July 11 update - Wow, it's been two weeks since I wrote that teaser, damn! I'm five thousand words into Chapter 29, but it is a beast, my friends, a real gargoyle laughing at me every time I sit down to attempt to work it out. Like right now. I plan to have it out within the week, but this week is extremely busy for me personally. Three doctor appointments, one overnight trip and trying to break it off with my sometimes lover and he ain't taking it so well. Ahem. TMI but wanted to let you know the holdup. I'm on it as much as I can be. I did start another little story 'An Occurence at Peachtree Street' in the meantime, check it out! Take care of yourselves, misscyn
June 27 Teaser for Chapter 29:
Just then Prissy wandered in the front door from her dinner break. Scarlett gestured her into the office.
"I'm telling Mr. Wilkes about class Wednesday night," she explained. "He will be conducting it for you and Phoebe and Miss Izzy."
"Oh," Prissy said. "I just saw Phoebe and she won't be at class Wednesday, I don't think. She hurt her foot going home last night."
"How'd she hurt it going home?"
Prissy shrugged. "Said Miz Wat—er—Miz Izzy let her ride just a couple of blocks and then told her she had to run an errand, for Phoebe to get out and walk the rest of the way, and then had her driver take off. Just left her there in the road. She stumbled and fell in the dark and cut her foot on a broken brick."
What an odd thing to do. Scarlett frowned slightly, then mentally shrugged. Far be it from her to understand the workings of that woman's world.
"But Phoebe gave me this, from Miz Izzy," Prissy took a small brown-paper wrapped package from her otherwise empty lunch pail. "Said it was a thank you."
Ashley looked at the package, and then at Scarlett, obviously waiting for her to open it. By the heavy weight of it she could tell it wasn't more drawings, and her curiosity got the better of her.
She pulled the paper away to reveal an oblong leather sheath of fine craftsmanship, stained dark wine in color. She pulled on the handle to reveal a knife.
Not just any knife, but a weapon of deadly beauty, with a hilt of polished ivory, inset with mother of pearl and silver filigree above the steel, so apparently razor sharp Scarlett inadvertently pressed her teeth together as she laid it across the palm of her hand.
Actually more of a dagger than a knife, it fit, perfectly, obviously designed to do so.
"Miz Izzy said you should think about keeping it with you at all times. The clip on the side is so you can tuck it in your boot or," Prissy glanced at Ashley and her eyes flitted away. "Other places."
Scarlett stood momentarily speechless. The town madam just gifted her an object for a prostitute's defense, if a very fine one. She didn't know whether to be insulted or strangely touched. And why did Belle think she needed a knife?
Of course, it wasn't a common whore's weapon, she told herself, it was of far too fine construction. Then again, Belle wasn't common, as far as harlots went. Neither were her customers. Or at least, one particular customer.
Quickly she turned the dagger over and inspected it for engravings, examining the sheath also, noting it was lined in a thin sheet of protective metal. Nothing. She breathed a sigh of relief. If there had been a certain set of initials, she wasn't sure who'd she'd throw that knife at first.
Well, all righty, then. She'd have to think about all that later, she was much too busy at the moment. Scarlett slid the questionable 'gift' into the box of files she'd been packing before Prissy walked in.
Ashley cleared his throat. She started, almost forgetting he'd been standing there.
"Scarlett," he said gently, "What is going on?"
I can use screens again, hooray! Just get a little dizzy now and again but definitely well on the mend. Thinking about visiting one of those Hydration/Hangover places for the oxygen therapy, good for the brain, right? I am writing, peeps, slow going, but started back today. I know I left Chapter 28 at a crucial place, but rest assured 29 is on the way. Have faith! See you soon, misscyn
June 23, 2021 update - Folks, you're probably not gonna believe it, but, life imitating art, and vice-versa—in short, I fell out of my tallish bed at three in the morning a couple days ago, badly bruised my knee, chest and leg, the last thing being my head. So, yeah. Just like our Rhett, I now have a mild concussion, and I've been sworn off screens for the week. I shouldn't even be on here now really but wanted to let folks know. Something about the way the page refreshes is not good for brain healing so I'm typing fast. I have lots of notes and material, but scenes and dialogue, not so much. It will be another week or two at least. So sorry. I'm a clumsy person, what can I say? But it's helping me get in Mr. B's character! That's the silver lining to this crappy cloud. Take care and see you soon, misscyn
Disclaimer: I own nothing of GWTW. All actions, words, and behaviors of the great George Trenholm beyond recorded historical events are pure conjecture on my part. Other than his century-hopping hotness; that shit is for real.
