"Mother, watch!"
"I'm watching, dear," said Scarlett smiling.
As Rhett lifted the child and set her on the pony, Scarlett called with a swift rush of pride at the straight back and the proud set of the head, "You're mighty pretty, precious!"
"So are you," said Bonnie generously and, hammering a heel into Mr. Butler's ribs, she galloped down the yard toward the arbor.
"Mother, watch me take this one!" She cried, laying on the crop.
Watch me take this one!
Memory rang a bell far back in Scarlett's mind. There was something ominous about those words. What was it? Why was it? Why couldn't she remember? She looked down at her small daughter, so lightly poised on the galloping pony and her brow wrinkled as a chill swept swiftly through her breast. Bonnie came on with a rush, her crisp black curls jerking, her blue eyes blazing.
"They are like Pa's eyes," thought Scarlett, "Irish blue eyes and she's just like him in every way."
And as she thought of Gerald, the memory for which she had been fumbling came to her swiftly, came with the heart stopping clarity of summer lightning, throwing, for one instant, a whole countryside into unnatural brightness. She could hear and Irish voice singing, hear the hard rapid pounding of hooves coming up the pasture hill at Tara, hear a reckless voice, so like the voice of her child: "Ellen! Watch me take this one!"
"No!" She cried. "No! Oh, Bonnie, stop!"
Even as she leaned from the window there was a fearful sound of splintering wood, a hoarse cry from Rhett, a melee of blue velvet and flying hooves on the ground. Then Mr. Butler scrambled to his feet and trotted off with an empty saddle.
Pg. 990 – 991, Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind
---
They had had to cut the soiled blue riding habit from her body, and she cradled the faded and spotted, occasionally frayed, velvet between her hands, rubbing nervously. A spot of dried blood, a fleck, really, adorned the habit, and her fingers from hours, or was that minutes, ago. Her bloodshot eyes never left her trembling fingers as they weaved through the cloth.
It seemed as if Bonnie would need a new riding habit after all.
She did not know how she managed to make her way to the lawn, her ribs screaming in protest the entire way, her face ghostly white from pain and fright as she clutched at the railing of the stairs and almost tumbled down the steps in haste. Her journey was all for naught as the front door flew open revealing her daughter's pale body in her husband's pale arms, a pale Pork running beside him. He almost didn't see her there, shivering and small on the second to last stair, but he had heard her shrill scream.
"BONNIE!"
And he had most certainly seen her collapse against the stairs, unconscious and wan. Pork had carried her to her room and Mammy had woken her, minutes later. Scarlett, still ghostly pale, had blanched and mewled for her daughter.
"Bonnie," she whimpered, "I want my baby, where's my baby? I want Bonnie, please, please, I want her!"
Mammy's dark skin seemed to be the color of parchment as she motioned for Pork to carry her into the nursery. She paused, pursing her lips, patting Scarlett's clammy hand, smoothing her matted hair.
"Doan you worry, Miss Scarlett, yo' baby's gwine tah be jus' fine, you'll see."
Scarlett's shoulders shook with a suppressed sob, and her wide eyes locked with Mammy's until Pork had turned the corner.
The nursery looked like a sick parody of a child's playroom. The toy blocks, hair ribbons, and dolls that littered the floor looked malformed, somber and misplaced. Pork cleared his throat and Rhett looked up from his place next to the bed. His hair was all over the place; his mustache seemed to be thicker on one side and longer on the other. He was just as pale, if not more so than she. His dark eyes were wild and, she was shocked to see, full of tears when they met hers. He had staggered to his feet and she had managed to tumble into his arms. He clutched her to his chest with bruising force, and choked out to Pork that he could wait for the Doctor downstairs. They barely registered the click of the misleadingly cheerful door as it closed. He buried his face in her chest, weeping.
"Scarlett," he keened thickly, "it's all my fault…she should never have jumped…" he shuddered, "Bonnie, baby, its daddy, it's your daddy, please wake up, please…"
Slowly, her hand made its way to his cold face, and for a moment, there was silence. A tear fell out of his eye, and with quaking fingers, she brushed it away.
"Hush, Rhett" even her voice trembled, "you couldn't have done anything…she would have jumped anyway…" her voice split and a sob surged forth, "she would have done it anyway…that's our baby girl…"
Another silence.
"Oh God," she choked, "that's my daughter, Rhett, please, please, do something…I can't loose another baby…please, Rhett, please, you've got to do something." She let a stream of tears soak his cravat.
---
After the doctor had arrived, he had shut down his face, it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. He had nearly yelled at Rhett for allowing Scarlett to be up so soon after she had fallen. He had begun to soak his hands in brandy and cover his clothes in his bland over shirt, as he had done so many times before when Scarlett had seen him as a nurse.
The sights, smells, and noises of the hospital from the War rose in her mind, and she clutched at Rhett frantically, her knuckles white and her eyes wide. She gagged slightly and took deep breathes through her nose. When she had opened her eyes, Rhett was staring at her in concern.
