Stuck! He was stuck, and he knew it. He knew it was a bad idea to have been visiting the damn house at this time. But it was Christmas and he had wanted to be home for the sake of the children. "Not for her", he told himself. "Just the children". Now there was no going back.
It was four days after Christmas, just before the start of 1867, and the world was in the clutches of a terrifying new disease, one that had sneaked up on the sleeping reaches of far-flung countries across the globe, some of whom, Scarlett had never even known existed! With the best scientific and medical brains of the era, scrambling for answers, trying to refute nature's new dreaded challenge that was taking its toll on everyday life as Scarlett knew it, the Government had imposed a country wide ban on travel and required everyone to contain themselves within their homes- a "shelter in place" order, they called it. When Scarlett first heard of it, she made no effort to understand this new complexity, her mind intent on the prospects of opening the large mountain of gifts, all brightly wrapped in shades of gold, green, red and blues, with neatly tied bows of flowing lace and Papier-mâché, each with a lace trimmed card announcing her name in flowing letters. The one that she was particularly interested in was a beautiful bright peacock green box, sitting on top of the bigger packages, a simple, plain white card in Rhett's black bold hand with her name on it. The harsh reality of what it all meant dawned on her this afternoon, when she stepped out to her buggy, donned in her best sea green chiffon and matching whipped lace trimmed bonnet ( from Paris, no less!) to pay her mills a visit and was told by the coachman that he would not be able to drive her until " Mist Rhett tells me so for the gempums at the station done tole nobody to leave dat ere house". Scarlett had looked at ole Peter with disbelief, her jaw almost hanging open with surprise as her mind struggled to understand that she was being confined to her home by her own coachman! But before she could say a word, the old man had stubbornly plodded off with a limping gait, leading the mare back to her stables, his jaw set in open defiance to the blazing fury that spilled from green eyes that threatened to burn a hole in his retreating stiff back.
Oh! It had been all hell set loose all right! Scarlett had fumed and raged and kicked and ranted at the "unfairness of it all" as she tried to come to terms with the new situation but had quieted down quickly when Rhett had fixed her with a cool gaze and asked her if she preferred orchids or tulips at her funeral, given the chances of her surviving it at all if she ventured out. Though she hated it, it had been enough for Scarlett and now she sat across him at the dinner table, her green eyes burning a hole in the tablecloth as she smoldered in sullen silence.
But…No, it was not Scarlett and her self-centered absorption that bothered Rhett. He had been silently cursing himself since he had heard of the curfew. He had been at Belle's as usual with a full hand at poker when one of her girls had run in breathlessly with the news. The stationed Republican soldiers who frequented Belle's were a treasure house of information and Rhett knew, as soon as he had heard it, that it was true. He should have caught the first train out of Atlanta. Out to anywhere where Scarlett was not around. But instead, he had turned his buggy and ridden home, his mind on the lockdown and what it meant for the family and the servants. At first, he had intended to make sure Scarlett understood what this meant and what she had to do and then ride out of town on the first train available.
"And after all these years of knowing her too"! he inwardly raged in black fury. He should have known, getting Scarlett to understand anything that was not dollars and cents would be more than a day's work. Now he was stuck! Stuck in this huge mausoleum of an accursed house with its plush red carpets and glinting mirrored walls that mockingly reflected her face a million times over and threw it back at him everywhere he turned. "It's going to be hell", he thought to himself as he stared at her over the rim of his half-filled glass, the dark wine echoing his mood as he savagely tipped the contents down his burning throat.