Inspirations, once again:
"When we want mood experiences, we go to concerts or museums. When we want meaningful emotional experience, we go to the storyteller."
― Robert McKee
"Before, when I was ordered to consider him intelligent, I kept on trying to and I considered myself stupid for not seeing how intelligent he was; but the moment I said, "he's stupid," but said it in a whisper, everything became quite clear."
― Leo Tolstoy
OOOOooooOOOOoooo
Chapter 28
"She's been thoroughly occupied as of late," Trenholm continued. "I know you were in the Caribbean for the last several months, and before then, not in Atlanta for a while?"
"I suppose it's been at least three months," Rhett admitted. "I had a holdup when my boat was damaged back in Nassau, and then the lightning strikes a few days ago. And we are living apart."
Trenholm leaned forward and knocked the ash off his cigar into the standing brass tray by Rhett's chair. "Yes, well, apparently she's started up a large new business venture with some European fellow backing her." He sat back, contemplative.
"A hotel. Did you know about that?"
Rhett raised his eyebrows. "A hotel? That is a large venture. No, I did not know, but I'm not surprised she'd invest in one. Scarlett likes to stay busy."
"It's more than an investment. She appears to be quite involved in day-to-day operations. I understand it to be a New Orleans-style place, a boutique, very grand, and with the most modern amenities. And she managed to pilfer her head chef from the Commander's Palace."
Rhett felt a tad taken aback for a moment. Scarlett dearly loved commerce and making money, but she'd never entered the hospitality sector before, nor shown any interest in doing so. She'd been a merchant, with the store. In construction, with the sawmill. She only owned the building that the saloon was in, and did not get involved in the management.
A New Orleans-style boutique with a chef from the Commander's Palace, though. How did she manage that? And a European backer? Must be a serious venture. And much more sophisticated than her usual endeavors.
Rhett shifted in his seat. He wasn't sure how comfortable he was with the entire idea. Something about it wasn't sitting right with him for some reason.
"She'll probably do well," he had to admit. "She loves to entertain, throw extravagant parties, and lavish guests with luxuries and attention to detail, especially when she's spending my money. If she could do all that and get paid for it herself—well, she'd excel beyond all expectations, I am sure."
Trenholm inclined his head, allowing a pause in the conversation.
"Do you know anything about her backer?" Rhett asked in a deliberately nonchalant tone.
Trenholm shook his head. "No, my source didn't give a name. Just said he was a younger fellow," he smirked. "Younger than you and I, anyway."
He went on after Rhett did not reply. "The hotel is interesting, but it's not our main concern."
Rhett took notice of the 'our'.
"Hamp is somehow involved with her doings as well."
General Hampton again. "Yes, Dr. Hawthorne mentioned that just the other day. Said she was doing some work with the Democratic Party. I must say I was surprised to hear it. She's never cared about politics before." Scarlett cared about her bottom line, vanity, and for the greater part of their acquaintance, Ashley. Not necessarily in that order.
"About that." Trenholm lowered his voice almost imperceptibly. "You know how Hamp never let it go, all the money that's fallen by the wayside, shall we say. The fortunes made and lost. Particularly the unsavory ones."
He gave Rhett a meaningful look. "Ones that people could still be prosecuted over, or at least be made very uncomfortable by if they were public knowledge."
Rhett snorted. "After all this time? What's his point?"
"His point is the good people of the South need the money and he wants to get it for them. He's in Atlanta now. His efforts appear to be concentrated in Georgia and of course, South Carolina, but he has interests in Louisiana and Mississippi as well."
"It's my understanding that he's expected to be the next governor of South Carolina."
"Yes, he is most respected—beloved, even. Right up there with General Lee." Trenholm paused for a moment in reverence to the deceased commander before continuing.
"It appears that he doesn't want to send people to jail, per se. He wants the funds returned to where they are needed. And he seems to think a particular discerning eye examining the records will turn up significant leads."
Rhett suspected where this was going, but waited to hear the other man say it.
"Your wife appears to be that discerning eye."
