Chapter 15

"Your enthusiasm is admirable, my dear" replied Rhett, reaching for his clothes which were heaped up in the depths of a chair. "But it's still to late, Scarlett. Another child?! My God, would you listen to yourself? After everything that's happened-"

"Listen, Rhett" said Scarlett, her voice conveying a sense of urgency. "You.. you must listen. I know I haven't been kind or understanding to you before. I..I know all that. I know I've hurt you terribly. But the first time you met me, at Twelve Oaks - what did you see? Rhett, you saw a girl who went after her beau with determination, just like a man, no fluttering sentiments, no cluttered thinking.. just securing Ashley Wilkes and slapping him when he wouldn't respond.. Rhett, that is what made you love me. You love me for that. Can you deny it?"

"No. I have never denied it."

"Then I can't really change, Rhett. I can't speak like other women-"

Rhett smiled in amusement. He sat down in the armchair and reached for his socks and shoes. Scarlett sat down by his knees. "Oh, you know what I mean. I keep trying to think of lovely things to say.. to melt your heart. But I can't."

Her eyes stared helplessly at Rhett's brown face. That intense feeling of love, impending sense of disappointment, fear.. all mingled together and choked any possibility for words in her throat. Her fingers, suddenly damp, spread in quiet desperation on his knees.

"It's difficult, isn't it?" asked Rhett, quietly.

"Terribly difficult" admitted Scarlett, ruefully. She raised her eyes in despair. "Rhett, I know what will happen if you leave me. You will meet another Melanie. I just know you will. And she will say wishy-washy things, be endlessly kind to you and then behind your back, she will tell everyone else how you've faded after the war, how you are a shadow of everything you once were. She won't help you. She'll glorify your weaknesses.. because that is what any woman does. But I.. Rhett, there is still so much to do together. I could bring a firmness, a constancy- don't you want that? We could balance each other out. Rhett, why do want a woman like Melanie for? She would bore you to tears-"

"Right now, being bored is not my biggest fear" replied Rhett, the corner of his mouth suddenly drooping and his eyes suddenly twinkling in sarcasm. His hand idly, kindly played through the curls on her head.

"Rhett, say you love me" said Scarlett, her eyes peering almost beseechingly at him. "Don't look at me like that. I can't bear it."

He pulled her up across his chest until her face was only a few inches from his.

"You have changed.. a little. You can appreciate the difficulties in conveying sentiments and feelings. That arrogance has gone. But- There is a lot more you need to learn. We started out the same way- you and I."

"But you've changed after Bonnie's death, didn't you, Rhett?"

"That's right. Scarlett, do you realize that we both were able to do the things we did only because of one thing and one thing alone?"

"What's that, Rhett?"

"We both never gave thought to what we ourselves felt during times of hardship-"

Scarlett shrugged her shoulders lightly. "Oh, well.. I made that decision years ago, just after the war, when Mother was dead. Everyone around me were crying and growing crazy. But I couldn't bear to fade out like that. Not me. I had to live and live grandly. I decided I will never be hungry ever again. I couldn't bear it-"

"Bear what?"

"Just fading, Rhett. Fading out and never being there. Being of no importance. Insignificant. I have to matter. I have to be real and noticed and loved by others."

"Is that your fear of running through the mist?" asked Rhett, smiling lightly.

Scarlett looked puzzled. She crinkled her eyes thoughtfully and then nodded. "Aren't you afraid of that too"

"No." replied Rhett. "My name has already been crossed out over our family Bible, remember? I do not have that fear."

Scarlett felt his arms tightening as he said the words. "Then, what are you afraid of? You are not afraid at all?"

"I once had a fear-" said Rhett, with a sigh. "I faced it when Bonnie died."

"What was it?" asked Scarlett.

"It doesn't matter. I faced it. My God, did I face it. And it changed me forever."

"How?"

"It caused me to think of what I felt and thought- for the first time in my life. How much I had suffered in myself. Suffering that I had suppressed for so long. I acknowledged them and finally realized the things I loved, the things I valued and how much the world had changed around me. I will not walk down that road again."

"Do you think that if I thought like that... that you could love me and care for me?"

Rhett laughed softly. "Oh Scarlett, sometimes you are too precious for the things you say."

"That's a door I fear opening." said Scarlett, ignoring his laughter. "If I started thinking about how I felt, I'd go crazy. I never thought about Mother or Pa's death.. the way it affected me.. not even Bonnie. But when you left, I just couldn't brush it off then-"

"Couldn't you?" asked Rhett, a tone of tenderness not kindness creeping into his voice. "Why?"

"Rhett, you are my soul. And if you no longer want to live life on your terms, then there must be something deeper that caught your attention. Rhett, don't let it pull you in. I need you. And I know you need me. Don't look back."

"My baby, I was looking back all those years.. when I was a blockader, a speculator.. I loved what I was so much, I never wanted to let it go. But it has begun to pall. When something like death shakes you out of yourself, you can't afford to look back anymore."

"I..I don't understand. I don't understand at all."

"I know. And somewhere in your mind, you still carry that picture of you, a young girl of sixteen, Scarlett O'Hara, the belle of three Counties still running through cotton fields and lying in the sunny grass, smelling flowers and hearing bees in the air."

"You are thinking of Tara" said Scarlett, pleased by the picture he just gave her.

"You like thinking of that, don't you, Scarlett?"

"Yes. It is my fondest memory."

"Then you are looking back and everything you've ever done was to get back to that comfort again."

"Oh Rhett, I'd give anything to be back again."

Rhett nodded lightly. Scarlett once again noted that faint look of feeling in his eyes. She wondered why he looked at her so affectionately and yet so full of pity. And then she realized he never said he loved her.

They sat like that for a while and then Scarlett herself rose up to go about her morning affairs. She did not press Rhett any further for a declaration of love. She merely acknowledged the fact that she had spoke as tenderly as possible and if there had been no declaration, then that was that. She'd get him in the end. She was sure of it.