There were no trains plying out of Atlanta and he had had to bank his own ships at harbor. The soldiers on the sea-front were taking this curfew very seriously and all carriages and riders had been cautioned with strict injunctions of immediate arrest if they dared to defy the sweeping laws that were swiftly beginning to gain importance across more and counties as the dreaded disease raged across the country, killing hundreds as it cut its relentless path across a nation that was as unprepared and taken by surprise as it had been during the recent war. This had made Rhett even more bitter, for he knew a hundred different ways to get out of town and would have been halfway across to Paris by now, if only he had not made the mistake of stopping at Melanie's to alert her to the situation before heading home. "Stupid fool, that I am" he thought bitterly as he recalled Melanie's pleading face, her huge brown eyes, wide with alarm and fear, as she had listened to him. "Oh, Captain Butler! Ashley is still at the mills, does he know, do you think"? "I better send Uncle Peter out with the carriage and ask him to come home immediately". She was almost at the door, her little frame moving with surprising speed for someone so frail, but he had been quicker. Gently placing his arm on her shoulder, he had stopped her. "I will stop by and let him know before I head home", he had promised her. Melanie had thanked him with tears pooling in her big brown eyes but what happened next, had not been something that Rhett had ever bargained for. For with one hand on her heart, her simple face shining with genuine gratitude and admiration, she had looked up at him and asked him if he could be so kind as to make her a promise.
As he looked down into the loving depths of her warm brown eyes, the same instincts that had saved his neck a hundred times as he had sped his boats across the raging seas screamed at him,turning his blood cold, for he knew what was coming. But he truly respected Melanie and it was the same respect, that stood its ground and made a gentleman out of him as he heard himself promising her to stay back and look after Scarlett.
As he reached to fill his glass from the decanter, a million shards of reflected light, shining like polished diamonds glinting off the heavy crystal surface cut through his thoughts. His lips twisted in a bitter smile at his stupidity. For all her petite frame and sweet demeanor, Melanie had a mind that far exceeded in maturity and foresight than her young age permitted, and her heart had long sensed what her mind was refusing to admit. That there was something wrong with the Butler's marriage had been but a shadowy perception, an unwelcome niggling thought that surfaced each time she had looked into Scarlett's face and seen the unrest and discontent in those turbulent eyes. But it had been cemented, even without her conscious efforts in the one moment that Rhett had turned his back on her after giving her the news of the curfew. Something in the set of those broad shoulders which seemed to abruptly cut off and distance the world, struck a deep chill in her heart and seeped into a dreaded certainty with the retreating sounds of his footsteps as he headed towards the foyer. Unthinkingly she had run after him and when he had turned back, his dark swarthy face, swathed in shadowy secrets, she had not hesitated. Though she would have rather faced Sherman's army than to confront a man like Captain Butler, Melanie had drawn upon every ounce of her inner strength and with a silent prayer on her lips had asked Rhett to stay with Scarlett during the curfew.
"And now here we are", he though bitterly. "Like two caged animals dying to get at each other's throats". His eyes took in her slender frame as she sat pushing her food across her plate. The children had long gone to bed. The servants, all except Mammy and Pork, had been packed away to Tara on the late afternoon train, the last and only chance to flee the county before the edicts of travel bans and curfew kicked in. Scarlett had kicked her heels at losing half her staff, clearly unhappy with the thought of having to manage the household with just Mammy, now slow with age and rheumatism. But selfish and vain as she was, her logical brain had grasped the practicality of having more mouths to feed at a sprawling farm like Tara with its abundance of produce, rather than having to ration them all in her sprawling city dwelling. She ran the mansion with a generous hand and the pantry and out house were well stocked, enough in fact to feed the entire town if needed, but these were uncertain times and the warning in Rhett's eyes indicated that they might be well looking far into the summer, before things got better. "Forty days", the papers had announced. But judging by the cynical look that Rhett wore when she read him this, she had decided not to rely on it.
Now as he watched her with narrowed eyes, he realized with a shock that she had been watching him and for quite a long time too, judging by the delicate furrowing of her slanting brows and the impatient anger in her green eyes. "Has my face turned green or something?" she spat at him, as she fidgeted peevishly under his gaze. "For heaven's sake Rhett, you have been boring holes into my face for almost half an hour now, will you please stop it?, You are making me lose my appetite".