He sighed. That woman. "People have been looking at those records for years."
"Yes. The same people. He wants a new perspective. Someone who knows Southern society, also the scalawags and carpetbaggers. For years, your wife has been socially involved with both."
"Yes." Rhett scowled as he ran his right hand through his hair. "I hated that she ran with that crowd."
"What choice did she have?" Trenholm widened his eyes a bit to make his point. "You've told me a little about your relationship over the years.
"From what I understand she was fairly much an outcast just as you were after her second husband died and she married you. Before then, when you brought her out of mourning prematurely back during the war. And you socialized with those people plenty, both before and at the beginning of your marriage. "
Rhett looked down at his hands and didn't say anything for a moment.
"There was the klan incident that her actions incited," he finally replied with a stiff jaw. "Two good men were lost due to her lack of forethought and consideration."
"Yes, yes," Trenholm waved a hand. "Those idiots should have known better. I understand she took chances. I also understand you encouraged her from a very young age to break the rules."
He received a trademark dark Butler glower in response.
"Don't look at me like that. You told me your ages when you met—what was it, sixteen and thirty-three? And your thirty-three to boot, Rhett. Living by the sword, wild and free as you had from the age of twenty. There were worlds of experience between the two of you."
Rhett internally cursed his old friend, although he knew he was right. Another downside to his influences. He did tell her to break the rules, he did introduce her to those people. After they married she did not have to work so hard, but what to do with her time? And since she was for the most part shunned, she had no one else to give parties for, to play cards with, to talk to, befriend.
God knows he wasn't around much for her after the bedroom debacle, possibly before. She must have been lonely. He always said she had poor taste in people as well as decor, but, once again, could he blame her for all of it?
A muscle ticked in Rhett's cheek as he waited for the other man to continue. If there was one person in the world he didn't bother to wear a mask for, it was George Trenholm; he was the master, and he had known Rhett well during all his incarnations, and since he was a boy. There was no point.
"So Hamp's saying she has a unique position and perception, coupled with an astounding mathematical gift and a well-known dogged determination. He's representing her hotel and repairing her reputation in return. She is highly motivated, and so far, only a little way into her investigation, he is impressed."
Rhett nodded, albeit reluctantly. "She's incredible with numbers. I would never tell her this, but if she'd been the least bit academically minded she could have studied with the likes of Ada Lovelace, with the proper preparation and motivation, of course, and, well," a short laugh here, "if she'd been a different person."
"Why wouldn't you tell her?"
"Her insufferable smugness," Rhett clipped. "She's already so conceited over her looks and charm and various accomplishments. She cared nothing for any schooling that didn't have a direct impact on her social or eventually, her financial successes. A cultural ignoramus as far as history and literature. She would be absolutely unbearable if she had an inkling of how very far she could have gone with her mind alone."
"Yes," George said faintly, the shadow of a smile creasing one side of his mouth. "Yes, I can see how you would feel that way."
"Humph." Rhett shifted in his seat. One position held for too long did him no favors.
"It doesn't matter now. She was raised to be a great lady and to manage a plantation and when the war came and took everything from her, she became far too damaged by poverty and struggle. In the end, there was no limit to what she would do to get back to her former level of comfort."
"If one can ever get that back."
"Indeed."
There was a pause of contemplation before Trenholm spoke again.
"What attracted you to her?"
"I thought we were kindred spirits," he imparted quietly, but without emotion. "She was full of vim and vigor, passion, had a fire-hot temper and wasn't afraid to show it. I could see her hiding her intelligence, the rage she felt at having to do so, deep in her eyes, how well she played society, but the heat underneath." The heat he had never managed to harness in his favor.
"I wanted to set her free, to see where it would take her, where we could go together." He reached for the drink that wasn't there. Only a coffee cup. He grunted in frustration, his large hand dropping listlessly to his lap. "But all she wanted was money and her childhood obsession."
"I know what the gossips say, but I'm asking you now. Is she a good woman? At heart?"
Rhett barely contained his snort. He opened his mouth, then closed it. He'd been bad-mouthing Scarlett for years. Only recently had he acknowledged the part he played in her downfall. And how the war forced her into adulthood in some ways and possibly stunted her growth in others.
