Chapter 96

Once again Scarlett could sense a brooding fate. Somehow Rhett resented the fact that she had made a semblance of a connection with his mother. He was somehow creating implications upon it with a speed that Scarlett could not possibly control. It had just been one moment hadn't it? Why should it matter so?!

Suddenly Scarlett could see the similarity between this circumstance and the morning of Melanie's reception for Ashley- Only the places, people had changed- but the atmosphere was definitely the same. There too she had been relaxed before the thing happened. The embrace that everyone saw and were thrown off guard. And Rhett finally made her wear that awful gown that had made her look nothing short of a temptress and attend that party.

She had never bothered to make sense of that part of her life and now as the memory climbed up to the fore, she could no longer deny the terror she had felt. The terror she still felt now. She should have thought over that too. She should have made sense of it. She cursed herself for forgetting common sense in the hopes of securing love when she saw Rhett approaching her.

It was too late.

He looked cool enough but Scarlett knew enough not to trust appearances. He caught her by the crook of her arm and led her into the family's library. This was a very large room - the same room where Mrs. Butler had spoken to her. Scarlett was beginning to notice how subdued the room actually looked. The sun was shining brightly outside but the windows here permitted only half the rays. The other half were stopped by the tall velvet window curtains which in turn seemed to give an artificial coolness to the room. She shivered in this coolness which seemed to overshadow a bleak foreboding.

"Rhett, if this is about your mother taking my side during that silly talk at the breakfast table, then you're just reading too much into it-" began Scarlett, trying to make light of everything.

"When did my mother first speak to you?" asked Rhett, his tone suspiciously silky. He closed the door and walked up to her, hands in his pockets.

"She spoke to me when I first came here."

"What did she tell you?"

Scarlett longed to know this was so important to Rhett. Surely he didn't think she could be fool enough to try and win the favour of his family to over up the tattered shreds of her own marriage. It wasn't like that. She had gotten over all that, hadn't she?

She had come here to have a good time, hadn't she? A trip that would be good for the children- And yet.. yet so many things had happened in the way that she hadn't planned at all. That visit to the grave, travelling to see the Irish influence on Charleston, her conversations with Rosemary- the tint of the events that unfolded seemed to suggest that she had somehow come here to win the favour-

"But it couldn't be!" thought Scarlett feverishly. Then she remembered her actual conversation with Mrs. Butler that night and her cheeks reddened. She had indeed been conversing about Rhett.

"Tell me" insisted Rhett, now reaching for her wrist which he would twist a little to get her attention. "You told me some very pretty things about listening to my own heart but in the background, if you already had spoken to my Mother, then it throws a different light on everything doesn't it? What did my Mother tell you? Did she tell you about me?!"

"Of course, she did!" snapped Scarlett, losing patience and courage. "Any Mother would talk about her children! You make it all seem so devious and wicked somehow. I think you are completely mad!"

"Then she did talk to you about me." replied Rhett, running his eyes over her in a way that made her feel unclothed. He seemed to be coming to some conclusion all by himself. He suddenly pulled at her arm and led her to a huge cupboard full of volumes and volumes of books.

"These are my Mother's books, Scarlett. Look at them-" he said, carelessly opening a heavy volume and laying it in Scarlett's hands. Her eyes went over the fine print and warily she gazed at Rhett because was beginning to sense where his words would actually lead her.

"My Mother is a knowledgeable woman. She reads often and she knows many things that even I do not care to know. You see her now, gathering the family around the table and having quiet conversations. So, you think to yourself that perhaps, this is just as how it was in your own family-"

"Rhett, please-" said Scarlett, feeling a sudden hurt grip her heart. "Stop speaking-"

"When you see my sister preparing her excerpts and my Mother reviewing them before introducing them into the circles, you will see how different they are from you. You can never change that and you are not one of them. You cannot undo running a sawmill, a store or even picking cotton on your father's plantation-"

The words were like a slap to Scarlett's cheek. Tears froze in her eyes as shame washed over her. Unknowingly to herself, she was beginning to breathe harder. "Stop talking" she said, her voice unnaturally hard and guttural.

"If I were you, I'd go back to Atlanta and do what I knew best instead of wasting time here."

With that parting shot, Rhett walked away. Scarlett sank into a sofa nearby and wept. The volume fell from her hand and slipped along the folds of her dress until it rested at her feet. She wept out of anger. She wept out of exhaustion. Shame gripped her hard and she knew she shouldn't have to feel so terrible. She knew that Rhett had been wrong and had overstepped some boundary. But what was it? Why did it elude her so?!

When she stopped crying, she saw the book lying open at her feet. She recognized the title, "The Merchant of Venice" by William Shakespeare. She remembered Mrs. Finch reading a passage from this to her during her free afternoons at her Peachtree house.

Suddenly she remembered Mrs. Finch. Her kind, bird-like face. Mrs. Finch would laugh at her if she could see her now - pining and longing for love in her life when it felt like she were embracing a bush of thorns. There was a passage in here about cutting off the pound of flesh but without draining the blood which had particularly appealed to her imagination.

She realized that she could try and read the book. It seemed the thing to do since Rhett himself had said that knowledge was important and vital to his family. She felt that without her permission, her hands were reaching to grasp the next thing- preparing excerpts, was it? She could do that. If it would make her seem genuine and useful. She longed for this feeling. Especially from someone as wonderful as Rhett's mother who seemed so much like her own Mother. But those words that Rhett had said about her hand in business-

Scarlett felt shame rising once again and a scorching anger and she knew there was only one thing she could do. Flinging a vase wouldn't be enough. She went outside and saw Rosemary standing on the veranda and talking to the brother's wife. They were leaving to their own home. She couldn't see Rhett. Instead, she saw the butler climbing up the stairs with his brushes and polishes in his hands.

"Sam?" she called, trying sound as cool as possible. "Before you go about that work, I have a small favour. I want you to get me a nice, mild horse to ride."

"But Mrs. Butler, the carriage will come only in the afternoon-"

"I don't want the carriage. I want only the horse- a steady one. I'll be down at the stable in a half hour. Keep it ready for me."

Before the butler could reply, she went past him and into her own room.