Sept 3, 2021 update : Chapter 32 is done for all intents and purposes, but it needs polishing, and to be run through Grammarly, and tweaked a bit. Also, I could use some magic dust, the little touches that make it special in my mind.
My muse visits best early in the morning, upon waking. I have three mornings in a row that I don't have to go to work. So it's gonna happen over the next three days, I am sure. Thank you for following!
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Inspirations:
"So plant your own gardens and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers."
― Jorge Luis Borges
There is pleasure in punching a man in the face, but no utility.
—Oscar Wilde
Disclaimer: Still don't own squat.
Chapter 31
He certainly knows how to make an exit, Scarlett thought bemusedly. She could still feel his touch on her fingers and his breath on the back of her neck, still hear the huskiness of his tone when he promised to protect her. A shimmering awareness lit something inside her, something long dormant that now glowed and shone.
"Leif, wait," Scarlett called, following him to the front door. "Can you all drop me off at the governor's mansion and ask Pork to pick me up there in about ten minutes? I have a few more thoughts I need to express to the general tonight."
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The following morning Scarlett and her children met Will with his wagon at the depot in Jonesboro. Just the sight calmed her for some reason. Will being Will, a constant. She helped him fill the wagon with the paintings, draperies, odd pieces of furniture, and outgrown clothes and toys she'd packed for her nieces in the storage car.
Ella, Beau and Wade chatted animatedly on the way. Scarlett felt herself getting excited the nearer they came to Tara. The hills soon gave way to flat land, and she lost herself in the sounds of the bird songs, the heady spring scents, the honeysuckle and peach blossoms, the smell of the earth, the pulse of it, like the heartbeat of a primal, primeval beast.
It both brought back the innocence of her youth and helped her put all the confusing thoughts of the previous evening out of her mind, at least temporarily.
Will allowed that he and Suellen had been doing fine when Scarlett politely inquired, and the children also.
"And Mammy?"
"Well," he adjusted the reins so they could avoid a pothole. "Mammy's fine. She's mostly retired now. She's been living in the old field hand cabins down near the river for the last month or two."
"In those old cabins?" Why, they'd fallen nearly to pieces after the war. A couple of paid farm hands lived in the cabins closer to the fields, but those cabins were newer and in much better shape than the ones by the river.
"We patched up a couple for her," he said. "She stays in one and—entertains—the children in the other."
She frowned. She found the thought of her aging and somewhat fragile Mammy living down at the river in some rickety old falling down shack by herself unsettling.
"Is that safe?"
He gave her a quick sidelong glance. "We wouldn't let Mammy stay somewhere that wasn't safe or let our children play there. She still has her room at the big house.
"Now she's taken to keeping company with a wolf and a vixen in the evenings and early mornings when the children aren't down there, and I don't know exactly how I feel about that, but it's her choice."
"A wolf and a vixen!" Scarlett nearly shouted. It sounded like the title of a nursery story. "Has she grown addled in her old age?"
Will shook his head in that laconic manner of his.
"Well, the wolf will eat the vixen pretty soon, and that will be the end of that."
"Mammy says no," Will turned the cart down the side path toward the plantation. "She says the wolf growls a lot, but the vixen is the boss."
He gave her another sideways glance. "But she says that don't make no nevermind because they're both too stupid to see it."
He snapped the reins again. "She's named them Captain and Miss Scarlett, I believe."
Scarlett's eyes narrowed as Will studiously avoided her gaze, a small smile lifting the corner of his mouth.
She then gave a huff, but after it became clear that Will had nothing much to say about the subject, she started talking about her ideas. She explained about paying local folk to fish, hunt, and pick pecans for the restaurant, as well as harvesting what could be from Tara's land. Will seemed quite taken by the idea.
"You need to go see Alex Fontaine," he recommended. "He's the expert around here on local fishing and hunting, as well as agricultural matters. He talks to everybody, and he can tell you right quick if your ideas would work."
They approached the house, where Suellen stood on the front porch, hands on her hips while Prissy trudged in with Ella. Wade and Beau hung back talking with Will.
Thank you for the one-day notice, Scarlett."
"Hello Suellen," Scarlett leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. "Dilcey made a praline caramel cake and a ham with raisin sauce for our supper.
"Everything else in the wagon is for you," she continued. "Artwork and the last of the other furnishings you might like and I need to find a place for, and toys and such. Some dresses and things. I had to pare down my wardrobe. And Ella's grown two inches since Christmas."
She'd already sent some of the clothes she'd worn while expecting Bonnie, which she figured would fit Suellen in some of her many incarnations of pregnancy, but did not mention that.