He didn't know if he should blame delirium or painkillers, but new little snippets kept coming to his mind instead of the well-rehearsed lines he'd repeated ever since the night he left her. Like a play, when the director sneaks in a changed script. To be totally truthful, they'd been coming harder and faster since the morning lightning threatened his schooner and he screamed into the wind.
He'd noticed a softening over the last eighteen months, he couldn't deny it, although he'd managed to avoid thinking about it until that damnable letter she'd sent to his attorney asking for the mausoleum to be put in her name oh-so-delicately.
He'd watched her on his visits when she wasn't looking. Bonnie and Melly's deaths had sobered her, taken some of the edge off. She'd spent more time with the children, appeared to value that time and truly crave more. She seemed more introspective, thoughtful on occasion. Some of it could be an act—but all of it? He wasn't so sure anymore.
And then there was the love she'd professed–oh, he definitely wasn't going to risk thinking about that. All in all, it wasn't enough.
"She's selfish and immature. She'll stop at nothing to get what she wants. Yet she's fiercely loyal to the people she loves, and she'll also stop at nothing to keep them safe and taken care of.
"I'm not certain that she's completely incapable of thinking beneath the surface, but I know she damn well refuses to do it. She has an unusually direct, linear way of thinking for a woman—hell, for most men in our society. Only deals in the concrete, never abstractions."
"Hmm. Must be the mathematician in her."
Rhett straightened in his chair. He'd never made the connection. It made him feel less than bright, a feeling he did not care for. At all.
He waited for a beat to digest before continuing. "Juxtapose those tendencies with more charm than the law allows, the Catholic church, and the teachings of her mother, the sufferings. She's an anomaly. That would be the correct word to describe her."
"You didn't answer my question."
"She's an extraordinary woman," Rhett said, although it cost him a great deal to say it. "Whether that's good or not depends on one's own position and perspective. Most people in Atlanta would give you a resounding and heartfelt 'no'. She uses every tool God gave her at her disposal to get what she wants and she's marched over the bodies of many to do it. She's burnt too many bridges without a care.
"And she can't fool me."
"Why is that?"
A wry grimace twisted Rhett's lips. "Because we're too much alike and it's nearly exactly what I would have done in her position. It's what I did before I made my fortune, minus her inhibitions and excessive sense of responsibility. Although I would have done it with more aplomb and style," he smirked slightly.
"But I'm a man. I wasn't judged nearly so harshly. If I'd been her I would have just opened a brothel and been done with it."
Trenholm blinked. "You did open a brothel."
Rhett gave him an irritated glance. "I invested in a brothel, and you know what I mean. If I had been a woman as desperate as she was, I would have found a gentleman to support me and become a mistress, and later a madam. Her life would have been much easier. But she was born into gentility and ruined herself in a thousand more painful ways instead."
"Can you really see her doing that? Would you really have wanted her to?"
"Might have been easier on the both of us. But, no. It wouldn't have—suited her. Or me, ultimately. That's why I married her, essentially."
Neither one spoke for a few moments.
"Is the separation permanent now?"
"It's looking that way. She didn't love me or didn't realize she did, until the day I left her. And it made me miserable and half-crazy." The bitterness in his voice was palpable. "Hard, if not impossible to forget and forgive."
"Good God, man, it's been ages , are you still sulking about it?"
"No," Rhett replied. Sulkily. But it's better than feeling dead inside. He turned back to his friend, highly irritated.
"Laudanum is a hell of a drug and you're fortunate it's taking the edge off my temper, George. We had a complicated relationship from the start. There was the miscarriage, and then we lost a child. A very beloved child. My one biological child.
"She died and I had a hand in it. I wanted her love so much I didn't tell her no when I should have. Ultimately, I let my need for her complete adoration override my responsibility for her safety."
"Stop it, Rhett." Trenholm's sharp words and harsh tone eerily reminded him a little too much of a conversation he had with Scarlett the day after Frank Kennedy died, in Aunt Pitty's house; the day he proposed. From the look in his eyes, he was sure his friend was just as annoyed.
"Give it up. It happened in a split second. You didn't go through all that in your mind and say to yourself, 'No, I need the adoration more than she needs her life.' You did not. You're just beating yourself up. Enough. It's not good for anyone. Your mother, your family, or yourself.
