanted more children with me, although to her credit she never pushed the subject beyond stating her preference, when it came up.
This pregnancy, her sixth, was difficult from the start. Months of protracted nausea. Early cramping, and some spotting. I was frantic with worry, seeing her become pale, and listless. I could not fathom the thought of losing her.
Rose, a bristly five-year old, became even more bristly during that time. If it had not been for Ella, who took her on walks by the beach, and let her sleep in her room, I am not sure what would have happened. It gives me no pleasure to admit that I did little to ease her burden, in my total and utter preoccupation with Scarlett. Instead, I suggested sending her away for a few months, until after the baby had been born. I justified myself that she would be happier elsewhere, but in truth I could not bear those huge, terrified eyes, that bespoke of all of my darkest fears. Scarlett was too weak to fight me. You very kindly offered to take Rose, although I did not feel the kindness at the time. I intended to send her to Charleston, to my family. Which Scarlett, and Rose herself, resisted. Finally, I was forced to agree.
He remembered her arrival. She had stepped out of the carriage, holding the hands of James, her father's most trusted servant. She wore a sensible grey travelling dress, her hair in two thick braids down her back. A brown cap completed the ensemble.
"Hello, Cousin Thad." He had almost smiled at the gravity, and had formally shaken her hand. She was a quaint little thing. He had settled her into the bedroom next to his own, the same one that he would years later give to her brother Perry during his extended stay.
She did not weep, except at night, in her dreams. That first night, she had woken him, screaming. "Mother, Mother. Please don't die. Mother!"
He had set himself by her bed, and tried to calm her. She would not permit herself to be held, but she grabbed his hand, and pressed it, until her knuckles were almost white. Eventually, she had fallen asleep again, without ever releasing her grasp.
He had had her with him for three months, during which time she gradually emerged from her shell. Having heard that her mother had given birth to healthy twins, and was out of danger, she had seemed almost reluctant to go home.
When the twins were born, after a remarkably easy delivery, I was surprised at how little ambivalence I felt. Perhaps it was because they were boys. Perhaps the months of fear and anticipation had primed me. But when my dear friend Dr. Harrison placed first one, then the other into my arms, I felt nothing but vast, overpowering love.
Rhett had done well by the boys. Thad couldn't imagine a more cheerful, self-possessed trio of youngsters.
And as I watched Scarlett recover, I saw something in her distend, exhale, when she saw me with the twins. It was only thus I learned that she, too had been holding her breath.
Then there was Gerry. Our bonus child. My gift from the Gods. A happy pregnancy. An easy delivery. A healthy baby. Finally, everything was exactly as I had dreamed it could be. I was able to experience the joy of having the woman I love carry my child, and know without a shadow of a doubt that she felt the same, for all her occasional grumbling about her waistline. Every new change in her body was magical, and sensual. Feeling the child move for the first time, miraculous. The bond, the intensity, between us was indescribable. There is, perhaps, no experience on earth that is quite like it.
Perhaps my biggest mistake, in retrospect, was not speaking aloud to Scarlett the extent of my delight. "Once upon a time", my tale can be summed up, "Once upon a time, there was a coward." The small portion of my mind that was still distrustful to admit that I had once more, whole-heartedly, placed my fate into her hands, advised caution. And it was that uncertainty about my true feelings that compelled Scarlett to move our family back to Charleston. Leading to your physical separation from Rose, and ultimately to me, sitting here in the hotel room in Montpellier, striving desperately to pass the days until I can return to Tara, and see Scarlett again.
If you can learn anything from my history Thad – be brave. When you see Rose once more - and you will- don't let fear, or what you believe to be caution, prevent you from telling her what is in your heart. Regrets are such poor company during a long, lonely night.
With those words of wisdom, I intend to retire for the night, to find what rest I can. But believe that I shall always remain, as I sign myself,
Your affectionate Uncle
Rhett
Thad folded the letter, and put it back into his pocket. He sat immobile for a minute or two, before he rose, and walked slowly back to the large drawing-room in the East Wing of the house. The lecture was apparently coming to an end. Without a sound, he slipped back to join the crowd, who was clapping generously. Claude winked at him. Veronica slid off her seat to beat a path to his side. He felt his body bracing itself, as it had many years ago when the other boys at school had set out to find his breaking point.
But his true thoughts were with Rhett in France, where they hovered, before sliding many many years into the past.
Níðhöggr is the creature (in some versions, the serpent) that gnaws one of the roots of the tree Yggdrasill in Norse mythology. Those roots may be holding back the beast from the world (best not to gnaw them all the way through then, sayz I).
Mitosis is the separation of chromosomes into two separate but identical sets, the first step in cell division and replication. A hot topic in the late 1800s, which lead to a greater understanding of heredity.
"The chromosomes are independent individuals which retain their independence even in the resting nucleus. Based on this assumption, Boveri has formulated the theory of heredity: The scaffold of every nucleus consists of a certain number of individuals, one half of which are descendents of the paternal chromosomes and the other are descendents ofthe maternal chromosomes of the egg. He has concluded, as Van Beneden and Weismann did before, that a reduction by half must occur in the number of nuclear elements prior to fertilization" [Hertwig, O. 1890. Vergleich der Ei- und Samenbildung bei Nematoden. Eine Grundlage fur cellulare Streitfragen.)