"Captain Butler? Mrs. Butler? We're going to have to undress her to see the extent of her injuries." He reached inside his medicinal bag and pulled out a large pair of scissors. "Who has steadier hands?"
She looked at Rhett who seemed to be begging her to do so, unwilling to even touch his daughter, afraid it would harm her. She swallowed.
"I do, Doctor Meade." Her voice sounded strange, too calm, not as if she had been weeping only minutes before.
Steadily the scissors had torn the habit from Bonnie's body, and each time she opened the blades for another snip, she made sure her daughter's chest rose and fell again, just as surely as the breath before. When the velvet frayed down the middle, she shrugged her daughter's body out of it, with the help of Doctor Meade, as to not disrupt her head and neck.
"Now tie her hair away please, I need to examine her head."
Scarlett bent to retrieve a hair try and cried out in pain as her vision was streaked with white. Rhett gave a little cry of alarm and grasped her waist, pulling her upright against him. She gave out a little moan of pain, and the hair ribbon was quickly passed to Doctor Meade who tied the girl's hair to the best of his abilities. Scarlett clutched her ribs and winced through the pain.
"Now, Mr. Butler, kindly escort yourself and your wife out, while I examine Bonnie."
The curt tone brooked no disobedience, but when Rhett moved to argue; Scarlett placed a soothing arm on his shoulder and gave a weary sigh, leaning on him.
"Please Rhett; take me out of here…" He nodded but once he had her seated on a chair in the parlor, swept away to his room, leaving her alone with the riding habit in her hands.
---
"Mrs. Butler?"
She did not look up.
"Scarlett?"
That seemed to do the trick, and her head shot up, and Doctor Meade almost winced. She looked awful…she was not recovering as well as he had hoped, nor as quickly, and her daughter's equestrian accident would only set her back.
As she moved to stand, he rushed to her side, offering her his arm.
"Please, Scarlett. Let me." She acquiesced with a small frown. He looked her over for a moment. Her breathing was uneven, and each time she took too deep of a breath, he noted her wince. Her walk was more of a limp then anything, and her pale face had not gained back as much color as he hoped. He shook his head. More bed rest for Mrs. Butler, then.
"Well," she demanded in a strangled voice, "how is she?"
He shook his head. "Let's retrieve your husband so I won't have to repeat myself."
When Rhett had been seated next to Scarlett, Doctor Meade had sunk into a stiff-backed chair with a large glass of brandy.
"You are both very fortunate. She did not break her neck." He took an unprofessional swig of the amber liquid in the expensive glass. "It seems to me that she slid off the horse before he jumped, as I mentioned, very fortunate for all of you. She struck her head on something hard, and drew blood, however little. One of her arms is fractured, only slightly, it will mend in time, and three of her fingers on that samearmare broken in one place. One of her legs is sprained badly and she is scraped from various shrapnel. She is sporting several bruises on her back, haemotomas, very likely. She will wake in time, I hope. It could be hours, it could be days, maybe even weeks. I've given her a dose of laudanum and will leave the rest for you to administer when the pain grows particularly much…I shall be back tomorrow to check on her and set the plasters on her…however."
Each injury drew a shaky breath from both Rhett and Scarlett and when he was finished; Rhett's hand had replaced the velvet between her fingers. He fixed the couple with a stern glare.
"She is not to ride that horse for another three years, Captain Butler, and not to be jumping for another three after that. Understood?"
Rhett only nodded with a white face and squeezed Scarlett's hand with a firm grip. Neither rose to show the doctor to the door. They were already on their way upstairs.
---
They sat opposite each other, each holding some part of their daughter. Rhett took her uninjured hand; Scarlett smoothed her daughter's dark curls and ran her hand over the girl's slack face.
There was silence in the nursery for a long time.
"We can't lose her Scarlett." The hoarse and earnest voice of her husband sounded very quiet in the room. She reached with effort, ignoring the protesting pain in her abdomen, to pat his hand soothingly.
"We won't lose her, we won't." She hoped her words didn't sound as empty as she thought they did. Tears pooled in her dull green eyes as she looked down at her daughter. "Do you think she knows, Rhett?"
"What, Scarlett?"
"Do you think she knows how much I love her? How much I need her?" Her bottom lip was crushed between her teeth and her eyes pleaded with him.
His answer was simple. "I think she does Scarlett…and when she wakes, you can remind her all over again."
She tried to smile in gratitude, though she knew it looked like a grimace. She took a shuddering breath and truly grimaced, one hand massaging the tenderness of her chest as let out a quiet groan.
"Scarlett, are you all right?"
"I'm fine, just sore."
He looked guilty then, she noticed. She had never been able to read Rhett this easily before, and a small part took pleasure in this triumph, however inappropriate it was in the setting.