"It was an accident and you must forgive yourself. Children become sick, have accidents every day. Do you think your daughter would want you to deal with the pain of her death the way you've been dealing with it? Did she love her mother?"
"As all children do. Scarlett's not terribly maternal." He made the understatement with apparent difficulty.
"Do you think you're the only man who ever lost a child? Some families buried every one of their sons during the war." His eyes took on a faraway, yet almost a detached look. "My wife and I lost five of our children in infancy, including my first daughter Georgiana." Rhett stilled. In all their conversations, the fellow blockade runner and confidante had never mentioned losing his children although it was a well-known fact.
"Children die. But so many, so young. I told my wife we should stop but she wouldn't hear of it. I think she thought I would leave her if she didn't give me an heir. I offered to cease relations, to give her a break from the childbearing. It's rough on a woman, you know. Wears out their bodies, makes them tired all the time, shortens their lives, risks their health.
"But she wouldn't hear of it. I think she saw it as playing the numbers; the more we had, the more that would be likely to survive. Like planting cotton, you lose so many seedlings so you put a lot more in. I suppose in the end it was true. But it took a toll, my friend."
"The others only lived a few months, but Georgiana lasted a year and a half and she was so strong. We never thought sickness would get her. It nearly destroyed me.
"I'll always blame myself. Her cheeks were red the day before she became ill, I should have called the doctor then. She was our only child at that time; our first, a boy, had passed at four months old. But she was so strong, I thought she was just flushed from running, she did so like to run. She never walked. She never learned to walk. She learned to run. The moment her feet hit the floor in the morning she was running."
His eyes dulled further. "But she died. And the ship I named after her, the strongest and largest blockade runner ever built, lies at the bottom of the sea. Some flowers only bloom for one season. Yet they are still beautiful and worthy. Their lives, however brief, meant something. And we can learn from them."
Rhett took a deep breath. But five? Burying five babies? Five faces, five warm bodies, five little pairs of hands, five heartbeats. "How did you deal with it without losing your mind?"
Trenholm gave a hollow chuckle. "For years I detached from my family, from my children. I was still young, handsome, and rich. I indulged, availing myself of certain privileges, as is a gentleman's prerogative," here he gave Rhett a pointed glance, "yet with complete discretion in deference to my wife's sensibilities, as is a gentleman's responsibility."
"Discretion being the better part of valor," Rhett returned, a warning in his tone. "I'm going to let that barb slide. Let it be understood that I had my reasons, and we'll leave it at that."
Trenholm pursed his lips, then shook his head. "I'm sure even then my wife eventually figured it out or at least suspected. I regret hurting her. In retrospect, it wasn't worth it. But you can't tell a man that when he has oblivion through mindless pleasure of the flesh as his objective.
"Not that I have to tell you." This in a rueful manner Rhett studiously ignored.
"But after a while, I had to pay attention to the children we had; there were too many not to, and they got under my skin. It wasn't without a price. I didn't let any of my girls marry until they were past twenty-one, considered old maidenish by many—but I steadfastly refused any rushed pre-war marriages and I wanted to keep them home and safe as long as possible.
"Even then I lost my Emily within the first year of her marriage to childbirth. You always blame yourself. If I had made a different match, would the issue from that other union not have killed her?"
The lines around Trenholm's mouth and eyes deepened as he continued.
"Georgiana was named after me and she was so robust, so sturdy, I never would have thought. All kinds of insanity runs through your mind. Did it happen because I took her to church, hired the wrong nurse, let her play with a sick child? If I had been more discerning, aware, attentive, could it have been avoided?
"Some men can't feed their children, watch them starve, watch their daughters fall into a life of shame and degradation—the 'better' alternative you spoke of earlier—because that's the only way they can survive. Hell, some fathers put their daughters there. Then there are men of our station who give no thought to their children other than the matches they can make. After losing so many I will admit I didn't want to care for mine for a while. But my wife wouldn't have it. And there they were, these new little people we had created, and somehow, they were surviving. They were in my heart before I knew it.
"If your daughter could see you, what would she say about the way you have grieved?"
No answer but that same dark glower.
"I know pain drives you to it, but I also know it's the way of life you turned to after the events of your casting out. And it looks an awful lot like self-loathing, self-indulgence, and self-destruction."
"I will not dignify that supercilious comment with a response. You weren't so reckless with your judgments in the past. Perhaps you're slipping in your old age, George."
