Vignette 9

"The human heart has hidden treasures, in secret kept, in silence sealed; the thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, whose charms were broken if revealed." -Charlotte Brontë, Evening Solace

She murmured the announcement to him, the sound muffled as her lips were buried in her knees and skirts.

"I'm with child."

Without enthusiasm. Without fanfare. Her position merely highlighted her vulnerability, her defeat. The wind blew her hair softly across her face as she stared mindlessly at the flowing river. Free and reckless.

"I'm sure Frank is pleased," he replied, in the same empty manner. He had long known her condition since that day and had brooded on it ever since. He knew while they did not share love, they shared their misery—for ruined plans, ruined figures.

She hugged her knees closer, and her response was nearly drowned out.

"Frank doesn't know yet."

This privilege of knowing (before the father of all people!) made him happier than it should have. A smugness surged through him, as he usurped Frank in his mind. No, it was not just Frank's child. It was her child too, and the thought made him recall the days at Aunt Pitty's where he held little Wade in his arms as if he was his own. The days when she carried Ella and cared for her as if she were carrying his own. How different could this child be?

"He'll find out soon enough," he chuckled. "Do you have any preferences? I do think Wade would prefer a brother, but daughters are much more tolerable, don't you think?"

She sat up and gave him a queer look. "Why, every man wants a son."

"Oh no, sons are troublesome. Look no further than me for proof."

Her lips twitched up in spite of herself before she remembered the misery and her shoulders slumped once more.

"Whatever it may be, a child is a child." Unwanted.

Feeling her slip away, he joked, "and that child needs a name. Any ideas? I suppose Frank will be partial to something… patriotic. Dixie? Lorena? Bonnie Blue? Say, I quite like that last one…"

"God's nightgown, Rhett!" she hissed, her cheeks flushed. "Can't you talk about something else? I don't want to be reminded about this —this grotesque thing!"

His eyes went to her flat stomach and softly he whispered, "surely not grotesque?"

"Must I explain? I'll be big as a house. I'll have to go into confinement. I wasn't miserable for once—and now this!"

"Cheer up, Scarlett. Who knows, if you're lucky enough the child may look nothing like the father. A girl with dark black hair, and bright eyes, just like you. What do you say to that?"

She said nothing, her body still and distant. After a moment, she murmured, "Bonnie would be a pretty child, wouldn't she? But I'd rather she'd be named after two queens…"

He laughed, grabbing her hand. Its warmth, like a salve to her wounds.

"Fishing for compliments now?"

"Oh, you started it, you cad. All your talk about babies. It's a wonder you don't have one yet. Why, look how good you are with Wade, and with all your money—how spoiled that child would be!"

In her mind appeared a young boy, rambunctious and wild, with eyes as black as coal and charm twice the amount of the father. She was smitten in an instant. Something maternal stirred within, though only for a few moments before caution quickly took hold of her. How strange to feel attached to something that did not exist! She did not understand this, did not understand him, and especially her feelings which became more recognizable by each passing day.

Then there was the other creeping, foreboding sensation that spawned during the war, having been recently numbed, only to return with greater force. As if something would be snatched from her hands; the wool pulled from her eyes.

But she would not think about it, or else she would go crazy.

Turning her head away, she peeked at him from the corner of her eye as he checked his pocket watch, and dread filled her once more.

It was almost time to go.