1894, Ballyhara, Ireland
Katie Colum O'Hara Butler's mother had taken Ireland by storm.
And if Scarlett O'Hara Butler had anything to do with it, her daughter would, too. Probably even London, as well.
Known to everyone as Cat, she did, in many ways embody the animal's ways. Quiet, independent, and self-possessed. Her mother loved her independence, but there were times it unsettled her. And an unsettled Scarlett Butler was a different person.
But, at the moment, Cat conceded, she understood why.
She had accompanied her mother and father to Ballyhara again. Her mother wanted to see to it that the lands were properly managed, and the tenants happy. But being there made Scarlett Butler apprehensive, despite her poised and brittle front. And Cat knew that the more apprehensive her mother was, the more brittle she was. Her father also saw this, and protectively put his hand behind her mother's back. Her mother's face transformed, and she smiled her charming, dimpled smile, looking up at him.
Cat had been here last year. And she had heard enough whispering from the townspeople. So, the cailleach has grown, she heard them say. And hearing that had hurt. The townspeople had pretty much run her and her mother out of the town (and by extension, also her father—although they didn't know it), with all their shooting and burning, just because they thought her mother made friends with the English. And conveniently forgetting that her mother had forgiven their rents during a bad year.
But what hurt more was that people thought she was cursed because of the day she was born. People don't get to choose their birthdays, Cat reflected. While she wasn't happy about being born on All Hallows' Eve, she also knew that there was nothing she could do about it.
Cat sat on a long wooden bench outside Seamus O'Hara's cottage. Seamus was one her mother's cousins, and was her go between with respect to farming and estate matters. As Uncle Seamus's trap could only accommodate three, Cat elected to stay behind. Her father went with her mother. Cat grinned at the thought of her father never getting over the fact that her mother owned a town. While for all intents and purposes she still did, her mother knew she wasn't totally safe in Ireland.
And as for Cat, she wasn't safe from wagging tongues in Atlanta. The gossips wondered how she came about when no one had ever seen her grow up in Atlanta.
Cat knew why and how that happened. But she wouldn't be the first one to share information and frankly, she had no inclination to do so. Her mother and father sat her down one day when she was thirteen, and told her what actually happened between them.
Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara had a rough patch in their marriage. In a bid to save it, Scarlett visited Rhett in his home city of Charleston. Cat was conceived during one of the nights Rhett and Scarlett spent together. But Scarlett went to visit her relatives without letting Rhett know about it. No one knew where Scarlett was, which exasperated Rhett, who tried to move on by divorcing Scarlett and marrying someone else.
All this was happening while Scarlett was carrying her, Katie Colum O'Hara Butler in her belly. But they eventually were reunited and got married again.
Cat sighed. She really couldn't blame her father, and her mother, either. They were her whole world.
And her only friends were her older brother Wade who was studying Law in Princeton and her older sister Ella, who was now married to a banker in Savannah. And her childhood playmate Billy Kelly, and his stepbrother Beau, who was more Wade's friend. Even Billy was too busy to be a friend, as he worked alongside his stepfather, Uncle Ashley, Beau Wilkes' father. And Billy was also sending flowers to a girl who was either Maybelle Meriwether's daughter—or was it Fanny Elsing's? Either way, it didn't matter.
"You should have tea with us, Cat," a familiar voice called.
Cat stared at her, as she was startled to see her. "Aunt Kathleen. Momma's gone to see the farms with Poppa and Uncle Seamus," she croaked. Kathleen laughed.
"I know, sweetheart. Scarlett told me. I think she was half afraid you'd climb the tree like you did to play with the cats the last time you visited."
Cat made a face. "I was sixteen and didn't know any better."
Aunt Kathleen put her arm around Cat's shoulder. "And you're all grown up! How are your sister and brother—Wade and Ella?"
"Wade is drowning in law and more law," Cat impishly replied. "And Ella is in Savannah. Between you and me, I think Momma will be horrified once Ella will announce that she's with child. A grandmother at a year shy of fifty."
"She certainly never looked her age. When I first met your mother in Savannah, I thought she was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. We'd be all wrinkled like dried plums at sixty and she'd look like a girl."
Aunt Kathleen was still Cat's favourite O'Hara. Aunt Pegeen—Uncle Seamus' wife fussed about her in a way that slightly irritated Cat. And kept looking at her as if she was being examined.
The two of them kept her up to date. The Big House, where Cat and her Momma used to live in was rebuilt and refurbished into some earl's hunting lodge. Aunt Kathleen and Aunt Pegeen were debating about who the earl was until Aunt Kathleen suddenly remembered who he was.
"Oh, the Earl of Fenton," Aunt Kathleen murmured, sipping her tea. Cat froze.
"No, not that handsome rakehell who tried to marry your mother," Aunt Kathleen reassured her, and continued, "but rather, his nephew. You see, my girl, the late Earl Fenton was stabbed by his maid. The poor thing's jailed in Kilmainham."