"There's another load on hold at the station until Will can send someone back."
Suellen looked surprised before regarding Scarlett with a bit of alarm.
"More at the station?"
"Well, you know, I've remodeled, and the decor was all wrong for a French chateau," she reasoned. "As I said, this is the last of it. There are several boxes of velvet draperies, dresses, and some nursery items. We'll need to make two trips."
"You've sent so much already," Suellen marveled. "Are the draperies, um, red?"
"No," Scarlett shot her a look. "No, they are not."
Suellen gave her a near-genuine smile. "Oh, good." Scarlett closed her eyes and breathed deeply before continuing.
"I brought several pieces of artwork for you to look through, to replace Grand-mere's portrait I took, and a couple more chairs."
Scarlett directed Wade and Beau to help her bring the portraits into the house. She looked around the parlor and smiled. Several of the pieces that she sent before were blended in well with the other furniture purchased right after her marriage. A rug and a pair of draperies and a couple of tables and side chairs from the mansion stood out. Suellen had taken care not to overwhelm the room, and Scarlett appreciated how nicely it all went together.
The boys carried the most significant art pieces over to where Scarlett regarded the bare, faded spot over the large hearth.
"I don't mind that portrait being gone at all. I was tired of looking at it," Suellen said. "It reminded me too much of you, anyway."
"Suellen don't, but I think I kinda miss it," Will offered before Scarlett could snap back. "That expression on her face, anyway.
"I felt like that French woman was darin' me to get something done for her granddaughter and great-grandchildren every day, like she was challengin' me to do right by her kin," he said. "And I tried to deliver."
"You miss the painting, Uncle Will?" Ella piped up. "Oh, I can do the face for you."
"She's been practicing with Babette to perfect it," Wade ruffled his sister's hair. "Do it, Ella."
Scarlett watched her youngest child's face smooth out to a blank mask before she slowly lifted her lips in a sneer, the grooves by her nose deepening as she did so. She notched one eyebrow and lifted her chin. Somehow she made her eyes go cold and haughty. Scarlett didn't know how, and wished she did. Disdain dripped off Ella's visage like rain running down a windowpane.
It was perfect. It also sent a shiver up Scarlett's spine. Her sweet girl, with that expression!
You did it!" Beau crowed. Ella preened.
"Dear God," Suellen breathed, sitting down on the edge of the chair behind her. "I always thought she looked like Frank."
"She has plenty of Robillard and O'Hara in her, just you watch," Scarlett smiled at Ella, albeit a tad nervously. "Ella, you need to teach me how to wipe out my facial expressions as well as you do. Leif and Tate are about to give up on me."
"Who are Leif and Tate?" Suellen asked with apparent interest.
'Oh, Mother's business partners at the hotel," Wade said excitedly. "Tate's an architect and Leif knows everything about restaurants and hotels. He's from Norway! And Tate is English, and they are teaching me ever so much." He puffed up a little. "I designed the arbor by Bonnie's favorite flower patch outside Mother's office window."
Scarlett nodded. "They're building it this week. You all will have to come visit." Then, on impulse, she put a hand on Suellen's arm. "When things get up and running, and you get past the spring planting, I know from experience there will be a little bit of a lull in the work.
"You and Will can come to Atlanta and stay at the hotel and dine and sightsee, and the children can stay at Inman Park with me. It will be a vacation for you two, all alone. And you will give me an honest opinion of the accommodations and food, I'm sure. No charge, of course. It would be doing me a favor."
Suellen seemed taken aback. She and Will had never taken a trip together during their entire marriage. "That would be wonderful, Scarlett. I'll ask Will when he thinks he might be able to get away for a few days."
Ella and Wade were clamoring to see Mammy, so they all decided to make their way down to the cabins on foot.
Suellen waved them off. "I'll stay here. I have a few minutes of peace to contemplate these pressing artwork decisions while the girls are at the Tarletons' seeing their newest spring foal."
Scarlett unfastened the top two buttons of her dress, thankful she'd worn comfortable shoes. She and the children trailed down the dirt path to the river, laughing as butterflies flitted about, watching daffodils swaying in the breeze.
The cabins came into view before the water, actually a tributary of the river, a nice creek running right by. Scarlett felt relief when she saw the two closest structures, which, as Will said, were freshly painted and in good repair. The three-foot-high stilts, built under the cabins in case of flood, also still looked quite sturdy, she observed with satisfaction.
A thinner figure than she remembered straightened from tending a garden bed by the first cabin, her gold calico dress blowing in the breeze.
