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Chapter Eighty-Eight

After a year of courting Beau asked Effie to marry him. Effie was not a stupid woman she knew Beau Wilkes would provide her with a good life. Like most women in that time period love was not as important as security. She decided that she could grow to love Beau Wilkes. She had found that Beau was not as arrogant as he pretended to be. He already loved her so she accepted his proposal of marriage.

Two months later they were married. Beau married Effie in August of eighteen-eighty-six. He had graduated from Harvard and he would be attending Harvard Medical in the fall. He had a good future ahead of him.

Mrs. Waterstone was beside herself with the short notice. Lucky, she had just finished planning and arranging Alice's wedding. The wedding was lovely.

Beau had wanted to study medicine because he had always been impressed with the doctors that had saved his Aunt Scarlett's life. He wanted to save lives especially women giving birth. He couldn't imagine nothing worse than losing your wife and child at what should have been one of the happiest moments in one's life. Beau also wanted to create an effective way to prevent pregnancies. He had heard the stories from Wade about his mother not being able to have any more children. He knew that meant his parents could no longer be intimate. Loving Effie as much as he did, he could not imagine a worse fate than loving someone but not being able to be intimate with that person. To have to live as just friends.

Rhett had been surprised at the determination in Beau when he started courting Effie. He was not going to take no for an answer. Was that a Hamilton trait or a Butler influence? Rhett knew it wasn't a Wilkes trait. He finally decided it probably was a Hamilton trait. Charles Hamilton did marry the belle of five counties. Melanie Wilkes had always done what she thought was right no matter what anyone else said or did.

Rhett and Scarlett just laughed about Wade and Beau marrying cousins. Rhett said, "Cousins marrying cousins. It is the same but with a twist." Scarlett laughed.

Melanie would go visit them for a month in the summer but she refused to live with them. She told Scarlett, "I like Effie and think she is a perfect match for Beau but I don't want to live with them. They are just getting to know each other. They don't need a third person in the mix. Besides when I stay with them, I have to behave myself and act like a proper lady. That is hard for me to do now a days." She had smiled mischievously. That made Scarlett and Rhett laugh for a while.

After Beau and Effie's first child was born Melly would go spend the entire summer with them. She was back in September. She was still working at the Asylum and she loved that work so much she didn't want to quit. They were her children also.

After Wade and Alice had their first child Rhett and Scarlett would go spend a month or so with them in the summer time but they always stayed at the hotel. It was too crowded in Wade's little house. They couldn't go during the school year for they couldn't leave Alex alone in the house and Eugenia was not going to stop Alex from doing anything wrong. In fact, she would probably join him in the mischief. Eugenia and Alex were not a good combination together. Instead of either one of them being the voice of reason they were both too wild and reckless. Scarlett and Rhett knew they only had themselves to blame. They had both been wild and reckless when they were younger.

When they went to see Wade and Alice, they took Alex and Eugenia with them despite Eugenia's protests that Richard would miss her too much for her to be gone a month. They took her nonetheless. They didn't trust Eugenia to not do something impulsive that would ruin her. They also knew that Ella wouldn't be able to stop Eugenia once her mind was made up.

Richard loved Eugenia and didn't care that she was partially deaf. Richard was a doctor and everyone knew he was going to be successful. Richard knew sign language but Eugenia could hear him when he spoke to her. Richard's mother's deafness was one of the reasons why Richard was so accepting of Eugenia's deafness. Eugenia could read lips and speak well enough to carry on a conversation with a stranger but with most people she preferred to communicate with sign language. As she said, "Less chance of misunderstanding."

Eugenia's parents had made her receive other gentleman callers also but Eugenia was not as patient or gracious to the young men as Ella had been. If they were not willing to learn sign language Eugenia ran them off. Scarlett would smile when she watched her daughter interact with the gentleman callers. Eugenia knew she had been spoilt, pampered, and dearly loved and she was not going to settle for less. When she was seventeen her father had finally let her get engaged to Richard. They were going to be married in July of eighteen eighty-seven.

Scarlett and Eugenia had over a year to plan the wedding. She refused to have anyone stand with her but Ella. The day before the ceremony Scarlett took the time to talk to Eugenia about her wedding night. She told her the same thing she had told Careen and Ella. She said, "Have fun. Relations is not something you have to suffer through. It should not be painful. It is an expression of your love for one another. It should be a fun time. It should be something you look forward to not something you dread."

Scarlett took a deep breath and said, "Forgiveness is the key to a happy relationship. I had a friend who couldn't say 'I'm sorry' because she had too much pride and her husband couldn't say it either because he had too much pride also. Their relationship just got worse and worse until they went their separate ways. You have a lot of pride. You come by it naturally. Your father and I both have a lot of pride. Don't let it destroy your love for each other."

