MM needed a focus group about what we wanted to see in the book. I would have been sitting there yelling, "TOO FAST WE NEED MORE!"
Thanks for the reviews! I know it's been a doozy these last few ones. I'm glad some of you are finding some soothing moments and solace in them being with each other for this instead of totally alone. The idea of what Rhett went through those first few days in the book before his mother and Melly...Scarlett had Mammy, Rhett had...
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Part Twenty-five
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"They're so lucky to have each other," was the talk of the town and they discussed poor Bonnie Butler's passing.
Captain Butler had stopped going into the bank, although a few bankers had found themselves rushing out after him as he passed in town for his opinion on various investments as things started to take a precarious turn in the financial world.
Captain Butler still saw to the mills and the store.
He still checked in on a few investments he had in town.
He still took the oldest boy for his thrice weekly rides on the outskirts of town.*
He still walked the only remaining daughter and the youngest boy to feed the ducks in the pond.
Mrs. Butler could sometimes be seen in her black crepe sitting on their large veranda. However, she tended not to receive visitors unless they came with Mrs. Wilkes and Mrs. Wilkes rarely invited people to join her. Rumors had abounded about Mrs. Butler; it had passed around town several times that she had lost the baby she carried. When more than a day passed and she hadn't been spotted outside. When someone spied her from the sidewalk but wasn't able to make out the bump because of the distance and the black of her dress. The town would begin to mourn again for the family.
The mother and the aunts took the social calls that Scarlett refused. Word abounded about what great families they came from. The genteel breeding of the senior Mrs. Butler, Mrs. Blanchet and Mrs. Adley.
The fact that Mrs. Blanchet formerly of Savannah had settled in Charleston and become dear friends with a woman fifteen years her senior. That their niece and son should meet outside of Atlanta 15 years later and then again in Atlanta and then marry after years of friendship. Not to mention everyone in town knew the story of how Captain Butler had risked everything to get Miss Scarlett, Miss Melly and their boys out of Atlanta while it was falling.
The story of the Butlers changed drastically the summer of '73.
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Late July 1873
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"There is something wrong with her," Rhett nearly yelled at Dr. Meade when the other man had declared Scarlett physically well and began to walk down the hallway towards the stairs.
Dr. Meade had allowed Scarlett to be moved around the house to various seated locations a week after Bonnie's passing. A few days later he allowed her to walk for short periods. Every few days he allowed her something new.
It hadn't quite mattered, not with her confinement nearly upon them. When he had suggested a walk along the street, she had waved it away.
It saddened Dr. Meade recalling their grand family and the walks he would see and also hear about from the townspeople.
Scarlett always wore the latest fashion and Rhett had kept himself as fit as a man twenty years younger, even his dark hair had refused to turn. They had been such a sight with the children, Wade walking ahead with his dog that likely weighed the same as all four children combined.
Little Ella with her strawberry blonde hair most often in two braids smiling and waving to nearly everyone they passed.
Scarlett pushing the wicker pram with the dark-eyed boy, who seemed to absorb everything they encountered.
Bonnie as she held her father's hand and enchanted half the town with her elaborate vocabulary and a keen understanding for a child.
Now Scarlett sat unadorned in her black crepe, a lifelessness to her cheeks that hadn't been cured despite Dr. Meade ordering Mammy to take her outside every day. Dark circles under her eyes, despite the hours spent in bed.
Gray hair had begun to pepper Rhett's temples. Lines on his forehead had begun to take hold. The lines by his eyes from years in the sun, years laughing and living, they'd begun to cut in deep under his eyes making the man always look exhausted. His face had begun to take on some bloat and Dr. Meade knew from their staff that Rhett had taken to drinking steadily throughout the day. Never so much that he wouldn't be able to care for Scarlett and the children, but enough for him to get through the day. There was starting to be a thickness at his waist as well, not unlike most gentlemen his age, but quite unlike the man he had been.
"She is grieving."
"She can barely get up anymore. Even Nicholas doesn't make her happy."
"She lost a child, Rhett."
"You think I don't know that?" The anguish that was ever-present at the mention of their loss.
"It's a lot on Scarlett to lose Bonnie while being pregnant. It says a lot about your wife's strength that she was able to pull herself together." Dr. Meade had watched the woman battle away her grief on numerous times, not allowing it to pull her away with it for the sake of the child she carried.
"She can't exist like this, she'll waste away."
"Mammy promises me that Scarlett is doing exactly what she's being told to do."
"You've met Scarlett, you know how out of character that is."
Scarlett could sometimes sit in the same spot for hours; she would appear fine and suddenly collapse into tears. They all watched her with baited breath.
"I don't know Rhett. Pregnancy for most women is difficult enough. I've had men convinced their wives had been replaced by the devil. Women shouldn't be expected to keep calm when they've lost a child," he paused and looked up at Rhett, "men either."