'My lamb and her lambs!" Mammy called joyfully, holding her arms open for the children.
Scarlett regarded her with a bit of surprise. Mammy had lost weight; not as thin as she'd been during the war times at Tara, but thinner than last time she'd visited. An amber-colored silk handkerchief protected the top of her head from the sun, the front of her hair curled over her forehead, a good more gray than Scarlett remembered. Nevertheless, she looked relaxed and happy. She looked like a different person.
The children rambled about the yard, exploring the garden and the creek while Mammy led Scarlett to the door of the first cabin, adorned with boughs of evergreens and wildflowers as well as the windows, which had actual glass in place and not boards or merely cloth tacked across. Scarlett made a mental note to thank Will later.
Mammy's pride shone as they entered, and Scarlett wanted to laugh as she viewed the inside. The pink and peach silks and satins from her old bedroom draped the windows and the queen-size bed in the center of the room. She also noticed Mammy's favorite chair from the nursery situated next to the bed, as well as a tufted ottoman she'd always admired, and Scarlett felt ashamed that she hadn't thought to earmark those items for her.
"I hope you don't mind," Mammy said. "Suellen said you sent so much she couldn't use it all, and these fabrics were too fine for the children, and they would just ruin them."
"No, no, I don't," Scarlett assured her. "It's wonderful that you have it. I suppose it was indeed too much for the children. Or Will."
"But not for me," Mammy smiled. "I don't have to think of what a man might want because it's just myself sleeping here. Well, and the Captain sometimes on the porch."
"Yes, I heard about the Captain, and the vixen."
"The vixen keeps me company while the Captain stands guard by the door. I don't let them inside; they lay on the porch and I sit out there with them so I don't feel alone." She pointed to a satin doll bed covered in a flour sack towel. "I move that over onto the porch for her at night if she wants to stay."
"I believe that is a doll bed that I sent for dolls." Scarlett rolled her eyes.
"You sent about ten of them. There was one left for my little fox. That vixen comes to see me every evenin' and mornin'," Mammy laughed. "The wolf—I don't always know when that wolf's comin' round. He does what he wants. But he wants to stay near me a good bit for some reason just like the fox so I let him. They remind me of you and Mr. Butler, so that's what I call them." She gave Scarlett a sly glance here.
Scarlett sniffed and surveyed the room. A small sitting area graced the front of the hearth, with a kitchen with a table and a stove to the right of it. Mammy had it all clean and neat, with dishes displayed on two wood shelves, and wildflowers in old glasses everywhere. I wouldn't mind living here, she thought to her surprise. If not for the running hot water. Can't live without that anymore.
"Does the well down here still work, or do you have to carry water from the house?"
"It works. Mr. Will tinkered on it some to get it to goin' good, but it has plenty water now."
Scarlett nodded slowly. "And you're not scared?"
"No, I'm happy. I can hear the river, and it reminds me of Savannah when I was a child." She turned back to Scarlett. "My lamb has no reason to worry over me."
"It's charming, Mammy," Scarlett gave her a sincere smile. "You've fixed it up beautifully, and you should be quite proud."
Mammy all but beamed. She motioned to the chairs in front of the hearth, and they both sat down.
"The girls come down to see me after breakfast, and we play for a few hours before I send them back for dinner. Neighbor children come in the afternoons some days, too. I help with baths later in the evenings a couple of days a week to give Suellen some rest.
"Suellen says I don't have to because the allowance you send covers my keep," she quickly added at Scarlett's expression.
"And gives you the pocket money I send?" Scarlett's tone came out a tad sharper than she meant.
"Yes, she does."
That's good, Scarlett thought. She'd half-expected Suellen to be miserly with the cash.
"I have a garden and catch fish every now and again, and Mr. Will brings me supplies every week. If it gets too cold or the river gets too high I go back up to my room at the big house for a while.
"It's a good life, Miss Scarlett."
"So don't suppose you'll ever return to Atlanta?"
"Not to live. As long as you and the children visit here, there's nothing in Atlanta for me anymore."
She prattled on in a lively manner, and Scarlett hadn't seen her this light-hearted in a long while. Well, she's content. She has a place, a home to call her own.
"How have you been, Miss Scarlett?"
Scarlett launched into the story of all her recent accomplishments to Mammy's delighted approval.
"I am so happy for you," the older woman engulfed her in a huge hug that brought tears to her eyes. "That house never did feel right as a home. Too big and spread out. This way will be much better."
"I hate that you felt like you had to leave." Scarlett's throat threatened to tighten.