"Do you ever talk to anyone? A priest, perhaps?"
"Religious dogma will not comfort me." The flat tone brooked no argument.
"Memento mori. You can outrun everything but your fate, Butler. Death will get us all in the end. If you're still here, you have time to change if you are willing to work hard enough."
A silence fell between them. "Back to the matter at hand," Trenholm stubbed out his cigar.
"She could be hurt, you know."
Rhett sat so still his friend wasn't sure he was listening, if not for the tightening of his knuckles on the arms of his chair.
"Hamp's a smart man, an ethical man, but he's holding his cards close to his chest on this one. It was by a highly unlikely stroke of fate that I've managed to obtain all the information that I have."
"He's never cared for me."
"No, and that may be a piece of the puzzle."
Trenholm dusted off the front of his shirt and straightened his cuffs. "I'm not worried about us. I have a presidential pardon, and you're the craftiest bastard alive. Those tracks have long since disappeared. But there are some others out there, who weren't so careful, and if they catch a whiff that she's poking around—it will not go well. They won't be intimidated by a woman, even if she is your estranged wife."
"She stood down Sherman's Army over her toddler son's keepsake sword," Rhett replied. "And rumor has it," he paused and gave his friend a glance he knew would be understood, "she shot a Yankee deserter in the face for rifling through the last of her dead mother's trinkets and then looking at her wrong. She'll be fine."
"Ah," Trenholm said. "Not maternal, yet a matriarch, then. Sounds quite formidable."
"Yes," Rhett said, ruminating. "But there are my stepchildren. They could get caught in the crossfire. She'll protect them if she perceives a threat, but it could be too late."
"And so she must be made aware," Trenholm concluded.
"Hamp got her in this mess, can he not protect her?"
"Not sure he realizes how big of a hornet's nest he's stirring up," the other man replied. "Or exactly how far up it goes. Not like you and I do."
"I'm going to Atlanta as soon as the doctor releases me. I'll figure it all out, she will tell me. She can't lie worth a damn, at least not to me.
"Nevertheless, I'll probably play hell trying to convince her that she's in any kind of peril. I'll have to work fast to get in and out without any overtures of false affection from her side. She's blind as hell to subtlety and can't see what's right in front of her face a large portion of the time."
Trenholm appeared to be trying to hold back his amusement before he gave up and started laughing hard; he couldn't seem to stop himself for a good few moments.
Rhett looked at him quizzically.
"You are the most erudite fool I've ever known," Trenholm shook his head as he regained his composure. "I salute you."
Rhett quirked an eyebrow. "This coming from a man who served Scandinavian caviar to guests at his mansion while the rest of the genteel folk of Richmond supped on roasted rat and rioted for flour in the streets."
"Refresh my aging memory as to the timeline," Trenholm responded without hesitation. "Did you bring me that caviar in on your ship, packed in chips of ice from the North Sea, before or during your foray into food speculation?"
The well-bred reprobates regarded one another, and then minutely, and nearly simultaneously, shrugged.
Having accomplished his goals, Trenholm stood and turned to pick up his hat as Rhett spoke again.
"May I inquire as to the reasoning behind your obvious sympathies for Scarlett? Other than the current potential fiasco she's managed to embroil herself in?"
George turned back around, a signature grin well in place.
"Have you never wondered why I didn't turn away from you when everyone else in town did years ago at your father's behest?"
"I assumed we were friends, as well as business associates," this imparted somewhat dryly. "You've also lived rather flamboyantly in the past when it wasn't always tasteful, or even wise, dare I say, to do so. It hasn't escaped gentility's notice, as I just recently pointed out."
Trenholm donned his hat and straightened the brim. "And those points have certainly always been a part of it. Although I've never reached your level of—let us say —ignominy."
Rhett spared him an eye roll.
"But to answer your question, from what you and Hamp say, she has gumption, and from what I've heard from numerous tales and random gossip, she is quite the character," Trenholm leaned forward and looked him directly in the eye. "And you, more than anyone else, should know how I've always appreciated a character, particularly one with gumption."
With a slight bow, and without further fanfare, George Trenholm grabbed his cane and departed.
OOOOooooOOOOoooo
Sometime later, Elizabeth Butler entered Rhett's room with his dinner tray and newspaper, where she found her son staring broodily into the last of the fireplace embers.