"What happened?" Cat wanted to know.
"Oh, to be very truthful, your mother had a lucky escape. Not long after you and your mother and Mr. Butler left for America, Adamstown was abuzz about how the Earl of Fenton got Lucy Reilly pregnant, and then a few weeks after, he was dead. I honestly don't blame that kitchen maid."
"You shouldn't be telling a young girl all these things, Kathleen," Aunt Pegeen muttered disapprovingly, pouring more tea into her mug.
"She's certainly old enough to understand. The girl is no half-wit," ground out Aunt Kathleen. "And it's absolutely criminal the way the people in Ballyhara had run Cousin Scarlett and her family out of town just because she was lonely and made friends with the Anglos, especially when making friends with them would be actually better for everyone."
Cat's breath hitched. Finally, Aunt Kathleen had echoed what she herself had been thinking since she was four and a half.
"Are you all right, Katie?" Aunt Pegeen asked. Numbly, Cat nodded and helped herself to another slice of cake.
"Uh...I suppose so. Yes, Aunt Pegeen. I'm all right."
Aunt Pegeen looked at her suspiciously. Aunt Kathleen looked slightly worried.
Well I suppose I should take the bull by its horns, Cat thought.
"Aunt Pegeen, might I borrow a horse? I...well...I'd like to go about the town. See what's new. Or go around the village."
Aunt Pegeen pursed her lips, looking very doubtful. "Well...I don't know...oh, all right. But you will have to ride astride. We have no use for sidesaddles 'round here."
"Oh thank you, Aunt Pegeen. And it's perfectly fine. We don't ride sidesaddle at home."
"How long will you be out for?" was Aunt Kathleen's practical question.
"I will be going around the town. I don't know...for about an hour?" Cat replied ruminatively. For some reason, there was something in her that itched to see her old home.
"Just be back in an hour, otherwise, your mother will have our head," Aunt Kathleen laughed.
"All right, I will," Cat promised.
Cat was grateful that she had worn her riding habit; her hat, which completed her outfit, had a jaunty veil that covered half her face. Anyone would think she was some other bored and languid Anglo girl "mucking" around instead of the grown-up cailleach they were railing about since she was four.
And sometimes, it was "changeling."
That had hurt, too. But today, it did not matter. Because her face was partially covered under the veil of her riding hat, and absolutely no one would see her.
Almost nothing had changed around Ballyhara. The pubs were still there (possibly still full of drunken Fenians, thought Cat resentfully), Mr. O'Gorman's grain store, the dry-grocer's shops, the butcher's, the green-grocer's store, the tailor's, Mrs. Plunkett, the village dressmaker's store were also still there. Except that they have expanded so. And then there was the village school. The school she would have studied in had not she and her mother been run out of town. Not that would she would have minded going to school there, but being called a "changeling" by fellow schoolchildren was an unpalatable thought. In a way, it was nice that her mother let her study in Atlanta for a bit, and then in that girls' school in Connecticut. Cat remembered the gleeful grins her parents exchanged with each other when Atlanta matrons asked them what was wrong with schools in Atlanta.
"Nothing," Poppa replied to Mrs. Meade laconically. "We just wanted to instill a sense of adventure to our little lady here," and Cat swore back then that her father winked at her.
When business compelled Rhett Butler to expand to Europe, he and his wife decided to send their daughter to school outside London. Cat loved the city, and she adored exploring it. Poppa told her about Bonnie, the older sister she never met, and how Bonnie loved London. But talking about Bonnie made Poppa sad, Cat remembered, so she asked him if he'd rather not talk about her anymore.
"No, I don't think so," Poppa said once, blowing his nose. "Kitty Cat, when you love people, and if they die before you, they'll always stay in your heart," he told her back then.
When Momma started to make noises about presenting her to society, Cat begged her parents to let her stay in school for one more year. Her parents allowed her to, and that was that. Cat now made up her mind to make the most of her year in school, and out of it. She was going to make friends, and have adventures and do what she wanted to do—provided that it didn't do anything to her "reputation", as Mrs. Montague had put it.
Shaking her head as if to clear it from old memories, Cat then coaxed Sugar into a trot. She continued to explore the town, saving her special destination till the last, and letting the horse rest from time to time.
Finally, she headed to the Big House, as it was still called. She had always known how to get to her old home, back when she tried to play with the townspeople's children, but was called a "changeling" and the children refused to play with her. Everything felt so different, yet the same, at the same time, Cat thought. She alighted from Sugar then tied the lead on a nearby tree, and started to explore.
The gardens were well-trimmed, and there was not one scraggly bush in sight. And the Big House was clean—at least it looked clean by just looking at the windows. It was furnished in almost the same way as it was. Well, before all that shooting and burning happened. But instead of the feminine pale green and gold wallpaper, the walls were a masculine cream and mahogany. Before she could peer further though, a masculine voice startled her.
"Who are you, and what the devil are you doing here?"