Mammy's face became still. "I wasn't helping you or Captain Butler. I'd already been through one war and the battles between you two were too much to take, especially after all the sadness and death. And you two," she took a deep breath. "Well, neither one would give an inch. I was afraid you was going to kill each other and I didn't want to be there to witness it. My heart couldn't take no more."
"You were miserable. And I disappointed you, just like I did my mother. I'm mighty glad she never lived to see what I became."
Mammy snorted. "Miss Scarlett, all I wanted in Atlanta was for you to behave yourself and act like you had some raisin'. That's all I expect now. Maybe I expected too much before, because your soul caught all the wildness from both sides and cain't nobody put that tornado in a little box. But you a Robillard and a Prudhomme too, and let me tell you, there was some scandalous goins on in both them families.
"You got to be yourself. Just try to do it with some manners and for the love of everything I ever taught you, try not to act trashy."
"Yes, Mammy."
"And as far as disappointing Miss Ellen, you might be surprised. Yeah, you selfish, we all know that. You think you're not like her, but you got a little bit of your mother in you. What were you doing here at Tara during the war? You were taking care of people, and the land just the same. Now, you were a mite more particular than she about who you took care of, but that's a good thing in my mind. You are Miss Ellen and Mister Gerald's child, and you did both their work.
"This is what you need to listen to right here," she put her hand under Scarlett's chin and lifted it. "Neither one of them, and I loved them both, could have done what you did, you understand me? That's all you, the strength you have inside that you muster up and do what no one else can or will. You're proud, Miss Scarlett, but not always of the right things."
"Mammy, I've tried to do better. But I think Rhett may be gone for good this time."
Mammy huffed. "He never could stay away that long. Give it time."
"Not sure I want to give it any more time. He's been telling me he doesn't love me for well over a year, and I believe he's managed to convince me."
Mammy huffed again, this time in a most condescending manner,
"Don't look at me like that! Dilcey said you called him a triflin' joker."
"Dilcey don't need to be carryin' tales. And yes, I did." Mammy stood up and walked to the window, her voice growing somber. "Captain Butler can be a good man sometimes, but he has a dark side. I wish you could've understood him more. He may have loved you and Miss Bonnie," here she hesitated, running her hand back and forth on the windowsill before turning around to face her.
"The problem is, well, Miss Scarlett, his love just twarn't no good. No good at all. Not the way he gave it. The only excuse I can make for him is that maybe he didn't know any better."
A silence fell between them before Scarlett cleared her throat again.
"Will you come up to the house and have supper? The new chef I told you about made a run of pralines and she and Dilcey have collaborated on the signature cake for the restaurant. And Dilcey sent a ham with raisin sauce, I know it's one of your favorites."
"Of course I will, child."
A commotion at the door made them both look up. Ella and Wade were in the doorway with Beau, Susie, and Suellen's younger girls Cara and Reenie behind. Formally named Caroline and Irene after Careen as a deliberate slight to her, Scarlett suspected.
"Mother, you have to come look!" Ella jumped up and down. "It's a playhouse! Mammy and Uncle Will made a playhouse right next door!"
At an apparent break in the conversation anyway, both women rose and traipsed next door with all the children trailing behind.
"Close your eyes mother," Ella's enthusiasm was contagious and just what the doctor ordered. Scarlett indulged, and when Ella uncovered her eyes she found herself amazed. And not wholly in a good way.
The interior mirrored Mammy's cabin in design, though instead of a bed there was a stage, a slightly raised platform built of discarded barn wood from the looks of it, draped with red velvet. Lots of red velvet. The horsehair chairs from the mansion were positioned on one side of the stage, and two of her old piers glasses on the other.
Scarlett continued to study the room, her mouth slightly open. One corner appeared to be a war camp for the boys, complete with army cots and old uniforms. The other was a long box that resembled a coffin, painted incongruously bright with pink and yellow flowers.
Susie pushed her way in. "We dress up in front of these mirrors," she said, gesturing to a trunk overflowing with dresses and finery, the fabrics and patterns of which also looked strangely familiar. A sleeve poking out strongly resembled her old red dressing gown. That gown. The one that should have been burned years ago. She whirled to look at Mammy, who appeared to be sheepishly backtracking out the door.
"And we have plays! All afternoon!" Cara, Scarlett's favorite of the three, clapped her hands and looked to her aunt for approval.
"Well," Scarlett said, slightly ruffled. "Well, that is something."
"May we have a play? Say yes! Can we write a play and perform it while we're here, Mother?" Ella appeared to be about to come out of her skin.