"I know that Papa always bought you gifts to get you to forgive him. What did you do to get him to forgive you?"

Scarlett turned beet red. She couldn't tell her daughter what she had done with her father. Several things flashed through Scarlett's head. How easy it was to control Rhett that way, how much fun it was when she allowed herself to enjoy herself, how much passion she had that she needed to release and she knew Eugenia had that passion also, how much more relaxed she always felt after they were finished, how close she always felt to Rhett in those moments and finally how much better it would have been with Charlie if someone had explained things to her before she married him. She knew now that part of the reason it had hurt with Charlie was because she was scared. She remembered that because of this restriction of ladies not talking about sexual things she and Melly had been ignorant of what was going on in their own bodies. If Rhett hadn't gone to the doctor and gotten all the information, she and Melly would still not know what was going on especially since neither one of them even had a mother to asked even if they had the courage to ask their mother. Then because of this garbage of not talking about this kind of thing their mothers wouldn't have talked about it either. If Rhett hadn't educated her on what pleasure there was for a woman to obtain, she would have gone her entire life without experiencing everything there was to experience. It would have been no better with Rhett than it had been with Frank. In fact, it hadn't been the first timeline. Only that one magical night and her throwing away her preconceive notions of what was ladylike had allowed her to rise to a greater level of pleasure. No! No! She wasn't going to let that happen to her daughters.

Her Irish temper was about to go off full blast at the injustice of it all then she looked at Eugenia's innocent face and knew she couldn't share any of the details with her. Scarlett's temper evaporated in an instant. She smiled when she thought about how icky she had thought a lot of the activities they participated in were when Rhett had suggested them, especially his favorite activity. No, she could not share any of that with her daughter.

Scarlett said, "Find something Richard really likes to do when you are intimate and then do it when he is mad at you. Remember though he is forgiving you because he loves you. The other just gets him in a more receptive mood."

Eugenia knew her parents loved each other very much but she had never thought about her parents having relations. She didn't like those thoughts at all. No! Eugenia decided she would never think about her parents doing that kind of stuff. No! As far as Eugenia was concerned, her parents had relations twice. Once when they made her and once when they made Alex. That was all there was to it. She figuratively slammed that door shut in her mind.

As Scarlett walked out of her daughter's bedroom, she knew what she had said to Eugenia was true. Rhett didn't forgive her because she did that thing he really liked. He forgave her because he loved her. She had once thought she could have controlled Rhett through doing things when they were intimate but now, she knew that wouldn't have been true. The way she controlled Rhett was through her love for him and his desire to never lose her love.

The ceremony was conducted in sign language also. It was only right for over half the guests were deaf. Richard had his father stand with him. As he told anyone who asked, "My father has always been my greatest supporter."

It was a beautiful wedding. It was a huge affair. It was held in the Butler's back lawn because there was no venue big enough to house everyone on the guest list. There was everyone from the deaf community, the speaking community, Rhett's business contacts, the politicians and the relatives from both sides.

As Rhett looked out from the patio doors as he was waiting for his daughters to join him, he saw his sons and marveled at how wonderful they were. He saw his daughters walking down the stairs to join him. He was a little bit in awe at how lucky he and Scarlett truly were. They had all their children. It appeared they were all going to marry the love of their lives. He again thanked who ever or whatever had given them this second chance.

Ella started her walk down the aisle followed by her father and her sister. She looked at the huge crowd of people. She saw her husband first, then both of her brothers, her cousin, her Aunt Melly who was sitting right beside her Mama. Ella thought, 'That is where they have been my entire life. Right beside each other.' She smiled bigger with that thought.

Eugenia smiled up at her father. She had forgotten all that stuff her mother had told her about her parents. No, that information was locked behind a closed door. This man in front of her was her Papa. The man that adored her and looked so sad that he was having to give her away.

Eugenia said, "I think we have made them wait long enough for my grand entrance." Her Papa laughed and just like that her Papa was his fun-loving self.

Rhett did not hesitate to shame their rich guest into donating money to the Asylum. He never missed an opportunity to get more money for the school. Afterall he was a great humanitarian and philanthropic man. He would never tell anyone not even Scarlett but it did make him feel good when children and their parents thanked him for all his fund-raising efforts. Although as well as Scarlett knew him these days, he knew she knew. He also knew that she would never say anything about it because she knew he would just deny it.

Eugenia had been nervous, excited, and happy when she and Richard had finally gotten to the bridal suite at the hotel. Richard had ordered a bottle of champagne. They laughed, they drank champagne, they kissed, they hugged, they did naughty things that were so very exciting. They had a really good time. Eugenia never once thought about needing to behave like a lady. Like her mother had said, 'Nobody but she and Richard knew what they had done.'