"How is she expected to carry a child through months of this? How are the children supposed to endure this? We can barely explain this to Ella, Nicholas-" He sighed and ran a hand down his face.
"Children are resilient Rhett," Dr. Meade said with a kind nod.
Rhett suddenly composed himself, "Thank you Dr. Meade, I'll see you next week."
The older man nodded, "Try to get Scarlett outside more, a walk around the- a walk along the side of the house."
Rhett's eyes closed. The doors to Bonnie's room and the formal parlor had been closed. The jumps had been taken down. Seed had already taken root and a sparse covering of grass had started to fill in the dirt.
They would plant flowers later. Not now. Nothing more to draw the eye to the cursed spot. He had almost installed another gazebo or fountain, but then he realized how quickly it would draw the eye.
In time, though. They would plant flowers. Bonnie blue bells and all of the other flowers that had delighted Bonnie with their beauty and scents. His mother and Melly had already covered the ground above her body with seeds. Suellen's kitchen had been filled with cuttings waiting to take root to fill the area with flowers even further.
For now though, Scarlett did not go to that side of the house. They did not even let her venture halfway past the back of the house for fear she would get sight of it.
They struggled with their room and the window. He had caught her standing there lost in the memory too many times to count. He had almost pushed a wardrobe in front of it.
Rhett bid the doctor good day and headed into their room, where Prissy was dressing Scarlett in another stiff black dress. He'd forbidden the coarse underthings the moment he'd seen them. As if the pain should be greater than they were already experiencing. The sight of that dress, of his pale wife and their growing child in that dress… "No more," he spoke firmly.
Scarlett and Prissy both turned to him.
"There will be no more black in this house." To be reminded of it constantly, to never be able to forget for a second.
"I have to-" Scarlett was about to remind him of the rules of mourning.
"There is no one in this house, but family. The children, Nicholas. It's not healthy. You can hardly be expected to grow a healthy child when-" he shook his head. "You had dresses made, you'll wear those." The dresses she had made when she had been excited to be pregnant. Soft and colorful material.
"Rhett, I can't-"
"You will," he walked over to her vanity and tore down the fabric one of her aunts had placed over the mirror. It could have been done weeks ago, but no one had. No one had dared to stop even a fraction of their grief. "Clocks will be started. You cannot be expected to advance with this pregnancy if time has stopped. We have to go on, you have to go on," he said approaching Scarlett.
"The town will-"
"I don't give a damn about the Old Guard. Wear the pale green, with the little yellow pattern. We'll take lemonade on the back veranda and watch Wade and Ella chase after Nicholas."
"Alright Rhett."
He kissed her forehead. "I will see to my mother and your aunts."
-o-o-o-o-o-o-
He saw to them by evicting them from his house less than a week later. They had managed to keep their thoughts regarding his refusal to follow the rules of mourning away from Scarlett, but never him.
Their presence and their widow's garb were a constant reminder of the loss they had suffered.
He watched it in Scarlett's face every time they entered a room.
Without the black of her clothing constantly reminding her of their loss, she could see their little boy in her arms. For a few seconds she could be happy with Nicholas. The grief always returned; it would always return. The aunts and his mother, they made it worse.
Their family could not be expected to move on when they were constantly reminded.
Nicholas couldn't develop with a mother who never smiled at him. The abrupt loss of a devoted mother.
Rhett watched the tenseness in Scarlett's shoulders lift as she said goodbye to them.
He brought in new furniture, atrocious things that he abhorred, but he knew would delight Scarlett. He covered the third floor in plush rugs and comfortable, but gaudy furnishings.
The only visitors they had were the Wilkes and the Hamiltons.
Dr. Meade had approved the change in the household and could finally let out the breath he had been holding regarding Scarlett's pregnancy.
Scarlett didn't venture further than their backyard and the town stopped getting sightings as their massive yard affording them privacy.
She eventually put the crepe back on at the behest of Melly to have a few visitors. Maybelle and a few other from their social circle. She found she'd rubbed her arms nearly raw scratching at the black fabric. It took hours before the skin lost the red glow. She had tried with her own friends, but once more her arms went raw as they did their best to distract her with the frivolity of town life.
She watched without comment as Rhett drank steadily throughout the day.
Watched as the fabric of his suits began to lay differently across him.
Felt the thickness of his waist, the softening of his muscles as she lay against him in bed.
She didn't say anything though.
She continued to lay her head upon his chest and let his arms wrap around her.
The dark void she had existed in ceased. There was color and laughter.
There was a quiet peace as Rhett now sat with the family for hours.
He was with them more now than he had ever been before.
Hours with Ella tucked along his side as they would take turns reading to each other.
Hours spent quietly near Wade as they read.
Hours spent holding Nicky through the entirety of his nap.
Her husband no longer truly laughed, but he held her in the strength of his arms.
She could still feel the darkness around them, like a fog. Waiting. Lurking.
Rhett would keep it away.