"Yes, yes, Ella, you may." Since apparently, I've built a theater.
Beau and Wade busied themselves in the war camp while Susie went on.
"We put on the fancy dresses and play Frozen Scarlett."
Scarlett looked at her blankly. "It's the girl who was so vain she wouldn't wear a winter cloak or use a blanket on her way to a ball," Susie explained.
"She wanted everyone to see her. So she froze to death."
"Yes," Scarlett drawled, "I am familiar with the story. But the name is Frozen Charlotte."
"Mother's always called it Frozen Scarlett. She says she used to call you Frozen Scarlett behind your back when you were both belles," Susie shared with a sly smile.
Scarlett gave her a tight glance. "You remind me of your mother."
"She loves the game so much sometimes she plays with us and puts on the dresses and laughs and laughs," Cara piped in.
"Until she dies," Reenie added.
Doesn't that beat all? Suellen dressing up in my old clothes and pretending to be my corpse, Scarlett thought indignantly. My maternity dresses, she added in her mind, and she probably had to let them out as far as they could be. And then some.
Ella looked with wide eyes from her mother to Susie. "I don't think I want to play a game where my mother freezes to death."
"Well," Susie said graciously, "I suppose we could call it Frozen Charlotte while you're here. We have to call it that when Mammy's watching anyway. She doesn't like it."
Mammy, who was nowhere in sight. Rat deserted this sinking ship rather fast.
"Before you die, you have to say 'Fiddle-dee-dee!' and bat your eyes like this," Cara gave perhaps the most pitiful attempt at eyelash batting Scarlett had ever been unfortunate enough to witness. She looked like a cow that had just been hit in the head before it went down.
"Oh, I know what I have to do," Scarlett muttered.
She looked closely at Cara and then the darker-headed Reenie. Ha! The child's features were as plain as her mother's, with muddy hazel eyes; but somehow, she'd inherited her aunt's bristly black eyelashes, just like Ella. She'd just never noticed before. On guard, Suellen, Scarlett thought with a malevolent inward grin.
"I'll teach you how to bat those eyelashes right proper before we go back up to the house. You be sure to do it to your mother and your father, too, every chance you get. They'll absolutely love it." With that, she grabbed and threw her old red dressing-gown on right over her dress with an exaggerated flounce.
"Fiddle-dee-dee! If we're going to play Frozen Scarlett, you girls need to know how to do it right." She then climbed in the makeshift coffin, laying back on the pillows with her eyes closed and smiling, to the laughing delight of all present.
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Fun Facts:
Who was Frozen Charlotte?
The story of Frozen Charlotte originated from a February 8, 1840, New York Observer article, describing the alleged true story of a woman in upstate New York who froze to death on her way to a New Year's ball. The article inspired the poem "A Corpse Going to a Ball" credited to Seba Smith. The more well-known American folk ballad "Fair Charlotte" (or "Young Charlotte") is based on this poem.
The poem tells the story of Charlotte, who freezes to death while riding an open sleigh to a fancy ball. She ignores her mother's offer of a blanket to wrap around her shoulders on this chilly New Year's Eve, because she wants to show off her beautiful gown. A second offer of a blanket, this time by her fiancé, Charlie, who drives the sleigh, is likewise rejected. Upon arriving at the ball, Charlie discovers his fiancée has turned into a frozen corpse.
Next time a child complains about the gift you got them, tell them they're lucky you didn't give them a Frozen Charlotte doll. Though they're collectible items, it's doubtful kids these days will appreciate these creepy antique dolls or the grisly tale they're named after.
Originally made in Germany in the 1850s, these porcelain dolls were intended as bath-time toys for children. Since the dolls were made of biscuit, or bisque, porcelain, they were unglazed and could therefore float in the tub. But once introduced into the United States, they became more macabre, being associated with a cautionary tale.
Peter Zilonis, History
Soooo, yes, it's a creepy appears-to-be-based-in-fact story. I discovered it when I was researching other Victorian-era treasures, which you will find out about in the next chapter—which is all Rhett, BTW. I know I said mid-week, but in reality it should be done by the end of the week.
The little porcelain dolls were made in droves and still show up on Etsy and eBay. Apparently, back in the day they were baked in cakes and dropped in bathtubs as toys. Many were painted with black hair and red lips, although the ones found nowadays have no paint left. Suffice it to say, you haven't heard the last of Frozen Scarlett. I got plans.
Thank you for all your feedback and reviews. They truly mean the world to me. This story takes its toll but I do so enjoy writing it, just wish I had more time. Your patience is truly appreciated. Peace, misscyn