She smelled cigar smoke and looked quickly at the sideboard, noticing with relief that the liquor and wine levels were the same as they had been that morning.
"Did you have a good visit with George?" she asked, moving about the room, straightening this and that. "I can get more firewood brought up if you need it."
"No, I only wanted it to chase off the morning chill," Rhett replied. "Soon it will be too warm at any time of day."
She fluttered about a bit more, opening the bay windows to allow for the ocean breeze to clear out the room.
"I put your humidor up, but I can't seem to find your cigar case. It held four cigars, did it not?"
"Yes," he shot her a look. "It's in the sideboard drawer." She pulled it out and opened it. And turned it upside down. Nothing fell out.
"Well? What happened to the cigars?"
"A complete loss I'm afraid," Rhett drawled. "They were destroyed in a series of small fires. Tragedy." He bared his teeth in the semblance of a smile, chuckling at his wit.
"Rhett."
"Trenholm came today with the express intent to wind me up, which he brilliantly accomplished. I'm needed in Atlanta as soon as possible."
"Dr. Hawthorne said … "
"Yes. And I listened, and I haven't had a drop. You can keep the humidor put up, I won't complain, but I will have a cigar from time to time. Your driver was telling me just this morning that he heard the deep breathing from smoking actually helps the lungs with a broken rib."
"Oh, my driver. My goodness, why is he wasting time working for me when he could be out practicing medicine?"
Rhett lifted his lip in scorn. "I am a man, not a recalcitrant child and it would greatly behoove you and Dr. Hawthorne both to remember that. I own this house and I will smoke in it if and when I please and I will not discuss it further." He grabbed the arms of his chair and made as if to rise.
His mother waved him back. "Don't get up, I can see that it's hurting you. It's time for your painkillers." She handed him his cup and the newspaper, and then, wisely, left the room.
Rhett thumbed through the pages of the paper after he finished his dinner and drank the accompanying oolong tea, grimacing with each sip. As he came to the advertisement section his eyes were drawn to the lower right corner of the first page.
There was an artistic rendition sketching of a large white stucco building, structurally correct and well-appointed, complete with wrought iron and traditional French Quarter features, and topped with a deep Mansard roof.
"Join us for the Grand Opening of Hotel Robillard in Atlanta May First through the Seventh" read the heading in bold lettering. He read it again, uncomprehending, then looked at the building once more.
"Enjoy our luxury boutique, complete with the most modern of amenities including copious gas lighting throughout, hot-water-supplied imported bathtubs for each room, as well as European-designed indoor water closets."
"Dine at Restaurant Solange," it continued. "Enjoy world-class French and New Orleans cuisine provided by renowned chef Ms. Babette Charbonneau."
"Our on-site icehouse, first-tier wine cellar and extravagant ballroom are all outfitted for your every intimate event need. The well-lit verandas and professionally designed landscaped grounds must be experienced first-hand to be properly appreciated."
Rhett's dark eyes traveled across the advertisement again. He looked at the name 'Robillard,' the list of amenities, and, once more, examined the trademark roof.
In smaller print he then read, tracking back over the line several times to be sure:
214 Peachtree Street in Atlanta, Georgia
He felt a slight rushing in his ears as dumbly, dimly he continued to read:
Proprietors Mrs. Scarlett Butler of Atlanta and Mr. Leif Erickson of New Orleans. Architect Mr. Hunter Tate of London, England.
The rushing became louder. He barely registered the even smaller print:
Proud supporters of the Evie Bee Foundation for Enterprising Women of Atlanta
OOOOooooOOOOoooo
When Elizabeth Butler came back to retrieve her son's dinner tray he was not in his usual chair; in fact, she surveyed the room and did not see him anywhere. The only movement was the rustle of the newspaper as it lay on the floor, the pages blowing back and forth in the afternoon sea breeze.
She picked it up and skimmed the page to which it was turned, her eyes widening as she reached the end of the right-hand corner.
"Rhett?" she called, walking out on the palazzo. "Rhett!"