She would watch him with the children, the spark in his eye was gone, but then she would lay a hand on their growing baby, sure it would be different in a few months.
She had survived the loss of so much, she knew he was right and she would survive this as well.
So would he.
That ever-steady presence in her life that was her husband.
She would fill the house with children. They would make him laugh and smile again.
She nearly wanted to send him off to Belle's at night.
Nearly, but she didn't because she needed his arms around her.
It would be different after the baby.
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September 1873
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Rhett laid in bed long after he awoke. He never slept as long as he'd prefer. The house could be still and quiet, the drapes fully closed, but he would awaken. He had yet to find that elusive amount of brandy that would keep him asleep through the night yet would allow him to care for Scarlett. To awaken when Scarlett stirred, the baby forcing her up in the middle of the night to relieve herself. There were nights when he couldn't fall back asleep after Scarlett made her nightly visit. Of course, the nights when he couldn't fall back asleep were far better than the ones where she couldn't as well and they lay there in awkward silence awaiting the sun.
This morning though, she had fallen back asleep after her middle of the night trip and so had he. Still though he awoke long before the house, awaiting something, anything to call him to start the day, give him something to do. There was relief as he started to hear the servants moving around the house, for all their plush carpeting it was still relatively easier to hear others throughout the house. Once he heard the servants, he knew he didn't have to lay still much longer before he could rise to tend to his own personal needs, shave and dress and be ready for Nicholas to awaken.
She had shifted away from sleeping upon him as the baby had grown. It was now easy to slip out of bed without Scarlett noticing as she slept with varying pillows and blankets around her. The coverlet bunched between them; Scarlett often flung it away in the middle of the night despite the cool night air. The baby made her hot, it was likely that babies made all women hot, but Scarlett was the only one he'd ever heard complain about it. Only to him though and certainly Mammy and likely Melly, he knew Scarlett smiled just like all the other women and acted as if it was the most miraculous and wonderful thing there was as women were expected to do.
He dropped a look at Scarlett still in an easy slumber; it was an envious look. For while, she was now the only one in the house to suffer from nightmares, most nights for her passed as easily as they did for Nicholas.
She was only 28 and in sleep; she looked just as she did at 18. He was 45 today and he felt every day and then some. He knew an old man would stare at him from the mirror as he shaved, an old and exhausted man. He recalled last year, recalled how they had danced the night away, he could have kept going for hours more, he'd felt no exhaustion when they'd said goodbye to their guests.
He couldn't imagine sweeping Scarlett up in his embrace and embarking on a complicated dance, or even a simple lively one. Likely not even a slow and somber one.
He recalled a life with pangs.
Pangs of all things.
What was now missing in his life was a cavernous hole.
The gap so far from where he was to what he needed no feat of engineering could ever accomplish it.
He turned on his heel away from his wife. Lingering did no good, it only made the days unbearably and devastatingly long.
-o-o-o-
"Happy birthday," the words were so soft, he almost imagined they were a dream drifting over him. His head lifted up as he was putting on his boots. His eyes caught Scarlett's now open eyes from across the room, her hair still tousled with sleep, she was still clutching her pillow, the large swell of her stomach hidden by the mound of bedding that created a wall between them at night, a wall that was seldomly ever breached by anything more than her hand on his arm and the smell of her enveloping him. Even her hand most nights fell away as she slept, she had once kept him pinned in her bed, now she let him slip away.
"Thank you," he forced a smile onto his face.
"Will you be going to church?" Scarlett questioned as she moved into a seated position.
"It is Sunday," he pointed out.
"You should get the day off for your birthday."
He gave her a look, "In four years when your birthday lands on a Sunday, you may have the day off."
Her lips lifted in a smile, enjoying the rare teasing conversation they were having. It was often so hard to say more than the simplest of things. "I've never looked so forward to getting older."
He smiled.
"Melly and Beau will likely come home with you after church, she promised Ella they could make a cake."
He smiled again, "Ella has only mentioned it a few times."
Scarlett gave a soft bemused laugh.
"Are the Hamilton-Wilkes still joining us for dinner?"
"Provided Ella doesn't burn the house down, yes."
He smirked still playing their game, so familiar, yet so distant, "Living at The National wasn't so bad."
"I recall it being rather nice," she smiled at the memory of their new family living in the plush setting. She snapped back to reality, "I didn't get you a gift, I know Melly would have picked up- I just couldn't-"
"I certainly appear to have a gift on the way," he dropped an eye to her stomach, to the baby expected in a month.
"I certainly hope it stays where it is for today," she gave him a look and placed a hand on her stomach.
His lips lifted up, "As do I. Do not fret about the gift my sweet. I did tell you when Nicholas was born that I'd never require another gift. Speaking of our son, I'd best finish dressing before he takes himself downstairs."
Thanks for reading!
*Wade riding will be discussed in a future chapter, it didn't make sense in this chapter, but I know at least one of you will have a comment.