-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Part Twenty-one
June 1873
-o-o-o-o-o-o-
She was always the first thing he smelled when he began to awake. The first thing he felt. Scarlett slept pressed along him. He could never make an escape from their bed without her being aware. It often kept him trapped for minutes, sometimes hours more than he meant to because he didn't want to disturb her.
He couldn't see her face past the raven locks, but he could see her arm across his chest. It was no longer fair and porcelain because she had been outside with the children on several afternoons, the soft skin had taken on a pale golden hue. He could feel the small hard mound of their child pressed along his side. Feel her leg draped across him.
She kept him pinned down.
He wondered if she realized it.
He'd wondered after their late-night conversation the month prior if that was part of the reason she had wanted another child. To prove her worth as a wife. To prove that she'd been the better investment.
Then again, she seemed to enjoy the children now.
With thought of the children, he was reminded he needed to get up. Nicholas was fixed in his meal times even more so than the dog. Also, if Rhett didn't get up now, it would be likely that the older children would be at the table before him. He did enjoy a few quiet minutes with his coffee and paper before they came down. Bonnie would probably still be on the same fit as the days before regarding the jump. She was so like her mother once she got something in her mind.
He placed a hand on their youngest child and the baby rewarded him with a kick. They were getting stronger by the day, soon Scarlett wouldn't be able to sleep through them.
He was tempted to stay in bed longer.
He suddenly heard Nicholas up in the other room. Scarlett had put a doorway from their room to the adjoining room the year before, so Nicky could still be near without being in the room.
"Time to get up," he spoke tenderly with a hand in her silken hair.
She grumbled and burrowed into his chest, just as Bonnie did with her pillow.
With his wife however, it made him want to give her a proper wakeup.
But then a servant would go in to retrieve Nicholas and the door to their room was open…
"Nicky's awake," he continued gently.
She grumbled, did one more snuggle and then removed her leg from his.
He laughed as he removed the rest of himself from under her, letting her slowly descend to the mattress.
She pulled a pillow to under her head to replace his lost chest.
He smiled for a moment, but then quickly went about getting dressed.
o-o-o
Scarlett sat at her vanity combing her hair, wondering if she should call Prissy away from the blanket she was seated on with Ella and Nicky with his alphabet blocks. The young woman was more rapt with attention than Nicholas, who only wanted to bash the blocks together. Scarlett realized her daughter was teaching their servant her letters instead of her brother.
Getting ready for the day seemed to take forever now.
It was summer, so Ella was no longer at school during the day, which meant more often than not Ella and Nicky were with her before she even finished taking her breakfast. Rhett had refused to allow her to hire a tutor for Wade and Ella, so they would be occupied in the school room on to top floor of the house, instead of always underfoot. He had demanded she allow the children to be children for the summer.
Bonnie had taken to learning jumps, so Rhett had her outside before the sun made it unbearable, especially in velvet.
It was nearly impossible to get ready, torn between 3 children and a servant who often took more effort than any of the children.
She would do her hair herself; it was the only solution to save her sanity.
She smiled as she heard her name being called from outside.
How odd that Mother had become her name.
Her hair would wait, she stood from the vanity with a hand under the small bump of her baby, as if she needed to carry the baby more than she already was to accomplish the distance.
She smiled passing Ella and Nicky at their task.
She beamed taking in the sight of her daughter in her soiled riding costume. Wondering how she would get Bonnie to give up her velvet costume for the bright blue broadcloth one she was having made. Her child would likely make herself sick from the heat rather than give up her velvet.
She felt such a sense of pride watching her husband dote over their daughter, their breathtakingly beautiful daughter. Her hand rubbed her stomach without thought.
She smiled watching her daughter gallop along on her horse, the sound of hooves and the crop. Then her breath was stolen as her daughter yelled, "Watch me take this one."
The past and present suddenly overlapped and the future was before her and it was cold and bleak.
She would never be sure if she screamed or softly cried in that first moment. As she clutched the windowsill with one hand and her stomach with the other.
It was the splintering of the wood that she remembered.
They became screams, she was sure of that for how her throat ached.
She could hear Rhett's hoarse cry in the distance.
She could hear Ella screaming her name, feel Ella's hand desperately clutching her.
Prissy's scream was high as she reached the window.
Prissy's screams of horror, quickly became calls for her own father and Mammy. Mammy, who could fix anything, handle anything.
She couldn't handle this.
Scarlett knew that. Mammy couldn't fix this.
o-o-o
"Don't look," Scarlett screamed at Ella automatically as Prissy ran from the window and Ella desperately wanted to see what was going on.
She wrenched the girl's hands away from her arm as she pulled the drapes closed.
Nicholas stared up at her from the floor in silent confusion.
"Mother?" Wade softly questioned from the doorway.
Scarlett captured her daughter's hands, as the little girl was still trying to cling to her, and pulled her with her across the room, giving her to Wade. "Take them to the nursery. Don't-" her voice caught, "don't look outside."
o-o-o
The house was in chaos. A housemaid cleaning spotted the expecting Mrs. Butler running down the hallway and the back steps.
Several servants saw her running across the lawn.
They watched her freeze still yards away and scream again.
Captain Butler was crouched in the dirt over their daughter's body. Hoarse cries and desperate pleas.
Servants watched as Pork took off on Captain Butler's stallion, since the horse had already been readied in anticipation of his master's day.
Prissy didn't make it more than a few feet from the house before she dropped in the grass screaming.
Mammy didn't scream after her first desperate cries when Prissy had yelled the news at her.
Mammy had to be there for her child…when her child had lost a child.
Mammy had to hold the mistress of the house as she cried. Had to say words trying to soothe her, to calm her, remind her of the babe she still carried within her.
Had to pull her away as she was about she was about to hit her husband as she finally reached her daughter's still side.
Had to hold her close as she screamed, "What did you do?" and "You killed her," as she saw her daughter, eyes closed, with the life gone from her tiny body.
Had to stay holding Scarlett as Rhett refused to let their daughter be moved until the doctor arrived.
Mammy wondered if the child had died as she lay with her eyes closed.
Had her eyes closed in anticipation of her fall or had her father been unable to handle the now cold gaze of her blue eyes.
The little girl looked as if she were sleeping.
It was a mercy.
Her mother would be haunted forever by her stillness, but at least it would be without the horror of an agonizing end.