OOOOooooOOOOoooo
Fun (if a bit grim) facts:
Ada Lovelace - Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (née Byron; 10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852) was an English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. She was the first to recognize that the machine had applications beyond pure calculation, and to have published the first algorithm intended to be carried out by such a machine. As a result, she is often regarded as the first computer programmer.[2][3][4] Wikipedia
I found Ada Lovelace when I searched for 19th-century female mathematicians; I was doubly impressed when I saw that her father was none other than Lord Byron, inspiration for the Byronic hero, both through his romantic poetry and his persona. Since Rhett Butler is considered a near-perfect Byronic hero by many, well, I felt it was meant to be that I go further.
If you haven't read about Lord Byron lately, I suggest that you do. There's much more information available now online than there was even a few years ago. He was kind of a randy dog. Ada was his only legitimate child. He impregnated his maid and his half-sister (!) and several others, it is suspected, although later in life it is said he preferred adolescent boys. He was beautiful and vain and slept with his hair in paper curlers. He had a deformed foot that he kept covered and was sensitive about so it was never shown in portraits. Anyway, I'm sure brilliant Ada was somewhat appalled, but he might have been a wonderful father, who knows? And he did create the Byronic hero, if not intentionally. What do we owe him for that?
I don't know about y'all, but Scarlett wearing black throughout most of the novel got to me. But Victorians were so obsessed with mourning and death rituals, because, well, there was so much death. No vaccines, antibiotics, understanding of germs, etc. They wanted to understand sickness, and so the study of cadavers became hugely necessary.
Which necessitated the dubious process of grave-robbing. Check out the following excerpt:
Railroads changed everything. The formation in 1828 of the nation's first common carrier, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, revolutionized transportation, altered people's sense of time and place, and knitted America together into a nation.
Among the many unforeseen consequences of this transformation was this peculiar note: Body snatchers digging up graves could quickly ship corpses to medical schools needing dissection material. The story of how grave robbing flourished in Baltimore for more than 70 years reveals both the dysfunctional underside of medicine in a place that liked to call itself the "Monumental City," as well as its racial fault line.
Baltimore became a center of "resurrections"—as grave robbers referred to their business—because a half-dozen medical schools in the city needed a steady supply of corpses. It also helped that Maryland's largest population center was located in a temperate zone that often allowed digging in winter when the ground in New England and in the Midwest froze solid.
The plunderers began by shoveling at the head of a freshly buried coffin, breaking the lid, placing a hook around the deceased's neck or armpit and, with the help of a rope, easing the body out of the grave. For shipment elsewhere, the corpses were folded into barrels filled with whiskey—to mask the odor. At the destination, a medical school took the remains for dissection.
And that wasn't the end of it: The "rotgut" whiskey was sold to all comers as "stiff drinks." - Smithsonian Magazine
Well, I'll never have a stiff drink again. Anyway, apparently, people didn't believe they could go to heaven if they weren't buried and stayed that way. So the grand old stone mausoleums you see today in cemeteries were built not merely to fend off jewelry thieves, as I always thought, but to keep the souls safe of loved ones. People were so scared that their relatives would be robbed of an afterlife that they started saving for the funeral and proper casket at the time of their children's births—going without food on the table for the living if need be, because a pauper's burial, in a mass grave and a rickety wooden coffin, pretty much guaranteed an involuntary donation to science.
The grave-robbing went on through the US and Europe—and don't forget, Maryland was considered part of the South for a long time.
A/N George Trenholm did bury five infant children, sadly; he and his wife had a total of thirteen. It appears he made his daughters wait until at least the age of twenty-one to marry, and one daughter died within a year of her marriage. I do not know that she died due to childbirth, that is a fabrication on my part.
The Georgiana, named after Trenholm's beloved infant daughter, lies off the coast of South Carolina only five feet below the surface. Boxes of pins and buttons were found in its hull; no gold, however.
I need to give Sarah Shiloh a shout-out for the Scarlett being a matriarch versus maternal comment because she pointed it out to me first in a conversation several months back and it's always stuck with me.
And yes, I did knock off a Rick James/Dave Chapelle riff in this chapter. Couldn't resist, forgive me :)
The next chapter is a bear to write, already working on it. Send me some good vibes if you can. I appreciate all the comments and reviews last chapter, and for all the chapters. Sometimes people ask questions in reviews and I don't know if they actually want answers or not. If you really want an answer, pm me, and I'll respond, promise. I can't promise you'll like my answer … but I will respond.
Thank you for your patience, as always. Peace, misscyn