"I'm sorry, Scarlett," he said suddenly.
"I've already told you Rhett, Bonnie would have jumped anyways…and you know that-"
He cut her off, shaking his head ruefully; refusing to meet her eyes as he tenderly stroked his daughter's hand.
"Not for that," he paused, "for what I said before, when you told me," he had to visibly force himself to continue, "when you told me that you were," another pause, "going to have a baby."
She heard the sharp intake of her own breath and her eyes overflowed again, "Oh God," she moaned, "Rhett, I wanted that baby so badly, I did, I did, I wanted him so much, and I knew it was going to be a boy, I could feel it, and oh God," she swallowed heavily, "Rhett, I was so happy, and I couldn't wait to tell you, and I didn't want to tell you like that, and oh God, oh God, it hurt so much and I hurt you too, I know I did, oh Rhett, I'm so sorry I lost our baby…I'm so sorry…" she trailed off into sobs, her face buried in her hands, choking on her tears.
He was kneeling beside her, gazing at her intently, his own face tear-splotched, and she fell to her knees beside him, and his arms were ever-so gentle when they encircled her.
"Hush," he whispered into her hair, "it's going to be all right, we're going to be all right."
And in that moment, as they both let their guards down, let their walls of blocked up emotions fall, they both believed his words.
---
Doctor Meade visited twice a day for a week, checking their small daughter carefully for signs of recovery, weakening, and on a Thursday afternoon, sunny as could be, he had good news.
"Captain Butler, tell your wife when she comes downstairs that Bonnie will be awake in a few hours."
One of the only smiles that Rhett had truly ever shown appeared on his face. Bonnie was going to be all right.
"Stay here for a moment Doctor; I'd like to invite you to breakfast!"
Doctor Meade waved him off, but Rhett grinned, ordering him to put his coat on the rack and let his hat join it. He'd be right back after he woke Scarlett. He took the stairs two at a time, not mindful of the racket he knew to be making. He pounded down the hallway, calling her name joyfully.
She heard his exclamations as he came up the stairs, and blearily made her way to the vanity, powdering her face and smoothing back her chignon from the night before. She rubbed her eyes like a child and reached for her green silk wrapper before stumbling to the door, mindful of Rhett's footsteps getting closer and closer.
He didn't bother to knock, but immediately swept into the room and scooped her into his arms, swinging her about. She pushed against his upper arms, looking at him questioningly.
"Rhett, what on earth has gotten you so worked up?"
"Scarlett, darling, she's going to wake today!" She felt her mouth fly open and blushed as Rhett closed it gently. "Flies, my dear, flies."
She swatted him without anger, "Oh hush Rhett! Bonnie's really going to wake today?"
"Yes!" He almost shouted. "Yes, she's going to be fine, Scarlett!"
He crushed her in an embrace and she clutched him as well, murmuring, "She's going to be fine," in wonder. He put her down then, and pulled back, holding her at arms length.
"Thank you, Scarlett."
She looked at him oddly. "Whatever for, Rhett?"
"This," he whispered, as he pressed his lips to hers.
After a breakfast of stolen glances, and hidden caresses under the table with their feet, Doctor Meade headed home for a shower and shave, exclaiming to the Butlers that he had spent more time with them than his own wife these past days! They laughed at his joke and sent him off with profuse thanks. Scarlett had planted a brief kiss on his cheek that had actually sent the man into a flush and stammer. She had caught Rhett's eyes and they had shared a laugh over it.
They headed to the stairs then, eager to wait for Bonnie's awakening.
---
It had started with gentle sighs, then a few indistinct murmurs, then slight shifts, a toss of the head, a quiet moan, and soon, Bonnie had stirred into waking. Once, twice, three times, she blinked slowly, her dark eyelashes kissing her face rapidly and her beautiful eyes blearily took in the world around her.
Or rather the faces of her parents who both anxiously stood above her.
"Mother? Daddy? What's going on?" She tried to sit up, but two hands gently pushed her down.
"Bonnie, you're awake at last!" her father whispered, his dark eyes shining. "And aren't you the prettiest thing I've ever seen?" He cooed at his little girl, planting a kiss on her hand, then her palm.
"Oh precious, I've missed you so!" her mother echoed, a tear trailing down her cheek. She smiled widely and brought the injured hand to her cheek and laid it there, covered by her own hands.
"Why are you so sad, Mother?" Bonnie seemed to be waking from a nap, perhaps five minutes or so, not the week long saga of slumber she had been in previously.
"I'm not sad, baby, I'm very, very happy to see you awake!" Scarlett answered tearfully.
"Yes," her father echoed hoarsely, "very happy indeed."
Rhett caught Scarlett's eye and they smiled. It was a smile of happiness, joy at Bonnie's recovery, hope that somehow they could fix what had been broken, a smile that promised of better things to come.
---
Review please!
There are two more epilogues coming, so look out for those!